Green listened to them.
The R Section had been set up in the old days, they explained, when the CIA had overextended itself. He certainly knew the history of it all.
Green had listened.
Now, the President wanted to get rid of R Section. He had reformed the CIA. The CIA was now completely under control of the elected officials to the point where the President could lobby to abolish the R Section. But the people in the Section were, naturally enough, obstinate. Even some senators who had powerful ties. Like Uncle Hubert? asked Green.
Yes, said the man he had first spoken to. The girl had been there as well and that had made him more comfortable. The man was very friendly. He was open and kind; he had made a drink for Green and his large brown eyes had looked Green directly in the face. He had been honest about Uncle Hubert. Hubert was an enemy of the CIA and Green knew it, and the CIA man did not try to hide the fact. They were being honest with him.
The President felt that R Section had become too powerful. That its loyalty was in question, according to the CIA man.
Green protested.
No, it did not have to do with the information they gathered; that was direct enough. But it had to do with what R Section did with the information. R Section was manipulating Congress and the country for its own ends, using legitimate information in a perverted way.
Even Green had been, unwittingly, a part of the process. The report on the presence of Cuban troops in the African horn. Why had it been suppressed by R Section, only to be finally brought to the public’s attention by the CIA?
Green had wondered about that as well. It had been something of a coup for the African desk but he had been told to say nothing about it, and, in fact, Hanley had admonished him twice about being certain that no word of the report leaked to others in the Section.
Green did not know that the President — engaged in a delicate negotiation involving the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Ethiopia — had ordered the report suppressed. Or that the CIA, perversely enough, had found the report and leaked it, thus freezing the Soviet stance and the Cuban presence.
The interview with the CIA man had continued for several days at different locations. Green came to trust the man’s frank, open manner and he was a little envious of the other’s familiarity with French restaurants and wine lists and important names.
If the truth were known, Green was something of a snob, and the rejection by the CIA had always bothered him. But now the CIA was wooing Green. It was flattering.
And finally, Green had acquiesced. There was money, too, but he didn’t do it for that.
There had been the first little bit of information. Not from Africa. But on the Section. On Hanley. And on Miss Dickens, Hanley’s secretary. About Hanley’s luncheon habits.
They knew most of it, of course. But Green was coming their way and they were leading him gently.
And then the assignment in London. And the contact with the embassy and the CIA staff quartered there.
The CIA man he dealt with was Ruckles.
Ruckles was a Virginian, soft-spoken, with an amused chuckle just waiting at the edge of a conversation to break in. A Navy man, like Green. A Princeton man.
They didn’t talk about college.
They had chosen The Orange Man because it was a safe pub. No one they knew ever went there and they met there infrequently, only when Green gave Ruckles an urgent signal or the other way around. They had each signaled the other on Saturday.
Green took his second glass of whisky to the table in the corner of the saloon. He waited and fingered his tie. The stripe was a Cambridge school tie, Ruckles had pointed out. Green didn’t care; he said he had only bought it for the colors. But that was not true. The tie was Cambridge and it was part of his English wardrobe, part of his other self, the self only he saw.
After a few moments, Ruckles came, carrying a glass of dark ale to the table. He nodded to Green but he was not smiling.
“Where is she now?”
“In the safe house. She hasn’t moved out of it.”
“We have to get her out of it.”
“I don’t know how.”
Ruckles looked at him. “To meet Devereaux, of course. We’ll message Blake House and tell her to meet Devereaux at Victoria Station. We could arrange it at Victoria Station.”
“But that’s murder.”
Ruckles looked at him. “It’s a job. An elimination job. She’s betrayed us. She may have betrayed you.”
Green tried to smile. “But it’s not betrayal, is it? I mean, we’re all on the same side.”
“She’s not on our side anymore.”
“But this is crazy. This is a game.”
Ruckles stared at him.
Green felt giddy. They wanted to kill her. He had signaled them because she represented danger. He knew that as soon as Devereaux sent her back to him. It was only when he talked to Ruckles on his urgent Saturday mission to the embassy that he understood she was part of the “ghost Section.” Ruckles did not tell him that Elizabeth did not know she worked for the CIA.
Ruckles said, quietly, “If they — if Devereaux — discovers you, he will kill you. It is that much of a game. You’ll be eliminated by them.”
“But I’m not a traitor. I’m serving the nation. I’m serving the Agency, the President.…”
Ruckles nodded. Green was a little on edge. Ruckles didn’t want that. He wanted Green safe and a little too sure of him, of his own rightness.
“The Section is riddled with traitors. Real traitors. To the nation. It is not a game to them. We now know that Elizabeth was a double agent, infiltrating us, learning our secrets so she could betray us to Devereaux. And you know about Devereaux.”
Green sipped furiously at his drink. There did not seem to be enough of it.
The whole thing was hard to believe, but, in the end, he had been forced by the facts to accept the truth about Devereaux. Devereaux was a traitor, a double agent. Green had wanted to tell Hanley, to go to the Chief; Ruckles had persuaded him not to. Devereaux was not dangerous as long as the Agency knew he was a traitor; he was useful to the Agency.
Green thought he understood. Devereaux had betrayed the United States in Asia. He had been one of the many small factors that had led to the losing of that war; he had sent damaging and dangerous reports about the situation in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam which had led the government and the military to make gross miscalculations.
The evidence had convinced Green, finally, and had angered him.
Green was a quiet patriot in his own way.
Now Ruckles said Elizabeth was one of them as well. He felt shy with her in Blake House; he did not know what to say to her. He had done as Ruckles instructed him — and tried to learn what she had told Devereaux about the “ghost Section” and about the Agency but she would not respond. He wondered if she knew he worked for the Agency. He wondered if he was in danger.
The thought chilled him. Danger was alien to him. The reports, the work of intelligence in Washington, the games they had learned at the training school… none of it had been dangerous, none of it had, at one level, even been real.
The bright, polite, hearty afternoon talk of the others in the pub swirled around him. They were dressed well, dressed for Sunday, in tweeds and sweaters. Good fellowship, fed by good English ale and good Scotch whisky.
Green stared at the others for a moment like a person who knows he will always be on the outside.
“Here’s the message,” Ruckles said at last. He handed it to Green.
A cable from Belfast. It was brief, cold:
ELIZABETH. VICTORIA STATION 4 PM TO DOVER. LAST SECOND-CLASS CAR. D.
“Why would he go to Dover?” Green asked.