by Lex Lander
‘But of course, mon cher Commissaire. For what other reason would you agree to meet a lunatic or practical joker like me? Just be sure to leave your little pistol at home, and I promise to do the same.’
A rendezvous was arranged. Barail tried to hang up first but to his chagrin the Corsican beat him to it.
PART THREE
JANUARY
Happy New Year, Mr Chirac!
Seven
* * *
The view across the Naples harbour was framed between two royal palms whose broad leaves still piddled moisture from the heavy shower of fifteen minutes ago. It was of placid water, rich green vegetation, and other custom-built houses, every last one with its own jetty. Powerboats were tied up at most of them. Though it was mid-winter the Florida temperature was a benign twenty degrees Celsius.
Eddie Nixon was a genial host and Soon-Li, his young Oriental wife, who couldn’t do enough for him, an attentive hostess. Sheryl cynically wondered if she had been told that the days remaining to her husband were not many.
Besides Nixon and his wife there were two other people in the room: the Frenchman, CRS Commissaire Barail, recruited by Simonelli as the vital Trojan Horse, and a blond-haired man with a rugged look: his name was Gary Rosenbrand and he was Sheryl’s right hand man. Like her, a recent defector from Greenpeace.
Sheryl and Rosenbrand had arrived in Naples the previous day and overnighted at a local motel. Barail had flown in that morning, to be collected from Fort Myers airport by Nixon’s housekeeper, a skinny Afro-American with pebble-lensed glasses, who spoke not a word during the entire thirty mile drive to Naples. The three visitors and their host and hostess had lunched on soft-shell crab salad around a circular table on the shaded balcony. When the rain began - unusual at this time of year - the housekeeper operated a remote control that extended a louvered awning. After lunch the party moved inside and now sat in low chairs facing each other, under an idling ceiling fan.
Barail was a burly, bovine character with a look of indestructibility. His clothes were rumpled, but other signs of jet lag after his nine-hours-long flight were absent. He was at ease yet alert, his command of English beyond reproach and all but accentless. Thus far the talk had been mostly of the small variety. Now, amid coffees and assorted liqueurs and tobacco smoke, they were ready to edge towards serious business.
‘You fully understand what’s required of you, Commissaire?’ Sheryl said, after treating the Frenchman to a rundown of the job specification. As the project’s chief executive to Nixon’s honorary president, hers was the responsibility for negotiation and decision making.
‘It could not be clearer,’ Barail said airily. ‘You wish me to recruit a professional assassin. This is not a problem. I have many such men in my files.’
‘That’s not all we want,’ Rosenbrand said in his rather grating voice. ‘Not for ten million francs.’ And he flicked a sideways glance at Sheryl, who nodded.
Barail’s smile fell just short of mocking. ‘Indeed, no. And I suppose you will now tell me what other tasks I will be required to perform.’
‘Naturally.’ Sheryl accepted that, if they were to enlist this man’s aid, they would have to come clean about their intentions sooner rather than later. Rafael Simonelli, whom she still trusted despite their emotional incompatibility, had assured her that that if the price was right Barail could be relied on to deliver. ‘In addition to recruiting the man,’ she said coolly, ‘your job will be to co-ordinate his actions, to manage him, if you prefer. You’ll be our go-between.’
‘This for me is no different from my present job. As head of the President’s personal security section, I co-ordinate the actions of many agents.’
‘So you’ll be able to do it in your sleep. Swell. But that’s not all - we’re going to need inside information. You’ll be our ears and eyes at the Elysées Palace.’
Now Barail’s assent was guarded, questioning.
‘You must explain further.’
Sheryl swallowed. Unable to delay the exposé longer, she took the big plunge. ‘We aim to assassinate someone.’
‘Well, that much is evident. May I ask whom?’
‘A public figure,’ Sheryl stalled, still shrinking from naming Chirac outright. Tough as her outer shell was, plotting to kill a head of state called for a level of ruthlessness that was alien to her public-spirited nature.
‘A well-protected public figure,’ Rosenbrand expanded.
Barail’s ‘Ah’ of comprehension was barely more than a release of breath. ‘You mean you wish to kill President Chirac.’
Sheryl glanced at Rosenbrand, hoping for some subtle signal that he felt the moment was right for disclosure. But, while sharing her worries, he had no guidance to give about how far she should go. She was on her own.
She took a breath so deep it made her dizzy. ‘You got it,’ she confirmed to Barail at last, her insides churning. ‘We’re gonna kill the bastard.’
Now their intentions were out in the open, and devil take the consequences. Sheryl lit another cigarette from the glowing tip of the one she was smoking (her renunciation of tobacco had been short-lived). She avoided looking at Barail’s face. If she had she would have gleaned nothing. He was devoid of expression, inscrutable as a Ming vase.
‘For what purpose?’ the Frenchman enquired, so calm, so buttoned-down she instinctively sought to provoke him.
‘To set an example.’ Now she eyeballed him and her voice hardened as she went on, ‘We represent Greenwar, successors to Greenpeace. We make war to save the planet. No one individual, whatever his status, is more important than our objective.’
Nixon’s eyes flicked from Sheryl to Barail, fascinated by the interplay. A contest of wills of sorts was taking place. A Frenchman of the old school like Barail would not readily defer to the generalship of a woman .
‘I see. And how will killing Chirac save the planet?’
‘Figure it out, Commissaire. For a start, it’ll show other leaders that if they damage it, as Chirac is doing with the Mururoa tests, they can expect to pay the ultimate price. It’ll deter them.’
‘The tests will be over long before you can get to him.’
‘Their impact on the planet won’t. The contamination will be with us, in some respects for hundreds of thousands of years.’
‘I will take your word for that.’ Barail sipped his coffee and looked thoughtful. ‘Whether or not it is true, and whether or not Jacques Chirac should be held personally accountable, do you believe me to be the sort of man who would collude in his assassination?’
A frisson of doubt coursed through Sheryl. For the first time since the formation of Greenwar she felt unsure of herself. She wished Eddie would speak up, bolster her authority, but she sensed that turning to him to intervene would diminish her standing. He might even replace her, God forbid.
Dragging down a lungful of smoke soothed her fluttering nerves. She was conscious that every eye was on her, waiting for her to either bluff, back off, or face the Frenchman down.
‘Yeah, I do believe that,’ she said boldly to Barail, her gaze unflinching under his scrutiny. ‘But if I’m wrong, if we’ve been misinformed about you, it’s pointless to continue this discussion.’ She stood, her height giving her presence. ‘All I can do is thank you for coming … and wish you bon voyage.’
Barail came close to incredulity. ‘You would let me walk out of here, now that I know of your plans?’
‘Certainly you’ll be allowed to walk out of this house, Commissaire, though I can’t vouch for your safe conduct all the way back to Paris.’
Barail chuckled. His chuckle became a laugh and his laugh a belly-driven guffaw.
‘What’s so funny?’ Rosenbrand growled. He was a man of negligible humour.
‘My apologies,’ Barail spluttered, dabbing his eyes with a large blue handkerchief. ‘I was just thinking how we could use someone like mademoiselle in the security service.’
‘Thanks for the compliment, if that’s what it
is,’ Sheryl drawled, her tone dry. ‘But exactly where does this leave us? Are we in bed together or in the divorce court?’
Barail glanced from Sheryl to Rosenbrand and back to Sheryl, his reluctance to commit almost a tangible thing.
Out in the harbour an outboard puttered past, observing the three-knot speed limit. Inside the room all was quiet but for the whirr of the ceiling fan.
‘All right,’ Barail said heavily, breaking the silence. He spread his hands. ‘You are not mistaken. I will provide an assassin, I will run him, and I will act as your informant.’
‘A wise decision,’ Sheryl said gravely, keeping her jubilation damped down.
‘In return for twenty-five million francs.’
Rosenbrand sat forward, his fists clenched on his knees. ‘The price agreed was ten.’
‘Not so, my friend,’ Barail demurred. ‘The price offered was ten. I did not accept it, and in any case that was before I knew what the stakes were. For a crime such as this my neck could end up under the knife.’
‘What knife?’ Sheryl said in puzzlement.
‘The guillotine,’ Barail explained. ‘For certain crimes, including high treason, it is still the official penalty. So you will understand why my price is twenty-five million.’
Once again Sheryl glanced at Nixon for a signal of assent or dissent. He studiously ignored her, inspecting the tip of his cigar as if it were a precious stone he had been asked to value. He had assigned total control over the budget to her. Now she had to prove she could handle it.
Thinking fast, she weighed all the implications, the cost versus the rewards. This project might prove to be the most decisive that Greenwar would ever sanction. It could even bring about an end to nuclear testing worldwide. It was too big to be quibbling over mere dollars and francs.
Rapid mental arithmetic converted twenty-five million French francs to eight million Kiwi dollars, or over a third of the budget she had set for the whole job. The assassin would want at least as much again as Barail, probably a lot more.
She decided that even to haggle as if this were an everyday business transaction would be to demean their historic mission. She sighed.
‘Agreed. Twenty-five million francs.’
Eight
* * *
Ernest Hemingway’s old hangout, the Deux Magots cafe in bustling Boulevard St Germain, was all but empty of clients, but full of bitter-sweet recall of the days when they were lovers, and their every meeting was redolent of Chevalier crooning about springtime in Paris. Even though Hélène was then still married to that Italian bastard.
Now it was winter in Paris, the plane trees were bare of foliage, and the air a too damp and chilly for sitting outside under the canopy as they used to.
He was early; she was on time.
‘How are you, Dennis?’ she said, after the ritual double air-kiss. In her heels, she was as tall as him. She didn’t even try to make the enquiry sound as if she cared. Their six years together were long gone, lamented by neither of them.
‘I’m good,’ he responded. ‘And you? As beautiful as ever, I see.’ They spoke in English, though Lux’s French was serviceable enough.
‘Skin deep, my dear, as you always used to say. You know the real me.’
That was a fact. The real she was almost schizoid, terrific in bed or wherever, a nagging, bad-tempered cow for most of the rest of the time. A serial seductress too. After all, money aside, her looks and sex drive were all she had going for her. Chestnut brown hair worn straight, today with a white band pulling it back off her ears. Rather thin-featured, but with eyes, nose, and lips that no scalpel could ever enhance. Tall, slight of figure, nice curves, legs to drool over. Her mother was an aristocrat, her father a former government minister.
They sat at right angles, just as they used to, back when clasping hands under the table was the natural thing to do. Old habits lingering on.
‘You told me it was urgent,’ he said, after they had ordered: her choice was some sort of herbal tea, which was a departure. Healthier for sure than his cappuccino.
‘I said it might be urgent,’ she corrected.
‘Agreed, you did. Tell me, then.’
She lit a cigarette first, using the solid-gold lighter he bought her on their fifth anniversary. He might have been touched that she still had it and still used it, if he still had those kinds of feelings for her.
‘A man called about you. Asking questions.’
Outwardly Lux’s features remained bland. ‘What man?’
Lux’s cappuccino and Hélène’s infusion were delivered, causing a momentary break in conversation. As the waiter moved away out of earshot, she said, ‘He gave his name as Duval.’
‘It’s a common name. Could be anybody. What did he want to know, and why?’
She shrugged elegantly, drew on her cigarette. ‘He asked if you were in France, how to contact you, that sort of thing.’ Her hazel eyes finally locked on his. ‘Are you still in business, Dennis?’
‘In business? No, I retired last year, after you left me.’
‘Really? You’ve been away, haven’t you? I was trying for several weeks to contact you.’
‘Vacation, my love. South Africa. It’s summertime there, you know.’
She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette, dribbled her infused tea into the cup from the stainless steel teapot.
Out in the street a car horn blared, was answered with interest. Faintly, somebody shouted an obscenity. All routine behaviour for Paris.
‘I don’t like your ... associates phoning me,’ she said, fixing Lux with what he had always referred to as her ‘comtesse stare’. The put-down look the aristocracy reserved for lesser beings, such as servants and ex-husbands. ‘You never told me how you earn a living, and I’m not asking now, but I know it’s not legal. Moreover, I suspect it’s something very bad.’
‘That’s you, sweetheart, suspicious of everyone. And this Duval, whoever he is, is not my associate.’
‘He told me he’s a policeman.’
Now Lux frowned. A policeman, real or bogus, asking about him was not the kind of news he welcomed.
‘And you believed him. Some guy phones you out of the blue, says “I’m a cop” and you assume he’s telling the truth?’
‘I did not assume he was telling the truth,’ she flared, her voice raised enough to merit a glance from the only other client, an old man with a black dog, hunched over his pastis. ‘On the contrary, I assumed he was lying. But in either case, whether he really was a policeman, or he was only posing as a policeman, it was not a call I wished to receive. You and I are over and done with, let us be clear about that. I will not take messages for you, nor will I pass them on.’
‘You just have.’
She tossed him an angry look and lit another cigarette. ‘That was the last. So tell your friends and your enemies not to call me again. Is that clear?’
Lux toasted her with his cup. ‘Message received and understood. Tell me, sweetheart, are you still fucking around?’
No answer was expected and none received. Her cigarette joined the other one in the ash tray after only a couple of puffs. She stood up, smoothing her black pencil skirt over her slender, mannequin thighs. His eyes did an involuntary inspection of her contours. God, she was gorgeous. What a shame that was all she was.
‘You can afford to pay for both of us, I suppose,’ she snapped, and when he nodded smilingly, she nodded back, smile absent, and walked away, out through the propped-open door. He watched her cross the Boulevard St Germain, swerving around the traffic, or maybe it was the other way around. She was quite a traffic-stopper.
The waiter was behind the bar. Lux flapped a twenty-franc bill at him, before dropping it on the table.
‘Gardez la monnaie,’ he called across, assuming there was some change to keep.
With inflation, you never knew.
* * *
The Washington Post had devoted only a few lines to the event. The explosion, the sixth in a ser
ies begun in September, was detonated at 10.30am yesterday (NZ time) beneath Fangataufa Atoll and was equivalent to less than 120 kilotonnes, the French Defence Ministry said.
‘Oh, only a hundred and twenty,’ Eddie Nixon muttered. ‘Is that all?’
Soon-Li, sitting across the breakfast table, peeped at him over her coffee cup. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said in that phrasebook English she hadn’t progressed beyond, even in bed.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ He couldn’t be bothered to explain it to her in the single syllable words she would require.
‘Not bad news, I hoping,’ she persisted.
‘No, sweetheart.’
He reached across to pat her hand reassuringly and hid behind the newspaper.
French Président Jacques Chirac, he read on, previously said the test series might be reduced from eight to six and is expected to make an announcement ahead of his visit to Washington on Thursday.
Then the phone rang and somehow he just knew it was Sheryl, desperate to rage to someone about Chirac’s latest atrocity.
He was right.
* * *
Gary Rosenbrand slurped a Red Lion beer straight from the can as he settled to watch the start of the news in his favourite armchair. As expected, the headline item on this the 30th of January 1996 was President Jacques Chirac’s announcement of an end to France’s nuclear weapons tests in the South Pacific.
Translated into an English voice-over, Chirac told the massed ranks of the world’s press, ‘I announce to you today the final end of French nuclear tests. A new chapter is opening. France will play an active and determined role for disarmament in the world and for a better European defence.’
A scornful ‘Hah!’ from Sheryl, occupying the couch.
‘As do all of you, dear compatriots, I want peace,’ Chirac continued unctuously, his smile disarming. ‘Solid and durable peace. We all know that peace, like freedom, has to be built each day.’