The Ambler Warning

by Robert Ludlum

“There’s no delay,” Laurel said. She opened her large handbag and pulled out a furled copy of the International Herald Tribune. “Something you were saying about that Le Monde story made me think of it.”

  “Come again?”

  “Tomorrow night,” Laurel said. “President Liu Ang’s big night.”

  “What are you talking about?” Ambler said.

  “I’m talking about the World Economic Forum,” she said. “I’m talking about what’s happening in Davos this week.”

  Ambler began to pace as he thought out loud. “Liu Ang leaves the security of the Beijing cocoon for the first time since taking office. He comes to the West, makes his big speech, designed to make everybody feel warm and fuzzy toward the great tiger.”

  “Palmer couldn’t have put it better himself,” Caston said acerbically.

  “In the midst of which, he’s gunned down.”

  “Removed from the equation.” Caston looked contemplative. “But by whom?”

  Fenton’s voice: Got a real exciting project for you coming up. But don’t pack your skis just yet.

  Ambler did not speak for a long moment. “Could Fenton have thought I would do it?”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Here’s the thing. I’ve been wrapping my mind around Fenton’s death. To me, that killing is evidence of something. It’s exactly the kind of loose end that you snip off when an operation is about to reach a climax.”

  “You speak so bloodlessly,” Caston said. “You sure you’ve never been an accountant?”

  “Chalk it up to a career spent in the service of the Political Stabilization Unit,” Ambler said. “That’s an important signpost. Another is that the assassin may well be someone I know. Someone I worked with on a previous Stab operation.”

  “That makes no sense,” Laurel said.

  “Stab prided itself on hiring the best of the best. Fenton prided himself on hiring the best of Stab. If you were entrusting someone with the assassination of the Chinese president, wouldn’t you get the best-trained person you could?”

  “And if it were a Stab operative,” Laurel said slowly, “the odds are that you’d have had some dealings with the person.”

  “Absolutely,” Ambler said.

  “Well, fuck a duck,” Caston said. “Do either of you have any idea what we’re looking at? If it’s Davos, then we’re too late.”

  “We’ve got to figure out—”

  “We’ve got to figure out what happens after,” Caston said glumly. “Because the consequences . . . my God. The consequences. President Liu Ang is an incredibly beloved figure in China—he’s like JFK and the pope and John Lennon all wrapped into one. When he’s killed, a country of one-point-four billion people is going to be roiled by outrage. I mean, goddamn keening hysteria of the kind that’ll deafen you halfway around the globe, and that hysteria is going to turn into wrath in a heartbeat, if anything—and I mean anything—should connect the assassination to members of the U.S. government. Do you have any idea what kind of safety valve you need for one-point-four billion outraged citizens? It could plunge the nations into war, OK? The belligerents could take over Zhongnanhai overnight.”

  “To risk that you’d have to be a fanatic,” Laurel said.

  “Like Ashton Palmer and his disciples.” Ambler felt the blood drain from his face.

  Laurel looked off in the middle distance as she repeated the words that once expressed Ambler’s youthful yearnings. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

  “Dammit, it’s not over until it’s over,” Ambler said. Fury surged into his voice. “I’m not going to let them get away with this.”

  Now Caston leaped from his chair and started to walk back and forth. “They’ll have thought this through. From every angle. Who knows how long they’ve been working on this? An operation like this, there will be a deep cover agent in place, and a backup, too. I’ve audited enough operations to know that operational redundancies are standard. An operation like this has got to have a hidden fail-safe mechanism. A call-off code. And some strategy of misdirection. There’s always got to be a fall guy.” His gaze sharpened. “It would simplify matters if that was also the gunman, of course. But we’ve got to assume they’ve done a thorough assessment of the parameters. All the parameters.”

  “An operation always involves human beings,” Ambler said, a hint of defiance in his voice. “And human beings never quite behave like integers in a matrix, Caston. You can’t quantify the human factor—not with any precision. That’s what people like you never understand.”

  “And what people like you never understand is that—”

  “Guys,” Laurel interjected impatiently, tapping on the newspaper. “Guys. It says here that he’s speaking at Davos at five tomorrow afternoon. That’s less than twenty-four hours from now.”

  “Oh dear Christ,” Ambler breathed.

  Laurel’s eyes shifted from Ambler to Caston and back again. “Can’t we just alert everyone?”

  “Trust me, they’re already operating on top alert,” Ambler said. “That’s how they do business. The trouble is, there have been so many death threats against this guy that there’s a serious boy-who-cried-wolf problem at this point. They know about the threats. There’s nothing new there. And Liu Ang refuses to be immobilized by them.”

  Laurel looked bewildered, desperate. “Can you explain that this time the threat’s really, really serious?”

  Caston shot her a glance. “I’ll do that,” he said. “I’m sure it’ll make all the difference.” Now he turned to Ambler. “You really think there’s a chance you’d recognize the assassin?”

  “Yes,” Ambler said simply. “I think they’d meant to recruit me for the job. But you’re right, of course: Fenton doesn’t work without a ‘backstop.’ An understudy has the job now. And he’s bound to be from the same talent pool.”

  For a while, the three were silent.

  “Even if he wasn’t,” Laurel said hesitantly, “you’d still be able to pick up on him. You’ve done it before—you have that gift of seeing.”

  “I’ve done it before,” Ambler acknowledged. “It’s just that the stakes were never nearly this high. Still, what choice is there?”

  Laurel flushed. “You don’t owe anyone anything, Hal,” she said, suddenly agitated. “Don’t be a hero. Let’s just disappear, all right?”

  “Is that what you really want?”

  “Yes,” she said, and then she murmured, “No.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said in a muffled voice. “All I know is—if that’s where you’re going, that’s where I’m going. There’s no other place I feel safe. You know that.”

  Ambler pulled her close, pressed his forehead to hers, and squeezed her tightly. “OK,” he whispered, and he did not know whether the catch in his voice was of laughter or sorrow. “OK.”

  After a while, Caston turned around. “You have any idea how you might accomplish this?”

  “Sure,” Ambler said, his voice hollow.

  Caston sat down in the mustard-colored armchair and looked at Ambler stonily. “Just so you’re clear about this. You’ve got less than twenty-four hours to elude whatever lethal operatives Strategic Services and/or your own beloved Consular Operations have on the lookout, make your way into Switzerland, infiltrate a heavily guarded conclave of the global elite, and identify the assassin before he strikes.”

  Ambler nodded.

  “Well, let me tell you something.” Caston arched an eyebrow. “It’s not going to be as easy as it sounds.”

  PART FOUR

  TWENTY-NINE

  When a roadside sign indicated that the Swiss border lay thirty kilometers ahead, Ambler impulsively veered off the thoroughfare and onto a small rural road. Had he been followed? Though he had detected no obvious signs, elementary prudence told him he could not afford to drive the rented Opal coupe through the border checkpoint.

 
Laurel Holland and Clayton Caston were traveling to Zurich by high-speed rail, the TGV, which would take just over six hours, the bus to Davos-Klosters adding perhaps another couple of hours at the end. The train route was a popular one; they would board separately and would likely experience little trouble. But they were not the targets of a Cons-Ops-authorized “beyond salvage” operation, of a no less lethal SSG sanction, of adversaries without name and beyond number. Mass transportation would land him into a dragnet. He had no choice but to drive, seek anonymity among the hundreds of thousands of cars on the Autoroute du Soleil. So far so good. But the border checkpoint would be the most hazardous part of the trip. Switzerland had held itself aloof from European integration; there would be no relaxation of its border controls.

  At the Haute-Rhin town of Colmar, he found a cabdriver, who, once Ambler flashed a peacock’s fan of hard currency at him, agreed to drive him through Samoëns to the hamlet of St. Martin, on the other side of the border. The driver, first name Luc, was a pudgy man with the shoulders of a bowling pin, greasy, limp hair, and that smell—redolent of pencil shavings, rancid butter, manure—that was peculiar to the unbathed, and that a drenching with Pinaud Lilac Vegetal aftershave did little to conceal. Yet he was also guileless and direct, even in his avarice. Ambler knew he could trust him.

  Ambler cracked the window as they set off, letting the chill mountain air blow on his face. His travel bag lay on the seat beside him.

  “You’re sure you want the window down?” the driver asked, oblivious to the stifling fug within his car. “It’s freezing, mon frère. As you Americans say, colder than a well digger’s ass.”

  “That’s OK,” Ambler replied politely. “A little cool air helps keeps me awake.” He zipped up his micro fleece-lined winter jacket. The garment had been carefully chosen; there was little chance he would get too cold.

  It was seven miles from the border town of St. Morency when Ambler again felt twinges of unease, began to pick up signs—equivocal, ambiguous, far from conclusive—that he might have been detected. Mere paranoia? There was a tarp-covered Jeep, maintaining a constant distance behind them. There was a helicopter, in a place and a time when no helicopter would normally be present. Yet a hypervigilant mind could always identify incongruities in even the most innocent of circumstances. Which, if any, of these things was truly significant?

  A few miles from the Swiss border, Ambler noticed an aqua-blue van with a familiar license plate; he had seen it before. Again he wondered: Was he being paranoid? The slanting angle of the just-predawn light made it impossible to see the driver. Ambler asked Luc to slow down; the blue van slowed down at almost the same time, keeping a constant distance between them—a distance far greater than a trucker’s professional caution would have dictated. Unease congealed into anxiety. Ambler had to follow his instincts. We have come this far by faith. The faith that had preserved Ambler’s life so far was the most austere variety of all: faith in himself. He would not waver now. He had to accept a profoundly disturbing truth.

  He had been found.

  The sun was glimmering over the horizon, a ribbon of red; the air was the temperature of a meat locker. Ambler told Luc that he had had a change of heart, that he felt like going on an early-morning hike; yes, right here, what spot could be lovelier?

  The transfer of more hard currency softened Luc’s look of open suspicion to one of wryly amused skepticism. The driver knew he was not expected to believe the subterfuge, but if the story was counterfeit, the money was genuine. Luc did not protest. If anything, he seemed to enjoy the game. There were countless reasons someone might wish to avoid the border control, many having to do with the payment of luxury duties. So long as Luc’s vehicle was not used for the conveyance of unreported goods, he himself was at no risk.

  Ambler tightened the laces of his heavy leather climbing boots, grabbed his bag, and got out of the car. A crossing on foot was not an unexpected eventuality. Within minutes he had disappeared among the snow-laden firs, stone pines, and larches, traveling parallel to the road but a good two hundred yards to the side. After half a mile, he glimpsed two lampposts, situated at either side of the road: powerful lights within balloon-shaped frosted glass. The customhouse—dark brown wood with forest-green shutters and gingerbread latticework on a second story cinched in by an outsized, steeply raked roof—looked like a modified A-frame. Through the trees he could see both the French tricolor—blue, white, and red—and Switzerland’s own distinctive flag, a white cross on a red shield. Along the roadside, rough-hewn boulders sat near white lines, barely visible on the snow-littered pavement, adding a physical obstacle to a legal one. A low, bright orange barrier was meant to control the flow of vehicles. Doorless booths sat to either side of the road. A little past the customhouse, the driver of a food-service camion had obviously taken advantage of the large paved shoulder to pull over a malfunctioning vehicle. Ambler could just make out the belly and legs of a short, paunchy mechanic who was bent over its engine, his head lost in its innards. Various engine parts were strewn on the cleared pavement alongside the truck. From time to time, a muttered French curse could be heard.

  At the other side of the customhouse was a parking area, set lower than the road. Ambler strained to see: a cloud had passed over the once glimmering sunrise; he saw a match flare from a distance, a patrol guard lighting a cigarette. That was the kind of thing that the gloom actually made more visible. He glanced at his watch. It was a little past eight o’clock; sunrise came late in January, and the mountainous terrain postponed the sunrise even further.

  He saw the canvas-topped Jeep, now stationed at the lower, snow-strewn parking lot, its canvas shuddering in the chill breeze. It must have ferried over the French border guards for the eight o’clock shift. Their Swiss counterparts would have arrived from the opposite direction. Ambler positioned himself behind a low copse of young spruce trees. Most of the mountain pines were “limbed up”: though dense at the center, they had shed the branches that once grew at the bases of their trunks. By contrast, the spruce trees maintained a low apron of dense branches, providing cover that started close to the ground. Ambler raised his compact field glasses to his eyes and peered through an aperture between two interlaced spruce trees. The border-patrol guard who had just lit a cigarette now took a deep drag, stretched himself, and looked around unwarily. He was, Ambler could tell, a man expecting nothing other than an ordinary day’s tedium at the checkpoint.

  Through the windows of the customhouse, Ambler could see a number of the other guards drinking coffee and, to judge from their expressions, trading idle gossip. Seated among them, contentedly, was a man in a bright red flannel shirt and a pear-shaped body that told of a sedentary existence: the truck driver, Ambler guessed.

  Traffic was sporadic; whatever the rulebook might say, it was hard to persuade men to stand outside in the freezing cold when the roadway remained empty save for the wind. Even without hearing the banter, Ambler could tell from the men’s faces that a spirit of truculent joviality reigned.

  One man, though, remained apart from the others, his body language indicating that he was not part of the community. Ambler turned his field glasses toward the man. He wore the uniform of a senior officer in the French customs authority: this was an official visitor, someone whose job was to make sporadic inspections of such checkpoints. If the others were at ease around him, it must have been because he had signaled his own indifference toward what could only have been an onerous and thankless chore. Perhaps the bureaucracy had dispatched him here as part of a regular rotation of oversight, but who would oversee the overseer?

  As Ambler fine-tuned the focus of his field glasses, the man’s face came into sharper view, and Ambler saw how wrong he was.

  The man was not an officer with the customs authority at all. A cascade of images flashed through Ambler’s mind: this was a face he recognized. After a few long moments, the sense of recognition resolved into identification. The man’s name—but it did not matter what his na
me was; he used innumerable aliases. He had grown up in Marseilles, served, while still an adolescent, as a henchman for one of the drug mobs there. He was a seasoned killer by the time he drifted into employment as a mercenary in southern Africa and the Senegambia region. Now he worked freelance, used mainly in circumstances requiring great delicacy—and lethality. He was an efficient killer, skilled with a firearm, a knife, a garrote: a most useful man for the nonattributable kill. In the profession, this sort of man was known, blandly, as a specialist. The last time Ambler had seen him he had been blond; now he was dark haired. The hollowed cheeks beneath high, ridge-like cheekbones and slashlike mouth remained the same, if somewhat more weathered. Suddenly the man’s eyes met Ambler’s. Ambler felt a pulse of adrenaline—had he been seen? But it was impossible. The viewing angle, the circumstances of illumination: all ensured his concealment. The killer was merely surveying the scene out of the window; the apparent eye contact was momentary and accidental.

  It should have been reassuring that the killer remained inside. It was not. The specialist would not have been dispatched alone. If he was inside, it meant that others had been deployed in the surrounding woods. Any sense of advantage Ambler had enjoyed evaporated at once. He was being stalked by others in his trade; they would anticipate his maneuvers and counter them. The specialist might be in command, but others were nearby. The specialist would be summoned when needed.

  The gauntlet was beautifully conceived, taking advantage of the natural terrain as well as the official checkpoint. Ambler had to admire the professionalism. Yet whose was it—the Strategic Services team or one assembled by Consular Operations?

  Now two border guards from the Swiss side emerged; a small white Renault van was pulling up to the checkpoint, idling before the low orange barrier. One of the guards bent down to speak to the driver, asking him the standardized questions. A face was matched with a passport photograph. It was a matter of professional discretion whether further actions would be taken. The French guard stood nearby, and the two glanced at each other. The driver had been sized up, a decision made. The orange barrier pivoted flat, and, with an indifferent hand gesture, the white van was waved on.