The Marchand Woman

He gave her an anemic grin. “Come on in.”

She deposited her handbag, sat down, watched him light up a cigarette. “Did you sleep?”

“Not much.”

“Neither did I.”

He said, “There’s been some movement. Mexico and Colombia have put up the ransom between them. They’ve agreed to release the six prisoners in their jails. They’ve broadcast it—I don’t know if you heard the news?”

“I listened to it. I’m not sure I heard it.”

“Venezuela’s balking. The money’s been raised without them but five of the political prisoners are in Caracas and the Venezuelans insist they aren’t going to release them. It’s the standard hang-tough policy.”

“Are they that heartless?”

“The only way to survive this kind of terrorism is to have a firm policy for dealing with it and to stick to that policy. The only real surprise has been the willingness of the other two countries to knuckle under. Venezuela’s posture is, diplomatically speaking, the correct one. Of course usually you negotiate with the terrorists while you’re hanging tough. In this case there’s nobody to negotiate with. Appeals have been broadcast on the radio in Latin America but it’s been a one-sided conversation.”

“Hasn’t there been any word from them at all?”

“Yes. A note last night to a newspaper in Mexico City. Giving details of where and how the ransom was to be paid. A helicopter drop over a fairly remote forest area on the Yucatan Peninsula.”

“Are they sure it’s genuine? I mean, couldn’t anybody take advantage of a situation like this and deliver a ransom note?”

“It appears to be genuine. It’s been examined. It matches the earlier note—the one that turned up in Caracas. Half a page of anti-Castro propaganda, same as before.”

“Is anybody searching that Yucatan area?”

“In a way.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t send troops crashing around in the forest. They’d give themselves away instantly. And you can’t use planes or helicopters for the same reason.”

“Then nothing’s being done. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“Not quite. The helicopter that delivers the ransom will photograph every foot of the ground under it. Both standard film and infrared. There’ll also be—I shouldn’t tell you this, it’s top secret—an overflight by extreme high-altitude reco

She said, “They won’t be released right away, will they? Even if they get the ransom.”

“They’ll want some assurance the political prisoners have been freed and flown to Argentina.”

“Argentina? Do you mean to tell me the Argentine government has agreed to give them asylum?”

“Not exactly. They’ve agreed to keep hands off until Gordon and the other hostages have been released. Which means, probably, that the terrorists must have set up some clandestine escape route to get their people out of Argentina. Probably across Paraguay or something. It can be done—it’s easy to disappear down there.”

“Then it doesn’t end at noon today, does it.”

“Did you ever think it would?”

Noon came and went. She sat listless, her eyes drowsy with memories. Robert’s nine-year-old feud with the piano; his erratic career in college; his positive mania for justice.

Howard was on the phone. “There’s no movement at all?… Very well. Thanks, I’m sorry to keep bothering you.”

Carole said, “If I had charge of the assembled might of this technocracy I don’t imagine I’d be sitting on my ass the way these people are doing. I’d have had those hostages out of there.”

“You and Moshe Dayan.”

“It’s not possible that an organization as powerful as the United States government can fail to locate and rescue its own Ambassador. This whole system is rotten with the most suicidal and hysterical incompetence I’ve ever seen. Somebody should fold, spindle and mutilate the whole bureaucratic population of this town.”

“Do sit down, for God’s sake.”

She paced back and forth—four steps, turn, four steps.

“How naïve you are,” Howard said. “It’s strange how familiar your tune sounds. You can’t understand how the most powerful government on earth can fail to lick a handful of scruffy terrorists. Don’t you remember hawks saying exactly the same thing about Viet Nam?”

She professed not to hear him. “What’s the CIA doing?”

“How do I know?”

She advanced upon the desk. “What’s that man’s number—what’s his name, O’Hillary.”

“He won’t give you the time of day after the way you iced him yesterday.”

“Then you call him.”

“It’s pointless.”

“Call him anyway.”

“What for?” He met her eyes. “Carole, it’s no good browbeating me any more. It won’t accomplish anything. We’re both upset as it is—what’s the point of henpecking each other to distraction?”

She studied his face. His eyes were raw and pouched; there was a red spot on his lip where he’d chewed the chapped flesh. She said, “The conventional wisdom on the left is that the Department of State is nothing more than an arm of the Pentagon and the CIA. How much truth is there in that?”

“Some.” She was surprised by his candor. “It depends who’s in the White House. Right now we’re better off than we used to be.”

“If these terrorists were left-wing radicals, would this thing be handled the same way?”

“Terrorism is equally reprehensible whatever direction it comes from.”

“Don’t give me the official line.”

“I don’t think—”

The phone interrupted him. He picked it up and she watched his face change. He was looking straight at her but his eyes lost focus and he shrank.

“All right. Thank you for calling.” He cradled it very gently as if he were afraid of disturbing something; from that action she knew what he was going to say before he spoke.

“They have killed him.” He uttered the words with great slow precision as if by enunciating them fully he could himself believe in their reality. “They have murdered Robert.”

She couldn’t breathe. “They haven’t—they can’t. They mustn’t.”

He came around the desk blindly, groping for her. “He’s dead. My God, he’s dead, Carole.”

She found herself submitting to his embrace. Her eyes were painfully dry and she seemed incapable of getting oxygen into her lungs. She was aware of the tobacco-stink of his shirt and the tension in his arms. Silent, open-mouthed, trying to hold onto consciousness, she felt him weep.

Then she heard herself say, “Something must be done.”

PART

TWO

Chapter 3

When Gle

“They dumped the body on the back steps of the police station in Merida, Yucatan. They left all his identification on him so they’d be sure we got the right message. And a note pi