Chez Max

by Jakob Arjouni

  And suppose it had just been an oversight? What if, for instance, Gilbert said, ‘Oh yes, our mistake. If we’d known you divide the buildings on the borderline half and half between you, of course we’d have informed Monsieur Chen too. Why on earth wouldn’t we? Several of my people would have been glad to exchange a few words with the famous Chen of the Ashcroft Agency. What did you say your name was again?’

  I emptied my glass and signalled to the waiter to bring me another large beer.

  … Well then, I was just unlucky.

  *

  ‘Max Schwarzwald?’

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Lieutenant Gilbert here. Sorry, our meeting took a little longer than expected. You wanted some information about our operation in your area?’

  ‘Well… it’s about my partner Chen Wu.’

  ‘Hmhm.’

  ‘You know, the famous Chen of the Ashcroft Agency.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Yes, well… I hope I’m not interfering with anything…’

  ‘Oh, come on, Monsieur Schwarzwald, we’re all pulling together.’

  He was right there, of course, but the Task-Force Safeguarding Peace, answering directly to the Ministry of Defence, ranked much higher in the pecking order – or should I say pulling order? – than most of the other Eurosecurity departments. Since TFSP was internationally active, and besides safeguarding the Fence was really responsible for everything in the nature of illegal trafficking between the First and Second Worlds, it was regarded as a kind of James Bond unit. Its members were always on call to go anywhere around the globe, risking their lives on daring missions and snapping up the really tough nuts from Cape Town to Vladivostok. That was why what TFSP said traditionally carried a little more weight than anything similar coming from other departments. For instance, the Three Element Fighter had been developed mainly in response to pressure from the top brass of TFSP. They had been complaining for years that their security people on the sixty-thousand-kilometres-long border were occupied more with the coordinated deployment of shipping, jeeps and aircraft, and ensuring communication between them all, than with pursuing smugglers and terrorists. In addition – and as far as my business was concerned this was far from being the least of it – it was no secret that TFSP, as a department operating internationally with a world-wide network of informants, always worked closely with Eurosecurity Self-Protection, the department that policed the police forces.

  ‘You told me last week about surveillance of a building in the Rue de la Roquette.’

  ‘Hmhm.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re aware that the building lies right on the line between my area and Chen’s, and so we are both responsible for monitoring it.’

  ‘We’re aware of it now.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘During our surveillance, we noticed Monsieur Chen obviously going about the same job as us.’

  ‘You mean keeping watch on the building?’

  ‘Which is all to his credit. He clearly gets to know what’s going on in his manor.’

  Was that meant to needle me personally?

  ‘All the same, you didn’t inform him of your people’s presence. At least, Wu was very surprised when I told him about it today.’

  Lieutenant Gilbert paused for a moment. Then he said, ‘We assumed he’d hear about it from you.’

  That was odd. You didn’t expect TFSP to replace established methods of procedure, where everyone’s spheres of competence were respected, by an ‘Oh, word will have got around’ kind of attitude.

  ‘But it could well have been that, in our sensitive field of operations, I started by supposing that if Wu wasn’t told there must be reasons for it.’

  ‘What sort of reasons?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you. Your department has a reputation for working very precisely and conscientiously. That doesn’t fit the picture of its being left almost to chance whether Wu was told or not.’

  Once again he paused before answering. Had I been too forthright? On the other hand, this was my chance. If I could be sure that TFSP had suspicions of Chen, I’d begin shadowing him myself this very evening. First, I had a perfectly good reason if Chen spotted me at it. Second, if there was any possibility of nabbing Chen, then I thought it was mine by right.

  ‘Let me put it this way: we know that on the basis of his success over the years, Monsieur Wu has a certain freedom to operate. Not just in assessing potential or actual crimes, where he may turn a blind eye to minor offences, but also, as you as his partner must know only too well, in his view of the state of affairs in our society. When we had established that the illegals and potential assassins under our own surveillance were also in Monsieur Wu’s area, and he knew of their presence, we grasped the opportunity, you might say, and deliberately let things take their course in a way designed to intrigue him. How did he react to discovering that you and not he had been informed by us, then?’

  I thought I heard an undertone in his voice saying something like, ‘You of all people, not he, the star of the Ashcroft Agency?’

  Without stopping to think about it, I said, ‘It didn’t seem to matter to him.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘As I was saying, nothing in particular. But of course Monsieur Wu knows that’s not the way to follow correct procedure.’

  Had I tripped myself up?

  ‘You think he would normally be annoyed?’

  ‘That would at least be an understandable reaction. On the other hand, there may be any number of good reasons why, as you say, it didn’t seem to matter to him. The simplest and most likely being that he had spotted my men.’

  This time I was the one to pause. Then I explained, in tones of sincere concern, ‘Look, Lieutenant Gilbert, I’ll be perfectly frank with you. As Wu’s partner I certainly don’t always have an easy time of it, but we’ve shared the same area of operations for over four years, and I like to think that despite all the difficulties we’ve grown into a kind of team. And to be honest, I even admire Wu quite often. I think he could properly be described as a brute but a brainbox – and with him, you don’t get one without the other. Anyway, I can hardly imagine working with anyone else. But now you come along, and you indicate that Wu is under observation. Or as you put it, you let things take their course in a way designed to intrigue him. You didn’t say how or why, and I’m the one who feels most intrigued by that. I have to work with Wu, I have to be able to trust him, I can’t keep asking myself the whole time what it means if he isn’t annoyed, or perhaps he is annoyed, or whatever. So if there is any suspicion that he is involved in anything outside the usual legal framework, I think it’s your duty to tell me about it.’

  I stopped and thought of Chen’s homely truism, often repeated: ‘If someone begins by saying, “I’ll be perfectly frank with you”, you can forget about it.’

  Lieutenant Gilbert cleared his throat, and then said, with slight hesitation, ‘But there’s nothing for me to tell you about. Even if we – or I should say the Self-Protection department – wouldn’t mind doing so if there was. We in TFSP got dragged into this only because of that guy at the border.’

  ‘You mean the Self-Protection people would like to have something against Wu?’

  ‘Well, you know how it goes: someone talks big, thinks he’s a big noise, you feel like shaking him and saying: stop that, behave yourself. But if there’s no way you can do him any harm, it’s just so much hot air.’

  ‘Since when did Self-Protection have no way of doing someone from Eurosecurity any harm?’

  ‘He’s not just anyone from Eurosecurity. If word got round that relatively unfounded disciplinary measures had been taken against Chen Wu – well, it wouldn’t have a wonderful effect on the climate of our working environment.’

  ‘How do you mean, unfounded? Don’t take this the wrong way, but we both know that Self-Protection, in the fight against corruption and counter-democratic activities,
is constantly being obliged not just to find grounds for something but, let’s say, to leave such grounds lying around the place themselves.’

  ‘Yes, that can happen. But I’m assuming that such actions are taken more carefully in Chen Wu’s case. He can’t be expected to crumple in the face of an accusation that makes no sense.’

  It took me a moment to digest his assessment. Although I was sure that within Eurosecurity I knew Chen better than anyone else, and I’d had only too much first-hand experience of his aura and his effect on others, it still surprised me to find what a reputation he clearly had in all departments. In any case, it was extraordinary to find that Self-Protection had inhibitions about palming any clever little tricks off on him. On the other hand, the officers responsible were presumably right: accusing him of taking drugs or putting an underage girl in his bedroom wouldn’t discipline him. Far from it: I could see him in my mind’s eye drumming up all our colleagues at Ashcroft Central Office, making a big speech in the conference hall and describing, with relish and in every alleged or actual detail, how a few small, frustrated, jealous ‘sodding colleagues’ of ours from Self-Protection were trying to pin something on a successful man just because they had nothing better to do, and they wanted to demonstrate their power. Of course he wouldn’t be the only person present to have had trouble with Self- Protection one way or another, and I could already hear the shouts of applause and people calling, ‘You show ’em, Chen!’ and, ‘Fuck Self-Protection.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said at last. ‘Well, I know where things are then.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Monsieur Schwarzwald, I do see that the situation’s not entirely straightforward for you. I suggest you go on working with Wu as usual, and for the rest let things take their course.’

  ‘There’s nothing else I can do. But I do very much hope that Self-Protection will come to understand that Chen Wu is a special – and above all an especially successful – colleague, so he must be allowed a few quirky little opinions of his own.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t go along with you there. Only recently, Wu said in public to one of our commanders that we were using firing squads along the Fence – which God knows can’t be dismissed as a quirky little opinion.’

  ‘I know, it was in our cafeteria, I was there. Of course, that was monstrous. I can only say, in his defence, that at least he doesn’t spread such horror stories in secret. This way it can be discussed – as in fact in that case it was – and such ridiculous claims can be refuted.’

  It was becoming clearer to me all the time that Chen was taking the Hallsund line.

  ‘Hmhm, if that’s how you see it. All the same, I don’t think the right to free speech means anyone can talk any dangerous nonsense that occurs to him. But of course I understand that you want to protect your partner.’

  ‘Thanks, Lieutenant. Then might I ask you a favour?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘If there should be anything backing up the – well, let’s say the wish of Self-Protection for Wu to be up to no good of some kind with the illegals in the Rue de la Roquette, would you please let me know as soon as possible?’

  ‘Of course. But as I said, I think Wu is simply doing his job.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ I said. Then we finished the call. I switched off my mobile and took a large draught of the fresh beer that the waiter had now brought me.

  I ask you – ‘simply doing his job’! Chen Hallsund was twice as clever as Self-Protection or TFSP, that was all. I had seen his fury when he learned about the TFSP surveillance, and no one was going to tell me that he had acted that way because, in Lieutenant Gilbert’s words, correct procedure hadn’t been followed. Correct procedure! The mere phrase usually had Chen in fits of nasty laughter. For him only idiots spoke that way, trying to compensate for something or other with haughty remarks. No, Chen’s fury had arisen from his sense of an immediate threat. For a moment, a crack had appeared in his Hallsund façade, and I was going to make sure the whole thing came tumbling down.

  4

  I had no real plan. I simply wanted to stick to Chen like glue and stay stuck until he led me to the ‘diamonds’.

  I was in no doubt now that he was involved in something criminal. The only question was, how far in was he? Did he belong directly to some terrorist outfit? Was he perhaps one of its leaders – in line with his intelligence and abilities – and responsible for the planning and organisation of assassinations in the Greater Paris area? Or was he solely active as an informant and in rendering assistance? Naturally, working as an Ashcroft agent would give him great opportunities for that. What he could discover from the Eurosecurity computer alone about planned raids by the security services and investigations in progress in France would be enough to thwart much of what was described as the offensive against international terrorism carried out at all times and in all places.

  I remembered the leader of one police unit complaining of an incident in the Ashcroft canteen only last week: he and his team had planned a second raid on some suspect apartments, and once again found them empty in a way suggesting that the people he was after had been warned only just before they went in. One of the apartments had been in the district next to Chen’s area of operations. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it fitted the picture. What was more, I knew that in his official capacity as a municipal gardener Chen helped his colleagues in the neighbouring district out now and then, when there was some large landscaping job to be done.

  Or perhaps the terrorists were simply making use of Chen. In the naïve belief that he was helping so-called ‘poor refugees’ – itself well known to be a contradiction in terms since, after all, the poor couldn’t afford the trip to Europe – he was finding them accommodation, perhaps getting hold of forged papers, and passing on secret information to people who had managed to persuade him that they were acting in the true service of humanism. We all knew the way they talked.

  However, I found it difficult to link the term ‘naïve belief’ with Chen’s name in the same sentence. It was very much more likely to imagine him using some kind of clever, cynical pseudo-morality to justify the so-called ‘Second World struggle for freedom’, even if, as in the case of the illegals in the Rue de la Roquette and according to Lieutenant Gilbert, we were dealing with Iranians. As for their ‘struggle for freedom’, I had only recently watched an almost unbearable report on film from SII, the Secret International Information Service of Eurosecurity. For decades, the regime in former Iran had been dominated by a kind of ultra-religious murderous frenzy, its twin pillars being hatred of the Western world and constant prayer, not to mention the persecution of any dissidents. The film showed an entire family, from grandfather to grandson, being beheaded because the father had hidden one of his sons, a boy of ten, to keep him from going to a training camp for suicide bombers. You saw executioners with enormous swords on a wooden platform, thousands of eager spectators standing around, a cleric chanting prayers, and a young man holding up the severed heads in front of the faces of those family members who were still alive. Even the James Bonds of TFSP avoided venturing into the Greater Persia area as much as possible.

  So much for the ‘struggle for freedom’. But also so much for the likelihood that an illegal Iranian immigrant was anything other than a trained assassin. How many normal, peace-loving people could there still be in such a society? And how many of those could successfully get past a dense network of police, secret services, ‘guardians of religion’ and informers, and leave the country? And then they would have to get over our Fence! By that point at the latest, the chances were nil. Passing the Fence, one might say, was possible only with logistical and technical instructions and the help of the Iranian police apparatus.

  And was Chen supposed to have no idea of all that?

  But whatever criminal level he was operating on, I’d have to actually find him before I could catch him.

  After my phone conversation with Lieutenant Gilbert, I had walked round to the eleventh arron
dissement, and I had now been standing for the last half hour outside the building at number 121 Rue de la Roquette. On the third floor, where the illegals were living, lights were switched on, and looking through the kitchen window I could see a woman going back and forth. Presumably she was preparing supper. Well, even assassins have to eat.

  There were curtains over the other windows, and now and then I saw shadowy forms moving behind them.

  Obviously our conversation at the office had not made Chen decide to take immediate steps. On the other hand, it couldn’t be so easy to find somewhere else to take the illegals in a hurry, and very likely there were explosives and weapons to be organized. After all, you couldn’t just carry bundles of such things through the city. And then, of course, there were the TFSP men. On the whole they weren’t fools; you had to trick them.

  I had walked up and down the street twice, searching the windows of the building opposite the illegals’ apartment for any signs of the surveillance team. A device of some kind placed on the window pane to hide a camera; suspiciously dimly lit rooms; or simply someone half-hidden behind a curtain looking across the street. But they could have preferred to plant bugs on the floors above or below the illegals.

  It was nothing out of the ordinary for Eurosecurity departments to take a place over for a short time. Usually the public health authority was sent ahead, citing the risk of termite or fungal infestation on the building structure as the reason why interior and exterior walls, and any exposed beams in the apartment, had to be investigated and observed around the clock for a certain period of time.

  I looked at the time. It was nearly eight-thirty. Around me, the first shops were closing for the night, the aperitif bars were beginning to empty and the restaurants were filling up.