Checkpoint Charlie

In the hotel room I ordered a huge di

“What did you want from that Air Force colonel who met you at the airport?”

“Look, Arthur, I don’t mean to be an obstructionist, I know it’s your bailiwick but the operation’s classiffied on a need-to-know basis and if you can get authorization from Langley then I’ll be happy to fill you in on the tedious details. Right now my hands are tied. I ask you to understand and sympathize.”

Finally he went away after making it clear he intended to file a complaint. I was relieved to see his back. I tumbled into the luxurious bed and was instantly asleep.

There wasn’t much I could do but wait for the phone. I had to spend the time in the hotel room: Some discreet machinations had taken place, through Davidson’s offices, to get the private phone line installed on short notice. I might have been in prison for all the freedom of movement I had; it made me think of Stossel with irony. At least I had a comfortable cell; it was why I’d picked the Bristol Kempinski — Old World elegance, hot and cold ru

I caught up on reading, watched some soporifically slow German television programs, enticed Davidson and some others into a sixteen-hour poker game that cost them, collectively, some four hundred dollars, and growled at the phone frequently in an effort to will it to ring.

*   *   *

THE TELEVISION brought me news of the hijack story in South America. All their other demands having been met, the hijackers forced the aircrew to fly them to Buenos Aires on the first leg of a journey to North Africa. While the plane was refueling at Buenos Aires a gang of Argentinean commandoes got aboard in maintenance coveralls, isolated the hijackers neatly and brought the caper to its end; passengers and crew were released unharmed; two hijackers dead, three wounded and captured. Case closed.

About that time I had a blistering phone call from Myerson. “Are you still sitting on your four-acre duff? You’re free to go in and get him now.”

“I’ve still got jet lag. Maybe tomorrow.”

“Damn you —”

“You want it done properly, don’t you?”

“The pressure’s on me.”

“Live with it.” I rang off, amused and pleased. I hadn’t revealed my plan to him. Let him stew. I summoned a whopping great lunch from room service.

Between me and Myerson lies the unspoken understanding that he has half his hopes pi

By the fourth day Myerson’s phone calls were nearly apoplectic and I was rested, replete and recumbent. Today would be the most likely day for things to break according to the science of the situation.

Myerson was issuing ultimata. “I know you’re scared of going over into the Eastern zone. Well, it’s just too bad, Charlie. If you’re still in that hotel at midnight I’m throwing you to the wolves.”

I rang it off without replying. I was able to contain my anxiety — if he threw me to the wolves prematurely and then my plan came off successfully, it would make him doubly the fool and he wasn’t going to risk that. The threat was empty for the moment. But he might go around the bend at some point, throw self-preservation to the winds in his rage against me. I couldn’t do much about that except hope it held off long enough to let things sort themselves out.

The real anxiety had to do with Stossel. Suppose he couldn’t get to a phone: If they were still holding him in Debriefing he might not have access to an outside phone. But they’d had him nearly a week now; surely they’d have administered pentathol by now and learned he was still loyal to them.

I knew one thing. Myerson or no Myerson, I wasn’t going over that Wall. No one-way trips for old Charlie Dark. However it topped out, this was going to remain a remote-control job. I’d already pulled the strings and there was nothing left now except to wait and hope the puppet danced.

Davidson kept dropping in when he had nothing better to do. He came at me from oblique angles and doubtless thought himself clever. That afternoon he was pumping me slyly about Stossel. “How did you nail him in the first place?”

“The job was to find him — we didn’t know where he was holed up. He ran his network through a Byzantine series of cutouts and blind drops. Nobody’d ever been able to trace him back to his lair. We knew he was in the Arlington-Alexandria area but that was the sum of our knowledge. I had to ask myself how somebody might find Charlie Dark if he were hiding out, and I answered myself that all you’d have to do would be to find the best Italian food in town and wait for Charlie Dark to show up there. It worked the same way with Stossel. Everybody has preferences, colas or a brand of cigarettes or whatever. It takes a lot of manpower to work that kind of lead but we had no choice. We had the dossier on him, we knew his quirks. He’s half Polish, you know. Always had a taste for the best Polish vodka — the kind that’s sold with a stalk of buffalo grass in the bottle.”

“I’ve tried that stuff. Once. Tastes foul.”

“Not to Stossel,” I said. “Or a lot of other people. Most fair-sized liquor stores in the States carry the stuff. It took manpower and work — that was FBI work, of course. They staked out dozens of stores and in the end it led us to Stossel. He was tripped up by his preference for Polish vodka. I told him it was a weakness that would betray him again.”

“Has it?”

I was about to answer him when the phone rang. It galvanized me.

“Herr Dark?”

“Speaking.”

“My people — the doctors — they tell me there is no antidote.”

“They’re wrong,” I told him. “We’ve developed one.”

“I see.” There was no emotion in Stossel’s voice.

“West side, Checkpoint Charlie,” I said, “any time you’re ready. We’ll be waiting. Come alone, of course.” I smiled when I cradled the phone.

The smile wasn’t for Stossel; it was for Myerson.

Stossel came out at eleven forty that night. It was twenty minutes short of the deadline Myerson had given me. There was a satisfying symmetry in that.

Davidson put the handcuffs on him. Stossel was stoic. “How long do I have?”

“You’ll be all right now.” We rode toward the airport with Stossel squeezed between us in the Opel’s back seat. It was safe to tell him now. I said, “Actually it’s a benign poison. It has all the attributes and early symptoms of Luminous Poisoning but in fact it’s the reverse.”

“Our doctors told me it was incurable. I had terrible cramps.”

“I didn’t give you the poison, Stossel. I gave you the antidote. Like a serum. It contains similar properties.”

“You bluffed me.” He brooded upon his handcuffs. “Of course it was in the vodka.”

“Where else? I told you the weakness would trip you up.”

When I boarded the plane with Stossel I was savagely happy anticipating Myerson’s rage. On the ten-hour flight I ate five di

*   *   *

Trust

Charlie

I SAID, “Either cover up that mirror or let’s meet somewhere else.”

Myerson showed me his surprise, then pained impatience. “For Pete’s sake, Charlie. It’s an ordinary hotel room. Booked at random.”

“I’m still alive after all these years because I’m a practicing paranoid, all right?”

“For Pete’s sake.”

But we went down to the lobby and outside into the African sun, both of us in shirtsleeves against the heat. Myerson sneered at me.

We walked past a rank of ten-year-old taxis. At the open stalls vendors were selling passion fruit and mangoes and coconuts and what-have-you, all of it clustered with flies. We crossed the central square, dodging a spotty traffic of cars and trucks and sagging overcrowded buses; an armored perso