Checkpoint

by Jean-Christophe Rufin

  “Didn’t your leftist friends wonder where the money came from?”

  “I didn’t let on. I kept my two lives separate.”

  Vauthier laughed again, his jowls shaking.

  “It went on for years. Then Meillac retired and he put me in touch with other departments where he had friends. I left the squat and hung around with new groups—extremists, ecologists, global justice types. You gotta live. I went where they told me to go.”

  “‘They’ who?”

  “The people who were paying me. Police security, customs, internal and foreign intelligence.”

  Lionel was flattered that Vauthier was sharing these secrets with him; they were proof that Vauthier considered him worthy of the truth. Because there could be no doubt about it: it was the truth. Unlike Vauthier’s other declarations, these ones rang true. However, there was something still nagging at Lionel. Since they were in the process of telling things straight, Lionel decided he could come out with what he really thought.

  “You know what seems weird to me about your story?”

  “No, what?”

  “How can these top government services, all the ones you just mentioned, how can they give you the order, just like that, to kill a guy?”

  “Give me the order?”

  Vauthier sat up straight and stared daggers at Lionel. He felt around in his pocket, pulled out an old piece of chewing gum, and tore off the paper, nervously. Then he rammed it into his mouth and began chewing noisily.

  “Nobody gives me orders. I’m not some poor cop who follows orders and is taken advantage of. I’m an agent, an informer, a provocateur. By any name—they’re all pejorative. Obviously, people don’t like what I do. They wish they could enjoy the same privileges.”

  He turned the handle to open the window and spat his chewing gum out.

  “That was the deal Meillac offered me. Maybe I wouldn’t have found it all by myself. But over time I realized it suited me. And since then I’ve never done anything else.”

  Lionel thought it was strange that Vauthier was speaking so frankly. For a moment he wondered if he wasn’t playing Meillac’s role now, for him.

  “I sent guys to jail because they thought they were so smart with their fancy language and pretty speeches. Ecologists, anarchists, all sorts of leftists, guys who thought I was on their side and one day they found themselves wondering who could have ratted on them. And sometimes I even screwed their women—hey, they needed consoling.”

  Vauthier burst out laughing, a deep, hoarse laugh. Lionel suddenly got the impression Vauthier had gone too far, wallowing in his own abjectness, as if he wanted everyone to share some self-scorn he might be feeling.

  “But don’t you ever get disgusted doing this job?”

  Now Lionel thought he had touched a raw nerve. Vauthier turned to him and raised his chin.

  “Disgusted?”

  Lionel sensed he was going to get angry, that there was an insult ready to fly. Instead, Vauthier turned and stared out at the road.

  “Imagine there’s some guy who’s a real pain in the ass, just looking at him makes you break out in a rash, you wish he would die: has that ever happened to you?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Well, suppose you decide to bump him off. One fine day you take a gun, a knife, any old thing, and you kill him. Can you imagine any greater pleasure? Well I’ll tell you, there is a greater pleasure: it’s when you can do it with a clean conscience. When you know that no one will ever blame you, that they’ll even congratulate you.”

  Vauthier laughed, but Lionel sensed his words were meant to be a sort of conclusion. He became lost in his contemplation of the tracks left on the road by the truck they were chasing. At this point the tracks were disappearing under the fresh snow. For a long while they drove along a white carpet. With his head up against the windshield, Vauthier peered at the ground. Then came a sudden, slight descent, where there were trees on either side and less snow, and they could see the tire tracks again. Vauthier relaxed.

  “In any case,” he concluded, leaning back against the seat again, “it’ll be the greatest damn pleasure of my entire life when I get to stand in front of that bastard again.”

  Lionel understood there was nothing to add.

  Marc was at the wheel again, his expression suddenly impenetrable. This was his combat face. He was pushing the engine as hard as he could, but the slope was steeper and steeper; the truck wouldn’t go much faster. It had started drizzling, and the wipers were worn: the windshield was covered with a mixture of dust and water and it was like looking through a dirty curtain.

  “Are we still far from the top?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Maud sensed he was angry with her for having instigated their stop. All vestiges of sensual delight had left her. All that remained was a vague feeling of humiliation, as if the love she had shown him had been abruptly reduced to something secondary and futile, mere entertainment. She could understand the urgency of the situation, but she thought that didn’t explain everything. For Marc, serious matters were elsewhere, never in feelings. That was what drew her to him but it was also the source of a pain she might not be able to bear for very long.

  Marc hunted for a cigarette in his pocket but couldn’t find one. She began looking for another packet among their belongings on the seat behind them. She found one and opened it. She lit a cigarette and handed it to him after moistening it with her lips. It was like a kiss, and she hoped he would notice. But he was completely aloof, as if to show he couldn’t count on anyone anymore. Could she even hope that if things got really dicey he would remember she was there with him?

  She turned her gaze to the road and, unseeing, let the irregular sweeping of the windshield wipers hypnotize her as they smeared their film of clay across the glass.

  A bit later, Marc braked sharply and tore her from her reverie. The rain was coming down hard now, and it was getting dark. Marc flung open his door and jumped out. She watched him take a few steps from the truck then stop; he was streaming with water. He was looking at something she could not see through the curtain of rain on the windshield. She opened her door and got out. She was wearing nothing but a shirt and was instantly drenched. The rain was cold, and the wind, which had not let up, made her shiver. She went up to Marc.

  Over the last few miles the terrain had gotten steeper. Ridges of rock towered above the road as it grew narrower and ran alongside a cliff. The mountains were furrowed with gorges, where water streamed down rocky funnels then flowed across the road. There were no bridges, no underground pipes, just embankments here and there in the places where the streams wore away at the road. They had to be reinforced every year in the spring. Now, just ahead of them, one of these little torrents came rushing down, and the surface of the road had been washed away by the flow.

  Over a dozen yards or so, the way was nothing more than a narrow ledge of rock. On one side, the cliff; on the other, the precipice.

  In the pouring rain, Marc was measuring the width of the ledge. Initially he estimated it by taking long strides, but as it would be down to the very centimeter, he had taken off his belt and was using it to make more precise measurements. Not saying a word, he went back to the truck to evaluate the distance between the wheels.

  “It’s worth a try,” he said. “You’ll guide me.”

  Maud went to get a windbreaker in the cab. She put it on over her damp clothes. She wasn’t much warmer but at least she didn’t feel the wind. She went and stood on the far side of the landslide.

  Marc climbed behind the wheel and started the truck. From a distance, it seemed he could never make it across. And yet as he drew closer, Maud saw that the width of the truck and that of the narrow passage were indeed more or less the same. Very slowly, Marc drove the front wheels onto the eroded section. He had folded back the outside rearview mirror, and the truck was sc
raping the side of the cliff. On the side of the void, the tire was clinging to the bedrock. Marc kept going. The transmission was stiff and in spite of his efforts, his progress was jerky. With every forward lurch, pebbles sprayed from the right front wheel, the one that was on the side of the void; this gave Maud the uneasy impression that the edge of the road was crumbling away. But the truck continued to move forward, and she soon focused on the rear of the truck as it entered the narrow stretch. The rear axle consisted of four wheels, and was wider than the front. On the side of the precipice, while one of the two wheels still clung to the ground, the other one was directly above the void. The truck kept going, and now the front wheels had reached the far end of the landslide, where the road returned to its usual width. But suddenly Maud heard the engine roar, the vehicle stopped moving, and the rear wheels began to spin. Marc stepped on the gas and tried again, three or four times, but the truck would not move. Finally he pulled on the handbrake, slid across the cab, and got out on the passenger side, because the other door was blocked by the cliff face. Peering under the truck, he tried to figure out what was wrong, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. In order to inspect the rear, he had to climb over the roof of the cab.

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s the top of the load that’s catching.”

  There was a slight overhang to the cliff face. The cab was lower and had made it past without difficulty, but the rear of the truck was bumping up against the overhang. They would have had to plane down the rock to widen the passage, but they had neither the time nor the means. Marc assessed the situation without answering Maud’s questions, then climbed back on board.

  “Don’t stay there in front,” he shouted. “Back up ten meters or so.”

  She was annoyed he wouldn’t give her any explanation but this was not the time to make a scene. She backed away down the road.

  Marc revved the engine, flooring the gas pedal, then shot it into first. The truck lurched forward, instantly halted by the overhang, but at full rev it moved all the same. Two things happened, given the thrust of the engine, to shake the massive vehicle. Most visibly, the rear axle slipped toward the outside: rebuffed by the rocky overhang, the truck pivoted slightly and the second outer wheel was now approaching the void. At the same time, the tarp covering the load was wrenched out of shape by the abrupt motion, and there came a tearing sound from the side of the cliff. The entire maneuver took only a moment but Maud was petrified with fear. She was certain the truck was going to tip into the void. She let out a cry. She waved to Marc to stop. Forgetting what he had told her, she started hurrying toward the truck. At the same time, he revved the engine as high as he could and let the gear pedal out. The truck lurched forward again. For a split second the two rear wheels hovered over the void, but didn’t have time to sink down, because at the same time the tarpaulin bows restraining the load gave way. At full power, the truck, now freed from what was holding it back, hurtled forward.

  Maud saw it all in a flash: the enormous hood bearing down on her and, behind the windshield smeared with dust and water, Marc’s inscrutable, almost cruel face, determined to get past the obstacle, even if it meant running her down. She felt the fender hit her and knock her over. The truck was still moving forward. When at last it stopped, she was lying beneath the engine. She didn’t think she had lost consciousness. And yet when Marc pulled her by the shoulders to get her out of there, she felt something burning on her cheek, although she had no memory of having touched anything hot. Apparently she had banged against the exhaust system when the truck ran over her, but she hadn’t felt it. As she stood up, she realized that her skin from cheekbone to ear was shriveled and very painful. And she must have fallen flat onto a stone, because there was a sharp pain between her shoulder blades.

  Marc was calm again, even tender. He laid her down on the seat, took some compresses out of the first aid kit, and dabbed her burn with a cool lotion that brought some relief.

  “Did we get to the other side?” she asked.

  “We did.”

  He kissed her, and did not reproach her for coming too near the truck; he even made a vague apology. She was torn by contradictory feelings, all equally powerful, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They were safe. Again she saw the wheels spinning over the void, and she remembered thinking the entire truck was going to tumble over the edge. But at the same time the image of Marc coldly bearing down on her would not go away.

  “We mustn’t stay here,” she said.

  She was again aware of the situation. The thought of action helped her suppress her emotions. She sat up straight, and it was almost a pleasure to test the pain she could still feel in her back.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, don’t worry about me. Let’s get going.”

  “First we have to fix the load. The tarp came off and the bows at the back, too. There’s nothing left to support the boxes on the left-hand side.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  She got out, gritting her teeth to control the pain. The cold air on her burn was stinging. She must have hit something else when she fell, because her right arm hurt when she moved it, and she could feel a heavy ache in her lower back. It was surely nothing serious, but she must be covered in bruises.

  Walking around the truck, they saw the extent of the damage. The entire left-hand side of the load was exposed now, and a few boxes had already fallen off. The pouring rain was swelling the cardboard, and the boxes were getting soggy. They couldn’t drive off like that. With every bump in the road they would lose more boxes from the load.

  “We have to get rid of as many crates as possible. We’ll push the ones we keep toward the front, and we’ll try to cover them so they don’t get wet.”

  “Do you remember where the explosives are?”

  “Yes, fortunately, I hid them all the way in, close to the cab, and I put some red tape next to the label.”

  Marc climbed up onto the bed and began throwing boxes onto the ground.

  “What shall we do with them?”

  “We’ll just leave them on the road. So much the better for whoever finds them.”

  Some of the boxes were marked with a green cross: they contained medicines. Other, heavier boxes were full of dietary supplements. There were also big bundles of tightly packed clothing, and Marc grabbed these by the plastic straps that bound them. Maud tried to move the boxes out of the way, but she couldn’t lift anything. So she moved the lightest ones, shoving them with her feet.

  The load was a lot bigger than it looked from the outside. Marc got rid of almost half. What was left was sheltered, because the tarp was intact from the middle to the back. He pulled tight the torn pieces of canvas and lashed everything down with the help of the straps holding the rear tarpaulin bows. The end result did not look very good but at least the remaining cargo would stay dry. He jumped to the ground and wiped his hands on the corner of a bale of clothing.

  It was a strange sight. There on that desolate mountainside lay dozens of bundles, splattered with mud. Oddly, Maud viewed it as a kind of litmus test. The idealism that had brought her here to begin with was now revealing its derisory, almost ridiculous nature. These crushed boxes scattered across the road portrayed all too tragically the futility of the humanitarian endeavor. In the face of the complexity and horror of war, these bundles of clothes, packages of food, and boxes of medication were grotesque. And now this lighter truck, with its shipment of weapons, seemed to have been liberated from that hypocrisy. They were finally getting down to basics. In that moment Maud felt proud to be leaving behind her ambiguous role as rescuer, a role in which she had never felt completely comfortable. The only thing that made her sad, made her almost want to cry, was that this initiation into warfare brought her closer to Marc, whereas he, driven by the call to action, paid her no more attention. She could not forget that look of his behind the windshield.
To reach the goal he had set himself, he was prepared to break down every obstacle, even if it meant crushing her beneath his wheels to attain it.

  The wind had dropped and a fine rain was falling, on the verge of snow. They were cloaked in the mountain’s silence. Maud let it soak in, as if it were a remedy that could restore some peace, after these moments of fear and violence. Marc, too, was straining his ears, but it was not to hear the silence. He raised a finger. Still far away, almost imperceptible, a hoarse sound, like the buzzing of an insect, came through the damp air. A regular sound, with louder spurts. Maud stared at the leaden sky. She thought it must be an airplane or a helicopter. But as she concentrated, she understood. The noise was coming from the road, from behind them.

  “It’s them,” whispered Marc.

  “Already.”

  They rushed over to the cab and climbed in. Marc turned the ignition and they drove off.

  7

  What the hell is that?”

  Lionel, who was at the wheel, saw the indistinct shapes scattered across the road in the distance. He thought it must be rocks that had rolled down from the cliff, and he braked.

  “Go check it out.”

  Alex opened the door and got out. He recognized the boxes and thought they must have fallen off the other truck. But as he walked further, he saw the road made an elbow-like turn, and that in the turn, where the road crossed the gorge, a landslide had eroded the road. He gestured to Lionel to drive up to him. Vauthier jumped out of the truck and walked over to the landslide. He was beside himself.

  “Christ almighty! And they made it over, on top of it . . . ”

  “Why did they abandon the load?” said Lionel, who had come up to them.

  “Not the entire load,” said Alex.

  “Of course not, not everything. He’s not going to let go of his dynamite, now, is he.”