Program for a Puppet

by Roland Perry

  “The Intelligence grapevine can transcend all boundaries. Your little coup in getting into the computer center there and managing to get out of Russia alive is being seen as a big points score for our Intelligence people.”

  “Now they want my balls for a necklace,” Graham said ruefully. “I’m not surprised, but hearing it directly is not very palatable.” He lit a cigarette. “They’re coming at me from both sides now. Lasercomp wants to meet me in Paris.”

  “You’re not going?”

  Graham frowned but said nothing.

  “You’re mad, Ed! Stay in the U.K. where Gould can guarantee you protection.”

  “But it may be the only way …” Graham said, deep in thought.

  “Of what? In God’s name!”

  “Of proving that Jane and Ronald MacGregor were murdered by the same person.”

  “If what you’ve already uncovered is correct that is a logical possibility … but …”

  Graham was far away again. “There may be a direct link between the corporation and an assassination squad. Proving that solves everything … who killed Jane … MacGregor … the only way to know is for me to act as a bait.”

  Sir Alfred took a long, thoughtful sip from a double Scotch. He looked hard at the Australian. He knew that tight-set jaw and deep concentration only too well. Graham would find a way to Paris and nothing would stop the crazy fool! This time, however, Sir Alfred was sure the Australian would trip himself up. So far by luck and brilliant planning he had stayed alive. But now with the very real possibility of two contracts out on him there would be no hope. Sir Alfred felt a deep obligation.

  “If you are hell-bent on this madness, I insist you have French police protection.”

  “You mean Colonel Guichard?”

  “Yes. As you know, I’ve kept him informed on everything, including your idea that the assassin who killed MacGregor may be linked to Rodriguez, and also Jane’s death. He has been genuinely interested.”

  “I would feel happier with protection. Would Guichard want to help?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” Sir Alfred eased himself from the armchair. “I shall ring him immediately.”

  Sir Alfred made the call from the club lobby and returned to Graham twenty minutes later.

  “Well, it seems he’s going to help. The prospect of drawing Rodriguez into the open had the man jumping.”

  “What’s he want to do?”

  “He was meeting with several of his men when I rang. They are trying to close the net now because they think he’s still in Paris. Guichard said he would ring me back at my apartment after midnight …”

  “That quick?”

  “Yes. And he will. Guichard has always been more action than talk.” Sir Alfred stood up. “Let’s have something to eat.”

  Five hours later, at 1:00 A.M., a third game of chess between the two was interrupted by Guichard’s call to the publisher’s flat.

  “I have a plan to trap Rodriguez. But I must have complete control over the operation,” he told Sir Alfred firmly.

  “You had better speak to Edwin about that. He is the one taking the biggest risk.” Sir Alfred handed the receiver to the Australian.

  “Yes, Colonel, what have you in mind?” Graham said, fumbling for a cigarette.

  “Mr. Graham, we have a plan here that may work if our mutual friend Rodriguez is here in Paris. But I must insist that you follow my orders….”

  Graham paused before answering and looked at Sir Alfred. “I agree.”

  “Bon. Now the corporation has no idea where you will be in Paris, or how you will get there?”

  “They don’t even know I’m coming for sure.”

  “Bon. Then my plan makes two assumptions. One, that you are definitely being set up by Lasercomp; and two, that the assassins will try to find out how you plan to get to Paris, and where you will stay. Therefore, we will arrange for a plane to fly you to Aerospace Spatial tomorrow afternoon at one P.M. You will arrive at about two P.M. at a private airfield outside Lyon. There will be a car waiting for you there. You will drive directly to Paris—and stay at the Hotel Étoile Maillot. The moment you know what your arrangements are with the Lasercomp people, let me know. Make a rendezvous with them somewhere at night. Arrange dinner so that it will finish at midnight.”

  “How will I contact you?”

  “There will be a radio phone in the car you pick up at Lyon. Whenever you pick up the receiver it will connect with me or one of my men.”

  Graham repeated the instructions and Guichard said, “You will have complete protection from when you arrive in France. You will be safe, I assure you, Mr. Graham.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I thank you for your cooperation in this matter. If we catch this maniac Rodriguez, you will be doing many nations a great service.”

  Graham’s throat was a little dry. “I hope I’m around to get the applause.”

  Haussermann was worried. In the last few days the “protection” for him in the Paris Pigalle hideout had changed into a guard. His movements had been restricted ever since he arrived in Paris a few weeks ago. There had been the odd night or lunch at a secluded restaurant, and even a break for a weekend in the Normandy countryside. Now he was being told to remain indoors and out of sight. One of his “protectors,” Martinez, was with him around the clock. The flat seemed, to the fretting fugitive, to be more like a prison.

  Haussermann had tried to occupy himself reading papers, books and magazines, or watching television. His only consoling thought was the promise of freedom once he had made another short television film clip with Philpott within the next few days.

  Safely in his wallet was a false passport under an assumed name and a one-way ticket to Sao Paulo, while securely locked in his memory was the number of his untraceable Zurich account—the key to a fortune earned from Lasercomp in the last few months. All he needed to do now was wait for the leader of his “protectors,” a man he heard referred to as the Director, to tell him when and where to meet Philpott.

  At 11:00 P.M., after the French news, he switched off the television and looked across at Martinez asleep on the couch. The sudden withdrawal of the television’s steady gabble woke him. Haussermann tried to smile but it came over as a nervous twitch. “Er … Marty,” he said, “I woo-woo-wouldn’t mind a cigarette.”

  Martinez fumbled in the back pocket of his trousers and threw him a crumpled packet of Camels and a lighter.

  Haussermann lit up. “You’ve got a gun. I have seen it under your coat. Woo-why?” he asked.

  Martinez was standing at a drink cabinet pouring himself a large cognac. “We told you, we have to protect you.”

  “Woo-who is it exactly you-you people are protecting me from?”

  “As you told the American people, it’s the CIA. That is who would like to silence you….”

  9

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31

  Paris was sunny and cool on Friday afternoon when the Australian headed the supercharged Peugeot he had found waiting for him at Lyon, off the ring road at Port Maillot. His destination—Étoile Maillot—was a small, quaint bed-and-breakfast hotel near the Arc de Triomphe between two spokes running off it: the Avenue de la Grande Armée and fashionable, tree-lined Avenue Foch.

  Just after 5:00 P.M. Graham made a call from his room to Lasercomp’s Paris HQ and asked for Huntsman.

  “Good to hear from you, Ed. How long do you intend to stay in Paris?”

  “Only a couple of days.”

  “Great. I’ve kept the weekend open. Cheznoir says he will meet you any time.”

  “Tomorrow perhaps?”

  “Fine. We’ll take you to dinner.”

  Graham could hardly believe his ears. Just what Guichard wanted. Then a chill of second thought hit him. They could be setting him up.

  “Thank you,” Graham said, scrambling for pen and paper on a dresser.

  “There’s a real nice restaurant called Perouse on Boulevard St. Germain in the Latin
Quarter …”

  “I know it. It’s not that hot. May I suggest one?”

  “Sure,” Huntsman said, trying to hide his lack of enthusiasm.

  “There’s a little place in the street first left off rue Marbeuf which runs off the Champs Élysées. It’s called Les Innocents. My favorite place to eat here. Can we meet there at, say, nine-thirty?”

  “Whatever suits you, Ed. Where are you, uh, staying in Paris in case there is a problem with Cheznoir?”

  “I’ll be out and about. Maybe it would be better if I phoned you to confirm. Where are you staying?”

  “The Intercontinental.”

  “I’ll ring you at noon, okay?”

  “Fine, Ed, look forward to meeting you.”

  “Same here. And it will be interesting to meet Cheznoir. You don’t often get exclusives like that. Goodbye, Mr. Huntsman.”

  Graham went down to his car in rue des Bois du Boulogne fronting the hotel and got quickly through to Guichard on the radio-telephone. The Intelligence chief was pleased. He related the rest of his plan.

  “Park your car in rue Marbeuf. My men will be in position. When you come out after the dinner, go straight back to your car. Then I want you to drive toward the outskirts of Paris. There is no sense in getting innocent members of the public into danger.” Guichard gave the Australian a detailed route. “Just drive there at normal speed. If anyone follows they will be caught. The important thing is that you keep your head. I am sure you will. Two of my men will be on guard at your hotel around the clock. You are safe, Mr. Graham!”

  By 6:00 P.M. Friday afternoon, the Director, Rodriguez and Martinez had been working several hours on a new plan to murder the Australian based on fresh information from Huntsman. They had spent part of the afternoon surveying the area around Les Innocents.

  The three men were sitting at a card table in the living room of their Pigalle hideout with about a hundred Polaroid photographs, half a dozen maps, and several pencil diagrams scattered all over the table. They were debating the best place to make the hit.

  “I don’t know if we can risk it outside the restaurant,” Rodriguez said. “We can’t be one hundred percent certain it isn’t a police trap. You know the whole French police force is after me.”

  “Okay. It is your neck this time,” the Director said. “But remember, it is a quiet cul-de-sac. There are two opportunities. When he arrives and when he leaves.”

  Early in the evening of the same day, two small boys searching for muskrats on the edge of Chesapeake Bay, sixty-one miles from Washington, came across a 1950 Aston-Martin car, partly submerged in mud and undergrowth. Slumped across the front seat was a dead man. A police patrol was on the scene twenty minutes later when alerted by the two young, excited voices from a callbox. The police assumed the car had been driven at high speed off the slipway approach to the bridge, judging from the distance it had fallen from the edge of the slipway twenty yards above.

  “Hell, Sarge, this guy musta been really plastered. Look at that!” the patrolman said to his police companion, knee-deep in mud, as they hauled the body from the car. He was pointing to a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the back seat. There was a strong stench of alcohol in the car.

  With some difficulty they laid the body across the Aston-Martin’s battered and twisted hood. The sergeant searched through the man’s pockets and found his wallet. Several documents identified the man as Dr. Donald Gordon.

  After a quiet evening meal alone Graham went up to his room and put a call through to Revel in New York.

  He had not spoken to him since leaving the States two days ago and the Australian wanted to know how the lawyer was progressing in getting some action on Philpott’s last show.

  “I’m pleased you got in touch, Ed. I have some mixed news for you. Number one, brace yourself, Gordon is dead.”

  “What?” Graham breathed. “But how?”

  “Washington police say a car accident near his home. They suspect he was drunk. I’m trying to get the details.”

  “I can’t believe it. It’s all too coincidental.”

  “You can bet Lasercomp’s behind it! Proving it is another thing.”

  “Have you managed to find out anything about Philpott’s last show before the election?”

  “I mentioned it to Attorney General Cardinal when I gave him my part of the PICS assignment this morning. He said that pressuring anyone to review a script would smack of political interference and censorship. Cardinal was sure Bilby and Philpott would use this to cause a backlash against Rickard. However, Philpott’s movements are being monitored.”

  “What if a fake tape exists and Philpott intends to use it?”

  “If we could prove that, we’d have something to go on. I think Rickard would ask Carruthers to look at Philpott’s script.”

  “How is Rickard?”

  “Improved slightly. He’s going on TV tomorrow night in a speech to the nation which he’ll tape earlier. His campaign team want to prop him up in front of a camera and let him speak to the people—to reassure them he is fit to run the country.”

  “Let’s hope he stands up to it.” There was a slight pause before Graham added, “I’ll be on trial tomorrow night too. I’m meeting Huntsman and Cheznoir.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not taking any chances.”

  “Let me know how it goes.”

  “I’ll phone you after it’s finished.”

  “You must take care, Ed. Think of poor Gordon … you know how vulnerable you are …”

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1

  Graham had a night of fitful sleep. He awoke several times and wandered around the room, often looking from the balcony of his room on the fifth floor down to the silent streets below.

  A full breakfast in his room hardly lifted the Australian from his drowsy and depressed condition. He dressed casually and at ten o’clock walked slowly down to a newsstand on the Grand Armée and bought French and English newspapers. The weather was cool but sunny, so Graham stopped to have a cup of coffee at a nearby open-air café. He had been there five minutes when a quiet voice from close behind him said, “Mr. Graham, the Colonel says not to stay away from the hotel too long.”

  The Australian was slightly startled. He looked around at a smartly dressed young Frenchman sitting facing the opposite direction. Without acknowledging him, Graham folded the papers and walked briskly back to his hotel.

  There he continued to read but found it difficult to concentrate as his mind wandered to the coming meeting. He began to think of all the things that could go wrong. What if “they” stormed the hotel and gunned him down? What if the colonel, with the best intentions and planning in the world, made a mistake? And what if French Intelligence had made a secret decision to catch Rodriguez at any price?

  He took the elevator up to his room and, in an effort to take his mind off his fears, wrote a strenuous exercise routine which he went through rigorously for an hour.

  At noon he rang Huntsman at the Intercontinental. He was not in, but had left a message to confirm the night’s dinner engagement.

  “At one, instead of taking lunch, Graham felt fatigued enough to try to sleep again. He managed three solid hours, which made up for the restless periods during the night. He had a couple of cups of black coffee with the manager, a balding, bespectacled old man, in the dining room downstairs, and talked to him for an hour about French politics and the American election. The manager told him that he was welcome to watch the French news on television at five. It touched briefly on the American election build-up and announced that President Rickard had made a last-minute decision to go on television.

  Graham had hope that Colonel Guichard would ring and call off the plan. But the clock ticked relentlessly toward his appointment.

  Everett Rickard was a little shaky as he made his way into the Oval Office for the first time since his heart attack. Technicians were waiting to test his voice and the lighting in preparation for hi
s taped speech to the nation, which would be shown later.

  Rickard sat down gingerly and nervously stacked the loose pages of his speech. He had lost weight since the heart attack, and his face was ghostly pale.

  A camera crew asked him to try out the microphone.

  “Right. You want a voice lead,” Rickard said in a confident tone. He picked up the first page of the speech and began: “Good evening, America. I am speaking to you tonight … The voice was as imperious as ever.

  “Fine, Mr. President,” a technician said. “Good luck, sir!”

  Rickard beamed a thank-you and said to a cameraman, “Hey, Joe, sure you can see me? I’ve lost a lot of weight, you know.”

  “No trouble, Mr. President, just as long as you don’t turn side-on…

  There were smiles all round and it seemed to ease the tension. Rickard looked over at the people peeping around the Oval Office door.

  “I need you in here,” he said, waving at them. In filed his wife, two teenage sons and twenty-year-old daughter. They joined four Secret Service agents and two doctors at the back of the room. Seconds later a technician called out, “One minute to go, Mr. President.”

  Rickard cleared his throat. Silently he urged himself to make a strong and confident performance.

  At 9:00 P.M. Graham, nervous, but alert and ready, stepped out of Étoile Maillot. Paris was cold but alive with people strolling the streets, or on their way by car to a Saturday night’s entertainment.

  Graham drove slowly in the heavy traffic along the Avenue de la Grande Armée toward the Arc de Triomphe. When he had rounded the arch and was heading down the Champs Élysées, he picked up the radio-telephone. Colonel Guichard came on the line.

  “I’m on my way. I’ll be in rue Marbeuf in about three minutes.”

  “Bon. We are ready. Stay calm, Mr. Graham. You will be safe.”

  Once in rue Marbeuf, the Australian found a place to park the Peugeot very close to Les Innocents restaurant. The pressure of the moment took hold as he turned off the ignition. Suddenly, Colonel Guichard’s repeated assurances of safety meant nothing. He sat rigidly in the car and stared into the rearview mirror. Then he watched the faces of people going past. Some were walking into shops. Others were looking in windows. He focused on faces sitting in restaurants. Which of them, he wondered, could be waiting to put a bullet in his head?