“You waited twelve hours?”
“Under the Old Man’s instructions,” said Hanley. “He didn’t want to give a signal to the competition. Until we were sure. He didn’t want Green to bolt.”
“She’s been in Blake House since Friday. You’ve known that. And they know about her. Green has had that time to eliminate her.”
“Yes,” said Hanley. “The Chief understood the risk. I explained it. An unavoidable risk.”
Devereaux said, “But not for you. Not for the Chief.”
“A risk either way for the Section.”
“Goddam the Section,” said Devereaux.
“I’m sorry. I can’t hear.”
“Goddam you, Hanley, you bastard.”
The line crackled in the silence of their voices, making them aware of the futility of words over a great distance.
“I know,” Hanley said. “I can understand—”
“You can’t understand. Because you’re a goddam little computer clerk working in a goddam D.C. office and this is a game to you—”
“You’re supposed to go to London,” said Hanley. “As soon as possible.”
“I told her it was safe. I gave my word.”
“This is not a matter of giving one’s word,” said Hanley sharply. “This is not a little gentleman’s game.”
“I told her it was safe.”
“It was a risk that had to be taken.”
And Devereaux knew everything Hanley said was right. He replaced the receiver and stared at his hand on the telephone while he tried to understand what he felt. He had given his word before. What a curious thing for him to say. What did his word mean? Nothing, only as much as he meant it to; he always drew the definitions and the reservations in his own mind.
But there had been no reservation when he spoke to Elizabeth at Belfast Airport.
Or when he had held her, naked, in his bed, in the gray morning of that city; when he had promised her there was no reason to be afraid. When he had told her they would not die.
Now it was past six P.M.
Was she dead already, on this Sunday? Had they already killed her?
Wildly, he wanted to ring Blake House, to ask for her. He took the receiver off the hook. And then replaced it.
Past six P.M. on Sunday night.
He pushed out of the booth and turned right and left and then ran to a ticket desk at the end of the corridor. But the next flight to London was not for two hours.
There was nothing he could do, nothing he could control.
20
Ruckles was right, thought Green. It had been extremely simple.
At first, Green was worried about carrying off the deception. He wondered if he would have the courage to kill Elizabeth if she questioned the false cable from Devereaux. Ruckles had said it was important enough for Green to blow his cover if need be; if Elizabeth became suspicious, Green was to eliminate her in the house and then flee.
Ruckles had assured him that he would be taken care of.
Still, Green had worried about the cable and about the killing all the way back from The Orange Man.
Elizabeth had not questioned the cable at all.
She had only asked how far Victoria Station was and would she be there in time, and he had been at his best, soothing and reassuring. She’d changed her clothing and taken only her purse and passport.
It was so easy.
Green hailed a cab in the street and had it waiting at the door when she emerged onto the sidewalk, shrugging into her coat.
She thanked him. He blushed.
And then she was driven away.
Elizabeth sat hunched in the back seat of the cab, thinking of Devereaux, wondering if it was all over now, and what would that mean to her? Would it be safe? But he had said it would be safe.
The cab swung into the hurly-burly of autos crowded around the entrance of Victoria Station and the cockney driver reached to turn the handle on the back door for her. She paid him, overtipping, and hurried through the crowd at the entrance into the great terminal with its high, soaring ironwork over the tangle of iron tracks.
Victoria Station was exciting, even on a quiet Sunday afternoon, when one realized it was the main rail terminus for trains to and from the Continent.
Elizabeth glanced around, confused for the moment at the advertising signs and the bright W. H. Smith Sons magazine kiosks. Then she saw the ticket counter. She did not notice the man who stood behind her, absurdly trying to bury his large face behind a small Sunday Mirror. In fact, she had not noticed the car that had followed her cab all the way from Blake House to the train terminals.
Devereaux. He must be so close, she thought, as she purchased the second-class ticket for Dover and found the gate for the Dover train. The message had said he would meet her in the last second-class carriage.
She climbed aboard. It was one of the older British Rail carriages. The seats in the compartments were stiff and musty.
The train was not crowded; it was late in the fall and this train did not connect with a ferry at Dover. Finding a compartment that was empty, she slid open the door and went inside. She sat down at the window and looked out, expecting to see Devereaux at any moment waving to her, coming down the platform.
Elizabeth smiled to herself; it was too romantic. But it was a pleasant thought. They would be alone.
The door of the compartment slid open again and she turned, her daydream shattered by the appearance of a large, middle-aged Englishwoman in tweed skirt and formidable black hat.
“Hello, dear,” the woman said and lurched inside, throwing a small, flowered satchel on the rack above the seat near the aisle. “Terrible weather, ain’t it.” The woman was loud and vulgar and her breath smelled bad.
Elizabeth turned away and looked out the window.
“I hope it ain’t to be overcrowded.” The woman in the black hat chattered on. But Elizabeth didn’t look at her.
“Ya like some chocolates, dear?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said, not turning.
“I like me chocolates,” said the woman. “This ain’t the smokin’ carriage, is it?”
No Smoking signs were pasted on the glass of the door and the windows. Elizabeth pointed to them.
“Ah, that’s a relief, dear,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to make the mistake I made Friday. I was in a smoking carriage and this gentleman he came in and sat down and he lights himself a great black cigar. Now I says, ‘Can’t ya bloody read it’s no smokin’?’ And he comes back and says, ‘Yer the one that can’t read, it says smokin’, don’t it?’ and he was right.” She cackled then.
“Sure you don’t want a chocolate, dear?”
“No, thank you.”
Elizabeth looked again out the window. The clock at the concourse gate read three minutes to four. He wasn’t out there. No one, except the conductor and a man with a newspaper in front of his face.
Where was he?
The Englishwoman pulled a long thin hatpin from the crown of her black hat. But it was not a hatpin. It was too thick. The Englishwoman rose slowly.
Elizabeth continued to stare out the window at the man with the newspaper. He had lowered it suddenly and was staring back at her. His eyes were wide and frightened behind the rimless glasses. Suddenly, he raised his hand as though he wanted to make an alarm.
Elizabeth was like a sleeper caught in a nightmare, struggling to cross from the dream to wakefulness. Her movements seemed slow. She saw the Englishwoman reflected in the window glass…
Turn.
The face of the Englishwoman was twisted into a hideous grimace as she thrust the stiletto forward, the gleaming tip at Elizabeth’s throat.
Elizabeth fell back instinctively and threw up her arm against the onrushing form. The deadly thin knife grazed her coat, tore the material, and neatly skewered the seat cushion behind her. The Englishwoman fell forward heavily onto Elizabeth and slapped her in the face with a doubled fist. She heaved the stiletto out of the seat cushion and plunged it again towards Elizabeth’s body.