It was the dragon lady and she was alone at the tiller. She tipped the engine up across the transom, jumped overside and came nimbly ashore, dragging the boat up onto the sand a bit. Then she turned to look at Ross across the intervening forty yards of sand. I had a good view of her in profile. Ross was trying to meet her stare without guile. Her eyes left him after a bit and began to explore the trees. I didn’t stir; I was in among a cluster of palm boles and the thing she’d spot first would be movement.
She made a thorough job of it before she turned toward Ross. She walked with lithe graceful strides: petite but there was nothing fragile about her. She wore an ao dai, the simple formfitting dress of Indochina; it was painted to her skin and there was no possibility she could have concealed a weapon under it. Perhaps she wore it for that reason.
Ross didn’t move. He let her come to him. It was in his instructions.
I was near enough to hear them because the offshore breeze carried their voices to me.
“Well then, M’sieur.”
“The money,” Ross began, and then he stopped, tongue-tied.
Christ. He’d forgotten his lines.
“Oui?”
He looked away from her. Perhaps it was the glimpse of the white sport boat out there that galvanized him. I heard him speak clearly and calmly: “The money’s on deposit and we have the receipt and the numbered account book. If you do the job you’ll be given both of them. Two hundred thousand American dollars in gold. That works out to something over half a million Swiss francs at the current rate.”
She said, “I would need a bit more information than that.”
“The name of the target, of course. The deadline date by which the assignment must be completed. More than that you don’t need.” Ross kept his face straight. I had a feeling he was feverishly rehearsing the rest of his lines.
She said, “You’ve left out one thing.”
“I don’t think so, Mlle. Lapautre.”
“I must know who employs me.”
“Not included in the price of your ticket, I’m afraid.”
“Then we’ve wasted our morning, both of us.”
“For two hundred thousand dollars we expected a higher class of discretion than you seem inclined to exercise.” It was a line I had drilled into him and apparently he hadn’t liked it — it went against his usual mode of expression — but I had insisted on the precise wording, and now she responded as I’d said she would: it was as if I’d written her dialogue as well as Ross’s.
She said, “Discretion costs a little more, M’sieur, especially if it concerns those whom I might regard as my natural enemies. You are American.”
“I am. That’s not to say my principals are.”
The thing is, Ross, you don’t want to close the door, you want to keep her talking. String her along, whet her curiosity. She’s going to insist on more information. Stall. Stretch it out. Don’t give her the name of the target until she’s in position.
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.”
“But 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.
“Why 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.
“You’re in a box, Mlle. Lapautre. You’ve got one way to get out of it alive. Are you listening to me?”
“Certainly.”
“Don’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.”
“What 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 together and make some sense out of.
Ross answered her, sotto voce: “I want you to obey my instructions now. In a moment I’m going to step around and face you. The man in the trees will kill you if you make any sudden move, so pay attention.... Now I’m going to start talking to you in a loud voice. The things I say may not make much sense to you. I don’t care what you say by way of response — but say it quietly so that nobody hears your answers. And I want you to nod your head ‘yes’ now and then to make it look as if you’re agreeing with whatever proposition I make to you. Understand?”
“No,” she said, “I do not understand.”
“But you’ll do as I say, won’t you.”
“I seem to have little choice.” She was looking right at me when she said that.
“That’s good enough. Here we go.”
Then Ross stepped off to the side and made a careful circle around her, keeping his distance, looking commend-ably casual. He started talking midway around: “Then we’ve got a deal. I’m glad you agreed to take it on.”