The Assignment (6 page)

Frankenheimer found an opening in the wall and swung back onto the main street.

“Have you ever seen anything like it? Excuse me for saying so, but this really is a lousy town.”

Danica Rodríguez had not looked around once the whole time. She sat upright in the back of the car staring straight ahead of her.

They drove into the center of the town, past the monotonous dazzling white blocks of apartments, shopwindows behind locked grids, and a few bars which looked as if they were locked and bolted. Short, withered palm trees grew along the sidewalks. The streets were practically empty.

“It’s still siesta time,” said the man at the wheel. “And people don’t dare go out either. Anyway, there aren’t many people left here.”

He drove across the square and stopped outside the Governor’s Palace, which was large and white and looked fairly new, with its wide picture windows and rows of white pillars on the cornices. A policeman in white and a soldier in black flanked the entrance. The jeep was already there and their luggage had been taken out of it. Lieutenant Brown was sitting in the front seat smoking. He did not bother to get out or even turn his head.

As Manuel Ortega stood on the sidewalk he heard a faint humming noise and, looking up, saw the helicopter like a grotesque insect against the vapid pale-blue sky.

Pull yourself together, he thought.

“There goes your airman,” he said jokingly to the woman.

She gave him a cold, tired look. “Yes,” she said.

Then she dropped her cigarette butt, stepped on it and walked through the swinging doors behind the soldier who was carrying the luggage.

Manuel Ortega went into the marble hall. A sudden thought made him stop and look around.

“Mm,” said Frankenheimer. “This is where it happened. Just here. The lad who did the shooting stood there behind the counter. We’ve said we don’t want any more messengers here. The white chaps will have to put a man in here. I’ve told them about that too, but they haven’t done it yet.”

He looked tired and sweaty, and he wiped his forehead with a rolled-up handkerchief.

“Ye-es,” he said. “I’ve told them. I’ve done that.”

The offices were one floor up, a suite of rooms along the length of a white corridor. Most of them were empty and looked as if they had hardly ever been used. It was almost dark in all but two of them, for the shutters had been closed in order to keep out some of the heat. Nevertheless, the air in
them was heavy and dusty and suffocating. A relatively young man in a black sateen jacket and dark glasses was sitting in one of the rooms. He had pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk so that he could put his feet up on it while he read the newspaper. When they opened the door and went in, he looked up, put down the newspaper, and stood up.

“I’m in charge of the chancery,” he said. “But there isn’t a chancery.”

“Are you the only official here?”

“Yes. There were only three of us. The General and I and an ex-lieutenant who was the General’s adjutant and secretary. He left immediately after the General’s death.”

“Probably given a medical discharge, yes, no doubt,” said Frankenheimer.

Before they had had time to close the door behind them the young man had once again sat himself down with his feet on the desk drawer and was reading the newspaper.

At the end of the corridor was the room which Orestes de Larrinaga had used. It was large and light and bare, but at least there was an electric fan on the ceiling.

Danica Rodríguez stood by the window, smoking. She looked out over the square, and when the draft from the fan lifted her short hair, he saw that the slim nape of her neck was covered with tiny beads of sweat.

On a chair by the wall a short fat man was sitting with his legs apart and his hands on his knees, doing nothing whatsoever.

“This is López,” said Frankenheimer. “He and I’ll be on duty together and we’ll always be near at hand. Twelve hours at a stretch from midday to midnight. Then the others change with us. You meet them tonight.”

Manuel Ortega looked around. There were no files in the room, no books, no papers, nothing except the furniture. He pulled open one of the drawers in the desk. It was empty. He went out to the secretary’s room. Equally empty. A green safe
stood there, its door open. It was empty. He went back to the others.

“If you don’t mind then, we thought we’d do it like this,” said Frankenheimer, and then he fell silent.

“Like what?”

“You take this room and the lady sits in the other; don’t you think it should be like that?”

The woman by the window looked dejectedly at him.

“One of us will always be in here. Where the other is—well, you needn’t worry about that.”

“You must have one of us here in the room because there are two doors,” he added gloomily, as if complaining about the plan of the building.

Manuel began to feel tired and irritable.

“Hurry up,” he said.

The man in the linen suit looked sadly at him.

“Then we’ve got the problem of where you’re to live,” he said.

He took a couple of long strides out into the corridor, glanced to the left, took out a key, and unlocked the door on the opposite side.

“Here,” he said. “This way it’s all right. Two rooms, one through the other, bedroom farthest in. There’s a bathroom and shower too. When you’re in in the daytime and in the evenings, then the one on close duty will be in the corridor.”

“Close duty?”

“Yes, we call it that. It’s usually called that. I’ll put a chair here—a swivel chair will be fine.”

He said this very thoughtfully.

“Couldn’t we get all this over and done with a little quicker? I’m tired and would very much like to have a shower and change.”

“When you’re asleep or staying permanently in the inner room, then the one on close duty will be in here, in the outer room. Is that all right with you?”

“What do you mean by permanently in the inner room?”

Frankenheimer did not answer the question.

“Yes—well—that must be about everything,” he said absently. “No, of course not. The girl.”

He went back to the office. Danica Rodríguez was still standing by the window, smoking, and the fat little man was still sitting in his chair.

“You can live here too,” said Frankenheimer, picking his nose. “We can fix it.”

“Thank you.”

“But if you don’t want to, we’ve arranged for you to have an apartment in town. About three blocks from here. Two rooms.”

“I’d rather do that.”

“Yes. It’d be better. Then we’ve got you out of the way.”

“In any case I’d prefer to have the apartment.”

“We did it—so to speak—out of solicitude.”

“Thank you.”

“We haven’t had any instructions about you. But it wasn’t difficult. There are plenty of apartments. So many people have left lately,” said Frankenheimer, staring at her breasts.

“Then I’ll go there now, thank you.”

“And change? Yes.”

“No. I thought I’d blow the place to bits.”

Frankenheimer’s expression remained quite unchanged.

“What shall I do about my luggage?”

“Tell someone,” said Frankenheimer.

That man will drive me mad, thought Manuel Ortega.

The telephone buzzed. Frankenheimer put out his hand and picked up the receiver. He seemed to listen for a moment or two and then put it down again.

“Who was it?” said Manuel Ortega.

“Well, it was someone who said he thought you ought to be rubbed out.”

“In the future I’d prefer to take my calls myself.”

“In this hole you can trace a call in ten seconds.… If you want to,” he added.

The telephone buzzed again.

“Yes. Ortega.”

“Good. Welcome to the town. This is the Citizens’ Guard executive branch speaking. We want to remind you that you will be dead within two weeks, however many bodyguards you have. As we hope to avoid unnecessary executions, however, we are giving you this opportunity to leave immediately. This you must do by eight o’clock tonight at the latest. This is good advice, and we mean it. Good-by.”

The caller was a woman. Her voice was clear and calm and businesslike, in no way unfriendly. She had stressed the word “unnecessary,” and afterward Manuel Ortega thought that it was this particular detail which had made him tremble and fumble for the back of the chair.

When he looked up, his eyes met those of his secretary. She looked at him thoughtfully and frowned. Suddenly he thought that she was beautiful.

“Don’t worry about them,” said Frankenheimer.

Danica Rodríguez shrugged her shoulders. She picked up her suitcases and went out. They looked heavy, but she carried them without undue difficulty.

Three quarters of an hour later Manuel Ortega had had a shower and had put on a clean shirt and a light-gray suit. When he went out into the corridor, López was sitting on a swivel chair just to the right of the door, quite still, with his hands on his knees.

Manuel Ortega went into his office. As he was opening the door he felt his heart thumping, as if he were expecting something to happen. He sat down at the empty desk. Although the fan was whirring, the heat in the room was almost unbearable.

He sat still and thought: What if that fat pig were sitting in a chair in the corridor. What if he followed me in here.
I went in first and he was in no special hurry, and if someone had been standing in here he’d have had plenty of time to kill me ten times over before anyone could have done anything about it.

Then he thought: I must get the revolver. I must carry it on me.

He heard someone moving about in the other room and he rose to see who it was. Two steps from the door he stopped and looked at López, who was sitting immobile on his chair. Manuel opened his mouth to say something but at once closed it again.

This is sheer madness, he thought.

Anyhow there was someone out there. He took one quick step and whipped open the door.

Danica Rodríguez was sitting at the desk and sorting a pile of documents. Her legs were bare and she was wearing thonged sandals. Her dress was green and simple, made of some very light material, and she looked fresh and clear-eyed.

“You’re quick.”

“Yes,” she said.

He felt his shirt sticking to his back and the sweat running down his neck and trickling between his skin and his collar. He went back through the office, across the corridor, into the outer room, took off his jacket, and opened his case. He took out the revolver, cleaned it carefully with a rag, opened one of the boxes of cartridges, twirled the chamber with his thumb, and put in six bullets. Then he fastened the strap over his shoulder, thrust the revolver into the holster, put on his jacket, and buttoned it up. It pulled a bit when he moved his arms, so he unbuttoned his jacket again and let it hang open. The fat man stood by the door all the time, watching. Or rather, not exactly watching, for his eyes were glazed and seemed to rest on some point much farther away.

Manuel Ortega felt somewhat more secure as he walked back to the desk and sat down. He opened his briefcase, took
out the documents he had brought with him from Stockholm, and put them down in front of him. They had nothing to do with the matter. Nothing had anything to do with the matter. All resolutions and preconceived ideas could be scrapped.

For twenty minutes nothing happened.

Once or twice the chair under López creaked. The sun began to pour into the room and the heat became even more intense.

There was a bell on the desk, an ordinary one of black bakelite with a black button on it. He pressed it and wondered what would happen.

About a minute later someone knocked on the door and the youth with the thin jacket and the smoked glasses came into the room.

“How far did the General get with his contacts for negotiations?”

“As far as I know, he had no contacts.”

“But hadn’t he planned to make any in recent weeks?”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“What have you been doing these last three weeks?”

“Me personally?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“Were you present at the meetings?”

“There haven’t been any meetings.”

“Didn’t anyone come to see the General?”

“A few.”

“With whom did he negotiate?”

“I don’t know whether he negotiated with anyone. But Colonel Orbal came here a few times. And a druggist called Dalgren. Perhaps some others, but no one I knew or recognized.”

“What did the General do during those weeks? I mean while he was in the office?”

“He used to sit in here.”

“Where are all his papers?”

“He didn’t have any papers. But he did get a newspaper every day, which the cleaning woman threw away the next morning. She had orders to do that.”

“And the mail?”

“There wasn’t much. What did come, the adjutant had to read. If there were anything special he read it out loud to the General. Then he threw away the letters.”

“In other words, you’re suggesting that Orestes de Larrinaga didn’t do a single thing during the whole of his time as Resident?”

“I’m not suggesting that. He was working on a proclamation.”

“A proclamation?”

“Yes, a personal statement.”

“Every day for three weeks?”

“I imagine he was very conscientious.”

“Where is this proclamation?”

“It was never finished.”

“But in that case the General must have left some papers behind, drafts and notes?”

“He never wrote things down. He dictated everything to his adjutant—sorry, secretary.”

“Then this secretary should have left the notes behind, the draft of the proclamation, that is.”

“Yes, the proclamation should be in the safe. It wasn’t all that long. At the most one typed page. All the drafts and notes were destroyed.”

“There’s nothing in the safe.”

“No.”

“You knew that before.”

“Yes.”

“Where do you think that draft copy has gone to?”

“I don’t know. The General did not take me into his confidence. He never spoke to me and never made use of my
services. Perhaps the adjutant destroyed the draft when the General died.”