by Bill Granger
“Get on the floor. On your belly,” Devereaux said and there was no change in the note in his voice.
“You cowardly bastard, you fucking coward. I would have given it to you in the belly at least. Face to face.”
“Get on the floor.”
“When I die, the stuff goes to Langley. Just like that. The stuff about November.”
“You know everything about November,” Devereaux said.
“Damn right.”
“Harry Francis is writing a book. He’s nearly finished. About Hemingway in Cuba and the way he was used by the CIA. It’s a good book; I’ve read parts of the manuscript. Langley is upset.”
“Damn right they’d be.”
“Langley thinks Harry lives here. On the island. That’s where the manuscript was mailed from. Yesterday. It’s in Miami by now and New York by the end of the week. With the colorful stamp of St. Michel on the envelope. And the postmark.”
“Damn it. Harry isn’t here.”
“Tell Langley that,” said Devereaux. “Get on the floor.”
“You bastard.” He was thinking very fast now. Devereaux was about six feet away from him. There was a trick that involved the feet—
“I wish you would,” Devereaux said. “I’d like to hurt you.”
“You are an impotent sadist.”
“And you’re dead,” said Devereaux. “I gave you the wrong notebook but there really was a notebook. I fixed you with Mr. Weisman. Anthony and I. He wants to kill you. Has he tried yet? I know he has. He’ll do anything to kill you. And until he stops trying, he’ll be safe. From prosecution, I mean, for his other crimes. And Anthony is safe now. And Rita.”
For the first time, the voice caught and Ready began to smile again.
“Rita wrote an article and it’s about Sister Mary Columbo and what happened in St. Michel and what you threatened her with. She has some courage. The Vatican has sent an inquiry officer to Miami to speak with Simon Bouvier. The funds—the funds for medicine, for building—are being held up. Everyone is asking questions now.”
“That’s temporary.”
“There’s always more. Celezon only needs time and he’s going to win. You gave Havana the wrong book and they bought it. CIA thinks you’re behind Harry’s novel. And you just don’t have any credibility any more. With anyone. So get down on the floor because I told you to do it.”
“Rita Macklin,” Ready said.
“Yes,” Devereaux said. “That’s what you have to pay for. If it wasn’t for that, I might not have to hurt you at all.”
He got down on the stone floor and put his hands behind his neck as Devereaux had demanded. He lay there a moment.
“You queer bastard. Are you going to fuck me?”
“I want to give you some advice. Because we were in the old business together. When you start running, you have to be very good or there’s no point in running at all. You have to be as good as I was. They might be just a step or two behind you and you won’t know it. You need luck. I had some luck. And if your luck runs out, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“I’m not running.”
“Yes. You have to. The Soviets especially, now that they know November is still alive.”
“I’m not November.”
“The name in the record never changes. The Soviets know our system. You’re November because our files say that you are November.”
“You’re crazy.”
“When you start running, you’ll have more problems than I did. There were just the Soviets when I was running. But there are other problems. You have Mr. Weisman. And CIA. Don’t forget Langley. You screwed them and they never forget. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a contract on you as well. Everyone is against you. Even the Cubans who really wanted to be your friends.”
“All I have to do—”
“Is tell them the truth?” The voice was harsher now. “You’re so wrapped in lies the truth couldn’t penetrate. The Soviets know about you already. There’s someone in St. Michel now from KGB. Did you know that?”
“You’re lying.”
“Perhaps,” said Devereaux.
“They were after you.”
“KGB doesn’t make mistakes.”
Devereaux stood behind Ready’s naked body stretched on the floor.
“There was an agent named November who had harmed KGB. He was involved in turning a Soviet agent named Denisov in Florida. That was you, wasn’t it, colonel? You were November then. You were always November. And when an R Section agent died in Zurich in a fire, the Section tried to make it seem as though he had been November so that the wet contract would be called off. I was asleep, Ready, and you woke me.”
“I—I was wrong, perhaps, there are ways to—”
“No. No ways anymore.”
“The papers on you. In my desk.”
“I know. I took them.”
“We’re even. Quits.”
Devereaux said nothing.
“Man, I’ve got money in banks and—”
“I know. You gave me some of it once. I was telling you about the man who was November. He really wasn’t dead. He was really Colonel Ready. So Colonel Ready went to London three weeks ago. He gave in his passport at customs. He was seen in all the right intelligence circles. A man with red hair and a scar and he used the account number of November to buy information from Economic Review. He was very bold and open. He left a trail from Switzerland to London to Miami and down to St. Michel. He used November’s American Express card, the one that was supposed to be inactive, the one that is billed to R Section. You can’t make it too easy for KGB, they’ll suspect a trap. But I think it was just hard enough. You wanted me to work for you in St. Michel because you wanted to use me for everything that went wrong. And it turned out it was the easiest and surest way to make November really dead. He became you.”
“This is madness, this—”
“Harry Francis has a notebook he gave to the Section. It was written in code by Ernest Hemingway. There’s no doubt about it. It was all about the CIA and how it double-crossed its own government to get Castro and how CIA was going to try again on St. Michel, a dress rehearsal for another Cuban invasion. It involved a man named November who took Cuban money and arms and then double-crossed the Cubans with a phony book and double-crossed CIA and double-crossed the crime syndicate, a man who could not be trusted, a man on everyone’s death list. That is who November is now. You are November.”
“You can’t get away with it because you can’t kill me, it would be too easy to kill November again, nobody would believe this twice—”
“Unless they had the body. Unless they had the bona fides, you might say,” Devereaux said. “Harry is writing fiction under an assumed name. They are true novels. They really happened but, of course, they’re only fiction. CIA knows that Harry was working for you. You were R Section all the time, a mole inside our sister service. November was a very clever agent, don’t you think?”
“I can give you a million Swiss francs.”
“No. It’s not enough.” He paused and listened to the echo of his words and heard Rita’s voice. It was not enough to kill him.
“Devereaux. I know why you want to do this. I didn’t do it. I didn’t rape her, no matter what she said, she went crazy, there was a soldier, he raped her in the cells, I came in, I had him shot, I can show you the grave, you have to listen to me.”
Devereaux took out the knife that Flaubert had given him. It was sharp and curved and the blade was so thin that it would be dulled after one use.
Devereaux knelt on one knee between Ready’s naked legs and pressed the pistol between Ready’s cheeks until the mouth of the barrel rested on his anus.
“Jesus,” said Ready.
“Don’t move.”
Ready felt the weight of the pistol against him.
“A man should leave footprints. I left your footprints in Europe. Through London, through Miami. It was a little but not enough. You have to leave footpr
ints now.”
“What do you mean?”
“For the hunters who will follow the trail.”
And he cut across the Achilles tendon that was stretched behind Ready’s right ankle. He cut very hard and very deep. The tendon fought the blade for a moment and then it was through and Devereaux’s knuckles were white with the strain of cutting through flesh and sinew.
For a moment, Ready only felt the pistol and then it was withdrawn and he wondered what had happened.
And then he screamed.
He screamed and crawled across the floor and the blood oozed from his ankle and trailed behind him. He pulled himself to where Devereaux had stood. But he was gone.
Harry and Devereaux were down in the hillside already, screened by the woods behind the house, and they were running and they could hear the screams following them.
41
WAYS OF ESCAPE
Harry Francis had waited in the darkness. He had killed the Cuban emissary. He had cut his head off, and had put it on the gate of the Palais Gris and then gone to the caretaker’s house where Devereaux had been waiting for Colonel Ready.
There was no escape for Colonel Ready. It was what everything had been about, the preparations, the meeting with Hanley. The publisher told the agent he thought the book about Hemingway might do well; it didn’t matter to Harry. He had written the truth for a change and it had freed him and he did not care.
The black boat waited a half mile off the shore. Their motorized dinghy was a hundred yards offshore, in three feet of water. They ran down to the beach and crossed it to the water.
Devereaux stopped and turned and looked at the boy standing by the Café de la Paix.
Philippe stared at him a moment and then began to run. He ran across the midnight road to the beach and stopped a little apart from him.
Harry was in the water. Harry turned and scowled. His trousers were bloody.
“Come on,” he said.
“Your father,” Devereaux said in careful French.
“He is disappeared. He is dead. All of them disappeared.”
“Your mother then.”
“None. It’s all right then?”
“Yes,” Devereaux said.
“Jesus Christ, stay there, Philippe,” Harry shouted to the child. “Jesus, we can’t take him. What about Flaubert?”
Devereaux said, “Come on.”
The boy and the man ran into the shallow water and the boy cut his feet on a piece of coral but did not feel the cut.
They waded out to the dinghy and Harry shouted in a hoarse voice, “He’s lying, he’s got people here, he just wants to get away from St. Michel.”
“Like you, Harry,” said Devereaux.
“Damn it, what are you gonna do with a half-black orphan with blue eyes?”
“He loved you, Harry,” Devereaux said. “He wanted to protect you. He worried about you when they took you to jail.”
“I don’t mean that,” Harry said. He looked at the boy and the boy stared at him as though he understood all the English words. “You can’t save the world. Give him some money and tell him to go back.”
“Shut up, Harry,” Devereaux said. He lifted Philippe up into the dinghy and he climbed in and Harry started the motor and the dinghy bucked in the shallow waters toward the Compass Rose. There were no storms this evening. The sky was clear. The moon was full and the island of St. Michel looked quite lovely from the water, the way such islands always appear in the expensive brochures given to people who wish to vacation in a warm climate in the middle of a warm sea.
42
THE LAST OF NOVEMBER
“This is a very colorful family,” Rita Macklin said.
Devereaux smiled. They were on the ferry from Evian to Ouchy across Lac Leman which is also called Lake Geneva. They were on the ferry because it was Sunday and Philippe did not attend private school. It was cold but the ferry to Evian ran across the lake all winter. They had gone to Evian to eat and to look in the shops.
Philippe, who wished to be a sailor, stood on the open deck in his pea coat with his face square to the cold, wet wind. His blue eyes were full of tears because of the wind. He looked very exotic with his dark face and blue eyes and the burghers of Lausanne would stop and examine this strange famille as they walked through the narrow streets near the cathedral: a man with weathered face and gray hair and a woman with green eyes and red hair and a smile and a strange black child with skin like burnished wood.
KGB had let out the wet contract again. On November. On the man who was November, who always had been November. Two Turkish killers, hired by the Bulgarian Secret Police, were in Western Europe now, on the trail of November, a man with red hair and a white scar on his face. A man who walked with a cane and a limp, very stiffly and very painfully.
He will leave footprints now.
Anthony Calabrese, who testified wearing a hood as a government agent and informer against Theodore Weisman, was pleased with his new appearance, though he thought he still looked too Sicilian and not Swedish enough.
Sister Mary Columbo had left the order and she was back in St. Michel now, in the hills, a nurse among poor people and she wondered if she was doing any good at all. She had all her doubts and all her prayers and she had taken both burdens with her.
The hell of St. Michel remained.
Celezon had entered the capital after a fierce battle. He had killed many of his enemies, in battle and in execution after. He and Yvette Pascon ruled, there was no doubt of that, and no doubt that the new and ruthless regime would be as bad as all the other regimes had been. Claude-Eduard was executed. A number of soldiers were marched into the square in front of the cathedral and a large crowd gathered to watch the gendarmes noirs kill them, five at a time.
There was a promise of aid from Cuba as well as from the U.S. Department of State.
When they made love now, it was different than it had been before, because the rape had changed everything. But it was still all right between them. Perhaps it was better than it had been before. She had no reserve from him now and he had none from her. They had been together in this thing and they shared more than secrets now or their bodies or their words for each other. She never bought him a ring again and he never gave her a ring. They didn’t want to have anything that would remind the other of loss. A ring is only a reminder of everything that can be lost.
Rita stepped from the ferry at Ouchy and the boy came after with Devereaux. They showed their American passports and the man at the control, who knew them, nodded and smiled and said the boy looked more and more like a sailor. It was patronizing in the way of old men speaking of young boys and it was meant kindly.
They passed through the controls and into the building and out of it again onto the dock.
Rita stood still and when Devereaux came next to her, they saw him.
“Did you think this would happen?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me.”
“It was the last way of escape. I closed it the night I talked to Hanley. Governments can do things. He talked to the Swiss and they froze the accounts. The money will be recovered for the Section in time. In any case, there’s no money left for him.”
Behind them, on the smoking waters of the long cold lake, the ferry signaled once in the clear, November air. The horn blast was loud and bleak and long. The ferry began to churn the waters again and pull away from the dock.
“You made him come to us.”
“Yes.”
“You hate him more than I did.”
“Yes.”
She stared at the gray face, at the patient, waiting eyes. “I’ll take Philippe,” she said.
“Yes. Take the metro. I’ll be along in a little while, back at the apartment.”
“Sir—”
“Take Rita to the metro, Philippe. Go ahead. He doesn’t mean anything anymore. He won’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“Kill him,” said Philippe.
Deve
reaux looked at him. “No. There’s no one left to kill.”
“He killed my father,” said Philippe.
“He’s nothing, Philippe. Only a ghost. In a little while, even the ghost will be gone.”
And Philippe and Rita walked across the plaza to the park where the grass was frozen and brown. They hurried past the castle and past the Italian restaurant next to the metro entrance. They paid inside the entrance and took the funicular, which rises five stations to the place on the Avenue de la Gare where there is an American hamburger stand. Where Colonel Ready had waited for Devereaux nearly three months before.
Devereaux stared at the ghost before him.
Colonel Ready limped across the square in front of the château. He looked very pale and his red hair was streaked with gray now. There were wrinkles of pain at the corners of his cold blue eyes and they were deepened with each step he took. He did not smile; he never smiled now; there was too much pain.
He removed the Credit Suisse passbook from his pocket and waved it.
“All the money. I can’t get my money.”
“Yes.”
“You robbed me.”
“It’s all there, Ready. You just can’t get it.”
“How could you do all this?”
“I had the time to think about it.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“I’m going to kill you then and kill your whore and the nigger kid.”
“No,” said Devereaux. “The Swiss would put you in one of their prisons. They are tolerant but very tough and they would put you in prison for the rest of your life. A kid in Zurich, I think it was, he got two years in prison for spraying graffiti on buildings. The prisons aren’t very pleasant.”
“I could kill you. I can run.”
“You are running, November,” said Devereaux. “There are two Turks right now who have been hanging around the café over there for a week. You were seen in Geneva. They thought you might be coming up here. They were probably told about a man with a white scar and red hair who tried to take money out of an account in the Credit Suisse.”