The Plot

by Irving Wallace

“Hi, Lisa!” he shouted, and raised his arm.

  She looked up, smiled, and waved back.

  As he started for the curb to cross the street, he saw a huge black-and-gray delivery truck rushing upon him from the right, careening down the Rue de Ponthieu at a reckless speed toward the intersection at the Rue de Berri.

  In the nick of time, Brennan caught himself, not daring to chance it, and he teetered on the edge of the curb, waiting for the vehicle to pass.

  The truck closed in with a roar, and then, a split second before it came between Lisa on the far side and Brennan on the curb, a split second before it obstructed her from his view, he saw something strange. Lisa’s arms had gone up, both of them, not waving to him, but wildly gesturing, and her lips moved frantically but no sounds reached him.

  That instant, the speeding truck blotted this vision of a frenzied Lisa from sight.

  That instant, simultaneously, from beyond the truck, over the rumble and reverberation of its engine, he heard Lisa’s scream of terror.

  “Look out, Matt—look out—he’s going to—!”

  The warning caught him like the wail of a shrapnel. Instinctively, he recoiled, crouching low to escape from he knew not what. As his hands and knees hit the cement, he heard an explosion of breath behind him and a giant shadow was thrown, like the silhouette of a midnight beast, upon the street before him. An open-palmed hand and an arm zoomed past his shoulder, and like twin crowbars two legs smashed into him from behind, and the body of a man went hurtling over Brennan’s head, upended, somersaulting from its own momentum onto the paving and directly into the path of the charging truck.

  There was a grinding, a terrible thud, Lisa’s screaming, and Brennan, flattened against the curb, raised his head in time to see the smashed body catapulted into the air from the force of the truck’s iron bumper and grille, and flung high against a side wall across the way.

  Brennan closed his eyes tightly, lying there, panting, and when he opened them, he could see that the truck had screeched to a halt, shielding the body from his sight. The truck driver and his assistant had leaped down from their cab, and were stumbling around the truck, bellowing in French, “Nom de Dieu! Andouille!” From the Rue de Berri ahead, pedestrians were racing in to help the victim of the accident, and then there were two policemen, one blowing a whistle, coming fast, their capes flying.

  Someone was trying to help Brennan to his feet, and he realized it was Lisa. “Thank God it wasn’t you,” she sobbed. “I was sure it was you.”

  Brennan rose to his knees, still seeking breath, and with effort he pushed himself to his feet and stood swaying, allowing Lisa to dust him off.

  “What happened?” he gasped.

  “Whoever it was, he tried to kill you, Matt!” she cried out, voice choked. “I saw him come out of the Arcade right behind you, and he kind of stood there a second, waiting for the truck, and just as it came by, he started edging toward you, sneaking up behind. I—I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, Matt—but when I saw him suddenly stick his arms out in front of him and run toward you, I tried to scream—and I guess I did, I don’t know—because he was trying to push you in front of the truck and kill you. You did hear me?”

  “The second I heard you, it was like the times I visited battle zones, instinctive reflex in response to danger, unseen danger, usually from behind or above. I just went down to my knees and this, this person—”

  “Murderer, Matt, murderer.”

  “—he came at me with such force that when I went down, he missed me completely, kept right on going, and his legs must’ve hit my back or side, and he went over me in a somersault and landed in front of the truck, and was hit.” Brennan reached out and brought Lisa closer. She was trembling. “Lisa, did you recognize him?”

  “No. How could I?”

  “Maybe I can,” said Brennan. “Let’s see.”

  He led her across the street, around the truck, to the widening circle of onlookers gathering about the victim of the accident Signaling for Lisa to remain behind, Brennan shoved through the crowd, listening to the excited French voices, and finally listening to the police kneeling on either side of the body and speaking rapidly in French.

  Brennan waited for one clear view of the victim, and at last he had it.

  His brief glimpse of the crumpled body on the pavement, the body a sightless remnant of a human being, bloodied, crushed, misshapen, was nauseating. But when Brennan turned away, there was one emotion rising within him that overrode all others. What he had just seen had filled him with terror.

  Blindly, he pushed back through the noisy crowd, grabbed Lisa roughly by the elbow, and led her, stumbling from his haste, between the truck and the traffic jammed up behind it. Her eyes never left his face, as she followed him to the opposite side of the street.

  There he stopped, trying desperately to think. “Lisa, give me a cigarette.”

  Hurriedly, she gave him one, and hurriedly, she lit it for him. “Matt, I’ve never seen you like this before. Are you ill? If you are, I don’t blame you—”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  “Did you see the man, the one who tried—?”

  “Yes, I saw him.”

  “Well? Did you recognize him? Was he anyone—?”

  “I recognized him, what’s left of him,” Brennan said. “It was Boris Dogel.”

  “Boris who?”

  “The Soviet KGB agent.”

  Her hands had gone to her mouth. “Oh, no—”

  They heard the distant sound of an approaching ambulance. Then they saw a French police officer, notebook in hand, emerge from the thick circle of onlookers. The police officer moved slowly from spectator to spectator down the street, questioning each in his hunt for witnesses.

  “The police don’t know who the victim is,” said Brennan quietly, “and I doubt if they’ll find out from anyone here. I overheard them talking. There wasn’t a shred of identification on the body. Absolutely nothing.” He inhaled. “The KGB plays it safe when they send out their killers.”

  “Matt, you can tell the police right now.” She looked at him anxiously. “You will, won’t you?”

  His grip tightened on her arm, alerting her, as the police officer crossed the street and came toward them.

  The policeman touched the brim of his cap. “Monsieur, this accident, perhaps you were a witness to it?”

  Brennan shook his head regretfully. “No. We have just arrived to see what the trouble was. I am sorry.”

  The officer nodded. “Merci.” He moved away to others.

  The second the policeman was out of earshot, Lisa turned on Brennan. “Matt, you should have told him.”

  “No, Lisa,” he said firmly. He started her toward the corner of the Rue de Bern. “Men sometimes have intuition, too, and my intuition tells me to keep my mouth shut. Our KGB agent is back there dead. The police report will set him down as an unidentified pedestrian, a vagrant, accidentally killed by a truck while jaywalking in the middle of the Rue de Ponthieu. That’ll be the official story. I’d prefer to leave it that way, for now.”

  “And leave yourself unprotected,” protested Lisa. “It’s foolish, Matt. When they tried to murder you in the Bois and killed that young Englishman by mistake, you let that be written off as an accident, too—but at least, there was some question there—but this time, this was an obvious attempt to murder you. Matt, I saw that monster try to push you in front of the truck.”

  “I know. This was overt and premeditated. And don’t think I’m being brave about it I’m not. I’m scared stiff. My knees are jelly. But going to the police won’t help me. If I told them, what would happen? There’d be the most sensational headlines. My background would be dredged up. Our—our relationship would be plastered across the front pages. The Russian Embassy would deny that the corpse was one of their agents, and it would be my word against theirs, and whom do you think the police and public would believe? The publicity would end any chance I have of catching up with Rostov or get
ting to the bottom of what’s going on with the Russians. But this way, I’ve got a better chance than ever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve gained myself a day. Someone in the Russian Embassy will be waiting for the results of Dogel’s assignment. Even though he doesn’t report back to them, they’ll be searching tomorrow’s obituaries for my name. Not until they fail to find it, not until they read or hear of an unidentified corpse, not until they send someone to join dozens of others in the morgue trying to identify the unknown victim, will they discover their murder attempt did not succeed. In other words, not until tomorrow will they know their killer is dead and his victim is alive.”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “I need time, time until tomorrow.”

  “For what? Oh, Matt, don’t be so reckless with your life. You mean too much to me. You weren’t like this when I met you.”

  “Because then I was half dead and didn’t care. But now—”

  “Now you’ll be all dead,” insisted Lisa. “They missed once, they missed twice, but tomorrow, when they find out, they’ll try again.”

  “Maybe. But maybe by that time I’ll be ready for them, and be able to beat them to the punch.”

  “I could be stupid, Matt, but you’re making no sense.”

  “Honey, I’ve never made more sense.” They stopped before the revolving door of the Hotel California. “Do you realize what just happened back there?”

  “Someone tried to kill you.”

  “Someone? Not someone. A Russian agent tried to kill me. Why?”

  “Why? I—I don’t know.”

  “But I know. For the first time, I really know. It’s because all of my stumbling up blind alleys in Paris—after Rostov, after Peet, after faceless Russians and Chinese intriguing in secrecy—had brought me too close to some hidden truth. And the KGB has been ordered to prevent me from going further. That means I’m on the right track, and what happened in the Rue de Ponthieu confirms it at last.” He realized that he had been speaking more to himself than to Lisa. He said to her, “Let me see it through, darling—my way.”

  “I don’t know how I can stop you.”

  “Thanks, darling… Still interested in dinner?”

  “Oh, God, no. My insides are upside down.”

  “I’m afraid mine, too. Okay, let’s go upstairs. Our menu will be one tranquilizer and one drink, well done.”

  They went into the lobby, where Brennan gave the concierge, M. Dupont, the cartridge of tape containing Medora’s and Sydney’s conversation, to be copied. Dupont said that he had already made the arrangements, and that Brennan would have the original tape and the copy back by eight o’clock. Dupont was prepared to describe the terrible accident in the Rue de Ponthieu, putting the blame on irresponsible truck drivers who filled themselves up with wine all day and then sped around Paris like maniacs, but Brennan cut him short, explaining that he and Miss Collins had just come from the scene of the accident and had already heard about it.

  They took the elevator to the first floor and went to their suite. There Brennan found a tranquilizer for Lisa, and made her wash it down with straight Scotch. For himself, he mixed a light drink. When she felt calmer, he suggested that she go ahead to her evening’s fashion seminar.

  “I’m afraid to leave you here by yourself, Matt.”

  He took a scratch pad and pencil from the desk. “I won’t be here most of the evening, Lisa, and I won’t be by myself.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t constantly speak in riddles, Matt. Now, what does that mean, you won’t be here or by yourself?”

  He sat on the sofa, and placed pad and pencil on the end table beside his drink. “Lisa, I’m going to be very busy until quite late, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be with allies. I’m going to sit in this room for the next few hours and do some homework in preparation for a final exam, so to speak. I’m going to put down some facts that I figure to be of vital importance. I’m going to add them up. When I have the solution, and I think I’ll have it—”

  “What solution? Are you talking about your future?”

  “My future, yours, the future of our friends, perhaps everyone here in Paris now, and back home, and perhaps all over the world. If the words seem pompous, bear with me. Because it may add up to that. Anyway, when I have the solution, I’m going to act. But I can’t act alone. I need the support of allies.”

  “Whom do you consider your allies?”

  “I’ve been thinking. There are four of us. We’re very different, but we have one thing in common. We’ve all in some way contributed to reaching the solution I hope to come up with. There’s Emmett A. Earnshaw, for one. There’s Jay Thomas Doyle. Then there’s Medora Hart. And, of course, myself. We’re all involved in this. I think the time has come for the four of us to get together and have a serious conference.”

  “It sounds like tho. Summit.”

  Brennan smiled. “Something like that. Let’s call it the Little Summit, convened by interested outsiders who have as much of a stake in peace as the insiders in the Palais Rose. I don’t want to sound pretentious, Lisa, but I have a strong suspicion that in some respects our Little Summit tonight may produce results more meaningful to peace than what’s going on at the Big Summit. I could be wrong, but if I’m right—heaven help us all if the Big Five don’t listen to the Little Four.”

  BY TEN O’CLOCK in the evening, Matt Brennan had finished writing, was done reflecting on what he had written, and he was ready to convene the unofficial delegates to the unofficial Little Summit that he would chair.

  Ripping ten pages of notes off his pad, he folded them and stuffed them into his trouser pocket. It was time to set about locating his delegates. Medora Hart, he remembered, had mentioned that she might accompany Carol and Willi to the Crazy Horse Saloon. Jay Doyle had spoken of researching at some restaurant or other for his cookbook. As to the whereabouts of Emmett Earnshaw, he had no clue.

  Brennan began by trying to trace Doyle. He telephoned the concierge at the Hotel George-V, but the concierge had no idea where Doyle had gone to dinner. Deciding that Hazel Smith might know where Doyle could be found, Brennan rang her apartment. There was no reply. Then Brennan called the Paris bureau of ANA, and here he had luck. The correspondent on the night desk reported that Hazel had left word she could be reached at En Plein Ciel, the larger restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, where she would be conducting an interview. Next, Brennan called the concierge at the Hotel Lancaster, and learned that Earnshaw had gone to a ballet performance at the Opera with the United States Ambassador and his wife. Finally, Brennan called the Hotel San Régis. As he anticipated, Medora was not in her room. Most likely, he guessed, she would have gone to the Crazy Horse Saloon after all.

  Briefly, Brennan considered trying to make contact with each of his unofficial delegates by telephone. After a moment’s consideration, he vetoed the notion. To impress upon each of his allies the importance of the meeting, he should see them personally.

  Slipping on his coat, he hurried down to the lobby, picked up the extra tape, then went out into the Rue de Berri and started for his car. Passing the Rue de Ponthieu, he was amazed at how deceitfully peaceful and innocent of violence it appeared by night. He hastened on to the Garage Berri, sent for his car, and drove the Peugeot down the ramp and into the street.

  He would start after Jay Doyle first.

  He headed for the Eiffel Tower. In fifteen minutes, he was parked near the École Militaire and making his way on foot toward de Maupassant’s “assemblage of iron ladders,” Verlaine’s “cheapjack’s Notre Dame,” Dumas fils’s “loathsome tin construction.” Once there, he climbed the twisting staircase up through the girders to the first floor, and entered En Plein Ciel. He sent for Hazel Smith, and she responded quickly. He told her that he had to speak to Jay Doyle tonight, and hoped that she knew where he was dining. “Le Roy Gourmet,” she said at once. “It’s a delicious restaurant in the Place des Victoires, near the Bourse. Jay loves the chitterlin
g sausages. I wish I knew what that dish has that I don’t have. What’s up, Matt?” Promising to tell her tomorrow, he thanked her and was off.

  It was almost a half hour before Brennan found Doyle, and stood with him inside the entrance of the quiet, old-fashioned family restaurant.

  “Something happened to me after I left you, Jay, and I think it’s given me the answer to all the mysterious political goings-on. I need your help, and Medora’s help, and Earnshaw’s. It’s imperative we meet together tonight. There’s no time to lose.”

  “What happened?” Doyle asked excitedly.

  “I don’t want to go into that now. I’ll explain when we’re together.”

  “You know I enlisted in your cause,” said Doyle, removing the napkin from under his chins. “I’ll be there.” He looked blank. “Where?”

  “Where? Why, I hadn’t thought. We could go to one of our hotels or any public place that stays open late.”

  “Got it,” said Doyle. “La Calavados. It’s perfect. A little Spanish-type restaurant-bar across from the Hotel Princess Elizabeth in the Avenue Pierre-Ier-de-Serbie. Easy to find. Central for everyone. It’s—why it’s just off the Avenue George-V, about two, three blocks from the Champs-Élysées. When the other places close, La Calavados is still open. Strictly French clientele, so we wouldn’t have the wrong people eavesdropping. But best of all, the proprietor’s an old pal of mine. I’ll ring him immediately and tell him to hold a table for four. Something real private. What time?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, if you’ve got to make a time for four different people, I’d say—oh, right after midnight, maybe one o’clock.”

  “Agreed. One o’clock the Little Summit comes to order.”

  Doyle’s eyebrows lifted. “Little Summit? It’s like that?”

  “Like that, Jay. So be on time.”

  Taking leave of Doyle, Brennan got back into his Peugeot and set out to see Earnshaw.

  The drive to the Opera was short, but parking was difficult, and by the time Brennan had found a place for his car near the American Express, walked to the baroque front entrance of the opera house, used his bogus Embassy press credentials to get inside for a moment, and convinced a minor Opera executive to carry a message from him to former President Earnshaw, three-quarters of an hour had passed.