Free Shape of Fear by Hugh Pentecost

terrorists were out to get him, and they were allied with a completely ruthless gang, the drug peddlers. I liked Georges Valmont, not just because he’d produced the miracle that was Juliet. If he wanted to fight the terrorists, I was on his side. If he wanted to fight the narcotics boys, I was on his side. At that moment, if he’d wanted to fight Lyndon B. Johnson, I was on his side. That’s how gone I was.”
    There was a way in which Digger could be useful to Valmont. Someone would have to take Langlois’ place as a pusher for the international set. Digger, moving in that crowd, might come up with a lead. Identifying the new pusher could lead to the higher-ups Colonel Valmont was so anxious to nail. It was a grimly important job, but Digger enjoyed every moment of it because it meant that he and Juliet went places together, worked together toward the same end, and grew closer and closer. But they didn’t have much luck. They worked at it; Paul Bernardel gave them help; and secret agents of Colonel Valmont’s were at it night and day.
    About a month after this adventure began, a serious attempt was made on Colonel Valmont’s life. Valmont in a chauffeur-driven car was cruising along the Champs Elysées when, Chicago fashion, a car edged them off to the side and its passengers opened fire on the colonel with Tommy guns. Whether the chauffeur was a hero or whether it was a freak miracle was an unanswered question. Valmont’s car swerved right, struck a tree, and turned over. The chauffeur was killed, but Valmont, pinned under the car, was shielded by it from the bullets that were meant to kill him.
    It was clear then that the terrorists meant to let nothing stand in their way. Monsieur Delacroix, then in the Ministry of Justice, Bernardel, and Charles Girard, chief prosecutor for Delacroix’s office, all urged Valmont to leave France and go into hiding far away from the center of danger. Valmont refused. He felt he was close to identifying the big shots in the drug traffic who were supplying the terrorists with funds. But he did go into hiding in the city. Not even Delacroix and Bernardel and Girard knew where. The location of the little apartment on the Left Bank was a secret shared by only one person—Digger.
    “He could have chosen any one of half a dozen trusted agents,” Digger said. “He chose me. Oh, he trusted me, but mainly he knew how much in love Juliet and I were, and he didn’t want to separate us. So I knew where the apartment was and I acted as a courier for him, carrying messages to people on the outside and bringing messages back to him. It was on the wild side. I could never approach the apartment openly. I had to look as little like myself as I could. I dressed like a workman, like a bus conductor; I even wore the uniform of a French soldier. As far as I could tell, I was never tailed except when I was myself, and I never went anywhere near the apartment as Digger Sullivan.
    “Valmont had one obsessive fear. It was that someone high up in the government, someone he had every reason to trust, might actually be connected with the terrorists and the drug boys. There was no particular person he suspected, but there had been too many leaks in the past, too many traps set into which no one walked. Someone was always a step ahead. I think the only person to whom he gave a completely clean bill of health was me. I wasn’t interested in French politics; I didn’t need money; and I was in love with Juliet.
    “One day— the day—I got a phone call at my hotel. It was Valmont in a highly agitated state. He had, he told me, discovered the identity of this high-up traitor. He wouldn’t tell me who it was on the phone. He was afraid his phone might be tapped. And he was afraid they were ready to move in on him fast. Would I come at once and get Juliet away to some safe place. There was no time for disguise or roundabout approaches. I was to come now—now!
    “So I went, openly racing through traffic