Betrayals

by Brian Freemantle

  “What can you tell us about John Sheridan and yourself?” asked the woman, as soon as she was inside the apartment.

  “Everything,” promised Janet.

  9

  Janet had little experience of newspapers or the other media, and the reaction to her interview with the Washington Post overwhelmed her. It was only eleven o’clock that night, and Harriet was still with her, when the telephone first rang. It was the staff correspondent for the BBC who had read the piece in the first edition of the following morning’s paper and wanted an interview at their Washington studio, to be transmitted by a satellite link-up with London for their breakfast program. Knowing there would be no contact from the CIA that late at night, she agreed. Hairnet offered to remain in the apartment just in case, and it was Harriet who relayed to her at the studio the calls from American bureaus of five London newspapers, CBS, NBC, and ABC, the New York Times, Newsday, Newsweek, and Reuters news agency. She agreed to the American television interviews and spoke to the London Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Daily Mail but then, exhausted, asked the others to wait until the following morning. It was three-thirty before she got to bed. The Reuters reporter and photographer called from the downstairs lobby at seven.

  Their interview and picture session was just finishing when the delayed contact of the previous night started to be made, not by telephone now but by journalists coming personally to Rosslyn. Janet posed and talked to them all and agreed to fresh interviews for different programs with the three main American television networks, with ITN in London, and with CNN.

  It was late afternoon before she was able properly to read the Washington Post interview which had started it all. Although there was a story datelined from Beirut, it was immediately obvious that there had been no developments in Beirut, and her story was given the emphasis. The Post had divided it into two parts. That on the front page, turning later on to page nine, focused upon her anger at the lack of help from the CIA, and Janet was glad—it was to force some response from the Agency that she had approached the newspaper in the first place and then agreed to the media onslaught that followed. There were photographs of the legal documents she had made available to them, proving that she was Sheridan’s fiancée, including the document from the U.S. embassy in Beirut giving her control of his bank account, which was reproduced in full. The second, inside-page story was a personality profile and Janet was surprised at its depth. There was reference to her diplomat father and a quote from her department head at Georgetown University describing her as a brilliant academic and there were lengthy quotes from the letters that had passed between her and Sheridan, always concerning some remark about their impending wedding. There were three photographs of herself and Janet was disappointed. She thought they made her look fuller-faced than she really was, and in each she appeared strained, which she supposed she was, and she was obviously not made up, which had been her fault, not that of the photographer. It had been a mistake, too, not to change from the jeans and shirt she had been wearing when they arrived. She was reading with the television tuned to the continuous CNN news program, as she had the previous day, and was much happier with her appearance there. It had been right to wear her hair pulled back from her face and the formal business suit. She thought she looked concerned but not haggard. When she had responded to a question about their engagement the camera closed in upon her ring. She had been worriedly intertwining and then releasing her fingers, which she couldn’t remember having done.

  The next telephone call was from her mother. She said she had been out specially to buy all the English newspapers and there were stories and photographs in every one. They had not expected her to appear on BBC television that morning and would have liked to have been told; as it was they had only caught it by accident.

  “Sorry,” said Janet.

  “You didn’t smile,” her mother said. “You’ve got a nice smile, too.”

  “I don’t really think there’s a lot to smile about, do you?”

  “You still haven’t heard anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “It can’t be easy for them.”

  “It’s not easy for me, either.”

  “We could still come across.”

  “There’s no point.”

  “You going to be on television here again?”

  Janet frowned at the thought that her mother was enjoying it, like she’d earlier imagined Harriet was enjoying it. Remembering the ITN interview, she said: “Probably. I don’t know. You’ll just have to watch the various channels.”

  “Your father sends his love and says you’re not to worry.”

  “That’s a …” Janet began, irritably, and then stopped. She said: “Give my love to him.”

  “You looked very pretty on television, even though you didn’t smile.”

  Janet didn’t know what to say. “Thanks,” she managed.

  “Call us the minute you hear something?” ended her mother, predictably.

  “Of course,” promised Janet, just as predictably.

  Janet’s hand was still on the telephone, in the act of replacing it, when it sounded again, startling her. Hopefully she picked it up, disappointed at Harriet’s voice.

  “Anything?” asked her friend.

  “A lot more interviews. Nothing from the Agency.”

  “You’re the most famous girl in town.”

  “Bugger being the most famous girl in town.”

  “The boss wants to help.”

  “The boss?” Janet asked, not understanding.

  “Senator Willard J. Blackstone.”

  Until that moment Janet had not considered the possibility of political pressure from anyone in Congress. “How?” she said, cautiously.

  “I don’t know exactly,” said Harriet. “But he wants you to come up to the Hill, to see him. He asked me to fix a time.”

  “It will mean leaving the telephone.”

  “Darling,” said Harriet. “Do you really think you raise the chances of their calling by sitting next to the damned thing! You’ve got a switchboard downstairs. Use it. You set out to throw stones in pools; let’s make as many ripples as we can.”

  Janet paused. It would be wrong to lose the impetus she appeared to have created but she had not anticipated the effect of approaching the Washington Post and still had no proof it would achieve anything anyway. At once came the balancing reflection. Even more reason to meet with an American senator then. She said: “All right.”

  “What time?”

  “That’s a matter for you, really.”

  “How about an hour?” suggested Harriet.

  Janet looked down to her sweater and jeans and remembered the mistake of the Washington Post photographs and said: “An hour and a half.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” assured her friend.

  Which she was when Janet, wearing the same suit she’d worn for the CNN interview, arrived at the Dirksen Building housing the Senate offices. Harriet greeted Janet at the entrance and cupped her elbow with her hand to guide her familiarly along the high-ceilinged corridors to Blackstone’s suite. Blackstone was a senior, four-term senator with an office to match that seniority. There was a cluster of outer rooms accommodating secretaries and aides, a more expansive paneled chamber for his personal assistant, and beyond that Blackstone’s sanctum itself. It was at the corner of the building, with a view of Constitution Avenue and the Capitol beyond. The walls were lined with photographs showing Blackstone with every domestic and international political figure Janet could remember over the preceding ten years. Beneath the pictures there were enough leather couches and chairs for a large, informal conference and to one side a conference table itself, hedged by about a dozen upright chairs. Blackstone’s desk was against the windows: occupying the wall space in between was a furled but staffed American flag held up by a special support.

  Blackstone rose as the women entered. He was an impressive but carefully cultivated man. He had a thick mane of completely white hair, wh
ich he wore long and swept back and he was tall enough, well over six feet, to be able to wear suits tailored practically in the style of the frock coats of an earlier age, waisted and then full again over his hips.

  He came forward with both hands outstretched, encompassed Janet’s fingers between them, and said welcome and how sorry he was and how he was determined to help as, still holding her hand, he led her to one of the side couches. He pulled one of the easy chairs around to face her but sat forward, elbows on his knees, face between his hands, in the well-practiced attitude of a politician giving someone their undivided attention, and told her to tell him all about it, from the very beginning. The voice was Southern drawl, tailored like the clothes.

  After recounting the story of herself and John Sheridan so often in the past twenty-four hours, Janet was able to do so automatically, actually able to recall dates and places and even quote the official phrasing of the legal documents that had passed between herself in Washington and Sheridan in Beirut.

  “And the Agency refused to see you?”

  “Not actually refused,” qualified Janet, carefully. “I keep asking to be told something and all they say is that my original request has been logged.”

  Blackstone made a vague gesture in the direction of his desk upon which Janet saw for the first time marked and annotated newspaper clippings. He said: “What makes you fear you’re not being considered a proper, legal dependent then?”

  “The last man I spoke to at Langley, yesterday,” said Janet. “He said in his opinion I did not appear to be.”

  “I don’t have any difficulty considering you precisely that,” said Blackstone.

  “I want to hear that they don’t, either,” said Janet.

  “You know what I’m going to do, little lady?” asked Blackstone, rhetorically. “I’m going to poke a stick into the hornets’ nest. I’m going to ask questions and keep asking questions until I get some goddamned answers. For you and for myself. I think you’re being treated badly and I think Americans are being treated badly. I don’t think we should sit back and let our guys out there in the field get pushed around by a bunch of fanatics and do nothing about it. I think we’ve put up with just about enough humiliation there. I think it’s time we kicked ass, if you’ll forgive me the expression.”

  “Thank you,” said Janet, not knowing what else to say. She supposed little lady ranked with ma’am and ms.

  “Starting right now,” Blackstone announced, standing abruptly and crossing to his desk. He snapped down an intercom and said: “Ready, Ray?”

  “Ready, senator,” replied a disembodied voice.

  “Let’s go,” urged Blackstone, returning to where Janet sat and offering his hand.

  She stood without his assistance, following uncomprehendingly as the politician led the way into the paneled outer office but turned right through a door leading to the conference room. She hesitated at the entrance, conscious that the room into which she was being taken was already crowded and that the harsh lights she could now recognize as television illumination were burning, in readiness. She felt a push from Harriet, behind, and continued on into the room.

  At Blackstone’s bidding she sat beside him on a raised dais, unable because of the lights to see if any of the assembled journalists were those she had met before. She heard Blackstone insist that she had approached him for help and that he was going to give it. He described her as a tragic little lady and talked about fanatics and good American boys in the field and too much humiliation which had to stop and how he intended asking questions until he got answers and Janet realized Blackstone’s earlier remarks in his office had been a rehearsed and prepared speech, for this press conference. She heard herself being questioned and replied that she was grateful for the senator’s assistance and that she still had not been told anything officially and thought, illogically, how glad she was she’d worn her suit and not stayed in her jeans.

  “Well!” demanded Harriet, excitedly, as they drove back across the river towards Rossyln, listening already over the car radio to a report of what had taken place. “What did you think of that?”

  That she’d been used by a publicity-conscious politician anxious to clamber aboard a bandwagon, Janet replied, mentally. Aloud she said: “Let’s hope it works.”

  The switchboard had one message when they went into the apartment. There was no name or identification, just a number but with a 703 area code. When she called it and identified herself a man said: “I think it’s time we met, don’t you?”

  “See!” exclaimed Harriet. “It worked!”

  10

  It was a typical office building on 13th Street near Franklin Park. Janet had been surprised at receiving an address in Washington rather than being asked to go out to Langley, which was what she had expected. She supposed, upon reflection, that it was obvious the Agency would have places away from their headquarters complex for meetings like this. As the elevator ascended to the sixth floor Janet wondered if it were in just such an office that Sheridan had worked or whether he’d been based at Lang-ley. If he were the senior analyst the newspapers had described him as being, she guessed he would have been out in Virginia.

  The suite number she had been given—6223—confronted her when the lift doors opened. There was no identification plate. The door, without any apparent security lock or device, opened into an expansive area dominated by wide-leafed plants in a selection of wood-chipped pots. There were magazines on several small tables centered among low-backed easy chairs, and Janet thought it was just like every doctor’s or dentist’s waiting room she’d ever visited. The receptionist was black and very pretty, her hair braided and all the braids capped off with different-colored beads which rattled at her every movement. From a chain around her neck hung the sort of identification badge, complete with picture, that everyone in Washington appeared to wear. Behind the receptionist two closed-circuit television cameras were positioned to encompass the entire room.

  When Janet identified herself the receptionist said: “Of course,” as if she personally recognized her. The woman passed the name on through the intercom box on her desk and immediately a fresh-faced, bespectacled man emerged from a cubicle behind. He wore a waistcoated gray checked suit with a club-striped tie pinned into place by a metal bar which stretched from each collar tip. He, too, recited her name as if he recognized her and asked her politely to follow him into the rear of the building.

  The office into which he led her was very small, a partitioned box among a lot of other partitioned boxes. It was bare of any personal photographs or mementos. There was nothing on the desk apart from a single telephone and a blotter pad: the pad was crisply white and unmarked. There was another closed-circuit camera high in the left corner. Janet guessed the size of the room made more than one camera unnecessary.

  The man gestured her to a seat and politely remained standing until Janet sat. He left his jacket fastened when he lowered himself into his seat, so that the material strained around him, but did not appear discomfited. Through the gape of the jacket Janet saw he had an identification badge on a chain, as well.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said.

  “It was hardly likely that I wouldn’t, surely?” said Janet. She hadn’t intended to sound rude but realized her reply could be construed that way.

  He did not appear offended. He said: “We think all the publicity has been unfortunate.”

  “I think it is unfortunate I have been treated as I have,” replied Janet.

  “On occasions like this the Agency receives a lot of crank calls,” he said.

  “You thought I was a crank!”

  “We had to be sure.”

  “You mean you checked on me?”

  “Of course.”

  Janet looked directly at the camera, wondering the purpose of whatever it was recording. She said: “I could have been told. That there would be a delay, I mean.”

  The man nodded and said: “Our people didn’t handle it well.”

&n
bsp; “Am I to know your name?” asked Janet.

  The man hesitated, appearing reluctant, then said: “Willsher. Robert Willsher.”

  “So now that we’ve at last met, Mr. Willsher, what can you tell me about John?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid,” said the CIA man. “Through an allied embassy in Beirut we’ve got some guidance that the kidnappers are Fundamentalists but there’s been no direct contact. Or demand.”

  “So what’s the purpose of the kidnap in the first place?”

  Willsher shrugged. “Humiliation of Americans is usually sufficient. There are a lot of our people held.”

  “Too many,” said Janet, accusingly. “What’s the policy to be when there is contact? Is there to be a bargained deal?”

  “Official policy is not to surrender to terrorism,” said Willsher.

  “Rubbish,” rejected Janet, at once. “What was Irangate all about! And it failed.”

  “I’m authorized to say that every avenue will be explored, to secure Sheridan’s release,” said the man.

  “What, precisely, does that mean!”

  “What it says. It’s impossible for us to be any more specific than that until we know who’s got him and what they want.”

  “You looked into my background?”

  “Yes,” frowned Willsher.

  “So you know my university subject. And from it will be aware I study the area,” reminded Janet.

  Willsher nodded again, understanding. He said: “And because of your subject you should be able to appreciate how difficult it is for us.”

  “Do you just intend to wait?” asked Janet. “Or are you trying to make contact from your side?”

  “You must believe we’re doing everything we can.”

  “That isn’t an answer to my question.”

  “Through Arab governments with whom we have dialogue we have made it clear we want contact,” conceded Willsher. “That’s why your courting publicity didn’t help.”