Barbouze

by Alan Williams

  ‘What made you decide to keep this appointment?’ Le Hir’s face was suddenly tight and nasty; he was trying to scare Neil, but somehow Neil was filled with a tired, dreamy feeling and the only thing that really troubled him was the mess on his shirt.

  ‘Well, last night,’ he said, ‘I rang up my girl in London and the bitch told me she’s getting married next week to a racing motorist.’ He looked at Le Hir and shook his head sorrowfully: ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? Here am I, gainfully employed, full of fine prospects, getting heroically beaten up by Foreign Legionnaires, and she goes off and chooses a racing motorist!’ He laughed into his glass of water.

  Le Hir sat and stared at him.

  ‘You think I’m a bit touched?’ said Neil. ‘Que j’ai des araignées au plafond?’ He ran his fingers over the back of his neck: ‘That young lad of yours hit me rather hard, I’m afraid.’

  Le Hir blinked. ‘I’m in no mood for jokes, Monsieur Ingleby.’

  Neil drained down his tumbler of water: ‘It’s no joke, I can tell you! You wanted to know the reason why I changed my mind and kept Pol’s appointment? I’ve told you. Because of my girl —’

  ‘It’s not a good enough reason.’

  ‘Perhaps not for you. It is for me.’ Neil glanced across at Nadia, who was leaning against the wall sneering at him. He tried to imagine her and the Colonel in bed together.

  ‘What did you do in the Casbah?’ said Le Hir. The welted scar from his mouth to his ear seemed to grow more pronounced, like a strip of macaroni.

  Neil said, ‘I met three men called Marouf, Boussid and Ali La Joconde.’

  Le Hir sprang up and hit him across the mouth. The blow made a dry smack that cut across the room and brought the two legionnaires to the door of the balcony. Neil put his hand up to the hot pain and said apologetically, ‘I thought you wanted to know what I did in the Casbah?’

  Le Hir grabbed him by the collar, pulled him a foot off the sofa and hit him again, hard with the back of his hand, then dropped him on the cushion: ‘Repeat what you just said!’ His words made a hissing sound between his square teeth: ‘Repeat it!’

  The two legionnaires were coming across the room with their drinks. Neil’s eyes misted with tears, his mouth tasting of salt and blood as his lips began to swell like rubber. Le Hir stood over him flexing his fingers. His face had turned oyster-white: ‘Go on! Tell us again what you did in the Casbah.’

  The young legionnaire came round and stood close behind Neil’s left ear.

  Neil began, ‘I went into the Casbah. I was taken up to a house where I met three men. They were Dr. Marouf, Abdel Boussid, and Ali La Joconde who was introduced to me as Mohammed Sherrif.’ He waited for the blow, from in front or behind, but none came.

  ‘Describe them,’ said Le Hir.

  Neil did so, in laborious detail, right down to Ali La Joconde’s fluttering white hands and Boussid’s pouting lips.

  ‘Very well,’ said Le Hir, ‘now tell us exactly what you talked about.’

  Neil took his time, almost beginning to enjoy himself. He described the foothills of political small talk, leading up to the discussion on the ethics of terrorism, and finally Ali La Joconde’s tears and Dr. Marouf’s offer of a truce.

  When he had finished, without being interrupted once, Le Hir sat back and nodded: ‘So you had quite a little session up there.’ He turned to the two legionnaires: ‘What do we do with this clown?’

  The girl Nadia leant against the wall and said lazily, ‘Kill him.’

  Le Hir ignored her. The young legionnaire went round and whispered something to him. He frowned and looked down at Neil, then nodded: ‘Nadia, give the Englishman a drink — a proper drink. He’s going to need one!’ He went over to the telephone and dialled a number, speaking for several minutes. Neil could not catch what was said. He sat sipping a strong chilled martini with a sliver of lemon; it gave him a pleasant glow as he watched, with relief, the two legionnaires return to the balcony.

  Le Hir at last put down the telephone and said, ‘Nadia, show him the bathroom.’ He turned to Neil: ‘Clean yourself up. Nadia will give you a new shirt. We want you looking smart.’ He went back to the telephone.

  The girl took Neil into a bathroom lined with black mirrors and shelves of perfumes and toilet preparations which must have been worth more than a hundred pounds. An elaborate exercising machine composed of springs and pulleys hung from the ceiling. While Neil bathed he could hear the incessant murmur of Le Hir’s voice on the telephone,

  He cooled his swollen lip and put on a fawn-coloured silk shirt that Nadia had given him. It had a label from Cervi’s, Rome. He returned to find Le Hir strapping on a polished gun holster under a white sporting jacket. The legionnaires led the way out, down to the same Citroën DS with the moustached Corsican at the wheel. Neil sat in the back between the two legionnaires.

  ‘Blindfold him,’ said Le Hir.

  The driver took a black cloth from the glove compartment; the young legionnaire bound it tightly round the upper half of Neil’s head, and they drove smoothly and fast, upwards, round steep bends, the driver using the horn in aggressive blasts.

  They stopped suddenly and Neil was hurried out across the pavement, up several flights of stairs. A bell tinkled; there was a pause, and a door creaked open. Le Hir’s voice said, ‘All right, we’ve got him.’ Neil was led forward, round a coiner, and pushed down into a chair. The cloth was untied.

  Facing him across a polished table sat Anne-Marie. She gave him a brief nod, as though they had only just met. He opened his mouth to speak but she flashed her eyes at him in warning, and he fell silent.

  Le Hir and the two legionnaires took up their positions against the wall. The black-moustached chauffeur disappeared through a door at the end of the room. There was a tense silence.

  The flat was small and overcrowded, typical of the French provincial bourgeoisie: heavy, dark-stained furniture, ornate wall lamps, old brown photographs. There was a smell of floor polish and coffee beans.

  The door at the end of the room opened again. Anne-Marie looked up, and the two legionnaires stiffened as though coming to attention. The chauffeur stepped through and held the door open for a tall man in uniform the colour of dried mud. He wore no decorations. He walked in, nodded round the room, then stood staring at Neil. Neil stared back, and a little shiver passed through him. He was looking at Colonel Pierre Broussard, alias M. Martel, second-in-command of the Secret Army.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘Good afternoon, Monsieur Ingleby.’ Colonel Broussard pulled up a hard-backed chair and seated himself beside Neil: ‘You smoke, I believe?’ He pushed a rose-wood box along the table, full of fat Turkish cigarettes.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Neil, taking one.

  Colonel Broussard turned to Anne-Marie: ‘Perhaps Monsieur Ingleby would like something to drink? Some coffee?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Neil again. She stood up without looking at him and went into the passage. Broussard turned back to Neil. His face was drawn and tired, and the eyes held that familiar luminous glare, sunk under his bony brows, which Neil now recognized as a symptom of the opium-smoker.

  ‘So we meet again,’ Broussard said, with the hint of a smile, ‘first on the Holy Mountain, and now here. It seems that our ways cross by destiny. Or is it by design? I should like to know.’

  There was an oppressive pause. The door opened and Anne-Marie came in with a tray of coffee. Neil cleared his throat, took a cup, thanked her, and began once again to explain about his arrival in Athens and his meeting with Pol.

  Broussard held up his hand: ‘Monsieur Ingleby, I do not know why you should suppose that I am the last person in this city to have heard of your exploits. My intelligence service is not inefficient,’ he added dryly. ‘However, I confess that when you were summoned here today I did not realize that you were the same Englishman I met on Mount Athos.’

  Neil glanced at Anne-Marie. So she had kept his confidence after all. He gave an inward sigh of relief; at
least there was one person here he could trust.

  Broussard continued, in a flat, quiet voice, ‘I am prepared to accept that our meeting on Athos may have been fortuitous. Your presence in this city is not. You are here for some purpose devised by Monsieur Charles Pol, and it is my intention to find out what that purpose is. I suggest that you begin by repeating to me what you have already told Colonel Le Hir about your visit to the Casbah this morning. Our patience with you, Monsieur Ingleby, is beginning to run out.’

  Neil repeated the account of his meeting with the Arab Front leaders. It took him nearly a quarter of an hour to complete. Throughout he felt Broussard’s eyes on him like two points of radium, burning ice-cold and deadly. Le Hir and the legionnaires watched him from the wall, contemptuous, hating, with the laconic hate of trained killers; and Anne-Marie watched him across the table, her face grave, expressionless. While he talked, he worried about her — about why she was here. When he finished, Broussard began to question him about his impressions of the three Arab leaders.

  ‘What makes you think they were being sincere?’ he asked finally.

  Neil hesitated: ‘By their manner. They certainly seemed sincere.’

  ‘You have little experience of the Arab race, Monsieur Ingleby. Their manner can be very deceptive and they are brilliant liars. Did they give you any positive reason for thinking them sincere?’

  Neil paused: ‘Well, Ali La Joconde wept when I mentioned the Casino bombing. He seemed genuinely upset.’

  Broussard sunk his mouth in a snarl: ‘You’re not going to stir my sympathies for Ali La Joconde! Those people are not sentimentalists. Did they give you any political reasons for offering a truce?’

  Neil thought hard, trying to remember their exact words. At last he said, ‘Boussid told me that the killing had become senseless. He said the struggle was no longer theirs — it was now between the Secret Army and the French High Command. But I think his real reason,’ he added, searching in vain for a safe way of phrasing it, ‘is that he believes the Arab Front may have won.’

  A frozen look came over Broussard’s face, his body stiffening visibly, and Neil saw a terrible anguish rising inside the man. Ali La Joconde and his friends had their reasons for a truce. Perhaps even at this moment Broussard believed they were right — that the cause of the Secret Army was already doomed.

  He stared at the table for nearly a full minute before fixing Neil again with his grey glare, saying, ‘How much money is this man Pol paying you?’

  Neil started. ‘Nothing! Not a penny — except for the trip over.’

  Broussard’s eyes narrowed: ‘If you were to work as an intermediary between us and the Arabs you would be running certain risks. You realize that? I assume you would expect some material reward.’

  Neil was silent, his heart thumping wildly, realizing how useless it is to pretend that even men of integrity can easily resist an offer of money — at least the chance of finding out how much it is to be. He was on the point of asking Broussard, when the man said, ‘We might be prepared to offer quite a large sum, Monsieur Ingleby — payable in whatever currency you choose.’

  ‘Does that mean that you agree to Boussid’s offer?’

  ‘I did not say that. I asked if you were interested in money.’ Something about the way he said it — perhaps the inflexion, the unobtrusive emphasis on the conditional — warned Neil that Broussard was not really concerned with offering him money.

  Neil was being tested. He said boldly, ‘I am not interested in money, Colonel. I am interested in saving innocent lives.’

  Broussard’s face relaxed just a fraction; he glanced round at Le Hir, then nodded. ‘Monsieur Ingleby, I must discuss this matter with my colleagues before we can take a decision. It is, of course, possible that between them Boussid, Ali La Joconde and this man Pol may be laying us rather a crude trap. They would have to be very naive to think that we would fall into it. However’ — he looked at his watch — ‘if they are serious, we might find room for at least a discussion. You have my authority to arrange with Pol to return to the Casbah tomorrow, when you will tell Boussid and his friends that while the revolt continues we might be prepared, under certain conditions and with certain guarantees, to call off our commandos, if they will call off theirs.’ He turned to Le Hir: ‘Monsieur Ingleby will not be returning to his hotel, Colonel. You will arrange for him to be put up in comfort.’ Le Hir nodded. Broussard looked back at Neil: ‘I apologize for the inconvenience, but for the moment it is better that you do not leave the barricades.’ He stood up, paused, then added, ‘I am glad to find a man who is willing to do more than sell his services for money.’ He nodded round the table and left the room.

  The gathering broke up quickly. The two legionnaires came over to Neil and began to hurry him away, without blindfolding him this time. As they reached the door he found himself for a moment pressed against Anne-Marie. He started to speak to her but she turned her head, trying to escape. He whispered: ‘Anne-Marie, what are you doing here? Please, tell me!’

  ‘Komm, du fauler Hund!’ roared the big legionnaire, throwing him out on to the landing.

  She ran after him suddenly, shouting over the banisters, ‘I’ll see you — at Colonel Le Hir’s!’ Then someone called to her and she darted back into the apartment.

  CHAPTER 4

  During the next four days Neil made five visits to the Casbah. He was taken in each time by the same route as before: one of Le Hir’s men — sometimes the young legionnaire from Dresden, sometimes another of the ‘Gamma Commandos’ — would accompany him from behind the barricades to a rendezvous arranged the day before by telephone with Pol. Here a car would collect him and drive him past the CRS roadblock to the little iron door with the Yale lock. His discussions with the Arab Front were conducted from now on exclusively through Boussid. He did not meet again with Dr. Marouf or Ali La Joconde. There were the endless glasses of mint tea, the sweet dry pastries, the moist face and pouting lips arguing, haggling, picking up each little point, prodding Neil into a state of nervous exasperation.

  Neil had only a rigid set of terms on which to negotiate, dictated to him before each visit by Le Hir. The Secret Army would agree to no verbal truce; they insisted on meeting the leaders of the Arab Front in person and discussing the precise terms of the truce face to face. This would mean a deputation of Dr. Marouf, Boussid and Ali La Joconde.

  Boussid deferred and bickered and drank more tea, insisting that the Arab Front would only negotiate with General Guérin. No deputy leader of the Secret Army, even Broussard or Le Hir, would satisfy them.

  Le Hir refused. On no account would General Guérin agree to meet any member of the Arab Front in person. The discussions broke down.

  At the fourth meeting, at noon on the third day, Boussid appeared to be losing his aplomb: he was tetchy and fidgeted, drinking more tea than usual and shouting angrily at his subordinates in Arabic. If Guérin did not participate, he told Neil, then the Arab Front would be represented only by a minor official.

  That afternoon Le Hir also relented. General Paul Guérin was prepared to discuss a formal truce, providing he met only the three leaders of the Casbah and in a place which he would name.

  The last meeting, which was also the most arduous, settled the place where the talks would be held. After several hours of arguing, Neil persuaded Boussid to accept the spot chosen by General Guérin. It was a farmhouse eighteen miles outside the city, set back on a plain between the mountains and the sea. It had been deserted since the owner, a colon farmer, had left for France three months earlier. The place could only be approached by two roads across open fields which removed any serious risk of an ambush; and it had the vital advantage of lying beyond the urban areas controlled by the Secret Army, and also outside the mountainous territory infested by Arab Front guerrillas. Each delegation would produce an escort of six men, armed only with machine-pistols; and Neil had to convey in turn to Le Hir and Boussid that if there was any breach of the agreement by one sid
e, the other would retaliate with massive reprisals.

  Except when he was beyond the CRS roadblock, Neil was under constant watch by Le Hir’s commandos; and all his telephone calls to Pol were tapped by Le Hir himself. During these calls Pol did not discuss the talks with Boussid. Their conversations were short and to the point, concerning only the various appointments with the men who were to drive Neil into the Casbah. Once, on Le Hir’s instructions, Neil asked Pol whether the French Army had any part in these plans. Pol replied, ‘I can promise you that neither the Army nor the security forces have anything to do with this matter. You have my solemn word for that!’

  This startled Le Hir. He had assumed, as an ex-member of Military Security, that the Sûreté and the Deuxième would work in close collaboration. His military training did not admit to independent agents. To him Charles Pol was just another fat, overpaid Government employee. But Neil remembered that Pol had been a double-agent in the war and was a former Anarchist. He was not — as he had been at pains to explain in Athens — an ordinary policeman carrying out the instructions of his superiors. Pol was an idealist, a man with dynamic views on how the world should be run. The idea that he might be acting entirely free of the French authorities did not strike Neil as far-fetched. Le Hir considered it, but shrugged it off. The only idealists he knew were in the Secret Army.

  During all this time the possibility of treachery by either side occurred constantly to Neil. He would lie on his bed in the spare room put at his disposal in Le Hir’s flat and weigh up the probabilities. Always he was reassured by the same process of argument: that it was in the logical interests of all sides — the Secret Army, the Arab Front and the French Government — to put an end to indiscriminate murder. Furthermore, it seemed to him that men like Colonel Broussard, Le Hir, Boussid and Ali La Joconde were far too canny in the ways of terrorism and counterterrorism to allow themselves to be caught out by an elementary ruse.