The Devil's Breath

by Hurley, Graham

  The old man went into the library. The information desk was on the first floor. The girl was there, as the young black had promised. She watched him limping towards her, the expression on her face uncertain, pity and sympathy, but anxiety too. The old man knew it, standing at the counter, trying to muster a smile. New York again, he thought. The city like a germ, spreading its violence and its broken bodies. Should I get involved? Should I take the risk? That’s what the girl thought. That’s what her face told the old man.

  He explained what he wanted. He had money in his pocket. He showed her the thick wad of 10-dollar bills, the dyke he’d been building for himself against the terrible implications of a day like this. He needed to make another telephone call, back to Ramallah, back to his family. He had money to pay for it. It was very important, more important than he had the words to explain. Where he lived, there was no phone. Where he worked, the phone was no longer available. Could the girl help him? Did she have a phone? Here, at the library? Or somewhere else, even?

  The girl, embarrassed by the old man’s intensity, the way he bent towards her, the wad of money slowly uncurling on the counter, said it was difficult. She’d only been in the job six months. The information desk was a recent promotion. Private use of the phones was strictly forbidden. She wasn’t sure who to ask. The old man nodded dumbly at every excuse, repeating his story, knowing it was the only one he had, his sole asset, but knowing too that he’d frightened the girl, and that she was simply looking for the kindest way of saying no. Finally it was the young black who returned from stacking books on a nearby shelf and touched the old man lightly on the arm, bringing the nightmare to an abrupt end. ‘Come with me, sir,’ he said.

  The old man followed him to a small office at the back of the library. The label on the door read ‘Duty Librarian’. Inside was a desk and a telephone. Distantly, through the window, there was a view of Manhattan. The young black locked the door behind them and lifted the telephone. He pushed two buttons, listened for a moment, then offered the phone to the old man. The old man, fumbling in his pocket, found the scrap of paper on which he’d written the number.

  Amer Tahoul was at his desk in Ramallah. He answered at once. The old man, blinking now, asked about his wife. The young black was at the window, his back turned, staring out at the view, the closest he could get to leaving the room.

  Amer Tahoul came back on the phone. ‘Hala is still in prison.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘Yes. Twice.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She’s … yes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes. She’s OK.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she loved you. She said to tell you.’

  ‘What else? What else did she say?’

  There was a silence. The old man sank into a chair by the phone, exhausted already, the young black’s kindness, and now Amer.

  ‘Amer?’ he said again. ‘What else did she say?’

  There was another silence, and for a moment the old man thought Amer had gone. Then he was back again, his voice low, almost a whisper.

  ‘She said to be careful,’ he said.

  ‘Just that? To be careful?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘She said to get away.’

  ‘Get away?’

  ‘Get away from …’ The voice hesitated. ‘Wherever you are. Whoever you’re with. It was difficult. We couldn’t talk. But that’s what she meant. I’m sure of it …’

  The old man nodded, no longer able to understand, his wife in a prison cell, himself in New York. He felt abandoned, lost. He felt like a plant, ripped from the earth. He bent to the phone again. He needed more than news. He needed advice, guidance, an indication that not all was lost. ‘So what do I do?’ he muttered.

  There was another silence, longer this time, then the line went dead. The old man gazed at the phone, betrayed, and put it down. The black at the window was still gazing out at the view. His voice, kind, felt out of keeping with the city. ‘I’ll walk you down to the street,’ he said softly, ‘when you’re ready.’

  10

  Billy McVeigh was still in his blazer, half an hour back from school, when his mother answered the phone. She stood in the hall, with a frown on her face, and he knew at once from her tone of voice that it was his father at the other end.

  ‘Dad?’ he called from the top of the stairs. ‘Is that Dad?’

  Sarah nodded. The routine exchange of pleasantries over, she held out the phone, retreating to the kitchen and closing the door, wanting no part of this relationship of theirs, her son and his father.

  Billy picked up the phone, sorting quickly through his list of news, what was important, what wasn’t. ‘Dad?’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Israel.’

  ‘Whereabouts in Israel?’

  ‘On a farm. Picking apples.’

  ‘Is it hot?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah.’ McVeigh, sitting on the desk in the secretary’s office by the kibbutz dining-hall, grinned, realized how much he’d missed the boy. Billy was talking about football now, the start of the new season, his first sessions with the Hornsey Schools Rep side. In the practice games he’d been picked for the ‘A’ team. The torrent of news stopped for a moment. ‘What about Yakov?’ he said. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘This and that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He paused. ‘Dad?’

  McVeigh shook his head, unable to answer, watching Cela in the corridor outside. She was standing guard in case the secretary came back. Making foreign calls abroad was normally referred to a kibbutz committee for approval.

  ‘Dad?’

  McVeigh bent to the phone again, changing the subject, asking about school, friends, life at home, but the boy refused to be deflected, dragging the conversation back to Yakov, like a terrier with the bone.

  Finally, McVeigh gave up. ‘I’m with his wife,’ he said, ‘Mrs Yakov.’

  ‘You mean Sheila?’

  ‘Cela.’

  ‘Yeah. Her. Is she nice?’

  ‘Yes. Very.’

  ‘Does she like football?’

  ‘Hates it.’

  ‘What?’

  McVeigh laughed out loud, hearing the astonishment in the boy’s voice, then he saw Cela’s signal, the secretary returning from lunch, and he whispered a goodbye and put the phone down. By the time he was back in the corridor, Cela was deep in conversation with the secretary, taking her to one side and easing her body round, shielding McVeigh. It was a neat piece of work and McVeigh mimed applause before walking past them, back out into the hot afternoon.

  *

  Telemann sat in the bedroom at the Hotel Dreisen, staring at the phone, wondering why it had been so easy.

  He’d phoned Assali minutes after he’d booked in, sitting by the window with his shoes off, his feet on the bed. Outside the window, huge barges pushed up and down the Rhine, folds of grey water feathering behind them, lapping at the stones on the river-bank. Assali had answered the phone in person, unsurprised to hear him again, raising no objection to a meeting face to face. When Telemann explained he was staying at the Dreisen, the Arab had chuckled with genuine amusement. Telemann had asked why, wanting to share the joke, and Assali had said something about Adolf Hitler. Evidently the Dreisen had been one of his favourite hotels. He’d met the Englishman, Chamberlain, there during the Czech crisis. The hotel had been famous, a stepping-stone to war. The Arab was still chuckling when he rang off, agreeing to meet Telemann for drinks and perhaps dinner at half-past six.

  Now, Telemann gazed out of the window, still puzzled. If Assali was implicated in the threats against New York, if he was indeed the middleman between the supplier and the point of delivery, why was he so sanguine about a meeting? He had protection, sure, and he’d assume that so public a rendezvous would be doubly safe. But Assali moved in a violent world, and his ver
y survival was a tribute to his refusal to take risks. So why was he so willing to accept the invitation? Why hadn’t it been harder?

  Telemann shook his head, not understanding. Then the sound of the man’s laughter came back to him, that special edge it seemed to have, a knowingness, and he thought again about Adolf Hitler, the meeting with the English prime minister. Telemann was no historian, but he knew that the meeting had been one of a series that had led to Munich and the infamous agreement securing ‘peace in our time’. Hitler had been a gambler, tabling demand after demand. Chamberlain, to the world’s subsequent regret, had caved in. Telemann mused on the parallels, watching a man in a blue track-suit jogging steadily north on the path beside the river. Maybe that was it. Maybe he had Assali exactly right. Maybe the man was coming to open negotiations, assuming that the Americans had done the thinking, assessed the risk, decided that New York was too high a price to pay for Kuwait City.

  Telemann began to smile, following the logic through, testing the theory, realizing that it was a perfect match for the facts. Assali regarded him as a US representative, a proxy empowered to initiate talks. His precautionary call to Sullivan, assuming he’d made it, would have provided ample confirmation. Telemann nodded, relaxing back in his chair, still watching the man in the track-suit, a blue blur receding slowly into the distance. So much for Emery, he thought. So much for all the fancy analysis, twenty years of commuting to a desk and a phone. The man should have been out in the field a little, having to cope with the raw evidence, having to weigh it, assess it, turn it into some kind of operational plan. Maybe, then, he wouldn’t have been so damned patronizing, so eternally sceptical. You had to give some to get some. That was Telemann’s way. That was what he’d always believed. You had to take risks, trust your instincts. Sometimes you lost out, no question. Sometimes you fell flat on your face, the world on your head, the shit kicked out of you. But other times it could be different. Other times, like now, you got lucky.

  Telemann reached for the telephone again, checking a number from a pad at his elbow. The number rang twice before it answered. It was a girl’s voice, Inge. She sounded sleepy.

  ‘Half-past six,’ Telemann said briefly, ‘at the hotel.’

  *

  Emery met Laura for lunch at a vegetarian café three blocks from the office on ‘F’ Street. It was her suggestion, her choice. She’d used the place before, always with her husband. It was busy. It was noisy. You could easily get lost there.

  He stood up as she came in, her hair wet from a rain shower in the street. She looked tired and preoccupied, scanning the restaurant for some sign of Emery, seeing his raised arm at once, threading a path between the crowded tables. She sat down beside him. He could smell the rain in her hair.

  ‘How long have we got?’ she said.

  Emery smiled. ‘Half an hour.’

  ‘You can spare that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She nodded, reaching for the menu, looking absently through the list of wholefood bakes.

  ‘Ron?’ she said at last.

  Emery shook his head ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘so far.’

  ‘Yesterday?’

  ‘I told you. He phoned. Strictly operational …’ He shrugged. ‘I think.’

  Laura caught the note in his voice, the provisional lift at the end of the sentence, a code she was beginning to understand.

  ‘You think he knows?’ she said flatly. ‘You think he’s figured it out?’

  ‘I think something’s wrong.’

  ‘Same thing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  A waitress appeared and began to recite the day’s specials. Laura shook her head, not listening, still looking at Emery. There was an intensity in her, a lack of patience, that he’d never seen before. The waitress had stopped halfway down the list. Emery glanced up at her and signalled for her to come back later, but Laura reached out, putting a hand on his arm. ‘Aubergines,’ she said briefly, ‘and walnut salad.’

  The waitress scribbled on her pad, looking at Emery. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Twice.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The waitress disappeared with the order. Laura’s hand was still on Emery’s arm. He leaned across and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were dry, without a flicker of response.

  ‘You think he’s in trouble?’

  ‘I think he’s got a job on his hands.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  Emery shrugged. ‘I can’t say. Either way, nothing’s easy.’

  Laura nodded slowly, still looking at him. ‘He’s been my life,’ she said at last. ‘It’s a hard thing for you to understand. It’s like a foreign country. If you haven’t been there, you don’t know. Can’t know.’ She paused. ‘I love the man. I care about him. That make sense?’

  ‘Perfect sense.’ Emery hesitated. ‘You want me to tell him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She closed her eyes for a moment, reaching for a napkin, twisting it between her fingers. ‘How do you put a thing like this? What do you say? That his life’s over? Everything he’s been used to? All these years? Is that how you put it?’

  ‘He’ll need counselling.’

  ‘Sure. Great idea. Can you see Ron going through all that? Some well-meaning shrink? Some fat analyst from Chevvy Chase, telling him the way it’s gonna be?’

  ‘Gotta be.’

  ‘Gotta be.’ She nodded. ‘Yeah, gotta be.’ She fell silent for a moment, pushing the napkin aside, accepting Emery’s hand at last, squeezing it, needing it. Then she begun to shiver, thinking again. ‘I shouldn’t have let him go,’ she said at last. ‘I should have told him.’

  ‘You did. In a way.’

  ‘No, but properly. I should have told him properly. The whole thing. What it means. Now. Soon. When he gets back. What’s got to happen. What might help.’

  ‘We might help.’

  ‘Sure. But—’ she shook her head, a gesture of physical revulsion ‘—this is horrible. The man deserves more than this. He truly does.’ She paused again, staring out at the street. The rain had stopped now and sunshine was puddling the sidewalk. ‘What about the Agency?’ she said slowly. ‘Who knows there?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Nobody?’ She sounded incredulous. ‘All that money? All those computers? All that brainpower? And nobody knows?’

  Emery smiled, reaching for her hand again. ‘It’s been a private thing,’ he said, ‘your decision.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I can’t believe they don’t know.’

  ‘They don’t.’ He paused. ‘You think they’d have sent him off if they’d have known? Doing what he’s doing?’

  ‘What is he doing?’

  Emery looked at her, saying nothing, the usual rules, never broken. Laura nodded, mute compliance. ‘OK,’ she said at last, ‘I guess they don’t know.’ She looked at him. ‘Was that irresponsible of me? Not telling them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You know why I didn’t?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because I owed him the truth first. That’s why. Not his bosses. Not his mother. Not anyone. Except him.’

  ‘And me.’

  ‘You’re different. You’re his best friend.’

  ‘Quite.’

  There was another long silence. The waitress had reappeared, balencing plates of steaming aubergine on a small tray. Laura watched her, a wistful expression on her face, the flicker of some distant memory.

  ‘We have to do something,’ she said softly. ‘I have to do something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked at him again, her face pale under the tan. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  She reached down for her bag as the waitress began to unload the tray. Beside her plate she put a long brown envelope, sealed at the top. Emery looked at it.

  ‘What’s that?’

 
; Laura frowned, picking up her fork, toying with the aubergine. Then she put the fork down and pushed the envelope towards him.

  ‘Trouble with this thing,’ she said, ‘is it gets worse.’

  *

  Friedland followed the white Citroën through the thick of the rush-hour traffic. The approach to Crouch End, second gear on the steep hill, was expecially hard, cars and buses nose-to-tail, the boy and his mother clearly visible in the car ahead. He’d picked them up at the corner of their road, parked at the kerbside, watching them emerge from the house in the rear-view mirror. The boy was carrying a knapsack, and his mother was wearing a coat. The girl monitoring the telephone tape said the match started at seven. His mother would stay to take him home. It was the regular venue.

  Past Crouch End, the Citroën indicated left, plunging into a maze of side-streets, a short-cut to the playing fields up at Hornsey. Hanging well back now, Friedland thought again about Ross, and the real price of the contract he’d struck with the man. He’d known from the start that it wouldn’t be easy, yet he’d almost enjoyed the early years. Much of the work had been straightforward – credit checks, covert vettings, the commissioning of occasional break-ins, software thefts, mail intercepts – and even the odd set-piece hadn’t, in all truth, demanded a great deal. But lately, everything had changed. Ross had become nervy and slightly irrational, a confirmation, Friedland supposed, that the ruling Tory clique were themselves, at last, under threat. Quite where this would lead was anyone’s guess, but he knew already that his own days were numbered. He’d only last as long as Ross lasted, and Ross – he was now certain – was on the way out.