Her confidence was gone.
“Where to, miss?”
Where to? Away.
“Oh.” She seemed to fumble in her purse for an address. But there was no place. “Piccadilly Circus,” she said at last. It was a place at least.
Fifteen minutes later, the cab deposited her on a corner of Piccadilly Circus, in the congestion of pigeons, cars, noise, and flashing signs. She paid again and stood for a moment on the sidewalk. How could she tell if she had been followed?
She started down the block, her shoes clapping loudly on the pavement. People stopped and turned to stare at the distraught figure with pale face and wild eyes.
Elizabeth turned into Haymarket and began to hurry along towards Trafalgar Square.
She had to leave London. She didn’t know the trains — but she had been in Paddington Station long enough to see there were trains for Wales. Wales would be safe.
If they had followed her, they would not expect her to double back on herself.
Ten minutes later, she entered Paddington Station again and went to the ticket counter. A train for Cardiff was scheduled to leave in fifteen minutes. She bought a ticket.
Realizing that she might get hungry on the long trip, she went into the buffet and bought two sandwich rounds and stuffed them in the pockets of her tan raincoat.
“Please may I speak to you?”
She turned. It was him again; the man from the platform at Victoria Station, whom she’d spotted a half hour before. He was standing next to her at the end of the checkout line in the buffet, holding a copy of the Daily Mirror.
She wanted to run.
Perhaps he understood that; he took her arm, gently. “Please,” he said again. “Don’t be good enough to run away again.”
“How did you follow me?”
“Ah,” he said. And he laughed. “I cannot. There was no cab. So I waited and hoped you would come again to the station because I did not know where to look for you.”
Suddenly, it all seemed hopeless to her.
“Who are you?”
He still held her arm, but held it gently.
“I am Mr. Dennis,” he said. “I am with British Intelligence. Actually, the name is more formal but it is enough. I want to speak to you. May I buy you a cup of tea?”
“My train—”
“Please,” he said.
“I have to go. I don’t know you.”
“No, Elizabeth. But I know you. Please, let me call you Elizabeth. To make you comfortable. Because Americans want to be called of their Christian names. I am Mr. Dennis.”
She was frightened; her face was chalky; he held her as lightly as a child would hold a bird — and as firmly.
What was the use? “Should I give up?”
“No, no. Never give up. That is surrender,” the man said. His face was broad and smiling, his blue eyes were clear and guileless behind the rimless glasses.
“Please,” she said. “That woman wanted to kill me.”
“I know, Elizabeth. It’s all right. We know all about it. I am going to help you. Please trust to me.” He ordered two teas and paid with his right hand, still holding her with his left. “Please,” he said again. She picked up her tea. She could throw it in his face—
“Please don’t do that,” he said, as though he read her thoughts. “Here, I will release your arm. I merely did not want you to be frightened when I spoke to you, to run away as you did before. I must speak to you. But don’t throw your tea at me — if you must run away, leave my face as it is.”
But she did not run away. They sat down at a plastic table.
Elizabeth sipped her tea for a moment.
“What do you want?” she said at last.
He looked at her shyly and smiled again; one of his large hands reached across the plastic table top and took hers. Her hands were pale and cold. He held her hand and warmed it.
“To help you,” Denisov said.
22
The deal had been made Sunday, after Devereaux’s telephone call, after another meeting between Hanley and the Chief of Section.
It appeared to be satisfactory.
Of course, Hanley didn’t know all the details. But the Old Man assured him that Operation Mirror was closed down, that the threat to the Section was over. He had even congratulated Hanley and mentioned something about a citation (a secret citation, of course) for Devereaux.
What about the opening to British Intelligence?
Ah, explained Galloway. That was part of the deal. The CIA remained in place, all was status quo as far as the Limeys were concerned. In exchange, all present and future moves to discredit R Section were abdicated by the CIA. And the CIA promised to turn over a particularly juicy cache of information from Uganda, straight to R Section’s African desk. So that R Section could get the credit for turning the information over to the National Security Council.
Everything, the Old Man said, had turned out well.
Until two A.M. Monday morning, when the housekeeper of Blake House, phoning Hanley from the air terminal in London, explained that Devereaux had come, closed the house, burned all the secret documents, turned her out, and… turned out poor Mr. Green.
He killed him? Hanley asked.
No, the housekeeper said. He had merely chased Green away. And closed Blake House.
It was nearly six before Hanley and the Old Man met again, this time in the latter’s office on the sixth floor of the Department of Agriculture building.
“Bad news, Hanley,” the Old Man said. He was sipping coffee at his uncluttered desk. His face seemed more drawn in the cold fluorescent light. Beyond the window, the rest of Washington was sleeping in the pre-dawn darkness.
“It is, sir,” said Hanley. He sat down in the designated chair. “We’ve been signaled, as you know. By the housekeeper. And now Devereaux and Green have flown. In addition, there was an attempt to eliminate this Elizabeth Campbell person by the competition. And she has flown as well. The three of them are out there. And, given the timing, I suspect that Devereaux now understands the deal we’ve entered into with the Langley firm.”
“He understood your instructions,” frowned the Chief.
“Yes. I’m afraid there’s no doubt about that. He — well, he did seem upset in his telephone report yesterday that we hadn’t moved to safeguard the woman.”
“This Campbell person.”
“Yes.”
“Is this usual? I mean, this disobedience. I wasn’t really aware of it,” said Galloway.
“No, sir. Not usual at all. He hasn’t made contact since last night.”
The old man danced his fingers on the empty desk top. “What will Devereaux do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will he contact the competition?”
“No, sir. I’m sure not. I—”
“Why not, Hanley? He’s disobeyed your instructions. He’s jeopardized the mission. He’s let a mole escape.”
“There may be some plan, sir. I told you, he wasn’t satisfied with the information he had about this Lord Slough—”
The Old Man banged his fist down on the desk. The noise was so unexpected that Hanley flinched involuntarily “The hell with Lord Slough. You sent Devereaux to get information. He got it. It was up to us to decide—”
Hanley felt very brave in speaking up. “Sir, I did tell him that we intended to open an information bridge to British Intelligence—”
“I don’t care, his mission is information, not policy. So you think Devereaux is extemporizing and developing his own scenario. Well, Hanley, I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I.”
“Goddammit. Devereaux stumbles on this Operation Mirror thing and for the first time in years, we’ve got the Langley firm boxed in. We can work out an accommodation with them. To hell with British Intelligence — bunch of Limey bastards.”
“Sir. I think that if Devereaux has freed Green or stashed him or whatever, he intends to use him.”