The Prone Gunman (12 page)

“Well, so this is your Monsieur Christian,” he said, contemplating Terrier. “How's it going?” he asked unexpectedly.

Terrier shrugged.

“He's mute,” Cox observed glumly.

“Oh, yes, I'd forgotten.”

“He's unusable.”

“Let's sit, let's sit.” The tone of voice of the man in the suit was benign but authoritative. Everyone sat down except for Sammy Chen, who moved away slightly and leaned against a wall. “You really can't speak?” Terrier shook his head. His gaze fixed on each of his interlocutors in turn, but kept returning to Cox.

“If he's mute, he's unusable,” Cox repeated. “In any case, I don't like your idea at all.”

“Do you understand what's happened to you these past weeks?” asked the man in the suit. “Or even in recent years, as one might say, in a sense?” Terrier nodded calmly. “That would surprise me,” said Blue Suit. “It hardly matters, anyway. You are aware of the accusations against you. You know that, according to a consistent body of evidence, you are in the pay of the Russians—as much out of conviction as well as for love of money. The list of your victims indicates clearly enough on whose account you employed your talents as an assassin. Would you be willing to confirm this? Would you be willing to admit it in a court of law?”

Terrier's brow was furrowed. Cox gave an exasperated sigh, leaned over the low table of light-colored wood, and removed the cover of a round, stainless-steel container as big as a salad bowl. The container was full of salted almonds, peanuts, cashews, and raisins; Cox took a small handful and conveyed it to his mouth, breathing heavily, angrily.

“Well?” insisted Blue Suit.

“You can't have a mute testify,” said Cox with his mouth full. Food particles sailed past his teeth. “Everyone will say that he's drugged or that he's been brainwashed. We have to do as I said at the start.”

“Monsieur Cox's words don't carry any weight,” the man in the powder-blue suit said to Terrier. “He set up the whole operation without authorization. He personally selected all your targets. The company approved all the contracts, but Cox never informed anyone that he was reserving you exclusively and systematically for the elimination of double agents. Cox played a kriegspiel to his own advantage.” The man leaned forward. He looked Terrier in the eye. His gaze and his facial expression bespoke candor and trust. “Monsieur Cox created you. He created an assassin whose list of targets comprised only dubious characters who had shown us a few kindnesses or, at least, displayed a few weaknesses. Cox set up the operation against Sheikh Hakim entirely by himself. Do you understand? If you had been killed yesterday evening, as he had planned, you would have made the perfect corpse. Everything that you did before can be laid at the Russians' door or at the door of elements manipulated by the Russians. So the attack on Sheik Hakim can be as well. Do you understand that?”

Terrier nodded.

“It's certainly a nuisance that you're mute,” said Blue Suit. “You can never know whether a man who doesn't speak is intelligent or stupid.” He shook his head musingly, as if he had discovered a profound truth and was now contemplating it.

“He's an idiot,” said Cox.

Terrier grew excited and gestured eloquently.

“Oh,” said Blue Suit. “You want to express yourself. You want to write.”

From his jacket he produced a very thin notebook and a tiny golden mechanical pencil and passed them over to Terrier, who began to scribble busily.

“Listen,' said Cox, ”why do people create problems for themselves? That's exactly what you're doing.“ He looked spitefully at the man in the powder-blue suit. ”When you say that I set up the operation against Sheikh Hakim by myself, you know you're flying blind.”

“Oh, yes, I know, you have connections,” said Blue Suit with disdain. “Foreign connections—precisely what we don't want.”

Terrier returned his notebook. Blue Suit read it, raising his eyebrows. He chuckled and looked at Cox, then at Terrier, then once more at Cox.

“He hates you,” he said. “And, well, he's not an idiot. He's ready to confirm everything, including the fact that he never did anything except obey his station chief.”

“But,” said Cox, “that's me.” He seemed surprised.

“Yes,” said Blue Suit. “Martin Terrier's claim is that he was manipulated by his station chief, who worked for the Russians. He's ready to confirm everything.”

“Very funny,” said Cox without smiling. From under his sweater he produced a Colt Commander, and Sammy Chen took two steps forward and tore the weapon from his hand.

“Thank you, Sammy,” said Blue Suit. He smiled at Cox. “You've lost your reflexes, I see.”

Cox looked stupefied. He stuffed his mouth with almonds and other junk from the steel container. Peanut fragments stuck to his lower lip. He shook his head. He stared into space.

“You know very well that I never. . . . ”

“Well, yes, of course,” said Blue Suit. “But someone has to carry the can. Martin Terrier will carry the can. But there'll be a little can for you, too. It will irritate your foreign connections, of course. But we don't want anything to do with your foreign connections. The company has had enough of your faction.”

“It would be simpler for everyone to do as I said,” muttered Cox as he dug in the container for more peanuts and almonds.

“Yes,” said Blue Suit, “but we have Terrier alive. We'll kill two birds with one stone.”

“That's what you think,” said Cox, sounding assertive. From under the almonds and raisins and peanuts and salted hazelnuts he pulled out a tiny Lenz Lilliput automatic pistol and extended his arm and put the barrel of the weapon against Martin Terrier's temple and shot him in the head. Terrier opened his mouth wide, half raised his arms in the air, and slid to the bottom of his seat.

“The situation has just changed,” observed Cox.

“Not so much, not so much,” Terrier declared in a thick and obstinate voice as he got back up, with blood flowing from the hole in his head. It was only then that Anne began to scream.

21

Anne's scream was brief. It stopped short when Cox fired again, producing a sound like a hard slap. The second 4.25mm projectile penetrated Martin Terrier's left lung and lodged there. Martin Terrier's outstretched right arm swept through the air, and the palm of his hand struck the little pistol and knocked it from Cox's fingers and sent it flying to the far end of the room. The weapon landed at the foot of the wall and fetched up against the baseboard. Cox gave a sharp groan. He stumbled as he tried to jump over the low table. The hazelnuts and the rest were overturned. Cox fell to his hands and knees in the middle of the carpet. Continuing to groan with terror, he set off on all fours at an astonishing speed toward the tiny automatic. Terrier took four even quicker strides and picked up the weapon. He aimed it with both hands at Cox's sweat-covered forehead.

“What should I do? What should I do?” asked Sammy Chen with a distinct nervousness as he brandished the Colt Commander. He seemed uncertain whether or on whom he should open fire.

“Don't shoot! Don't shoot!” commanded Blue Suit in an even more nervous tone. When Cox had fired the second time at Terrier, Blue Suit had put his weight on his heels and forced the little sofa on which he sat to tip over backward; now he was down on his belly behind the overturned sofa. “No one do anything! Please!”

No one did anything. Everyone was almost motionless. Drops of perspiration ran into Cox's eyes. Resting on his elbows and knees, he raised his head as high as possible and seemed to be looking right down into the pistol barrel pointing between his eyes. There was a little blood in Terrier's hair, and a little more, of a brighter red, trickled from the corner of his mouth. The man seemed surprised and worried.

“Finish it,” asked Cox. His voice was calm and subdued. “Come on,” he said. “Come on. Come on. Finish it.”

“I can't,” said Martin Terrier.

He moved back slightly and leaned against the partition. The little automatic was still aimed between Cox's eyes.

“It's true. I can't do it,” Terrier repeated.

From behind the overturned sofa, Blue Suit performed an urgent pantomime for Sammy Chen, who moved immediately to take the pistol from Terrier's hands—though it was not quick and not easy, for he had to twist the killer's fingers to make him release it, said fingers being clenched convulsively around the grip, the trigger, and the trigger guard of the weapon. At last, Sammy pocketed the Lilliput. Blue Suit got back to his feet.

“Go sit down, you damn fool,” he said to Cox.

Cox went and sat down in a corner on the floor. A few moments later, he vomited in a fabulous way, as if he were disgorging everything he had swallowed for years. No one paid much attention to the phenomenon.

Meanwhile, Sammy Chen and Blue Suit had closely examined Terrier. Anne held back, pale faced.

“He's rigid,” said Sammy Chen. “Maybe he should be given a calcium injection.”

“Are you stupid or what?” Blue Suit asked angrily. “He has a bullet in the head and another in the lung. He's going to die.”

“No way,” said Terrier, who was still standing, leaning against the wall, with a hole in his head and a hole in his torso and blood from his lung foaming at the corners of his mouth. “No way!” he repeated, stamping his foot.

“In any case, he's not mute anymore,” said Sammy Chen.

“I'm going to call. We may as well have him taken to the hospital—you never can tell, and it's no skin off our nose,” said Blue Suit as he turned and made for the telephone.

“You're beautiful,” said Terrier, looking at Anne. He seemed to have some difficulty in putting words together. “Beautiful,” he repeated. “Beautiful.”

“He's not mute anymore, but he's blabbering,” said Sammy Chen.

“Beautiful, beautiful.”

Terrier didn't die. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he spent nearly three hours on the operating table.

“The lung's no problem,” the surgeon said afterward to the man in the blue suit. “The patient is in rather good physical condition, and, well, in short, I'm not going to bore you with technical details, but in this regard he'll be like new. The real problem is the bullet in the brain.”

“You left it there?”

“If I tried to remove it, I'd kill him. It's practically in the geometric center of the skull. I don't know why it didn't cause more obvious damage. This man should be dead or totally or partially paralyzed, or at least in a coma or something. In fact, his reflexes are normal, and his mind doesn't seem to be affected. We observe only an episodic tendency to blabber. But only when he's under sedation.”

“That's strange, isn't it?” asked Blue Suit.

“Very strange.”

“Can I see him?”

“Would tomorrow morning be all right?” asked the surgeon. “He's resting at the moment. He's sleeping, and he needs it.”

“Does he talk in his sleep?”

“As I said, every now and then he blabbers. Well, I call it blabbering. It's very strange.”

“I want a tape recorder put in his room,” said Blue Suit. “Voice activated. I'll bring you one. I want everything recorded. Even this blabbering or whatever you call it.”

The next morning, the man in the blue suit found Martin Terrier in good shape, even though the professional killer was on a drip.

“I'm ready to cooperate with you,” said Terrier. “I don't believe I'm going to die. And I don't think you're going to kill me. I can be useful to you, as I understand it. I'm willing. But under certain conditions.”

“Okay, let's see about that,” said Blue Suit.

They came to an agreement that same day. Thereafter, they had daily conversations, first at the hospital and then, beginning two weeks later, on an isolated estate, where Terrier was transferred during his convalescence. The property was spacious and luxurious, and not far from Montfort-l'Amaury. The house itself was surrounded by modest grounds enclosed by a wall. A few armed men provided the domestic service, and they patrolled the park with attack dogs. Anne was accommodated upstairs in the room next to Terrier's. This was one thing that the professional killer had demanded. He had also asked for Cox's head, but without great conviction; the request was refused. Cox was posted to South America, where he occupied a subordinate position in the company's Bogotá station for six months. Then he put both barrels of a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the two triggers with his big toe. Was he perhaps still looking for oral fulfillment when he placed the hollow cylinders of cold steel between his teeth? In any case, what he found was death, and he was buried once a specialist had reassembled the pieces of his head. His corpse was very skinny.

“Have you never thought of going back to work for the company?” Blue Suit asked Terrier during one of their interviews. A tape recorder was running in plain sight on the table. Blue Suit would sometimes stop it to speak in confidence with Terrier. Two hidden machines recorded everything that was said; other recorders were hidden in Terrier's and Anne's rooms.

“Isn't that what I'm doing now?”

“I mean, in your old job,” said Blue Suit. He put the visible tape recorder on pause. “As a killer.”

“That's impossible,” said Terrier. “I've become incapable of killing. I realized it the day I caught those two bullets. I really wanted to kill Cox, but I couldn't do it. I think I could kill to defend myself or to defend Anne. Or if I was extremely angry. Otherwise, no.”

“Martin Terrier is normal, inasmuch as the concept of normality is operative,” explained one of the psychiatrists who were studiously examining the audiotapes.

“Everything confirms it,” said the other psychologist. “Do you want to listen to a recording made Friday evening in the woman's room?”

“No, thanks. I know already. How do you interpret it?”

“Given that we don't have recourse to optical recordings, the interpretation is necessarily limited. Climax occurred three minutes after penetration, and that was preceded by one minute of foreplay.”

“Isn't that extremely brief?” asked Blue Suit.

“Yes, of course, if we compare this behavior to that of cultivated and imaginative people like you and me. But it's very close to the American national average of the fifties.”

“Excuse me,” said the other psychiatrist, “but the study you're alluding to is open to challenge in terms of science, as you well know.”

“Don't start arguing,” commanded Blue Suit. “Have you analyzed the blabbering?”

“It's groaning,” said the second psychiatrist. “The subject groans in his sleep.”

“I'm more in favor of the term ‘blabbering,'” said the first psychiatrist.

They started to bicker. To put an end to it, Blue Suit sent copies of all the sounds that Martin Terrier made in his sleep to company headquarters, not far from Washington, D.C. These recordings were subjected to lengthy examination by many people and many computers, with no tangible result.

After a few months, at the end of spring, Terrier stopped blabbering at night. He had slipped into a depression. He often spent hours drinking anisette and listening to Maria Callas records, after which he would fall into a stupor.

“You're going to publish a book of memoirs,” Blue Suit told him one summer morning.

“You're not in your right mind,” said Terrier. “I'm not capable of that. I can't write.”

“It's already written,” said Blue Suit as he sat down. He deposited a stack of photocopies on a round table. “I had one of our academics write it. I'll read it with you, and we'll correct the details. Improbabilities and inaccuracies must be avoided.”

“You can hardly avoid inaccuracies!” Terrier laughed sadly.

“I'm speaking of verifiable inaccuracies. Those are the ones to avoid.”

“Fine,” said Terrier. “I'll do my best.”

They spent more than twenty hours over the course of a week carefully examining the manuscript. Written in the first person, the work related just eight assassinations, which were ordered by Moscow, and gave many details on the training that Terrier was supposed to have received in Odessa and on the organization of the KGB and its ties with other secret services and with international terrorism. In the first chapter, the author recounted how in his adolescence he had espoused communist ideals. In the penultimate chapter, the narrator made a wrenching self-criticism. Abjuring his political convictions, which had not withstood the test of reality, he left his masters. They set Italian terrorists on his heels, who sadistically murdered one of his girlfriends and pursued him across France.

“In fact,” asked Terrier at this point in their reading, “what really happened?”

“In general, that's what happened,” said Blue Suit. “Only the details were a little more complicated. Cox gave you up to Rossana Rossi. But he didn't want you to get killed; he merely wanted to make trouble for you, to make you come back. So you had to be put on your guard. He had your apartment ransacked, he had you threatened on the phone, and he put an inept tail on you. He finally gave you up to Rossana Rossi, but only after your departure from Paris.”

“Who massacred Alexa Métayer and my cat?” asked Terrier.

“Cox always maintained that it was the Rossi group. That's likely, because it was Rossana who left the dead cat at your hotel. Anyway, the details are no longer important. Right?”

“Right,” said Terrier. “Right. They're no longer important.”

At the end of the book, the narrator went back to work to attack Sheikh Hakim, whom the PLO wanted eliminated. But he sabotaged the assassination attempt with the help of the French DST, whom he had contacted and whose undercover agent encountered a heroic death.

“And you find all this credible?” asked Terrier.

“Of course. You can trust me on that. I've overseen several books of this kind.”

Blue Suit smiled confidently. The next day, he received a message from his superiors, who forbade publication of the work on the grounds that it was perfectly ridiculous.