Checkpoint Charlie Read Online Free PDF

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    Casually Ross put his hands in his pockets and turned away from her. I watched him stroll very slowly toward me. He didn’t look back to see if she was following him. He spoke in a normal tone so that she’d have trouble hearing him against the wind if she let him get too far ahead of her. “My principals are willing to discuss the matter more directly with you if you agree to take the job on. Not a face-to-face meeting, of course, but one of them may be willing to speak to you on a safe line. Coin telephones at both ends — you know the drill.”
    It was working. She was trailing along, moving as casually as he was. Ross threw his head back and stared at the sky. I saw what she couldn’t see — Ross wetting his lips nervously. “The target isn’t a difficult one. The security measures aren’t too tough.”
    â€œBut he’s important, isn’t he. Visible. Otherwise the price would not be so high.”
    It was something I hadn’t forecast for him and I wasn’t sure Ross would know how to handle it but he did the right thing: he made no reply at all. He just kept drifting toward the palms, off on a tangent from me now, moving in seemingly aimless half circles. After a moment he said, “Of course you weren’t followed here.” It was in the script.
    â€œWhy do you think I chose to come by open boat? No one followed me. Can you say the same?”
    Position .
    Ross turned and she moved alongside. She had, as I had predicted, followed his lead: it was Indochinese courtesy, inbred and unconscious — the residue of a servile upbringing.
    She stood beside him now a few feet to his right; like Ross she was facing the palm trees.
    Ross dropped his voice and spoke without turning his head; there was no possibility the microphones on the boat would hear him. I barely caught his words myself, and I was only about thirty feet downwind of him. “Don’t speak for a moment now, Mademoiselle. Look slightly to your right — the little cluster of palm trees.”
    She was instantly alert and suspicious; I saw her face come around and I stirred a bit and it was enough to make her spot me. Then I leveled the rifle, aiming down the sights.
    In the same guarded low voice Ross said, “It’s a Mannlicher bolt action with high-speed ammunition. Hollowpoint bullets and he’s an expert marksman. You’d stand no chance at all if you tried to run for it.” Ross kept stepping back because I’d told him not to let her get close enough to jump him and use him for a shield. Yet he had to stay within voice range because if he lifted his tone or turned his head the fine-focus directional mike on the sport fishing boat would pick up his words immediately.
    I saw her shoulders drop half an inch and felt relief. If she doesn’t break for it in the first few seconds she won’t break at all. She’s a pro and a pro doesn’t fight the drop .
    â€œYou’re in a box, Mlle. Lapautre. You’ve got one way to get out of it alive. Are you listening to me?”
    â€œCertainly.”
    â€œDon’t try to figure it out because there are parts of it you’ll never know. We’re playing out a charade, that’s all you need to keep in mind. Play your part as required and you’ll walk away alive.”
    â€œWhat do you want, then?”
    It was evident that her cool aplomb amazed Ross, even though I’d told him to expect it.
    I knew she couldn’t have recognized me; most of me was behind one of the palms and all she really could see was a heavyset fellow with a rifle. Because of the angle I was hidden completely from the view of those on board the sport fishing boat. All they’d be able to tell was that Ross and Lapautre were having a conversation in tones too low for their equipment to record. They’d be frustrated and angry but they’d hang on hoping to pick up scraps of words that they could later edit