by Lex Lander
Was he?
Even as he convinced himself new doubts assailed him. He strolled across to where a beige-suited Commissaire Barail stood, smoking and contemplating the hillside.
‘Everything seems to be proceeding very smoothly, Monsieur le Commissaire,’ he remarked, from a crumpled pack.
‘Quite. I feel almost superfluous.’
‘My wife is not happy about me working the weekend,’ Mazé said conversationally, though he did not grudge the loss of leisure time in the slightest. This was big league and he was excited to be a part of it, this bringing to fruition his toils of the past ten weeks, to have serendipity turn into a major success for the security forces. Not to mention playing a key part in saving the life of the President of the Republic.
Barail, who had spent the past twenty-four hours at the Crillon house supposedly overseeing the security operation but largely kicking his heels, grunted neutrally. He couldn’t have cared less about Mazé’s domestic vicissitudes. To observe the results of his labours first-hand and thereafter verify the transfer of the balance of his Greenwar pay check to his account in Liechtenstein, were his only missions.
Unlike Mazé, he was not at all uneasy about the extent of the security screen. Lux had been made aware of the numbers and the dispositions, and still had expressed no reservations about his ability to go through with it. Barail was absolutely confident that, by this time tomorrow, Jacques Chirac would be dead.
* * *
Sheryl came awake in the early dawn half-light, her mind instantly alert. This is D-Day minus one, was her opening thought.
Rafael Simonelli lay beside her on his back, lightly snoring. She smiled at him with real affection if not real love. Once she had loved him but those feelings had not after all been rekindled. Now it was partly companionship, partly the sex, which was bloody great, that made her relish his company. Once this Chirac business was over she would be off back to Enzed, probably never to see him again and with no regrets.
‘Napoleon,’ she said, digging a finger in his flank.
The snoring stopped, punctuated with a snort, and he came lazily awake.
‘Napoleon,’ she said, more sharply now.
‘Qu’est qu’il y a?’ he complained.
‘Fuck me, will you?’
Silence. Then he rolled onto his side to bring his groin into contact with hers.
‘You want me to fuck you - now?’ He was having difficulty unsticking his eyelids but lower down all parts seemed to be working fine.
‘Would you mind?’
‘Tu es folle, ma biche,’ he said, coming wide awake and grinning. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘Oh, shut up and just get on with it. This might be your last chance. I’ll be too tense tonight.’
As he climbed on top of her he frowned. ‘Too tense? Why is that?’
‘You mean you won’t be? Like it’s every day you organise the assassination of a head of state.’
He stopped what he had started to do and swore obscenely. ‘Can you believe it? I completely forgot tomorrow is the day.’
‘Yes, I had heard that excessive snoring dulls the brain.’
‘Cheeky bitch. For that I will make you sorry you didn’t let me sleep on.’
Sheryl stretched her arms above her head and let her tongue circumnavigate her lips, giving them an ephemeral gloss. She couldn’t recall when last she was so aroused.
‘Go right ahead, lover boy. Make me sorry.’
That was when they discovered that the bed creaked.
* * *
In the next room Gary Rosenbrand listened to the rhythm of the creaking bed and the girlish squeals that beat time with it. He wished he were the one doing the rogering. It wasn’t so much that Sheryl turned him on sexually. He just missed his home comforts, presently twelve thousand miles away.
To think of Sheryl shagging that greasy Frog brought out the racist in him. He pulled the duvet over his head like a tortoise withdrawing into its shell and tried to go back to sleep.
* * *
Lux ran through his mental checklist while perched at the breakfast bar scoffing a muesli, the aroma of percolating coffee titillating his nostrils. It was a longish list: rifle (loaded), spare magazine (loaded) handgun (loaded), spare ammunition, silencer, hunting knife, a short spade, a hammer and some six-inch nails, sunglasses, clear protective glasses (to prevent low-level branches from poking his eyes out), oilskins, fatigues, forage cap, towel, black boots, gendarme’s uniform complete with kepi, belt, holster (empty for now); knapsack to carry all these things, excluding the rifle and the spade. Also an ID card, though that would go in his pocket. Provisions would include a bar of chocolate, a couple of apples and a 1.5 litre bottle of Evian. He would stoke up before he left to keep the worst of the pangs at bay.
The morning news on the radio was fairly bland and included an item about the President’s impending short break ‘dans le Midi’. Just a flat statement to the effect, no commentary or nameless quotes.
Lux munched away, his appetite as voracious as if tomorrow were just a day like any other. He thought he might try calling Ghislaine, though she would most likely be on the autoroute by now, heading south. He didn’t want to distract her from duelling with the traffic. Everybody knew all French motorists were homicidally mad and that you messed with them at your peril.
Later, donning shorts, he went for a stroll along the foreshore towards the Cap des Sardineaux. The sun kept going in and the sea was choppy, foaming white around the base of the lighthouse of the Tourelle de la Seche-à-Huile. When he reached the Cap he sat there for quite a while, the dry, brittle grass prickling the backs of his bare legs, savouring the miracle that was planet Earth and revelling in the power of life and death such as he possessed - a power that soon, very soon now, he would exercise for the good of that planet.
* * *
It was early evening. The clouds had dispersed, the sky in the east was a deepening blue, the first subliminal hint of the night to come. Lux was demolishing a sandwich consisting of a baguette with a cheese and tomato filling when the scrunch of gravel in the driveway announced a wheeled visitor.
A glance through the kitchen window reassured him that this visitor was expected - Tomas Leandri in the bogus RG Citroën. Plus accomplice. Dusting crumbs from his hands, Lux strolled out through the front entrance to greet them.
Leandri was first out of the car. A salutation and handshake later he presented his companion, who was coming around the car to meet his employer. Although he was expecting it, Lux found the experience of confronting his mirror image, even down to the identical grey suit and tie, disturbing beyond belief.
The man thrust out a hand. ‘Robert Bernanos.’
‘Hi, Robert. Tomas calls me Yank and it’s all you need to know.’
In build Robert Bernanos was as specified, a near-clone of Lux. His hair was muddy blond, styled like Lux’s, his eyes were grey-blue. Appearance-wise, to anyone other than an intimate, he would pass for the real thing.
‘Satisfied with your other self?’ Leandri said with a smirk.
‘He’s me all right,’ Lux said, still a little unnerved. He subjected Bernanos’s neck to scrutiny, in the area where the mask blended with real skin. Only the faintest hairline join was visible. ‘Is the hair colour natural?’
‘It’s a wig,’ Bernanos confessed, a mite sheepishly. ‘I’m bald really.’
Lux decided it was irrelevant. Nobody was going to inspect his hair.
‘Bien.’ Leandri went to the rear of the car and opened the trunk lid. ‘Now, come and see the trunk.’
Lux went and saw the trunk. At first sight it looked no different from when he first viewed it: empty, lined with grey moquette.
‘What about the modification?’ he asked Leandri.
The Corsican’s smirk widened. ‘It’s there.’
And so it was. On closer examination Lux saw that the space between the lip of the trunk and the panel that separated it from the passenger section was smaller.
He whistled his appreciation of the craftsmanship. No means of moving the panel were evident. It looked like an original fixture.
When he rapped a knuckle on it, it sounded hollow.
‘How does it open?’ he said.
Leandri produced a stubby screwdriver from his hip pocket and thrust it beneath the rear parcel shelf, about a foot in from the left. He levered with the screwdriver tip. There was a popping noise. He repeated the procedure a foot from the right and the panel suddenly fell open, revealing a space which, if Leandri had used the measurements given to him, should have been forty cm deep. Lux noticed that the top edge of the panel had a hinged strip along its entire width, into which two large press-studs had been set. The lower edge of the panel was also hinged, but screwed to the floor. Being attached to the inner side of the panel, the hinge was invisible in the closed position.
‘Simple, eh, Yank?’ Leandri said, looking smug. ‘You don’t need a degree in engineering for something like this.’
‘It looks good,’ Lux agreed, as he examined the top edge of the panel. The hinge there was no more than a separate length of wood, of identical thickness to the panel itself and about two centimetres wide, joined to the panel by the carpet. A gap of a few millimetres between the two pieces of wood allowed the hinged strip to flex back and forth and air to enter.
‘Take a look at this,’ Leandri said, a boastful note entering his voice as he led Lux around the side of the car and opened a rear door.
Lux looked. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just seats and a carpeted floor.
Leandri broke into a guffaw. ‘The seat back is about five centimetres forward from its usual position and most of the padding has been removed.’ He tapped the narrow panel of leather that had been inserted at the end of the seat cushion to fill the gap created by the repositioning. It blended seamlessly with the rest of the upholstery.
‘By moving the rear seat forward I didn’t have to encroach too much on the trunk space, which is why you don’t notice the loss of depth. Effectively, I shared the space taken up by the compartment between the trunk and the inside of the car. Clever, no?’
‘You’re a genius, my friend.’ Lux slapped him on the back, genuinely impressed, before turning towards Bernanos. ‘And you? Are you clear on what’s required of you?’
‘Certainement, Monsieur Yank.’
Assurances on their own meant nothing to Lux.
‘So tell me.’
With a shrug of insouciance, Lux’s double ran through the expected sequence of events and his role in them without a stumble. He concluded with, ‘And do not forget, monsieur, when we change places you must give me your ID.’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ Lux said but the irony was lost on Bernanos. ‘Now, let’s get ready to roll. Just give me a minute to make sure there hasn’t been a last-minute change of plan.’
From inside the house he called Barail’s current cellphone.
‘Everything okay at your end?’ he asked the Commissaire in English, without identifying himself.
‘No problems here. JC is due to arrive at 11.30 plus or minus thirty minutes. The grounds have been checked and the men are now stationed around the wall. All you have to do is get inside.’
‘Plain sailing,’ Lux agreed nonchalantly. ‘And my wheels?’
‘A Clio. It is in the car park, about halfway along.’ He reeled off the plate number. ‘Keys under the carpet to the left of the clutch pedal.’
‘If anybody else takes it I’ll hold you personally responsible. Now listen - in the next hour or so you´ll be visited by two RG men, making a special delivery.’
A beat, then, ‘A delivery? What of?’
‘Nothing. You’re simply playing a part in my method of getting in undetected.’
‘What!’
Lux imagined he could feel the spray from Barail’s splutter.
‘Only a bit part, don’t worry. All you have to do is be there and receive an envelope.’
‘What’s in it?’ The suspicion in Barail’s voice was an almost tangible thing.
‘I told you - nothing. Chill out, Barail. Just play along.’
Lux hung up, slicing through Barail’s next question or protest, whatever it was. On the couch was a bulging garbage bag, a short-handled spade, and a long bubble-wrapped package sealed with masking tape that contained the Barrett. He gathered them all up and went outside to where Leandri was adjusting the knot of his tie in his reflection in the window. He dumped everything in the trunk, closed the lid. Bernanos was already occupying the rear seat, gnawing his nails.
‘Let’s go, Tomas.’
‘Before we do,’ Leandri said, restraining Lux with the flat of his hand on the American’s chest. ‘I wish you to explain something to me.’
Lux tensed but said nothing.
‘It seems strange to me that you do not ride in the hidden compartment yourself? If you did, Robert would not be necessary. When we arrive chez Crillon you would simply emerge from your hiding place and do what you must do. I drive in alone, I drive out alone. Voila! One less mouth to blab, one less wage to pay.’
‘You really want to know, Tomas?’ Lux bared his teeth. ‘It is because I never place myself in a situation where I am at someone else’s mercy. With all that you know about what I intend to do, I am trusting you with the success or failure of this job. That is one hell of a lot of trust, and it’s already more than enough. But to make myself helpless as well, to place my life in your hands? Uh-uh.’ Lux’s headshake was emphatic. ‘No, my friend, I wouldn’t trust any human being that far, even a Corsican one.’ To soften the slight he made a fist and threw a mock punch at Leandri’s jaw. ‘A dog, now, I would trust a dog.’
‘But not a dog like me, hey?’
‘You’re saying it, pal.’ Lux heard a hoot of laughter from inside the car. ‘Now, if you’re happy, can we get moving…?’
* * *
The dashboard clock read 21:50. It was dark and it was dry. Up here, as the road climbed past the two hundred metre level the faintest suspicion of a chill in the air. Down at sea level, in Ste Maxine, it had been balmy.
The props were as authentic as bribery could buy: the car with the government plates, the guns, the IDs. All from an impeccable source - the CRS, courtesy of Commissaire Divisionnaire Julien Barail. In a suit, off-the-peg and ill-fitting, Leandri had the authentic air of an underpaid security thug.
‘After all,’ Barail had said sardonically to Lux, ‘that is precisely what the security forces of this country are made up of - thugs.’
‘You should know,’ Lux had retorted.
All the more reason not to fall into their hands, he thought, as the Citroën passed the sign that informed one and all that the Col du Canadel alt. 267m was one kilometre ahead. The night sky was a panoply of sparkling stars that decorated the windshield. Then the road twisted to the left and dipped, and the heavens were replaced by the looming mass of Le Drapeau.
Leandri was inclined to be taciturn. He drove the car, that was his job. He wasn’t being paid to natter. Once, when the undipped headlights of an oncoming vehicle dazzled him, he shouted ‘Merde!’ and shook his fist. Lux let him be. Himself focused on the task ahead, he was content to let the wiry Corsican keep his counsel and his attention on the road. Bernanos too was tight-lipped, perhaps increasingly queasy about his pending confinement. In the mirror his head was a silhouette without features.
When Lux did break the silence, twenty minutes into their journey, it was to direct Leandri to take the next right. Even as he spoke the sagging ‘Molières’ sign came up and Leandri swung the wheel. The ascent grew steeper.
‘Here’s the dirt road,’ Lux said suddenly, indicating a gap in the hedge, beyond it a track, overgrown, leading to nowhere apparent. A pair of animal eyes sparkled in the headlights then were gone.
Leandri drove along for about a minute, only stopping when the track faded to nothing. The three men piled out. Leandri popped the trunk; Bernanos scrambled in, over Lux’s baggage,
and wriggled into position in the compartment, which had been left open. It was a snug fit. His body was angled at forty-five degrees, his trunk twisted, his legs bent and intertwined at the ankles. A couple of cushions helped smooth the hard surfaces. Even so, the next few minutes, the last lap to the Crillon place, was not going to be a comfortable ride.
Lux upended the garbage bag: a bulging knapsack tumbled out, followed by oilskins, fatigues, gendarme’s uniform complete with kepi, provisions, and the rest. The boots he was already wearing; the sunglasses and protective glasses would go in the breast pockets of his fatigues.
The butt of the gun fitted between the Bernanos’s legs. The barrel, being the lightest part, simply by-passed his chest and was propped on the curve of the wheel arch, a bare inch from his nose. The spade and the loose items were packed wherever they would fit. When the panel was closed it would hold everything, animate and inanimate, securely in position.
‘Ca va, mon vieux?’ Leandri enquired of Bernanos.
A grimace and a nod from Bernanos, and Leandri swung the panel upwards and clicked it into position.
‘Sooner him than me,’ Lux muttered, almost wishing he had come up with a different solution. The lifelikeness of the mask still bothered him. It was like shutting himself in a coffin. Creepy.
‘Relax, Yank,’ Leandri said as he secured the hinged strip. ‘He’s been in tighter spots than this for a lot less money.’
‘Yeah. It’s too late for a Plan B anyhow, even if I had one. Now, let’s roll. The Crillon house is only a few minutes from here.’
Leandri got back behind the wheel, Lux beside him, fondling the MAB PA-15 automatic under his armpit. A bullet was already up the spout. If he needed to use it, if his plan went askew, he would be fast on the trigger. Leandri was similarly armed and prepared. He was under no illusions either. Lux had made sure of that.
They reversed back to the road and rejoined it. Less than half a kilometre later the headlights picked out the fallen pine that denoted the fork. Last opportunity to take a different route, Lux reflected. To get the hell out of here and forget about the contract. To go home, to a waiting Ghislaine. To his woman.