The British Cross

by Bill Granger

  16

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Mrs. Neumann, wearing her customary sweater because she knew Hanley’s office would be at sixty degrees Fahrenheit, walked through the open doorway and threw a manila file on his desk. He glanced up at her with an expression of annoyance. It was just after one in the afternoon and it was snowing and Hanley had been forced to work through his lunch hour again.

  “There it is,” Mrs. Neumann said in her raspy whisper. She towered over the government-issue gray metal desk with something like superiority. This annoyed Hanley further.

  “There what is?”

  “After the last signal from November. In Helsinki. You remember?”

  “Yes. I told him to come out as soon as he could. We don’t need problems with the authorities in Finland just now.”

  “I told you I could get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “The Crohan file.”

  “How did you accomplish that?”

  “I went over and got it,” Mrs. Neumann said and she laughed a sudden, short burst like a rusty machine gun cranking up.

  Hanley put down his pen very calmly and looked up at the large, handsome woman. He knew that she was prompting questions from him and he had no desire to act as her straight man, but the matter was too fascinating. He did not touch the manila file.

  “No wonder they didn’t want to let it out,” Mrs. Neumann said. “Even to us.”

  “How did you get this and why is it relevant anymore? The matter of our defector is closed. Devereaux is due out tonight.”

  “Because I was stubborn. Because I was damned if I would let them tell me what files I can see and what files I can’t see. We’re in the same government—”

  “We all have secrets, Mrs. Neumann,” Hanley said gently.

  “Not secrets because they just say they’re secrets. That’s not good enough,” she said. She decided to sit down on the only straight-back chair provided for guests of the operations director of R Section.

  “Besides,” she continued. “They only had the case file on this Crohan because they had inherited the paper files of OSS when the outfit was disbanded and the Central Intelligence Agency was set up. They weren’t even CIA files.”

  “And so why did the CIA want to keep them secret?”

  “Damned embarrassing stuff.”

  “For Langley?”

  “For all of us for a change, Hanley. For the whole country.”

  “And you walked over to Langley and got them?”

  “To an extent. I told you I would get them. So I made a computer request.”

  “And they gave them to you,” Hanley said with sarcasm.

  “Something like that, although it was more complicated. I could tell you all the details but if you only want the main points—”

  “Just the main points, Mrs. Neumann, I’m not very well acquainted with computers—”

  “Yes, I know. It involves setting up a Q into the National Security Council and then flashing the Q back to Langley, this time with an NSA identification out of the Council.”

  “I don’t follow that at all.”

  “I stole the information. They’ve probably found the leak by now. It can only work for a couple of hours but it was enough. They know it was us, too, Hanley, so you can expect some flack. But I told you I could get them.”

  Hanley blanched. “My God, Mrs. Neumann, are you crazy?”

  “No guts, Hanley?” She was smiling in triumph.

  “What will the Central Intelligence director tell the New Man?” Hanley asked, referring to the current head of R Section.

  “Not a damned thing, if you ask me. Is CIA going to admit they were stupid enough in security to have the file ripped off right under their noses?”

  “But how did you know what to ask for? I mean, in computer language?”

  “I didn’t. I asked plainspeak,” Mrs. Neumann replied, falling into jargon. “And that’s the way they gave it to me.”

  “But it was flagged—”

  “Not for the National Security Adviser,” Mrs. Neumann said.

  “My God, you can’t do that.”

  “Can’t?” she rasped. “I just did it, didn’t I?”

  “But the operation is over—”

  “Look at it, Hanley. Knowledge is power.”

  “You tempt like the serpent, Mrs. Neumann.”

  She smiled.

  He opened the file and began to read it slowly while Mrs. Neumann sat across from him and waited for him.

  He read slowly for a long time. It was a strange thing about secrets, he realized; most of them were not important enough to be secrets at all.

  And then there were secrets like the case file of an Irish national named Tomas Crohan who had been seduced into a little job for the OSS at the very lowest sort of level and who had been fortunately scooped up by the Red Army marching into Vienna in 1945.

  Hanley felt confirmed as he read on. He had told Devereaux nothing. He had temporized; he had kept Devereaux on ice, even after the Soviet named Tartakoff had tempted the agency by offering to bring out Crohan. It didn’t matter what his original motive was, to keep Devereaux away, to force Devereaux to see that there was nothing more to be done in the Section. He had done the right thing, even if it was for the wrong reasons.

  Crohan must never come out, if he was alive at all.

  And Devereaux. Hanley had been right after all to do nothing and finally bring Devereaux back home. The bureaucrat inside him was satisfied with himself.

  “Great stuff, isn’t it?” Mrs. Neumann said with the interest of a connoisseur.

  “You handled this yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “So no one else has seen it?”

  “Do you take me for a complete idiot, Hanley?”

  “No one must see it.”

  “I’ll shred it in the corridor. I wanted you to read the whole business.”

  “I find it scarcely credible,” Hanley said at last, closing the file.

  Mrs. Neumann frowned. “Yes. Who would believe that we knew the Nazis were going to bomb Coventry in the war and did nothing about it for fear that we would be tipping the Germans that we had solved their Enigma code? A lot of people died for the sake of that secret.”

  “And this one?”

  “No one yet, have they?”

  “Unless that British agent in Helsinki was murdered because of it.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. In any case, Devereaux should be getting on a plane in the morning. I’m pulling him out.”

  “And Tartakoff?”

  “There was no work at the end. But I’m afraid we will have to leave him dangling.”

  “Along with Crohan.”

  Hanley frowned. “If he was still alive at all.”

  17

  HELSINKI

  The telephone rang in Devereaux’s room. He turned from the packed suitcase and went to the telephone on the built-in desk. He picked up the receiver and waited.

  “Mr. Glass,” said the voice at the other end of the line.

  “No. I’m afraid my name is Dixon.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said the voice. The line was disconnected.

  Devereaux replaced the receiver and stared at the black telephone for a moment. And the previous wrong number two weeks before had been for “Mr. Fellows.” It had begun with A and was following the Western Alphabet to Z. Except there should have been no more contacts from Tartakoff before he departed in the morning for the airport.

  Hanley had been plain: “Come home.”

  “Nothing is resolved.”

  “Come home. Leave it. Let someone else sweep up the mess.”

  “Tartakoff?”

  “No.”

  “Crohan?”

  “It’s not our matter.”

  “Why did someone kill the British agent?”

  “I don’t know; I don’t care. Come out.”
/>
  He had felt liberated and a little guilty, like a child sent home from school before the class day was ended. Something had not been finished and yet he was being allowed to escape the trap, escape the city.

  And now the call. Mr. Glass.

  But there was no way to reach Hanley from here. Not with the police monitoring every call. Including the one from the liaison with Tartakoff.

  Devereaux went to the window streaked with reminders of yesterday’s snow. The snow had been cleared again. Beneath the window was the construction pit where the police had found the body of Natali.

  Two dead and no one understood why. Not Kulak the policeman, not Devereaux.

  He touched the glass. It was warm.

  Death and death. The policeman had been frustrated. Who had pulled him away from the matter?

  Who was Tomas Crohan? And why had Hanley suddenly pulled him back after nearly nine weeks of silence?

  This was never meant to be anything. Like the assignment in Jamaica. Devereaux was on ice. Devereaux was locked away in a forgotten closet somewhere because he had embarrassed the administration, because R Section could not afford the truth. And now Tartakoff was making a signal and that meant he was ready to move, perhaps he was already in Helsinki. With a prisoner named Tomas Crohan who had been lost thirty-eight years.

  “Damn,” Devereaux said.

  The choice seemed too strong for him. The tickets for the Finnair plane to New York were on the desk.

  And he would go back to the place in Virginia, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and he would wait for a posting to Asia which would never be approved. Nothing needed to be done; no risk had to be run; time would pass, year into year, and he would still be adrift in the West as he had been.

  He suddenly felt kinship with the unseen, unknown prisoner named Crohan. Nothing had been done for him and time had passed and the prisoner had survived only to have this last hope extinguished like church candles put out by altar boys.

  Devereaux stared at the construction pit. Why should Natali have been killed in the same way that Sims was killed?

  Kulak was right.

  It was murder; it was not a game. They had been alive and now they were dead.

  Devereaux turned from the window and went to his packed bag and picked it up and put it on the shelf of his wardrobe cabinet. He went to the desk and put the tickets for Finnair in his pocket. He left the room. Now, when he moved about, he carried the ugly .357 Colt Python in his waist clip. There was no need for pretense anymore.

  He had not wanted a decision any more than Hanley had. But the lack of action had forced him as much as the telephone call from the liaison. If he did not act, if he went home without finishing this business, then he would have made a choice and taken an action as surely as anything he now planned to do.

  He walked down to the lobby instead of taking the elevator. He crossed to the reception desk and spoke to the clerk.

  “I will stay a few more days,” he said.

  “We thought you were leaving in—”

  “Yes. I have new business,” Devereaux said.

  “That will be all right,” the woman said. She was calm and methodical. She marked down a note and put it on the register. “Thank you, Mr. Dixon. Is everything going all right?”

  “Fine,” he said.

  He turned and crossed the lobby. He would do what had to be done in any case and to hell with Hanley.

  He pushed the elevator button and it opened and he did not see the other passenger enter. He had been too lost in his own thoughts.

  The doors closed.

  The other passenger turned and looked up and spoke: “You.” Her voice was low, amazed, soft.

  He saw her then and did not believe he saw her. He said nothing. He felt weakened, as though from a blow. He could not move.

  “My God,” she said.

  He did not speak.

  And then she crossed the elevator to him and stood in front of him, next to him. He could smell her breath as he had smelled her breath in Florida on that morning they had met and made love. Her breath smelled sweet, without corruption; her breath smelled like a child’s milky breath. She stared at him for a long moment and he felt terrified of her, of her touch.

  She touched his cheek.

  She did not kiss him but only touched his cheek.

  And voice was finally wrenched from him: “Rita,” he said.

  Whom he had never expected to see again.

  18

  AMSTERDAM

  “Everything has been done badly.”

  “I did my business. I don’t need to hear your—”

  “Yes, Antonio. You will listen this time. Without cocaine. Without your girlfriends. You killed a woman in Helsinki.”

  “That was a private matter.”

  “You were under contract.”

  “She had to be killed.”

  The Bulgarian named Penev turned. They were standing in the rain in the town-hall square. Around them were great red buildings painted gray by the rain. Even the hippies who inhabited the square had fled to the porticoes and to the underground bars in the cellars along the side streets and in Kalvertstrasse.

  “There is no private matter when you have a contract from us.”

  “I don’t take orders from you.”

  “No,” said the fat man. He made a face and his eyes glistened in the rainlight. “That is obvious.”

  “You had a job in Dublin.”

  “I don’t know that we can trust you for it.”

  “I had to kill the whore.”

  “Why?”

  “She had been sleeping with an American. A businessman. I nearly mistook him for my hit. She said he was English. Then I was bothered because this Sims was talking to the businessman. Hell, he was an American. A businessman. I was afraid she would remember something when the police came. Besides, I had hurt her a little. Not too much. The Amsterdam whore never complained.”

  “Why do you hurt women?”

  “Because I want to. It’s no business of yours.”

  “You become too dangerous.”

  “What do you want? A boy scout?”

  “Why did you kill her?”

  “I didn’t want her to say anything to the police. In case they questioned her about Sims and about the man she thought was an Englishman.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Dixon. Or Nixon. Something like that. It wasn’t important.”

  “Was this the man?”

  The Bulgarian held a photograph in his hand and the rain fell on it and streaked it. Antonio looked, his hair matted wet by rain. “Yes. Who is he?”

  “That is not important.”

  “So he wasn’t a businessman.”

  “In a way. You don’t want to know too much. My people are not happy. You caused them trouble.”

  “I don’t see why.”

  “But I do. That’s enough.”

  “What about Dublin? Why can’t we get out of the rain?”

  “Because I choose to meet here. Do you understand that?”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “I don’t have to. If I lifted a finger, if I farted, you would be blown to dust.”

  “Sure. I’m terrified. See how I’m shaking.”

  “Don’t go too far, Antonio.”

  “I’m going back to Paris. You people are playing games.”

  “Not until you complete the contract.”

  Antonio was silent. He walked a perimeter around the stolid figure of the Bulgarian. “What do you want now?” He sounded tired but it was not from the killing. The killing had energized him. It was the endless talk from the Bulgarian, the vague threats. It tired him.

  “One last figure and then we give you a rest.”

  Antonio smiled. His dark face did not show mirth. “I have other contractors.”

  “A man in Dublin. I told you. But the job you did in Helsinki was too complicated.”

  “I understand your position,” Antonio said.
>
  “Do you?”

  “Who is the man?”

  “Not important. But a professional.”

  “How do you want it done?”

  “This is important. It must be IRA.”

  “Blow him up?”

  “No. But make it IRA. Here is something.”

  He handed him a card. On it was printed: DEATH FOR THE ENGLISH BASTARDS.

  “This is childish. The IRA don’t give out cards when they kill someone.”

  “You call the Irish Times after it is done. And you say this.”

  “I don’t speak like the Irish.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Newspapers are newspapers. The death will be real enough.”

  “And I go home after this?”

  “You go to Helsinki, Antonio. One last bit of business after this.”

  “Always one last bit of business with you people.” The man called Antonio shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. It was damned cold in Helsinki.”

  The Bulgarian said, “Not too much longer. Did you notice the days are longer?”

  Antonio managed another smile that lit his face darkly. “You’re an optimist. Days are never longer. It’s always the same time. You sound like my father. Long days. Days are days, only the light times can vary. I was in Narvik once, on a job, the sun was up twenty-four hours a day. In June. But it was still the same day.”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  Antonio shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Don’t use the knife. They use a gun.”

  “That’s all right, too. I cut him open.”

  “The man? The woman? In Helsinki.”

  “The woman. I had a roll of plastic. She bled and bled. I flushed some of her in the toilet. What a mess.”

  “You didn’t have to kill her. It made it a mess.”

  “She was a mess, I can tell you.”

  “The business, Antonio.” The Bulgarian pulled up his collar. “Stick to the business.”

  19

  HELSINKI

  Rita Macklin, her face white and her hands trembling, had gone with Devereaux to his room. She had sat on the chair by the built-in desk where the policeman named Kulak had interrogated him.