“I always order rye in New York,” explained Hanley. He made a face as he sipped at the drink. “That’s a good habit, you know — order the local drink. Makes you fit in. Rye here. Bourbon in the South—”
“Scotch in Scotland,” said Devereaux. He sipped his vodka and felt tired. Hanley, who grew up in Nebraska, had gained his indelible impression of the habits and mores of New Yorkers from the countless B movies that had ground their way through his local movie house in the thirties.
“Speaking of Scotland.” Hanley sipped again like a man just trying to get through a drink. “Did you know that’s Hastings’ base now?”
“I haven’t seen him for years. Since Athens.”
Hanley frowned. “I’m aware of that. You don’t keep up.”
“Why doesn’t the Section send around a newsletter?” Devereaux was sick of talking to Hanley and sick at the thought of what the job was going to turn out to be. He had liked Hastings once.
“Despite your sarcasm,” Hanley began, “I’m aware of what you think. You know you could have done better if you had kept up.” Like me, implied Hanley.
“What’s the job?” It was maddening.
“You leave tomorrow to see Hastings. It has to be made clear to him that he won’t get the money until we have a solid idea — an idea that will satisfy you — of what his information entails.”
“Thirty thousand dollars is hardly exit money,” said Devereaux. The cold vodka was numbing his tongue pleasantly.
“There’s more,” said Hanley, sipping dutifully at the rye.
Devereaux waited and let the coldness of the drink warm him.
“I didn’t get the chance to tell you everything.”
Pause.
“Hastings wants thirty thousand now.” Pause again. Devereaux sat still and stared at the ice bobbing in his drink. “For the first part of whatever he has. And a hundred thousand dollars deposited in a Swiss bank in nine days for the second part.”
Devereaux had had enough. “I’m not playing, Hanley. Until you give me some idea of what the hell this is all about.”
Hanley spread his hands in the same familiar and insincere gesture of openness.
“I’ve told you. We simply have no idea of why he’s being so secretive. We’ve talked to our London people — my God, they should certainly be on top of things. Hastings has never played this sort of game. Frankly, he’s never had much to be secretive about. Some of the people at Britdesk in the Section think most of his stuff has been clipped out of the Economist or Telegraph—”
Which it probably was, Devereaux thought.
Hanley realized, with something like horror, that he had finished his drink without finishing his conversation. “I suppose you want another,” he began. Devereaux nodded to the bartender. They did not speak until they were served. In a booth at the other end of the bar, a large, heavy man placed his hand on the thigh of a drunk young woman. He was not asked to remove it. Hanley stared at them.
“Hastings has been our informal link, as it were, with Brit Intell. He retired from them two years ago, you know.”
Brit Intell. For God’s sake, thought Devereaux.
“Well, as you may know, there’s damned little the Section is interested in getting from the blokes.” He used the old military expression of contempt for the English. “Still. He was worth his allowance, just to have all bases covered. Never gave us very much but… well… Hastings was justifiable. Then, six months ago, he stopped giving. Just… stopped… giving.”
Above the bar, the television set flickered on. There was no sound. The screen filled with the images of the slug and the black man. The fight was being repeated. Devereaux felt strangely disoriented. The edge of his tongue stung with cold vodka.
“Was he dead?” asked Hanley rhetorically. “No, old Hastings was very much alive. We sent a Third Man over a month ago to talk with him. No, he couldn’t tell us what was up. Hastings said he was putting pieces together. He said he’d let us know. The Third Man said he looked like a cat who’d swallowed a bird.”
Hanley now folded his hands and looked confidentially at Devereaux, rather like an employment counselor about to explain a company’s pension plan. “As you know, the Section operates rather loosely compared with the Langley company.”
Devereaux winced at the phrase — Langley meant the Central Intelligence Agency headquartered off the Beltway in that sleepy Virginia suburb.
“Because we are a much smaller operation — and because our charter is so much more limited — we have developed a rather loose field program and our operators are permitted a rather wide latitude in information-gathering. Still, Hastings has sorely vexed us with his silence—”
“As I have.”
“As you have,” agreed Hanley. “I can tell you there were some on the committee who wanted to pull the plug on him.”
“In what way?”
“Perhaps reveal his… ah… role in our organization to someone in Brit Intell—”
“That would be stupid,” said Devereaux.
Hanley smiled. “Right. That’s what the Chief said. That’s what I said. Stupid and self-defeating, I said. Look at the matter logically, I put it to the committee: There are several possibilities. One, Hastings is stringing us along and merely wants the money and has nothing at all. Two: Hastings has information of genuine worth and is entertaining bids for it from our side, from the Langley company, and others. Three, Hastings has the information and genuinely does not want to blow it—”
“—by telling your second-rate couriers about it—”
“We sent a Third Man,” complained Hanley defensively.
“Four,” said Devereaux. “Hastings has made the hit of his life. He’s going to milk it for every last drop. And then he’s going away.”
“Four,” agreed Hanley. “So good that it can make the Section. I don’t need to tell you we’ve had our problems with the committee.”
“No, you don’t need to tell me,” said Devereaux. He considered it. “Hastings. He must be fifty-five years old now.”
“Fifty-four,” said Hanley.
“Does he have a network?”
“Not much of one. Nothing too important. A couple of school chums involved in Brit Intell’s domestic operation in Belfast, keeping an eye on the Boys.” Such were members of the Irish Republican Army called. “But that’s not really of much interest to us.”
“No,” said Devereaux.
“That’s what’s got us stumped,” said Hanley. “I mean, where the hell did Hastings put his hands on something really important?”
“His British probes?”
“But you know what British Intelligence is. I mean, what could they know that we don’t know?”
Devereaux nodded. On the television screen, the slug was against the ropes again, again being hammered in slow motion by the smaller man. “So it might be important for a change, what old Hastings has found.”
“Every bit of information is important,” Hanley said with blithe inconsistency. Devereaux’s attitude seemed always to threaten Hanley and the structure of the world in which he found comfort.
“Nonsense,” said Devereaux. “You don’t believe that. Even you don’t believe that. Almost none of it is important. And the important stuff we usually get by accident. That Soviet fighter plane last year. Flown into our waiting hands and those of the Japanese because Yuri What’s-his-name was pissed off at his wife in the Soviet paradise. Don’t make it all seem more than it is.”
Hanley was angry again. He had had quite enough. He reached into his vest and said, “This is all you need.”