The Plot

by Irving Wallace

“Driver, can’t you back up and take me some other way?”

  “Non, c’est impossible. Vous n’êtes pas capable de vous en rendre compte vous-méme?”

  Brennan glanced out the windows, and he saw that it was impossible. They were hemmed in by stalled automobiles in every direction. At this rate he wouldn’t reach the Bois by six o’clock, let alone by five. He considered paying off the driver, making his way on foot through the jam to the other side, and finding another taxi headed north. But he decided that there would be no vehicles available on the other side, for few cars were getting through the bottleneck.

  The madness of the frustration was almost amusing. After the years of waiting to meet with Rostov, the recent days of intensive searching for a means to see him, he was being kept from achieving his goal by a ridiculous and typical Gallic smashup at the Étoile. To lose his opportunity to achieve vindication, a vindication that could restore him to life, because three French drivers had been belligerent or drunk or reckless was too fantastic to accept.

  But now his own driver was poking his stubby finger ahead of them. “Regardez, ça a l’air de s’arranger. Ça ne va pas durer longtemps.”

  Brennan squinted through the windshield, across the tops of the cars in front, and he could see that the three crushed vehicles were being slowly pried apart with the aid of a repair-truck winch and police muscle. Shortly, the traffic would move. He would not be very late after all. He was certain that Rostov would give him ten to fifteen minutes’ grace.

  Feeling better, he sat back in the taxi seat and reviewed the instructions given him.

  He knew the Bois de Boulogne very well. In another time, when his wife, Stefani, had not yet been hateful, when Ted had been a child and Tracy an infant, Brennan had often visited the Bois. Since Stefani had mocked the Bois as a bourgeois picnic ground, detesting the outdoors (unless it was the fashionable St. Moritz), Brennan had usually gone to the Bois with the children, showing them the windmill, the cascades, the polo field, letting little Tracy ride a camel and teaching young Ted the simple rules of boule. More often he had gone to the Bois alone, to tramp the narrow paths into the woods, picking up leaves with his Basque walking stick or enjoying a cheese sandwich or merely reflecting on how much closer he was to the simplicity of this world than the sophistications of Stefani’s world.

  Yes, he knew the Bois de Boulogne, and he knew where he would be headed in not many minutes. They would enter the Bois at the Route de Suresnes, and ride between the thick forest to the left, the woods partially hiding the Lac Inférieur to the right. Here and there, on rented benches along the water, lazing elderly Frenchmen and their wives, or romantic young couples, would be feeding the ducks and swans. There would be the pier, and the motorboat that for thirty centimes each would take both natives and foreign tourists to the triangular-roofed, open-terraced Chalet des lies, situated on one of the artificial islands, where one could enjoy a bottle of Beaujolais or Bordeaux rouge.

  But today he would not visit the Chalet des Des or travel on the lake. Today, he would not go as far as the water. He would hang back, beneath the dense foliage of the trees, observing the several boule games in progress and waiting for Rostov’s emissary, carrying two boule balls, to lead him to the privacy of an automobile parked nearby.

  Reflecting upon his instructions, he was surprised that Rostov’s girl had ordered him to wait near the boule area. While Rostov, as best as Brennan could recall, was worldly, there had been no evidence in Zurich that Rostov had known the slightest thing about sports, and especially about a sport as typically French as jeu de boules. On the other hand, boule was probably spreading in popularity. Brennan himself, after first being introduced to the game in the Bois, had been charmed by the ease and pleasure of playing it. No regulation court was required. You simply needed any small surface of land that was solid lawn or hard dirt, and you used only four of the heavy two-pound metal boule balls and one small (no larger than a large marble) wooden cochonnet or jack, the target ball. You played one against one, or two against two, and someone tossed the wooden target ball up ahead, and your opponents took turns to see which of their heavy steel balls, pitched or thrown overhand or underhand, could land nearest the wooden target ball. The players throwing their boule balls closest to the target ball won points. But it was the refinements of the game that made for sport. If an opponent had his boule ball closest to the little target ball, you had the right to try to hit his boule ball and kick it away, or to hit the wooden target ball and send it flying away. After his introduction to the game in the Bois, Brennan had gone to the sports department in Au Printemps and purchased two boule sets to be sent to his home in Washington. But once home, except for an occasional Sunday game with young Ted, he had had little opportunity to play. Stefani had thought the game common and uninteresting, and had much preferred the same time be given over to tennis or riding. Perhaps he was being harsh in his memory of her. But that was the way it had been.

  His mind had wandered too great a distance backward, and now he had to search to remember what had sent him on the journey. Then he recalled it. Rostov’s girl ordering him to wait near the boule area in the Bois. Still, this was not unusual either. He himself had taken boule to America. Other Government visitors had, too. In Italy, when in the mood, he had sometimes joined in the game of boccie, which was similar to boule. And he supposed that the Russians, who had been to France so frequently in recent years, had taken boule back to their dachas outside Moscow and adapted it to their own purposes, by now probably claiming to have invented it. Brennan was reminded never to underestimate the breadth of interests exhibited by the Russians and the Chinese—and, above all, by Nikolai Rostov.

  He felt the taxi moving once more.

  Ahead, he could see that the impacted cars had disappeared and the way was clear. They drove around the Étoile, jerking and swaying to avoid the oncoming traffic pouring out of twelve converging thoroughfares, and finally, they were speedily bumping up the vast stretch of the Avenue de la Grande Armée. They made their turn at the Porte Maillot and rode along the sudden border of greenery that was a boundary of the Bois de Boulogne. He would reach his rendezvous point at a quarter after five. He prayed Rostov had been generous enough to allow him the tardiness of fifteen minutes. If he had, they would be shaking hands in less than a minute or two.

  Approaching the tree-laden banks that encircled the lake, Brennan became conscious of the steady honk of French police klaxons. Then from out of nowhere, it seemed, a louder honking from their rear merged with the disconcerting sounds ahead, and his taxi wheeled to the side of the road as a boxy ambulance bearing the Red Cross insignia roared past them.

  His driver had slowed, hunching over the wheel, peering ahead, and Brennan saw what the driver was seeing. The ambulance and a police wagon that had approached from the opposite direction were drawn up before the very intersection where Brennan was expecting to be dropped off. Dozens of people, men in shirt-sleeves, women in cottons, the users of the Bois, were running toward the scene of the disturbance.

  “Better pull up here,” Brennan commanded. “I don’t think you’ll get much closer.”

  Paying his driver, Brennan left the taxi and strode quickly to the Route de la Muette. Ignoring the tumult caused by hurrying people and police, Brennan hesitated at the intersection and reviewed his orders. Cross over to the wooded park along the lake, and make your way to the boule courts opposite the restaurant Chalet des Îles, located upon the island in the lake… stand among the trees beside the boule courts… watch any game in progress. A gentleman holding two boule balls, one in each hand, will approach you…

  Like a robot, dutifully obeying electronic commands in the midst of human chaos, Brennan traversed the street known as the Chemin de Ceinture du Lac until he attained the cool shade of the trees that guarded the shore of the lake. Penetrating the grove of trees, he finally emerged into the open, and off to his right, on one of the artificial islands in the center of the lake, he could plainly
make out the larger of two buildings, the triangular roof and brick-red walls of the Chalet des Des. By walking along the lawn that followed the edge of the woods, he would arrive at the boule courts. There he would hang back among the trees until approached.

  Because he was late, he went fast. He kept looking for the habitual players, but none could be seen. He watched for the courts—which he knew were not courts at all but merely worn areas used for the games—and at last he came upon these. To his astonishment, they were abandoned. He stood there, lost in confusion. He had been told there would be boule games to observe from the trees. But there were no games. All that he could do was stand back among the trees and wait.

  He turned toward the woods, and for a second time he was astonished. So single-minded had been his devotion to his orders that he had completely forgotten about the accident, about the people and police on the run, and he had ignored the sights and sounds of emergency. But now the sights and sounds assailed him, for there, through the trees, beyond the area where he was to have waited, were at least a hundred noisy spectators, craning their necks, chattering, with police coming and going, and a team of stretcher-bearers being allowed through the crowd.

  Brennan surveyed the appalling mob. Fifteen minutes earlier, he would have shared that area with very few persons, perhaps even owned it for himself. He would have been easily found and identified by Rostov’s man. But now there was considerably less chance that this would happen. He had been told to wear sunglasses and sport jacket, and to smoke his pipe. But there were dozens of male onlookers who seemed to be wearing sunglasses, many men in sport jackets, and several with pipes, all attracted here from adjacent sections of the Bois to revel in some kind of accident.

  Discouraged, Brennan knew that he still must make an effort to stand where he was supposed to stand. After all, quite possibly no other person in the crowd possessed all three props—the sunglasses, sport jacket, pipe. It was also unlikely that anyone else in the crowd resembled Brennan closely, and surely Rostov’s emissary would have been given some kind of description.

  Holding his pipe, Brennan walked across the lawn to the edge of the woods, and then to the circle of spectators among the trees. As he arrived, the circle split open, spectators falling raggedly back to make way for a solemn médecin de la police and an unhappy police commissaire, who were conversing almost inaudibly.

  As they passed Brennan, he could make out the commissaire’s question, “C’est la boule qui l’a tué?”

  Only a portion of the police physician’s fading reply was distinct: “Sans aucun doute… en cognant la téte… fracture du crane… commotion cérébrale… il est mort sur le coup… quel malheureux accident par une aussi belle journée… Allons, continuez, je vous verrai au poste, Monsieur le Commissaire.”

  Brennan attempted to piece the conversational fragments together. Apparently, someone had died while playing boule, had suffered a fractured skull, a brain concussion. Interest aroused, Brennan pivoted slowly, searching up the narrow lane through the crowd to the wide patch of ground upon which all eyes had been concentrated.

  In the center of the grassy clearing, sprawled face down, lay the twisted body of a slender young man.

  For Brennan, cultural victim of countless television programs, motion pictures, stage plays, the dead victim of this accident, as he lay motionless in the clearing, appeared as unreal as an actor. Brennan waited for the corpse to stir and rise. It did not.

  Suddenly, Brennan realized that the commissaire, returning to his duty, was going briskly past once more. Spurred by some unreasoning impulse, Brennan quickly fell in behind the police officer, staying at the officer’s heels as the awed spectators closed up the aisle behind them. When Brennan reached the inner hub of the large circle, he halted. He watched the commissaire speak briefly to the ambulance attendants, waiting with their stretcher. Next, the commissaire moved toward two uniformed agents de police and a plainclothesman, who were inspecting the area and were gingerly picking up minute objects and carefully placing them in little bags. After observing their routine and bobbing his head in approval, the commissaire moved back toward the corpse in the center, where a police photographer tirelessly snapped photographs of the inert body.

  Watching this sad spectacle, Brennan involuntarily dropped his gaze to the figure of the sprawled corpse. The back of the victim’s head, partially shattered from a crushing blow, was a gruesome sight, and the shock of dark hair was matted with clotting blood. The shoulders of the victim’s gray sport jacket were also spotted with blood, still crimson, not yet turned black. The commissaire knelt while remaining in Brennan’s line of vision. Whipping out a handkerchief, he reached down beside the victim’s face to retrieve what appeared to be a pair of glasses, and placed them carefully in the handkerchief. Then he lifted a dead arm and removed another object, and nested it in his handkerchief also.

  The commissaire rose, signaling to the ambulance attendants. They responded swiftly, one carrying a folded stretcher, the other a blanket. With practiced hands, they turned the corpse over on his back. There was no reverence in their actions. They were not handling a human being. They were handling a slab of meat. Brennan shuddered.

  In brief seconds, while the commissaire addressed the two attendants and the photographer continued to take his obscene pictures, Brennan had a glimpse of the victim’s face. It was a visage both bony and angular, with lifeless eyes, a thin long nose smudged with dirt, a mouth at once pained and surprised and now slack in death. It was not a French face, but British or German or possibly American. And then it was no more, for the blanket had been drawn across it.

  The victim’s face had had an eerie familiarity for Brennan, and he averted his head while the corpse was being lifted to the open stretcher.

  The spectators around Brennan were dispersing, to go back to their benches, their strolling in the late sun, their picnics, their games.

  Brennan felt someone rudely bump against him, and he whirled around, annoyed, to find an eager young American college type, complete with crew cut, apologizing to him. “Sorry, sir,” the young man said. He was tugging a pad from his pocket. “Geez, but I’m late.”

  He hurried directly toward the commissaire, calling out, “Monsieur, I’m Fowler of ANA. Remember me? We—”

  Apparently, the commissaire did remember him, for he shook the American reporter’s hand and appeared cordial. “Yes, Mr. Fowler. How are you?”

  “We just got the tip from the Préfecture. But we couldn’t get it straight. Was it homicide?”

  “An accident, ordinary accident, but unique because of its infrequency.”

  They drifted out of Brennan’s hearing, walking slowly around the clearing, Fowler obviously probing, the commissaire obviously cooperative. Then they approached Brennan once more.

  “That is the story, Mr. Fowler,” the police official was concluding.

  “But you don’t know who was playing boule with him? Any clues at all? Anything special in that handkerchief?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” replied the commissaire. He unfolded the handkerchief in his palm and held up a pair of shattered bent sunglasses. “Just personal effects. This, too.” He indicated an object still in the handkerchief so that Brennan could not see it, an object in which the reporter showed no interest. “Check the Préfecture, if you wish, for further information. Good day, Mr. Fowler.”

  The commissaire hastened off, and Fowler, crew cut bent over his pad, remained in his place, busily scribbling notes.

  In the last minutes, Brennan had nearly forgotten the reason for his presence in the Bois. Something else had seemed more vital. Slowly, he started toward the occupied reporter.

  “Mr. Fowler?”

  The reporter looked up with surprise.

  “I couldn’t help hearing you were from ANA,” said Brennan. “I happen to have two good friends attached to the bureau—Jay Thomas Doyle and Hazel Smith. My name’s Brennan.”

  Fowler was instantly respectful and attentive. “H
ow do you do, Mr. Brennan.”

  “I won’t take up your time. I know you’re in a hurry. But I am curious. What happened here?”

  Fowler tucked his notes and pencil into his pocket. “We thought it was an American, that’s why I was sent out. Actually, it’s nothing much for us. The guy that got killed is a Britisher, name of George Simmons, thirty-five, an engineer from Liverpool. An ordinary tourist, nothing to do with the Summit, unfortunately. Just a plain gawker, here on a holiday.”

  “What happened?” Brennan repeated.

  “A freak accident, maybe worth two paragraphs. As far as I can learn, he was wandering about the Bois, sightseeing. He came on the boule games here, and he paused to watch them. Then, according to a couple of witnesses, some guy carrying a couple of boule balls came up to him, looking for a fourth to set up a new game. Apparently, Simmons, this Englishman, was interested. They went off back through the trees—to this boule area—and the next thing, maybe five minutes later, a couple of French kids went scrounging back in the brush, and they stumbled on Simmons’ body right here, in this clearing, and when they saw the blood, they began to yell. As far as the police can make out, Simmons joined this pickup game, but not being experienced at boule, at waiting for turns, he must have darted out to see the lie of his ball just as one of the others pitched another ball hard and high. It smashed Simmons on the back of the skull. Killed him instantly. Well, I guess he just dropped down to the ground, and when his partners saw he was dead and nothing could be done, they scrammed out of here. Just got scared and didn’t want to get involved in the accident. That’s not right, but it’s human nature. Can’t say I’d have behaved differently.”

  “What time did this happen?” Brennan asked tightly.

  “Exactly, I don’t know. Witnesses think he disappeared into the woods, to join the game, around five o’clock. Maybe a little after.” The reporter paused. “Well, I’d better get back to the office.”

  “Mr. Fowler, one more thing.”