The Tears of Autumn - Charles McCarry [104]
Ruiz finished his yam, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and said, “Now. What are you doing in this installation?” He spoke grammatical French, and mixed with his adenoidal Latin American accent were some Congolese intonations.
“Nsango has explained how I got here.”
“Yes,” Manuel said. “But not why. You and he are old friends.”
“Yes.”
“He says you’re an activist, that you’ve helped him.”
“I’ve always admired Nsango.”
Christopher handed Manuel the knife he had loaned him, handle first. It, too, was American, a new-issue, short-bladed bayonet.
“What I want to say to you has something to do with your work in another place,” Christopher said. “I bring you some help for what you’re doing here.”
“Oh? What are your auspices?”
“I’ve brought you a gift from a friend—Do Minh Kha.”
“Do?” Manuel said. “Do Minh Kha? A gift from him? Where did you see him?”
“I didn’t. He passed it to me through a friend in Saigon. He wanted to bypass ordinary channels. He said you’d understand why.”
“And the friend in Saigon—what was his name?”
Christopher paused to give it weight. “Lê Thu.”
Manuel took the name, but not eagerly. Christopher watched the Cuban’s reaction as an angler watches his line, drawn through the water by a sluggish fish. He decided to let it go for the moment. There was no reason why the Vietnamese would have told Manuel the code name for their operation: he did not need to know. But they would have had to give him some hint, and it was possible they had given him more than that. If they talked not at all to outsiders, intelligence officers talked too much to each other.
“What were you doing in Saigon?” Manuel asked.
“Working. My work is mainly in that camp.”
“And your name, Nsango tells me, is Charron?”
“Yes.”
“You knew where to find me, you knew my name, you knew Nsango could bring you to me?”
“I had some assistance.”
Ruiz drew the dull edge of the bayonet down the bridge of his nose; when he brought the blade away it was filmed with sweat and he shook it off the steel with a snap of his wrist. “That’s a little disturbing,” he said.
“Then you should dress less conspicuously,” Christopher said. “Even operating at night, that costume of yours is easily recognized. You’re in a place where white men draw attention just by being white, and you’re dealing with people who don’t know the meaning of discretion. Nsango’s men are not Nsango.”
Manuel tugged at the lapel of his fatigue jacket and glanced at his tarnished badge of rank, earned with Castro in the Sierra Maestra. “We’re used to these clothes. They symbolize something.”
“Well, it’s no concern of mine,” Christopher said. “You may have better success than others who’ve tried to do what you’re doing. Success is more important than security, after all.”
“Is it not? All right, what does Do want?”
“To thank you. To give you this for your work here.”
Christopher counted twenty thousand Swiss francs, in sodden thousand-franc notes, onto the bamboo table. Ruiz sat with his hands in his lap, gazing at the money.
“Very handsome of Do,” he said. “What’s it for?”
“As I said, for your work—a gesture of solidarity.”
“Yes—but in return for what?”
“Lê Thu,” Christopher said.
“What is Lê Thu?”
“I was told you’d understand. If you don’t, so much the better for Do’s security.”
“I spent ten days in Hanoi. I didn’t become fluent in Vietnamese.”
“In French the name means ‘the tears of autumn.’ ”
Manuel Ruiz’s eyes moved away from Christopher’s. He sat very still, then picked up the stack of pink bank notes. Christopher knew the signs, knew he had been right.
“Las lagrimas del otoño,” Manuel muttered. “How did you come by that phrase?”
“I help out, when I can, with some of Do’s operations. He can’t move freely outside his own country