“I know why you hesitate. Because of that cipher clerk.” Tartakoff smiled. “I knew about that.”
“Then you know why we must be cautious.”
“I will go to the British—”
“You will not go to the British,” Devereaux said calmly.
“Why not, Messenger?”
“Because British Intelligence is a sieve. You’d be killed in London before a week was out.”
Tartakoff’s face turned an ugly shade of red. He bunched his bare fists but made no other move.
“Yes, Messenger. That is right. That is what would happen to me.”
The two men were silent.
“Every time I make contact, I am at risk.”
“I have no instructions.”
“But what must I do to make them decide?”
“I don’t know,” Devereaux said.
“Messenger. Yes. That is what you are.”
Devereaux stared at him without emotion, as though he waited for the Russian to understand, to see that nothing would be done at all.
“I am in danger all the time,” Tartakoff said. A slight note of pleading entered his voice.
Devereaux waited. Tartakoff was not stupid but he refused to understand. Hanley by silence had decided. It was a matter of breaking off the matter.
“What do you want from me?”
“Tartakoff,” Devereaux began. “Don’t you see?”
“Yes, Messenger. But I cannot accept—” For a moment, Tartakoff seemed unable to speak. “If you do not trust me, say that.”
But he did not speak.
“What must I do? What must I give you?”
Devereaux turned away and stared at the bare walls behind him. The tiles were fastened to the rocks in the cold earth that bound the city. It was ugly and too bright in the tunnel and yet the light gave succor that the sun refused to give.
“Messenger.”
Devereaux turned. His gray eyes fixed the Russian coldly. Nothing could be done; he felt no pity for the Russian, no pity for himself. They were both dangling and now it was time to cut both of them down.
“Tomas Crohan.”
Devereaux was very still. The name did not mean anything to him but it was so odd to hear the Russian state the Irish name that it frightened him in that second.
Tartakoff had decided something. His eyes were set and hard. “He is in Leningrad. Under my jurisdiction. You tell them that. You tell those people who will not answer me. Tell them that I have Tomas Crohan.”
“Who is he?”
“You do not know? You thought he was dead, all of you. Officially dead. Yes, you would like this fellow to come out. Yes. But you must take Tartakoff as well. And then I will bring you Tomas Crohan.”
Tartakoff touched Devereaux on the sleeve and his hand was heavy. “You tell them, Messenger.” He said the last word with contempt. “Tell them that I can give them a dowry after all. Tell them that Tomas Crohan is alive and I will give him and that is the bargain that we will have between us.”
“Why will we want him?”
“Not you, Messenger. You are not important to this. But they will want him very much. I must have contact made on Monday and you must accept. I cannot come again to Helsinki; it is too many times.” He still held Devereaux’s arm in a tight grip.
“Who is Tomas Crohan?”
Tartakoff laughed then and dropped his hand.
Devereaux waited.
“A man,” Tartakoff said. “A prisoner for a long time.” He was smiling. “Come back from the dead.”
2
“Enter.” The voice was clear and sure of itself. Mowbrey pushed the door open timidly. He had never been in Wickham’s office. He didn’t know anyone who had.
Wickham looked up from his Queen Anne desk at the far end of the large room with the expression of a good-natured man interrupted at his labors. In fact, he was neither good-natured nor one who worked excessively.
“Yes, Mowbrey?”
“Mr. Wickham. I thought it best to come to see you on this matter—”
“Matter?”
“Some of the special monitoring we’ve been doing…” Mowbrey mumbled.
The good nature on the broad, ruddy face faded. “Are you on special monitor? I don’t recall your name sent in for positive vetting.”
“Yes, sir. Since first of the year.” Mowbrey had a thin, uncolored face of high cheekbones and a nose that took a slight twist as it descended his face.
“Well.” Wickham pushed his papers aside as though clearing his desk for whatever matter Mowbrey was to bring him. In fact, like all of his gestures, it concealed another careful fraud. Wickham was a shrewd, arrogant, and lazy man whose rise inside Auntie had been less a tribute to his talents than to his name. He was the second son of the ninth Earl of Bellefair.
“Sir. We’ve been working a cross-monitor. You know. Taking some routine Russian radio traffic and comparing it on the computer with routine American traffic—”
“That is not to be spoken of. Not even in this room,” Wickham warned.
“Sir.” Mowbrey stood his ground though he felt terrified in the presence of the other man. He vaguely noticed that there was a print by Monet on a far wall in lieu of a window. A window would not have been practical in any case because all the rooms at this level were twenty-seven feet below the surface of the green, pleasant pastureland above. Cows grazed still in this suburb of Cheltenham. Below them lay the home of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s second most sophisticated listening post and computer espionage center.
“Sir,” Mowbrey began again. “This is the first time that we’ve had any sort of a connector. Single name in this case.”
“All right, Mowbrey; what are you talking about?”
The question was delivered a little shortly, but that also masked the fact that Wickham, in all likelihood, did not have much of an idea of what Special Section was actually trying to do. It had been set up in a hurry after the latest spy scandal involving the Cheltenham post, the one that had not been publicized in the news media for the simple reason that the double agent had escaped back to the Soviet Union before British Intelligence could catch up with him.
Wickham was in nominal charge of the section, and that was why Mowbrey had thought to go to him with his information. Mowbrey was as ambitious as Wickham was arrogant.
“Sir. Yankee signal from Delta Z—”
“Mowbrey, God gave us the English language to make matters clear, not to obscure the mundane.”
“I’m sorry. The Americans received a signal from their special posting in Stockholm yesterday inquiring on a name. Tomas Crohan.”
“So?”
“Struck me funny, sir, at first when we picked up the American signal. Just buzzing around these last weeks, making certain the apparatus was functioning—”
“Yes, yes.”
“Tomas Crohan. Name struck me because it was so odd. Spelling and all. Mick name in Stockholm? It didn’t seem right. So I bought five minutes in Seeker and—”
“Seeker?”
“Ministry record computer, sir. New nomenclature came down at Christmas, sir, you must have the memorandum—” It was beginning to dawn on Mowbrey that Wickham was a fatuous incompetent.
“Yes, I did. Damned names keep changing. All this razzle to impress the Americans that we’re quite certain we know what we’re doing. Not certain it works at all.”
“Sir, Seeker sent me a query in return. The name was under wraps and Seeker wanted my identity and all, very hush-hush. I was bowled over. Tomas Crohan was in an old file but it was still protected under War Secrets Act, even for me. I’ve got a thirteen-grade classification.…”
“When was your last vetting?”
“Six months ago, sir, when I applied for transfer here. They were cautious, I can tell you, especially after the Prine matter and all the other—”