“I don’t understand—”
“Neither do I,” he said. “Why wait until now? Why wait to strike in the middle of a mission that is not very important? Unless it is important and I don’t know it yet. Or unless I am so close to the truth of it that they are afraid. There are parts and parts of it I don’t understand. But you didn’t work for Hanley. Elizabeth. Or R Section. You worked for someone else. Something else that intends to destroy the Section.”
“The Soviets—” she said and bit it off.
“Yes. Perhaps. I don’t know.” Denisov would smile at that. Equivocation. Perhaps — what does perhaps mean, Devereaux? Why was Denisov here?
“Then who wants to kill me?” she said. “And you.”
“Perhaps they’re different people,” he said. “Perhaps they are on different sides, have different missions. Perhaps you’ve failed — you have failed, you told me, they may know that. Maybe they had your room bugged — even though I couldn’t find anything. I don’t know. But in London I know a safe house and I want you to go there tonight—”
“But if the blond man is at the hotel?” she asked.
“Yes. He may be there. He may be here. Outside the door. But he has to be dealt with.”
“I want to get away. Let’s get away.”
“No,” he said. “We’ll deal with him first. And then with the other parts of the problem. The parts I don’t understand.”
“Are you sure?”
He looked at her. “Of what?”
“About Hanley? About the Section? Is it safe?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure.”
“Oh, Dev,” she said. “I’m not sure.”
“I’m sure,” he said again. He wondered if he lied well. He never wondered that before; he always assumed that he did.
They dressed quietly, apart from each other. When it was time to go, he took the pistol from the closet and checked it and unsnapped the safety and held it in his hand.
“Open the door,” he said.
As she pulled it open, he stepped to the door. Right and left. The shadows of the other doors. The end of the hall. He stepped into the hall, feeling exposed. He waited. She stepped into the hall behind him.
No one.
They walked to the elevator; the halls were empty; Devereaux swept his eye up and down the corridor but saw nothing, heard nothing.
When they reached the street, it was nearly dusk and the city looked mean. Faces were bent in the wind. They took a cab to her hotel in the thin traffic and it was dark when they arrived.
As planned, Elizabeth got out first and walked quickly across the sidewalk into the lobby and went to the elevator.
Devereaux waited at the front door.
Elizabeth entered the elevator and doors closed on her. She was to take it to the fifth floor, one floor below her own room.
Devereaux saw the blond man emerge from the bar and go to the elevator after her. Maybe he had been waiting too long in the bar; he was a little slow.
Devereaux walked into the lobby, to the elevator, and stood behind the blond man, waiting for the cage to return.
The man smelled of cologne and whisky. His suit had an American cut.
The doors opened and both men entered. The blond man pushed six.
Devereaux moved to the other side of the small cage.
“Floor?” the other man asked, staring at him.
“Oh. Sorry.” Devereaux pushed the button marked eight. The lift began its ascent.
Careless. Devereaux feared he was getting sloppy.
The doors whooshed open at six and the other man stepped off, slowly, cautiously. The doors closed behind him.
Devereaux quickly pushed seven and got off at the next floor. Moving to the stairs at the end of the hall, he waited a moment. Nothing. He took his gun off his belt as he pushed open the door to the stairs.
The stairwell was dark below.
Had a light gone out?
Devereaux held the pistol in front of him in the darkness.
His step did not make a sound.
On the landing below, the blond man was waiting, in the darkness. But he did not see Devereaux until it was too late.
The single shot from his gun whumped through the silencer and exploded its bullet harmlessly on the plaster wall behind Devereaux.
Devereaux’s pistol did not have a silencer.
The explosion rang in their ears. The bullet flattened as it hit the blond man’s groin and exploded through the fabric and flesh, shattering the bones below. Blood spurted out and stained the lower half of his body as he fell. For a moment, he did not make a sound; shock was protecting him from the unendurable pain.
The man stared at Devereaux and his pistol clattered harmlessly down the steps.
Devereaux put his own pistol into his belt and went to the landing.
The dying man looked at him. “Please help me,” he said slowly, almost dreamily.
Devereaux reached into the dying man’s coat pocket. He took out a case for glasses and a small, thin wallet.
Devereaux looked at him. “Who sent you?”
“Please—”
“Who are you?”
The man stared at him.
Devereaux pushed him over and felt in his trousers. There was blood. And money. And a room key. And something written on a scrap of paper: ETRAYSDVERDANTYGER
Devereaux stared at the room key.
“Please help—” Suddenly, the voice was drowned in blood. The man shuddered.
Devereaux got up. Ten men now. Ten. He looked at the blood and the body in the darkness. He would have to be very quick. He ran down the stairs to the fifth floor and pushed open the door. Elizabeth stood at the elevator, waiting. She turned and saw him and then saw the bloodstains on the edges of his cuffs.
“Go to your room. Get everything. In five minutes, and go to the lobby and check out. Quickly. I’ll meet you in the lobby. Quickly—”
“The man, the blond man, I—”
“Shut up, Elizabeth,” he said. He looked as though he were in pain. “Do it. Now. Hurry, there’s no time—”
He ran back to the door of the stairs and down again, to the fourth floor. The blond-haired man had stayed in room 487.
Devereaux removed the pistol from his belt again as he opened the door. But there was nothing. No one. A room like his own, like all rooms of men who spend their lives traveling. He noticed the simple suitcase on the desk.
Putting his gun away, he took the little knife from his pocket and slashed at the lining of the suitcase. There was nothing. Going through the clothes he found the man’s passport and stared at the picture for a moment. It was not a good likeness.
Devereaux felt the paper. The passport was real; it had been used. Mr. Johannsen. A salesman for an American aircraft company.
Came to Belfast to sell airplanes.
The exit money was in the hollow of a black leather shoe in the closet. Devereaux took it and counted two thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills. He put the wad into the pocket of his brown corduroy coat.
Johannsen. He had a name at least.
Devereaux worked furiously. Who had heard the shot? Who would go to the stairs and see the body? Would anyone stir himself from his own life and own routine to call the police?
Elizabeth was waiting at the desk. Devereaux waved off the bellhop, grabbed her bag and hurried outside. Opening the door of the black cab, he shoved her inside ahead of him.
The city was dark; its slums were hidden by night and rain; Friday night. They passed a fish-and-chips store with a long line of people waiting in the rain. Get your pay packet and down to the fish-and-chips and maybe a pint of beer at home, sitting in front of the telly, getting numb in warmth of it, erasing the day and the week from mind.…