by Len Deighton
We ate the meal in complete silence. Now that only the table was illuminated, it gave everything there an artificial importance. And the three sets of busy hands, under the harsh light, were like those of surgeons co-operating in some act of dissection. In spite of his protests about not being hungry, Mann gobbled the omelette. When there was no more than a few smears of uncooked egg on his plate, he took a piece of bread and wiped up the egg with obsessional care before putting the bread into his mouth.
‘The reason we came down here to see you, Hank …’ Mann took another piece of bread, tore it into pieces and ate it piece by piece, as if trying to find reasons for not continuing.
‘You need no reasons, old buddy,’ said Dean. ‘Nor your friend either. Hank Dean – open house. You know that by now, don’t you? In the old days, I’ve had parties where they’ve slept under the table, and even in the bath.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Mann.
‘And done a few other things under the table and in the bath,’ said Dean. He let out a whoop of laughter and refilled the glasses. ‘Cahors – black wine they call it here. Drink up!’
‘We’re squeezing a couple of Russkies,’ said Mann. Again his tone of voice made it sound as if he’d stopped in the middle of a sentence.
‘Defectors?’ said Dean, helping himself to a slice of goat cheese, and pushing the plate nearer to me. ‘Try the tiny round one, that’s local,’ he said.
‘Defectors,’ said Mann.
‘I guess I always felt a bit sorry for those kids that came over the wall, back in my time,’ said Dean. ‘They’d toy with their goddamn transistor radios, and admire their snazzy new clothes in front of a full-length mirror. And they’d come along each day, and I’d write down the sentry details or the factory output or whatever kind of crap they thought was worth reporting to us. Then, one day, they’d feel like eating Sunday lunch with Mom and Pop, and suddenly they’d realize there were going to be no more of those Sundays. They’d come over the wall; there would be no more nothing with any of their relatives, or their buddies, or their girls. And they would take it real bad.’
‘Is that right,’ said Mann.
‘And I’d wonder whether it was worth it,’ said Dean. ‘They were going to get some lousy job in a plastics factory, not unlike the lousy job they had back with the commies. Maybe they would be stacking away a little more bread and listening to their pop groups – but should we have encouraged those kids? Well, I don’t know.’
‘That’s the way you see it, is it?’ said Mann.
‘That’s the way I see it,’ said Dean.
‘No wonder you were such a lousy field-man.’
‘Now you know I was pretty good,’ said Dean. ‘You know I was.’
Mann didn’t answer but I knew he’d signed a few reports that said that Dean had been very good indeed. One of them helped to earn Dean a medal.
‘These defectors of ours,’ said Mann, ‘aren’t sitting on sentry-duty timetables, or plastic toilet-seat outputs. This one could slice some balls in Washington, DC.’ Mann moved his hand to indicate me. ‘My friend here has been heard to express the opinion that it will carve a hole in the hierarchy at Langley, Virginia.’
‘You don’t mean that someone as high as CIA Special Projects might be involved?’
‘They don’t call it Special Projects any more,’ Mann told him. ‘But apart from that, you catch the exact nuance of my colleague’s stated belief.’
‘Jesus,’ said Dean.
The kettle boiled and Dean poured the water on to the coffee. He put milk into a saucepan and lit a flame under it. Without turning round he said, ‘I’m really glad, Mickey. Really pleased.’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Mann.
‘This could give you a Class A station, Mickey. Paris maybe. Romp home with this between your teeth, and you’ll never look back. Hell, you could get a Division even.’
Dean sat down and watched the coffee dripping through the paper filter. He looked up and smiled at Mann. It was difficult to understand what was going on between the two men. I wondered if Dean guessed the purpose of our visit, and if he thought Mann was going to turn the investigation into a witch hunt through the CIA, with the ultimate aim of securing a high position in it.
‘These two commie defectors are stalling,’ said Mann.
‘There is always that initial inertia,’ said Dean. ‘In the good ones, anyway. It is only the hustlers who come in talking.’
‘Your name cropped up,’ said Mann.
Dean watched the milk as it started to bubble and then poured it into a jug. ‘I drink it black, like the French do,’ he explained. ‘But I guess you foreigners might like milk in your coffee. My name what?’ He poured coffee into the thick, brown coffee-cups of the sort they use in restaurants because they are so difficult to break.
‘Your name was given in connection with the 1924 Society. Your name was offered to us by one of the Russkie defectors. They say you are working for Moscow.’
‘Common enough trick,’ said Dean. He drank some of the strong coffee. ‘Enough people know me as a one-time CIA agent. I guess the story of the foul-up that night in Berlin must be on KGB file.’
‘It’s probably a standard part of their instruction course,’ said Mann bitterly.
‘Perhaps it is,’ said Dean. He laughed and stroked his beard. ‘Well, there you are then.’
‘No, there you are,’ said Mann.
‘Do you mean this is on the level, Mickey?’
‘That’s what I mean, Hank.’
‘Working for Moscow … you guys must be out of your minds.’
‘You haven’t asked me what the 1924 Society is,’ said Mann.
‘I haven’t asked you what it is, because I know what it is,’ said Dean. ‘In the early ’fifties I did a 150-page report on the 1924 Society. And don’t tell me you didn’t read up my file before you came here. I know you better than that.’
It was Mann’s turn to look disconcerted. ‘No mention of it in your file now,’ he said.
‘Well, what a coincidence,’ said Dean sarcastically. ‘It’s been mislaid just about the time your Russkies fingered me. Now maybe you’ll get your mind back into working condition again.’
‘You mean because someone raided your file, we should write you off as innocent?’ Mann asked incredulously.
‘Right,’ said Dean.
Mann dabbed a finger through the tobacco smoke. ‘You’ve been too long with the birds and the bees, St Francis. When we find there’s a chapter missing from someone’s personal file, the subject is the prime suspect. Is it all coming back to you now?’
Hank Dean poured himself a large glass of ‘black’ wine but changed his mind about drinking it. In a gesture that Sigmund Freud would have appreciated, he pushed it far across the table, out of arm’s reach.
‘You’re wrong,’ said Dean. ‘You’re both making a big mistake. It would be crazy for a man in my position to get involved in any such caper. I’m on French political file … probably on local police-records even. I’d have to be crazy to do it …’ his voice trailed away disconsolately. ‘But you don’t scare me. You go away and dig up some evidence. Until then, I’ll sit here drinking plonk and eating truffles.’
‘Not a chance, Hank,’ said Mann. ‘Make it easy on yourself. Let’s do a deal, while we still need a deal. Play hard to get, and I’ll harass you until you weep.’
‘For instance?’ said Dean.
‘Tell him,’ Mann said.
‘Your pension has already stopped,’ I said. ‘You’ll get no cheque this month, unless Major Mann signs a chit for the financial director. The money from the insurance will go on for a few weeks but eventually the insurance company will have a medical report from one of our doctors. He’ll certify that your injury is no longer twenty-five per cent debilitating. As you remember, there is no award if the injury is less than twenty-five per cent debilitating.’
‘What is this guy,’ roared Dean. ‘Some kind of speak-your-wei
ght machine?’
‘Do you want me to continue?’ I asked.
‘Go ahead, go ahead,’ said Dean.
‘The State Department have given us permission to declare your passport void, and make this known to the French authorities in any way we choose. That is to say, we can either tell them that it is invalid, or request them to hold you for using false or forged travel documents.’
‘What are you talking about? My passport is real, issued by the State Department only two years back.’
‘If the State Department say a US passport is forged, Mr Dean, I don’t think you can hope that the French will argue with them.’
‘So you’ll try to get me Stateside?’
‘What did you imagine would happen?’ Mann asked him. Dean swivelled to face Mann, his eyes dilated and his teeth bared. He was like some kind of wild animal trapped in a cave, while two hunters prodded him with long sticks – and there was a picture of that in one of my children’s books too.
‘I’m innocent, goddamn it,’ said Dean. He hammered his mighty fist down upon the table so that the crockery jumped high into the air and landed with a rattle.
‘Then co-operate,’ shouted Mann.
‘What do you want me to do?’ yelled Dean. ‘Dream up some fairy stories for you?’
‘It might be a step in the right direction,’ Mann growled.
I held up my hands in a gesture of peace-making. ‘Now boys, you know the rules,’ I said. ‘No butting, no kicking, no gouging, and nobody slugs the referee. We’ve had a skinful of Hank’s wine, and he knows he can’t get very far, with or without his passport. There’s no phone here and by now he probably guesses that we have immobilized his car and ours …’
‘And I don’t mean removing the distributor arm,’ said Mann.
‘So let’s get some shut-eye,’ I suggested. I looked to the end of the table where stood the three wine bottles we’d emptied. ‘In the morning we can talk some more, and perhaps to better purpose.’
Hank Dean’s cottage was built in the three-level style typical of rural buildings in this part of France. The ground floor was a cellar that Hank had converted into a store-room and a primitive sort of bathroom and shower. Stone steps led up to the front door and the living-room-kitchen-dining-room that opened from it. A creaking old wooden staircase led to the top floor where there were four cell-like bedrooms, with tiny dormer windows, fitted with the sort of bubbly glass that made it look as if the landscape was melting.
No matter what the scientists say, when the moon is full and low upon the horizon it is gigantic. This night, coloured by the earth’s dust, the great golden orb looked as if it was about to collide with our planet. From the upstairs window I could see the snow on the hills that faced us across the valley. St Paul Chauvrac is a hamlet of a couple of dozen families, dominated by the houses and out-buildings of two middle-sized farms. Two cottages have fallen into ruin. One of them still has the pink lettering of a boulangerie, but that faded many years ago, and now the baker visits three times a week in a corrugated van. There was also a large house, which some hopefuls back in the ’thirties had converted to a hotel and restaurant. But nowadays the Hostellerie du Château provided no more than a clean bed and a wholesome meal. Its management did not strive for stars in the guidebooks they sold in Paris, or for the bright enamel plaques that promise elegance in three languages, but it was popular with travelling salesmen. There were still lights burning at the Hostellerie when we all retired to our respective bedrooms. They were the only lights in the village. I heard a rusty catch being unfastened, and the creak as the next room’s window opened. I knew that a man of Hank Dean’s girth could not get through it.
I didn’t go to sleep. It was cold and I took a blanket from the bed and draped it round my shoulders. I heard the bed in Dean’s room creak. He would not sleep; he would think things over and, if Mann’s plan came to fruition, he would sit down to breakfast singing like a bird. Or perhaps that wasn’t Mann’s plan; perhaps that was simply the cosy piece of self-deception that had enabled Mann to jump so heavily upon his old friend’s neck.
My eyes must have closed for a few minutes, for I looked at my watch after hearing the noise, and saw it was after 3 A.M. There were no lights in the Hostellerie du Château. The hamlet was in darkness and so was the whole landscape, for by now the moon was down. Again I heard the sound. This time it was not the creak of ancient woodwork but a metallic sound. No more than the slightest vibration, it was a deep chime, like that of an artillery shell being loaded into the breech of a siege gun.
I waited for a minute, wondering if it was the striking of some antique clock that I had not noticed in the house. I wondered if Mann had heard the sounds too. I even wondered whether Mann had made the sounds, and what sort of reaction he’d have if I made the wrong move – or no move at all. Finally I was prompted as much by my own curiosity as by reasoning. I had wedged the door with a piece of paper, instead of using the door-catch, and now I was able to get to the top of the stairs without a sound. But the staircase would defeat me. Dean would know each creaky step, and how to negotiate them but such an obstacle will always betray a stranger. I bent low, and tried to see into the room below. The room was dark but I could just make out the figure of a man standing with his backside resting against the edge of the table. There was a flicker of light from the stove and it lit Hank Dean’s face. It was a haggard face and deeply drawn. He was bending low over the stove, as he had been last night cooking the omelette. Again there was a flicker of flame. This time he replaced the circular metal top of the stove so that the flame was fanned by the draught from the chimney. That was the metallic sound that had awakened me.
I jumped down most of the short staircase, and stepped across the tiny room. Dean turned and raised his fist. He was a giant, and now he rose above me like the Statue of Liberty. I took the blow of his fist upon my arm. It hurt but it didn’t prevent me wrenching the metal top from the stove. I stuck my right hand into the flames and found the stove filled with papers. There were bundles of papers tied so tight that they would not burn. I smelled paraffin, and, as I started to pull the great handfuls of paper from the stove, it all ignited. There was a ‘woof’ of flame that licked up round the saucepans and utensils hanging inside the chimney piece. I dropped the flaming bundle, and beat at the flames that were coming from my sleeve.
‘You stupid bastard, Hank! Why didn’t you tell me?’ It was Mann’s voice. He switched on the electric light, to help us see the gun he was holding. I beat out the flames on my sleeve, and stamped upon the last remains of the burning papers.
‘Don’t worry about rescuing that stuff,’ Mann said. ‘This whole goddamned house is full of it.’ I could see now what I was stamping upon. The floor was covered in paper money. There were French francs, Swiss francs, German marks, US bills, sterling and even Lebanese and Australian money. Some of the notes were charred along the edges, some almost completely destroyed, some were crisp, new and undamaged, some were old and dog-eared. But all of them were of high denomination. There must have been one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of currency on the floor of that kitchen, and we found at least as much again when we took up the floorboards.
‘Get nothing out of a guy within three hours and you’ll get nothing for three weeks.’
‘If there’s anything to get,’ I reminded him. It was early. A couple of starlings were pecking at last night’s breadcrumbs, and the cows in the next field were moving over to the gate ready to go to the milking shed.
‘Do you believe the money arrived by parcel post two days ago?’ Mann asked.
‘Hank was poor – broke, in fact – naturally he’d try to hang on to it, and hope we’d go away.’
‘I would have called CIA Langley within the hour,’ said Mann with simple truth.
‘You’re not natural, and neither am I. And that’s why we’re investigating Dean, instead of him investigating us.’
‘Yeah, well I was wondering about that,’ said Mann, a
nd was able to smile at the absurdity of having principles that might cost so much.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘There’s no one in Moscow planning to send us a quarter of a million dollars in used paper money.’
‘I’m more worried by the chance that Hank Dean will …’
‘Try to do a deal with the French,’ I completed it.
‘He wants to stay here,’ said Mann. ‘And he wants that desperately.’
‘Not much in it for the French,’ I said. ‘A probe into our way of working, a bit of I told you so, but they’d have to give it to us in the end.’
‘In the end,’ said Mann. ‘Yeah, that’s the place they’d give it to us. What’s it going to cost them – one French passport.’
‘And American goodwill.’
Mann made his tobacco noise. ‘I hate leaving him down there with those French cops talking to him.’
‘Well, let’s take another look round this place,’ I said. I moved the corner cupboard that was filled with Hank Dean’s classical gramophone records. ‘The CIA guy from the embassy should be here soon. Then we can go, and take Hank Dean with us, if that’s the way you want to play it.’
Mann paced up and down. ‘This is a guy who stays in all the time. We can guess that from the mileage clock in the car. He’s not running round Europe like a courier.’
‘At least not in that car,’ I corrected him gently.
‘Not in any car,’ said Mann tartly. ‘Look at him – face fungus, all that hair – he’d stand out like a sore thumb, any place he stopped.’
‘I agree,’ I said. Mann moved his thinking on a stage. ‘So they come here. Same guy or different guy?’
‘Same guy – no one knocking on doors asking for Dr Dean in a foreign accent late at night.’
‘I buy that,’ said Mann. He looked round the tiny room. ‘You know something,’ he said. ‘This is just about the dirtiest, smelliest dump I’ve ever been in.’ He looked at me to get my reaction.
‘Well, you’re always complaining about the crummy places you find yourself in,’ I told him. ‘If this is the worst, it must be something for the record books.’
