Betrayals

by Brian Freemantle

  “I am afraid I am not empowered to say anything more than I’ve already told you. Certainly not over the telephone.”

  “Wait, please!” said Janet, urgently. Fearing another disconnection Janet hurried on: “Listen to me! I’ve tried the 648-3291 number, which John gave me. And I’ve checked with the State Department and know it’s not one of theirs, although that was John’s cover. I can prove I am his fiancée because I have the power of attorney to dispose of his Columbus Circle apartment and also of some of the effects. I can prove he bought me my engagement ring. I’ve got about a hundred letters in his handwriting, to me, from Beirut. I’ve also lodged with our bank a notarized authorization in the name of a U.S. embassy lawyer in Beirut, for access to funds in his account, to secure the mortgage on a house in Chevy Chase …”

  “… What’s the point you’re trying to make, Ms. Stone?” interrupted the anonymous spokesman, flat-voiced.

  Janet supposed “Ms.” was slightly better than “Ma’am,” but not much. She said: “Very simple, really. Like I told you, I tried the 648-3291 number and got the runaround: just like you’ve been giving me the runaround so far. I don’t want that. I want to be able to meet and to talk to someone who’ll tell me what has happened to someone I love and intend to marry. And what’s being done to get him back to safety. So I can marry him.”

  “You appear to have given a lot of thought to how provably connected you are.”

  The remark briefly confused Janet. In her anxiety she had set out her links with Sheridan without any conscious attempt at detail but able to think upon them now she acknowledged that the list had been comprehensive. But then why shouldn’t it have been? She was going to marry him, wasn’t she? Most wives-to-be could have recounted a hundred more things than she had done. She was still about to query the man’s remark but then understood. Janet said: “I’ve already spoken this morning to someone in the Agency, on the 3291 number. And I’ll tell you what I told him: I’m not interested in what you are doing or what John is doing or in any of this espionage crap that you all seem to think is a normal way of life. I don’t intend causing any trouble or any difficulty. All I want is someone to tell me how everything is going to be made all right. Have I made myself clear?”

  “I think you have, Ms. Stone.”

  “So?” demanded Janet. She was unsure where the determination was coming from—maybe from the frustrated anger—but whatever the source she was grateful: oddly—gratefully again—she no longer felt in danger of collapsing into pleading tears.

  “You have somewhere we could get back to?”

  There wasn’t any longer the insincere politeness, Janet recognized, relieved. She dictated her number and when he’d read it back she said: “How long until you get back to me?”

  “I’ve no way of knowing that, ma’am.”

  It hadn’t taken long for the bullshit to seep back into the exchange. She said: “I’m very anxious. I’d like to hear very soon.”

  “I’ve got your number.”

  Then dial the fucking thing! Janet thought, in a fresh surge of frustration. Her voice betrayed no indication of what she was thinking. “I’ll wait then.”

  “Yes,” agreed the man. “Wait.”

  Janet did just that, wandering aimlessly around the apartment and then, irritated at herself, remembered the continuous news broadcasts on CNN. Hurriedly she turned on the television. Sheridan’s kidnap retained its place as lead item and Janet sat through two top-of-the-hour repeats, each time grimacing as the fatuous CIA refusal to deny or confirm Sheridan’s connection with the Agency was parroted, as it had been parroted to her that morning. The library footage was similar to that of the previous night, and once more there were comparison still photographs of Sheridan and William Buckley. On one segment the Beirut situation was augmented by a live studio interview with a supposed intelligence expert whose name Janet had never heard before. Hands clenched, she sat as the man recounted brief details of the obscene torture the earlier CIA station chief had undergone. Before the expert finished Janet found herself saying: “No, please don’t let it happen. Don’t let him be hurt,” like she had the previous night.

  Janet snapped off the television, impatient at no fresh news development. She looked at her watch and then at the telephone—three hours since her contact with Langley. What was it that took so long! she thought, exasperated.

  Realizing it was lunchtime and that she had taken nothing other than coffee that morning, Janet went into the kitchen and stood looking at the refrigerator and the cupboards, wondering why she bothered. She wasn’t hungry and did not want to eat anything anyway. There were the remains of a bottle of wine she and Harriet had failed to finish last night, and Janet considered it and then decided against that, too. She’d never found solace from disaster in booze.

  Although she was expecting it, she started when the telephone sounded, snatching it off the kitchen extension to hear Harriet’s voice.

  “What is it?” demanded Harriet, discerning the disappointment.

  “I thought it would be someone else.”

  “From the Agency?”

  “Yes.”

  “What have they said?”

  “Nothing yet: that’s why I’m waiting.”

  “It’s all over the newspapers.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Janet, trying to curb her anxiety. “Darling, I really am waiting on this call. Can I get back to you?”

  “I’ll come by, direct from work,” announced her friend.

  “Do that,” Janet said at once, eager to clear the line, even though her telephone was equipped with call waiting, which had not registered during Harriet’s interruption. Still, Janet rang the switchboard operator downstairs who confirmed there had been no other incoming call in the preceding ten minutes.

  She tried CNN once more and saw a replay of the previous newscast and the intelligence expert’s account of what had happened to the last CIA officer snatched in Beirut, with no additional information, and turned it off. She walked from the main room to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the bedroom and then back into the main room. There were some magazines disordered on a small table and so she tidied them. All over the newspapers, she remembered, as she did so. How could she have been so stupid?

  Janet called the switchboard operator in the lobby and explained she was expecting an extremely important call: she was turning her telephone to answer and if the call came the operator was to ask whoever it was to hold as she was only going into the basement shopping area for a moment.

  She moved impatiently from foot to foot waiting for the elevator to arrive and darted immediately inside when it did, emerging before the doors were fully open into the basement. She snatched up all the newspapers available in the 7-11 store and was able to catch the elevator she had left before it was summoned to another floor. On the way back to her apartment Janet tried to read the account in one of the smaller-sized newspapers, Newsday, but the bundle was too clumsy and she abandoned the attempt.

  Inside she dumped the newspapers onto a pile, crossing directly to the telephone. The message light was not on but she spoke to the operator anyway. There hadn’t been a call.

  Janet had bought the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsday, the New York Daily News, and the New York Post. She spread them all out over the floor, at first only scanning each. Harriet had been right: every paper had led with Sheridan’s kidnapping. The Times and the Washington Post reports carried the byline of staff correspondents, rather than AP or UPI. Because their accounts appeared longer she read them first. Both reported that Sheridan had been waylaid in West Beirut as he drove, just after 9 A.M. the previous morning, from his apartment block to the fortified U.S. embassy, less than two miles away in the Yarzy district. Eyewitnesses talked of his vehicle being blocked front and back by two other cars and of Sheridan being bundled out at gunpoint. No responsibility had so far been claimed, but informed opinion was that the kidnap had been carried out by members of the Islamic Jihad.
The Times pointed out that the warring factions in the Lebanon were so fragmented that it could have been the work of a splinter group of what they referred to as the Iran-backed Hezbollah, the Party of God, or simply a ransom-inspired snatch by any one of a dozen gangs running crime syndicates in the lawless city. The Washington Post speculated similarly but their correspondent doubted it was a gangland seizure because all U.S. embassy personnel followed a strict security pattern, alternating routes and arrival and departure times at the American compound, indicating that the kidnap was carefully planned.

  The Washington Post story continued inside the paper and when she got to the continuation page Janet saw a biography of John Sheridan running alongside the news story. At once she abandoned the Beirut account.

  There were three photographs of Sheridan, none of which Janet considered very good. Inevitably there was comparison again with William Buckley, and part of Sheridan’s supposed background was intermingled with information about Buckley, so Janet had to read carefully to differentiate between the two.

  She learned for the first time that Sheridan had been born in Billings, Montana, had attended university there, and majored in law. His dead parents had been farmers and there was another photograph of a stiffly upright couple, both Sunday-best-dressed at what appeared to be an agricultural show. He’d run middle distance in his university athletics team and according to university contemporaries whom the newspaper had interviewed Sheridan had moved east almost directly after graduation. Those same unnamed sources described him as a serious, studious person who at school had not appeared to attract many friends.

  The biography repeated the absurd, noncommittal statement from the CIA at Langley and then recounted Sheridan’s postings in Mexico and Peru and Egypt. He was variously described as a political officer or a cultural attaché. There was a personal anecdote from a Washington Post staff writer who had worked in Saigon during Sheridan’s period there, and who claimed to know the man. Sheridan had not been a mixer or a party-goer, the journalist remembered. He had played chess and enjoyed studying the culture of the country: during his two-year posting he had acquired a reasonable fluency in Vietnamese.

  The biography concluded by saying that Sheridan was unmarried and had few friends in the Washington area, where he had been based for the previous three years, after his reassignment from Mexico.

  What about me? thought Janet at once. Wasn’t she a friend? More than a friend?

  She went carefully through the biography a second time, feeling cheated and betrayed, as she had the previous night, stunned before the television set, hearing of the kidnap. It wasn’t right—wasn’t fair—that she should learn about the man she was going to marry from some dry newspaper account. Why hadn’t he told her about Montana and his family? Of being an athlete? Of liking chess and being able to speak Vietnamese? They weren’t things that needed to be hidden: things likely to impinge upon whatever ridiculous oath of secrecy or silence or whatever it was she imagined they swore to uphold, like members of some cloaked and closed society. Janet felt she was sharing him now with however many thousands or millions of readers read that morning’s newspapers: that he wasn’t hers any more.

  The New York Times had also printed a profile. It included everything published in the Washington Post—although not so many photographs—but reported additionally that despite what the CIA was publicly saying Sheridan had for the past three years held the rank of supervisor in the Middle East analysis section and was regarded as one of the top three Middle East experts in the Agency. His loss, said the newspaper, was viewed extremely seriously both at Langley and at the White House. Determined to avoid another assassination, like that of Buckley, the State Department had already made a formal diplomatic approach to Damascus asking Syria to bring all possible pressure upon whatever group had seized Sheridan. In addition, informal contact had been made to every friendly or neutral embassy in the Lebanese capital, seeking information from their sources on the CIA man’s whereabouts.

  Janet had read the newspapers kneeling on the floor upon which they were laid. She slumped back now on her heels, wanting to feel relieved at learning that some effort was being made to get Sheridan released, but finding that reaction difficult. She told herself that the word “loss” in the Times report was just a journalistic usage and carried no special significance, but it made her uneasy. Like the account of the diplomatic efforts made her uneasy. Again, she tried to convince herself that it was exactly what the U.S. government should be doing—what she would have expected them to be doing and been angry if they hadn’t—but it seemed to hint at panic. And if the government and the Agency were panicking, they clearly feared Sheridan would be treated exactly like the previous CIA hostage. Janet fought against the conclusion, recognizing there was no reason whatsoever to speculate like that, but she was unable completely to remove it from her mind.

  It was a physical as well as mental agony to wait until four o’clock in the afternoon—the skin on her arms and legs began to itch, and became sore at her scratching—but she delayed until then to avoid annoyance at Langley. At four she decided she had every reason to go back to them.

  She went through the morning’s explanation to the switchboard operator, and when she was transferred, realized at once that she was not speaking to the same secondary spokesman. It meant a further repetition which she gave as calmly as possible, even when the man began reciting the official statement and she had to cut him off by insisting she had been promised a call back by the person to whom she had earlier spoken.

  The man asked her to hold and then returned to say: “Your earlier call has been logged, Ms. Stone.”

  “What’s that mean?” demanded Janet.

  “That it’s been logged,” repeated the man, doggedly.

  “I heard the words,” Janet said. “Logging something is just recording the fact. I’m waiting to speak to someone … hopefully meet with someone.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve told you, ma’am.”

  Stop calling me ma’am! Janet almost screamed. She said: “You haven’t told me anything yet. Can I speak to whoever it was I had the conversation with this morning?”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, ma’am.”

  “Why not?”

  There was a pause, as if the person at the other end were undecided whether he was risking an unauthorized disclosure. Then he said: “That person is no longer on duty today.”

  “So when can I expect to hear from whoever is going to talk to me!”

  “I’m afraid I have no knowledge of that, ma’am.”

  For several moments Janet had to clamp her mouth shut against a yell of frustration. Tightly she said: “Can you find out for me? Find out and call me back? I’ve been sitting by this telephone all day expecting some contact from you.”

  “I’m afraid that would not be proper, Ms. Stone,” said the man, at least varying his politeness.

  “Why the hell wouldn’t it be proper!” demanded Janet.

  “I’ve no way of knowing what my colleague might have already done,” said the man. “Wires could get crossed.”

  Janet pressed her knuckles against her mouth, creating a physical barrier. “How long?” she said, her words distorted.

  “I’m sorry?” prompted the man.

  Janet took her hand from her mouth and said, slowly and distinctly: “How long is it going to be before I hear from someone at the Central Intelligence Agency about what’s happening here and what’s happening in Beirut after the kidnap yesterday of John Sheridan!”

  There was a hesitation. Then the man said: “I’m afraid I can’t answer that, ma’am.”

  “Is this the way dependents of CIA officers are normally treated?” said Janet, regretting the anger as she spoke.

  “Ma’am,” said the spokesman. “I’ve told you your earlier call has been logged and that a colleague is working on it. But from what you’ve explained to me, it would seem that you are not legally a depend
ent.”

  The words had a chilling effect, cooling Janet’s anger as if icy water had been thrown in her face. “You’re telling me that I haven’t the right to know!”

  “I don’t wish to get into a dispute with you over this,” said the spokesman. “I was just expressing a personal point of view.”

  She was being blocked out, Janet decided. As she’d been blocked out when she called the supposed State Department number and when she made that first approach to Langley. She said: “No one is going to try to help me, are they?”

  “Ma’am, I’ve already tried to make it clear how little I can assist you.”

  “Poor bugger,” said Janet.

  “Ma’am?”

  “I was feeling sorry for John Sheridan, for ever getting involved,” she said, quietly now.

  “I really don’t think there is anything further I can help you with,” said the man.

  “Don’t forget to log the call, will you?” urged Janet, slamming down the telephone.

  The gesture didn’t help and she sat there, the renewed frustration trembling through her. Gradually she focused on the spread-apart Washington Post. During that morning’s conversations, she’d said she didn’t want to cause difficulties. It wasn’t she who had imposed those difficulties, Janet decided: they had.

  She picked up the telephone again. She explained yet again, to the Washington Post operator, and was connected at once to a voice that said, simply: “City.”

  “My name is Janet Stone,” she said. “I am engaged to be married to John Sheridan.”

  “Would you talk to us about that, Ms. Stone?” asked the man, at once.

  “I want to, very much,” said Janet. “I’m being shoved aside by the Agency.”

  “Where are you?”

  When Janet gave her address, the deskman said: “We can have a writer and photographer there in forty-five minutes.”

  They arrived in thirty. The writer was a thin, bony woman with prematurely gray-streaked hair, and the male photographer wore jeans and a T-shirt and round, metal-framed granny glasses.