Code Name November

by Bill Granger

  The conference in Detroit with the American automobile executives had gone smoothly. In fact, Lord Slough discovered there was no need to spend a single day—a single hour—more in the company of the fawning aristocrats of the American motor industry. He despised them secretly for their cowardice in the face of mere titled royalty—though he also enjoyed it. Amusement and contempt rested comfortably in Lord Slough’s ample store of emotions.

  The Chateau Frontenac, scene of the historic wartime conference between Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, commanded a promontory over the wide and turbulent Saint Lawrence river that flowed past the ancient city of Quebec. From its spires, which poked into the broad and gloomy Canadian sky, one could look down on the snow-covered Plains of Abraham in the lower town, where the French had lost Canada to the English for good. And just as well, thought Lord Slough, who disliked the French.

  The English lord had not chosen the site of the meeting with the Saudis. They had. Canada was picked because of its proximity to Washington, where the Saudis were meeting with the President shortly after the meeting with Lord Slough. Then, too, the Canadian government—itself torn in loyalty between oil needs and its perpetual dominance by the United States—had recently proposed a new tilt in foreign policy, favoring the Arab states over the Israelis. New friends—even oil friends—were encouraged by the quiet Saudis. Lord Slough had not objected, though Canada in November presented no welcome face.

  Everything had been arranged for him, of course.

  Deirdre Monahan, his daughter’s tutor, had been summoned first, while he still wrangled in Detroit with the auto magnates. One of the best of his private air fleet had whisked her from the Slough home in County Clare, Ireland, to Quebec in seven hours. Dierdre was afraid to fly; only Lord Slough’s command could have brought her.

  Brianna, still at school in Lausanne, would not join him until they all met at home, later in the week. Which would leave Deirdre with nothing to do. Except comfort his Lordship.

  Slough waited at the elevator for a moment, aware that every glance was directed at him. He was discreetly dressed, evenly tanned; his hands were large and his ginger mustache bristled. He bore himself well, though past fifty; he had been one of His Majesty’s colonels in the last war and he had never gotten out of the habits of the military.

  People stared at him and he expected it. Wealth and power imparted their own luminescence. A fact those who were born with both seem indifferent to.

  “I’m sorry for the delay, my lord,” said Jeffries, his secretary. Behind Slough was Harmon, the bodyguard he had personally recruited out of the Royal Marines five years previously. Harmon did not speak; or, if he did, he did not speak in the presence of the body he guarded day and night.

  Lord Slough did not answer. Jeffries was a competent secretary. The incompetence of a hotel or the perfidiousness of a lift did not fall into his sphere; nor did the petty annoyances of life upset Lord Slough. He had infinite patience. Which is why, he supposed at times, he got everything he wanted.

  The elevator arrived, the door opened. He stepped on confidently, trailed by Jeffries and Harmon. Harmon barred the way to further passengers. The clerk, a French-Canadian, spoke to the operator in French. Without a word, the operator slammed the doors and the elevator ascended to the top floor, where Lord Slough’s suite awaited. And where Deirdre awaited as well.

  At the suite, he walked directly into his bedroom. Jeffries followed with a clutch of cables that had caught up with Slough since his sudden departure from Detroit.

  Slough started to shed his clothes and said, “Begin.”

  Jeffries sat down at a table in the room and began to read the messages. Dictating his responses, Slough stepped, naked, into the shower. Jeffries rose, went to the bathroom door, and continued to read and take notes while Lord Slough soaped himself behind the shower door and dictated. The scene was ludicrous. But the ways of a man with a thousand enterprises demanding a thousand personal touches were suited to himself and not to common behavior. If there was to be time for himself ever, it had to be snatched away from other things.

  And there would be time for Deirdre this evening, he had decided.

  Belfast had been a lovely city, Devereaux recalled, trying to superimpose the image from years ago on the patched and broken hulk he now saw. Tough and charming, cold and open; a small town as all Irish cities were but with the steely edge of the English and Scots about her, too. Something important always seemed about to happen there. And it had, finally.

  The driver pulled up at the Belfast Continental, a grandly named gleaming tower of anonymous rooms and an air of sadness. The hotel was in a bad way, they had apologized at the London booking office, but it was the best in Belfast. They had looked curiously at him. American to Belfast. Then they saw his press credentials. Just another reporter, dragging up the horror of Northern Ireland for readers apparently never sated by the spectacle of bloody fratricide.

  He checked in. The immense lobby was nearly empty. An aging bellboy with a bulbous nose and an air of artificial gaiety led him to his room on an upper floor. The room was standard American motel, down to the mass-produced modern painting on the wall above the television set.

  Devereaux, who hated puzzles because they were so rarely solved satisfactorily, was in the midst of one. Hanley had ordered him to Belfast to find out what the Boys intended. Information was never that easy to obtain; it was always incomplete—half the truth and half a lie and never satisfying. Jobs like this one gnawed at him, put him on edge.

  He sat down in a chair and looked out the window at the brave steeples of the city; beyond lay the wide harbor where once great warships were launched.

  Early evening crept across the city below.

  He sighed and stood up and reached for a clean shirt.

  It was time to find O’Neill.

  There was no telephone.

  The cab deposited Devereaux down the road—as he had ordered—from the depressing block of council houses. The houses made of red brick and attached to each other by common walls, shared the same architecture; the same stoop fronts; the same flat doors; the same sad, narrow windows. Devereaux walked along the sidewalk, skirting the rubble on the edge of the pavement.

  Number 19.

  He knocked at the door. After a moment, it opened. A woman peered out into the darkness. A child clung to her skirt, another was held loosely in one arm.

  There were sounds from within, more children talking above the noise of a television set. The block was full of such noises; it was dark beyond the little squares of light from the windows; the street lamps appeared broken.

  “Mr. O’Neill,” he said. “I’m Doherty. From the firm.”

  “Mr. O’Neill,” she repeated stupidly, as though he were a stranger instead of her husband.

  Devereaux waited.

  “He’s not in,” she said.

  “It’s very important—”

  “He wasn’t to be at the job, was it?” she asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “Oh, no, ma’am. This is special. I’m with the American branch, Mr. O’Neill is—”

  “Because if he was to be at the job. Mother of Mercy, he’s not here,” she said. She appeared confused.

  “Where is he?”

  “Down t’ Flanagan’s,” she said.

  “Flanagan’s?”

  “A public house. ’Tis his dart evening. He’s with the local’s team, y’know.”

  “It’s very important. Where is Flanagan’s?”

  “Ah, he’s tole me not to be botherin’ him on his dart night.”

  “Very important,” Devereaux mumbled.

  “Ach, sure, but it won’t be you he’ll go after,” she said.

  “It concerns money. Owed him.”

  Money. She pushed away the child at her skirt, sending the dirty-faced urchin reeling against the wall of the hallway that led into the squalor beyond.

  “I can take the money—” she said.

  “I have to see
—”

  “It’s me money,” she said. “I’m t’take it, he said.”

  “I can’t do that, Mrs. O’Neill,” Devereaux said.

  She stared at him and then shrugged. The child she held laughed. “Down the end of this road and then right. Y’ll see it.” She had nothing more to say. She slammed the door on him.

  Devereaux turned and started down the dark road. I should write a recruiting brochure on the glamor of espionage, he thought.

  Flanagan’s was in an old stone-front building. The smell of stale beer and stale cigarettes coming from the pub lingered in the street outside. The night was surprisingly gentle. There was no wind and only a light, misting rain, like summer.

  On the sidewalk, two men in cloth caps and dark old suit jackets stood drunkenly against a fence. The fence enclosed a vacant lot. As Devereaux passed them, he heard the sound of urination; they were pissing into the lot.

  When Devereaux entered the public house, everyone turned to look at him. He saw O’Neill at the dartboard; saw O’Neill grow pale.

  Going to the bar, he ordered a pint of Smithwick’s Ale. He sipped at the bitter amber when it came.

  And waited for O’Neill.

  O’Neill approached him, saying, “So it’s you, is it? I thought they’d be after sendin’ someone else.”

  “We both did.”

  “Well, sir, I’m just back is the short of it. I’ve nothing to tell you—”

  “Still have those torn bills?”

  “Oh, aye.”

  “When will y—”

  “Sur, I’d rather y’not come to me local. Let me talk with you some other—”

  “I told your wife I was with your company. That I had money for you—”

  “Ah, yer daft,” O’Neill said. “That bitch’ll be after me now for it—”

  “Y’didn’t tell her about the thousand—”

  “Ah, God of Heaven, shut yer gob, man, y’ll be tellin’ half of Belfast—” O’Neill rolled his eyes in exasperation. Ever the clown.

  “All right,” said Devereaux.

  “After it closes t’night. At yer hotel.”

  “All right.”

  “In the bar there. I could do with a drink.” In fact, O’Neill appeared a little drunk already.

  “Belfast Continental.”

  “Ah. Grand. Grand. I’ll be there.”

  “Don’t fail,” said Devereaux.

  “I won’t. Y’people are at me night and day. I tole the one this mornin’ that came t’the house—”

  “Who?”

  “The other American was after comin’ to me house.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Me very words. I says, ‘Who the bloody hell are ya?’ He’s with R Section, he says, whatever the hell that is—”

  O’Neill only knew Hastings had been with something called the Section.

  “Who was he?”

  “How the bloody hell do I know? Me darts. I gotta go to me game.”

  Devereaux held his arm.

  “Who was he?”

  “Ah, wait on it. I’ll tell ya. He tole me his name—”

  “What was it?”

  “Irish name.”

  “What?”

  “I fergit now. I tole him I didn’t bloody know what he was talkin’ about—”

  “What was his name?”

  “C’mon, yer up,” yelled one of the dart players, glaring at Devereaux.

  “I’ll be comin’, in a moment. I have to deal with this here gentleman—”

  “Who? What was his name?”

  “Ah. I remember.”

  He waited.

  “Devereaux. Devereaux he says his name was.”

  He was frightened now.

  He felt the chill of it. Perspiration plucked at the back of his shirt.

  As he stepped out of the pub, he looked up and down the street. The mist shrouded silent Belfast. Halos formed around the street lamps.

  “Devereaux,” O’Neill had said.

  He heard his own steps on the sidewalk. The noise of the public house faded. Utter quiet. He stepped into the blackness of a side street where vandals had blown out the lights of the street lamps.

  In the distance, Devereaux could see the tower of the Belfast Continental hotel, looming above the downtown district.

  Gloomy, starless night, made gentle with rain.

  Doorway, post, parked car. Doorway—

  He did not want to think. He wanted to walk, to be alert to every sound, every movement.

  Another American knew about O’Neill. And Devereaux. And the Section. Had made a joke about it.

  Absurdly, he wanted to be safe.

  He had accepted the dangers and the anonymous fact of death long ago; accepted it now. But it frightened him, always, when it was near, when it seemed to breathe on his face.

  Bang. A flash before him.

  The rattle of a dustbin. A cat leaped across the sidewalk, growled, scurried into darkness. The dustbin rattled against the fence.

  He had no weapons.

  An auto growled into a turn, flashed onto the side street. Its lamp-eyes silhouetted Devereaux, bore down on him, and then flashed away as the car rolled by. He heard the roar of it.

  And, in that moment, did not hear the footstep behind.

  Jerked back.

  Felt the wire around his neck, suddenly cutting deep.

  7

  BELFAST

  He did not so much wake as struggle upward until he broke the waterline. He could breathe. That was the first thing he was aware of. He lay in the darkness, struggling for breath, and found it.

  The second thing was the pain. Searing his throat with each breath. He had not expected pain after death. Not expected anything.

  He opened his eyes. Thought he had opened them but saw nothing. He was aware of another presence close to him. If only he could open his eyes, he would be willing to stand the pain. The pain in the darkness frightened him; the sound of his breathing body did not comfort him.

  He could not see. New nightmares, phantoms over him. Was this his biblical hell? He was suddenly cast down, a child sitting with Great Aunt Melvina in the ornate old church, Latin mumbled from the altar.

  No.

  Sometimes, when he dreamed, he would dream that he awoke and then, frightened by the dream, would try to awake really; he would awake again and not be awake, still held in the nightmare.

  He opened his eyes.

  The room was not dark. There was a lamp on the wall, lit. Television set. Curtain. Window. Hell is a motel room, he thought and tried to turn his head. But there was too much pain.

  “Yes.”

  Not his voice.

  “Your room.”

  His room. In the hotel he could not reach. He had been on the street. A pub. O’Neill. And then—what then?

  “I can’t see you.” It hurt to speak. “I can’t turn my head.”

  “No wonder. It is extremely good fortune to you that you have a head.”

  The voice moved away from his blind side, around the end of the bed. Then he saw its owner: A short, thick man with black, flat hair and a flat forehead and clear, childlike eyes behind glasses. And a smile.

  Denisov.

  “Hello, Devereaux,” said the Russian. “I get a chair and sit down and have a yarn with you.” He pulled the rickety plastic chair from the rickety plastic desk-table and put it by the side of the bed.

  “Denisov.” The named caused him pain.

  “Yes, me,” said the Russian. His English was nearly flawless in tone, but he was betrayed at times by odd words thrown into the middle of elaborate sentences.

  Devereaux did not feel wary, as he should. He could not be on guard. He remembered the blackness on the street, remembered how foolish he felt as he knew he was about to die.

  “Are we in hell?”

  “Of course not. There is no hell, therefore I cannot be in it,” said Denisov. “I think Descartes said that.”

  “Or Woody Allen.”

/>   Denisov frowned. “Very awful to see your neck.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It is my appreciation.”

  Devereaux waited for the Soviet agent to speak. He was thirsty.

  “Do you know what occurred?” Denisov finally asked. He had taken off his fashionable rimless eyeglasses and was wiping the lenses on his tie.

  “I was killed.”

  “No, not hardly. In a second more, you would be killed, but not hardly. I was there. You owe me a life, now. Like the Buddhists.”

  “You’ve got it backwards. You saved my life, you must now take care of me.”

  Denisov frowned. “That does not sound equitable.”

  “Exactly the reason it has been abandoned.”

  The Russian placed the glasses back on his face. They illuminated his already saintly eyes.

  Devereaux waited still.

  “Do you want to know who killed you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it was me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I can rest you, if I killed you, you would have died.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps. Is this the way you have learned to say nothing?” Denisov smiled. “It would be better to be quiet then.”

  “Perhaps,” said Devereaux.

  Denisov would not be put out of his good humor. “A man named Blatchford. Do you know him?”

  “The one who garroted me?”

  “Yes. Almost.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Blatchford. I said this. He was at the Royal Avenue Hotel for today. He was in the airplane before you came to Belfast. He came from Edinburgh.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Oh. An American in Belfast is almost made dead by another American in Belfast. A coincidence.”

  “We’re a feisty people.”

  “Feisty? Never mind. I can understand the meaning. But this is not a coincidence.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Denisov has saved your life.”

  Devereaux waited.

  “They were in an automobile. A Fiat. Made in Italy. Also, now, made in the Soviet Union. You leave the saloon—” Denisov preferred American terms when speaking English. “They go ahead of you. Drop off Blatchford. They circle the block, come up again as you pass Blatchford and blind you with the lamps. Then Blatchford moves to kill you.”