by Lex Lander
So his first inclination was to cover up - anything, a towel, a sheet ...
‘Do not move, please, Mr Lux,’ the leader warned and though his tone was mild it demanded, no, presupposed obedience.
‘My name is Dubois,’ the leader said then, resting one buttock on the corner of the dressing table that had come from Conforama or some other haunt of the shopping proletariat. It sagged but bore up like the solid, veneered chipboard it was.
Dubois. French equivalent of Smith. Narrow shoulders, middle height, average through and through, the way the law likes its employees. For that was what Lux assumed they were, policemen of sorts.
‘Apparently,’ he said, ‘you don’t need an introduction from me.’
‘No, indeed. And, knowing as much about you as I do, I am confident of your co-operation.’
Lux leaned against the wall, folded his arms. At least now his butt was covered.
‘Co-operation?’ he echoed. He fought off the temptation to ask them for some form of ID. All would be revealed presently, he was sure of that. Let them make the running for now.
‘We are here to discuss your future residency on French soil ...’
‘At seven o’clock in the morning?’ Lux cut in.
‘We do not work by the clock,’ Dubois said coldly. ‘In any case, you will not contest the authority that brings me here.’ He stepped up to Lux and flapped a slim leather wallet at him. Inside was a plastic identity card with an integral black and white photograph of Dubois produced by a computer. It informed Lux that Dubois was an executive officer in the Direction Central Police Judiciare, holding the rank of Lieutenant de Police, and that he had been born on 18th November, thirty-six years ago. The rest was mostly gobbledygook.
‘The DCPJ, eh,’ Lux said, buying time, unsure what to make of it, as he returned the wallet. ‘Did I forget to feed a parking meter or what?’
‘Nothing so trivial. In any case, I regret this intrusion but I am only following orders, you understand. My apologies also, to madame.’ A false smile pasted on his face, he executed a stiff little bow towards Françoise, now seemingly upgraded from slut to lady. Unimpressed by the gesture, Françoise bared her teeth in a frozen grimace.
‘Now,’ Dubois said to Lux, ‘you may dress. Unless you prefer to travel in your present condition, of course.’
‘Am I travelling?’
‘You will be. And please, for your own sake, do not make a scene.’
Lux, outnumbered and outgunned, had no intention of making a scene. Not yet. Scenes should only be made on one’s own terms. He dressed perfunctorily in his rather rumpled grey pants, Armani check shirt, also rumpled, and blue jacket, and kissed a pouting Françoise farewell. With the three DCPJ officers in close attendance he descended to the street where a black Citroën XM was waiting. Its engine was running, the exhaust smoke a white bouquet in the near-freezing air. Behind the wheel sat a fourth man - older, thick necked, and with the cropped head of a professional soldier.
They pushed Lux into the rear seat, there to be sandwiched between Dubois and one of his minions. The car was driven fast and slickly through back streets, changing course so often that Lux soon lost all sense of his whereabouts. Eventually they debouched into an ill-lit, pavé square with looming tenements on all sides before passing under an archway into a courtyard in miniature where stood another black XM. There was just enough room for the two to park side by side.
‘Curious,’ the taller of the two subordinates remarked as the driver held open the right hand rear door, ‘that you ask no questions.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Lux rejoined with a slight sneer, declining to be provoked and thereby give them an excuse to smack him down.
The taller officer made no further comment and slid out. Leaving the driver with the car, Lux and his three-strong escort mounted three stone steps to the flaking-painted door of the adjacent tenement. No plaques proclaimed its status. Inside it was as cold as a tomb. Lux turned up the collar of his jacket.
Up four flights of stone stairs they went in single file, Dubois leading, followed by Lux. The iron handrail was icy to the touch. At every turn of the stairs a low-wattage wall light burned, just bright enough to see by. Lux was slightly out of breath by the time they reached the top; annoyingly, his three escorts showed no physical discomfort at all.
A number of doors, uniformly stained dark with age and grime, led off the landing. A rap on the nearest gained them instant entry though Lux heard no invitation.
The room beyond was only marginally warmer than outside. The floors were bare board, the window without curtains, each corner had its tapestry of cobwebs. Under the single light bulb that dangled from a gnarled flex, sat a burly man at a table, reading a newspaper - Le Monde. Or at any rate he had been reading prior to their arrival. Now, the newspaper lowered, he was staring at Lux, unblinking, incurious. Not someone who would ruffle readily, Lux figured.
The man stood up slowly. ‘Good morning, Mr Lux,’ he said in English. ‘I am Commissaire Barail, of the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité.’
No hand was extended to shake.
‘The what?’ Lux said, genuinely mystified.
‘Better known perhaps as the CRS. Come ... let us go somewhere more congenial. You would like some coffee?’ Barail’s English was flawless, which - inexplicably - irked Lux whose French, even after six years of domicile in the country and a French ex-wife, was no more than passable.
‘Since I’m here and presumably not free to leave until you say so, I might as well take whatever freebies are on offer.’
‘Very sensible of you.’
Barail led Lux through another door into an environment so fundamentally different from the parts of the building he had so far seen, that the American gaped. The room was a long rectangle, furnished ornately with lots of gilt-painted woodwork and scrolled upholstery. The walls were covered in brocade with co-ordinating curtains. The floor was of polished boards but three quarters of it lay beneath an exquisite rug, intricately woven with abstract designs. A silver tray with a coffee pot and two minuscule cups reposed on a round table with a single leg so slender it looked to be incapable of supporting its own weight, let alone that of the tray and its contents. The place blared taste and money. The CRS was no cheapskate outfit, Lux decided.
Commissaire Barail and Lux sat on opposite sides of the fragile-looking table. Barail poured for both of them. They were alone now - Dubois and his sidekicks had not followed them into the Commissaire’s sanctum. They would not be far away: a shouted command, a hidden buzzer .... whatever the means, Lux didn’t doubt that they could be mobilised at a second’s notice.
‘Well, Mr Lux.’ Barail placed a pair of reading glasses on the very tip of his neat and un-Gallic nose and peered over them. ‘Let us not beat about the bush. Thank you, first of all, for your co-operation.’
Lux didn’t take issue with the term, though he had good reason to.
‘You are here so that we can discuss your future residency on French soil,’ Barail went on.
‘You don’t say.’
‘No doubt you will recognise the authority that brings you here to my office.’ He passed Lux a wallet, slimmer and of softer leather than the Dubois version. Inside was a plastic identity card, also somewhat grander than that of his subordinate. Lux observed that the Commissaire’s first name was Julien, that he was fifty years old as of last December and an Officier of the Legion d’Honneur.
‘Presumably,’ Lux said, returning the wallet, ‘that entitles you to pull people in off the streets at whim.’
‘Actually, yes, it does. Not that I often exercise the right. Noblesse oblige, and all that.’ He tut-tutted then. ‘I’m forgetting my manners, do forgive me. Do you take your coffee black?’
‘White,’ Lux demurred, and accepted the ridiculous little cup that proved to contain barely a mouthful. The coffee was superb though.
Barail settled more comfortably in his chair before lighting a filter-tipped cigarette. He didn’t
offer Lux one. His file on the American would contain information on his vices and filter-tips was not among them. Lux glanced through the window at the grey outdoors. The rooftops of the surrounding buildings were the extent of the panorama. He was surprised that such a highly ranked official hadn’t rated a more attractive setting. Or maybe it was case of a dreary backcloth for a dreary job.
‘Your full name is Dennis Randolph Lux, known to acquaintances as Denny.’ He wasn’t asking, he was telling, demonstrating the substance of his file.
Don’t look impressed, Lux commanded himself. Don’t give the supercilious bastard any levers.
‘Age thirty-six, domiciled in France for the last five years, profession ...’ Barail patted the palms of his hands together softly, as if in mute applause. ‘Would you like to hear how we describe your profession?’
‘You’re going to tell me anyway,’ Lux said, with manufactured insouciance. ‘Aren’t you, Commissaire?’
He sighed. ‘This is not your first interrogation, is it, Mr Lux? You know how to put on a bold front. Profitless to try and terrorise you.’
‘We could play scrabble.’
‘Another time perhaps.’ He smiled then and some of the fleshiness slid from his face. ‘Let us cease all pretence: you are an assassin, certainly responsible for the deaths of at least six foreign nationals and probably twice as many more that no one has managed to connect to you. No French nationals, of that we are fairly sure. You are too astute to foul your own nest. In the USA you are wanted on suspicion of being an accessory to murder.’
In spite of himself Lux was almost impressed. Barail was right about the profession, wrong in his assessment of the numbers.
‘You flatter me.’
Barail’s lip curled ever so slightly. ‘We could invite the governments of your known victims to apply for your extradition at any time. You could spend many, many years in a foreign prison. You could even die there.’
‘But I won’t, will I, Commissaire? Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’
* * *
The Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) were created in 1944, after the liberation of France, and in theory act as a reserve organisation to the national police. In practice they play a variety of parts independently of the police. Their unique functions include protection of the French President and other high ranking officials and dignitaries, including those of foreign nationality, under the umbrella of the SPHP (le Service de Protection des Hautes Personnalités). As an offshoot of this activity they also oversee the security of presidential and ministerial residences and foreign embassies. Among their less glamorous duties are highway patrol, lifeguard service, mountain rescue, port security, and, notoriously, riot control.
Over the years, notably during the insurrectional strikes of 1947-48 and student riots of the early 1960s, they have gained an unenviable reputation as an arm of repression and in general are thoroughly disliked by the average French citizen. In Algeria, during the crisis from 1952 to 1962, they enforced law and order - an unenviable task given the mood of the indigenous population during that decade and the methods employed by the fellagha, the local terrorists. The CRS emerged with its uncompromising reputation intact.
As at February 1996 the CRS employed some 15,000 active officers of all grades from lowly Gardien de la Paix all the way up to Inspector General, plus thousands more in technical and administrative roles. Among their several locations within the environs of Paris they counted an eighteenth-century mansion near the south-west extremity of the Bois de Boulogne and within walking distance of Longchamps racetrack. Arguably the most upmarket of the outer suburbs of Paris.
It was early evening when Lux and Dubois’ team arrived before the gates of this property in the same black XM, with the same driver. Early evening and dark and cold, with frost already beginning to layer the pavements and verges.
The gates opened outwards, operated by a remote control. Recorded by several CCTV cameras they drove through into a cobbled courtyard hemmed in by a towering wall surmounted by revolving spikes, The building was well-lit outside and most of the ground floor windows were also illuminated. Barail let them in personally, shooed away a sallow-skinned young man in a badly fitting monkey suit who emerged from the woodwork at their entry. Dubois and his two henchmen stayed outside.
It was there, in a sitting room with a bar, a brace of buttoned leather armchairs and a coal fire burning in a black grate, that Barail explained to Lux what was wanted of him and what was offered in return, and this was where the cunning that had gained and secured the Commissaire’s place in the top echelons of the security services came into play.
He had reasoned that even a great deal of money would not on its own be enough to tempt the American to undertake such a hazardous contract, but that the prospect of a future without fear might make more of an impression. Accordingly, he had already set the scene with his threats of extradition. Now, as dressing to that threat, he began to unveil the framework of an impending coup d’état against the Government.
‘I represent an organisation who for the moment shall be nameless,’ he said suavely. ‘We have infiltrated the Government to a point where we are ready to usurp it.’
Lux kept a straight face; inwardly he was both startled and sceptical.
‘The first prerequisite for becoming the new Government of France is the elimination of the President.’
Lux’s expression now became one of outright amazement.
Barail nodded a confirmation. ‘Your incredulity is understandable, but I mean what I say. The president must die, will die. Plans are already under way. They are unstoppable.’
It was too baldly stated, too lacking in passion, to be believable. Lux suspected he was being led up some complicated garden path to an unknown and probably disagreeable terminus.
‘Why tell me?’ he said, his voice steadier than his emotions.
‘Is that your only comment?’
Lux stared. ‘You don’t mean to say you want constructive criticism?’
‘If you have any, I would welcome it.’
Lux wondered if the man was entirely sane. In which case, best to humour him.
‘Okay ... if you insist.’ He extended his feet towards the fire, gave the subject serious thought. ‘In a democracy you can’t expect to seize power simply by doing away with the country’s elected leader. You have no case, no cause, no justification.’
‘Agreed. But seizure doesn’t enter into it. Control will devolve upon us; we will succeed to it, just as the first in line to the throne of a monarchy succeeds on the death of the monarch - quite, quite naturally, no fuss at all.’
‘That means ...’ Lux didn’t finish as he realised he was unsure what it meant.
‘Work it out. If you will excuse me, I must make a telephone call. I shall not be long. Help yourself to a drink.’
He left by a second door that blended so sympathetically with the panelled wall in which it was set that Lux had been unaware of its existence.
The American’s first instinct on being left alone was flight. He dismissed this at once. Even if he slipped past the patrolling stooges, Commissaire Barail was indisputably an official of some substance and could turn him into a fugitive with a single telephone call. His second instinct was to kill the man. Which would probably mean killing the stooges too and maybe the lackey in the monkey suit, plus whoever else might be lurking about the premises. Killing, even in multiples, didn’t concern Lux, he was practised at it. But at best his arrest and incarceration would only be deferred. To kill and get away with it requires planning and preparation.
Then Barail, after a ten-minute absence, returned. ‘You are not drinking, my dear fellow,’ he chided. ‘Come, what shall it be to soothe away your rancour?’
‘Oh ... er, cognac.’
‘I will join you.’ Liquor splashed, golden under the concealed lighting above the bar, into balloon glasses.
‘You considered escaping?’ the Frenchman aske
d, with a genial curiosity as he rotated his glass. ‘While I was out of the room.’
‘I considered it.’ The cognac was a warming balm to Lux’s throat and stomach. He relaxed fractionally under its influence. ‘I also considered killing you and your troop of boy scouts and your servants.’
To hear it put so baldly caused Barail to blanch, the first fissure in his veneer of unflappability.
‘You could do it? I don’t mean physically, but you are capable - morally - of multiple murder?’
‘What have morals to do with murder? But to answer your question, yes, if it’s justified. In this case, I decided it wasn’t.’ Lux set his glass down on a table that was the twin of the narrow-stemmed affair in Barail’s office. ‘But it was a near thing.’
Barail’s breath fairly whistled through his teeth. ‘Merde. They said to tread softly around you. But I am pleased ... delighted. It confirms what we have on your file, that you are the man we need.’ His eyes were shining now, like the eyes of a rabbit caught in a car’s headlights.
‘Need? What exactly is this need, Commissaire? You’ve made your threats, explained how my future hangs on your whim, put me in a frame of mind to co-operate. Now tell me what you want from me.’
Barail’s answer was mere formality. Merely the nod that punctuates what is already perceived and understood. And, in this case, dreaded.
‘From you, monsieur? Why, to assassinate our President, what else?’
Lux had made it a rule to steer clear of high profile figures. The heat such assassinations generated was too searing. His niche was private individuals with a justifiable grudge. People without friends in high places. People whose demise rated no more than a single- column five-centimetre write up in the press and no mention at all on TV. People who were not missed.
‘Would you care to state your price?’ Barail said, once he saw that Lux had absorbed the first shock.
‘For killing Chirac?’ He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t touch the job, not for any amount of dough. It’s too big for one man. Especially this man.’ He tapped his own chest.