Headquarters of the Dieuxeme Bureau
Monday, April 26, 1948
Claude Masson waited in the small anteroom, feeling a hint of nervousness as he waited for the interview. Agent Maury, sitting next to him, showed no sign of sharing his superior's jitters. Finally, after twenty minutes wait, the door opened and the Comte de Rochefort entered, with another man following behind him.
"Masson," de Rochefort said brusquely. "You're back. This is Phillipe Bertrand, of the Italy Section."
"Sir," Masson said, shaking Bertrand's hand. "And this is Agent Jean-Paul Maury, who uncovered the information critical to the investigation."
"Very well," de Rochefort said. "We should begin. I believe you have a report? Let's see that first."
Masson nodded, and distributed typed copies of his written report on Maury's findings. The Comte skimmed it quickly; he must have been a fast reader, because by the time Bertrand turned to the second page, de Rochefort was already on page four. "Well now, this is certainly intriguing."
"I agree," Bertrand said. He turned to Masson and Maury. "I presume that, not being part of the Italian Section, that you are not well-informed about the state of their secret services. The general malaise within the Italian state - a sluggish economic situation, a series of weak governments - is largely replicated within the Servizio Informazioni Militare. The director is a political appointee who has very little background in military intelligence, and we believe he has replaced most of the division chiefs during his tenure. And not usually with more capable men."
Masson nodded. "I have heard enough from reading the Italian papers to draw those conclusions myself."
"Of course," Bertrand agreed. "These are not state secrets. But your discovery puts an interesting light on things." He tapped his index finger on the report thoughtfully. "For several months, we've started seeing evidence of a shakeup within SIM. But interestingly, this is not from the highest levels. Someone further down is showing talent and ambition - and working outside the system."
"That matched my own reading of the documents photographed by Agent Maury and his associate," Masson said. "Someone within SIM, acting unofficially, perhaps not even reporting to his own bosses."
"I agree with your suspicions," de Rochefort said. "And I believe I can pin this on Andrea Leonardo Lazzati. He's the chief of SIM's operations in the Balkans. Everyone underestimates him - he's running a first-class ring of agents in Greece and Romania, and he's been trying to get deep fingers into the Yugoslavian military ever since he took over a year ago. He's even inserted a few agents into France." The Comte smiled grimly, and Masson heard in his voice that a gauntlet had been thrown down... and accepted.
"Why are you telling us this, sir?" Maury abruptly asked. "Do you suspect that SIM's Balkan section chief is masterminding an operation to wiretap Cam Ranh Bay?"
"Agent Maury, that's precisely what I suspect - and what these papers you have recovered might prove." de Rochefort flipped to the photographs. "Lazzati, as we already knew, is ambitious, intelligent, an Italian patriot. He is also ruthless, and quite willing to cross a few boundaries in pursuit of his goals. Moreover, he has in his employ talented men trained as parachutists and combat swimmers, who he has started to use in Greece and elsewhere in the Balkans."
"But Indochina - so far outside his assigned territory..." Masson protested.
"Yes. Unfortunately for Lazzati, he has one shortcoming: he is critically underfunded, which has undoubtedly hampered his operations in the Balkans. And so he uses his best resource - his numerous and well-trained personnel - to gather intelligence outside his mandate. And then sell it to the highest bidder."
"From my own investigation, they might have stood a better than average chance of gaining access to French naval codes," Masson said. "So you think he might reach outside his mandate to gather - and then sell - information to another power. The Chinese?"
"Or Iberians; but the Chinese are more likely, at the moment," de Rochefort agreed. "I've started to suspect that Lazzati may not stop at merely trading information, of course. There is a certain... criminal undertone to some of his operatives. But going back to an earlier topic. Lazzati is known to be part of a faction of certain right-wing officers in the Italian military which believes that Rome needs a foreign challenge to help stir it out of its lethargy - nothing too extreme, mind, but something to unite and inspire the Italian people."
Maury spoke up. "For instance, Yugoslavia?"
de Rochefort shook his head. "While the Italian military feels a short victorious war against Yugoslavia would be of some short-term benefit, their current assessment is that too many powers - France foremost among them - would offer Belgrade such aid as to make it anything but short and victorious. What they want instead is not an active war, but a confrontation - a 'cold' war, if you will, with France as their closest regional rival. The Italian officers want the Italian people to see themselves surrounded on all sides by threats allied against them - France, Germany, Yugoslavia, and Greece - so that the Italian people might turn to them for guidance, leadership, and protection."
Bertrand spoke up. "It's not yet to the point of a coup. Or so we believe. But the situation merits very close observation."
For a few moments, there was silence at the table. "In any case, gentlemen," de Rochefort finally said, "I believe we now have a functioning theory to explain the Cam Ranh Bay Incident. For the moment, I intend to allow fingers to point at the Chinese; it is useful for our purposes. The President will be informed of the truth, of course. Masson, your work in Indochina has been satisfactory, but I am terminating it and handing investigation back to Lambert and the Marine Nationale."
"Yes sir," Masson answered, wondering what would follow. He had no great desire to return to Indochina, of course.
de Rochefort, like a mind-reader, smiled at him like a wolf. "Of course you will need a new assignment, Masson. That's why we have shared so much of this information with you. You're going to join the Italian Section working for M. Bertrand. As for you, Agent Maury," de Rochefort said, turning to the young agent, "you also seem to be possessed of under-utilized talents..."