Code Name November

by Bill Granger

  “Am I right, Mr. Devereaux? Yer don’t give a great bloody damn about it all, one way or the other.”

  Devereaux watched the road. “It’s a job.”

  “It’s that.”

  They were silent for a moment. They could hear the noisy engine of the little car and the drum of the wheels on the cracked roadway.

  “You don’t care if Lord Slough lives or dies then?”

  “Sure we do,” said Devereaux. “As a professional matter, of interest to my government.”

  “Interest. A curious word. It can mean so little. I can be interested in news of a ferry overturning in the river Ganges and the deaths of a thousand Indians.”

  Devereaux could not understand the tone of voice.

  Cashel continued, “Lord Slough is an Englishman who loves Eire. They are not so rare. If you would come even out here to Clare in the summer, you’d see them. They married Irish girls or they came here once on holiday and never got the feel of the country out of their bones. It does not matter the reason—they love Eire and the people.”

  They were approaching a village. Along the narrow roadway, men and women in a straggly stream were walking away from the church. The men were tall and thick-bodied; the women seemed smaller but not frail. The little car roared past them.

  “Look at them.” Cashel spoke again in the same soft, urgent voice. “They may have heard of Lord Slough on the telly or one of them may get the Dublin paper he owns in the post. But he’s no more to them than he is to you. A curiosity perhaps, like all great men. But he loves them and he’s put it in ways they’ll understand someday. Those oil derricks, y’heard about them off the western coast? There’s oil there, in the western sea. Ireland’s oil. And Lord Slough is for findin’ it and then you’ll see the change in these poor people.”

  Devereaux still did not understand, but he waited. He thought again that the Irish seemed to speak in circles that grew gradually smaller until the center was apparent.

  “So one day they’ll all have a telly in their cottages and they’ll have the price of a pint without lookin’ at the coins in their hands,” said Cashel. “Because of that oil that Lord Slough is after findin’ in the western ocean.”

  They entered the village. Devereaux pulled the car to the side of the road and turned off the engine. But he sat still and waited.

  “But what about you, Mr. Devereaux? Or your government? You don’t care about Lord Slough fer yerself and I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said otherwise. But what about America? What’s your country’s stake in all this then? Y’see, I cannot believe everything you told me back there in MacDermott’s place. You understand, I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m just a policeman from Dublin and you are a great representative of the Central Intelligence Agency. D’ye understand, sir? Lord Slough is important to Eire. And to these poor Clare folks, whether they know Lord Slough or no. He’s an Englishman and all—and that’s what those terrorists care about because they’re young and they’re fightin’ the right cause the wrong way—but he’s important to Eire.”

  Devereaux turned in his seat. Something in Cashel’s calm, almost sleepy Irish face had changed; there was a hardness and cold warning in his voice now.

  “So there’s no misunderstandin’, Mr. Devereaux. You gave me good information. I thank you, for the nation. But I don’t know your game yet, Mr. Devereaux. D’ye understand now? I know y’have a game but I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it don’t concern me, which is just as well. But do not let your game bring harm to Lord Slough because then y’ harm Eire. And then you’ll have abused your rights as a guest of the nation. D’y understand now, sir?”

  Devereaux nodded. So the simple policeman with his ridiculous hat and bristling mustache knew it was more than a game.

  17

  WASHINGTON

  Hanley had not thought to shave and now he was acutely aware of it. The bristles—brown and gray—on his thin chin somehow made him more tired than he was; he rubbed at them as he drove down the deserted Sunday morning stretch of Wisconsin Avenue into Bethesda.

  He had been up all night.

  He had, in fact, not left the Section in the Department of Agriculture building since Devereaux’s telephone call over thirty-six hours before. He had not been aware of sleep or human needs or food for two days; he had merely been the hunter, searching through the records and reports and magnetic tapes on the big computer for clues to the leak in the Section and a clue to the mystery left by Devereaux.

  Part of that mystery had been in the message found on the body of the dead agent. The man Devereaux had eliminated in a Belfast hotel stairwell.

  The message: ETRAYSDVERDANTYGER

  He had used the computer to break the code. Effortlessly, it had hummed through the variants possible in routine codes—the letter plus one, the letter plus two, the letter plus three… E became H in the plus-three code, T became W, R became U, and so on. The machine had tried all the plus combination up to forty and printed out the variants, and then it had been programmed to use the minus codes—letter minus one made E become D and so on. The machine tried “book” codes.

  The message was meaningless.

  The message was not meaningless. What was it? Did it name the leak? Was it a code within a code?

  And all the time, he had burrowed into the other files with the loyal secretaries and with Hallman of the Asian desk borrowed for the hunt. Hanley was like a man who had mislaid his eyeglasses: Half blind with fatigue, worry, and frustration, he pawed through familiar things in familiar places again and again, always with growing irritation at his own stupidity. It must be there in the piles of manpower reports, training reports, recommendations of new agents, reports from field agents, 201 files. In all those familiar things, there must be the mark of the traitor.

  Hanley spurred the others on ruthlessly. He had no life outside the Section; it was home and hearth, wife and child to him. If Hanley were to admit it, the endless hours thrilled him as well. The Section had caught a kind of wartime fever, an excitement that Hanley had not felt since the days he’d served in the old O.S.S.

  Chief-of-Section Galloway had called four times during those hours.

  As usual, the voice was mild but clearly disapproving of the delay in tracing the leak in the Section. Rear Admiral Galloway (USN Ret.) was at the best of times a frustrating man to work for but now it was much worse: He was the type who said little but expected you to catch intricate meanings in and shadings to his few words.

  Of course, Hanley had considered that Devereaux himself was wrong. That Devereaux had relayed a bogus message. That Devereaux, for unclear reasons, was playing a game with the Section.

  That thought had occurred to Hanley but he told no one.

  It had occurred to Galloway and he chewed on it and then finally relayed it on to Hanley in the second telephone conversation.

  And there was the business with Miss Elizabeth Campbell. Formerly Mrs. Donald Frieze. Mother. Child deceased. Divorce. Who was Frieze? That was part of the hunt as well. Inquiries were made about Frieze in the Justice Department, where he worked in the civil rights section. A tap was set on his telephone. It recorded only inanities—two calls from salesmen, one selling subscriptions to a Washington newspaper, the other offering central air conditioning. And a long, late conversation with a Margo Cole of Fairfax in which sexual relations were suggested and agreed to.

  Elizabeth Campbell. Born in Buffalo, New York. Raised in New York City by Thomas A. Campbell, patent attorney. Mother dead. Columbia University. Peace Corps—Addis Ababa. Married Donald Frieze in Bergen, New Jersey; one child, David. Killed at six years of age by Mrs. Eleanor Hodkins, 64, of 122 Briar Lane, Arlington, Virginia, at 3:45 in the afternoon. Automobile accident. Divorce.

  Everything was checked.

  Hanley finally came to Devereaux’s own 201 file.

  Peter Devereaux. Born in Chicago. Orphaned at four. Raised by an elderly aunt. Two arrests while a teenager, one for assault and battery,
the second for assault. Scholarship to the University of Chicago. Graduate, postgraduate. Ph.D. Professor of history, Columbia University, New York. Recruited to the Section. Four attached recommendations; three attached letters of demerit.

  But Hanley already knew everything about Devereaux.

  And the message: ETRAYSDVERDANTYGER

  In the twenty-seventh hour, half dozing at his desk while his eyes dimly perceived the manpower reports in his hands, Hanley understood. The thought came to him and lingered just long enough for him to become alert again. He put down the manpower reports and got up from the desk and went into the hall and drank a long sip of water from the fount.

  The message was not in code. That was why it couldn’t be broken. The message had been composed, not sent. The dead agent had written out the message to be transmitted later, by someone else.

  That was it.

  Hanley stood for a moment in the half-darkened hall. Several doors away, Hallman was culling the list of employment recommendations and recruiting comments on new agents. He had been at it all night.

  Hanley thought he should tell Hallman, to buck him up. But the secret was too important for that.

  He went back into his office and closed the door and sat down at the desk.

  E TRAYS D VERDANT YGER.

  E for Elizabeth.

  TRAYS for…

  D for Devereaux.

  VERDANT YGER for…

  He pondered it again, penciling in the new words beneath the original letters. If it was a message to be sent, then the words were in a sort of rough code at first and then were translated into a number code for transmission.

  Elizabeth TRAYS Devereaux VERDANT YGER.

  Hanley got up and went to the coffeepot plugged into the wall. He poured a cup with shaking hands and dropped two small saccharin pills into the black liquid. He sipped at it. How much coffee had he consumed since it began? His hands were shaking, he realized suddenly.

  Betrays.

  Betrays. Elizabeth betrays Devereaux.

  He pushed the cup down onto the counter and went back to his desk. Elizabeth betrays Devereaux VERDANT YGER.

  Green yger?

  Tyger. VERDANTYGER was green tyger.

  There was something there, at the edge of consciousness, shyly peering at him. Waiting for discovery. He mustn’t frighten it or it will run away; he must let it come of its own accord, like a fawn in the woods investigating a salt lick.

  Come, come.

  Hanley waited, stared at the paper.

  He saw the eyes of the beast in his mind, flashing in the darkness. Like a tyger.

  Saw the tiger.

  Burning.

  And then it was in the light and Hanley knew:

  Tyger.

  He got up and raced to the door, opened it and called down the hall. He understood the code now; he knew who the traitor was.

  So, with some satisfaction, he had awakened Galloway before dawn and was soon on his way to the Chief’s residence.

  He turned off Wisconsin Avenue onto Old Georgetown Road into residential Bethesda. The trees were droopy in the still air of morning but they carried their colors like flags. Leaves littered the lawns; autumn in Washington was eternal. In the distance, he could see the bare outlines of the naval hospital.

  The Chief had instructed him to tell no one. Hanley had complied; he had merely told Hallman to go home, that the matter was closed. Hallman had been disappointed not to learn Hanley’s secret.

  It wasn’t quite eight A.M.

  Morning birds continued their songs as the sun began to filter through the trees.

  Chief of Section lived in a comfortable house off the main road, back in the trees, surrounded by green privacy. There was a little turning circle in front of the impressive brick home. Hanley left his car there and went up the stone steps. But the door was open before he rang; the Old Man was waiting for him.

  “Good, Hanley,” Galloway said at last as Hanley entered the hall of the immense old house.

  But no praise could take the heaviness out of him. With the end of the chase, there came an end to the excitement of the hunt. There was a traitor in the Section and Hanley felt it as personally as if someone had struck him. He did not even try to smile in return.

  The Old Man closed the door as though he understood Hanley’s private grief. He led the way into the library; the house was dark; there were people still sleeping within, upstairs, beyond the lights of the book-lined room.

  Hanley took the proffered chair. The Old Man stood by the window, waiting.

  Hanley cleared his throat. And then began:

  “Green. In our London safe house. He’s the traitor.”

  “Ah.” The old man waited.

  “Verdant Tyger. Green is obvious for verdant. Tyger. Why the old spelling for tiger—with a Y instead of an I? It was just their little game over at Langley, inventing a funny code name for Blake House.” Hanley paused; in that moment, he hated the CIA as though it was not a rival agency but the enemy of the nation. “Tyger, sir. From William Blake’s poem.

  “Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

  In the forests of the night,

  What immortal hand or eye

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

  Again, Hanley paused. The Old Man shook his head. “Such a simple code.”

  “It wasn’t the code, sir. It was merely the preparation for a code, with bogus names. And then it would be translated into a code for transmission. Devereaux killed their agent before the message was sent.”

  “I see.” The Chief gazed out the window at the limp, lush trees. There was an awkward silence for a moment, as though both men were suddenly embarrassed by the fact of the CIA’s mole in their operation. Hanley knew that the Chief was considering not only the next move but the move after that, was weighing not only the operational danger to R Section but the political danger as well. R Section must survive; to survive, there must be a demonstrated confidence in it. Would the existence of a CIA mole in R Section hurt the CIA—or the Section? The Old Man weighed it all and then gave Hanley his instructions.

  Hanley sat and listened and did not take notes. He never took notes. He remembered everything.

  Nothing must be done at the moment, the Chief explained.

  Hanley pointed out that an agent from the Section could be sent to London immediately, to clear up the matter with Green. Ericson was available, stationed for the moment in Berlin.

  The Chief nodded but rejected Hanley’s plan. There might still be other leaks in the Section. Ericson might be a CIA mole as well; the Section was small, all jobs must be considered vital. They must run a careful clearance check on everyone, including secretaries. Hanley must return to headquarters and carry on and wait.

  But what if Green moved in the meantime to eliminate Elizabeth Campbell, since she had betrayed the CIA mirror game to Devereaux?

  The old man lit his pipe then and went to his desk and sat down and blew puffs of smoke at the ceiling. Yes, he said. That would be a difficulty. It would be a problem. It was too bad.

  Hanley understood: The retired Navy admiral had to be a little careless of life for the sake of the action, for the safety of victory.

  Hanley understood everything.

  The Section had to be protected. It was presumed—strongly so, based on everything that Devereaux had reported—that the CIA had created the ghost Section and that Green was a part of the CIA operation. But what if Green worked for another agency? For the Soviets? He could not be given a chance to bolt. The Old Man explained patiently.

  Another scenario: If Green worked for the CIA, he must not be given a chance to inform them that the Section was totally aware of their game. The CIA must be caught in an embarrassment. So Hanley must wait upon contact from Devereaux and then Hanley must instruct Devereaux to go to London and eliminate Green. There must be no public notice of what took place within R Section and no warning given to Green.

  “But how can we embarrass the CIA with tha
t?” Hanley asked.

  “Leave two exits open,” the old man explained. Depending on how it turned out, expose the CIA to the President or make a deal with the CIA to quietly fold their ghost operation against R Section. Exchange that for R Section’s silence. Blackmail the CIA, in other words.

  “Is the existence of the Section in danger, then?” Hanley asked at last.

  The Old Man nodded in his absent way and explained: The President was hostile to R Section; even some congressmen grumbled at the expense of maintaining various espionage agencies which essentially served as checks on each other. If the CIA feud with R Section surfaced now, would the President use the incident to push for his single agency? Or could the CIA’s game against the Section be turned back to tarnish the Agency so badly that no one would trust a single espionage organization? Both were possibilities.

  “So we must do nothing,” Hanley said with a trace of sarcasm.

  Galloway raised an eyebrow at that. “We must proceed cautiously. If Devereaux handles the elimination of our mole, we keep the matter quiet, at least temporarily. We can use Green as a trump card against the Langley firm. Dead or alive. If Devereaux botches the job, the CIA will hardly reveal it.”

  But the woman—this Elizabeth Campbell—might be killed.

  “It might be better that way,” shrugged the old man. “She was a traitor to Langley; they want her dead. Might she not betray us as well? You cannot trust a traitor.”

  It was useless to argue; Hanley knew the Chief was right, that he was playing a dangerous game on many levels at the same time and that the least important element in the game was the fate of Elizabeth Campbell.

  And so Hanley had returned again to the grim, gray building off the Ellipse and had recalled Hallman from his bed back to the Section and to resume the careful hunt through the records for other traitors. He worked through the morning until he could no longer focus his eyes on the words dancing across the pieces of paper.

  So tired.