Brian Freemantle: The Run Around

They turned off the Rue du Vidollet on to the Avenue Guiseppe Motta, Charlie searching desperately for a telephone box or a policeman. Why were there never any of either about when you wanted one, like the joke said! Almost at once, ahead, the Russian went off the major highway and Charlie hesitated, unsure. Why hadn’t the man continued straight on, to the Palais des Nations? Because he had almost arrived at wherever he was heading, idiot, Charlie told himself.

Charlie risked getting closer, only twenty yards behind when the Russian turned into the small road off Colombettes. Charlie stood at the corner, watching, feeling another small spurt of satisfaction when he saw the man enter the building. Gotcha! he thought again.

Charlie practically ran forward himself, hesitating only at the entrance, but the Russian had already entered the elevator. Charlie didn’t need to see the indicator needle heading to the top floor, because he’d already worked out the building’s location and its overlooking vantage points into the conference complex.

Inside the foyer Charlie looked desperately around, seeing the travel agency in the corner. He threw open the door and said to the startled clerk who looked up: ‘A telephone! For Christ’s sake where’s a telephone!’

There was a wall clock, facing him. Fourteen minutes, he saw.

The assembly was strictly regimented, rehearsed over several days by the support groups, so there was no confusion. The Israeli group formed one edge, with the American delegation creating the buffer as they did within the conference building. Then came the Palestinians, followed by the Jordanians and finally the Syrians. The delineation was very positive in the front, with the leaders, but less formal among the aides and secretariat. Sulafeh Nabulsi stood less than ten feet from her victim, the briefcase containing the Browning no longer hanging from her shoulder but held in front of her, her hand already partially inside.

Vasili Zenin hesitated immediately inside the apartment, looking at the neatly positioned rubber wedges and recalling his uncertainty during the escape preparations. Unnecessary and time-delaying, he decided, positively. A hindrance, in fact. He continued on, taking off his jacket as he went, throwing it over the chair that remained in position from his weapon assembly and crouched before getting into the harness to bring the photographic gathering in the faraway garden into view through the image magnifier. Practically grouped, he saw. All very neat and orderly. Lining up like targets, in fact. The Russian smiled at his own joke, slipping into the leather vest and zipping it tightly beneath his chin. He secured the cross straps but did not attach himself at once to the M21. Instead, attachments trailing from him, Zenin pulled the curtaining tightly to one side and then lifted the bottom half to loop it through the sash of the adjoining window, so that it was completely out of the way. He raised the chosen window as far as it would go, giving him a gap about a metre and a half square and swivelled the rifle on its tripod mounting to point directly through it. Still in front of the M21, Zenin screwed on the sound suppressor which made the barrel protrude through the open window and snapped the magazine of hollow-nosed bullets into place. The guns of Israeli security would be loaded with the same, he knew. And so was the Browning carried by Sulafeh Nabulsi.

Four minutes to go, he saw, clipping the muzzle strap on to its ring. Timing was vital now, because Sulafeh had to move first. Zenin fastened the last strap to the tripod, hugging the stock into his shoulder, feeling at once the familiar sensation of the weapon being an extension of him, not something apart. The grouped-together statesmen were very clear, through the sight. Zenin could see the American Secretary of State, Bell, with Arafat quite close. Mordechai Cohen, the Israeli Foreign Minister, was talking earnestly to someone just behind him and Hassani, the Jordanian minister, was trying but failing to catch the attention of someone in the Syrian group alongside.

Zenin brought the rifle into line, sighting perfectly upon his first kill, breathing easily, quite relaxed. Zenin saw the gathering start to come formally together, everyone turning towards the camera, and realized the photographic assistant just intruding into the bottom of his magnified circle was warning them the session was soon to begin. Not much longer now, thought the Russian.

Charlie Muffin stared impatiently at the floors lighting up and then going blank on the indicator board as the elevator climbed upwards with agonizing slowness, driving his right fist into the palm of his left hand in his impatience. Blom and Giles and Levy would all be out there, somewhere around the picture session and impossible immediately to contact. But there’d surely be a radio contact, to Blom at least! Some way of reaching the man. No klaxon alarm, Charlie remembered. And he remembered Blom’s words: a klaxon has no other practical benefit beyond making a noise and alarming people . Exactly what they fucking well needed, some way of alarming them. What about the fire alarm here? Too far away, dismissed Charlie, at once. And there was no certainty it would deflect the assassin sufficiently.

So what the hell did he think he was going to do, all by himself! He didn’t know, Charlie realized. The conversation with Wilson and Harkness came back to him with crystal clarity, the experts opinion that calculating stature against build the Russian was toned to a muscle-hardened fitness, a fitness that the airport immigration officer had remarked upon and which had been Charlie’s impression, looking up from the quayside a few hours earlier. Charlie’s feet were agony now and he was panting with exertion and he was conscious of the stomach bulge over the inadequate trouser belt. And he acknowledged that in a one to one physical contest he’d stand as much chance of winning as a virgin saying no at a sex maniacs’ convention where they’d all been on the booze: the trained-to-kill-in-every-way Russian would beat the shit out of him. And that just as a beginning. So what the hell was he going to do, he thought again, as the lift sighed at last to a halt at the top.

The photographic assistant came officiously forward, to re-arrange the positions very slightly to ensure no one would be obscured and Zenin sighed at the delay. He’d isolated Sulafeh through the magnifier, appreciating how close she was and keeping the sight on her for the very moment she moved. She couldn’t miss, not from there. Or be intercepted, until it was too late. Come on! he thought, come on! The assistant edged backwards again and Zenin brought the gun against his shoulder once more, his finger shifting from the safe, no shot hold beyond the guard to the trigger itself, taking up the imperceptible slack. Time! Zenin said, in mental conversation with the woman: it’s time!

Charlie’s indecision was fractional, no more than seconds, when he emerged from the elevator. The outside of the building — and the area it overlooked — was vivid in his mind. He went at once to his left, seeing that the corridor was straight and ended blind, which meant the far end door and still to the left had to be the place. It would be a corner window, of course: a choice of shot. He still had not decided what he was going to do. He’d been trained to fight, you put your foot there and I put my hip there and whoops, over you go, and a karate chop for luck, like it was in all those spy films. Except that he’d always put his protesting foot in the wrong place and got his stance wrong and invariably ended up flat on his arse with the instructor asking what the hell he thought he was doing. What about a weapon, then? Charlie had been as bad with a gun as he had been in unarmed combat, never able to stop his eyes from squinting shut against the bang, invariably blowing leaking holes in all the backing sandbags but rarely managing to hit the paper square and even more rarely the rings outlined upon it. And it was anyway a meaningless run of thought because he didn’t have a gun, in the first place.