Checkpoint Charlie

“These are hardly the days of the Panay in the Yangtze. But I’ll admit there was something to gunboat diplomacy. Tell me, Charlie, did you actually serve under Teddy Roosevelt?”

“Why, I did my boot training under George Armstrong Custer.”

“That’s what I thought.”

A dusty bus drew up and decanted a camera-bedecked crowd of tourists, most of them Japanese, a few Americans and Europeans. The tour guide was a little man in sunglasses with a grey beard that looked as if rats had slept in it. From the color of his nose he was a drinking man. He said in a piping German-accented voice, “This way please, follow me,” and led the tourists past the watchful marines onto the Embassy grounds.

I was astonished. “They just come and go like that?”

“Nobody wants to stop them. The country needs tourists desperately and this building’s a landmark. Bismarck and Queen Elizabeth slept in it. Not, I assume, on the same night. Actually she was Princess Elizabeth then. They —” he was talking about the tourists now “— only see the public rooms on the ground floor, of course. No access to working Embassy areas. You need a pass, ID and an armed escort to get past the doors. I think the tour groups visit twice a day. I heard part of the old German’s spiel this morning. He’s pretty good — an old Africa hand, used to hunt rhino with Selous when he was a boy.”

We walked inside and had to clear ourselves with the marine guard. The soldiers across the street watched balefully. We went through the main doors and passed through a series of interior checkpoints and finally entered a comfortable but not very large office whose occupant, like the government-green paint, was drab and in need of a touchup. I knew him vaguely from past acquaintance: Oscar Claiborne, twenty-five-year man, passed over numerous times for promotion, assigned to one backwater job after another. Officially he was some variety of trade attaché; actually he was the Agency’s stringer. One look at him and you yawned.

“Oscar, you know Charlie Dark.”

We shook hands. Myerson said to Oscar, “Sit-rep?” He deludes himself into thinking his clumsy use of jargon phrases will ingratiate him with the men in the field. Sit-rep, some years ago, used to be Agency lingo for Situation Report.

Oscar said, “No change. He’s in his room lying on his side, nursing the bad arm. Taking things calmly enough, I’ll give him that.”

I said, “How bad is the bayonet injury?”

“Superficial. It’s healing nicely.” Oscar beamed at me. “Hey, old buddy, how’re they hangin’?”

“I’d like to talk to Brent,” I said to Myerson.

*   *   *

AUGUST BRENT was undersized and sharp-featured and had a cockney look. A monk’s fringe of limp sandy hair ran around the back of his bald cranium. His speech was rapid and clipped, the English of a man born in Africa. I liked him well enough; he was too ingratiating but I attributed that to his obvious fear. I was glad to see he wasn’t sweating unduly. That symptom is almost impossible to disguise.

We talked for a bit — I wanted him to warm to me. I needed his trust because he’d only go through with it if he believed I could be depended on. The scheme had occurred to me immediately and it was considerably less complex than many I’d essayed.

Oscar Claiborne interrupted us and took me outside into the hall. “Bad news, I’m afraid. They’ve issued a fugitive execution warrant on him.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning he can be shot on sight. Legally.”

“And they call this a freedom-loving democracy.” I went in search of Myerson.

*   *   *

IN THE Embassy cafeteria Myerson brooded at me, watching with a sneer while I put away a big meal. All he had was coffee and all he said was, “I’ll hand them one thing — it’s fantastic coffee.”

“They grow it here, dunce. You ever eat a coffee bean fresh off the bush before the packagers have got their hands on it? Sweet and delicious — like a chocolate drop. You used to be an actor, didn’t you?”

He was startled and then suspicious. “You’ve been prowling in the files.”

“No. Actually I saw you on stage once. Nineteen thirty-eight, I think. The Cat and the Canary. Summer stock — Woods Hole, wasn’t it? You weren’t too awful.”

“My God. I was seventeen years old. How in hell did you — ?”

“Do you still remember anything about theatrics?”

“I was a kid. It was forty years ago.”

“But you may remember make-up techniques.”

“Maybe. A little. I haven’t thought about it. You figure to disguise yourself, Charlie?” His lips curled into a disbelieving grin and he surveyed my girth ostentatiously. “Sure, a little pancake here and there and you could pass for Clint Eastwood.” He broke into rude laughter.

I gave him time to subside and said calmly, “We’ll move him out tomorrow afternoon. Have the plane ready to go any time after two o’clock.”

“How?”

“The guided tour.”

“You’re nuts. They search every one of those tourists as they leave the Embassy.”

“I know. I want you to send people out to the hotels. Find every tourist in town who bears any resemblance, no matter how superficial, to our man. Small thin guys. Ask them to join the bus tour tomorrow afternoon. Give them free tickets, invite them to the Ambassador’s party, appeal to their patriotism — do anything, just get ’em on that bus. I want six or eight small thin white men in the group.”

“It won’t work, Charlie. They know him.”

“It’s a black country.” I smiled at him. “All whites look alike in the sunshine. Tell ’em to wear hats.”

“They’ve been rolling up sleeves looking for that bayonet scab.”

“Trust me.”

“Listen, if he gets killed while he’s supposed to be under our protection…”

“Just get me the tourists,” I said. “And trust me.”

I went back to August Brent’s room to bolster his spirits with a pep talk. At first he was alarmed when I described the scheme. It took a while to reassure him. “It’s the Purloined Letter technique. The one thing to remember is not to be furtive. If you’re bold enough they’ll never spot you. Just don’t act scared, all right?”

Myerson and I took turns coaching him most of the evening. In the morning I booked a ticket on the bus tour and rode the entire route, learning more than I needed to know about that steamy corner of the world, and by one o’clock I was back in the cafeteria eating lunch. The beef in Africa is terrible but the fruits are delicious.

I had made a deal with the man whose place Brent would take on the bus tour. It was costing us a sizable chunk of the division’s budget but Myerson didn’t balk; he had more than money on the line. When the German guide led the afternoon group into the Embassy’s front hall we were ready. I spirited our volunteer away from the group into a private office; Brent exchanged clothes and documents with him; careful application of make-up and false hair and we were set to go. I hardly recognized Brent myself — wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t known who he was. We gave him a few words of cheer and sent him out to join the tour.

Myerson came outside with me to watch. Sweat stood out on his forehead. The tour filed out toward the bus and Myerson tried to suppress a groan. Out of the side of his mouth he said, “It hasn’t got a prayer, you damn fool.”

The tourists filed past the Marines and then the African soldiers moved in, intercepting the queue. Myerson’s handkerchief came out and while he scrubbed his face I said, “Look at something else, damn it. Don’t look so interested.”

The soldiers were examining the first tourist, removing his hat and then tugging at his hair. They tested his mustache and examined his face with belligerent suspicion. He was one of the half-dozen tourists Myerson had recruited — roughly Brent’s size and build — and the soldiers’ eyes were narrowed with cruel determination. They knew what it would mean to them if they should let Brent slip through.