Code Name November

by Bill Granger

  He went to her bed and picked up the top mattress and slid it off the box springs. Her passport was wedged between the top and bottom mattresses. He picked it up and flipped it open. Elizabeth stared at him. There was a stamp on the first page. Ethiopia, 1971; Taiwan, 1972; Republic of Korea, 1972; United Kingdom, 1973. He looked through all the pages. Every year marked by stamps of countries. He placed the passport in the pocket of the drab raincoat.

  He lifted the box spring and felt along the bottom of it. Nothing.

  He opened the drawers of the nightstand: a Guide to Belfast and the North of Ireland; Gideon Society Bible; nothing.

  He went to the closet and opened the door. His body moved in a kind of fury, without sound—even without breath. He felt along the top shelf. Scattered the dust with his fingers. Nothing.

  He examined her coat. Felt in the pockets and along the lining of the coat. Touched something. He opened the knife again and tore the seam wide, like a surgeon. He removed ten one-hundred-dollar bills which had been folded into the seam at the bottom of the coat. He put them in his pocket.

  Two pairs of shoes on the floor of the closet. He picked them up and took the heels off—prying them off with the knife. Solid heels. Nothing. He threw them back on the closet floor.

  He examined the buttons of the coat. Solid. He flicked the knife shut and put it in his pocket.

  He went into the bathroom.

  Lipstick. Hand cream. Shampoo in a plastic container. He smelled the shampoo. Smelled her. He poured the shampoo into the sink and looked again at the bottle. Nothing.

  He opened the jar of hand cream and slowly scooped it all out. Nothing.

  He threw the jar into the wastebasket.

  He opened the medicine cabinet. A little purse. He opened it and dumped everything onto the counter next to the washbowl.

  A green plastic case, oval-shaped. He opened it. A rubber diaphragm inside. He took it out and examined it and placed it back in the plastic case.

  A tube of anti-sperm vaginal gel. He squeezed out the tube slowly. He put it down.

  There were four tampon sticks. He opened the wrapper of each and examined both sides of the wrapper for writing. He tore the cotton sticks apart.

  Nothing.

  He took the lipstick tube and opened it. Her color. But he did not think about her; he did not see her in these things. He was a morgue attendant, cataloguing the artifacts of the dead.

  Taking a piece of toilet paper, he pulled the lipstick out of the tube. Then he ground it slowly. Nothing. He threw it into the toilet. He looked inside the tube. Nothing.

  He went to the shower curtain and examined it, felt along the seam at the bottom.

  Nothing.

  He went back into the gloom of the bedroom and felt behind the dresser mirror. He moved the dresser out and examined the backing. He pried off a loose piece of trim. Nothing.

  Going to the television set, he opened the back. The dust lay evenly and thickly over the tubes and circuits.

  Nothing.

  Finally, he stood at the window and looked into the gloom of the darkened bedroom. His face was impassive, clerklike: He looked slowly over the room, imagining little squares superimposed on his vision of the room as though the room were a photograph. He examined each square before going on to the next. He had neglected nothing.

  He sat down in the chair by the window, took out his pistol, and put it on the desk next to the chair. He sat, waiting, in the darkness.

  The door opened slowly. She felt along the wall for the light switch before stepping into the room.

  Afraid of the dark.

  She found the switch. He heard its ugly click. Two lamps blazed on, the one at the bed and the one on the desk. She was half turned away from the room as she entered and pushed the door closed behind her. He had an instant to look at her again.

  She was beautiful. He had, in two days, forgotten how tall Elizabeth was, how her body carried her fullness. Her legs were full and oddly graceful. He remembered. He looked at her. But nothing showed on his face; the things he felt were hidden.

  Just an instant. And then she turned into the room. Saw him but only saw in that moment a human presence. She was frightened; her face went pale. When she knew it was him, she started to speak but then she saw the room.

  “What?” It was all she could say.

  She saw the pistol on the desk. He had not moved to touch it. He sat still.

  “What?”

  She leaned against the door, afraid to step into the chaos of the room. She saw her closet door opened. Saw the mattress on the floor, tangled in bedsheets. Saw the drawers of her dresser opened, her clothes heaped on the floor.

  Devereaux let the shock take her. She shivered. She stared at him. He noticed that her hands were clenched.

  Her dark hair was not attractive now—it was wet, pasted to her forehead. Her lipstick had faded. She stood still and looked at him and then suddenly went to the dresser as though she had to run across a narrow bridge to reach it. She looked at her strewn clothing. She picked up her underthings from the floor where he had thrown them. She put them back into a drawer and shut it.

  “You bastard,” she said. The shock was past; rage gained. He waited.

  She turned and went into the bathroom. There was no sound. After a moment, she came back into the bedroom. Her arms were folded now across the gentle swell of her belly as though she were sick. Her tailored suit was wet.

  She could barely speak. Her eyes searched his features. “Why?”

  He got up. “Sit down here.” He pointed to the straight-backed wooden chair.

  She stood still and stared at him.

  He took her arm quickly and twisted it; she half bent over; she did not cry out. He forced her to the chair and let her arm go. Going to the desk, he turned out the glaring light, leaving only a single soft stab of light from the nightstand beside the bed. He went to the wall by the door and turned. He had left his pistol on the desk, nearer to her than to himself. He wondered if she would reach for it. Her back was to him.

  He began: “Who are you?”

  “You bastard,” she replied.

  “Who are you?”

  She was silent.

  He waited. He looked at her wet brown hair. He remembered the smell of it. He looked at her shoulders. She sat still, her arms across her breasts. He thought of the pleasure she had shared with him.

  “Who are you?” Again.

  She turned in the chair then and looked at him. Her eyes were dry, hard, angry. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know who you are.”

  “Elizabeth Campbell.”

  “Who are you?” He said it again, in the same maddening voice. His voice was flat, without edge, without menace. He might have been a recording or a machine.

  She repeated her name. “I’m coordinator of investigations for Free The Prisoners, an international—”

  “Why are you in Belfast?”

  “I came here with the detachment—we’re going to Long Kesh. Why are you here? You were going home.”

  He waited.

  She tugged at an earring—a gold circle—and pulled it off. Then the other. She held them in her hands and then put them on the desk. She waited.

  “Who is Blatchford?”

  Movement. Slight. Her eye. “Who?”

  He did not repeat the name.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about—” But she knew it was too late for that lie. She had given it away.

  He placed the picture on the desk next to her. It was a photograph of a younger Elizabeth and a little boy. He watched her while he did this.

  She looked at the picture and then at him.

  “Where did you get this? How did you get this from me?” Her voice was suddenly tired.

  “Who is the child?”

  “You bastard,” she said. “How did you steal this?”

  “Who is Blatchford?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

>   “Tell me about you—”

  “How did you get this picture? You filth. You slime.”

  “Tell me about Blatchford. And this child.”

  “I won’t tell you anything.” But she had, already.

  Now it was time. Going to the desk, he picked up the pistol and held it loosely in his hand.

  “Elizabeth,” he said. She had to understand that everything he said was true. That everything he would now threaten would happen. She had to understand that; that was the difficult part.

  “Elizabeth. I want you to tell me about the people you work for. To tell the truth. If you tell me the truth, it will be better. Not all right—but better. I am in the business of information, not vengeance. Do you understand me?”

  She stared at him. She shivered; she was cold.

  “Blatchford tried to kill me last night, but he’s dead. I have Blatchford’s wallet. He had a number of items in it, including identity cards in my name. I was set up. By someone. By your people.”

  She touched her throat. She kept staring at him.

  “Blatchford had this picture of you and the child. Do you understand what I’m saying? Two nights ago, I was sitting in the bar of a London hotel. Suddenly, I met you after fifteen years. You came to me. You went to bed with me. I loved that, Elizabeth.”

  For a moment his voice lost its flatness.

  “I want you to understand that part, too. You’re a beautiful woman. But I did not understand it then and I don’t now. Why did we meet? And make love? And now why are you in Belfast? And why is your picture in the wallet of a man who tried to kill me? Do you understand what I’m saying? Elizabeth? Say you understand it.”

  She spoke slowly: “I don’t understand.”

  He shook his head. He said everything again. He said he wanted information, not vengeance. He said Blatchford had tried to kill him. He said Blatchford was dead. He told about the photograph again. He talked about her, about making love to her. He said these things slowly, carefully, as if he were a teacher going over the alphabet with a slow child.

  “Do you understand now?”

  She nodded.

  “Say it then.”

  “I understand.”

  He brought up the gun in his hand. He held it on the level of her eyes. “Now, Elizabeth, think before you speak now. It’s very important. Look at me, please. This is a .357 Magnum revolver. Each bullet has been altered by the addition of a heavy charge and a flattened nose. At the distance of six feet, a bullet would tear your face apart. We are closer, much closer. I am going to kill you, Elizabeth.”

  He paused.

  She stared at the muzzle of the black gun.

  “Or I will not kill you. I told you I wanted information, not vengeance. I want the truth. I want you to tell me everything. If you tell me, I will let you live. I will give you a day to leave Belfast. I promise that and I won’t lie to you. But if you do not tell me the truth, I will kill you. I have no choice if I’m going to survive. And I’m going to, Elizabeth.”

  “You won’t kill me.”

  He looked at her sadly. “This is not a game now. I have killed nine people. I don’t enjoy killing or torture; I didn’t enjoy tearing your room apart; I don’t enjoy this, any of it. But I have to know. You intruded on me; you came into my game. The game’s ended. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  She stared at the dull, black pistol.

  He waited. The silence tore at both of them. A demon had seized his body and voice; it was as though he could stand outside himself and watch. He wondered if someday the demon would take his body and never return it.

  “I would betray—”

  He said softly, “Betrayal is nothing. Life is worth that, Elizabeth. Your life.”

  He waited a moment and then spoke: “Who are you, Elizabeth?” To say her name softened the question.

  She began slowly, in another voice, holding her body. Her voice was dead and empty.

  “Two years ago,” she began. Paused. “I met a man. In Washington. I went to work for him.”

  He watched her. Her eyes looked lost. “He was with. With. The R Section.”

  The demon held Devereaux’s body perfectly still.

  “His name was Hanley. Is Hanley.”

  He thought to breathe, but holding his breath seemed more natural. He wondered if he could stand still for hours, for days? He knew he could.

  “You know Hanley. You know all this now.” She said it flatly.

  “Tell me, Elizabeth.” Was the demon losing control?

  “He said—you’ll kill me now.” She seemed distracted, about to weep again. “He said he needed information about you. It was my second assignment. I was to go to New York to meet you. To find out who you were selling out to—”

  Suddenly, beyond the dark window, in the darkness of Belfast, there was a sound like an explosion from a far way off. The window of the room rattled slightly as though a train had passed or a puff of air had struck it.

  “You were suspected—are suspected—of being a double agent. It was my assignment to find you. To… make love to you. To—” She could not speak for a moment. She finally took the water and drank the glassful at a gulp. “Hanley said because I had known you. And then, when you were not in New York, I was sent to London to wait for you.”

  “And do what?”

  “To find out about you. To become… your friend.”

  She did not look at the black pistol.

  “You work for R Section.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “For how long?”

  “Eighteen months.”

  “Who recruited you?”

  “Hanley.”

  “Describe him.”

  She described a man.

  “Where is the Section?”

  She told him.

  “What is your status?”

  “I’m a field man.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked at her. She looked again at the pistol.

  “Why am I here?”

  “I don’t know. That wasn’t part of my assignment.” She did not continue.

  “Who is Blatchford?”

  “He’s with the Section as well.”

  “I never met him.”

  “I know. Hanley knows.”

  “Why did Blatchford try to kill me?”

  “I don’t believe that. It wasn’t part of the assignment.”

  He let it go. “Why did he have your picture?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he take it?”

  “Yes. He must have. I don’t know.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How could he have taken it?”

  “In my room. In London. Before you came. I didn’t know it was missing. I never look at it. I carry it.”

  “How could he have taken it?”

  She felt drained, tired, sick.

  “How?”

  “When we… When Blatchford and I were together. I don’t know.”

  The demon was gone now. His hand shook. But he still held the pistol, pointed at the floor.

  “Why did Blatchford try to kill me?”

  She shook her head. “You killed him—”

  It was not necessary to bring in Denisov now. He nodded.

  “God.” She shivered. “I didn’t know. You killed him.”

  He felt an absurd need suddenly to justify himself. To this tired woman with matted brown hair and rain streaked on her cheeks.

  He stood in the light.

  “Look,” he said.

  She recoiled from the ugly weal across his throat.

  “He did that?”

  “Yes. And he killed another man before he tried to kill me.”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “Elizabeth. Who is the child?”

  She seemed confused. And then she looked at the picture. “Do you have to know everything? Do you have to dirty eve
rything I feel—”

  “Who is the child?”

  “David. My son.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Dead.”

  There really was nothing more to ask her. He wanted to touch her, to pity her, to tell her. What? What comfort could he give her?

  Hanley had sent them. Elizabeth and Blatchford. To spy on him and to murder him.

  And why had Denisov become his guardian angel?

  Devereaux stared at Elizabeth. You warmed me. You reminded me of my other life. You touched me.

  Slowly, he put the pistol on his belt and drew his jacket over it. She saw this but she did not move. She sat holding herself, trying not to shiver.

  “Do you know a man named O’Neill?”

  He had no need for the pistol now. Or the threat.

  She shook her head.

  He believed that.

  “Now.” He looked at her. “Begin. Tell me about R Section and why they sent you to spy on me.”

  Slowly, wearily, she started at the beginning.

  The silver sliver in the sky broke through the galleons of clouds sailing off the west coast. The sliver fell in the afternoon sky, catching the rare November sun on its wings, turning and dipping, it fell again, toward the large field below.

  At that moment, Brianna Devon stood at the window in an immense lounge at Shannon Airport and watched the sky. She could not see the plane yet.

  She wore fashionably tight French jeans, their cuffs stuffed into long, sleek brown boots. Her hair was an auburn red, cut short and severe. Her face, which was quite pretty, was clouded with worry. Her dark eyes searched the field before her but she could not see anything.

  She was annoyed by the presence of the man next to her. He had been sent down from Galway City’s gardai. He was a tall, ungainly man with neatly plastered black hair and a lantern jaw and large, cowlike eyes. He had dressed in plainclothes that could not have been more conspicuous if he had worn his uniform. He looked like nothing so much as the universal policeman in plainclothes for the first time.

  He’d told her that Chief Inspector Cashel was going to visit them in the morning at Clare House. It was all so horrible, made more horrible by the police. All Brianna wanted was her father and Deirdre. She thought of Deirdre, who had been more like a sister than a tutor to her. Thought of her little laughing face. Deirdre.