by Lex Lander
Barail had been primed for rejection. He had two big arguments going for him: even if Lux was able to slip his clutches here and now, the release of his confidential dossier to the DCPJ would lead to almost certain arrest. This was negative reinforcement. It was blackmail, but of the most efficacious kind.
His second argument stood the first on its head.
‘Let’s look at the other side of the coin,’ he said in a tone of great reasonableness. ‘Whilst I can offer you imprisonment, by the same authority I can offer you freedom. By that I mean absolute freedom. A wiping clean of the slate, an official absolution, the destruction of all records about you, including computer records. And on top of this, a written guarantee of immunity against any and all applications for extradition. You would be free from fear of arrest for as long as you remained in France, for as long as you live.’
Perhaps unknowingly he had touched upon the most exposed of Lux’s nerves. Like all transgressors he lived a state of perpetual if generally dormant dread that one day he would be called on to pay the penalty for his sins. It was a dread that never completely let go. It was a dread that kept him looking over his shoulder when walking along a street, that made him suspicious of every glance, nervous of every approach. Now he saw clearly why Barail had him picked up at Françoise’s apartment, understood that the incident had been cynically stage-managed to underscore his vulnerability. To make him appreciate how fickle was his freedom, here one day, gone the next.
What Barail was offering was lasting as distinct from provisional freedom. No more uncertainty, no more suspicion. Lux could come as he pleased, go as he pleased, He could even - if he interpreted Barail correctly - kill as he pleased, so long as he did it outside the frontiers of France. No longer need he shun every policeman, plan his moves selectively so as not to draw attention, be constantly on the alert. In France, he would be no different from anyone else. Just another law-abiding citizen.
It was an attractive prospect. It was a lot more than that.
‘If I agreed, if I did it ... how could I be sure you would keep your side of the bargain? Afterwards ... you would want to shut me up. You couldn’t risk having me tell who hired me.’
Barail took that comfortably in his stride. So comfortably that Lux guessed he had fine-tuned his arguments in advance.
‘Let us be honest with each other. A government can - and does - eliminate whomsoever it wishes. Removing you from the face of the earth now or later would require little more than a signature on a piece of paper and a snap of my fingers. No such thing exists as an absolute guarantee. All I can say is that the necessary papers will be drawn up by someone already empowered to do so, and that that someone will have equal if not greater authority ... afterwards. In other words, he will not become one of the ousted. If that is not enough, tell me what will satisfy you. Not that I promise to supply it, you understand.’
If, by appearing so open, he thought to lull Lux’s worries he was a mistaken man. Lux raised his brandy glass, let the bouquet satiate his nostrils, drank with slow appreciation.
‘You like?’ Barail was studying him, a slanted smile dimpling one cheek.
Lux answered with a nod. ‘Suppose I told you that I would deposit an exposé with my will, to be opened in the event of my death by any other means than natural causes.’
Barail laughed. ‘You read too many romans policiers, Mr Lux. And thank you for the advance notice. We will simply have to be sure that you appear to die of natural causes. You must know that there any many ways of accomplishing this.’
‘And you, Commissaire, must know there are many forms of insurance.’
Barail’s hands were spread wide on the desk top. His fingers, Lux noticed, were unusually thin and tapering, like altar candles.
‘So we will each be the other’s guarantor.’ He correctly read Lux’s expression at this facile declaration and went on, ‘If you would wish to retain the freedom we will give you, not to mention avoid arrest for the assassination then you will obviously remain silent about who hired you.’
The coals in the grate shifted, popping. There was silence between the two men for a minute while Lux pondered. The deed itself was something he had yet to come to terms with. It could wait awhile. Its magnitude was no deterrent. No use deciding whether he could and would go through with it until he was assured that he would survive to savour into old age the fruits it brought him. Unless the aftermath could be made secure, he would take his chances with what he had: eliminate Barail and take off for the nearest frontier.
He didn’t trust Barail. Even more certainly he didn’t trust the man’s political overlords. Any faction that could initiate the murder of a democratically elected head of state was not over-blessed with honour and scruple. Though he didn’t know them personally, he was familiar with the type: the power craze that leads ultimately to paranoia - uneasy lies the head, and all that baloney. Whatever deal he negotiated, they would seek to eliminate him in the interests of security as a matter of course.
No, he should get out now while he was still able. Overpower Barail, preferably with the minimum of fuss so as not to alert the boy scouts outside. If necessary - and it might well be - he would kill him with his bare hands.
‘Relax, my friend.’ Barail’s voice came as if from another plane, detached and disembodied. Without even being aware of it Lux had tensed to pounce, would have been on Barail while the CRS Commissaire’s backside was still glued to the chair. ‘Relax,’ he said again, soothing as a hypnotist to his subject. ‘Violence is unnecessary.’
Lux expelled air, felt his pulse rate slacken. He didn’t speak, couldn’t.
‘Let me get you some more of that.’ Barail indicated the empty balloon glass. ‘Your nerves are in shreds.’
Lux let him go to the bar, wondering whether he would exchange the glass for a gun. He didn’t. He poured generously, came back with the recharged glass in one hand and an envelope-type folder of what was probably imitation leather in the other.
‘This is the dossier on you,’ he told Lux as the balloon glass changed hands and dropped the folder in the American’s lap. It was weighty, a good hundred pages. ‘It is yours to keep.’
‘This isn’t the only copy,’ Lux said hoarsely.
Barail lit a cigarette, holding it in the root of his index- and middle fingers. ‘Hardly. It is merely a gesture. It changes nothing. You can walk out of here and if I wish to have you arrested because of what is in there or on some other pretext, or deported, or simply obliterated without trace, I will do it with or without evidence.’ Smoke was ejected from his mouth in little squirts as he talked. ‘Otherwise my proposition still stands. An official clean slate, in advance, in return for the death of the President. Think what it means, my friend - total immunity, for the whole of the rest of your life.’
‘All right,’ Lux said. ‘Let’s suppose I trust you implicitly to deliver. What happens if your people don’t form the next government after all? Where would that leave me - the man who killed the President? Your precious promises won’t be worth a franc ancien. You won’t be able to discharge them.’
Barail’s hesitation at this exposure of the weak spot in his hypothesis was so slight as to pass unnoticed by Lux.
‘Provided your aim is true,’ he said smoothly, ‘there is no question of our not forming the new Government. As I already explained to you, there will be no change of government, or of its structure. All that will happen is a minor reshuffle of personnel. A new president, our nominee, will step into Chirac’s place. All perfectly legitimate and in strict accordance with the Constitution. Everything is in place.’
Though Barail spoke with conviction Lux was not wholly convinced. Either it was the whole truth, in which case he had no cause to worry, or it was lies, in which case Barail would continue to lie, probably plausibly, and it would be impossible to tell.
‘One last question,’ Lux said, if only to show he was no pushover.
‘Yes?’
‘Why me specially? Why not use one
of your own assassins?’
Barail smoothed the wings of his thick but lightly greying hair, not hurrying, assembling his reply.
‘The truth is, Mr Lux, there isn’t one among them I can trust enough to ask.’
Eleven
* * *
From here on Lux’s every move would be conditioned by the assumption that he was being watched. It mattered not whether the instigator was the Police Judiciare, the CRS, or some other security department. His code of conduct was ever to play it safe.
Accordingly, on taking his leave of Françoise to fly to Nice by Air Inter he did a quadruple switch of trains on the Paris Metro, followed by two changes of taxi and direction. Finally he left Orly on a flight booked under a phoney identity for which he possessed all the right documentation.
His precautions were a huge overkill, for the agent assigned to the task by Dubois lost him after the second switch on the Metro.
* * *
They were three: Rafael Simonelli, Commissaire Divisionnaire Barail, and the American, Lux. Three men, plotting to kill the President of the Republic of France.
Unreal, yet real. Fantastic, yet fact. Insanity, yet the project of sane if fanatical beings.
The room in the restored country house was lofty of ceiling and cool, the shutters secured half-open, allowing only a narrow bar of anaemic winter sunlight to enter. The chatter of birds from the garden was just audible. It was a peaceful, restful situation. A place to retire to, to put up one’s feet in and reflect with gratitude on a full life or with regret on an empty one. It belonged to a very old, very rich, very right-wing comte whose forbears were among the few aristocrats to escape the revolutionary backlash two hundred years previously.
Simonelli and Barail were not natural confederates. On the one hand the slim, black-haired, crook nosed terrorist, former enemy of the State; on the other the big and burly, running slightly to seed professional soldier, sometime aide of the French neo-Nazi, Jean-Marie Le Pen; an ex-paratroop regiment commander and a pied-noir. An unlikely partnership. Wedded, nevertheless, for the purpose of ridding France of its present Head of State. Wedded in the highest of high treason.
Simonelli was talking and pacing - short steps, hands clasped in the small of his back in the manner of another, earlier Corsican, who had conquered and lost most of Europe. He paced in circles rather than straight lines. To keep him in sight Lux was required to screw his neck round. Barail declined to make the effort, maintaining a blank stare at some indefinable point on the wall opposite, occasionally taking a deliberate pull at his filter-tipped cigarette.
As for Lux … he was no more than the chosen tool, the hired gun, the man who for payment would bring about the desired end, namely the death of a president. Like most of his breed he was apolitical. He had killed, often and for ever-increasing sums of money, men and occasionally women of varying degrees of deservedness. He had steered clear of kings and presidents and dictators and all whose only crime was that they occupied a throne coveted by others. Until this fine, sunny February afternoon, the day after St Valentine’s Day, when the covenant was to be made and his fate, whatever it may be, sealed.
But he was in a quandary. A week’s pondering of Barail’s proposition had led him to the jaundiced conclusion that, even if Barail and his faceless principals were men of their word, the coveted ‘immunity’ would have dubious legal gravitas. Would it really bind the next government? If not, he would be no better off than he was right now. Yet his choices were few. If he refused to go through with it, Barail would have him killed, sooner or later. He knew too much now - way, way too much. So if he was to go through with it, he must take out other insurance, he must demand a high enough price to buy him a safe haven and protection for life.
Simonelli wound up his diatribe on the various means by which the President could be assassinated and ended his pacing in front of Lux.
‘So what is your professional opinion, Lux?’
Lux altered his position slightly so that he didn’t have to crick his neck looking up at Simonelli.
‘My opinion? Well, it seems to me you’re getting ahead of yourself, pal. I haven’t agreed to do the job yet. We haven’t even discussed the rate.’
‘Quoi?’ Simonelli glanced towards Barail. ‘Is this true? You said - ’
‘You deduced,’ Barail corrected. ‘I told you I was confident that he would agree, no more than that.’
Simonelli now remembered Barail’s words and suddenly felt foolish. He breathed out hard, angry with no one but himself.
‘Very well. So I have wasted ten minutes speaking of practicalities.’ He shrugged. ‘We will come back to them when … if… we agree terms.’
‘Right,’ Lux said, straight of face.
‘We are offering you guaranteed legal immunity from extradition by any other state for your past crimes committed on their soil, whatever they may be. That is the deal.’
‘I’ve been thinking it over …’ Lux said.
‘And?’ Simonelli prompted during the pause.
‘And I want ten million on top. So that I can really enjoy this wonderful immunity you’re going to grant me.’
Again Simonelli glanced at Barail, who made a smoke ring and looked bored. Money was not a problem, at any rate not his problem.
‘Ten million francs is a lot of gravy, my friend,’ Simonelli said, purposely injecting menace into his tone.
Lux looked amused. ‘Did I say francs? Get real, Simonelli. This is big league. It’s not your neck under the knife. I want ten million US dollars and I want an agreement here and now and payment of ten per cent tomorrow or I walk - out of here and out of France. But first …’ He reached down to his left ankle, faster than the eye could follow, and even as Simonelli and Barail understood what was about to happen, a very short, very narrow automatic pistol was in the American’s hand and aimed at Simonelli.
‘Seen one of these before, gentlemen?’ he said, with a tight little smile. ‘It’s a Beretta Jetfire. It may look tiny but even a .25 bullet in the right place - or the wrong place if you happen to be on the receiving end - can do all sorts of damage, and there are eight in the grip and another up the spout. But I won’t need as many as that.’
Simonelli was suitably impressed. ‘Weren’t your men supposed to have frisked him, Commissaire?’ he said, in a jeering tone.
‘Indeed,’ Barail admitted, privately furious with the apparent laxity of his subordinates. ‘Heads will roll.’
‘Including, quite possibly, ours,’ Simonelli observed, eyeing the little pistol.
‘No good can come of recrimination,’ Barail said. ‘Mr Lux wants ten million dollars US, if I understand him correctly?’
Lux nodded, still pointing the gun, still not trusting either man.
‘You over-rate yourself and us,’ Simonelli said. ‘The treasury’s not that fat. Two million possibly, just possibly, but ten? It can’t be done, mon pote.’
‘Not so hasty.’ Barail was inclined to be more philosophical. Only two days ago he had received a report on Eddie Nixon from the French Embassy in Wellington via the diplomatic bag. It included an assessment of the New Zealander’s worth. It reassured Barail that funding was not a constraint. ‘Let us at least pass on the message. It can do no harm.’
Simonelli looked sceptical but grunted an assent of sorts. ‘So be it.’ He plucked a cellphone from the holster on his belt. ‘I will transmit your request to the appropriate quarters.’
He composed the number of another cellphone and waited. His call was answered after two rings.
‘Salut, ma petite biche, c’est moi, Napoleon …’
* * *
‘He is too good for his own good,’ Barail said.
Simonelli was preoccupied in scanning a map. Ash dropped from his cigarette onto it and he wiped it away with a grunt of irritation, leaving a grey smear across the bay of St Tropez.
‘Once it is done, you may have to kill him.’
Barail massaged his forehead with his pointed
fingertips. ‘It would not be as simple as that. He will take certain steps to safeguard himself, he has already said this.’
It was long past midnight, a brilliant full moon bleaching the countryside. The stillness around the house was broken only by the occasional hoo-hoo of an owl; the comte, three generations of his family, and sundry retainers slumbered on the floors above. Only the two conspirators were awake.
‘Only a fool would trifle with such a man,’ Barail went on. ‘You do not survive for eight years in his profession by trusting people or by lacking in resource. If … and I emphasise the “if” … I decide that he should be silenced permanently once he has done his work, I shall not undertake it lightly, of that you may be sure. It might rebound on me.’
Simonelli’s sleek head jerked up. ‘Rebound on you? How do you mean?’
‘Simply that he might get me before I can get him.’
Simonelli laughed without humour. ‘Underrate yourself if you must, Commissaire, but don’t underrate me. If you want him killed - ’ that plain-speaking again; Barail winced. ‘- I will take care of it. At a price.’
That, for Simonelli, rendered further debate irrelevant. He went back to pondering the map, wiping Lux from his thoughts as cleanly and completely as chalk writings from a schoolroom blackboard.
Twelve
* * *
‘Nice apartment,’ Lux remarked as he wandered into the living room - a room big enough to accommodate a tennis court.
‘Thank you,’ Sheryl Glister said, ‘but it’s not mine.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Lux wondered if the room or she or both were wired for sound. As always he would stay non-committal, let her do the serious talking.
‘My name’s Jill Walker,’ she said, using her mother’s maiden name.
‘Hi.’
‘It was good of you to come,’ she said, watching him, approving of what she saw; physically at least. His dress sense was good too, something she esteemed in a man: a mid-grey suit over a plain pale blue shirt, open at the neck. Casual but classy.