Bill Granger
Code Name November
For Lori, who shared the adventures
EPIGRAPH
Things are seldom what they seem.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While reading this book, one should keep these facts in mind:
Despite the general public belief, the Central Intelligence Agency is not the only intelligence-gathering operation conducted by the United States.
Fiction and nonfiction works have made popularly known the former section names attributed to British Intelligence — MI5 and MI6. Because of organizational changes in recent years and a penchant for maintaining secrecy even at mundane levels, British Intelligence has changed its nomenclature.
The Irish Republican Army guerrilla activity in Ulster province of Ireland is funded both by individuals and unofficial channels of foreign governments.
The Soviet Union maintains spy networks in most Western countries and, wherever possible, such spies operate under cover of diplomatic immunity granted them by their status as employees of their respective embassies in those foreign countries.
Though a routine ferry service connects Liverpool and Dublin, there is as yet no rival hovercraft service operating on the Irish Sea.
1
The larger man, whose white body resembled a slug, took a step forward and ripped his glove lace-side up across the forehead of his black opponent. Blood exploded from the sudden cut on the black man’s head and sprayed red on the slug’s body and on the canvas floor of the ring. Yet the darker, smaller man seemed oblivious of blood or pain as he stepped forward himself, between the lumbering swings, grinning with the pleasure of a man controlling a machine in perfect use. The slug’s second swing banged harmlessly against the black man’s shoulder. Now the smaller man was inside and he tattooed a series of jabs into the expanse of that mottled trunk. The slug stumbled against the ropes, his head snapped back, and sweat sprayed both their faces. The white body heaved hopelessly, floundering in the net of the thick ring ropes. The smaller man moved forward precisely then, jabbing surgically. He hit the punching bag of a body seven more times even though the blood from the cut blurred his vision.
“So much for the great white hope again.”
Devereaux let his program drop to the floor.
It was not a signal, although it might have been, because everything about the meeting had been couched in similar melodrama and romance. A signal or not, Hanley chose that moment to begin talking even while the fight was belled to a merciful conclusion.
“I really thought he had a chance,” Hanley began. “Well.” Pause. “We’re worried about Hastings.”
Devereaux — and, indeed, everyone in R Section — was aware of Hanley’s annoying habit of uttering non sequiturs. Few realized, though, that Hanley had acquired the habit deliberately as an accoutrement of the profession he had entered thirty years before. It was Hanley’s belief that non sequiturs confused and misled potential eavesdroppers, made it convenient to insert appropriate code words and other verbal signals in everyday speech, and, finally, improved the attention of the listener.
Devereaux merely thought Hanley was an asshole.
In the ring, the white man was protesting the decision. Around Hanley and Devereaux, in the smoky, flat atmosphere, figures were hurling programs toward the square of light in front of them.
“Hastings?” Devereaux looked at Hanley.
The latter seemed momentarily lost in a private reverie. Finally, he resumed: “You know what Hastings is. Strictly a Second Man in a not-terribly-important posting. He hasn’t had anything for six months and now he wants thirty thousand dollars. Won’t explain and won’t reply to our cables except to hint that he has devastating stuff. ‘Devastating.’ The very word he used. National security involved, he claims, international ramifications, that sort of thing. He’s continued on payroll and we meet his expenses, but frankly, we haven’t the faintest hint of what he’s talking about.”
Hanley folded his program neatly and put it in his vest pocket. Devereaux wondered if Hanley had a hope chest of old programs.
“So now you’re going to rein him in,” said Devereaux.
“Kill that turkey motherfucker,” screamed a black man sitting next to Hanley. In the ring, the two fighters who had waltzed for most of the eleven rounds were now vigorously engaged in a postfight charade. Separated by managers and trainers and the referee, they lunged at each other, hurling promises and insults.
“Not necessarily,” said Hanley. Pause. “He was a good man.”
Devereaux stared at his own flat fingers. He was not going to point out that Hanley’s faint praise was inconsistent with what he had said moments before. Devereaux hated Hanley the way people in the field always hated the clerks back in R Section.
“Get that nigger outta there,” cried a white man two rows back.
“Who you callin’ a nigger?”
Devereaux looked around. Anxious blue-uniformed security men came rushing down the aisles, and received a barrage of paper cups for their pains. “Christ,” he said. “Why didn’t you plan for us to meet on the stage of the Met? We could’ve been extras.”
“Sarcasm,” identified Hanley.
The black man next to him had vaulted over the back of his seat and was swinging at a white fan.
Hanley continued in the same flat, slightly too precise tone of voice: “Well, it took some doing but we now have the money and the clearance. You’re to take the money to him and find out what is going on.”
“I’m not a headhunter,” Devereaux replied.
Their voices were unnaturally quiet in the chaotic din around them.
Hanley smiled unpleasantly and spread his hands in a gesture of sincerity. “This is not a contract. We merely want you to evaluate our friend and his information and to remind him of certain aspects of… discipline… and to find out what Samuel is getting for his money from that funny little Englishman.”
Samuel was the current jargon name for the U.S. Hanley was always up on the jargon.
Devereaux suddenly turned away. He despised them all and all the cute espionage talk that filtered down from R Section. It came from all those dreary clerks spending their dreary lives in Mitty-like imitation of what they thought was the reality of the operation. In fact, their reality came from television and the movies and the latest spy fictions they read on their lunch hour in the marble cafeteria downstairs. Devereaux’s reality did not have names or comfort or jargon, and it did not have time for Hanley’s potent sense of melodrama.
“I’m going to get a drink,” Devereaux said finally and got up. He started to edge along the row to the aisle.
Hanley flushed: “I’m not through, goddammit.”
His voice pierced the din because it was so unexpected and so angry. The crowd around them suddenly fell quiet. Devereaux paused and turned back to Hanley. Hanley gaped around him and was instantly aware of the attention.
Devereaux smiled: “Don’t be such a tired bitch. Buy us a drink.”
Hanley gaped on, now at Devereaux. The black man snickered behind him, and Hanley’s face turned red.
Devereaux leered, “Coming?”
“I’m coming,” said Hanley meekly, and he rose and followed Devereaux down the row.
“Fags,” said the man behind the empty seats. “Fuckin’ fairies.” The bell continued to sound in the prize ring.
Hanley ordered rye.
A midtown New York bar at ten P.M. Ill-lit, too small, pretentiously priced, it projected a kind of relentless insomnia, just like the city. Devereaux and Hanley sat at the curve at the window end. The street was shut out with red curtains; red flocked wallpaper tarted up the interior with a sort of comfortable insincerity. The bartender plunked down the drinks in large rounded glasses.