The November Man

by Bill Granger

  “Then I’d be stealing from you.”

  “Do you have scruples about that?”

  “No. Do what you gotta do, you know? Been driving that old sucker all winter, though. Got me through. Have some affection for it.”

  “Are both of you crazy?” Margot was in the car now.

  “Tell you what,” Devereaux said. “I’ll give you a hundred for it and I’ll return it later. Just renting it.”

  “Ain’t worth a hundred. Why don’t you go to Avis?”

  “What do you say?”

  “Sure. That’s what I say. Just give me a lift, will you? You going into the District? Drop me off down by the Huddle House over the line, will you?”

  The Rambler coughed across the District line on Wisconsin Avenue shortly after two in the afternoon. The kid’s name was Dave Mason and he told Devereaux to watch for the cop who always waited behind the supermarket on the south side of the line for speeders who wanted to push over the twenty-five-mile-an-hour limit.

  Devereaux eased it down and was passed by a BMW. A better prospect. The D.C. police car shot out into Wisconsin Avenue with Mars lights flashing. They passed the BMW pulled over to the side of the road two blocks later.

  “You got some idea where you’re going?” Dave said. It was just a friendly voice. He smiled at Margot in the back seat.

  “Some,” Devereaux said.

  “Ain’t nothing to me, man. But I would like to get the car back.”

  “You’ll get it back or I’ll have one built just like it.”

  “Rust and all,” said Dave. He smiled. He popped a beer out of the sack. “You want a beer, lady?”

  “No,” Margot Kieker said. None of this was real. It wasn’t happening.

  “You drop me off up ahead,” said Dave. “I can hoof it.”

  “You working, Dave?”

  “Not much. Do a little house-painting. Things are slow. Everyone with a job to offer wants you to work for two dollars an hour and clean out the toilets in your spare time.”

  “Gimme the address,” Devereaux said.

  Dave wrote it down on the paper sack and tore off a piece of the sack. He gave it to Devereaux. He looked him right in the eye and Devereaux stared back at him. Dave smiled. “Damn. You’re gonna bring it back, ain’t you?”

  “Bet on it,” Devereaux said.

  The house was in Georgetown and it had occurred to Devereaux as they entered Hagerstown, an hour before.

  The house was narrow and tall and elegant, with polished bricks and gleaming black iron. The roof was flat and ornamented with a copper façade. The Rambler seemed out of its class parked in front of the house. The Rambler would have to go. But first, there was the matter of Hanley. And the girl.

  Margot had asked him after they dropped off Dave, “Why would he trust you?”

  “He doesn’t.”

  “He gave you the car.”

  “I gave him a hundred dollars.”

  “I don’t understand. He didn’t call the police or—”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “You were stealing his car.”

  “No one would steal a car like this.”

  “You would.”

  “Margot.” Softer now. “You have too much belief in rules. There aren’t any rules.”

  “Then it’s chaos. No rules means it’s chaos.”

  Yes, Devereaux thought.

  That exactly described it.

  He opened the door of the car. His arms felt heavy. His back was knotted with lumps of tension. He would have to shake all his muscles awake again.

  He went first, up the three stone steps. The street was empty but it could be full of people if the sun came out.

  He knocked at the ornate brass plate. The door opened and it was an old woman.

  “Dr. Quarles.”

  “It’s Sunday,” said the old woman.

  “Tell him it’s Mr. Devereaux.”

  The old woman frowned and slammed the door. He waited. The afternoon was full of sweet smells and the fog. The wonderful fog that had covered their tracks all the way into Washington. Even the best agent needs luck; he had not expected the fog at all.

  The door opened. Quarles stared at him. Quarles had large eyes and a red nose and his eyebrows exploded on a broad forehead. His hair was wild, long and combed in the absent manner of men who have better things to do than worry about how they look. He resembled an Old Testament prophet or John L. Lewis.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’ve brought you a patient.”

  “Just as well. I don’t make house calls,” Dr. Quarles said. He opened the door wide and stared at the car. “My God, I didn’t know they still made those things.”

  “They don’t.”

  “Well, get it out of here. You’re driving down property values. Put it on M Street and let it roll down the hill and into the river.”

  Devereaux nodded at the car and Margot Kieker opened the rear door.

  “Well, she’s young enough. Knock her up?”

  Then they saw the second man, emerging painfully, half-consciously, from the back seat.

  “Goddamnit. He’s wearing a hospital gown,” Dr. Quarles said and he took a step down and then another and reached Hanley before Margot sank under the burden of the man.

  Quarles was large and strong. He had the arms of a Welsh miner, which his father had been, and the manner of a Welsh preacher, which his father had opposed. Quarles had no time for foolish people or foolish notions. He was immensely successful. Seventeen years before, in Vietnam, he had been captured by a file of Viet Cong. Seventeen years before, he had been rescued—not for himself but for the sake of someone else captured that day. The second prisoner had been important for some reason of state. For some reason of state—neither Devereaux nor Quarles ever knew it—Devereaux had saved Dr. Quarles’ life. It was a matter of a debt that could never be repaid and both of them knew it. And both knew that Devereaux was ruthless enough to exploit it.

  Quarles picked up Hanley the way a child will pick up a bird with a broken wing. He carried him into the house.

  He put Hanley down in an examining room, on a table covered with a leatherlike surface. He grasped his wrist, held his fingers to his throat, did all the things doctors do quickly.

  “He ought to be in a hospital.”

  “That’s where he has been.”

  “Why did you take him out?”

  “Because they were killing him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “It doesn’t matter; you don’t need to know.”

  “Need to know?” Quarles turned the face of the prophet on him. “Like that, is it, Mr. Devereaux? You’ll roast in hell someday.”

  “But not right now.”

  “You wicked man and your wicked ways. Still playing at the game? Why don’t you grow up and act your age and get into something important?”

  “It’s too late for that,” Devereaux said. “What can you do for him?”

  “What did they do to him, is more like it?”

  “It was a mental institution—”

  “A goddamn loony bin? You took this wretch out of a nut house? Well, you’re not so far gone after all, you grave-robbing son of a bitch. Good for you.”

  Margot Kieker blanched but this wasn’t the worst she had seen this day. She stood by her great-uncle, on the other side of the table, holding his hand because she didn’t know what to do with her own hands. She was so amazed with herself—with her calm, with her actions—that she felt in a perpetual state of shock.

  “Who’s this? Your moll?”

  “His niece.”

  “Niece my foot. I see Congressmen with their nieces prowling the joints on M Street. Those are nieces. This looks like a girl to me.” He had such an odd manner of speech—as though he had learned to talk by reading old books—and the cause was precisely that: He had been nearly dumb until he was ten because he could not see very well and no one in that village in Wales understood it. He had taught hi
mself to read by closing one eye and reading with the other.

  Devereaux said, “There isn’t much time.”

  “What? For him? He’ll make it by the look of him. Just needs some beef. Heartbeat’s slow but regular, pulse is—But then, why am I explaining this to you? I’m the goddamn doctor. If I say something, it’s so.”

  Devereaux seemed to ignore the tone of voice, the glowering face, the posturing and theatrical gestures. He went to the window and looked out of the examining room at the street. “Bring him around,” Devereaux said.

  “What is this about?”

  “Do you have a medical directory?”

  The book listed surgeons in Washington, D.C., and environs and their specialities.

  Devereaux found the name he was looking for. “I’ll be back in a little while,” he said.

  “Where’s your shirt, man?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “And you don’t have time to tell it.”

  Devereaux buttoned the black coat over his collarless clerical shirt. He had no more time to waste with Quarles. Quarles owed him because of his own sense of debt; Devereaux would not have felt the same way. But if Quarles owed him, then let Quarles satisfy his conscience by paying the debt.

  30

  THE HOUSE ON P STREET

  Alexa saw the man in the house on P Street. He was at the window. Alexa stood across the street and felt for the pistol in her pocket.

  She thought she would shoot the man in the window. Then she would wait six more hours to see what the reaction would be when she called the number in New York.

  Action was better than worry, she thought. If this was a trap, it would not matter. And if this was a mistake—well, then, she was being condemned for some mistake she could not even understand.

  She drew the pistol out of her coat pocket and unsnapped the safety and drew the target in line.

  And felt the muzzle on her neck.

  “Don’t even turn.”

  Said in bad Russian. But she understood.

  He reached for her pistol and took it from her cold hand and pushed her ahead of him across the street and into the house.

  There were three men. It was as she imagined it would be. She felt something like relief. She had been on a tightrope for so long. At least, this was the end.

  The first man said it was necessary to handcuff her. For reasons of security. He said it as an explanation, which comforted her. He spoke fluent Russian but he was obviously not a Russian.

  They cuffed her hands in front of her. The cuffs were attached by very thick and very heavy links of metal.

  They searched her.

  One of the men derived some pleasure from this. They removed her underpants and explored her body. They wanted to humiliate her; she understood that; she understood the techniques, all of them. It was preliminary to what would follow.

  She hoped death would be easy. She had never dwelt on inflicting pain for its own sake or for her pleasure. She killed because she was a soldier in a war and that was what she was supposed to do.

  Until the matter of the second November.

  It had been a trap, all of it, and she had waited for the trap to be sprung on her with the timid courage of an animal that understands its impending doom.

  They told her to sit down at last in a straight chair next to a wooden table in a room at the back of the house. One of the men went out. The second man sat at the table. The third man went to the window and looked out.

  The first man—he was stocky, with rigid blue eyes and very blond hair—said, “We are United States agents.”

  “CIA,” she said.

  “Perhaps,” the blond man said.

  That confused her. She opened her eyes very wide and he seemed to stare straight into her, as though she had no secrets and no defenses. She felt the cuffs on her wrists. She was strong and she felt outraged—despite her training, despite her understanding, the search had touched an outrage in her—and she pressed her lips together very tightly. She had no intention of resistance, except in that moment of outrage. She had seen resistance shown by other prisoners and how that resistance was gradually broken down.

  “My name is Ivers,” the blond man said. “But how much do you know of this already?”

  Again, she felt disoriented. She blinked and stared at him and tried to understand. She spoke in English now:

  “I want to tell you what you want to know. I know that I am trapped in this. I have no way out. I realize all of this and I want to cooperate with you. My government has… abandoned me. I do not understand. But I do not want pain.”

  The one at the window said, “She doesn’t want pain. You hear that?”

  “I heard that,” said Ivers. It seemed to give him pleasure to think about that. He said to the one at the window, “Why don’t you go out and get some sandwiches. Some coffee and sandwiches.”

  “Oh,” said the one at the window. “I get it.”

  Alexa stared at Ivers.

  “All right,” he said. The second one went out the door. “What do you know about Nutcracker?” It was what he had been told to say. Ivers was the fixer, the errand boy. He understood his status and it didn’t bother him. No one else knew how important he was. Or who he reported to.

  She stared at him without speaking. It was the wrong response. He got up from the chair and came around the table slowly. He hit her on the face. He hit her five times. The blows were open handed and his hands were large and when they cracked her skin, the pain filled her head and clouded her vision. When the blows were done, the pain burned across her skin and filled her thoughts. She was crying but it was not self-pity; it was because of the pain. The tears came involuntarily.

  “All right,” Ivers said. He went back to his chair and sat down. “What do you know about Nutcracker, and who else was involved? Why didn’t you do your contract, Alexa?”

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Really? You don’t really understand me? Dear, this is not a game. We have a loose cannon out there and it’s up to you to help us haul it in.”

  “Please. Mr. Ivers. I will tell you. Please, I will tell you everything. I can tell you about the business in Finland five years ago, I can—”

  “I’m not interested in ancient history. I want to know about November. Are you two in this?”

  She felt she was sitting in the company of a madman.

  “You didn’t take out November. You were supposed to take out November. You had chances. Was he part of the deal?”

  “I was to resolve him. Yes. But I did not resolve him because I saw this was a trap. If I resolve him, then I am trapped worse than if I am a spy. Yes, I am an agent.”

  “Oh, God, dear, we know that,” Ivers almost laughed. “Everyone’s known that. That’s a given. You’re a spy, he’s a spy, everyone’s a spy. So you tell me, dear, tell me if November was part of this scheme with you and… and who else? That’s what we have to know, dear. Who else?”

  She sat very still. She was locked in a room, in handcuffs, and she was speaking to a madman. Her head was ringing with pain. She felt isolated and alone and afraid. She could smell the fear in her breath.

  “This is the way it is,” Ivers said. “You are a Soviet agent in the United States. You were involved in the seduction of a security guard in California a couple of years ago. That’s felony, dear. You have no diplomatic status. We could lock you up for the rest of your life.”

  “No,” she said. “No.” Softer.

  “And think of pain, dear,” Ivers said. “I have no aversion to that. I like my work. I do jobs for people and I do them well and I said, ‘You can leave her to me, I can take care of her.’ I saw your photograph. Very nice, all those photographs that Gorki took of you.”

  The photographs.

  On a spring morning six years ago.

  So inventive. Why would she agree to such a thing? Because he was Gorki and there was power in the glittering lizard eyes and the yellow skin was parchment to the
touch and, in those moments with him, alone, he controlled her utterly.

  And now he had abandoned her.

  And thrown her to people like this man.

  “Now, let’s try this again,” Ivers said.

  The door opened.

  Ivers looked up. It was too soon for sandwiches. Didn’t the idiot understand anything?

  Denisov said, “Will you take the handcuffs off?” The voice was as mild as a vicar speaking of children and flowers. The eyes swam behind rimless glasses and the right gloved hand held a Walther PPK.

  “Who are you? This is government—”

  “Shut up, please. Take the handcuffs off.”

  Ivers reached for the key.

  “Slowly.”

  Alexa stared at him. He said to her, in Russian, “Why do you let yourself be trapped by dull people?”

  She said nothing.

  The wrists were freed and she felt for her face with her right hand. She felt the bruise.

  “Who has sent you?” she said in Russian.

  “I have come out of gallantry,” he said. The approximate English could not explain the degree of mockery built into what he said in Russian.

  “This is a fucking double-cross,” Ivers said in plain English, without any subtlety at all.

  “Perhaps,” Denisov said in English. “Alexa, will you put him in the restraints? Behind his back, please?”

  “There is no escape,” she said.

  “There is always escape. We are in America. There is always another way.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “No. No one does at all. But that is the beginning of understanding, to admit you are ignorant.” And Denisov smiled at his own cleverness.

  Ivers learned to talk in a motel room outside of Arlington, Virginia, on a Sunday afternoon. It was amazing, Alexa thought. Denisov appeared so mild and the means were so brutal and direct. Ivers was eager to talk after only a few hours. Alexa thought it was the sense of patience that Denisov brought to the task; also, the sense that it did not pleasure him, any of it. Denisov was so powerful and controlled.

  Alexa thought she was falling in love.

  31

  HANLEY’S SECRET

  Devereaux found Dr. Thompson and Dr. Thompson agreed, after a lengthy explanation, and persuasion of short duration, to talk about part of Hanley’s treatment. He was not so jolly when it was over. Dr. Thompson was left alive because Devereaux could not think of any reason to kill him.