The British Cross

by Bill Granger

  In the shadows of the dim-lit room, with the fire making dancing lights on the walls, Hanley did not see the smile. “We will minimize risk at contact. He isn’t the sort who is expected to turn, you see. I want you to see what he is like, take his measure; we need some input to make a decision.”

  “You sound like a corporate recruiter.”

  “Yes,” Hanley said, suddenly pleased. “I suppose we are in a way.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Our defector-in-waiting comes from a sensitive area inside the apparatus of the Opposition. But not one that is of particular interest to us. So two things come to mind: Why does he want out? Why does he want to come out through the Section?”

  “Because Langley would be leery of another defector so soon after being burned last August,” Devereaux replied.

  “Exactly. The Opposition has been neglecting us. Perhaps the Section would be so eager for a small coup that we would not be careful when checking his bona fides.”

  “And that might mean he is a triple.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  Devereaux put down the empty glass and went to the fire. He picked up a black poker and shoved a large piece of oak back into the grating. The gesture exposed unburned wood and the fire leaped in the stone fireplace.

  “Where does he come from?”

  “Leningrad. He’s very high in the Gulag.”

  Devereaux turned from the fireplace with the poker in his hand. His eyes betrayed interest for the first time. “That’s odd,” he said.

  “Yes, isn’t it? Obviously, we can’t ignore him. But who cares about the Gulag Archipelago?”

  “Don’t let the human-rights groups hear that.”

  “If they had an interest in my opinion, I would tell them,” Hanley said stiffly. “There are no secrets in the Gulag, not secrets worth having. We proved that prisoners worked on the gas pipeline, we fed the information to every agency, we created a propaganda front in Europe… to what effect?” There was an edge to his voice. “Nothing. The Soviet Union has slaves and prisoners and no one is concerned; and once we have learned about the prisoners, what more is there to say? There is no profit in the knowledge.”

  Devereaux stared at Hanley a moment and then put down the poker. “Why has this one sought us out?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? The one you have to answer.”

  “Do I go into black?” Black was undercover, illegal.

  “No.” Hanley crossed to the fire and held out his hands to the flames though he felt perfectly at home with the cold in the cabin. In the bowels of the Department of Agriculture building on Fourteenth Street in Washington, Hanley kept his office at sixty degrees Fahrenheit, summer and winter. The flames gave color to his pale features.

  “You agree to the operation?” Hanley asked softly.

  “No. Not at all.” Devereaux said the words flatly. “But there is no choice, is there?”

  No, Hanley thought. There is no choice at all. There never was.

  “His name is Tartakoff. They accord him a degree of confidence, which means a degree of freedom. That bothers us as well. He received a rapid elevation after Andropov took over. That bothers us, too. He’s only forty-six. Far too young for those people.”

  “You know a lot already.”

  “Too much. Everything is so delicate.” Hanley frowned. “He makes a shopping trip next week to Helsinki.”

  “From Leningrad.”

  Hanley nodded. “You can meet him at Stockmann’s. Were you ever in Helsinki?”

  “Going back. Once. To Vietnam. It was 1966.” Devereaux seemed to recall the memory involuntarily. The words were as flat as computer-generated speech. “There was business in Copenhagen; it had a connection to that business at Da Nang. Do you remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “I took Japan Lines back across the Soviet Union.”

  “That was risky.”

  “I was an accredited journalist.”

  “But they knew what you were.”

  “It didn’t matter. I spent a long night in Helsinki.”

  “He has a wife but he does not mention her in the matter. He’s buying her some trinkets at Stockmann’s. He likes to get out of the Soviet Union. He spent two years in Paris in the early seventies.”

  “KGB.”

  “Of course.”

  “What does he have to sell?”

  “Himself at the moment. It’s not enough. I want you to lead him, find out what he can put together for us.”

  “What do I tell him?”

  Hanley stared at the fire as though hypnotized by it. He had been a child in Omaha so long ago that it seemed remembered as a fragment of someone else’s dream. A fire in a fireplace and the Nebraska winter raging outside. He saw ships colliding in the fire; the ships were the logs, the flames the death. He could hear men crying as they fell into the sea.

  “Anything you wish to tell him. Promise anything because it doesn’t matter. Take the time to see what he is worth to us.”

  “Only promises after all?”

  Hanley blinked and tore his eyes reluctantly from the flames. He could see the cold, mocking face clearly despite the shadows. He felt the chill of the gray eyes resting on him.

  ‘I have to get back,” Hanley said. “This seemed the best way. I thought if I called you to Washington, it would be under false colors. I mean the Asian business. It’s difficult to arrange, Devereaux.”

  “You’re a liar, Hanley.”

  Hanley did not speak for a moment. When he found his voice, it was sure and flat, the bureaucrat who has always prepared an answer. “Examine Tartakoff. If he promises us nothing, we have no use for him. There must be a middle ground between too much and too little.”

  “Until then, he’s trapped.”

  “Yes. It’s the only comforting part of the whole matter.”

  “He can’t get out without us.”

  “He wouldn’t be alive by the time he got to Paris.”

  “How long does he dangle?”

  Hanley shrugged. “As long as it takes. As long as we need.”

  Seven weeks and there had been three meetings with the Soviet defector named Tartakoff and there had been no message from the Section.

  Devereaux would buy the new English-language papers in the afternoon at the red granite Helsinki train station. He would savor the newspapers, not daring to read them too quickly like a child who saves parts of his candy bar against a time when he will want them more. He walked the streets of the city until he could remember all the street names. He walked down to the frozen harbor where the vegetable market was held in the open in the warm weather. A squat cathedral in the Russian style sat on a hill above the harbor and brooded over the silence and the ice stretching into the Baltic waters. Channels were cut in the ice for some ships and the Silja Line ferry left on time each evening for Stockholm fifteen hours to the west.

  The city was less than two hundred kilometers from the western border of the Soviet Union. Soviet television filled one drab channel on the set in Devereaux’s room at the Presidentti. Sometimes, driven by boredom, he would sit and watch the channel and watch endless propaganda films about heroic Soviet workers or endless panel discussions. The signal was distorted on the station, jammed by Finland; but still Devereaux would watch until the very drabness of the life portrayed on the Soviet screen could make him bear another long Helsinki winter night.

  Across the street from the hotel, from the window on the fourth floor, Devereaux could see the frozen remains of an open construction pit dug during the summer. Winter had stopped construction. The walls of the pit were revealed to be rock on rock.

  He would drink Finlandia vodka in the bare, cold lobby bar or in one of the raucous taverns at the edges of the main shopping district along Mannerheimintie.

  In the basement of the hotel were a sauna and a small pool. He would rent trunks and then swim back and forth in the small pool until exhaustion plucked at his muscles.
Then he would sit in the sauna and let the heat fill him. He would close his eyes and remember when he had not been an exile in the cold, sterile West; he would remember Asia and its blood-red suns, the farmers squatting in the fields between watery rows, bent to ancient tasks. But the heat of the sauna would become too great in time and then he would stop his dream and plunge back into the cold pool and swim again until his strength was finally gone and he could sleep.

  Four reports to Hanley and a final conclusion.

  And still, Hanley did not answer.

  Devereaux had found comfort always in the isolation of the cabin in Virginia. He had not needed words or companionship or human contact of any kind. But now he did not feel isolated by choice; he felt imprisoned, shut in, kept away, held in silent chains.

  So he understood much later why he accepted the invitation of the prostitute who had approached him around midnight one Friday in the lobby bar of the Presidentti. Her name was Natali and she said she was part Russian and part Swedish. Her hair was black and her eyes were a sort of lazy blue. She said she thought Devereaux was English.

  Of course it could have been a trap. He understood that at the time and much later. But he had yearned to speak to her and when he led her to his room, he had touched her gently and he had slept next to her and he had cupped his body next to her so that he could touch and feel her nakedness beneath the sheets and become lost in her. He kissed her because she wanted to kiss him. But he held her as a child holds to a promise.

  Natali had arched her back and he could feel the bones beneath the pale, milky skin when he held her. He had kissed the nipples of her breasts. When he had made love to her, he held her so tightly that she thought she could not breathe.

  “Who are you?” she had asked once and he had thought of a name. When she had left him in the morning, he realized he had slept and he had not felt the perpetual chill in him that had nothing to do with winter.

  He stepped from the shower on the fifty-first morning of the winter he had spent here. It was seven-fifteen. He shaved slowly but not carefully. He still saw Natali in his mind’s eye. And saw the image of Tartakoff—a now-frantic Tartakoff—who would meet him in two hours in the vast underground shopping mall that extends from the train terminal to the shopping district.

  Who are you?

  Devereaux stared at himself and carefully drew the single-edge razor down across his throat and then rinsed it in the hot water in the sink. It doesn’t matter, he had told Natali at first. And then he had given her a name plucked from a memory of stolen names.

  Tartakoff had been left to dangle.

  Devereaux would cut the string this morning. There was no point to this. He would end it because it had to be ended by someone.

  Morning broke reluctantly at last. The red sky at dawn had become pale at midmorning. A sickly yellow flooded the sky. Bundled men and women from the suburbs arrived in the city at the bus terminal across from the hotel. The buses belched and blew black smoke against each other.

  At the entrance of the train station, heroic figures were carved into the soft red granite of the walls. Devereaux entered the terminal from the side and slowly passed the newsstand where the Times of London sat side by side with Pravda. He crossed to the steps that led to the subterranean shopping plaza that had been carved out of the rocks beneath the Helsinki streets.

  The underground was a Finnish solution to winter. Lights were low in the low ceiling but all was bright. People in heavy furs and wool coats shuffled past with dark, scowling faces. There was a perpetual smell of roasting coffee coming from a dozen shops.

  Devereaux stood for a long moment in front of the designated shop and looked at the faces of those inside.

  Satisfied, he crossed and took a seat at the counter. He ordered coffee using one of the hundred or so Finnish words and phrases he had taught himself.

  The coffee was black and bitter but welcome. Those around him wore heavy coats. One man with a red face and small, black eyes was actually sweating in the steamy atmosphere of the shop but he did not open his jacket as he poured black coffee down his throat. There were slabs of black bread smeared with soft cheese on the counters. The smells of the shop were earthy, full of sweat and breath, of dark foods and dark coffee.

  Devereaux saw him then but made no sign.

  Tartakoff was dressed well, in a black fur cap and a black fur coat. He was tall and large-boned; his face was wide. He stared without expression across the crowded shop at Devereaux at the counter. He stared until he was certain that Devereaux had seen him. And then he turned and left the shop as though he had decided it was too crowded.

  Devereaux left a ten-markka note on the counter and the waitress scooped it up as though she had been waiting for it. He pushed through the first door of the shop and turned to the left, going around the shop to the side hallway, following the retreating figure of the Russian.

  They were suddenly in an empty corridor that led to the rear entrance of a department store that was not yet open for the day. The corridor was quiet but beyond was the murmur of a thousand people speaking, the shuffle of a thousand feet pushing along over the slush-streaked tiles.

  “What is the answer?” the Russian asked in his thick voice. He spoke English well but with a burring accent, as though the words were caught in a web in his throat before they emerged.

  “There is no answer.”

  “Damn you, Messenger.”

  Devereaux had told him from the beginning that he was Messenger. The name implied a certain powerlessness and implied that any decision would come from beyond Devereaux and this place.

  “They must have their cautions,” Devereaux said.

  “I know why you hesitate. Because of that cipher clerk.” Tartakoff smiled. “I knew about that.”

  “Then you know why we must be cautious.”

  “I will go to the British—”

  “You will not go to the British,” Devereaux said calmly.

  “Why not, Messenger?”

  “Because British Intelligence is a sieve. You’d be killed in London before a week was out.”

  Tartakoff’s face turned an ugly shade of red. He bunched his bare fists but made no other move.

  “Yes, Messenger. That is right. That is what would happen to me.”

  The two men were silent.

  “Every time I make contact, I am at risk.”

  “I have no instructions.”

  “But what must I do to make them decide?”

  “I don’t know,” Devereaux said.

  “Messenger. Yes. That is what you are.”

  Devereaux stared at him without emotion, as though he waited for the Russian to understand, to see that nothing would be done at all.

  “I am in danger all the time,” Tartakoff said. A slight note of pleading entered his voice.

  Devereaux waited. Tartakoff was not stupid but he refused to understand. Hanley by silence had decided. It was a matter of breaking off the matter.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Tartakoff,” Devereaux began. “Don’t you see?”

  “Yes, Messenger. But I cannot accept—” For a moment, Tartakoff seemed unable to speak. “If you do not trust me, say that.”

  But he did not speak.

  “What must I do? What must I give you?”

  Devereaux turned away and stared at the bare walls behind him. The tiles were fastened to the rocks in the cold earth that bound the city. It was ugly and too bright in the tunnel and yet the light gave succor that the sun refused to give.

  “Messenger.”

  Devereaux turned. His gray eyes fixed the Russian coldly. Nothing could be done; he felt no pity for the Russian, no pity for himself. They were both dangling and now it was time to cut both of them down.

  “Tomas Crohan.”

  Devereaux was very still. The name did not mean anything to him but it was so odd to hear the Russian state the Irish name that it frightened him in that second.

  Tartakoff had
decided something. His eyes were set and hard. “He is in Leningrad. Under my jurisdiction. You tell them that. You tell those people who will not answer me. Tell them that I have Tomas Crohan.”

  “Who is he?”

  “You do not know? You thought he was dead, all of you. Officially dead. Yes, you would like this fellow to come out. Yes. But you must take Tartakoff as well. And then I will bring you Tomas Crohan.”

  Tartakoff touched Devereaux on the sleeve and his hand was heavy. “You tell them, Messenger.” He said the last word with contempt. “Tell them that I can give them a dowry after all. Tell them that Tomas Crohan is alive and I will give him and that is the bargain that we will have between us.”

  “Why will we want him?”

  “Not you, Messenger. You are not important to this. But they will want him very much. I must have contact made on Monday and you must accept. I cannot come again to Helsinki; it is too many times.” He still held Devereaux’s arm in a tight grip.

  “Who is Tomas Crohan?”

  Tartakoff laughed then and dropped his hand.

  Devereaux waited.

  “A man,” Tartakoff said. “A prisoner for a long time.” He was smiling. “Come back from the dead.”

  2

  CHELTENHAM, ENGLAND

  “Enter.” The voice was clear and sure of itself. Mowbrey pushed the door open timidly. He had never been in Wickham’s office. He didn’t know anyone who had.

  Wickham looked up from his Queen Anne desk at the far end of the large room with the expression of a good-natured man interrupted at his labors. In fact, he was neither good-natured nor one who worked excessively.

  “Yes, Mowbrey?”

  “Mr. Wickham. I thought it best to come to see you on this matter—”

  “Matter?”

  “Some of the special monitoring we’ve been doing…” Mowbrey mumbled.

  The good nature on the broad, ruddy face faded. “Are you on special monitor? I don’t recall your name sent in for positive vetting.”

  “Yes, sir. Since first of the year.” Mowbrey had a thin, uncolored face of high cheekbones and a nose that took a slight twist as it descended his face.