by Bill Granger
“What it means,” Hanley said to Mrs. Neumann as they sat in the little bar and grill on Fourteenth Street over a cheeseburger lunch that had spilled into late afternoon, “is that we won’t do it again.”
“Won’t we?” she said, toasting him with her own glass.
“No. At least…” He paused, considered the clear liquid. “At least I don’t think so.”
“Poor Hanley,” she said.
“At least I have a job again,” he said.
“Poor Devereaux,” she said.
“Well.” He tasted the liquid. He was quite drunk. The first time in years. “We must expect some casualties when we fight the good fight.” And he winked at her.
36
SPIEZ
The man who did not exist trudged along the icy side street until he reached the corner of the alley that led to the back of the apartment building. The building was set in the side of a hill that tumbled down the streets and meadows, all the way to the frozen shore of the Thunersee.
Spiez rested in the cup of a mountain, surrounded by a brother range of mountains brooding white and snowy silent along the stillness of the shoreline. The only sound was the clanging of bells tied to the necks of winter sheep still on the village commons, feeding themselves fat for slaughter in the spring. Soundless otherwise and frozen. Brilliant cold in a brilliant sun resting on bright snow. It was windless at noon. They might have all been at the edge of the earth.
He turned the key in the unneeded lock—this was Switzerland, safe and secure—and opened the door. He clumped up the carpeted stairs, leaving a trail of snowy prints. He turned the key in a second lock on a second door and opened it.
The window opposite the door was large and opened on the mountains.
This was a safe house, Hanley had said, selected by a custodian long ago in R Section on behalf of some forgotten assignment, kept by the Section simply because no one in auditing thought to question the small expense of keeping it and because the custodian who had selected it had gone on to acquire cars with puncture-proof tires and built-in dashboard computer files and machine guns that telescoped into the lining of ordinary briefcases and the other magic things that dazzled the masters of the Section.
Devereaux put down the string bag filled with groceries. He had carried them, on foot, from the market on the main street of the village. There was a car, of course, provided by the European desk of the Section, fitted with Swiss plates of the canton of Bern, marked with the CH international symbol of Switzerland, built with care and caution by a custom-work factory in Lille, France.
But Devereaux preferred to walk down the sloping streets of the hillside town to the center of the village. Preferred to breathe the cold air, to walk in the brilliant sunshine of midday, the only time when the sun poked down shadowless into the hollow of the mountains.
The first night, Rita Macklin, lying naked next to him, had asked:
“Why did you want me to do it?”
“Because you would.”
“You’re so sure of me.”
“Yes.”
“Should I be sure of you?”
“Dead men tell no lies,” he had said.
“Booga-booga. I don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Fortunately, no one else does either.”
“Hanley knows you’re not dead.”
“That’s one.”
“And Denisov.”
“My brother.”
“Why didn’t he kill you?”
“Because I told him about the Zurich Numbers.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Felix Krueger. He’s still in business. Under altered circumstances. He has a partner. A nice fat Russian named Denisov. Who is getting fatter all the time, eating the food in Lyon. The Franco-Russian connection. He lives in California, travels to France every month. They should be happy together.”
“More of the slave trade.”
“No,” Devereaux said softly. “Felix Krueger has renounced his former life. He has repented and prayed to God and reformed. No.”
“Then what?”
“Espionage, I think. I don’t want to know really. Secrets from Silicon Valley, I expect. Denisov is a charming fellow.”
“That’s not all there is to it.”
Silence.
“No. It’s more than that,” Rita pushed him.
“More? Yes.” He paused, stared past her. “Denisov pitied me. I hated that but I let him pity me. He caught me unaware. I never expected him to kill me.”
“He would have.”
“No. I’m not sure of that. When you play chess, sometimes you know that the other player can’t bear to lose his queen. That knowledge can make you tempt him, fool him. Denisov is lost in the world. He needed to know I wasn’t dead. Not yet. But I suppose I had to give him some way to save face. So I gave him Felix Krueger. Krueger sells the secrets that we invent for him. Odd computers that are going to work only for our advantage. So Hanley tells me.”
“And I’m just a nice little semi-rich freelance writer. I knew the Irish always get jobs for their relatives but I never knew that included their girlfriends.”
“Everyone has died, Rita. You and me. This is heaven.”
“I didn’t know heaven had mountains.”
“Let me lick your nipples.”
He tasted her. She held him and there was no tension in him anymore. He did not awake to dreams anymore. He was well and truly dead.
They felt so curiously free they did not understand the feeling between them. Except that it was fragile; they walked carefully around it.
She was waiting for him now.
“I’ve got groceries.”
“Good. Look at the lake. I see cracks in the ice from here.”
“Spring is coming,” he said. He slipped his arm around her. “Cracks are everywhere.”
“You’re insatiable,” she said.
“I don’t want you to regret living with an older man.”
Standing against the window, he pressed against her, lifted her cotton skirt, touched her between her legs. “Naked again,” he said. “You might have some shame.”
She opened her legs and he slipped into her. Dressed. Pressed against each other.
“Can anyone see us?” she said.
“No.”
“Damn,” she said.
37
CHICAGO
Melvina caught cold in January. Peter cared for her, worried about her, made soup for her. Peter, she thought, was a fussbudget.
“I told you I have cancer. I’m hardly going to die of a cold.”
But she insisted on returning to the house on Ellis Avenue in any case. On dying in her own old bed if it came to it. Monsignor O’Neill gave her the last sacraments twice. She enjoyed the attention.
As she had predicted, she did not die. And one afternoon, in the grayness of a dark January day, she came downstairs.
Peter had accumulated her mail on a sideboard near the front door. She thought there was an awful lot of it. She picked at the mail like a shopper, considering this and rejecting that.
A letter from Florence Callaghan took her interest. She opened it, read it twice. An indomitable old lady was Florence, surrounded by family who scuffed shoes impatiently in her imperious presence and grumbled about her longevity. Florence said in the letter she was as mean as Melvina and intended to die only after Melvina showed the way.
Melvina smiled, put the letter down, decided she would reread it later.
Then she saw the package.
It annoyed her.
She picked it up, shook it, realized she had not ordered anything. It was from Field’s. She’d send it back.
But she opened it. And then it was no good. Her eyes swelled with tears, so sudden and unexpected that she forgot to be stern with herself for crying.
She hadn’t cried like this since she got the letter from a Mr. Hanley at something called the Government Research Bureau of the Department of Agriculture. A letter regre
tting to inform her that her great-nephew had died in service of his country. And enclosed for her a medal, awarded posthumously.
She let the tears fall and she let her thin, old body shake with sobs for a moment because no one was in the house and no one would see her weakness.
She opened the box because she knew what it was, who it was from. Blue stationery with her name on it. And matching blue envelopes.
About the Author
An award-winning novelist and reporter, Bill Granger was raised in a working-class neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. He began his extraordinary career in 1963 when, while still in college, he joined the staff of United Press International. He later worked for the Chicago Tribune, writing about crime, cops, and politics, and covering such events as the race riots of the late 1960s and the 1968 Democratic Convention. In 1969, he joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times, where he won an Associated Press award for his story of a participant in the My Lai Massacre. He also wrote a series of stories on Northern Ireland for Newsday—and unwittingly added to a wealth of information and experiences that would form the foundations of future spy thrillers and mystery novels. By 1978, Bill Granger had contributed articles to Time, the New Republic, and other magazines; and become a daily columnist, television critic, and teacher of journalism at Columbia College in Chicago.
He began his literary career in 1979 with Code Name November (originally published as The November Man), the book that became an international sensation and introduced the cool American spy who later gave rise to a whole series. His second novel, Public Murders, a Chicago police procedural, won the Edgar® Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1981.
In all, Bill Granger published thirteen November Man novels, three nonfiction books, and nine novels. In 1980, he began weekly columns in the Chicago Tribune on everyday life (he was voted best Illinois columnist by UPI), which were collected in the book Chicago Pieces. His books have been translated into ten languages.
Bill Granger passed away in 2012.
Also by Bill Granger
The November Man series
Code Name November (previously published as The November Man)
Schism
The Shattered Eye
The British Cross
The Zurich Numbers
Hemingway’s Notebook
The November Man (previously published as There Are No Spies)
The Infant of Prague
Henry McGee Is Not Dead
The Man Who Heard Too Much
League of Terror
The Last Good German
Burning the Apostle
Other Novels
Drover
Drover and the Zebras
Public Murders
Newspaper Murders
Priestly Murders
The El Murders
Time for Frankie Coolin
Sweeps
Queen’s Crossing
Nonfiction
Chicago Pieces
The Magic Feather
Fighting Jane
Lords of the Last Machine (with Lori Granger)
Praise for Bill Granger and the November Man Series
THE NOVEMBER MAN
“Chilling… seems to move with the speed of light.”
—Pittsburgh Press
“Should keep you reading to the end… an engrossing book about the world of computers, treachery, slow or sudden death, and ‘doing things wrong for all the right reasons.’”
—Chicago Tribune
“Crisp style, well-mannered prose, and inexorable tension characterize this worthy addition to the successful November Man series. Granger once again displays his winning talent for manipulating traditional elements of intrigue… highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
“Granger’s November Man series has been consistently entertaining and interesting, far surpassing much of the work done in the espionage genre. This addition to the list maintains that consistency… builds almost perfectly to an exciting finish… on the mark.”
—Publishers Weekly
“First-rate… This gripping novel provides further proof that November Man has grown into one of the most complex fictional spies on the current scene.”
—Booklist
CODE NAME NOVEMBER
“Mr. Granger has combined Ian Fleming, John le Carré, and Trevanian in a heady mix… He handles all the elements with real virtuosity.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Granger is one of our premier spy novelists. His Devereaux is the perfect spy for these less than perfect times.”
—People
“A novelist of superb talent who has mastered the genre and brought to it a distinctly American viewpoint.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“A serious American writer of the first rank… Like Hemingway, Granger learned the technical aspects of his craft through newspaper work. The result is lean and uniquely American.”
—National Review
SCHISM
“An intelligently crafted thriller… lean prose and intricate plotting.”
—Los Angeles Times
“The mysteries and motives here turn out to be suitably momentous… all of the characters are vulnerably likeable… solid entertainment.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“True and dramatic and entertaining… Schism stands on its own.”
—Chicago Tribune
THE SHATTERED EYE
“The Shattered Eye is a page-turner of the first order.”
—Denver Post
“It catches you on the first page and propels you through to the end at an accelerating speed.”
—Chicago Tribune Book World
THE BRITISH CROSS
“Sharp and suspenseful… A fine piece of work.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Never lets readers relax. This one belongs on the top shelf.”
—New York Daily News
“Granger handles all the elements of real virtuosity.”
—New York Times
THE ZURICH NUMBERS
“An invigorating thriller. Granger is a fine, serious storyteller… His simple, meaty prose is a perfect complement to the intricacies of the plot.”
—Publishers Weekly
“An ingenious, imaginative plot… The November Man has a steely, indomitable quality that raises him to Bond’s superstar status.”
—Kansas City Star
HEMINGWAY’S NOTEBOOK
“Granger writes like a shooting star. His plots and characters and dialogue are so good… It’s chilling stuff… a single page will grip the reader with an impact that other writers would use a chapter to pull off.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Fast-moving, action-packed, violent, and ultimately very satisfying.”
—Christian Science Monitor
“This lean, suspenseful tale, peopled with compelling characters, has a drive and signature all its own.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE INFANT OF PRAGUE
“Fascinating… compelling… Devereaux, The November Man, is back, and we’re all a little richer for it.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The characters are lively; the plot is as rapidly and smoothly paced as it is complex; the humor arrives without warning, and Granger continues to juggle the pieces while producing a unique spy thriller.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Colorful… wonderfully complex… readers will delight in Granger’s deft unraveling of the skeins in this terrific page-turner.”
—Publishers Weekly
HENRY MCGEE IS NOT DEAD
“The plot moves smoothly… Granger writes crisply… Devereaux provides a satisfactory ending.”
—San Antonio Express-News
THE MAN WHO HEARD TOO MUCH
“The action is swift and brutal… his sense of characters is powerful. As ever with Granger, the prose is the opposite of the bloodless stuf
f of techno-thrillers.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Granger’s plots can be as intricate as the best le Carré… Granger is a master of fooling the unwary reader.”
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Bill Granger is a rarity among writers of serious novels. Each of his books seems better than before.”
—Minneapolis Star-Tribune
LEAGUE OF TERROR
“Granger writes a very, very good espionage thriller.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Granger is a pro, with polished writing skills… [that] spur the reader on.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Snappily paced thriller… Staccato stylist Granger delivers easy-reading entertainment via plot and counterplot.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE LAST GOOD GERMAN
“The Last Good German is the twelfth November Man novel, and may be one of the best… The characters are complex and the plot is an unusual wheels-within-wheels puzzle.”
—Baltimore Sun
BURNING THE APOSTLE
“Granger’s icy Devereaux has entered into the halls of legendary thriller characters… electrifying… the narrative races along, snappily paced with wickedly effective dialogue. Devereaux remains the most believable character in current spy fiction.”
—Tampa Tribune Times
“With their eerily plausible plots and intriguingly complex protagonist, Granger’s November Man novels rank among the finest examples of espionage fiction.”
—Publishers Weekly
Don’t miss the other exciting books in the bestselling November Man series
Code Name November (previously published as The November Man)
Schism