“There is a top-of-the-hour development which we will update during the course of this program,” announced anchorman Tom Brokaw. “There has been another American embassy kidnap in Beirut. The victim has been confirmed as John Patrick Sheridan, aged 38 …” The screen was filled with a stilted, full-faced photograph. “Tonight NBC has confirmed through Washington sources that Sheridan was the CIA officer in charge …”
“Oh no!” said Janet. “Dear God no!”
7
Janet’s immediate, crowded impression was that she had been betrayed: cheated. That for all these months she had gone with a man and slept with a man and learned to love a man whom she thought she knew and now realized she knew not at all. As always she found it easy to remember words and phrases in the tone in which they had been uttered and Sheridan’s remark forced its way mockingly into her mind, the plea he’d made the night he’d told her of the Beirut posting. Trust me, he’d said. And she had, not just then but before: trusted him completely. Believed that he was a senior but otherwise run-of-the-mill analyst in the anthill of the State Department, unimportant, uninvolved. With that reflection came more taunting words. Nothing spooky about me. Not much, she thought bitterly: not bloody much.
Janet blinked against her fogged vision, aware of library footage of the shell-cratered streets of West Beirut being put up on the screen, with Brokaw’s voice commenting over.
“… no official confirmation of his CIA position,” intoned the anchorman. “But the official diplomatic listing records Sheridan to be a political officer …”
Janet sucked the breath into her body, conscious of the significance before it was made obvious as another picture was flashed on to the screen, a still photograph this time of a hollow-faced, bearded man.
“… Political officer was the designation of William Buckley,” recounted the newscaster. “Buckley, it will be recalled, was the CIA station chief in Beirut who was kidnapped and murdered by the Islamic Jihad in March, 1984….”
The very name she’d identified to John, the night he’d made the Beirut announcement! Janet knew about the Buckley case: knew how a tape of Buckley’s agonizing, screaming torture had been made and sent to the CIA in direct challenge to the Agency. Who had taken it as a challenge. There had never been a denial from the CIA headquarters at Langley or the Reagan administration that the Buckley tape had so disgusted and frightened CIA Director William Casey that he had personally urged upon the President the hostage freeing attempts that were later to emerge as Irangate.
The photographs were side by side on the screen now, Sheridan and Buckley, and illogically Janet thought how ordinary they both looked: just ordinary, open, American faces. Run-of-the-mill, she reflected again. It was the briefest of considerations because abruptly, horrifyingly, there was another, too vivid intrusion. Janet pictured what had happened to Buckley and imagined it happening now, at this moment, to Sheridan in some cellar or cell or lonely house. She physically squeezed her eyes shut against the mental picture and the mental sounds and clamped her mouth closed, too, until she could keep her lips together no longer.
“Don’t let him be hurt!” she begged. “Dear God don’t let him be hurt!”
Janet was distantly aware of a sound, beyond the television, and recognized the telephone but could not move herself to respond to it. Almost at once there was another bell, the downstairs summons this time, and Janet shifted at last, momentarily unsure which to answer. She chose the intercom and at once Harriet’s voice babbled into her ear, demanding to be let in. Automatically Janet pressed the release button and unlatched the door, careless of leaving it open. She turned back to the strident telephone but as she moved towards it, the ringing stopped. Janet remained gazing down at it, wondering who it had been.
Harriet burst into the apartment in her usual flurry, throwing her arms around Janet and said: “I came as soon as I heard.”
“Thanks,” said Janet, dully. Harriet’s was the sort of remark people made after a bad accident or a bereavement. Maybe, she thought, it was fitting.
“What have you been told!” demanded Harriet.
Janet indicated the television, now showing some baby cream commercial. “Just that.”
“No one’s called?”
Janet had not until now considered any official notification. She looked again to the telephone and said: “I didn’t get to it in time.”
“How long have you known!” pressed Harriet.
“I just told you …” began Janet but the other woman talked over her, impatiently.
“About John being in the CIA, I mean!”
“I didn’t,” she admitted, simply.
“Not a clue!”
“Nothing. I thought he worked in the State Department, like I told you.” Another recollection came to Janet as she talked, of the invariable delay in reaching Sheridan when she’d called the office number he’d given her. She supposed it would have been some complicated switching device, transferring the calls from Foggy Bottom to … to where? Something else she didn’t know, she accepted: even where he worked. His voice came into her mind once more, the glib, easy explanation when she’d complained of the difficulty in reaching him. I spend more time verbally analyzing situations than working at my desk.
“I’d heard that’s the way it was but I never really believed it,” said Harriet.
“The way it was?”
“Wives and girlfriends never ever being told … always a secret,” said Harriet.
Janet realized, annoyed, that her friend was excited, enjoying it all. Would Sheridan have told her, after their marriage? Janet supposed officially he would have been forbidden to tell her anything. Janet said: “It’s very serious.”
“You don’t have to tell me that, darling!” assured Harriet. “Don’t you think I don’t know what you’re going through!”
No, thought Janet. Despite trying so hard Harriet had not been able to begin to imagine what it had been like with Hank slowly dying, and she would not be able to begin to imagine what it was like now. No one could. More to herself than to her friend Janet said: “If I had known it might have been better: I might have been more prepared.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Janet, confronting her helplessness for the first time.
“No,” said Harriet, an admission of her own, seeming embarrassed now by her question. “It’s difficult to think of anything to do, isn’t it?”
“I suppose I’ll call tomorrow, to see what they can tell me,” she said. Who? Janet demanded of herself. The only number she had was one she now suspected to be some clever telephone system. And who were “they”?
The telephone rang again and Janet jumped at the noise, realizing how already strained her nerves were. She recognized her mother’s voice at once, although it was a difficult connection, one that made the words echo from the English end.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for hours,” announced her mother, with typical exaggeration.
“When did you ring?” asked Janet.
“About half an hour ago.”
The call she hadn’t reached in time, decided Janet. So it had not been some official notification. She said: “I was here. You should have waited.”
“What are you going to do?”
It seemed to be a repetitive question, thought Janet. She said: “I don’t know yet. It’s late here now: I’ll start trying to do something tomorrow.” What? she asked herself again.
“Did you know he was a spy?”
Janet could not respond at once. Her mind had not gone on to the actual description of what he did. The concept of the polite, cultured, quiet-talking John Sheridan actually being a spy seemed preposterous: was preposterous. She said: “No, I didn’t know.”
“How could he not have told you!” Her mother sounded outraged over the hollow line.
“He couldn’t have told me, could he?” said Janet. Already she was making excuses. Almost irritably she said: “Did D
addy tell you everything he did at the embassies!”
Now the older woman hesitated. “No,” she conceded, finally.
“So it’s just the same, isn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” said her mother, doubtfully. “They’ll get him out, won’t they? The government—Washington—I mean.”
Something else her mind had not gone on to, conceded Janet. Not quite true, she corrected: something she had refused to let herself think about. Janet said: “Of course,” conscious as she spoke of the lack of conviction in her own voice.
“Do you want us to come over?”
“Why?” asked Janet, surprised.
“I don’t know,” admitted her mother. “I just feel that we should.”
“There’s not really a lot of point, is there?” said Janet. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“I suppose not,” accepted the older woman.
“I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything,” promised Janet.
There was a moment of silence on the telephone that seemed to go on for a long time. Janet said: “Hello! Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” said her mother. “I just don’t know what else to say.”
“There’s nothing much to say, is there?” pointed out Janet.
“Everything seemed so wonderful. After what happened to Hank your father and I were so happy for you … you didn’t deserve this …” The voice trailed off, lost.
“I’ve thought about that, Mother,” said Janet, tightly.
“He should have told you: warned you,” blurted the woman, abruptly. “It wasn’t fair.”
“We’ve discussed that,” reminded Janet, tighter still.
“Are you sure there is nothing we can do?”
The problem, thought Janet, was that she was sure about very little: nothing, in fact. She said: “No, but thank you.”
“Keep in touch,” urged her mother.
Janet thought it was a stupid remark to make and at once curbed her increasing irritation: her mother was only trying to be sympathetically helpful. She said: “Of course I will. The moment I hear anything.”
“It’s all going to turn out fine,” insisted the woman, with forced enthusiasm. “Your father and I have talked about it and we know everything is going to be fine.”
“I know you’re right,” said Janet, emptily. Now she was reassuring her mother instead of it being the other way around.
“Call if there’s anything you need,” said her mother, reluctant to sever the connection.
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Goodbye then.”
“Goodbye.”
“Sure you don’t want us to come over?”
“Quite sure.”
When she turned around from the telephone Janet saw that Harriet had overfilled two brandy snifters and was offering her one. Her immediate thought was that it was a cliched reaction to a personal drama, like a scene from one of the interminable soap operas, and then, just as quickly, that the glass being held out to her was the one in which Sheridan usually had his nightcap. Janet accepted the drink, although she didn’t want it, and said: “Thanks.”
“Now!” said Harriet, briskly. “What would you like me to do?”
Every conversation appeared limited to the same questions and answers, reflected Janet. She shrugged and said: “There’s nothing any of us can do, not until tomorrow, is there?”
“Would you like me to stay over: sleep here?” Harriet asked.
Again Janet was surprised. “Whatever for!”
It became Harriet’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know: thought you might like some company.”
“I’ll be OK,” Janet said.
“It’s a bastard, isn’t it?” Harriet said.
“Yes,” Janet agreed. “A complete bastard.”
8
The number rang twice before it was picked up and a voice Janet thought she recognized from her previous calls said: “State.”
“Is it?” asked Janet.
There was a pause and the voice said: “Ma’am?”
“My name is Janet Stone,” she said, carefully prepared. “I am the fiancée of John Sheridan, who gave me this number. I’ve reached him on it, several times. I want to speak to somebody to find out what’s happened to him in Beirut.”
There was a further hesitation before the voice said: “Will you hold a moment, ma’am?”
Janet did not time the delay but it seemed to last for several minutes. When the line opened again it was a different voice. The man said: “Who is this, please?”
Janet repeated her earlier statement, which she had rehearsed, just as she had written down questions she wanted answered, while she waited for eight-thirty to show on the clock, the time she imagined they might start work. She finished by saying: “Who am I talking to?”
He didn’t answer her question. Instead he said: “How did you get this number?”
“I already told you, from my fiancé, John Sheridan,” reiterated Janet. “I want to find somebody who can help me. Can you help me?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” he said. “I think you’ve got a misconnection. No John Sheridan works here.”
Janet felt a hollowness begin to form deep down in her stomach, but there was anger, too. She tried to control the anger, knowing it would not help and believing, too, that this number and this unknown man was the only link she had to people who might know what was going on in Beirut. With forced calmness she said: “I have not got a misconnection and I know I did not misdial, either. I have used this number to speak to John Sheridan on a number of occasions during the past year. I want to know what’s happened to him: what’s going to be done to get him released.”
“Ma’am, I’ve told you, I’m sorry. I really can’t help you.”
“Who are you?” demanded Janet. “What CIA department am I speaking to?”
“Ma’am, I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I genuinely can’t assist you.”
Janet’s anger lapped over. She said: “For God’s sake stop patronizing me and certainly stop talking about genuineness when you’re not showing any! I want to know what’s happened to my fiancé!”
“Ma’am, I’ve told you …”
“… I know what you’ve told me,” cut off Janet. “And I know you’re lying. I’m not interested or concerned in any secrecy rubbish. I just want to speak to someone who can help me … who knows more than I’ve seen on the newscasts …” She felt her control begin to waver and fought against the collapse. “… Please!” she said. “Please help me!”
“Ma’am, there really isn’t any point in continuing this conversation,” said the man.
“I want …” began Janet and then stopped because she heard the click of disconnection and knew it was pointless. She sat crouched in the Rosslyn apartment, the telephone off its rest and purring in her hand, engulfed in a fury that physically burned through her, so that she felt hot. But it was not all fury. There was a frightening helplessness, too, the all-alone feeling she’d known in the coming-to-terms period after Hank’s death. It was an emotion she’d never wanted to experience again. Janet realized she was crying, not from the wetness of any tears but from the shaking of her shoulders. She sniffed, angry at herself now, and tried to stop. She was surprised she still held the telephone and put it hurriedly down. She had to go into her bedroom for a Kleenex and returned blowing her nose hard, as if making a noise would help her control.
Back in the living room she stared down at the piece of paper upon which 648-3291 was written, suffused by a fresh wave of helplessness and striving to suppress it. Wouldn’t give in; couldn’t give in, she mentally recited to herself. What then? She didn’t know; couldn’t think. Janet, who had no religion, thought: Dear God, someone, something, please help me think! She reached out, intending to dial it again, and then stopped, willing herself to concentrate. And did. That wasn’t the entire number! In the habit of Americans, which Janet ha
d actually found curious when she first arrived in the United States, Sheridan had prefixed the number with the area code, 202. Which was Washington, D.C., Janet knew: just as she knew that the CIA headquarters were at Langley. Which was in Virginia.
She picked up the D.C. directory and found the State Department under the government heading. The main number was 655-4000. Janet carefully ran her finger through the subsidiary listings, seeking the number Sheridan had given her. It wasn’t there. She dialed 655-4000 and when the switchboard answered asked as expectantly as she could to be put through to 648-3291.
“That’s not a State Department extension,” said the operator.
“I didn’t think it was an extension,” said Janet. “It was given to me as a State Department number.”
“Let me check,” said the operator. The line went dead but only briefly. “Sorry,” said the woman, coming back. “That’s not registered in any of our directories.”
While she waited Janet had already changed telephone books and located two numbers for the Central Intelligence Agency, 482-1100 or 7676, both with a 703 area code.
She called the first and on impulse, when there was a reply, asked for Personnel.
The operator said: “In connection with what, ma’am?”
Christ, how she wished everyone would stop calling her “ma’am,” Janet thought. She recited her practiced request and was asked to wait and again another unidentified male voice came on to the line and asked who she was and again Janet mouthed the ritual.
“We are aware of reports that have appeared in newspapers and on television,” said the man. “The Central Intelligence Agency can neither deny or confirm that John Patrick Sheridan is in any way connected with the Agency.”
The bloody man was reading from some written statement, Janet realized, frustration making her hot again. She hadn’t known Sheridan’s second name was Patrick: but then she hadn’t known much about him at all, had she? She said: “I am not asking you to deny or confirm anything. I am going to marry the man, for Christ’s sake! I want to speak to someone to find out what’s going on.”
Betrayals Page 5