“Go into the bedroom,” Devereaux said. “And sit down. I want to talk to you now, Ely. About Sparrow. And George.”
They spoke a long time and the three of them in the small bedroom sat still as they talked and listened. After an hour, Devereaux went to the telephone and made a local call.
Ely sat fascinated as Devereaux spoke first with the operator and then with a second person in stilted Swedish. Devereaux was one of those persons who never forgot a language and acquired basic languages easily; he had been in Sweden nearly fifteen years before, out of Vietnam, on a matter involving a traitor who had taken refuge there. Devereaux spoke nine languages and dialects with more or less fluency — his best was French, acquired in Vietnam, and Vietnamese patois. In his long winter of isolation in Helsinki, Devereaux had learned that nearly all Finns could speak Swedish, though some reluctantly.
When the call was finished, he turned back to Rita and Ely.
“The old man is here.” It was the last secret revealed among the three of them; they were spies stripped of secrets now because their own survivals required an alliance.
“You saw him,” Rita said.
“Yes. As long as I have Tartakoff on hold, there probably won’t be a problem. I think they wanted the old man out in any case.” He wrote something down on a sheet of paper. “This is where they put the old man.” He gave it to Rita.
She stared at the paper and then at Devereaux. She did not speak but her eyes held the question.
“Ely and I will have to wait here now.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she said.
“Get out of Helsinki now. Quickly. Don’t use the airport. It’s become a shuttle for spies in the past few days. The Finlandia sails tonight at six for Stockholm. You and the old man will be on board. He’s an American now; here’s his passport. Get on board and stay away from the public rooms until the ship sails.”
“Are you going to meet us?”
He smiled at her. “I suppose so. If everything works.”
“Why do you have to stay?”
“Tartakoff is in my room at the moment. That’s part of the deal. I’m the messenger boy and I take him out when everything is set with the old man. Our British friend here has complicated the matter somewhat but I can use him now.”
Ely said nothing.
“And if it doesn’t work out?”
“Oh, you of little faith,” Devereaux said, and he was smiling. Rita glared at him but the mocking smile played lightly on his thin lips and doused her anger in a moment.
“Will he come with me?”
“If not, hit him.”
“Dev.”
“Rita, he’s a prisoner, a lifer.” His words turned easily into rougher usage. “If you said squat to him, he’d ask you how many times. He has nowhere to go unless he is told to go somewhere. Get him now while I occupy Tartakoff. Before other matters interrupt us.”
“What about him?” she said.
“Tartakoff? He’ll be taken care of.”
Ely suddenly exploded: “Why are you saying these things in front of me?”
“Because the only way you are going to survive is to do what I tell you,” Devereaux said. “You have to understand the game and the trap. When you get to Stockholm—” He turned to Rita. “Here is a name and address. Use it the second day, if I don’t arrive. It’s a safe house.”
“She is a spy,” Ely said.
“No, Ely. You were wrong and George was wrong.” He turned to look at Rita sitting on the edge of the bed. “She was caught in the trap.” He spoke softly as though he did not see her in that moment. “Like you, Ely. Nothing was as it seemed.” He glanced up. “Get going.”
“I don’t understand why you have to stay if I have the old man,” she said.
“To close the back door,” Devereaux said. “I have to wash the dishes and lock the place. The hall was only rented for the night.”
Nine minutes later, Ely and Devereaux entered Devereaux’s room on the fourth floor. Ely had the sense of a drama rushing to a conclusion; it was the last act.
Devereaux felt only a sense of release. The room had been his tomb for a long, dead winter and now it was opened.
Ely had been relieved of his Beretta; trust did not extend to weapons between them.
Tartakoff was at the window staring into the cavity of the construction pit across the street where Natali’s naked, frozen body had been found. He turned as they entered. His eyes widened angrily when he saw Ely in front of Devereaux.
And then he saw the pistol in Devereaux’s hand.
He started to make a move and then stopped.
“What do you mean by this, Messenger?”
“Sit down, Tartakoff. There. Take that chair.”
“It is after five. The ship leaves for Stockholm in—”
“Sit down.”
Devereaux took a step past Ely. He stood in front of Tartakoff and saw the flicker of a movement of Tartakoff’s hand. Without seeming effort, Devereaux slapped the Russian across the cheek with the pistol barrel. The blow cut a line of blood across his face. The Russian took a step back and Devereaux pushed him into the chair. The muzzle of the pistol was pressed against his cheek.
Devereaux reached down into the Russian’s coat pocket and pulled out a large automatic weapon which was a sort of pistol modified from a Uzi submachine gun.
“Rather large to get through Customs,” Devereaux said. “How did you manage it?” He smiled and pulled out the banana clip and threw both pieces on the floor. “Sit there, Ely.”
“We are going to miss the boat,” Tartakoff said, his voice rising.
“Exactly,” Devereaux said.
“Messenger, you have no authority.”
Devereaux pressed the pistol muzzle against the hollow of Tartakoff’s cheek until it rested against his teeth, insulated by the Russian’s skin.
“You are a dead man, Russian. How did you get the pistol through Customs? Why did you need it here?”
“I smuggled—”
“You are a liar, Russian. You are a fucking dirty liar.” Each word dropped slowly, like stones in a still pond. “You lied from the first meeting.”
Tartakoff did not speak. His eyes stared wildly at the gray man in front of him.
“It was a trap, Russian.”
“I am a defector. How is this a trap?”
“You were a triple. One of them who would become one of us but still be one of them. A matter of disinformation to begin with; then, later, you would become a mole.”
“This is not true.”
“Russians play a clumsy game because there are always killings,” Devereaux said in the same slow voice. “Everyone who would interfere with me was taken care of. The messenger had to be protected, had to be left alone. Your people killed the prostitute because she had slept with me and with the British agent. You were afraid of her because you could not believe she was only a simple prostitute. But it was all she was. Your people killed the British agent in the sauna. When the cop, Kulak, came to arrest me because of your clumsy killings, he was called off. You people can do that in Finland, can’t you? You killed the priest in Ireland because he knew too much about Tomas Crohan; maybe he would contradict whatever your candidate for Tomas Crohan wants to say. Killing and killing and killing and all of it wrong, all of it clumsy, all of it making no sense. You probably killed the British agent Sparrow because he was the wrong man. Maybe you wanted to kill Ely. Nothing could interfere with me or with the trap or with getting Tomas Crohan out of your country. And now, this morning, a dirty little dago named Antonio was going to kill Rita Macklin in Stockmann’s because you were afraid that she was a spy, not a journalist, and that she would spring the trap the wrong way. You were afraid that we would eliminate Tomas Crohan before he said whatever he was supposed to say. That makes me angry because up to that moment, she was not involved in the game at all. She wasn’t an agent but you made her an agent and now she has to play like we play our games. Do you understand why you’re a dead man, Russian?”