L'Assassin

by Peter Steiner

  Each of the men in the Oval Office stood silently and considered in his own mind the catastrophic consequences of guessing wrong. If they underestimated Louis Morgon’s desperation and dangerous intentions, the results could be too horrible for words. Phil was the first to speak. His voice was grave. “Mr. President, I believe, based on the surveillance tape, that Morgon and his cohorts have managed to acquire serious weapons. It is quite possible, likely even, that, besides being armed with personal weapons, they have biological or chemical weapons.” He looked at Hugh. Heads nodded around the room.

  “So where the hell are we then?” said the president.

  “The cell in Saint Leon is most likely al Qaeda,” said Phil. He had already organized his doubts and uncertainties into a coherent assessment. “The Algerians bugged the place for a reason, and they were correct to do so. I’m afraid, sir, that we, our intelligence services, dropped the ball. We’re in touch with the Algerians now, sir, and we’re asking for everything they’ve got. Everything they already sent us that might have gotten sidelined, but also all the preliminary stuff.

  “It seems likely, sir, that the Morgon cell is planning something big. We should have people on the ground in Saint Leon ASAP, Mr. President, who should be able to determine whether that is so or not. We have requested surveillance types as well as a joint French-American assault team.”

  “Including snipers?” asked the president. “We don’t want anything to go wrong. We’ve got to be sure we stop this guy.”

  “Including snipers, yes, sir,” said Phil. “Also, the French national police and INTERPOL are aware of the situation. We are certain there are other al Qaeda involved, elsewhere in France, and maybe elsewhere in Europe, other cells. It is a potentially explosive situation, but if we are careful and play our cards right, this could be a tremendous opportunity. The Morgon group could very well lead us to some of the others before we have to take them out. This also lines up with our assessment, sir, that there is an operational nerve center, a central command, in play.”

  The president rubbed his hands together. “Then this could be a terrific break.” The secretary of state was startled and swiveled his head to look at the president. “In the war on terror, Harold,” said the president. “It’s the war on terror I’m talking about.” There were nods and glances around the room.

  “Mr. President,” said Phil, “you can be sure we will proceed expeditiously.”

  “And, Phil,” said Hugh. Phil turned back to the couch where Hugh was sitting. “I cannot emphasize this enough: do not underestimate Morgon. He is cunning and he is angry. I know nothing about the others involved or about their devotion to their cause. But I know Louis Morgon.”

  Phil turned to look at the frozen image of Louis on the television monitor. Others followed his gaze and were startled to see Louis’s face looking back at them, almost as though he could see them and hear what they were planning.

  “Louis Morgon,” said Hugh, “is a man whose life has been thwarted at every turn. That is worth remembering. Now he has a chance to avenge his perceived injustices and go out in a blaze of glory.”

  That afternoon four Secret Service men in dark suits arrived at Bowes, Powell, and Clayton to retrieve the six cartons of secret materials. Arthur, the office manager, signed the release forms, and the cartons were wheeled out of the safe and onto the elevator, and that was the last that Hugh ever saw of them.

  That evening Hugh sat at the glass dining table in his Watergate penthouse apartment. The cook slid a plate of food in front of him, which he ate without hesitation or interest. He chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed without noticing what he was eating. He drank from a goblet of water with a slice of lemon in it. After a few minutes, the cook cleared the table.

  Hugh remained seated there, gazing through the floor-to-ceiling windows and across the Potomac River. The lights outlining the tops of the tall buildings danced and shimmered in the hot night air. An airliner came whining across the sky, seeming dangerously close, its wheels down, heading for a landing at Reagan National Airport. And Hugh made a wish, as though the plane were a falling star. If only Louis would do something incriminating, something that would demonstrate conclusively, once and for all, how dangerous he was. It was too much to hope for, but if only …

  Summer had come to Saint Leon sur Dême. Renard came out of his office and looked across the square at the hotel terrace with its bright blue and yellow umbrellas, unfurled and waiting for guests. He loved this time of year. The sun was high in the sky each morning when he got up, and sometimes it was still up when he went to bed. He loved how, in summer, everything came to life and yet slowed down. Life took on a delicious, measured pace.

  He loved the feel of the sun on his arms and head. He always took the long way home for lunch, looking in the shop windows, smelling the chickens roasting on the rotisserie outside Charbin’s Boucherie de Paris. He stopped and gazed lovingly at Charbin’s window, at the stuffed eggs with their little dots of pimiento, at the tray of creamy potato salad. He studied the chalkboard propped there listing the day’s offerings in a careful hand.

  Renard and Isabelle ate a light lunch at the table in their garden. Afterwards he rinsed off the dishes and watched Isabelle through the window as she worked among the flowers. She looked like a flower herself, he thought. That was as poetic as Renard ever got.

  He roused himself from his reverie and headed back to the office. He had paperwork to finish, and then there was Philippe Géricault’s assault on his girlfriend. Marie had showed up at Renard’s office this morning with blood all over her. Renard had driven her to the hospital. “Keep your head back,” he told her. “Keep some pressure on it.” He showed her where to press the handkerchief.

  Her nose was broken, and she had two black eyes. They stopped the bleeding and bandaged her nose. Géricault was a troublesome drunk, and Renard did not look forward to arresting him. Marie was out of harm’s way, so he decided to give the man a few more hours alone with his thoughts. With any luck he would be in a remorseful frame of mind by the time Renard showed up at his door. That was usually the way it worked with Géricault. Rage followed by remorse.

  Meanwhile, Louis had managed to examine the camera surreptitiously. And Jean Marie had stopped by to have a look at it too. They drank tea at the kitchen table and then wandered through the rest of the house while Louis pretended to show Jean Marie some recent paintings. “I can’t be sure,” said Jean Marie afterwards out in the garden, “but it looks like there’s only the one camera and microphone in the kitchen. The mike is behind the stove. All of which is a little peculiar.”

  “Peculiar?” said Louis.

  “It’s unusual to put just one set of devices in a place. Once you’re inside, you usually put them all over, backups, different angles, so you don’t miss anything. So, what do you think it’s all about?”

  Louis had his speculations, but how could he have ever imagined the elaborate, and preposterous, scenario Hugh had concocted to demonstrate for the president of the United States that he was a terrorist, of all things? How could Louis have ever imagined the men in his own kitchen, the false Algerian intelligence, the White House discussions about how best to get rid of him and “terminate” his operation? It was all beyond his wildest dreams.

  Neither, of course, did Louis know anything of Hugh’s fervent wish that he somehow incriminate himself. Which made it all the more surprising that he set about fulfilling Hugh’s wish as though he were bent on his own destruction.

  VI

  After working all morning in the garden, staking the small tomato plants, hilling earth around the new asparagus stalks, and walking up and down the rows with a watering can, Louis cut half a dozen thick asparagus shoots from the old bed, picked some lettuce, and headed for the house. It was a beautiful, hot day, and the front door and the windows were wide open. Whoever was listening at the other end of the microphone would hear only birds, and particularly one small sparrow sitting on top of the chimney.
The sparrow’s song came down the stovepipe and went right into the microphone.

  Louis washed the lettuce and sliced a scallion, a radish, and a hard-boiled egg onto the lettuce. He splashed olive oil and squeezed lemon juice onto the salad, and when the asparagus were cooked, he put them on the plate too. He stuck a fork, knife, and napkin in his pocket, tucked half a baguette under one arm and a bottle under the other, and carried the salad and a glass to the table on the terrace. Just as he sat down to eat, the telephone rang. He closed his eyes and waited for it to stop.

  In the field beyond the garden, the sunflowers nodded in the soft breeze. They disappeared in rows over the hillside and reappeared climbing the distant hill. The flower heads were still small, but soon they would fill out and bend over under the weight of the seed. The petals would dry and fall off, and the stalks would turn black and ugly.

  A small airplane flew high overhead, its noise barely distinguishable from the insects and bees that buzzed around in the linden tree above his head. Louis watched the airplane as it turned in a wide circle and came back in his direction. First the telephone and now this. Maybe someone is taking pictures, he thought.

  That afternoon Louis drove back to Granville for another conversation with Pierre Lefort.

  “He is gone, monsieur,” said the warden after checking his book.

  “Gone?”

  “Released.”

  “Had he finished his sentence?’

  “He was given time off for good behavior.”

  “Can you give me his address?”

  “I cannot,” said the warden. He closed the book. “And even if I could, it is in Algeria.”

  “Pierre Lefort is from Algeria?”

  The warden was an exacting man. “I do not know where he is from, monsieur. But he is now in Algeria. At least that is the information he left with us, as required. I am not permitted to tell you the address. He had completed the required term of his sentence, and he was free to leave.”

  The next morning Louis went to see Renard. “Lefort has been released. How can I get his address?”

  Renard squinted at Louis as smoke from his cigarette curled into his eyes. Louis gave a disgusted wave of his hand. “I am quitting,” said Renard, which is what he always said when Louis decided to make a point of his smoking. “You are chasing phantoms,” said Renard. “And in Algeria of all places.”

  “Phantoms?” said Louis.

  “Phantoms. You imagine that Lefort had something to do with the bug in your house.”

  “It was probably planted by Lefort.”

  “How do you know that? You don’t know that.”

  “You are right. I don’t know that. However, I strongly suspect it to be true.”

  “And on the basis of this suspicion, you want to go to Algeria, a place you are entirely unfamiliar with, in pursuit of a man you have only the slimmest possibility of finding.”

  “How many Pierre Leforts can there be in Algeria?”

  Renard paused and gave Louis a long look. He shook his head and sighed an exaggerated sigh. He opened the center drawer of the desk and withdrew a slip of paper. He studied it for a moment, looked at Louis, and then studied the paper some more. “In Algeria he does not call himself Pierre Lefort,” Renard said. “He calls himself Abu Khalil.

  “Do not smile at me that way,” said the policeman. “Do not look at me like that. I checked into Lefort knowing that, if I did not, you would go off without any information at all and would get yourself in a lot of trouble. A lot of trouble.

  “Listen …,” said Renard. Louis continued smiling. “I’m serious,” said Renard, sounding like a stern father. “Are you listening? You don’t know Algeria. Algeria is not Washington. It is not Saint Leon. It is a strange and violent place. Islamic terrorists control vast sections of the country, including much of Algiers. There are kidnappings and killings on a regular basis. Some tourists were killed there a few months ago. Remember that? I can’t stop you from going, but you don’t know the Arabs. You’re getting in way over your head this time.”

  “What you say is true,” said Louis, and the smile vanished from his face. “You can’t stop me from going.”

  Louis did not tell the policeman that he had been to Algeria. It had been more than thirty years, but Louis had gone there several times for lengthy stays on official assignments. He had met with Algerian nationalists in an effort to put together an endemic anti-revolutionary militia. It had been a thankless and ultimately hopeless job. The Algerians were suspicious of the Americans and particularly of the CIA. There was little support from the State Department for the project, and eventually none from the Agency itself. The money for his mission vanished, and Louis was called home.

  Despite all that, Louis had liked Algeria, and he had liked the Algerian people. They were closed and suspicious at first, which Louis considered right and proper. Samad al Nhouri, the proprietor of the small Hôtel de Boufa where Louis had stayed, had watched him come and go for several days. Then one day, as Louis stood by the front desk looking through his mail, al Nhouri cleared his throat and spoke. “Excuse me, sir. You are from the United States? Forgive me for intruding on your thoughts.” Samad al Nhouri had learned English from reading English novels and listening to the BBC, so his English was heavily accented and formal. He invited Louis to join him for a cup of tea.

  Once they were seated at a small table in the hotel’s courtyard and Samad al Nhouri had poured them both tea, he said, “Describe for me New York City, if you would be so kind. You see, sir, owning a hotel is a bit like traveling, but it is something less. People come and go from all over the world, and through them the hotelkeeper gets a glimpse of their part of the world. But never more than a glimpse.

  “You are my first American guest. Forgive me for my curiosity.” He pronounced the word so that it sounded like an entire sentence. “Cu-ri-o-si-taye.” Louis answered all his questions patiently and truthfully. Only when Samad asked whether Louis was by any chance with the American government did Louis smile and say no.

  Eventually Samad took Louis to a café next to the hotel and introduced him to his friends. They were literate men, conservative in their opinions, knowledgeable about world events, and well read in world literature. They met regularly at the café, where they drank tea and talked about ideas and books and politics. Louis joined their conversations in his broken French, and they responded in French or English. Samad al Nhouri’s friends regarded Louis with curiosity at first, then with respect, and finally with affection.

  When it was time for Louis to return to the United States after his final visit, Samad al Nhouri invited the circle of friends to the hotel for a farewell dinner. He roasted a lamb on a fire of rosemary logs in the hotel courtyard. The air was filled with fragrant smoke. There were bowls of couscous and yoghurt, pots of tea, and bottles of French and Italian wine. The men sat on the ground and ate and drank until their legs were so stiff they had to help one another to their feet. One by one, they each kissed Louis good-bye.

  Algeria had been dangerous then too. Some of the meetings he had with the young nationalists could have ended badly. But what Louis remembered now, all these years later, was the café, the scent of lamb roasting on a rosemary fire, and Samad al Nhouri’s friendship.

  Louis had been uncertain about returning to Algeria. The thought of leaving Solesme, even for a few days, troubled him. He had been uncertain about going, that is, until Renard had said, “I cannot stop you.” Renard had certainly not meant it that way, but Louis decided to hear his words as a vote of confidence.

  “Upon his release from prison, Pierre Lefort/Abu Khalil gave his mother’s address,” said Renard, stubbing out his cigarette. “Her name is Camille Lefort—a pied noir probably. Anyway, I would be very surprised if you find him there. But here is what I have. And this.” He first handed Louis a slip of paper with Camille Lefort’s address on it and then a recent United States State Department advisory on Algeria.

  August 8, 2003. The Dep
artment of State urges U.S. Citizens to defer nonessential travel to Algeria and to evaluate carefully their security and safety if they choose to travel there. Over the past several months, the city of Algiers and its immediate suburbs have recorded a drop in the number of terrorist-associated incidents. However, there are continued security concerns. Random attacks still occur in rural and remote areas, on public transportation outside the major cities, and in some parts of the country at night.

  In November 2002, ten European tourists were taken hostage by terrorists in the Sahara desert areas of southeastern Algeria, between the cities of Ouargla and Tamanrasset. Two died in captivity and the others have been released.

  The Department of State cautions Americans who reside or travel in Algeria despite this warning to take prudent security measures while in the country, including arranging for pre-determined local contacts to meet and accompany them upon arrival and departure at Algerian airports. Nighttime and overland travel outside the greater Algiers area should be avoided if at all possible. Visitors to Algeria are advised to stay only in the large, internationally recognized hotels where security is provided. Americans should arrange for a known Algerian companion to accompany them when moving about anywhere in Algeria.

  It was with trepidation that Louis told Solesme of his plan to go.

  “I will be here when you come back,” she said.

  “You can’t know that,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she said, “but oddly enough, I do. Anyway, of course you must go. What can you do from here? It’s important that you find out everything there is to find out.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing to find out,” said Louis.

  “There is always something to find out,” said Solesme. “And you will tell me everything when you get back.” Her eyes glistened with excitement.

  Louis took the train to Charles de Gaulle airport the next morning, where he caught a plane for Algiers. Before his plane had even landed in Algiers, his flight information had found its way onto desks at the United States State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council at the White House, and, of course, onto Hugh Bowes’s desk at Bowes, Powell, and Clayton.