Checkpoint Charlie

Myerson led me through a narrow passage and we emerged at the corner of a stone customhouse that one of the colonial powers must have built long ago. It might have been the Germans or the Portuguese or the English — several nations had claimed the colony at various times; the building itself was too drab to identify its architects. Its walls were overgrown with bougainvillea.

We found a wooden bench under a palm tree. The earth sloped down toward a stone retaining wall that held back the sea — we had a good view across the crescent of the harbor. Coastal freighters were anchored out, lighters plying to and from them; there was a fair crowd of Indian Ocean junks, square sails furled. The saltwater smell was rich, pungent with raw sewage. A few people ambled past us (no one moved quickly in that heat), most of them Africans, some in tribal gear and others in burnouses and Western clothes; the occasional Asian, the even rarer European in flowered prints or khakis or department-store poplin safari outfits.

Myerson favored me with a sour dry gaze. “Will this suit you?” We seated ourselves.

Then he smiled, putting as many teeth into it as an alligator, and I felt alarm.

“I see you’ve enjoyed your vacation. You’ve put on at least forty pounds — anything less wouldn’t be noticeable on you. I really can’t afford to let you off the leash this way. You’ll eat yourself to death.”

I was overweight to be sure, and overage for that matter, but no more so than I’d been last time he’d seen me ten days earlier in Virginia. It was just his way of needling me.

I said, “It was a good holiday until you cut it short. I’ve still got eleven days coming to me.”

“Pull this off and you can have twelve.”

“That tough, is it?”

“Tough? No, I wouldn’t say it was tough. I’d say it’s impossible.”

“That’s the kind I like.” I gri

He squirmed. “We’re both on the line this time, I’m afraid.”

“In other words you’ve dropped the ball and if I don’t pick it up you’ll be thrown out of the game. I’ve expected this, you know. Sooner or later you were destined to foul up. Have you ever considered washing cars for a living? You may just have enough talent for it.”

“Let’s save the catcalls for another time, Charlie. This is serious. It could mean my job — and you know what that means to you.”

I did. If he goes I go. They want me out. If it weren’t for Myerson I wouldn’t have a job. I’d probably have to turn to crime to keep the juices flowing.

He said, “The impossibility is named August Brent. British parents but he was born here and he’s a citizen, one of the few. Under the old colonial regime he had a key job in the colonial exchequer. Educated at the London School of Economics. Since independence he’s been something like second-secretary to the Minister of Finance, some title like that — he’s a white man, after all, they couldn’t very well give him a cabinet post, but the fact is he’s been ru

“And then?”

“When they started terrorizing the Asians and whites a few weeks ago he began to think about getting out. His mistake was in talking to too many people. The government got wind of his intentions to depart.”

Myerson looked out across the harbor. A graceful ketch was leaving under canvas; there was a racket of gulls. Soldiers in fatigues — armed — walked here and there by twos, quietly menacing.

Myerson said, “He was packed and ready to leave. He went out to buy something — airsick pills, something i

“The American Embassy?”

“Right. He demanded asylum. Threw himself on the Ambassador’s mercy.”

“Then they called you in.”

Myerson sighed. “I tried to bring him out, Charlie. I didn’t want to disturb your vacation.”

“Sure.”

“I tried. I botched it. Is that blunt enough to satisfy you?”

“I’m tempted to gloat, sure enough.”

“He’s still there. In the Embassy. An acute embarrassment to everybody — British, Africans, Americans. I can’t guess which of them hate him the most.”

“Is he worth anything?”

“On the open market? Nothing. The inside secrets of the finances of a two-bit third world nationlet — who cares? No. Two cents would buy him.”

“Well, I guess the Ambassador must be a human being. Didn’t want to throw the poor wretch to the wolves and all that. And anyhow we’d lose face if we reneged on the asylum. That it?”

“Acute embarrassment, yes. By protecting him we offend our African hosts; but by turning him loose we’d be welshing on a commitment. The British, of course, are laughing their heads off.”

“Why do the Africans want him?”

“He betrayed them and he’s getting away with it. They can’t have that. They need to prove it’s dangerous for anyone to cross them. Charlie, listen — all else aside, there’s no doubt in my mind but that if we gave him back to the Africans he’d last forty-eight hours at the outside. An accident, of course.”

The ketch dwindled toward the horizon, hoisting more sail. Myerson said, “It’s a dreary mess. The man’s of no value, not even to himself. If we do get him out, what of it? At best he’ll find some petty civil service job in England. At worst he’ll end up sleeping off cheap wine in alleys. Nobody cares about him — nobody needs to. He’s a drip. But we have to try, don’t we. We have to give him a chance.”

“I suppose. How did you try to get him out?”

“Laundry van. They searched it with bayonets. Pricked him pretty good. In the arm. We managed to hustle him back inside. A couple of shots were fired — no injuries but the Africans were pretty sore about it. They’ve quadrupled the guard around the Embassy. It’s not rifles now, it’s machine guns and riot troops. They’re searching every vehicle and pedestrian that comes out of the building. You couldn’t get a mosquito out of there now. I confess it’s my fault — the laundry truck was my idea. We had a private jet waiting. It’s only a five minute flight across the border.”

“Is the plane still available?”

“Yes.”

“Then all we have to do is get him to the plane and he’s home free.”

“Sure. But if we try again and fail we’ll be laughing-stocks from Joha

“Why not just leave him in there until the Africans find something else to occupy them?”

“No good. Every minute he remains in that building he’s a thorn in both sides. He could become the flashpoint of a nasty international incident.”

“So we have to get him out safely and soon.”

“Soonest.”

I stood up. “Let’s have a look at the Embassy.”

*   *   *

IT HAD BEEN Government House in colonial times, built in Cecil Rhodes’ time — Empire, the raj, so forth. It had been built to impress. Now it had the slightly gone-to-seed look that creeps up on buildings in the tropics — a symptom of dampness and heat and termites: the lines seemed to sag and things had gone grey in patches and parts of it appeared to be crumbling; possibly it was a trick of the afternoon shadows.

It stood behind a high wrought-iron fence. There were palm trees, flame trees, acacias. Six Doric columns supported the high porte-cochere. American flag. Four marines on duty at the gate.

The African troops slouched at intervals outside the fence. I counted twenty-eight men, a half-track APC, two jeeps and a radio truck; probably there were more behind the Embassy. I said drily to Myerson, “I don’t see anything those four marines shouldn’t be able to handle.”