Checkpoint Charlie

Ross didn’t move. He let her come to him. It was in his instructions.

I was near enough to hear them because the offshore breeze carried their voices to me.

“Well then, M’sieur.”

“The money,” Ross began, and then he stopped, tongue-tied.

Christ. He’d forgotten his lines.

“Oui?”

He looked away from her. Perhaps it was the glimpse of the white sport boat out there that galvanized him. I heard him speak clearly and calmly: “The money’s on deposit and we have the receipt and the numbered account book. If you do the job you’ll be given both of them. Two hundred thousand American dollars in gold. That works out to something over half a million Swiss francs at the current rate.”

She said, “I would need a bit more information than that.”

“The name of the target, of course. The deadline date by which the assignment must be completed. More than that you don’t need.” Ross kept his face straight. I had a feeling he was feverishly rehearsing the rest of his lines.

She said, “You’ve left out one thing.”

“I don’t think so, Mlle. Lapautre.”

“I must know who employs me.”

“Not included in the price of your ticket, I’m afraid.”

“Then we’ve wasted our morning, both of us.”

“For two hundred thousand dollars we expected a higher class of discretion than you seem inclined to exercise.” It was a line I had drilled into him and apparently he hadn’t liked it — it went against his usual mode of expression — but I had insisted on the precise wording, and now she responded as I’d said she would: it was as if I’d written her dialogue as well as Ross’s.

She said, “Discretion costs a little more, M’sieur, especially if it concerns those whom I might regard as my natural enemies. You are American.”

“I am. That’s not to say my principals are.”

The thing is, Ross, you don’t want to close the door, you want to keep her talking. String her along, whet her curiosity. She’s going to insist on more information. Stall. Stretch it out. Don’t give her the name of the target until she’s in position.

Casually Ross put his hands in his pockets and turned away from her. I watched him stroll very slowly toward me. He didn’t look back to see if she was following him. He spoke in a normal tone so that she’d have trouble hearing him against the wind if she let him get too far ahead of her. “My principals are willing to discuss the matter more directly with you if you agree to take the job on. Not a face-to-face meeting, of course, but one of them may be willing to speak to you on a safe line. Coin telephones at both ends — you know the drill.”

It was working. She was trailing along, moving as casually as he was. Ross threw his head back and stared at the sky. I saw what she couldn’t see — Ross wetting his lips nervously. “The target isn’t a difficult one. The security measures aren’t too tough.”

“But he’s important, isn’t he. Visible. Otherwise the price would not be so high.”

It was something I hadn’t forecast for him and I wasn’t sure Ross would know how to handle it but he did the right thing: he made no reply at all. He just kept drifting toward the palms, off on a tangent from me now, moving in seemingly aimless half circles. After a moment he said, “Of course you weren’t followed here.” It was in the script.

“Why do you think I chose to come by open boat? No one followed me. Can you say the same?”

Position.

Ross turned and she moved alongside. She had, as I had predicted, followed his lead: it was Indochinese courtesy, inbred and unconscious — the residue of a servile upbringing.

She stood beside him now a few feet to his right; like Ross she was facing the palm trees.

Ross dropped his voice and spoke without turning his head; there was no possibility the microphones on the boat would hear him. I barely caught his words myself, and I was only about thirty feet downwind of him. “Don’t speak for a moment now, Mademoiselle. Look slightly to your right — the little cluster of palm trees.”

She was instantly alert and suspicious; I saw her face come around and I stirred a bit and it was enough to make her spot me. Then I leveled the rifle, aiming down the sights.

In the same guarded low voice Ross said, “It’s a Ma

I saw her shoulders drop half an inch and felt relief. If she doesn’t break for it in the first few seconds she won’t break at all. She’s a pro and a pro doesn’t fight the drop.

“You’re in a box, Mlle. Lapautre. You’ve got one way to get out of it alive. Are you listening to me?”

“Certainly.”

“Don’t try to figure it out because there are parts of it you’ll never know. We’re playing out a charade, that’s all you need to keep in mind. Play your part as required and you’ll walk away alive.”

“What do you want, then?”

It was evident that her cool aplomb amazed Ross, even though I’d told him to expect it.

I knew she couldn’t have recognized me; most of me was behind one of the palms and all she really could see was a heavyset fellow with a rifle. Because of the angle I was hidden completely from the view of those on board the sport fishing boat. All they’d be able to tell was that Ross and Lapautre were having a conversation in tones too low for their equipment to record. They’d be frustrated and angry but they’d hang on hoping to pick up scraps of words that they could later edit together and make some sense out of.

Ross answered her, sotto voce: “I want you to obey my instructions now. In a moment I’m going to step around and face you. The man in the trees will kill you if you make any sudden move, so pay attention…. Now I’m going to start talking to you in a loud voice. The things I say may not make much sense to you. I don’t care what you say by way of response — but say it quietly so that nobody hears your answers. And I want you to nod your head ‘yes’ now and then to make it look as if you’re agreeing with whatever proposition I make to you. Understand?”

“No,” she said, “I do not understand.”

“But you’ll do as I say, won’t you.”

“I seem to have little choice.” She was looking right at me when she said that.

“That’s good enough. Here we go.”

Then Ross stepped off to the side and made a careful circle around her, keeping his distance, looking commend-ably casual. He started talking midway around: “Then we’ve got a deal. I’m glad you agreed to take it on.”

He stopped when he was facing her from her port bow. The woman didn’t speak; she only watched him. Ross enunciated clearly and I appreciated that; we both were mindful of the shotgun microphone focused on his lips from four hundred yards offshore.

“I’m glad,” he said again. “You’re the best in the business, I think everybody knows that.”

Her lip curled ever so slightly: an expression exquisite in its subtle contempt. “And just what is it I’m supposed to have agreed to?”

Ross nodded vigorously. “Exactly. When you talk to my principals you’ll recognize the Ukrainian accents immediately but I hope that won’t deter you from putting your best effort into it.”

“This is absurd.” But she kept her voice right down. I was aiming the thing straight at her heart.

“That’s right,” Ross said cheerfully. “There will be no official Soviet record of the transaction. If they’re accused of anything naturally they’ll deny it so you can see that it’s in your own best interests to keep absolutely silent.”