“I don’t understand.”
“Those are terrible rounds the Section provides. If he had hit me, I’d be finished.”
“Who shot you? What’s happened? Was it the Agency?”
“I don’t know. His name was Petersen. About six feet four, an intelligent type. No identification on him, very professional. Yes. Professional.” Again, an ironic note in Devereaux’s voice.
“Hanley.”
Devereaux paused.
“Petersen said he was with security. For InterComBank. In New York. International Commerce Bank, isn’t it?”
“That’s ludicrous,” Hanley said. “Why would he have been involved with you? What happened?”
“Can you check? If they have a connection with us?”
“They don’t.”
“And the Agency. If they have a connection there?”
“What’s happened?”
Slowly, in his methodical way, Devereaux unfolded the events of that night and day. The visit from Rita Macklin after midnight; the confrontation with Petersen in the deserted cabin on Sand Key; awaking in the middle of the morning to find himself sprawled in the sand next to Petersen’s body.
“What did you do?”
“I took care of it. He sleeps with the fishes.”
“That’s cheap gangster talk.”
“It’s appropriate,” Devereaux said flatly, thinking of Petersen’s plans for Rita Macklin.
“Why did you become involved with the reporter?”
“Because Leo Tunney was keeping a journal. It contained a secret worth having. Worth killing for, at least. And Rita Macklin was going to get it for me.”
“Where is it?”
“Tunney,” Devereaux said with difficulty. “He’s dead. This morning. A panic in the church, he was saying Mass, they think he died of a heart attack. The crowd swears there were explosions—”
“What are you talking about?”
Devereaux began again, leading Hanley from the moment he returned to his room to his discovery that Rita was gone to his discovery that Tunney had been killed in the middle of the morning while he still lay unconscious on a stretch of beach near a deserted cabin.
“Then where is the journal?”
“I don’t know.”
“This has become too complicated, I can’t quite—”
“Yes,” Devereaux broke in. “That’s it exactly. There are too many elements involved and yet they must all be connected.”
“What about this ‘miracle’ woman?”
“A fraud,” Devereaux said. “The police have her but they don’t know what to charge her with. I suppose it will be fraud. She took a lot of money from a lot of reporters for interviews.”
“How was she involved then? I mean, in the journal, this whole business—”
Devereaux paused. He had thought about it all afternoon as well, as he searched both Rita’s empty room and the rooms of the shuttered rectory. What was connected? And what was the connection?
“I don’t think she was.”
“But she was at the center of the matter—”
“No. She was just a wild card. Like the cop who walks into a bank during a carefully planned robbery and breaks it up and it turns out later he only intended to make a deposit. No. Lu Ann Carter was playing her own game. It’s just that she threw everything else off. And she panicked the people who decided to kill Tunney and the other priests.”
“Who are they?”
“I know one,” Devereaux said. “Yes. I have one for you.”
“Devereaux.”
“What?”
“This has become very dangerous.”
“Are you worried about my safety?”
“This is not a time for joking,” Hanley said in his priggish way. “A delicate matter has become more delicate. I received a call early this afternoon. From the Adviser. He was in New York and he wanted to check with me. To make absolutely certain we had… ah… withdrawn from Florida.”
“Just a routine check,” Devereaux said.
“I did a dangerous thing.”
“You lied.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t necessary. There’s nothing more to do here. Well. One thing more.”
“What are you going to do?”
“First, I want you to get computer scans. I have some names and some guesses I want scenarios played on.”
“And probabilities?”
“Yes. Probabilities.” Devereaux gave Hanley the names and the hunches. Hanley accepted them without a word; he did not write them down.
“Is that all?”
“No. I’m afraid this is just the beginning.”
“You asked me to check with our man in Rome. On the Vatican connector. You may want to know that the chief of the Congregation for the Protection of the Faith has flown to Florida. He was in Prague.”
“Do we know where he is?”
Hanley gave him the name of a hotel.
“Do you see?” Devereaux said. “There are too many elements in this. The Vatican sends their director of intelligence. The KGB has a man here. And two other men — they arrange two killings.…” Devereaux paused.
“Did the Opposition kill Tunney?”
“I don’t know but now I’m beginning to think not. If they didn’t…”
It was not usual for Devereaux to pause when reporting to Control. But Hanley did not show any impatience.
“Hanley. We have to move now. First to protect ourselves, then to resolve this. It’s gotten too dirty the way it is.”
“How can we? I mean, cover ourselves?”
“We give them something worth the lie you told, worth my borrowed time here.”
“What?” Hanley said.
“Proof,” Devereaux replied. “Proof and a body to go with it.”
“You were holding out?”
“Yes. Until everyone else played their cards.” Devereaux paused and when he spoke again, his voice was hard. “Now it’s time to survive.”
30
Slowly, gravely, Denisov strolled along the shoreline and stared out at the black sea. It was nearly three in the morning; as usual, he had not slept. He stared into the blackness but it was opaque, the moon hidden behind a cloud. His vision was turned back on itself.
All slept.
Again, he yearned for sleep himself as simply as he had yearned for it in the old apartment in Moscow, as he had yearned for it in Gorki during the difficult time of examination caused by Devereaux’s betrayal. In sleep, he could forget Devereaux, who haunted his thoughts now.
Gogol had approved giving the “proofs” to Devereaux when Denisov notified his control that Devereaux was investigating the Tunney matter. And yet the documents had been so flimsy that Denisov had complained. “All proofs are flimsy,” the control had told him. “If we make them more substantial, Devereaux will suspect them.”
And yet Devereaux had not used the pieces of paper that “proved” the priest was a CIA agent working against the interests of the Soviet government.
And the matter in Florida had not been resolved.
The death of Leo Tunney had shut down the source of embarrassment for the Soviet Union. That is the way Gogol had phrased it in his message to Denisov through the New York control. And yet. There was the matter of this journal.
Where was the journal?
Did it even exist?
And who had it?
So Denisov could not come home until the matter was resolved. He yearned to return as a lover yearns. If he could go back to Moscow, to his music, to his little afternoons alone in the Chess Union, he would find sleep and peace.
“What is in the journal that would embarrass us?” he had asked the control officer in the Soviet Embassy in New York.
“We cannot say.”