Brian Garfield - Checkpoint Charlie

Caracas is a curiously Scandinavian city — the downtown architecture is modern and sterile; even the hillside slums are colorful and appear clean. The wealth of 20th century oil has shaped the city and there isn’t much about its superficial appearance, other than the Spanish-language neon signs, to suggest it’s a Latin town. Traffic is clotted with big expensive cars and the boulevards are self-consciously elegant. Most of the establishments in the central shopping district are branches of American and European companies: banks, appliances, coutouriers, Cadillac showrooms. It doesn’t look the sort of place where bombs could go off: Terrorism doesn’t suit it. One pictures Gregorius and his kind in the shabby crumbling wretched rancid passageways of Cairo or Beirut. Caracas? No; too hygienic.

As we parked the car the walkie-talkies crackled with static. It was one of Cartlidge’s lads — they’d found the armed device on the hotel’s fire stairs. Any heavy man could have set it off. But by then I was no longer surprised by how indiscriminate Gregorius could be, his chilly indifference to the risk to innocents.

We had twenty minutes before the scheduled arrivals of the ministers. I said, “It’ll be here somewhere. The bomb.”

“Why?”

“It’s the only place he can be sure they’ll turn up on schedule. Are the three suspects still under surveillance? Check them out.”

He hunched over the walkie-talkie while I turned the volume knob of mine down to get rid of the distracting noise and climbed out of the car and had my look around; I bounced the walkie-talkie in my palm absently while I considered the possibilities. The broad steps of the palacio where the conference of OPEC ministers would transpire were roped off and guarded by dark-faced cops in Sam Brownes. On the wide landing that separated the two massive flights of steps was a circular fountain that sprayed gaily; normally people sat on the tile ring that contained it but today the security people had cleared the place. There wasn’t much of a crowd; it wasn’t going to be the kind of spectacle that would draw any public interest. There was no television equipment; a few reporters clustered off to one side with microphones and tape recorders. Routine traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian. That was useful because it meant Gregorius wouldn’t be able to get in close; there would be no crowd to screen him.

Still, it wasn’t too helpful. All it meant was that he would use a remote-control device to trigger the bomb.

Cartlidge lowered the walkie-talkie from his face. “Did you hear?”

“No.” I had difficulty hearing him now as well: the fountain made white noise, the constant gnashing of water, and I moved closer to him while he scowled at my own walkie-talkie. His eyes accused me forlornly. “Would it kill you to use it? All three accounted for. One in his room, one at the hotel pool, one in the dining room having his breakfast.”

I looked up past the rooftops. I could see the upper floors of the Hotel Tamanaco — it sits on high ground on the outskirts — and beyond it the tiny swaying shape of a cable car ascending the lofty mountain. Cotton ball clouds over the peaks. Caracas is cupped in the palm of the mountains; its setting is fabulous. I said to Cartlidge, “He has a thing about stairs, doesn’t he.”

“What?”

“The Hamburg Bahnhof — the bomb was on the platform stairway. The Cairo job, again stairs. This morning, the hotel fire stairs. That’s the thing about stairways — they’re funnels.” I pointed at the flight of stone steps that led up to the portals of the palacio . “The ministers have to climb them to get inside.”

“Stone stairs. How could he hide a bomb there? You can’t get underneath them. Everything’s in plain sight.”

I brooded upon it. He was right. But it had to be: suddenly I realized it had to be — because I was here and the Saudi’s limousine was drawing up at the curb and it meant Gregorius could get both of us with one shot and then I saw the Venezuelan minister walk out of the building and start down the stairs to meet the limousine and it was even more perfect for Gregorius: all three with one explosion. It had to be: right here, right now.

Where was the damned thing? Where?

I had the feeling I needed to find the answer within about seven seconds because it was going to take the Venezuelan minister that long to come this far down the steps while the Saudi was getting out of the limousine; already the Venezuelan was nearly down to the fountain and the Saudi was ducking his berobed head and poking a foot out of the car toward the pavement. The entourage of Arab dignitaries had hurried out of the second limousine and they were forming a double column on the steps for the Saudi to walk through; a police captain drew himself to attention, saluting; coming down the stairs the Venezuelan minister had a wide welcoming smile across his austere handsome face.

They’d picked the limousine at random from a motor pool of six. So it couldn’t be in the car.

It couldn’t be on the steps because the palacio had been guarded inside and out for nearly a week and it had been searched half an hour ago by electronic devices, dogs and human eyes.

It couldn’t be in the fountain either. That had been too obvious. We’d exercised special care in searching the fountain; it had only been switched on ten minutes earlier. In any case you can’t plant a bomb under water because the water absorbs the force of the explosion and all you get is a big bubble and a waterspout.

In other words there was no way for Gregorius to have planted a bomb here. And yet I knew he had done so. I knew where Gregorius was; I knew he had field glasses to his eyes and his finger on the remote-control button that would trigger the bomb by radio signal. When the Saudi met the Venezuelan and they shook hands on the steps not a dozen feet from me Gregorius would set it off.

Six seconds now. The Venezuelan came past the fountain.

The walkie-talkie in my hand crackled with static but I didn’t turn it up. The mind raced at Grand Prix speed. If he didn’t plant the bomb beforehand — and I knew he hadn’t — then there had to be a delivery system.

Five seconds. Gregorius: cold, brutal, neat, ingenious. Then I knew — I was the bomb.

Four seconds and my arm swung back. It has been a long time since I threw a football and I had to pray the instinct was still in the arm and then I was watching the walkie-talkie soar over the Venezuelan’s head and I could only stand and watch while it lofted and descended. It struck the near lip of the fountain and for a moment it looked ready to fall back onto the stairs but then it tipped over the rim and went into the water.

His reaction time would be slowed by distance and the awkwardness of handling binoculars and the unexpectedness of my move. Instinctively he reached for the trigger button but by the time he pressed it the walkie-talkie had gone into the water. The explosion wasn’t loud. Water blistered at the surface and a crack appeared in the surrounding rim; little spouts began to break through the shattered concrete; a great frothy mushroom of water bubbled up over the surface and cascaded down the steps.

Nobody was hurt.

We went into the hotel fast. I was talking to Cartlidge: “I assume the one who’s still upstairs in his room is the blond one with the crew cut.”

“How the hell did you know that?”

“He’s Gregorius. He had to have a vantage point.”

Gregorius was still there in the room because he’d had no reason to believe we’d tumbled to his identity. He was as conceited as I; he was sure he hadn’t made any mistake to give himself away. He was wrong, of course. He’d made only one but it was enough.