Authors: Eric Ambler
‘Patron, you are here under an alias and travelling on a passport that is good but not perfect. Your face is known in Geneva. In the restaurant mentioned it is well known. The chances of your being recognized are high. That place is much used also by senior journalists with expense accounts. Mr Halliday could easily be recognized and questioned about his presence in Geneva instead of New York or Pennsylvania. It would be friendly questioning, no doubt, and he could make up a story, but how does he introduce his table companions? As Monsieur Iks and Monsieur Igrek? No. The elegant sauces can wait for another day. We should dine here, simply and discreetly, and then go quietly to our rooms.’
‘Madame is so kind to issue orders for our comfort,’ Vielle began again savagely, but she cut in on him by rapping the table with her glass.
‘The orders are not for your comfort,’ she snapped; ‘they are for the security of the operation. That is the responsibility I have been given. If you yourself, Jean-Pierre, wish to go to this restaurant there is nothing to stop you. Telephone for a table and a taxi. If
you
are recognized it doesn’t matter. You have your own name and passport and nobody will care why you are there. There could be a dozen reasons, all banal. Okay, off you go. Bon appetit. But do not ask me to compromise the operation.’
Vielle was pink with fury. ‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I ask nothing at all from you except your silence and …’
He paused to choke a little and Zander moved in smoothly. ‘All the same, Jean-Pierre, there’s probably something in what Simone says.’
He spoke ruefully and consolingly, but I could see that he was enjoying himself. Among the tycoons I have known at all well, the umpiring of disputes between rival subordinates has always been regarded as good healthy fun. And if a senior subordinate is being attacked by a comparative junior, so
much the better. The stakes are higher. There is more raw emotion. Blood may flow.
‘There is
always
something in what she says,’ Vielle said bitterly. ‘That something is the attempt to assert herself. How? By trading on family affections and by reducing every problem, even that of choosing a restaurant, to one of security. And she has the impudence to talk of responsibility to me, your colleague for twenty years.’
Zander’s eyes were laughing merrily. ‘But it
is
her responsibility, Jean-Pierre. It has been delegated to her. My dear old friend, you agreed yourself to the arrangement.’
‘Perhaps,’ Chihani said kindly, ‘Jean-Pierre feels that I have become obsessed with the subject, that I have become too serious.’
It was a neat little trap and Vielle fell into it face downwards. ‘No, Simone, I feel that you are serious only as a way of making yourself important.’
‘Are you suggesting that
we
– I don’t mean you, Jean-Pierre, I mean those of us whose lives are at risk – should
not
be serious about security?’ she asked and glanced at Zander. ‘Shall I telephone for a table, patron?’
But he was tiring of the game. He turned to me. ‘You have said nothing, Mr Halliday. Have you any thoughts on our security?’
I had, but they were not primarily about restaurants. Chihani’s analysis of the risks in Geneva had reminded me of one security risk we were preparing to run of which she was not yet aware. The day before, while I had been persuading Zander that we needed a back-up TV unit to protect our cover with the Austrians, she had been with Mokhtar and Jasmin in Milan distributing largesse to her stooges in the hotel and retrieving my baggage. That morning, when Schelm had telexed the news that a freelance Dutch unit just finishing a job in Yugoslavia would be joining us at the Lindwurm rendezvous on Tuesday, she had already left and was on the road. The change of programme was not a serious one, maybe, but someone ought to tell her about it. Vielle
wouldn’t. Perhaps Zander would. Meanwhile, she was making more sense than the self-indulgent Vielle. I said so firmly.
‘As far as I am concerned, Mr Zander, it would be the height of folly to go to that restaurant. Miss Chihani is dead right about my being recognized there. I know of at least four old friends who could be there on a Saturday night and all at one table. Two of them at least would be glad to see me and want to know what I was doing in Geneva. It would be very difficult for me to think of a lie to tell them that either would believe. I’ll settle for the brasserie here.’
Vielle sighed gustily, but Zander overruled him and that seemed to be that. It wasn’t quite.
I was in bed trying to work out the time in Bucks County and wondering whether I ought to take the sleeping pills right then or wait and lie there awake for a couple of hours, when I heard a key being inserted very quietly into the lock of my room door. The key turned. The door opened slightly.
This was disconcerting because I had locked the door from the inside, checked to see that it was in fact locked and then put my key on the dresser. I thought how much things must have changed in Switzerland if, even there, you could now get mugged in a motel room. I also wondered what there might be within reach, aside from a spare pillow, with which to defend myself. There were no bedside lamps, only wall brackets, and the intruder was inside now. The door closed softly.
‘Awake?’ It was a whisper.
‘Yes.’
The shutters were closed and the curtains drawn. It was very dark. I sensed rather than saw her move towards me and stop.
‘I wished to thank you for speaking in support of me this evening,’ she said; ‘you were of the greatest help.’ She still spoke in a whisper.
‘I simply said what I thought. You were quite right. Jean-Pierre was quite wrong. Stupid too. Do you collect passkeys everywhere you go?’
‘Here there is no need. At the desk in places like this there are always two keys in the box of a double room.’
It took me a moment or two to realize that she was stepping out of her pants, that she had recently showered and that the soap she smelt of was not the bain-moussant supplied free by the management. When she had the rest of her clothes off she slid under the sheet beside me. Nothing more was said. There seemed to be nothing much more to say. I was being rewarded for good behaviour.
It must have been about eleven-thirty when the young people returned from the disco. They sounded as if they too had enjoyed themselves. As soon as they had quieted down she dressed again and left. I had no trouble at all in getting to sleep.
The arrangements for picking up the French television unit vehicles had been made by Vielle’s Paris office, from which, I gathered, most of the various Zander organizations’ European purchasing was done. The pick-up was to take place at ten-thirty in the visitors’ parking lot of the Palais des Nations. There, the French producer would be paid cash in West German marks for the balance of the rental and receive a post-dated cheque in Swiss francs, drawn on the American Express International bank’s Geneva branch, as a returnable deposit. He would be providing the vehicles and equipment plus insurance Green Cards endorsed with the names of additional authorized drivers. At ten o’clock Vielle set off, carrying a bulky briefcase, with Chihani driving him in the Alfasud. The young people followed in the minibus.
The Alfasud returned at noon. Vielle was driving and in a very bad temper. According to him, the French producer had exhibited the shabbiest kinds of petty greed and gross bad faith. The little crook had tried to jack up the agreed rental price, he had reneged on the agreed conditions of the deal by removing most of the camera equipment and he had had the effrontery to question the validity of the post-dated cheque in an attempt to get more cash. Vielle had had to remind the fellow that a word to good friends in Paris could
ruin him, not only as a freelance film-maker but in certain physically humiliating ways as well, before sense had been seen. It had all been very time-consuming. However, the unit vehicles were now in a drivers’ rest area off the eastbound lanes of the autoroute near Begnins. The minibus was in the parking garage at Cointrin. The sooner we began to make up for lost time the better.
The unit vehicles were in a Citroën van and a Peugeot station-wagon. The van had had a conversion job done which gave it three fully-reclining passenger seats that could be used as bunks. Stowed behind them, in compartments and lockers and slings, were what looked to me like the usual paraphernalia of a mobile television film unit: the scuffed camera and film-magazine cases, the tripods, the photoflood projectors and stands, the accessory bags, the junction boxes and the heavy-duty cables. On the roof was a rack carrying a collapsible rostrum and a pair of step-ladders strapped over it. A nest of red-plastic traffic bollards was roped to the ladders. On the sides of the van was a logo featuring a stylized bird design and the words
ORTofilm TV ORTofilm
lettered in black on an orange ground. Below this, in very small letters, was the corporate name – Productions Radio-TV Ortofilm S.A. Paris. The station-wagon’s sides bore the same legends. It occurred to me that the word Ortofilm had been put together because of the first-glance resemblance of its first syllable to an acronym used by the French state broadcasting services.
‘How do you think it looks?’ Zander asked.
‘Convincing. It looks like the real thing. Why shouldn’t it? It
is
the real thing.’
‘Yes.’ He pointed at the camera cases. ‘Unfortunately those are empty. We must hope that the Austrians don’t examine us too closely.’
‘There’s no law against not having camera equipment. If they get curious you could say you’re going to rent it in Vienna.’
‘Could we rent it?’
‘I don’t know. Probably. Why not? Are your papers okay?’
‘Oh yes. All of us except you have French passports. We will hope to be taken for what we must seem to be, a television unit from Paris with an American journalist going to shoot a news interview in Austria.’
‘Where are we going to stop tonight? You won’t forget that I’ll need telex facilities?’
‘You’ll have them, Mr Halliday. And I hope
you
won’t forget that I shall expect your Military Deputy to the Commander Nato Strike Force South to be given a name. I have to be able to assure The Ruler
before
any meeting takes place that he will not be dealing with some impostor, some underling.’
‘All that is understood. You’ll get the name.’
‘I hope it proves to be the right one. Tonight, I think, we will stop near Zug. Then we shall cross over into Austria in the morning. On Monday mornings there tends to be less traffic. Ah, here now is Simone.’
She had been to garage the Alfasud with the minibus at Cointrin and driven back in the station-wagon with Guido. It was by then one-thirty. Zander decided that we would give lunch a miss. Too much time had been lost. The station-wagon, with Simone driving, would lead the way under his command with me in the back. The van would follow us closely. Beyond Berne, perhaps, when we were well on the way to Zürich, we might stop for coffee and sandwiches.
We made two stops, in fact, and at neither did we eat or drink anything. The first in an autoroute service area where there were gas stations, drink-dispensing machines, a self-service cafeteria, a store selling novelties and a lot of parking space. For some unfathomable reason the place seemed to be popular with local Sunday drivers and their families. Both store and cafeteria were doing brisk business, but a lot of the people there had just parked their cars and were strolling around in the sun as if the place were a beauty spot.
When we drove in we pulled over to one of the gas stations to fill the tanks which the French producer had neglected to
top up after his drive from Paris. By the time we had filled both tanks and the spare cans a crowd had gathered. To begin with they just stared, then they started peering inside the van and asking questions. Vielle headed for the toilets. Zander had to field the questions – they were mostly in German anyway – and he became a centre of attention. He hadn’t expected this and he didn’t like it. When we started to move towards the cafeteria the crowd followed. As soon as he realized this he turned back. He had had enough.
‘We can’t stay here,’ he said to Chihani. ‘Tell Jean-Pierre. Unless anyone else wants to go to the toilets we leave at once.’
When we were back on the road he turned around to face me. ‘Are they all crazy here?’ he demanded.
‘What were they asking you?’
‘Crazy questions. What is the programme we are making? What is the name of it? Is it for the Swiss and German chains or only Suisse Romande and France? That one expects. I say it is a documentary about asthma. I could have saved my breath. They go on and on. Where have we come from? Where are we going? What does Simone do? Is she an actress? Am
I
a star? Who are you? Why are you wearing a tie when I am not? They do not listen to what one is saying, you understand. They only want to talk and show you their stupid faces. The parents are as bad as the children. Are you an American? What part of Germany do I come from with that strange accent? Why do I have Arabs working for me? Yes, even that. One of those people heard Mokhtar speaking to Jasmin and thought it was Arabic. Are you a famous star who used to be in cowboy films or are you the cameraman? Am I Monsieur Ortofilm himself? Here we are, not far from Zürich, and there are crazy people walking about.’
‘You’ve just been meeting the public, that’s all, Mr Zander. You should be pleased.’
‘What do you mean? Pleased about what?’
‘To the uninitiated we must look like members of that new and privileged class you were telling me about.’
‘I am looking for cover, not exposure to the half-witted.’
‘You’d better get used to the idea that in this case the two things go together. You’ve been lucky this afternoon, Mr Zander. Now you know better what to expect, and you found out in a place where it didn’t matter what anyone thought or said about you and your reactions. Call it a dry run.’
‘A what?’
‘A performance before a camera that’s running but with no film in it. A combat exercise with everyone firing blanks.’
The eyes hardened. ‘No one over learned about combat by firing blanks,’ he said and turned away from me to look ahead. ‘Perhaps it’s as well,’ he added sombrely, ‘that there’s only one more battle to be fought.’