Snap Shot

by A. J. Quinnell

  He turned to look at Duff, who had taken the telephoto lens off the camera and replaced it with an all-purpose zoom. He unscrewed the assembly from the tripod, slipped it into its carrying case and slung it over his shoulder, the lens exposed. As always he was ready, in an instant, to photograph any happening in a city replete with happenings.

  ‘What do you feel like eating?’ Jerry asked.

  Duff grimaced. ‘Anything as long as it’s not mutton. Let’s take the car and go down to The Smugglers and get a steak.’

  Jerry grinned. ‘For a world traveller you sure are a cautious eater. Or are you hoping to run into Gina Mansutti?’

  ‘You never know your luck,’ Duff smiled. ‘She’s convinced I can get her an interview with Yassir Arafat. Imagine being that naive. Any time now she is going to drop these elegant designer jeans and really try to persuade me. Come on, let’s go.’

  Outside on the landing Duff pressed the button to call the lift while Jerry turned the keys in the triple lock.

  In the flat above Misha Wigoda, alias Melim Jaheen, had also concluded that his surveillance of PLO headquarters could take a couple of hours hiatus and, like the Canadian and American below, had also decided to get some lunch, although he would eat a Iamb stew at his usual table in the corner restaurant. It so happened that he had punched the lift button a few seconds before Duff and so the lift came to him first. He stepped in and pressed the ground floor button, but it stopped on the floor below. As the doors opened he heard the Canadian saying:

  ‘Just one more fucking month, then I’m transferred to…’

  The words dried as he noticed the lift was occupied. They got in and nodded pleasantly to Misha and the lift descended. Misha noted Duff s every-ready camera. He had seen many of the American’s photographs in the international press and he admired him greatly. In fact Misha felt a sneaking envy. He was himself highly competent with a camera and skilled in all the intelligence aspects of photography, but he recognised in Duffs work the extra element which separates the artist from the technician. ‘One day,’ he thought, ‘I’ll be free to roam with a camera and capture events as they happen, instead of being confined to shooting an endless series of faces of which only one in a thousand is ever in use.’ He felt also another kind of envy, for Misha was short and balding with a face that his mother had described as ‘full of character’ - in essence ugly - while Duff Paget was tall and jarringly handsome.

  The lift reached the ground floor and he gestured politely and Duff and Jerry preceded him out into the lobby and through the open doors into the searing afternoon sun. He stood at the top of the steps watching as they walked towards Jerry’s battered green Mercedes parked on the corner. The Canadian was talking again. From the bug that had been planted in his apartment Misha knew that he talked a lot. Not a good trait in an intelligence agent. Duff was listening but his right hand was casually resting on his camera, the fingers curled around the lens casing. A real pro, Misha thought, and was about to turn away in the opposite direction when it happened.

  A grey Simca came around the corner at speed, its tyres screaming on the hot asphalt. He saw the two black gun barrels protruding from the windows and his instinct took over, flinging him to the pavement, his right hand reaching under his jacket for the butt of the MAB pistol in its armpit holster. He never pulled the gun. As he rolled onto his side he saw that he was not the target. The gun barrels were now spitting flame and they were pointed at Duff Paget and the Canadian. Misha watched as they were smashed off their feet as though plucked by an unseen hand. The air was filled with the coughing rattle of gunfire. Misba’s trained ear instantly recognised the source and he cursed under his breath.

  ‘Uzis, the bastards are using our Uzis.’

  The grey car had slowed and it was only a three-second burst but Misha knew that in those seconds the two Uzis between them had spewed over seventy bullets at the two men. Then the car was accelerating away. He saw two faces looking back from the rear seat. Christ! One was a woman - a white face surrounded by black curly hair. He looked back to the two men.

  The Canadian was lying against a wall, his body still and hunched, but Paget was moving, a contorted, grotesque movement. His legs were twisted under him, his left arm smashed and bloody, the lower part of his face was shot away. Misha could see the white of his jaw bone protruding from a red maw. But he was moving. Dragging himself like a red rag down the pavement. And in his right hand Misha saw the black camera pointed at the retreating car. Misha felt the breath sucked out of him. The Mishuganah was shooting film! He was dead. He had to be - but he was shooting film!

  Misha came to his feet, started running, his mind in an exalted fury. Duff was motionless now, had rolled onto his back. He was clutching the camera to his guts, trying to stop them spilling out. Misha bent over him, felt repulsion at the sight of his smashed face. Only the eyes were untouched and in them was a last flicker of life. At least one bullet had smashed into the mouth, angling down into the jaw - stumps of broken teeth and bubbling blood. But there were sounds. Not just moans of agony. He was trying to say something. Misha lowered his head. There were other noises now in the street: people shouting, running footsteps, a siren in the distance. He bent lower, his ear almost touching the red flesh. Then he heard it. A word repeated even fainter. It sounded like ‘hilm . . . hilm . . . , hilm . . .’ Abruptly Misha understood. It was a word from deep in the throat, without teeth or mouth the dying man could not form the letter ‘f. He was trying to say ‘film’. Misha’s eyes flicked to the camera in the tentacle of Duff’s right hand.

  Now Misha steadied himself. Began to operate again as a skilled agent. He looked up across the street. The guards outside the PLO building were watching impassively, but their guns were held ready. A group of onlookers had gathered at a safe distance.

  Under the pretext of helping the dying man Misha lifted his body, pulling it over on its side so his back faced the street. He knew he only had seconds. Now Duff was truly moaning in agony. A horrible, bubbling, choking sound. Misha reached down and twisted the camera free and then almost vomited as intestines spilled out onto the pavement. He panted as he worked and cursed as his fingers slipped on the wet camera. Then he had it quickly rewound and open and the roll of film out and into his trouser pocket. He snapped the camera shut and tucked it back against the body. There were no more moans. The American was dead.

  Carefully Misha straightened, looked again at the guards across the street. They were watching him intently. He made a series of graphic gestures with his hands: the first, a chopping motion to show that the man was dead; then a shrug and hands held out wide and flat. He was not involved. Slowly he backed off, edging for the corner. The siren was close now, no more than a block away. One of the guards raised his Skorpion and Misha froze, but he was only hefting it, easing the weight. Misha moved again and then, as the first police truck appeared at the end of the street, he was at the corner and turning and sprinting away, his heart pounding, his right hand under his jacket; ready now to shoot his way out.

  Walter Blum sat behind his mahogany desk looking down at its uncluttered, polished surface. It was ridiculously large but he reasoned that by its size it made him look correspondingly smaller. His mood over the past hour had progressed from being sad to pensive. He had been thinking about Duff Paget and his death. The sadness had been for the passing of a friend. The pensiveness was now concern about the future. He had sent a note of condolence up the mountains to Ruth two days ago on first hearing the news. He would have gone himself immediately but a signal had come in that Misha Wigoda had related information and a roll of film. Walter had ordered him to Cyprus to report in person. He had arrived an hour before and told Walter graphically of the manner of Duffs death. The film was now being processed and the enlargements would soon be ready. That evening Walter would drive up and see Ruth. In the meantime he had put a cover watch on the house and knew that just before noon the CIA station chief at Nicosia had paid her a visit. He was wondering a
bout that visit when his intercom buzzed and a voice informed him that the prints were ready.

  He eased his chair back on its oiled castors and pushed himself to his feet. Lining the wall behind him was a bookcase replete with leather-bound tomes. He walked over and, with a fat forefinger, pushed the spine of ‘David Copperfield’ just below the ‘D’ of Charles Dickens. There was a click and a hum and a section of the bookcase swung backwards, revealing a panelled corridor just wide enough to allow his passage. As he walked towards the felt-lined door at the end he rebuked himself yet again for this piece of melodramatic architecture. He could just as well have housed his ORANGE headquarters in a perfectly normal office building with a standard cover. But still, if he was going to be a master spy, he may as well have some of the more glamorous perks and gadgets.

  He opened the felt-lined door and stepped into a large, functional, windowless room. It was the penthouse of the adjoining building and housed six resident agents, a communications network, a records centre and a conference room. He nodded to a shirt-sleeved young man who sat with headphones at a bank of wireless equipment, then moved through into the conference room.

  Two men sat at an oval table. One was Isaac Shapiro, nominal Deputy Managing Director of Walen Trading (Cyprus), but in reality head of ORANGE 7. The other was Misha Wigoda. Four 8 x 10 black and white prints lay on the table in front of them. Without a word Walter eased his bulk between their chairs and looked down at the photographs. Two were badly blurred images of the side of a car. There were spots of white at the windows. Wigoda reached out and indicated the spots.

  ‘Muzzle flashes. It must have been reflexive. He was shooting film as they were shooting him.’

  Walter looked at the third photograph. It showed the back of the car taken from a low angle. There were two faces peering through the rear window. One was a man: his hair loosely covered in the mottled head cloth so favoured by the PLO ‘Fedayeen’. The other was a woman with curly black hair.

  Misha pushed the fourth print directly under Walter’s gaze. It was an enlarged section of the third. It showed the woman’s face almost life size but indistinct in its graininess. Walter looked at the face for a very long time. The other two men looked up at him curiously. Then Shapiro said:

  ‘We’ve checked against all the photos of PLO female operatives we have on file. Negative.’

  Walter shook his head, then leaned forward and turned the other three prints over so that their white backs were facing up. He arranged them around the face, blocking out the curly black hair.

  ‘She’s no Palestinian,’ he said. ‘That’s a wig. Without it she has very long, blonde hair.’ His voice took on a growl. ‘She likes to wear it up. Held in place by a single pin. When she takes the pin out, it tumbles down, it’s like a trademark.’

  Shapiro was puzzled by his barely controlled anger. He had never seen his boss except in a sardonic or bantering mood.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Janine Lesage. She works for L’Universe - and SDECE.’

  Wigoda interjected. ‘So what’s she doing with the PLO and why was she in on that killing?’

  Walter sighed. ‘As to the first, we must make it apriority to find out. As to the second, let’s just say that hell hath no fury like a woman outbid in an auction.’

  He reached forward, picked up the photograph and walked out. Shapiro and Wigoda looked at each other blankly. Then Wigoda asked:

  ‘Was that Shakespeare?’

  Shapiro nodded! ‘Yes, with a little help from Walter Blum.’

  Walter sat in the back of the air-conditioned Mercedes 600 as it wound up the mountain road to Platres. Usually on such a journey he would have chatted to Spiro, his Cypriot chauffeur, about local politics, soccer, the weather or his family. Spiro had five sons and four daughters and they were a diverse and fascinating brood. He had worked for Walter for two years and during the first few months had regaled Walter with stories of their exploits. Two of his sons were in politics, a third ran a large winery outside Limassol, a fourth was a reporter for a local newspaper and the fifth and youngest was a soccer star. Of the daughters the two eldest were happy and settled housewives, the third was a tempestuous Bouzouki singer whose love life was the scandal of the island, and the youngest was a member of the Cypriot Communist Party and in constant conflict with her two brothers who were at the opposite end of the political spectrum. She was also the apple of her father’s eye. At first, Walter had assumed that the old man was either fantasising or, at best, ‘ wildly exaggerating. However, after a few months, he had been invited to attend the wedding of the youngest daughter and curiosity had prompted him to go. They were exactly as described: a sprawling, multi-talented, vociferous and friendly family. Walter had been astonished, particularly as several of the children were obviously very wealthy and he only paid their father fifty Cypriot pounds a week. He had broached the subject the next day and Spiro had smiled and explained that he simply enjoyed driving, especially such a car as Walter owned. Besides, he would never allow himself to be supported by any of his children. He treasured his independence and his ability still to act as a stern and impartial father.

  So Walter liked him immensely and enjoyed talking to him and occasionally picking his brains about the island’s politics and culture.

  On this day, however, he needed to think and so he had pressed the button which raised the glass partition and sat back, ignoring even the spectacular scenery. He gave his mind over to his problems.

  Walter was soon to have what his instinct told him were two momentous meetings. One with Ruth and the other with Munger. He had no idea how Ruth was taking Duffs death. He knew her to be a strong woman but he guessed that the visit of the CIA man from Nicosia might have had a profound effect on her equanimity. He decided he would make his approach from head on. The last thing she would appreciate would be more lies or half-truths. The only question was whether or not to tell her about Janine Lesage. It could be a motivating point in his strategy. On the other hand it might best be used at a later date.

  He had no qualms about manipulating his friends. He liked to think of himself as a prime mover in the ‘great game’ and by definition his friends were either there to be used in that ‘game’ for what he saw to be the ultimate good, or they were not truly his friends: In that case, he reasoned, he need have no qualms about using them. It was a satisfying philosophy and one that did not lead to sleepless nights.

  However, he was distinctly nervous, as an agent always is when he has to expose himself as such. They call it ‘dropping the trousers’ and there is no other way to recruit another agent who is not motivated by greed. In Ruth’s case his instinct told him that only complete honesty would give him the chance to recruit her. In any event, she was Jewish and he knew she felt deeply about the future of Israel. Munger, though, was a different matter.

  His eyes dropped to the seat beside him and the briefcase containing the thick dossier and the report of Professor Chaim Nardi. He wondered if Ruth would agree with his own interpretation and whether she would approve of his tactics. He felt an uncharacteristic stab of fear as he contemplated his meeting with Munger. There were so many imponderables and the man himself was unpredictable. Walter was wary of the unpredictable. Usually his wealth, his intellect and his position gave him more than adequate protection, but in this case he was going to be truly exposed. There was no other way. He wanted Mungar, even if the recruitment entailed a measure of risk. Since that first meeting, he had arranged for Munger’s farmhouse to be watched. His agents had reported that he continued to live the life of a virtual recluse. Once a week he went into Phini to buy supplies. On those occasions he would visit the taverna and take a drink and a coffee with the locals. Very occasionally he would go down the road for dinner with his nearest neighbours. Discreet enquiries in the village had ascertained that he was respected, even popular. It had been difficult to get information. The villagers were curiously protective about him.

  Walter thought again o
f the little Professor’s warning about amateur psychology. Anyway, after Ruth had read the dossier he would have a second opinion. Not so eminent, of course, but perhaps more practical.

  The car was passing through Mandria and to take his mind off the problem Walter reached forward and opened the small fridge. Inside was a plate holding smoked salmon, breast of chicken and pate. Also a bottle of Montrachet. He pulled up and adjusted the tray beside his seat and settled down to the business of eating. It might be late before he finished with Ruth and he needed a full stomach for the tasks ahead.

  Ruth was in the garden, pruning the rose bushes, when he arrived. There had been a little rain the night before and she was wearing bright yellow rubber boots over her jeans. Her hair was tied back into a casual pony tail and, as he stood on the patio looking down at her, Walter decided that whatever emotional impact she had suffered she was no less beautiful.

  ‘Get yourself a drink,’ she called, ‘I’ll be right with you.’

  ‘I’ve been drinking Montrachet,’ he answered, it’s a pity to spoil it.’

  She smiled and he felt a surge of relief, for it lit her face and expelled any doubts about her state of mind.

  ‘There’s a bottle in the fridge, Walter. From the last batch you sent. Don’t drink it all - I’ll join you.’

  He went through into the kitchen and uncorked the wine, collected two glasses and carried them through into the lounge. She was on the patio pulling off her boots.

  ‘Let’s drink out here,’ she said, ‘and watch the sunset.’

  He moved out and put the bottle and glasses onto the small wicker table and sank into a wicker chair. It creaked and groaned. Ruth slipped her feet into leather sandals and sat down opposite him. He poured the wine and they both sipped and looked at each other.