The Swiss account for the OAS payment is the financial channel that turns the OAS plan to kill Charles de Gaulle into a funded contract—and later makes the money itself a source of danger. The account links Marc Rodin’s organization to The Jackal across national borders, while the timing and control of its funds expose the limits of the OAS’s authority over the assassin it has hired.

A Financial Channel for the Contract

The account is introduced as part of Rodin’s effort to hire an outsider. He argues that the OAS’s known operatives cannot move freely in France because the French authorities have penetrated the organization and can track its members. The outsider, by contrast, is to work independently, and the arrangement requires substantial payment. The Jackal makes clear that the job carries exceptional risks and that the fee must support him beyond the operation itself.

Rodin’s plan depends on secrecy as much as money. He says that only he and two trusted associates know of the proposed hiring, and The Jackal insists that records be destroyed and that no further people be informed. The Swiss account supplies a discreet route for the payment, but the arrangement does not give Rodin control over the assassin’s planning or timing. The Jackal says that he will disclose no operational details, will disappear, and will not be hurried or interfered with.

Deposits, Confirmation, and Transfer

The funds build in stages. Rodin receives word that the combined OAS bank accounts in Switzerland contain more than $250,000, then writes instructions to transfer that sum to the account of the hired assassin. He expects the balance to follow: if de Gaulle is killed, he believes right-wing industrialists and bankers who had previously withheld further support will compete to finance the soldiers who expect to rule a renewed France. That expectation makes the first transfer both a payment and a wager on the political consequences of success.

The Jackal independently checks whether the expected money has arrived. From a telephone booth in Brussels, he calls Herr Meier in Zurich, identifies himself by a number and name, and asks whether there have been new deposits. Meier consults the customer’s file and confirms that none have been made during the period in question. The answer matters because The Jackal has instructed the bank to notify him by express airmail when fresh money is paid in; he is not relying on Rodin to tell him when the account changes.

A letter from Zurich later confirms the financial position. The Jackal reads that, provided he remains alive, he is wealthy for the rest of his life, and that success in the operation would make him richer still. He has no doubts about his ability to succeed. The money thus sharpens the contrast between the OAS’s dependence on an outcome it cannot guarantee and The Jackal’s confidence that the payment has already secured his personal future.

Ownership and the Cost of Continuing

The transfer does not settle who ultimately controls the money. After learning that the assassination plot has been exposed and that Viktor Kowalski is dead, The Jackal considers whether to abandon the operation. By then he has a quarter of a million dollars in his Zurich account. Retreat, however, would mean disputing ownership of that sum with Rodin and his associates. He believes they would track him down, torture him for the signed paper needed to release the money, and kill him if he refused to return most of it.

Continuing carries a different cost: the danger of attacking a now-alert security system, and the likelihood that pulling back will become harder as the day of the attempt approaches. The account therefore does not function as a simple reward. Its funds give The Jackal the means to live as he has long wanted, but they also bind him to the conflict with the organization that hired him. The payment makes independence possible while leaving him financially and physically vulnerable to Rodin’s claim.

Narrative Significance

Switzerland enters the story through banking instructions, deposits, and correspondence rather than through a developed physical setting. Its significance lies in the distance between the place where the money is held and the people whose actions depend on it: Rodin authorizes a transfer, The Jackal checks the balance from Brussels, and a letter from Zurich confirms his wealth. The sequence gives the plot’s covert international network a precise financial mechanism.

The account also reveals a structural imbalance in the contract. The OAS can pool money and arrange payment, but The Jackal controls the information and decisions central to carrying out the assassination. Rodin’s hope of attracting further backing depends on success, while The Jackal’s calculation includes both his future comfort and the threat of being forced to surrender the existing funds. The Swiss account is consequently more than a repository: it is where the bargain’s competing interests become measurable, and where the hired assassin’s apparent freedom is shown to have a price.