George Bartram - Under the Freeze

Laforet took another sheet of paper from his case and handed it to “Mr. Smith,” who handed it to Juana. “You will want to confirm this, of course.”

She frowned as she read it. She looked not at Tarp, but at the former president. “I thought your government and mine were not in communication.”

He cleared his throat. “This was kind of special,” he said. Talking to her seemed to embarrass him. She shrugged. “Well, I am going to Buenos Aires, then.”

“And me?” Repin said. His agitation had given way to a fierce control. “What about me? What am I supposed to do — sit here with my French nursies and play patty-cake?”

Tarp smiled grimly. “I want you to go to Moscow.”

“Ah.” Repin grinned back. “Well, that is better than sitting in this cold house. At least in Moscow, there is vodka.” He clapped his hands together. “Of course, I will be killed as soon as I get there, but that is still better than sitting here getting French bruises on my backside. No offense, Monsieur Sous-Ministre!”

“Naturally,” Laforet murmured.

“You’re going in clandestinely,” Tarp said. “Once you’re in, can you get together a team of people to help you do something?”

“What am I to do?”

“Pope-Ginna is having an interview with some of your former colleagues in the country. I think they’ll go easy on him, and then they’ll let him go. I want you to be ready to snatch him. If they won’t let him leave the Soviet Union, I want you to grab him and bring him out. If they let him go, I want you to put somebody on the plane with him and I want you to take him the first chance you get. Can you do it?”

Repin was quiet. The old lips came forward in that familiar expression that looked as if he were going to spit. “Naturally,” he said. He sipped the wine and savored it in his mouth with a new gusto.

“You’ll have to cover the disappearance once you’ve got him. We don’t want to warn either Maxudov or Buenos Aires. You’ll have to take him very quickly and very quietly and then you’ll need a cover story. If it’s outside the Soviet Union, I think you can get away with a heart attack — that means buying off a doctor and a hospital. Then you’ll bring him where we can talk.”

“Where?”

“Maybe the ship. We’ll see.”

Repin nodded happily. He could not hide his delight. When he looked at “Mr. Smith” he nodded again and held up a finger as if to say, Aha , you see ! “How do I get in?” he said.

Laforet was extricating a cigarette from his case. “I believe that will be my responsibility. Through Ho Chi Minh City.”

“That is good. That is very, very good.” Repin’s little eyes were almost hidden as he grinned widely. “How soon?”

“One hour. We could have you on your way sooner, but I assume you will wish to prepare yourself.”

“Thank you, Monsieur Sous-Ministre.” Only Tarp knew that the two men had once been enemies, although neither had seen the other before. They had been on opposite sides until Dien Bien Phu had fallen. Laforet had lost; Repin had won. Laforet had said “Ho Chi Minh City” as if he had mentioned Paris or Chicago, not the city that had been Saigon, the Paris of Southeast Asia. Now, Repin became gracious. “Might I have one of your cigarettes?” he said.

“They are sobranies ,” Laforet answered. He held out his case. “I find that as I get older, my tastes become more Russian.”

Repin took a cigarette and their eyes met. “We Russians have much to learn from you — wine, for example.” He accepted a light and the two men were quiet.

Tarp stood up. “I understand there’s a packet for each of us in one of the cars. It will give contacts and codes. We’re routing through a French network for purposes of efficiency. Repin, I’m sorry, but we’ve cut Moscow out on this part because I think Maxudov’s still there and I think we have to act as if the whole Moscow system is corrupted. Now, let me say that both the French and the American involvements in this operation are very delicate and very deniable. Both countries are in it so that a bigger mess won’t result, but neither one is in it officially. Repin, if we bring this off, I’m to tell you that the Soviet leadership is to be reminded forcefully of both countries’ cooperation in pulling its ass out of the fire. Juana, the same thing goes for you in Cuba. Now, let me remind you all that the British are not in this one in any way, and any offer that seems to originate with the Brits is to be taken as a trap. They chose to stay out — I won’t speculate as to why just yet — and so they are to be treated as outsiders. Is that clear to everybody?”

They all nodded.

“We’ll be getting limited intelligence from Paris and less from Washington, and no tactical support from either. No wet work, that means. No hands-on help. You’re on your own.”

He looked around the room. “All right?” Juana looked grim, Repin impatient. The former president seemed to have discovered that it was a very serious business indeed. “Let’s go,” Tarp said.

He caught up with Repin at the door. “The French woman wants to go with you,” he said.

“Not this time.”

“No, not this time. But she wants to go back with you when you go for good. What are you going to tell her now?”

“What do we ever tell them? ‘I’ll see you when I come back.’ Eh?”

Later, he was in the upstairs room with Juana, holding her for an instant. He was ready to leave; she was waiting for the helicopter that would start her toward Buenos Aires.

“Be careful,” she whispered into his shoulder.

“And you,” he said. Half-jokingly he murmured, “When will I see you again?”

“I’ll see you when I come back,” she said. In the weeks that he had been gone, her love had changed. It was mature now and it had been put into a large context — that of her own life, her own commitment. She was excited by her part in what was happening, and she would see him when she came back.

The tanker’s bow rose with a wave and then seemed to hang there as if cantilevered over the wave, as if it might break in half; then the midsection rose, then the stem, and it was as if the entire vessel had been levitated magically, free suddenly of the water that had dragged at it like glue; and then the bow started down, ponderous as a bull’s head going down under the cape. There was an explosion of water around it, and the bow disappeared and came up again, white water streaming from it like drool from a mouth.

“Christ,” the man with Tarp said.

“Well?”

“Christ, what weather.”

The stern was starting down into the trough. The tanker looked like a football field sliding downhill.

“It’s cold, yes.”

“Cold! Jesus, Tarp, it’s cold!”

The sea came on in long swells as if it were on rollers, a dirty gray-green carpet over which they lurched like something in a fun house. The wind had been blowing for a day and a night, straight into their teeth.

“Are they going to make it?”

They were looking at the tiny French submersible that sat a third of the way along the deck. Overhead, the two huge helicopters kept pace with the ship, one of them trailing the cable with which it would try to transport the Vairon .

It was shaped like an egg. Isolated on the empty deck, it seemed puny, although it was in fact as big as a compact car, with room inside for two people, even for three on a trip like this one, when it had been stripped of some of its gear. There were three ports forward and a cluster of booms amidships that looked a little like a conning tower. Around its bow were powerful lights, and, retracted now, a pair of jointed arms that were controlled from inside.