League of Terror

by Bill Granger

  “We should not.”

  Hanley stared at Devereaux for a moment. Then he looked around the large, dark room, Erin Go Bragh, said one sign on a wall, left from Saint Patrick’s Day. English Out said another, more heartfelt, scrawled on plaster. It was a dreadful saloon.

  “Why did you choose this place to meet?”

  “It has a front door and a back door. In case you weren’t friendly and had second thoughts. Besides, I like the beer.”

  “You have caused me great professional discomfort. These are trying times for Section. Budgets are to be cut; manpower is to be cut. The world of espionage and intelligence is under siege because the world has become a nicer place.”

  “So it seems. All those smile buttons in the seventies finally had some effect. Like prayers for the conversion of Russia that Catholic schoolchildren recited after Sunday mass in the fifties.”

  Hanley didn’t know what to say. He looked at his drink. He looked at the wall filled with whiskey-company mirrors.

  “So Henry McGee exists,” Hanley said. “More important, he seems to be involved in terror.”

  “He has always been involved in terror. I tried to tell you that from the beginning. And he worked for R Section once and it would be a terrible embarrassment to Section to have a terrorist traced back to it. Especially at a time of budget cutbacks and such.”

  “You are being sarcastic,” Hanley said.

  Devereaux smiled. It unnerved the other man.

  Hanley said, “We bit the bullet on that long ago. We went after him when he defected to the Soviets. We took our heat and we put him in prison. But he escaped and—”

  “Yes. That’s the big and, isn’t it? He collaborated with us again. That’s the part Section can’t allow to get out. And it might get out as long as Henry McGee is alive and there’s a chance that someone might catch him. The Irish. Or the Brits. If SAS used some of their preferred methods of torture, they might accidentally trip across information they didn’t know Henry had. And where would that put you, Hanley?”

  Why was this man shoving him into a corner? Hanley looked around wildly for a moment, as though he contemplated physical escape. But the doors were all there for the opening and closing. He could leave any time he wanted.

  “You said he existed. You said he tried to kill you and Miss Macklin.”

  “But you didn’t believe me for a long time. Now you believe me. And it frightens you.”

  “I cannot authorize a sanction. We do not sanction people.”

  “I know. It’s the reason we had to use boom boxes to attack Noriega in the Vatican embassy in Panama. When all else fails, make noise.”

  “The business in Panama was botched from the beginning. That wasn’t the fault of R Section. The Langley firm fucked up that intelligence. He was their man, not ours.”

  “But Henry is our man, Hanley, isn’t he?”

  “What do you want? A piece of paper that says you have been hired by the government of the United States to find and kill Henry McGee, a former employee turned traitor twice?”

  “I don’t suppose I’d get that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Authority. A mission directive to the effect that Henry McGee is sought abroad for the attempted assassination of an agent of Section. Named Devereaux. Who is a current employee of Section.”

  “You want to come back in?”

  Devereaux had no pity now in his gray eyes. “No. I want that authority and when I’ve got him, it’ll be done. Then I’ll retire on disability as you wanted and spend the rest of my life forgetting the first part of it.”

  “But it’s authority to try to apprehend a suspect—”

  “I’ll kill him overseas, Hanley. I won’t drag the blackbird home and put him on your doorstep. I don’t want your approval for this but it’s one more thing on my side to have a mission directive in my pocket.”

  “What will you do with Miss Macklin?”

  “That’s none of your business, I told you that.”

  “We didn’t mean her harm, Devereaux,” Hanley began. Was he apologizing?

  “But you did her harm with that quack Krueger. You did her harm, Hanley.” Now his voice was low, without any edge to it. “If you had meant her harm, I would have killed you as well.”

  “You’re crazy. You’ve gone too far. Too many years living by your own rules.”

  “There are no rules.”

  God, this room was cold and damp and bleak, exactly like an Irish tavern in the middle of winter. Hanley felt withered to his soul.

  “When do you want it?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Right here.”

  “What if Mrs. Neumann vetoes it?”

  “Tell her the truth of things if you have to. Or lie to her. It doesn’t matter.”

  “And then you’ll quit Section.”

  “You’ll never see me again. Or hear from me. As long as you send my disability checks.”

  “Government pensions are not great.”

  “They’re sufficient.”

  “But what will you do?”

  Devereaux put down the glass of beer. It was empty. He looked at the foam and then around him, at the walls of gloom and the drawn faces of the morning drinkers. He spoke not for Hanley but for himself.

  “Live with Rita Macklin,” Devereaux said.

  26

  This is what they said in the office of the magazine on L Street on the morning Mac called in sick for the first time in twenty-two years.

  “Mac is sick.”

  “He hasn’t looked good for a long time.”

  “Christ, do you think it might be serious?”

  “He drinks too much. He’s an old man. He’s going to have to retire anyway. I don’t understand how people can let themselves go the way he let himself go. Alcohol is a drug.”

  “He’s an old man.”

  “He must be sixty.”

  “So who’s going to get his job?”

  “They’re going to have to fill it out of New York.”

  “I wish I could move up to New York. I really hate Washington.”

  “Where would you live?”

  “I’d like to get a co-op on the East Side. I love that city. It’s exciting. I mean, just take Bloomie’s. What have you got in Washington to compare with that?”

  “Mac goes and then the new man comes in from New York, maybe he can shake this place up. Mac is… well, he’s just old, you know?”

  She pushed strips of toast into the poached eggs on her plate. It reminded her of her mother and of her childhood in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where the winters were long and hard and the summers were festive because of their brevity. When she had a cold and had to stay home from school, her mother made her poached eggs and buttered toast and cut the toast into strips so that she could play with the eggs, and push the strips into the center of the yolks. Oh, God, she was crying again, sitting at the table in this man’s house, and he was staring at her.

  “Rita, honey, what’s wrong with you?”

  She looked up, blinked, saw it was Mac. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was. She thought she was home in Eau Claire and she was eight years old. She blinked and wondered why she was sitting in pajamas at a table in front of her boss. My God, why were they in this situation? She had a story to do, a story about something she had forgotten but she probably had it written down in her notes.

  “What am I doing here, Mac?”

  “Eating breakfast, Rita. Don’t you like poached eggs?”

  “I had them when I was a child, when I was sick.”

  “I didn’t know that. I just wanted to make you something to eat.”

  “I’m sorry I cried.”

  “You can cry anytime, Rita,” Mac said.

  “I’m feeling… strange, Mac. What are we doing here? Where is here?”

  “You slept a long time. Fourteen hours. You dreamed a lot and you were shaking and we watched you.”

/>   “Who? Dr. Krueger?”

  “No. Devereaux. Do you remember he took you from the sanitarium?”

  She remembered the man then. She remembered him too much. He never came when she wanted him.

  “I feel like I’ve lost my mind. Sometimes. I just forget things and then I remember other things. Do you understand?”

  “Sure,” Mac said. “You’re in my house. I’m taking a few days off, sick leave. I can take care of you, Rita. He said you’d feel better the longer you were away from the drugs.”

  “Who? Dr. Krueger?”

  “Devereaux.”

  “He never came to see me.”

  “He came. He was nearly blown up in his hotel room the night he came. He was in a hospital and they wouldn’t let him call you because they thought it would upset you.”

  She blinked. Her hair was dulled by illness and neglect. It fell in unkempt locks around her face. Her eyes were dull. Her cheeks were thin and the gauntness of her body killed Mac. Devereaux had been right. They were killing her to save her life.

  “Eat your eggs, they’re good for you.”

  “Yes,” she said. She began to eat the eggs and the toast. She felt sick and tired but better than she had grown accustomed to feeling. Even when she had cried just then, it wasn’t a bad thing. She had cried over something sweet in memory, not over a nightmare. There had been too many nightmares, and maybe now she was on the verge of getting rid of them.

  Maybe she was going to be all right.

  27

  “Do you remember?”

  She had brushed her hair. She had put on a dress that had belonged to Mac’s wife. She sat across from Devereaux and nodded. “I remember going into the parking lot of my building. I was thinking about you, Dev. I was always thinking about you.”

  They were in the darkened parlor of the town house. Mac was at the grocery up the street. He wasn’t used to shopping for groceries; a single man living alone craves company when he dines and his refrigerator begins to resemble an impressionistic painting of single leftovers—a tomato gone bad, a stick of celery uneaten, a bottle of curdled milk.

  “I did the wrong thing when I left you. I thought I brought you nothing but trouble and pain. So I left you and brought you nothing but trouble and pain. I won’t leave you ever again.”

  She said, “I don’t believe you.”

  It was what he feared the most.

  “I’m leaving Section. There’s one last matter.”

  “There’s always one last matter. That’s why I don’t believe you.”

  She thought she looked pretty in the dress. She thought she should buy some lipstick.

  “Henry McGee shot you. And tried to kill me. He called me in the hotel the night he blew up the room. He’s crazy and he’s still in the business of terror. Section wants him taken out as much as I do because he has a trail that goes back to Section. You don’t know this because I never told you, I was trying to get away from you.”

  “Well, you’ve succeeded,” Rita Macklin said. “Did you have fun getting away from me?”

  She wanted to hurt him.

  “What about women, Dev? You’re good-looking. You can have women and you want them. You could seduce them the way you seduced me the first time we met in Florida. You just crept into my mind and sat there until I had to spread my legs for you. I didn’t go to bed with men then the way women go to bed with men now. I didn’t sleep with men because I felt like it or I had an itch that day or because I was bored or because it seemed a good way to end the evening. I was a good girl, Dev, by the standards of the times. Did you screw me because I was a good girl and that counted for more, to get a good girl?”

  He wouldn’t answer her; or maybe the silence was answer. She leaned forward.

  “You had women when you left me, when you wouldn’t call me. I called you and called you and I wanted you. But you were away, screwing women.”

  “I slept with other women,” he said. “That’s what you want me to say.”

  Yes. Exactly what she wanted.

  “I slept with other men,” she said. “I didn’t miss you at all. There was a war correspondent, a wonderful man, we made love and I fell in love with him. Barry. I really loved him.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was killed in Nicaragua. Terrorists. Or the government. It didn’t matter because he was dead in any case.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I never missed you. I thought you were dead. I thought they pretended to relay my telephone calls to you because they didn’t want anyone to know that an agent had died. They’re bastards, spooks. They could do that. They think they can do anything.”

  “I missed you every day and every night.”

  “You’re a liar. You tell that to all the girls. Girls are made to be lied to.”

  “I’m not lying to you, Rita.”

  “You said words lie. I remember that. So if words lie, why are you telling me things? You tell me you’ll never leave me but you’re going to leave me to find Henry McGee.”

  “Don’t you want me to leave? Then I’ll stay. I won’t go after Henry McGee. To hell with Section.”

  They were silent for a long time in the looming darkness of the room. The darkness was palpable because of the edge of light from the moonlit windows. Every object was soft and warm because of the darkness. The room painted their eyes. She saw his eyes, saw the gray so honest that it pained both of them.

  “Do you mean it?”

  “Yes. I’ll quit Section. I don’t owe them anymore. And I can leave now because the cold war is over and all the soldiers can go home.”

  “Will they let you?”

  “They’ll have to.”

  “And you’ll stay with me.”

  “Until you’re old and gray and don’t even want to make love anymore.”

  My God.

  She reached across the darkness and he held her and felt her body beneath the thin satin dress and felt the bones of illness and smelled her sweet breath and the sweet flower odor of her unperfumed skin. She buried her face in his neck and kissed him and felt the wince of pain across his shoulders and let him go.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said.

  He reached for her again. He kissed her with the gentleness of yearning. “I love you.”

  “Don’t the words lie anymore?”

  “No. Deceit has retired,” he said. He held her tightly.

  “Oh, Dev. I wanted you all the time. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I was running away from you. I thought it was better to hurt you once and for all than to hurt you in little doses all your life. I thought you’d just get fed up and turn your back and forget me.”

  “I wanted to. I really wanted to. I hated you. You walked out on me and that really hurt. You hurt my pride. I thought my love was worth a lot more. I thought if I loved someone, anyone, they’d have to see they didn’t have a chance. They couldn’t walk out on me because I loved them.”

  And for the first time, she saw the change.

  My God, she thought, there are no lies at all.

  Because he was crying and he had never done that before.

  28

  They did not make love. They lay together in darkness, in her bedroom in the still of midnight in the town house. They were naked next to each other and they saw the wounds on each other. He said he loved her again and she believed him, just as she believed him when he said he would never leave her. She had won him by dying; he had recovered his life by dying. They had both died and awakened in spring. They had no winter left to them. He was no longer November, frozen in time and space across the years in the position of a winter soldier, an agent of violence and silence.

  She had wept many times.

  Now she was not weeping. They lay in silence, exhausted by all their words to each other.

  “Henry McGee,” she said.

  He turned to her and could see her profile in the lamp of moonlight that filtered t
hrough the curtained window. She was more beautiful than he had ever remembered her, even the first time he had met her on that beach in Florida, even the first time he had tasted of her sweet breath and made love to her body.

  “I love you, Dev. You were the only love in my life. Even if I thought I loved another man. Even Barry, who was sweet and gentle and brave.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry he died.”

  “Henry McGee,” she said. “I should thank him for shooting me. He brought you back to me.”

  He saw how bitter it was with her and he couldn’t say anything.

  She looked at him. “You do love me.”

  “I always did. I couldn’t move, I was frozen away from you.”

  “The world. It was the world you lived in. You don’t have to live in it anymore. It was agents and death and deceit and lies and spies and all of that and you couldn’t tell me and you couldn’t let me in it.”

  “No.”

  “Were you going to arrest Henry McGee? If I let you go?”

  “No.”

  “Were you going to thank him for bringing you to your senses and back to me?”

  He didn’t know what to say.

  “You see, Dev? How I’ve changed, too?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Rita.”

  “I know you are. But the hurts are still there.”

  “Yes.”

  “If I told you to get out of my sight and leave me alone, would you do that?”

  “I told you: I’ll never leave you.”

  “Then you’re going to impose yourself again. Like kidnapping me from the sanitarium. I’m not afraid of you. I could put you in jail for a long time. I’ve got my own life. Or I could let you hang around and just hurt you all the time. Do you know how a woman can do that? There are thousands of ways. You see men being hurt all the time. I could do that to you.”

  He waited in the darkness.

  “It’s a bad world, full of bad people,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you bad or good, Dev? I just want to know.”

  “I don’t know what I am.”

  “You saved that little boy’s life on the island that time. You didn’t have to do that. Our little black son, Philippe, back home again and working to save his people from themselves.”