Checkpoint Charlie

by Brian Garfield

  I saw him look at his watch. It was eleven fifty-five. Don’t get too nervous, Ross. He walked out to the middle of the crescent of sand and stood there looking back inland and I had some idea what he was going through: trying to ignore the fishing boat a quarter of a mile behind him, trying to talk himself out of the acute feeling that someone’s telescopic crosshairs were centered between his shoulder blades.

  I watched him begin to walk around in an aimless little circle — perhaps he felt they’d have a harder time hitting a moving target. He hadn’t much to worry about, actually; they had no reason to take potshots at him — they’d be curious, not murderous — but perhaps Ross was no longer in a state of mind where logic was the ruling factor. I trusted him to do his part, though. I knew a little about him. He’d come right into the Company after college, seeking adventure and challenge, and if he’d been worried by the stink of the Company’s growing notoriety he’d balanced it with a naïve notion that the Company needed people like him to keep it clean. Mainly what I knew about him was that Joe Cutter gave him very high marks and there’s nobody in Langley whose judgment I’d sooner trust than Joe’s. This caper should have been Joe’s by rights — it was more in his line than mine, I’m more of a trouble-shooter and rarely get picked for front-line counter-espionage capers because I’m too visible — but Joe hates Myerson even more than I do and he’d managed to get himself posted out to the Near East away from Myerson’s influence.

  I heard the putt-putt of an engine and watched a little outboard come in sight around the headland and beat its way forward, its bow gently slapping the water, coming at a good clip. Ross saw it too — looked at it, then looked away, back into the palm trees — probably wondering when the woman would show up. He hadn’t yet realized she was already here. I saw him do a slow take and turn on his heel again. Then we both watched the outboard come straight in onto the beach.

  It was the dragon lady and she was alone at the tiller. She tipped the engine up across the transom, jumped overside and came nimbly ashore, dragging the boat up onto the sand a bit. Then she turned to look at Ross across the intervening forty yards of sand. I had a good view of her in profile. Ross was trying to meet her stare without guile. Her eyes left him after a bit and began to explore the trees. I didn’t stir; I was in among a cluster of palm boles and the thing she’d spot first would be movement.

  She made a thorough job of it before she turned toward Ross. She walked with lithe graceful strides: petite but there was nothing fragile about her. She wore an ao dai, the simple formfitting dress of Indochina; it was painted to her skin and there was no possibility she could have concealed a weapon under it. Perhaps she wore it for that reason.

  Ross didn’t move. He let her come to him. It was in his instructions.

  I was near enough to hear them because the offshore breeze carried their voices to me.

  “Well then, M’sieur.”

  “The money,” Ross began, and then he stopped, tongue-tied.

  Christ. He’d forgotten his lines.

  “Oui?”

  He looked away from her. Perhaps it was the glimpse of the white sport boat out there that galvanized him. I heard him speak clearly and calmly: “The money’s on deposit and we have the receipt and the numbered account book. If you do the job you’ll be given both of them. Two hundred thousand American dollars in gold. That works out to something over half a million Swiss francs at the current rate.”

  She said, “I would need a bit more information than that.”

  “The name of the target, of course. The deadline date by which the assignment must be completed. More than that you don’t need.” Ross kept his face straight. I had a feeling he was feverishly rehearsing the rest of his lines.

  She said, “You’ve left out one thing.”

  “I don’t think so, Mlle. Lapautre.”

  “I must know who employs me.”

  “Not included in the price of your ticket, I’m afraid.”

  “Then we’ve wasted our morning, both of us.”

  “For two hundred thousand dollars we expected a higher class of discretion than you seem inclined to exercise.” It was a line I had drilled into him and apparently he hadn’t liked it — it went against his usual mode of expression — but I had insisted on the precise wording, and now she responded as I’d said she would: it was as if I’d written her dialogue as well as Ross’s.

  She said, “Discretion costs a little more, M’sieur, especially if it concerns those whom I might regard as my natural enemies. You are American.”

  “I am. That’s not to say my principals are.”

  The thing is, Ross, you don’t want to close the door, you want to keep her talking. String her along, whet her curiosity. She’s going to insist on more information. Stall. Stretch it out. Don’t give her the name of the target until she’s in position.

  Casually Ross put his hands in his pockets and turned away from her. I watched him stroll very slowly toward me. He didn’t look back to see if she was following him. He spoke in a normal tone so that she’d have trouble hearing him against the wind if she let him get too far ahead of her. “My principals are willing to discuss the matter more directly with you if you agree to take the job on. Not a face-to-face meeting, of course, but one of them may be willing to speak to you on a safe line. Coin telephones at both ends — you know the drill.”

  It was working. She was trailing along, moving as casually as he was. Ross threw his head back and stared at the sky. I saw what she couldn’t see — Ross wetting his lips nervously. “The target isn’t a difficult one. The security measures aren’t too tough.”

  “But he’s important, isn’t he. Visible. Otherwise the price would not be so high.”

  It was something I hadn’t forecast for him and I wasn’t sure Ross would know how to handle it but he did the right thing: he made no reply at all. He just kept drifting toward the palms, off on a tangent from me now, moving in seemingly aimless half circles. After a moment he said, “Of course you weren’t followed here.” It was in the script.

  “Why do you think I chose to come by open boat? No one followed me. Can you say the same?”

  Position.

  Ross turned and she moved alongside. She had, as I had predicted, followed his lead: it was Indochinese courtesy, inbred and unconscious — the residue of a servile upbringing.

  She stood beside him now a few feet to his right; like Ross she was facing the palm trees.

  Ross dropped his voice and spoke without turning his head; there was no possibility the microphones on the boat would hear him. I barely caught his words myself, and I was only about thirty feet downwind of him. “Don’t speak for a moment now, Mademoiselle. Look slightly to your right — the little cluster of palm trees.”

  She was instantly alert and suspicious; I saw her face come around and I stirred a bit and it was enough to make her spot me. Then I leveled the rifle, aiming down the sights.

  In the same guarded low voice Ross said, “It’s a Mannlicher bolt action with high-speed ammunition. Hollowpoint bullets and he’s an expert marksman. You’d stand no chance at all if you tried to run for it.” Ross kept stepping back because I’d told him not to let her get close enough to jump him and use him for a shield. Yet he had to stay within voice range because if he lifted his tone or turned his head the fine-focus directional mike on the sport fishing boat would pick up his words immediately.

  I saw her shoulders drop half an inch and felt relief. If she doesn’t break for it in the first few seconds she won’t break at all. She’s a pro and a pro doesn’t fight the drop.

  “You’re in a box, Mlle. Lapautre. You’ve got one way to get out of it alive. Are you listening to me?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Don’t try to figure it out because there are parts of it you’ll never know. We’re playing out a charade, that’s all you need to keep in mind. Play your part as required and you’ll walk away alive.”

  “What do you want, then?”
/>   It was evident that her cool aplomb amazed Ross, even though I’d told him to expect it.

  I knew she couldn’t have recognized me; most of me was behind one of the palms and all she really could see was a heavyset fellow with a rifle. Because of the angle I was hidden completely from the view of those on board the sport fishing boat. All they’d be able to tell was that Ross and Lapautre were having a conversation in tones too low for their equipment to record. They’d be frustrated and angry but they’d hang on hoping to pick up scraps of words that they could later edit together and make some sense out of.

  Ross answered her, sotto voce: “I want you to obey my instructions now. In a moment I’m going to step around and face you. The man in the trees will kill you if you make any sudden move, so pay attention…. Now I’m going to start talking to you in a loud voice. The things I say may not make much sense to you. I don’t care what you say by way of response — but say it quietly so that nobody hears your answers. And I want you to nod your head ‘yes’ now and then to make it look as if you’re agreeing with whatever proposition I make to you. Understand?”

  “No,” she said, “I do not understand.”

  “But you’ll do as I say, won’t you.”

  “I seem to have little choice.” She was looking right at me when she said that.

  “That’s good enough. Here we go.”

  Then Ross stepped off to the side and made a careful circle around her, keeping his distance, looking commend-ably casual. He started talking midway around: “Then we’ve got a deal. I’m glad you agreed to take it on.”

  He stopped when he was facing her from her port bow. The woman didn’t speak; she only watched him. Ross enunciated clearly and I appreciated that; we both were mindful of the shotgun microphone focused on his lips from four hundred yards offshore.

  “I’m glad,” he said again. “You’re the best in the business, I think everybody knows that.”

  Her lip curled ever so slightly: an expression exquisite in its subtle contempt. “And just what is it I’m supposed to have agreed to?”

  Ross nodded vigorously. “Exactly. When you talk to my principals you’ll recognize the Ukrainian accents immediately but I hope that won’t deter you from putting your best effort into it.”

  “This is absurd.” But she kept her voice right down. I was aiming the thing straight at her heart.

  “That’s right,” Ross said cheerfully. “There will be no official Soviet record of the transaction. If they’re accused of anything naturally they’ll deny it so you can see that it’s in your own best interests to keep absolutely silent.”

  “This is pointless. Who can possibly benefit from this ridiculous performance?”

  “I think they’ll find that acceptable,” Ross said. “Now then, about the target. He must be taken out within the next twelve days because that’s the deadline for a particular international maneuver the details of which needn’t concern you. The target is here in Dar-es-Salaam, so you’ll have plenty of time to set up the assassination. Do you recognize the name Chiang Hsien?”

  She laughed then. She actually laughed. “Incredible.”

  Ross managed to smile. “Yes. The chief of the Chinese station in Dar. Now there’s just one more detail.”

  “Is that all? Thank goodness for that.”

  Ross nodded pleasantly. “Yes, that’s right. You’ve got to make it look as if it’s the work of Americans. I’d suggest you use an American rifle. I leave the other details in your hands, but the circumstantial evidence must point to an American plot against the Chinese people’s representative. You understand?”

  “Is that all, then?”

  “If you still want confirmation I’ll arrange for a telephone contact between you and my principals. I think that covers everything, then. It’s always pleasant doing business with a professional.” With a courtly bow — he might have been Doug Fairbanks himself — Ross turned briskly on his heel and marched away toward the trees without looking back.

  I watched the woman walk back to her open boat. The junks had disappeared past the point of land to the south; the outriggers were still tethered in the water by the village; the coastal steamer was plowing north, the Zanzibar ferry’s smoke had disappeared — and the two white-hatted men in the stern of the sport fishing boat were packing up their rods and getting out of their swivel chairs. The dragon lady pushed her boat into the surf, climbed over the gunwale, made her way aft and hooked the outboard engine over the transom. She yanked the cord a few times. It sputtered and roared; and she went chugging out in a wide circle toward the open water, angling to starboard to clear the headland.

  When she’d gone a couple of hundred yards Ross came through the trees beside me and said, “What happens now?”

  “Watch.” I smiled at him. “You did a beautiful job, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know I did.”

  I liked him for that. I hate false modesty.

  The sport fisherman was moving, its engines whining, planing the water: collision course. Near the headland it intercepted the little open outboard boat. The woman tried to turn away but the big white boat leaped ahead of her and skidded athwart her course.

  “That skipper knows how to handle her,” Ross commented without pleasure.

  With no choice left, the woman allowed her boat to be drawn alongside by a long-armed man with a boathook. One of the men in the stern — one of the two with white hats — gave her a hand aboard. She didn’t put up a struggle; she was a pro. I saw them push her toward the cabin — they went below, out of sight, and then the two boats disappeared around the headland, one towing the other.

  Ross and I walked back to the car; I tossed the rifle into the back seat — we’d drop it off at Arbuckle’s. It wasn’t loaded. If she’d called our bluff I’d have let her run for it. (There’s always another day.)

  I said, “They’ll milk her of course, but they won’t believe a word of it. They’ve got the evidence on tape and they won’t buy her denials. They wouldn’t believe the truth in a thousand years and it’s all she’s got to offer.”

  Ross leaned against the car, both arms against the roof, head down between his arms. “You know what they’ll do to her, don’t you. After they squeeze her dry.”

  I said, “It’ll happen a long way from here and nobody will ever know about it.”

  “And that makes it right?”

  “No. It adds another load to whatever we’ve already got on our consciences. If it makes you feel a little better it’s a form of justice — think of the people she’s murdered. She may survive this, you know. She may come out of it alive. But if she does she’ll never get another job in that line of work. Nobody’ll trust her again.”

  “It hasn’t solved a thing,” he complained. He gave me a petulant little boy look. “They’ll just send somebody to take her place, won’t they? Next week or next month.”

  “Maybe they will. If they do we’ll have to deal with it when it happens. You may as well get used to it, Ross — you play one game, you finish it, you add up the score and then you put the pieces back onto the board and start the next game. That’s all there is to it — and that’s the fun of it. As long as you stay lucky there’s always another game.”

  Ross stared at me. “I guess there is,” he said reluctantly.

  We got in the car and Ross turned the key. I smiled briefly, trying to reassure him. The starter meshed and he put it in gear. He said with sudden savagery, “But it’s not all that much fun for the losers, is it.”

  “That’s why you should always play to win,” I replied.

  Ross fishtailed the car angrily out into the road.

  * * *

  Charlie’s

  Shell Game

  BY THE END OF THE AFTERNOON I had seen three of them check in at the reception desk and I knew one of them had come to kill me but I didn’t know which one.

  Small crowds had arrived in the course of the afternoon and I’d had plenty of time to study them while they stood
in queues to check in at the reception desk. One lot of sixteen sixteen had come in together from an airport bus — middle-aged couples, a few children, two or three solitary businessmen; tourists, most of them, and sitting in the lobby with a magazine for a prop I wrote them off. My man would be young — late twenties, I knew that much.

  I knew his name too but he wouldn’t be traveling under it.

  Actually the dossier was quite thick; we knew a good deal about him, including the probability that he would come to Caracas to kill me. We knew something of his habits and patterns; we’d seen the corpses that marked his backtrail; we knew his name, age, nationality; we had several physical descriptions — they varied but there was agreement on certain points: medium height, muscularly trim, youthful. We knew he spoke at least four languages. But he hadn’t been photographed and we had no finger-prints; he was too clever for that.

  Of the check-ins I’d espied at the Tamanaco desk three were possibles — any of them could be my intended assassin.

  My job was to take him before he could take me.

  * * *

  MYERSON HAD SUMMONED ME BACK from Helsinki and I had arrived in Langley at midnight grumpy and rumpled after the long flight but the cypher had indicated red priority so I’d delivered myself directly to the office without pause to bathe or sleep, let alone eat. I was famished. Myerson had taken a look at my stubble and plunged right in: “You’re flying to Caracas in the morning. The eight o’clock plane.”

  “You may have to carry me on board.”

  “Me and how many weightlifters?” He glanced at the clock above the official photograph of the President. “You’ve got eight hours. The briefings won’t take that long. Anyhow you can sleep on the plane.”

  “Maybe. I never have,” I said, “but then I’ve never been this exhausted. Have you got anything to eat around here?”