He took a flare pistol from a side pouch and fired a red flare high into the sky.
Couldnt that be the Vietcong playing games again?
Not really. He fired another red flare, then a green. Colours of the day.
Her leg was just starting to hurt. She said, So now they know where we are, the Vietcong, I mean.
They already did.
And will they come?
I should imagine so.
He wiped the M16 clean with a rag and she raised the Nikon and focused it. As she discovered later, he was twenty-three and just under six feet in height with good shoulders, the dark hair held back by the sweatband giving him the look of some sixteenth century bravo. The skin was stretched tightly over Celtic cheekbones and a stubble of beard covered the hollow cheeks and strongly pointed chin. But it was the eyes which were the most remarkable feature, grey, like water over a stone, calm, expressionless, holding their own secrets.
What are you? she said.
Airborne Rangers. Sergeant Martin Brosnan.
What happened here?
A bad foul-up is what happened. Those clever little peasants, half our size, who we were supposed to walk all over, caught us very much as they caught you. We were on our way to Din To after being picked up from a routine patrol. Fourteen of us plus the crew. Now theres only me for certain. Maybe a few out there still alive.
She took several more pictures and he frowned. You cant stop, can you, just like the guy said in the article he wrote about you in Life last year. Its obsessional. Christ, you were actually going to take a picture of that kid as he was about to shoot you.
She lowered the Nikon. You know who I am?
He smiled. How many women photographers have made the cover of Time magazine?
He lit another cigarette and passed it to her. There was something about the voice which puzzled her.
Brosnan, she said. Im not familiar with that name.
Irish, he said. Well, County Kerry to be exact. Youll seldom find it anywhere else in Ireland.
Frankly, I thought you sounded English.
He looked at her in mock horror, My father would turn in his grave and my mother, God bless her, would forget she was a lady and spit in your eye. Good Irish-American, Boston variety. The Brosnans came over during the famine a long time ago, all Protestants, would you believe? My mother was born in Dublin herself. A good Catholic and could never forgive my father for not raising me the same.
He was talking to keep her mind off the situation, she knew that and liked him for it. And the accent? she said.
Oh, thats part acquired by way of the right prep school, Andover in my case, and the right university, of course.
Let me guess. Yale?
My family have always gone there, but I decided to give Princeton a chance. It was good enough for Scott Fitzgerald and Id pretensions to being a writer myself. Majored in English last year.
So, she said, Whats a spoiled preppy brat doing in Vietnam, serving in the ranks in the toughest outfit in the Army?
I often ask myself that, Brosnan said. I was going to carry straight on and do my doctorate and then I found Harry, our gardener, crying in the conservatory one day. When I asked him what was wrong, he apologised and said hed just heard his son, Joe, had been killed in Nam. Brosnan wasnt smiling now. But the real trouble was that thered been another son called Elie, killed in the Delta the year before.
There was a heavy silence, the rain flooded down. Then what?
My mother had him in and gave him a thousand dollars. I remember it well because the cashmere and silk jacket I was wearing at the time had cost me eight hundred in Savile Row on a London trip the year before. And he was so damn grateful.
He shook his head and Anne-Marie said softly, So, you made the big gesture.
He made me feel ashamed, and when I feel, I act. Im a very existentialist person.
He smiled again and she said, And how have you found it?
Nam? He shrugged. Hell without a map.
But youve enjoyed it? You have an aptitude for killing, I think. He had stopped smiling, the grey eyes watchful. She carried on, You must excuse me, my friend, but faces you see, are my business.
Im not so sure about liking it, he said. Im damned good at it, I know that. Out here you have to be if the fellow coming at you has a gun in his hand and you want to get home for Christmas.
There was silence, a long silence, and then he added, I. know one thing, Ive had enough. My times up in January and that cant come soon enough for me. Remember what Eliot said about the passage we didnt take towards the door we never opened into the rose garden? Well, from now on, Im going to open every door in sight.
The morphine was really working now. The pain had gone, but also her senses had lost their sharpness. Then what? she said. Back to Princeton for that doctorate?
No, he said. Ive been giving that a lot of thought. Ive changed too much for that. Im going to go to Dublin, Trinity College. Peace, tranquillity. Look up my roots. I speak a fair amount of Irish, something my mother drummed into me as a kid.
And before that? she said. No girl waiting back home?
No more than eighteen or twenty, but Id rather be sitting at one of those pavement cafes on the Champs Elysée sipping Pernod and you in one of those Paris frocks.
And rain, my friend. Anne-Marie closed her eyes drowsily. An absolute necessity. So that we may smell the damp chestnut trees, she explained. An indispensable part of the Paris experience.
If you say so, he said, and his hands tightened on the M16 as there was a stirring in the reeds close by.
Oh, but I do, Martin Brosnan. Her voice was very sleepy now. It would give me infinite pleasure to show you.
Thats a date then, he said softly and came up on one knee crouching, firing into the reeds.
There was a cry of anguish and then a long burst in reply and something punched Brosnan high in the left side of the chest and he went over backwards across the girl.
She stirred feebly and he came up, firing one-handed at the man who charged through the reeds, that smile on his face again, and as the M16 emptied, he hurled it into the face of the last man, drawing his combat knife, probing for the heart up under the ribs as they went down together.
He lay in the mud for quite some time, holding the Vietcong against him, waiting for him to die and suddenly, two Skyraiders swooped overhead and half a dozen gunships moved in out of the rain, line astern.
Brosnan got up awkwardly and lifted Anne-Marie in his arms, grimacing against the pain. He started to wade through the reeds towards the open paddy field.
I told you the cavalry would arrive.
She opened her eyes. In the nick of time? And then what?
He grinned. One things for sure. After this, it can only get better.
Paris 1979
1
Paris 1979
1
A cold wind lifted across the Seine and dashed rain against the windows of the all-night cafe by the bridge. It was a small, sad place, half a dozen tables and chairs, no more, usually much frequented by prostitutes. But not on a night like this.
The barman leaned on the zinc-topped counter reading a newspaper. Jack Corder sat at a table by the window, the only customer, a tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties. His jeans, worn leather jacket and cloth cap gave him the look of a night porter at the fish market up the street, which he very definitely was not.
Barry had said eleven-thirty so Corder had arrived at eleven, just to be on the safe side. Now, it was half-past midnight. Not that he was worried. Where Frank Barry was concerned, you never knew where you were, but then, that was all part of the technique.
Corder lit a cigarette and called, Black coffee and another cognac.
The barman nodded, pushed the newspaper to one side and at that moment the telephone behind the bar started to ring. He answered it at once, then turned enquiringly.
Your name is Corder?
Thats right.
It would seem there is a taxi waiting for you on the corner. He replaced the receiver. You still wish the coffee and the cognac, Monsieur?
The cognac only, I think.
Corder shivered for no accountable reason and took the cognac down in one quick swallow. Its cold even for November.
The barman shrugged. On a night like this, even the poules stay home.
Sensible girls.
Corder pushed a note across the table and went out. The wind dashed rain in his face and he turned up the collar of his jacket, ran to the old Renault taxi waiting on the corner, wrenched open the rear door and got in. It moved away instantly and he sank back against the seat. They turned across the bridge and the lights in their heavy glass globes made him think of Oxford with a strange sense of déjà vu.
Twelve years of my life, he thought. What would I have been now? Fellow of Balliol? Possibly even a professor at some rather less interesting university? Instead But that kind of thinking did no good no good at all.
The driver was an old man, badly in need of a shave, and Corder was aware of the eyes watching him in the driving mirror. Not a word was said as they drove through darkness and rain, moving through a maze of back streets, finally turning into a wharf in the dock area and braking to a halt outside a warehouse. A small light illuminated a sign which read Renoir & Sons Importers. The taxi driver sat there without a word. Corder got out, closing the door behind him, and the Renault drove away.
It was very quiet, only the lapping of the water in the basin where dozens of barges were moored. Rain hammered down, silver in the light of the sign. There was a small judas gate in the main entrance. When Corder tried the handle it opened instantly and he stepped inside.
The warehouse was crammed with bales and packing cases of every description. It was dark, but there was a light at the far end and he moved towards it. A man sat at a trestle table beneath a naked bulb. There was a map spread across the table in front of him, a briefcase beside it, and he was making notes in a small, leather-bound diary.
Hello, Frank, Corder said.
Frank Barry looked up. Ah, there you are, Jack. Sorry to mess you about.
The voice was good public school English with just a hint of an Ulster inflection here and there. He leaned back in the chair. His blond hair curled crisply, making him look considerably younger than his forty-eight years, and the black Burberry trenchcoat gave him a curiously elegant appearance. A handsome, lean-faced man with one side of his mouth hooked into a slight perpetual half-smile, as if permanently amused by the world and its inhabitants.
Something big? Corder asked.
You could say that. Did you know the British Foreign Secretary was visiting the President at the moment?
Lord Carrington? Corder frowned. No, I didnt know that.
Neither does anyone else. All very hush-hush. The new Tory government trying to cement the entente cordiale which has been more than bruised of late years. Not that it will do any good. Giscard dEstaing will always put France top of his list, no matter what the situation. Their final meeting in the morning is taking place at a villa at Rigny. He stabbed at the map on the table with his finger. Here, about forty miles from Paris.
So? Corder said.
He leaves at noon by car for Vezelay. Theres an airforce emergency field there from where the RAF will be waiting to whisk him back to good old England, to all intents and purposes as if hes never been away.
So wheres all this leading?
Here. Barry tapped the map again. St Etienne, fifteen miles from Rigny, which consists of a petrol station and a roadside cafe at present closed. A perfect spot.
For what?
To hit the bugger as he passes through. One car, four CRS escorts on motorbikes. No problem that I can see.
Corder was conscious of the cold now eating deep into his bones. Youre joking. Wed never get away with it. I mean, a thing like this needs preparation, split second timing.
All taken care of, Barry said cheerfully. You should know me by now, Jack. I always prefer people who are working for wages. Thorough-going fanatics like yourself honest Marxists who believe in the cause you take it all too seriously and that tends to cloud your thinking. You cant beat the professional touch.
The Ulster accent was more in evidence now, all part of a deliberate exercise in charm.
Who have you got? Corder asked.
Three hoods from Marseilles on the run from the Union Corse after the wrong kind of underworld killing. One of them has his girl with him. Theyll do anything in return for the right price, four false passports and tickets to the Argentine.
Corder stared down at the map. So how does it happen?
Simple. As I said, the cafe is closed. That only leaves the proprietor and his wife in the garage. Theyll be taken care of and my men will be in position, dressed as mechanics, from twelve-fifteen, working on a car on the forecourt.
Corder shook his head. From what I can see, the convoy will be passing at a fairly high speed at that point. Remember what happened at Petit-Clamart when Bastien Thiry and his boys tried to ambush General de Gaulle? Even with machine guns at point-blank range they didnt do any good because the old mans car just kept on going. A second is all you get and away.
So what we have to do is stop the car, Barry said.
Impossible. These days those VIP drivers are trained for just this kind of situation. From what I can see on the map, its a straight road giving a good view long before he gets there. Block it with a vehicle or anything else and theyll simply turn round and get the hell out of there. He shook his head. He wont stop, Frank, that driver, and theres no way you can make him.
Oh, yes, there is, Barry said. Which is where the girl I mentioned comes into the picture. At the appropriate moment, she tries to cross the road from the garage pushing a pram. She stumbles, the pram runs away from her into the road.