Hanging up the secure phone, Claude LaFragette took a key from his desk drawer and slipped out of his office carefully leaving his cell phone behind. It was Monday just shy of noon. The CIA station in Paris had called to alert him that one of its senior officers, Rafael Sarkis, had just been found at home, dead of a gunshot to the head, an apparent suicide. The hard-nosed Director of Operations for the French Foreign Intelligence Service did not trust in appearances. He had reason to believe there was a dark story behind the death. He did not know exactly how dark, but he did know that the audio recording device that French Intelligence had hidden in the walls of Rafael’s apartment would shed light on the truth.

“The truth shall set you free” is the motto of America’s CIA. Claude appreciated the innocent sincerity of the Agency motto but considered it a bit too quaint for an intelligence service. He was French after all. He understood the importance of knowing the true facts but believed with equal sincerity that knowledge of some dark truths needed to be controlled. Otherwise, such truths could be exploited for a variety of purposes, only some of which were wise and just.   

By instinct, Claude knew he needed to take absolute control of any dark truth behind the apparent suicide of Rafael Sarkis. To that end, he needed to seize possession of the clandestine recordings secretly before the local police or, even worse, his colleagues in the French Counterintelligence Service discovered them. Rafael’s apartment at 1 Place de Wagram was on the other side of Paris from Claude’s office on Boulevard Mortier, an hour by car in midday traffic. The local police would already be on the scene. Counterintelligence would soon be on their way. Time and no witnesses were of the essence. So, Claude took the fast and anonymous Paris Metro rather than the official car and driver his rank merited. He reached his destination in under forty minutes.

The entrance to Rafael’s apartment faced the Place de Wagram at the point where Boulevard Malesherbes and Avenue Wagram converged. Surveilling the situation from across Avenue Wagram, he spotted three police patrol cars. One officer was posted at the front entrance to Rafael’s apartment building. The other officers were presumably up in the deceased’s apartment. A police forensics van arrived as he watched, indicating that the police investigation was still in its initial stages. Claude saw no sign of the black Citroen sedans that gave away the French Counterintelligence Service to those with knowing eyes.

Claude crossed the avenue and approached the apartment entrance with an air of authority that the posted officer instinctively understood. Flashing his identification sufficiently for the officer to see the government seal but insufficiently to read his name, Claude growled, “Renseignment. C’est a quelle etage?” The officer saluted smartly and directed Claude to the fifth floor.

Safely through the entrance and into the building’s small lobby, Claude verified that there were neither eyes nor cameras watching him. Then, he slipped past the lobby elevator to the building’s back stairwell and began a laborious but quiet trek up to the sixth-floor garrets. In earlier times, garrets like these had been used as quarters for servants employed by the rich owners of the apartments on the lower floors served by the elevator. Post-World War II, they were more commonly rented out to university students short on funds but undaunted by the stairwell. Occasionally, as required by French national security, these garrets served as the listening posts for audio surveillance equipment hidden in the walls of apartments occupied by foreign diplomats and spies.

If he happened to bump into a garret resident while climbing the stairwell, Claude knew that he could pass himself off as just another one of the investigating police officers. To a real policeman, however, a man of his age would be completely out of place on the back stairway and require an explanation. The highest risk of such an uncomfortable encounter would be on the fifth floor, by the back door to Rafael’s apartment. Claude knew that the standard police procedure would be to post an officer at the apartment front door to control entry and exit but simply secure the servant’s back door by locking it. Nonetheless, he paused to listen carefully as he approached the fifth-floor landing and then raced by Rafael’s door as quickly and quietly as possible.

Having reached the sixth floor without incident, Claude paused again to catch his breath and calm his nerves. He quickly identified the door to the correct garret, slipped in the key that he had taken from his desk drawer, and entered. Although he had physically inspected this listening post only once, he knew it well. He followed the reporting that emanated from it with utmost care. He had special reason to do so because Claude was not only the Director of Operations for the French Foreign Intelligence Service, but he was also the CIA’s top spy inside that service and Rafael Sarkis had been his CIA case officer.

Claude had to move carefully but quickly. Sooner or later, Counterintelligence would deign to arrive on the scene.

A tiny red light indicated that the voice activated recorder was functioning. Using his handkerchief to avoid leaving any fingerprints, Claude put on the headphones and listened as a police detective in the apartment below explained to the forensics team leader that there appeared to be no sign of any struggle and that the Ruger .22 revolver on the floor by the body belonged to the deceased. The team leader agreed, “Everything seems to point to suicide,” but insisted that his team “be allowed to conduct a thorough forensics analysis.”

Taking off the headphones with equal care, Claude paused the recording device, extracted the flash drive with the recording from its USB port and replaced it with an identical flash drive. As he was about to hit the resume button, he realized that he had a problem.

Merde….

When the police or Counterintelligence discovered the recording device as they eventually would, the new flash drive would only contain the discussions from after the arrival of the forensics team. There would be nothing of the earlier discussion amongst the first responding police officers, or of the embassy officers who had found the body, or of the fatal gunshot. This would provide clear evidence that someone had gone out of their way to replace the original flash drive and would also provide an exact time stamp of when he or she had done so. From there, it would not take long for a competent investigator to conclude that this “someone” was the authoritative man from “Renseignement.”

Merde, merde, encore merde….

After momentarily considering his options, Claude carefully pulled out the new flash drive just enough to disengage it from recording but not so far as to drop from the USB port. He knew that the poor junior officer who had last serviced this listening post would catch hell for such inexcusable carelessness, but he shrugged and whispered to himself, “C’est la guerre, mon brave.”

With all arranged as best he could, Claude was anxious to escape the scene. He again slipped by the fifth floor with no uncomfortable police encounter. He descended the remaining flights of stairs much faster than he had come up. And he avoided a second encounter with the officer posted in front of Rafael’s building by using an emergency rear exit that led through the neighboring building and out onto Boulevard Malsherbes.

Walking briskly down Malesherbes, he heard a cacophony of sirens approaching up the boulevard. It was foolish of him, but adrenalin mixed with a tad of arrogance and disdain compelled Claude to cross over and walk back up towards the Place Wagram to a point where he could visibly witness the belated arrival of French Counterintelligence. One black Citroen carrying junior officers arrived first, followed immediately by a second carrying mid-grades. They gathered in front of the building entrance to respectfully await the arrival of their boss.

The third black Citroen pulled up a fashionable few minutes later. A junior officer stepped up to open the car door and out of it rose Claude’s counterpart, Chief Inspector for Counterintelligence at the Ministry of Interior, Jacques Audigier. A mid-grade officer led Audigier to the building entrance where he paused to accept the smart salute of the posted police officer. Only then did the boss boldly lead the way into the building with his subordinate officers falling in behind.

Jacques Audigier was the visual, social, and political antithesis of Claude LaFragette. Whereas Jacques was tall, slender, and silver haired, Claude was short, overweight, and bald. Whereas Jacques was descendant of a notable Parisian family, Claude was a tough Pied-Noir from Toulon. Whereas Jacques disdained America, Claude admired the dynamic nature of the world’s indispensable nation.

Claude thought to himself, Such a grand entrance, Jacques … beautifully staged but terribly slow … you gave me the precious time I needed … with sirens blasting, your office is five minutes from here; I had to come clear across Paris by Metro … but I beat you … you let me beat you … pompous fool.

Arriving back in his office an hour later, Claude was immediately greeted by his Special Assistant, who was accustomed to his clandestine boss disappearing unexpectedly for a few hours around lunchtime.

“Monsieur Director … Chief Inspector Audigier called while you were out. The American Liaison Officer Rafael Sarkis appears to have committed suicide.”

“Yes, I heard. Did Chief Inspector Audigier say when?”

“Yes, Sir. The police forensics experts place time of death approximately 72 hours ago. The Americans confirm that Sarkis left the Embassy Friday evening at approximately 18:00. That would place time of death at Friday evening or early Saturday morning.”

“Is the Chief Inspector certain that there was no foul play?”

“Sir, according to the police, Sarkis died of a single gunshot to the head from a revolver he owned. There was no sign of any struggle.”

“Does the Chief Inspector require any assistance from our service?”

His Special Assistant understood that Claude – unlike Audigier – expected his subordinates to demonstrate initiative. “Yes Sir. Chief Inspector Audigier has requested transcripts from our audio coverage of Sarkis’ apartment as urgently as possible. In your absence, Sir, I took the liberty to send an officer to collect the recordings from our listening post.”

                “Excellent. Please let me know immediately if the recordings reveal anything of consequence. Otherwise, carry on.”

With that, Claude closed his office door and began listening to the recording he had already taken from the listening post above Rafael’s apartment. He used earbuds lest his Special Assistant or his secretary overhear or on the off chance that there was a microphone hidden in his own office walls ready to make a recording of the recording.

Even the jaded Director of Operations of France’s espionage service was shaken by the darkness of what he heard. Rafael Sarkis had not committed suicide. He had been executed. Executed by a CIA colleague no less. Executed by a man Claude personally trusted and admired, Michael Hughes, the man who had recruited Claude to spy for the CIA in the first place.

Oh Michael … what have you done? This truth is not going to set anybody free….