Devereaux’s voice was mild: “Because it doesn’t matter. If you are an agent in the ghost Section, then I’m dead. I cannot come in anywhere; I’ll be hunted and killed, for whatever reason. So it doesn’t matter if you are both Hanley and the ghost Hanley.”
“Dammit, Devereaux, I’m not.”
“I know.” There was a pause. “They want to destroy the Section. Make it inoperable.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. There are two plausible answers: First, the Soviets. Denisov is here in Belfast. Why? He wants to help me. Why? He claims he killed a man trying to assassinate me. Is that true? Or did he try to kill me? Why would the KGB want to destroy R Section?”
“Because we are who we are—”
“Nonsense. The Soviets use their intelligence agency to gather information, not to set out destroying other intelligence agencies. They know that a new agency would spring up in our place. Better to control our agency than destroy it. So they may have decided to set up the ghost agency and gradually take it over. But it really is too farfetched—”
“And the second?”
“The Langley firm, as you call it. The CIA.”
“As Denisov told you—”
“Yes, but there is more. Denisov would not care… the Soviets would not be part of our internal feud if there was not another factor. And I can’t comprehend that part of it. What is there beyond this?”
The elderly bartender came to the back and placed the martini on the metal counter under the telephone. Without a thought, Hanley picked it up and sipped at it. He was thinking, trying to jog memory and logic into a coherent sequence.
“Why now?” was all Hanley could say.
“Why now. Exactly. Why in Ireland?”
“It had to do with this Lord Slough business.”
“Yes.”
“But what?”
“An attempt made on his life in Quebec,” said Devereaux slowly, following his own thoughts. “But they tried to kill me after that. And tried to kill Elizabeth — it can mean, only, that there is another event coming. Something. Another attempt on Slough’s life?”
“You mean the CIA tried to kill this guy?” The slang came out in his excitement; even Devereaux was startled to hear it — Hanley was a man of precise language.
“I don’t know. I’m not in Canada. I don’t know anything about it. But there is something else—”
“What? I can’t stand any more.”
“There’s a leak. In the Section. And you’ll have to find it quickly.”
“Why in the Section?”
“Because of everything I’ve told you. They’ve followed me, they have baited me, they probably killed Hastings… they knew about this mission before I came here and had their agents in place — the ghost Section, the ghost Devereaux, the ghost Hanley, the ghost everyone.”
Hanley was silent. “I’ll have to get the Chief.”
“Yes.”
“And we have to find out who Toolin was and how he got to Canada to kill Slough.”
“Yes.”
“Devereaux, why would they want to destroy the Section?”
But it was obvious. If it were the CIA, they had tried to destroy it before.
“No more contact, Hanley,” Devereaux said, “until I know more.”
“What about this agent of theirs, Elizabeth Campbell?”
“No problem. She’ll stay at Blake House until this is over. Then we can decide about her.” Finally Devereaux gave Hanley the message that he’d found on Johannsen’s body: ETRAYSDVERDANTYGER. “I don’t recognize the code,” Devereaux added.
“I’ll work on it.”
“Hanley?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think you have very much time.”
Hanley looked at the half-empty martini glass. “No. I understand. I don’t think there is much time either.”
O’Neill put down the pint of black beer and turned. The little boy was staring at him.
“I’m O’Neill,” he said at last. “Who’re you?”
The others in Flanagan’s pub stared at the child. The boy wore a cloth cap as did most of the men, and he had a raggedy coat pulled tight around his thin shoulders. He handed the paper to O’Neill.
O’Neill stared at it for a moment, trying to focus:
I have money. St. Anne’s Church. Now.
“Who gave you this?”
“A man.”
“I know a bloody man gave it t’ya. But what was he?”
“I think an American man.”
“Ah, d’ya? Did he wear glasses?”
“I don’t know—”
“What’d he give ya t’give me the note?”
“Ya ain’t gettin’ it,” said the boy, and the men in the pub laughed. O’Neill flushed and made to give the boy a cuff with his hand.
“Yer don’t hit the lad,” said one of those at the bar. “Go on, O’Neill. What’s the note say?”
Suddenly, O’Neill was all smiles. “Ah, nothin’. Just a bit of business, it is. With the company. I’ll have ter pop off now fer a wee bit but I’ll be back. Hold me drink, Paddy,” he said. And he placed it on the bar and went out the door.
Nearly ten at night. No rain now, though the streets were shining wet under the lamps. O’Neill trudged up the long hill to St. Anne’s Church. So the Russian had more money for him, was it?
But it wasn’t Denisov.
Devereaux stepped from the shadows of the door of the old church at the head of St. Anne Road.
“O’Neill,” he said.
O’Neill looked around him. Not a soul on the roads. Not a car. He thought of running back—
Devereaux hit him, very hard, in the belly. O’Neill doubled over and began to fall heavily onto the pavement. Devereaux kicked him squarely between the legs. The pain made him faint and he did not feel it when he fell on the sidewalk, breaking his wrist.
In a moment, O’Neill awoke to blinding pain. He felt blood on the side of his face, warm and salty.
He stared at Devereaux in terror.
Devereaux had propped him up against the cold wall of the church entrance, in the shadows, a million miles from help. He was squatting down next to him.
“Tell me about Lord Slough.”
“I told you all—”
O’Neill was not permitted to finish. Devereaux chopped at his thigh and sent a new, strange pain into his gut, to join the other pains there.
“For the love of God, don’t hit me—” O’Neill began to cry.
“Who is going to kill Lord Slough?”
“I told ya. A Captain Donovan—”
“Who else? Where is he?”
“I don’t—”
This time Devereaux hit the broken wrist with the flat of his hand. Again, O’Neill blacked out suddenly from the pain.
When he awoke, nothing had changed; hell remained. Devereaux squatted next to him still.
“You’re gonna kill me, man—”
“Yes,” said Devereaux. “Tell me your contacts in the IRA—”
“They’d kill me—”
“They can’t kill you twice—”
“Please, for the love of God—”
This time, Devereaux chopped at the bone of his shoulder. Once. Twice.
“I’ll tell ya, but don’t kill me—”
“Who are they? Where are they?”
“There’s Terry here in Belfast. He’s down at Flanagan’s. But he’ll kill me—”
“What does he look like?”
“Black hair. Curly hair.”
“And who is he?”
“He’s one of the Boys. He knew about them tryin’ t’kill Lord Slough—”
“And?”
“I can’t tell ya—”
Devereaux hit him again. There was no pleasure in it. It was all impersonal.
“Please, please, fer the love of God—”
“Who else?”
“Donovan himself. He. He’s a character at the docks.”
“Who else?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know—”
“When will they kill Lord Slough?”