by James Church
"And what did you observe?"
"Observe?" I thought about it for a moment, until I realized the delegation leader wasn't asking me about Sohn's body. "Diplomatic fencing isn't exactly my specialty."
"Really, I would have thought human nature was something the police would follow very closely."
"It is, only we deal with people in a more natural habitat than this. We don't have to cope with quite so much honey on the lies."
"True, there is a lot of that. We honey the lies, and poison the truth. Odd, isn't it?" He idly flipped through his small notebook. "There isn't anything in here, did you know that, Inspector? I take it out and look through it when the other side starts trying to bully me. They think it has instructions in it. I select a page, remove my glasses and squint intently at this little piece of blank paper. They're not sure if I'm listening. Half the time it make them nervous. The other half, they get huffy. Once in a while, they even stop talking until I close the notebook and look up. Sometimes they're like young children, very self-important."
"Maybe you haven't frightened them enough."
"Ah, then it is true you subscribe to the position that these talks should resemble head-to-head combat, fiery speeches and table pounding? We've had some discussion among ourselves on where you stand on this question of tactics."
"Maybe a little table pounding wouldn't hurt."
"In a police interrogation, it might be perfectly well advised. Here, it must be like a rare spice-sprinkled into the pot once in a while, and then only a tiny bit at a time. If you use too much all at once, it ruins the flavor. And worse, when you need it next, there will be nothing left. At the end of the day, when we finally pack our bags, I'm supposed to get nowhere on missiles but come home with food from these people, Inspector. Food, boatloads of it. If I pound the table, what will it get me?
"And if they think we are weak, what will it get you?"
"Very good. Some people have that talent, pointing to the dilemma at hand. Would that they had the same talent for finding solutions. The dilemma is exactly as you describe, Inspector. If it were a wild boar, you would have shot it between the eyes. What next? We have identified our dilemma with precision, with superb intellectual acumen, with a political sense of balance and a depth of understanding beyond anything seen in history. We are brilliant. What next? No one has given me an answer to that. All I receive is competing and contradictory sets of instructions on alternate weeks. If you know the answer, I'm happy to listen. I'll fill this little notebook with page after page of your ideas. I'll buy another notebook. I'll buy two. Pencils galore. But meanwhile, meanwhile, I have to proceed the best way I know how."
No one seemed to know that a senior party official was in the Geneva morgue with a broken neck. There were no odd silences, no one hurrying down the hall holding specially marked envelopes, no worried looks. The security man, who should have been shitting bricks, seemed perfectly calm. The ambassador passed me as he turned the corner into his office. The frown he gave me was normal in all respects. Maybe the Swiss hadn't said anything to anybody yet. Even the ambassador didn't know, unless he'd known all along.
2
"We're going to meet, Inspector." Most people might have said hello or feigned surprise at running into me, even though they had plotted the point where our paths would cross with great care. I was walking along the lake after the talks ended that afternoon. I could have turned right, but instead I was heading up toward the lady with the rump. I was getting too predictable. Jeno was waiting for me.
"We're going to meet, as opposed to what we are doing at the moment?" I didn't break stride when he stepped out from behind one of the butchered plane trees.
"This is just talk, passing the time. There must be three extra sets of eyes watching us."
"What makes you think they won't be doing the same the next time we meet?"
"Because we'll be somewhere other than where they imagine."
"I'm not going to get knocked out by Ahmet again."
"In this case, it will do no good if you are unconscious. Do you like pastry? I thought some Asians were not partial to bread."
Bread seemed to be on people's minds these days. Sohn especially had been interested when I told him what my brother had said on the phone. "Bread is fine," I said to Jeno, "as long as it's leavened."
"Good for you. You've been looking at an encyclopedia. How about you decide to get some pastry. Tomorrow, say about ten o'clock in the morning."
"How about after ten? I'm late rising these days."
"No, ten o'clock, on the dot, on the button. Tomorrow, you'll do everything on the button."
"Says who?"
"I know. You don't work for me. But you did work for Sohn."
"Wrong again." Jeno knew Sohn was dead. Why was I not surprised?
"Was I or was I not in your Hotel Koryo a few months ago, in the middle of winter, Inspector? Did Sohn not long afterward select you for this mission to Geneva? Are those all coincidence? Or are they beads in a wonderful necklace suggesting an elegant purpose and design?"
"I don't wear jewelry, of any description." Neither did Sohn, as far as I knew.
"In this case, I expect you to be where I tell you, at ten o'clock, with bells on. You'll love the pastry. What can it hurt?"
"And where is this best place for pastry?"
"On your side of the lake. Not too far from your mission."
"I'm not happy to hear that."
"Walk into town. Near Place du Pont there will be a cab with tinted windows driven by an Arab, a friend. Get in at nine fifty. Tell him you are looking for a good croissant."
"And he will reply?"
"He will glower at you in the rearview mirror. Ignore that. He's moody, but reliable. He'll take you up into the hills. Again, I'm reminding you, the place you're going is not far from your mission. Don't worry, your people never go up there. Never. This I know. It's in a section called Cologny. Very posh. The driver will drop you about twenty meters away from a fork in the road. The patisserie sits just there, aloof and alone. Go in and say politely to the nice lady you want two croissants."
"In French?"
"Don't bother. Tell her you want them to go. Nodding in a not unfriendly manner, she should ask: au beurre ou ordinaire? Never mind the translation. Just hold up one finger on each hand, thusly." Jeno demonstrated, using his two pinkie fingers. "However, if she tells you gruffly that the bakery has run out of dough for the weekend, it means everything is off. That is unlikely, but if it happens, leave quickly. Get back to the cab. If you don't have a bag of croissants, the driver will take off like a bat out of hell. There isn't another driver on earth that will be able to follow him. Once we figure out what went wrong, he'll drop you back in town. I'll be in touch, and life will resume its normal joyful rhythms."
"What if the nice lady says they don't have any croissants, but I see something else I like?"
"It will be the last thing you ever eat. If she says she has nothing, get out of there in a hurry. But I don't think anything will go wrong."
"Of course not."
"If we're on schedule, she'll put two in a bag for you."
"How much?"
Jeno handed me a fifty-franc note.
"I suppose now everyone has a picture of you passing me money."
"Fifty francs? We don't take pictures of anything less than a hundred. Don't be so suspicious."
"Oh ho!"
"You'll walk out with the croissants."
"How about a brioche?"
He handed over another fifty-franc note. "Now you are screwed."
I pocketed the money and smiled into the middle distance. "I don't like surveillance photos where the people are frowning, do you?"
"Walk out with the damned pastries and go back to the cab. Once you're inside, open the bag. There will be a note inside."
"A note! In a croissant? Something like a Chinese fortune croissant? This note, I suppose it will have instructions for the driver?"
; "It might."
"It tells him where to take me next."
"Possibly."
"I'm to arrive at the next place at ten fifteen sharp. You want me on the bench closest to the Villa Diodati?"
"What?"
"Obviously, you want me at Le Pre Byron. It's the best place to meet around there, out in the open. You think you're the only one who has scouted meeting sites?"
"What?"
"If a red car drives by on the road below and stops, it means we proceed as planned. If it's a blue car, we abort. Sort of a double-check on the nice lady."
Jeno studied my face. "Not bad," was all he said before falling silent again. "Not bad," he said finally, "but we don't use blue cars. It will be white. And since you have plenty of money, get a brioche for me, too."
3
Saturday morning I wasn't hungry, but I didn't think Jeno would take that as an excuse to scrub his operation, so I did everything as directed. The taxi driver scowled, the nice lady in the patisserie popped the croissants into the bag. The note told the driver to take me to Le Pre Byron, the bench closest to the Villa Diodati. A red car, a Peugeot, stopped on the road below. I had just sat back to enjoy the view when a man appeared beside me. At first I didn't recognize him.
"Hand puppets," he said.
"Three-legged dogs." I nodded. "You look different in the light."
"You're supposed to have an extra brioche."
"You want some money back?"
"I hope you remember operational details better than you do pastry orders."
"I owe you. Do we sit here until lunch?"
"You get on a train, a local. Just past Flamatt there is a truck yard, on the left. There will be a blue truck at the far end."
"Jeno said you didn't use blue."
"Cars. We don't use blue cars. Trucks fall under different rules. Is that alright?"
"Fine."
"If the blue truck has a red flag on its antenna, stay on the train until Bern. Not a bright red, sort of dirty. Like dried blood. That means it's a go. The conductress will punch your ticket and give you the last-stage instructions. But remember, she has the final go-ahead, or not."
"And how does she let me know? A cross-eyed look?"
"She'll take your ticket, punch it, and hand it back. Might not be the same one. Look at it. Anything other than today's date, it's a bust. If she doesn't like the way things smell, if she sees someone she doesn't think belongs, she calls it off."
"Then what?"
"You get off at whatever station tickles your fancy and look around. Get some dinner. Then just come back. Nothing lost, and whoever it was that stumbled into our midst will have wasted a day."
"This is the most elaborate, complicated, irritating operation I've ever heard of. I can see twenty points where it could fall apart."
"Oh, yeah? We've been through it twenty times. It works." He stopped. "It works as long as everyone plays his part."
"Why? Why is it so complicated?"
"You want me to simplify? Someone important is coming to meet you. He's coming a long way and going to a lot of trouble. We don't want anyone else to see the meeting. No one. If we could take you to Israel it would be better. Want some sun?"
"Not on your life."
"I told Jeno you wouldn't take that option. It's not such a long flight. All the engines on the plane up to snuff."
"No."
"We could put a sack over your head, give you an injection, put you in a crate, and ship you by air freight."
"Try it, I dare you."
He shrugged.
"What makes you think I want to see a visitor? Who is he, anyway? I don't run after people I haven't been properly introduced to. Someone high up in your organization, I imagine." I didn't wait long for a response, because I didn't suppose there would be one. "Very flattering, that a mystery man would come all this way to meet me. If it's not too late, you should tell him not to bother. We could say I have a prior appointment. That would save him a trip." A blank look. "Or maybe he's already here. A shame, busy man like him, having to come all this way for nothing. The Number Two in your organization? Not the Number One; surely no organization, not even yours, would set up a meeting for your Number One without first checking that the other party was available."
"Are you going to eat both croissants?"
4
If Sohn had still been alive, maybe he would have told me to go ahead and take the trip to Flamatt to meet whoever had traveled from Tel Aviv, probably to talk about the deal to stop missile sales. But Sohn wasn't alive; he was dead. I was in Switzerland because Sohn had put me here. And even though he was dead, the orders he'd given me were not. They hadn't changed. At least, no one told me they had been changed. No one had told me anything.
So I bought a round-trip ticket and boarded the train. The scenery was fine; groomed beyond all possibility. Geneva at least had grime on some windows. The countryside looked like it was trimmed and inspected every morning. Nothing out of place; even the cows knew enough to stand in appropriate groups. An occasional farmhouse screamed out, painted in loud colors. A mark of rebellion, I thought. It surprised me that such paint was even available here; it must be smuggled in from Italy.
About thirty minutes out of Geneva, a young couple came into the car and, without a word, sat down on the seat facing mine. They looked South Asian, the woman much younger than the man. I figured the Israelis would have someone, maybe a couple of people, watching me on the train, but otherwise I thought I would be left alone. No contact, other than with the conductor. So who was this couple?
The man was striking to look at, a very dark complexion and sharply defined features. He was also well dressed. The woman seemed uncomfortable, in physical distress of some sort, and leaned on his shoulder. He paid no attention to her, but looked out the window without much interest. At last he turned to me. "You are a traveler in this country?" His English was clipped, with a bit of a singsong to it. I might have enjoyed talking to him, but I had the feeling that was something I didn't want to do. There were plenty of empty seats in the car. They shouldn't be sitting knee to knee with me. He was waiting for me to reply.
"You might say I'm a traveler. Would your companion like to stretch out on this seat? I can move."
The man ignored the offer. "From where do you come?"
Briefly, I considered the possibilities. "I'm Mexican," I said. "And you?
"Sri Lanka." He murmured something to the woman, who picked up her head and nodded to me. "My wife is from Pakistan. She has become quite homesick and a little feverish in this place." He waved his hand at the passing landscape. "It's very neat, wouldn't you say?" The woman put her head on his shoulder again and closed her eyes. He closed his eyes as well for a moment, and then opened them suddenly. "Do you travel much?"
"Some." I realized I had seen him before. What was he doing on this train? How did he know me?
"Some." He repeated the word slowly. "Have you ever been to Pakistan?"
"Me?" From anyone else, someone who hadn't been in the second-row photo M. Beret had put on the table in the Sunflower cafe, someone who hadn't been standing next to my brother, this all might have passed for polite conversation between strangers on a train. If he had been a Martian, he might have been asking innocently, "Have you ever been to Pluto?" But this wasn't polite conversation. His presence was poison. I stood up. "Please excuse me; I can't ride backward for very long. I've got to find another seat."
The man gave me an odd smile and looked out the window. "Should we ever visit Mexico," he said, "no doubt we'll run across each other." I don't know what sarcasm sounds like in Sri Lanka, but that must have been it.
5
Two cars ahead, I found a seat facing forward and sat down. I had the coach to myself. I didn't bother to sit on the left side because I had a feeling there wasn't any use looking for a flag on a blue truck. The man from Sri Lanka didn't follow me. From the odd smile he gave me, though, I didn't think this was in the script for Jeno?s o
peration. Maybe they should have gone through it twenty-one times. Jeno surely would have told me to expect the dark man. Who was he? He might be working for M. Beret, at least he was in one of M. Beret's photographs. But M. Beret's file vaults probably contained miles of photographs. I was running through the list of possibilities from habit-even though I already knew the answer. The man knew my brother. Lots of people knew my brother, to their regret I imagined, but not that many would be photographed with him. It was always possible the man worked with Sohn, more likely against him. What if the man had murdered Sohn? Once you start making up lists of possibilities, they can go on reproducing and mutating for a while all by themselves. It's like having the flu. You get better eventually, or you don't. The last thing on the list isn't necessarily right, but it tends to stick with you.
At Flamatt, I glanced over and saw a blue truck flying a red flag, which surprised me. So they weren't going to call it off after all. The conductress came through the door in the front of the car and walked to my seat. She was blond, a long braid down her back. She wore pants, and she moved provocatively in them. I gave her my ticket and a friendly smile.
She smiled back. "Nice day to travel," she said. Small lips. It was Margrit. I remembered to avoid any sudden moves. She handed back the ticket. It was stamped with tomorrow's date. She'd scrubbed the operation. It could have been for any reason, but there was really only one that made sense. The dark man with the wistful Pakistani wife, the two of them close enough to kill me almost without moving a muscle.
