by Bill Granger
Devereaux sighed and glanced at the book and then slipped it into the waterproof bag and zipped it and stood up slowly. He was in his middle forties. His body had a tautness that was earned, not expected as it was in youth. His belly had two scars and there were peculiar soft scars like belly buttons tucked into the soft flesh beneath his rib cage. That was when he had been shot once by someone behind him whom he had trusted. The last agent he had trusted for either side. There was the faint trace of a scar across his neck, from the time in Belfast when he had been garroted. He had too many scars, Rita once said. He had agreed.
“Ready and you. I don’t know which one I hated more. Then.”
“It wasn’t me,” Devereaux said.
“You can say it now. But I never knew. None of you tells the truth.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Devereaux said just as quietly as Cain.
“You’re not working for Section, are you?”
“No.”
“And Ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to finish a job. I want to get away,” Devereaux said.
“From who?”
“Ready. Or the Section. Or Langley. Or all of them.”
“You quit, huh?” In that sun-black face was the trace of a smile. “Just the way I was let to quit.”
“You weren’t part of us,” Devereaux said. “We used you. We had leverage.”
“You had Susan Minh,” Cain said. “And the boy. You got them out. You did that. I agreed to the rest because you did that.”
“You were just a soldier. It wasn’t your game. I followed the case. After. I was sorry about Susan and Thau.”
The names seemed to break Cain apart. He shuddered and turned and jumped from the cockpit to the open deck. Devereaux had expected it. He turned into the big man and reached for the soft parts of skin beneath the armpits and let the big man hit him as he threw him toward the rail. Cain hit the rail with his belly and made a sound. And Devereaux pushed him into the water.
The Compass Rose, freed from a hand on the wheel, yawned toward the port side, the mast dipping and pointing at the sun like a rifle barrel.
Cain came out of the green clear water and pounded the water with his open hands.
Devereaux turned the wheel in the cockpit and spun it against the port dip and the Compass Rose forgave the men on her and righted herself.
Cain could not pull himself out of the water.
Devereaux lashed the wheel and threw out a lifeline. He dragged Cain aboard.
They did not speak for a moment. Cain sat on the deck in a puddle of water, gasping for breath.
He looked up at Devereaux. “You had to pull me out. You couldn’t handle the Compass Rose yourself.”
“I don’t know that.”
“You’re not a sailor.”
“And you’re not one of us,” Devereaux said carefully.
“I betrayed her. And her family. That’s why she killed herself.”
“Yes. Perhaps.”
“I wanted to have her too bad. I squeezed her like you squeeze a bird and you kill it in the palm of your hand.”
“Yes.” Devereaux thought of himself. Was his palm open or closed? Who would die if he made a fist?
“All right. I made my own choice.” Softly, words often spoken to himself. “All right.”
“I need to go to Madeleine.”
“I won’t help you,” Cain said.
“For money,” Devereaux said.
“To hell with you. I just wanted to get both of you and kill you—”
“There is a woman,” Devereaux said. “Her name is Rita Macklin. On the island.”
Cain breathed harshly and watched Devereaux.
“Who is she?”
“Mine.”
Cain’s eyes opened wide.
“Yours? A woman? And Colonel Ready has her.” Cain smiled. “Thieves fall out. You bastards deserve each other.”
“You’re a fool, Cain,” Devereaux said. His voice was weary, flat, edged with anger. “Self-pitying fool. The Minhs were traitors. For you and for the woman and the boy, we got you to do what you should have done. Your sense of personal ethics only bothered you when Susan wouldn’t let you win. I’m tired of you. Pull by the island and I’ll take the lifeboat and you can go back to Florida. Go run dope or whatever your conscience allows you.”
“You won’t get off the island,” Cain said in a distant voice. “Not if Colonel Ready doesn’t want you to leave. Not if you don’t have the Compass Rose.”
“Then I’ll die there,” Devereaux said.
“It’s that easy.”
“Easier than trying to deal with people like you,” Devereaux said.
“What am I that’s so bad?”
“A burned-out case. I don’t have any use for you.”
“What about this woman?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“What will Colonel Ready do to her?”
“Nothing. I think.” He stared through Cain. “I think he won’t do anything once he finds out what he wants to know. Once he has me.”
“You walk into it.”
Devereaux felt chilled in the bright hot sunlight of the open deck. The black boat turned slowly into the wind, the wheel straining against the lashing.
“It was a private matter,” Devereaux said. “I was out of the old business.”
“And now you’re in.”
“Ready came for me. I thought I didn’t have a choice. I let her be hostage to give me time. I rationalized everything.”
What was he saying? But he was not talking to Cain. He did not see Cain at all. He stared straight into him and through him. A moment before, when he saw Cain, he realized everything.
“I was willing to risk her. I wanted her bad enough for that,” Devereaux said. “And now I see you, twelve years later. And I see me.”
Cain stood up and walked past Devereaux to the wheel. He untangled the crude lash and pushed the Compass Rose into the wind again and began to make for Madeleine.
Neither man said a word. Devereaux went below and hauled up a seabag after a few minutes. He wore jeans and a light blue work shirt. His hair was still dyed red but the other pieces of disguise, including the white scar, were gone. He put the waterproof bag with the notebook into the seabag and went to the rail and watched the approach of land. Once, Cain tried to speak but Devereaux did not look at him. Cain’s eyes were empty now, as they had been on land, as they had not been at sea until this moment.
Devereaux lowered his bag and his body into the dirty white dinghy and Cain released the lines and Devereaux’s oars bit into the waters on the empty windward side of the island toward the rocks and the ground that fell steeply into the water at shore. Madeleine was around the bend of the hill. Here all was peace, pine trees, emptiness, sea and land and the murmuring crash of waves.
“Devereaux,” Cain said. It was the first time he had spoken his name. But Devereaux was working the dinghy hard. Perhaps he was too far away to hear him.
“The hell with both of them,” Cain said. He lowered the sail furiously and he started the engines and the black bulk of the Compass Rose turned and began running to the north and west, away from the island.
13
HARRY’S TROUBLE
Celezon gave the orders without shouting, with the skill and calm of a surgeon preparing for a routine operation.
They followed the orders just as calmly.
They took Harry Francis out of the drunk cell in the basement of the palace in the morning. He smelled very bad. He had slept on the cement floor in his filthy clothes.
They put Harry in another cell with tile walls and a tile floor and two drains. They left the door open and Harry huddled in the far corner and tried not to look at the open door. When they came back, they sprayed him with a fire hose until he nearly drowned. The water hit him like a continuous clubbing. The water bruised his skin and when he tried to breathe, he breath
ed water. He fell again and again and banged his head on the wall. He was bleeding and gasping for breath. He could hear them laughing at the door as they sprayed him with water. When they were finished, they told him to remove all his clothes.
He sat on the floor of the tile room exhausted and shivering. He was there for a long time.
When they came back, they brought a wooden chair into the tile room. They put it in the middle of the floor. One of them tied him with wire to the chair. Harry said he was cold and they smiled at him.
One of them tied a positive wire to his left testicle. He felt the thin strand of wire wrap around the sac and felt sick to his stomach. One of them slapped his penis and said something that made the other one laugh. The second man seemed nervous and he tied the negative ground too tightly to Harry’s right testicle.
The two wires were connected to a device like a hand crank with a flywheel and copper points. First one and then the other turned the crank, faster and faster, trying to outdo each other.
When the crank was turned, there was an electrical charge that burned Harry Francis’s testicles and seemed to explode his stomach.
He was knocked over, still tied to the chair. He passed out with a scream.
One of the two men frowned then. He went over to Harry’s naked body and held his ear against the chest of the prisoner. He heard Harry’s heart fluttering beneath the chest wall.
“He’s all right.”
“We went too fast.”
“Celezon told us to use the hand machine, the battery machine was too powerful.”
“This is too powerful as well. He can’t feel anything if he’s unconscious.”
“What a heavy pig. Help me lift the chair upright again.”
“The trouble is, it’s different for each one, depending on how strong they are.”
“Yes, but I think we turned it up too much.”
“My arm is tired.”
“I could do this all day.”
“Remember the skinny one last week. He looked like he couldn’t take it very much.”
“Yes. But he was a man after all. He had courage. Macho. Such little balls he had.”
“He never betrayed his comrades.”
“He was brave, all right.”
“The women.”
“That’s different, all right.”
“Sometimes they’re stronger than you think.”
“This man smells so bad. He never bathes.”
“Sometimes the women are stronger than the men.”
“Well, Celezon didn’t say how many times to do it.”
“I was just getting started.”
“Maybe we ought to leave him a while, until he gets awake again before we do it.”
“Yes, I suppose. But I was just getting started.”
“Still, we aren’t supposed to kill him.”
“No.”
And they left Harry alone for a while.
“How are you, Harry?”
“You know how the fuck I am. My balls hurt. Those bastards fried me. I swear to God they were going to kill me, I didn’t think you wanted to kill me.”
“I didn’t order that. Believe me. I’ve had business with the ceremonies. Our independence celebration, Harry. You missed it.”
Harry said nothing.
Colonel Ready put a package of Lucky Strikes on the table. “Go ahead, Harry,” he said.
Harry was still naked but he was dry.
He reached for the cigarettes and his hand trembled.
“I told Celezon he was a baboon. He is a baboon. I put the two men who did it in the hills. Let them eat grasshoppers for a couple of weeks.”
“I wish you had just killed them.”
“Harry, violence begets violence. I need discipline. You can’t run an army without discipline.”
Harry inhaled. The smoke hurt. His hands shook. His head hurt. He was cut and bruised. And his testicles were bloated and angry red and they burned all the time.
“Harry, we didn’t bring you here for violating the statute on public drunkenness. That’s why Celezon got carried away, I think. I say that in defense of him.”
“I’m glad it was something serious, seeing my balls were practically burned off by those spooks.”
“Harry, you take yourself too seriously.” The cold eyes narrowed, the scar was bright against the dark face. “You’re here in St. Michel on tolerance. I wouldn’t show such animosity to the authorities.”
Harry took another drag. He coughed. He was so tired.
Colonel Ready took his time. He was careful; he always finished one task before starting another. The nuns had been found outside Madeleine that morning. The journalists were on their way to the story. The president was annoyed. Ready was furious but it did not show in his face. The nuns were not supposed to have been killed. If they were all killed, there would be no one left to tell the story. There was no discipline in the country.
But he took time now to speak to Harry with patient tones.
“What do you want?”
“What did you tell Cohn?”
“I didn’t kill him. They said he was killed, I didn’t kill him—”
“You didn’t?” But it was not really a question. Colonel Ready stared with perfect calmness at the naked man. He let time pass.
“Did you tell Cohn about the notebook?”
“I didn’t, I—”
“Harry.” Gently. “Harry, we listened to his code transmissions back to Washington. We know you told him.”
Another time was allowed to pass.
“Yes,” Harry Francis said.
“Good, Harry. I wanted you to tell him about the notebook. But did you tell him what was in it?”
“No.”
“Good, Harry. That’s good.”
“I threatened him with it.”
“Good, Harry.” Almost a lullaby.
And another time passed. The room was silent. The tomb of the jail was damp and still.
“What do you want from me?”
“I already have what I want from you, Harry. Except for the notebook itself. When are you going to give me the notebook?”
“And when I give it to you, you’ll kill me.”
“Yes. Our little impasse. It never changes, does it, Harry?”
He was so tired. His beard was soiled. His belly was folded with fat.
“I want you and I want the notebook. But if I have the notebook, I probably don’t need you. And if I let you go, nobody needs you, so you choose your voluntary exile on beautiful St. Michel. You choose me over death and I choose you because I must. It’s so neat, so well balanced, isn’t it, Harry?”
“And there might not be a notebook at all,” Harry Francis said, and there was a sudden bitter smile that broke his face.
“Yes. That’s a possibility as well. Celezon searched your place again. While you were our guest.”
“And didn’t find it.”
“I don’t think Celezon believes it exists.”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know, Harry. I really don’t know. But I have to keep protecting you.”
“If your goons had protected me any more, I’d be singing soprano in the Vienna Boys Choir.”
“Yes. But if I torture you enough, I get the notebook.”
“Or you kill me.”
“And there’s no notebook and no Harry. I like for there to be one or the other.”
“Or both,” Harry Francis said.
For minutes, they sat in silence again. The problem between them was almost an agreement. Ready was patient. Celezon would have become angry at Harry and killed him accidentally. Or on purpose. Ready didn’t permit anger in himself.
“Perhaps, in a little while, I won’t need you, Harry,” Colonel Ready said.
“We all get used up. I’m fifty-nine. Hemingway was sixty-one when the end came. I have two more years.”
Ready said, “Not that long, Harry.”
And Harry Francis shivered because it wa
s cold in the cells.
“Things are happening, Harry. Don’t you feel them happening?”
“It’s cold in the cells.”
“Put your clothes on, Harry. I don’t want you to catch cold.”
“Until you don’t need me anymore,” Harry said.
But Ready did not speak.
Harry understood completely.
14
FROM HELL’S KITCHEN
Mary Columbo opened her eyes.
The pain was on her and inside her. But she had fallen in and out of consciousness so often that the pain was expected. It did not seem as intense. Perhaps they had given her some of the drugs they had stolen.
They had removed one bullet but the second was near her spine.
She remembered that and tried to move her toes. She could feel them moving. But the pain was all around her.
“If we remove the bullet, it may kill her; if we don’t, then she might be paralyzed.”
The voice, in the rough French patois of the country, had come from above her and behind her the last time she had been conscious. She had wanted to speak and tell them that she did not want to be paralyzed.
Another voice: “Don’t kill her. Even if she’s paralyzed, she’s more useful alive.”
She blinked and saw she was in a tent now.
I’m all right, she told herself. She told Sister Agnes. But Sister Agnes was dead.
She would not be afraid.
For Thou art with me. Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
She dreamed of helicopters clattering down out of the sky, the wounded strapped to the sides of the copters, the wounded on buses. The wounded had torn bodies, the wounded were always asking her if they would die. Sometimes they asked without speaking. No, she said, and didn’t know.
Will I die, nurse?
Yes. But don’t be afraid to die. Fear no evil. God is with you. He comforts you.
It didn’t play, Charlie. Nobody wanted to die. It didn’t play in Peoria, sis.
They wanted to live and listen to Janis Joplin on the Sony box bought at the PX and wanted grass to ease the pain after the lingering, humid, terrifying afternoon. They wanted music to drive the sounds of death out of their heads. They wanted a fox from Saigon in her little itty-bitty to sit on their laps in the stench of a Saigon bar and open those thin thighs again, smelling Brother Jack Daniel’s and Brother Johnnie Walker and they didn’t want to cunt telling them they were going to buy a bag and take the big trip home. Man. Nobody wanted to die.