The British Cross

by Bill Granger

  And the telephone rang. The rings were short and sharp. Kulak picked up the receiver.

  He listened for a long moment and his eyes narrowed and the veins in his neck began to bulge.

  “Yes,” he said in Finnish. “Yes.” And then he spoke a string of words so quickly that Devereaux could not follow them. And then he slammed down the receiver.

  Kulak stared at him again. And spoke: “This is only a game, isn’t it, Mr. Devereaux.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No.” Kulak rose. He took Devereaux’s pistol out of his pocket and placed it on the desk. He seemed suddenly weary, suddenly sad. “A young women is killed in the most vicious way. Cut open. And a man named Sims is cut the same way. Murder, Mr. Devereaux. Real deaths. Do you know that those two people were alive and now they are dead. They walked, they breathed, they talked, they laughed…” He paused and stared at Devereaux. “And you sit there and you know about death, don’t you? I have seen your eyes. You have killed people, Mr. Devereaux, I can smell death all around you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing. I can do nothing. You know that. You know that I must obey my orders.”

  For the first time, Devereaux was startled. He had expected everything but this. “What do you mean?”

  “When I am told to leave someone alone, I obey. I am a policeman and I have a good job and I do the best that I can. And sometimes, someone will tell me: Do nothing. And so I will obey.”

  “I don’t understand this.”

  “No, Mr. Devereaux. Neither do I.” Kulak walked to the door and opened it and turned back to Devereaux who sat perfectly still at the window weeping with streaks of snow. “But you, Mr. Devereaux, you are playing a game and I tell you that I am not.”

  “But who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It is not for me to tell you.”

  13

  LONDON

  Wickham had wandered into the house three hours before like a wounded animal. Except he had no wounds that were visible.

  He had been gone nine days. Maggie had met him at the door of the estate house. She was a small woman, chiseled like a marble statue, with sharp ears and sharp eyes that reminded Wickham of a fox. She was quite beautiful in a small and distant way. The first thing he had asked her was where Rogers was.

  Maggie had been too shocked to answer. Wickham smelled like a beast and his eyes looked hunted; he had lost weight in nine days and his cheeks were hollow. His hair, normally so neat that one never gave it a thought, was wild and shaggy and he had a thin coating of beard on his face.

  “Rogers is gone,” Maggie had managed to say as Wickham staggered into the two-story entry hall. She shrank from him as though he were a stranger.

  “Of course he’s gone, he’d have to be gone.”

  “I dismissed him,” she said.

  “You what?”

  “The police. Your disappearance. I thought it was terrible, I couldn’t stand to see—”

  Wickham laughed and went into the drawing room and found the brandy on the cart and poured it into a glass. He took a strong drink.

  Outside, sleet came down in driving sheets. It coated the brick walls of the estate house like silver leeches.

  He seemed mad to her.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone—”

  “Nine days.”

  “My God,” he said to himself and poured another glass of Hennessy and drank it too quickly. Color returned to his frozen face. His clothes were sopping wet; they dripped onto the yellow Oriental carpet in the drawing room.

  “Get out of those clothes, get into something warm—”

  “Yes. I must call George—”

  “George? Do we know a George?”

  “Maggie, for God’s sake, get out of here a moment and let me call—”

  She had retreated facing him, had nearly stumbled at the door, and closed it. He made a telephone call but she could hear very little. Then he opened the door to the drawing room and began to tear at his clothing. “Warm,” he mumbled. “Bath. Clean clothing. For George…”

  Three hours later, a black Rover prowled up the gravel drive from the road to the front door of the Georgian estate house and two men climbed out of the rear seat. A third man stayed inside the car, behind the driver’s wheel; he kept the motor rumbling for warmth but doused the headlamps.

  Some normalcy had returned to the house. Wickham had bathed and changed and shaved. Maggie had prepared him eggs because it was the cook’s night out.

  The eggs had nourished him at least and another large brandy had made him feel not so cold. Victor had released him from his car two miles from the house. It had been a cold, wet two-mile walk down a narrow road bereft of traffic.

  In the tub, Wickham had considered every option and decided he would tell George the truth this time, no matter the consequences.

  He even had the photographs in his pocket. He had not shown them to Maggie.

  George and the second man waited for him in the library, which was across the entry hall from the drawing room. The room was filled with books on shelves that reached to the ceiling. The rug was a deep-red Oriental pattern that was cousin to the yellow rug in the drawing room. There were the requisite leather side chairs, armchairs, and leather-topped desk in burnished rosewood. The fireplace was lit and crackling and throwing out small patches of color into the dark, warm room.

  Wickham came into the room and smiled wanly but no smile greeted him in return. He started to speak and thought better of it. He closed the door.

  “Will you have a drink?” he began.

  George stared at him. He was not tall but he had large shoulders and a large head with large blue eyes and white eyebrows that curled fiercely above his eyes. His eyes seemed to glare into the soul of Wickham standing before him like a truant schoolboy caught at last. George had his hands behind his back, revealing a large belly and a bright red wool waistcoat.

  “What happened to you, Bluebird?”

  “I was kidnapped, of course.”

  “You were?”

  “Of course,” Wickham began. “I didn’t even know how long I was held, the place had no windows—”

  “And they returned you to your home and hearth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ransom?”

  “No.”

  “Why do it?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Why kidnap you, Bluebird?”

  “Political.”

  “Ah.”

  The second man who had come with George came around the desk to stand by the fire. He, too, held his hands behind him as though warming them at the fire. He, too, held Wickham with glaring eyes. He was taller than the man called George and he had a harder face. He was clean-shaven, his eyes were soft brown, his hair was cut unfashionably close to his head. He did not speak but the movement to the fire had interrupted the dialogue between George and Bluebird for a moment.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Wickham asked a second time.

  “Certainly. Scotch’ll do.”

  “With ice?”

  “No.”

  “And you?” Wickham said turning to the other man.

  He merely shook his head.

  Wickham realized his hands were shaking when he poured the drinks, a brandy for himself and Scotch for George.

  When he turned back to the room from the brandy cart, George was seated on the edge of his desk. He handed George the glass and turned again to find a chair.

  “Sit down, Bluebird,” George said, as though he were the master of the house.

  Wickham sat.

  He stared at both men and then sipped the brandy.

  “Now why don’t you begin at the beginning?” George said. And slowly, reluctantly, Wickham began to tell them the truth, from the moment Mowbrey came into his office nine days before with a signal intercepted from the American station at Stockholm.

&nbs
p; George handed over the photographs to the man who stood at the fireplace. Three-quarters of an hour had elapsed since Wickham began his story. He had interrupted himself once to pour himself another brandy. George had not moved or spoken, except to prod the other man with a sharp question to aid the narrative. The man at the fire had merely watched Wickham throughout without speaking.

  “Well, Bluebird, that’s a pretty story,” George said, his voice like coal poured into a scuttle from a metal chute. “Pretty.”

  “It’s absolutely true,” Wickham said.

  “And your wife dismissed the chauffeur.”

  “He would have been gone in any case. If they were going to release me.”

  “The Sun has these photographs?”

  “That’s what Victor told me.”

  “His name was Victor?”

  “Not actually.” Wickham blushed. “I gave them names. There were two of them.”

  “Yes. Well, we can show you some photos, of course, and see if you can pick them out.”

  “Anything I can do.”

  “We questioned Rogers, naturally, after the police talked to him.”

  “You must have known he was lying.”

  George grunted. “It crossed our minds. We’re not completely daft, you know. We also questioned people in Special Section, Bluebird. Including Mowbrey. I’m glad you’ve decided to tell the truth for a change about who intercepted the American signal from Stockholm. About this Tomas Crohan.”

  “It was a misunderstanding, George. I had access to you, I thought it was important, I was intending to mention—”

  “No more lies, Wickham,” George said at last, using his real name for the first time. He stood up. “You’ve put us in a pretty mess, my boy. Neatly done on their part.” George nearly smiled but thought better of it.

  “What can I do?”

  George looked at him as though it was the last question that would have crossed his mind. “Do? Do? What do you mean?”

  “What can I do?”

  “There’s nothing to do. Not for you, in any case.”

  Wickham only stared at him until George, realizing he had not made himself clear, turned to face him full, his back to the man at the fireplace.

  “You’ve been through a bad shock, but a lot of it was of your own making. You hired Rogers without getting positive vetting through Auntie and clearance.”

  “He was only a chauffeur—”

  “No, Wickham, I believe you can see he was more than that.”

  Wickham dropped the glass of brandy on the red carpet. It did not make a sound. He was so entranced by George he was not even aware the glass slipped from his hand. The brandy spilled from the glass and stained the red carpet in an irregular, circular pattern. Wickham sat very still.

  “Now these nasty photographs have been sent to the Sun. No doubt we shall get a call from one of Murdoch’s people in a little while suggesting that the Sun is too much of a patriotic paper to publish such unless, of course, it happens to be true.…”

  “But it isn’t true. My God, it would kill Maggie if—”

  “My dear Wickham, don’t be an ass. Will the Sun publish the photographs? Not at all. They’re obscene, old fellow. But we will have to slap them with a D Notice on the whole matter and that is tedious. It tends to give the press the feeling that we’re trying to hide something when, in fact, we’re trying to save your skin.”

  “I’m grateful, believe me, George—”

  George rumbled, “You lied to me, Wickham. Bluebird is dead. You have no more status. I should remind you of the Official Secrets Act you signed when you joined the Service… in the event you decide to publish your memoirs in your retirement.”

  “Retirement?”

  “Of course. What do you suppose I was talking about?”

  “But I’ve done nothing—”

  “You’re a leak, Wickham, you’re dangerous to us. You have to be rendered harmless, inoperative. You lied to me about Mowbrey’s finding of the American signal. You were picked up by the Opposition and they worked a crude frame against you. They knew it was crude; they told you so. The problem is, you present too much of a security risk to us. They know that. They know the Americans are terribly interested in our inability to keep our own security in the service without every second man turning out to be a poof or a bloody traitor. My God, we can’t even keep Buckingham Palace secure, let alone the queen.” George made a face. “You could do us harm, Wickham, and so we are defusing you. Over the next few days, we expect your cooperation. Photographs to look at and we would appreciate a full report. We’ve done a background check on you, and you won’t do badly in retirement. There’s your government pension plus a one-time payout plus your wife’s inheritance and your own money from the estate of your father. You’ll be as comfortable as you are now.”

  Wickham was merely stunned. He could not speak.

  The second man with brown hair and brown eyes and a face without expression continued to stare at him over George’s shoulder.

  “Of course you will receive recommendations should you seek further employment outside the Service. Just one note of caution, besides reminding you that you have signed the act; check with us before you get into another line of work, will you? In case it is one of our sensitive areas and we don’t want you muddling up.”

  “Please, George—”

  “All right, I think that’s it. We’re off, Wickham. You may tell your wife as much of this as you wish but she is also under the act, you realize. It will be in your best interest to say as little as possible. Don’t return to Cheltenham; your goods have been boxed and will be returned to you in a few days. Your office is sealed and your pass is invalid.”

  “George, for God’s sake, George, after what I’ve been through—”

  “Yes, old man,” George said with irony. “After what you’ve been through, there’s still more for us. You and your damned messages to George; you were sucking up and now you’ve mucked up everything.” George stared at him coldly, his gravel voice hissing like hot coals. “Consider yourself lucky, Wickham. It could have been much worse for you. Much, much worse.” The second man returned the photographs to George and George looked at them again.

  “Of course, we’ll keep these. I’m sure you have no need of them.”

  And the two men left the house without another word to either Wickham or his wife. The car was waiting and they entered it. It had stopped sleeting and the night had turned clear and cold; the road to London was covered with icy patches.

  Even at this late hour, the planes boomed in and out of Heathrow. The ceiling and visibility were lower than would have been acceptable at an American airport but Heathrow was the vital lifeline between Britain and the rest of the world; it rarely closed, and then only briefly. Heathrow had to be kept open.

  The black Rover sat purring in the parking lot nearest the international terminal.

  In the back seat, George was speaking to the second man with brown hair and brown eyes and expressionless face.

  “The delicacy is compounded because the Russians obviously know that we’re onto this business.”

  “Your lines were tapped,” the second man said.

  “So it appears, Sparrow.” The code name of all agents in the electronics branch of Auntie were names of birds, just as the code names of all agents in the regular branch of Auntie were names of English cities and towns. Only the men called “George” and “Q” were outside the strict security nomenclature.

  “Actually, we haven’t found the tap.”

  Sparrow brooded for a moment. “You should have.”

  “Certainly,” George said impatiently.

  “Maybe the leak was inside Special Section at Cheltenham.”

  “That’s a possibility, too, and that’s why we had to get rid of Bluebird. Blundering fool.”

  “I believe his story.”

  George looked surprised. “Of course. So do I. But that’s not the point, is it?”

  “What
is the point?”

  “There is an agent now in Dublin called Ely. Q sent him out a week ago. Seems the name Crohan has come up there. And now there is an American agent posing as a journalist snooping about the same thing. Her name is Rita Macklin, and, ostensibly, she’s a reporter for an American magazine. Obviously, she’s with CIA. I can’t tell you everything but I can tell you enough. We want the Crohan matter silenced. Maximum silence.”

  Sparrow stared at the older man with his large, round head and blue eyes and darting white eyebrows.

  Maximum silence. The ultimate command within Auntie. Maximum silence was more than a license to kill for the sake of a mission; it was an order to utterly destroy, to utterly wrap up in silence an operation launched either from within the Service or from someone without.

  “Max the American woman?”

  “That’s part of it. That’s just part of it. There are too many problems in this and it worries me. Ely is trying to make a liaison with her, get what she knows. The stationmaster in Dublin tumbled to this Tomas Crohan business about three months ago. Another fool,” George rasped. “He thinks it has to do with some Soviet submarines he’s seen off the western Irish coast.”

  “You’re beginning to lose me,” Sparrow said quietly.

  George glared at him. “Damn it, I don’t understand half of it myself, but I can tell you that someone, somewhere, is starting to build a neat little frame for us. For Auntie. And this is not the time for it.”

  “What does it have to do with Tomas Crohan? Who the devil is he?”

  George was silent for a moment. “He was an Irish national the Americans ran in Austria as their agent in 1944 and 1945. Supposedly, he is still alive inside the Soviet Gulag. And now there are these hints that he is coming out.”

  “From Dublin?”

  “From Helsinki. Three days ago, one of Q’s boys was using the name Sims to probe an American agent there. The American was using the name Dixon, staying at the Presidentti. He was making contact with the Opposition and he sent a hurry-up message through the American station in Stockholm that related to bringing out a man named Tomas Crohan. That was the message that Mowbrey accidentally intercepted at Cheltenham and that the damned fool Wickham told me about on the safe line after Seeker turned him down for information.”