“Do you even know?”
“We cannot say.”
Denisov had carried with him the vague feeling that the matter was now beyond containment or control and that if there was blame, it would be apportioned to him.
But this time, he would not be sent down to Gorki for examination and reeducation.
This time fate would not be so kind to him.
He had made one mistake already in killing the priest from Rome.
The matter should have ended with his death. Instead, they made too many investigations. He had worried about the authorities. He had destroyed the umbrella and its lethal cargo of drugs.
Denisov had killed Foley because he could not trust him.
Foley did not know of the Concordance. Foley did not know he had to act in concert with the Soviets. Perhaps it was planned that way by Cardinal Ludovico: If Ludovico could have gotten the journal first, perhaps Rome would have been able to back out of the Concordance at the last moment. Rome must be kept on a tight leash, Gogol had said. The journal would free them from the leash.
Denisov bent down and picked up a shell, one of thousands on the sand, and studied it. The shell was colored silver and ruby. It was beautiful and insignificant.
Denisov threw the shell in the water and it did not make a sound.
Cardinal Ludovico had told him there was no journal.
Was he lying? Was he stalling?
Denisov folded his hands behind his back and walked along the white sand. There were so many secrets and so much was hidden from him: Gogol said that whatever Tunney knew would not have mattered in six months’ time but that his secret must be suppressed now. Tunney was a grave threat to the security of the Soviet Union.
But it was impossible, Denisov argued in his mind. A priest. A single man. What could he know?
On the morning after Denisov discovered that Leo Tunney was keeping a journal for Foley, Denisov killed Foley. It was simply a matter of precaution. What if Foley already knew what was to be in the journal?
And then there was the matter of Tunney.
He had to get the journal, he had to kill the priest. He did not want to kill the old man but Devereaux forced it; Devereaux would not use his “proofs” to discredit the priest.
It had all been so complicated. And then someone else had killed McGillicuddy. And this morning, someone had managed to kill Tunney.
Who was working against him?
“This is not Devereaux’s work,” he had told the control officer at the Soviet Embassy in New York. “There is another element at work.”
But what if he failed this time?
The haunting thought drove away sleep.
Denisov crossed under the pilings of the fishing pier in the middle of the public beach and continued on, down to the darker side of the beach.
And then he paused.
There, faintly outlined in the dim light, was a figure he knew, limping along the shore toward him.
Denisov stopped, hands behind his back, his curious blue eyes staring straight ahead.
He knew this other man.
A cold face, more pale in the dim light; a winter-hard face made of ice, burning with a fierce white calm like the Arctic in midsummer.
“I did not expect this,” Denisov said in his mild voice.
“Why? Did you think I was dead?”
“No. You are hurt?”
“Who sent the men in the gray car?”
“I do not know.”
“Is that the truth?” The voice was hard, mocking in tone.
“As you say, Devereaux. So I should say: ‘Perhaps.’ But that is not the truth. I do not know the gray car or the men. I gave you proofs.” The voice was slow and chiding. “I gave you proofs you would not use. So now the old priest is dead, murdered by Central Intelligence.”
“I thought you killed him.”
“I do not kill. I had no reason to kill an old man.”
“Why did you give me papers to show he was a spy? To show he was still working for the CIA? Why did you call him an agent provocateur?”
“It was my instructions.” The burly man shrugged. “I do as I am told. You do as your master says. But you did not give him the proofs.”
“The proofs were lies, Denisov.”
“Is that the truth? Do you know that? Do you provoke me to agree with you?”
“The proofs were lies, Denisov,” Devereaux said again.
Denisov waited and stared at the other man. So long they had been like this, facing each other, testing and probing, telling lies and truths, temporizing, waiting, pushing the other to a mistake.
They stood four feet apart on the empty, dark beach.
“You killed Foley.”
Denisov smiled then and took his rimless glasses from his nose and wiped them against his shirt. He replaced them and spoke: “I do not kill.”
“You kill as it is necessary. Foley might have had the secret of the journal.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Denisov.” The name was uttered softly. An old enemy, an old friend; perhaps the distinctions blurred with the passing of time.
“Only a Soviet would have been clumsy enough to use the London Touch in Florida. What if it hadn’t been raining?”
For the first time, Denisov smiled.
Without a word, the two men fell into step, side by side, along the hard, wet sand. Two men of early middle age, their shoulders slumped by a mutual weariness they wore like oxen yoked in the same team.
“Why were you involved at all?” Devereaux said at last as they walked along. “From the beginning, I didn’t understand the Soviet factor.”
“I do not know. I was to be a messenger, they trusted me with these proofs to give you. It was a little test to me, after you betrayed me to the English. After they examined me in Gorki.”
“You were more involved than that.”
“I was a messenger only,” Denisov said. “I gave you the proofs. Perhaps there would not have been these deaths, all that has happened, if you did use them.”
“Perhaps.”
“Yes, Devereaux, make a word that does not mean anything. You say ‘perhaps’ to say nothing. I tell you the truth. We want this treaty with America, this peace agreement in Denmark. So that we will not make war to each other.”
“We are at war all the time.”
“No. That is in your head, that is not true. You are a man too much a cynic. You must be faithful, too, sometime. Like the bushkas in the churches.”
“The few you have left open.”
“I gave you proofs,” Denisov said doggedly.
“Trust you. You wanted me to trust you.”
“I am going home in a little while. Tomorrow,” Denisov said. “I would not guess to see you again.”
“Why didn’t you try to kill me? Instead of Foley?”
“I do not kill.” Denisov paused on the sand. “My English, I beg pardon. It suffers when I spoke English so well when we were in England. Do you remember?” Again, for the second time, the edge of bitterness broke through the flat, mild voice. “Before I came here, to give you proofs, only that… when I was still in Moscow.” He stared at the Gulf and saw himself. “In my apartment alone with the recording. The Gilbert and Sullivan. It was a pleasure to hear the English voices. The Mikado…”
He turned and stared sadly at Devereaux. “When the British expel me from England, when you betray me, I spend ten months in Gorki. Then it is not a good time to use the English, is it? Do you see? It is not wise. So much was suspect of me for a long time.”
“Yes. I can see that.”
“You do that to me, Devereaux,” Denisov said, touching the sleeve of the other’s coat. Devereaux shook off the slight contact. “Once, you betray me, and yet I am a soldier and you are a soldier. I gave you the proofs.”
“I did not believe them. I do not believe you.” The voice of the American agent was cold, without comfort or friendship, without a remembrance of other times or a thought for times to come. “You betray yourself, Denisov; I am not your friend and you are not my friend. We are enemies. You gave me those phony papers as a ploy, to turn me off the game, you killed Foley. And now you’re on the beach, going to Rita Macklin’s room—”