“What about this Crohan?”
“He’s safe.”
“But where is he?”
“I suppose he must be arriving in Dublin at the moment,” Devereaux said. “With Rita Macklin.”
“My God, you’ve lost your senses.”
“He’s safe.”
“Safe? You keep saying that, but safe from what?”
“From you, for one thing. Or the people at Langley. Or the Russians. I suppose by now that Tartakoff has told you that Crohan is really Michael Brent — well, don’t worry about that. We are in the process of revising history again. It’ll work out, Hanley; I don’t know why you’re upset or the New Man — you’ve got a nice little defector in your hands.”
“And a nice little British agent who can’t go home again.”
Devereaux’s voice carried the trace of a smile behind it: “We have a large country, Hanley. Be a generous man. One more spy in California retirement won’t break the bank for us.”
Hanley’s voice was full of controlled fury, as though the outlet of mere words was not enough to convey his feeling: “You have blackmailed me with this matter, November; you have blackmailed the Section with the presence of this Macklin woman. The Section is not going to be held hostage to you. You are a goddamn agent in the field and we are the government of the United States—”
“Fuck you, Hanley, and listen to me: You called all this on yourself and the Section. If you wanted me out of Helsinki, I was willing to go weeks ago but you were playing a fishing game and I was bait; you wanted to see what the Russians were up to. Well, when the trap was sprung, I wasn’t in it, and now we’ve turned it on the Russians and you can’t stand success.”
“But we have the problem of George,” Hanley insisted.
“Is he our problem? Or a problem for the British?”
“Both. What can we tell the Brits? We need Cheltenham, believe me, and the only way to have that listening post is with British cooperation. If we have another spy scandal now, it will kill us. Especially when the scandal breaks from our side of the water; it’s bad enough when the Brits find their traitors by themselves. Besides, we only have the word of a defector to go on. Trapping George will take time — months, years. And what if George chooses not to fall into the traps? This is a delicate matter.”
“Is it? I don’t understand politics,” Devereaux said. “You’re going to do what you have to do—”
“No, not this time. This time you’re going to have to help us out, I’m afraid—”
“Doing what?”
There was a pause. Hanley began chewing the nail of his left thumb. He would have to make the pitch effectively; thank God he wasn’t facing November in person.
“I can clear everything for you… even for the woman… make certain that neither of you are chased by our people after your early retirement from the Section.…” Hanley paused.
Devereaux did not speak and for a moment, the line was silent. Then Hanley resumed: “We need to take care of George in some way.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Not me, November; it will be up to you.”
“I’m not a hitter. You have hitters in the Section.”
“No, you’re not a hitter but you’re about to become one.”
“I won’t kill someone for you, Hanley.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to. You want out of the Section, you want protection for you girlfriend, I’m afraid you’ll have to see this matter my way.”
“Why can’t you use a hitter?”
“November, this is not a usual target, is it?” Hanley’s voice was cold now, as cold as Devereaux’s, two ice storms meeting on a dull, starless night in a frozen land far from any comfort or warmth. Hanley closed his eyes and Washington was gone from sight and he might be existing on a dead planet now, talking across the darkness to the only other survivor of the end of the world.
“We don’t have any proofs on George but we are suspicious enough to want him out of the way. I talked to the New Man last night; this is the only way out of it. We can’t go to the National Security Adviser to get positive approval and initials for action; nobody would agree to it. But we can’t have George doing his dirty work—”
“If George is a mole,” Devereaux said.
“There is every probability that he is,” Hanley said. “We have questioned the Russian as well as Ely; this Macklin woman walked into a nasty nest of spies, didn’t she? No wonder you’re concerned for her safety. I would think her life might be in great danger.”
Devereaux accepted the threat in Hanley’s cold terms; there was nothing to say to him. He waited.
“November, you are the man for the job quite simply because you are involved in the matter up to your ears. We don’t need to pull in a hitter and explain to him why he has to kill a high-ranking member of British Intelligence; you know the reason already. You have foxed us on the old man but you are now in a box of your own making. You want to come home again to Uncle with your girlfriend and you want Uncle not to take unkindly anything that you have done; well, Uncle is quite willing to forgive and forget, but you are going to have to do Uncle a favor.”
“And if I hit him, you have something on me,” Devereaux said. “You have something to keep me in line five or ten years from now. You see why I won’t do it? I won’t be able to walk away from you.”
“You’ve killed men.”
“Yes but not a hit. The killings were line of duty.” The killings were for survival, Devereaux thought.
“This is line of duty because it is an order—”
“Don’t be stupid, Hanley. There are not orders to kill; it is against the charter of the Section just as it is against the charters of all the intelligence organizations. You will merely tell me to kill someone and if it is convenient to you, you will remember to bring it up the next time you want to use me. It’s not going to happen, Hanley.”
“You killed that banker in New York three years ago in the Tunney matter.”
“If you thought that, you would have to prove it.”
“All right. You want something from us and you won’t give us anything in return.”
“We’ll go back to the status quo,” Devereaux said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Hanley smiled. It was exactly what he wanted. He had played the card neatly and it had worked; he had never expected the death of George in the first place, certainly not from Devereaux. “Fine, fine. You see, you couldn’t leave us until we wanted to let you go.”
There was a dull pause now and when Devereaux spoke again, there was a hollow weariness in his voice. “What about Rita?”
“I’m sure she’ll be all right. I can’t speak for the Russians but I can assure you we have no further interest in her.” Hanley was suddenly pleased. “When you get back, we can arrange a leave for you so that you can… ‘date’ her or however you would say it.”
“You’re scum, Hanley.”
Hanley’s face went white. “And you are a goddamn agent, November, not God. You are going to have to follow orders like everyone else; you are going to march when we say march and dangle when we want you to dangle. And when you’re used up and we don’t need you anymore, we’ll get rid of you.”
“And you’d let me go if I took care of George,” Devereaux said.
“That’s the only way, I’m afraid. You would have something on us and we would have something on you.”
Again, there was silence on the line.
“But I have Tomas Crohan.”
“An embarrassment, as you pointed out, but we can survive it. It all happened a long time ago.…”
“You weren’t so sanguine about it before.”