The British Cross

by Bill Granger

  The Russian frowned again, by way of concentration. George was enjoying himself.

  “Let us look at the American problem, old man. It seems certain they did not want to see Crohan emerge from Austria after the war either, after allowing him to dangle there for two years. They were quite relieved the Russians arrested him.”

  “We discovered that he was an American spy.”

  “Did they let you discover that?” He waved the cigar again. “Let it go. In any event, there were protests after the war from Ireland, from the Crohan family, from some of the State Department people in the United States who had arranged the fiasco. Some in the OSS were upset as well because everyone thought that Crohan was alive.

  “Well, darling, what could we tell our American cousins? That we had solved their problem by killing Crohan ourselves?

  “So the OSS did a quite clever thing, or so they thought. They let leak to you evidence that Crohan was a Nazi collaborator. Pictures of him with Hitler before the war; faked documents to show that he had been working hand-in-glove with the Nazis during the war. That is why he was in Vienna. But the evidence was puzzling because the man you had was obviously not Crohan. So you waited and the Americans thought you had fallen for their trick and we, of course, were satisfied to hear the last of the matter. My God, we thought we were all fooling each other.” George laughed then, a deep, rumbling chuckle that ended in a fit of coughing. He put down the cigar and reached for the cup of tea laced with milk.

  “We did not know who this man was, not for two years after the war.”

  “Of course. He was a bloody British agent. If he kept silent, assumed still Crohan’s identity, he thought he had a chance of being released eventually. He was an Irish neutral, after all. A British agent would never have gotten out of your admirable prison network.”

  “In 1947, he identified himself. He protested that he was Michael Brent.”

  “And by that time, you didn’t believe him.”

  “No.”

  “Aided by the fact that we sent unofficial word to you that we had no agent named Michael Brent. His file was expunged. It wasn’t so terribly difficult; unlike Crohan, he had no family and no one mourned his disappearance.”

  Silence filled the bare room for a moment like a third person. The two men waited for words to return.

  “Tartakoff was to accompany the prisoner long enough to tell his story to the American journalist—”

  “His story of being Tomas Crohan—”

  “And then Tartakoff would have killed him.”

  “And the American agent if necessary, the messenger in Helsinki.”

  “And Ely was going to be held responsible for the murder.”

  “Yes. As the Americans say so colorfully, framed. Because Her Majesty’s government knew the truth about Michael Brent.”

  “We conditioned Crohan for a year at Kresty Hospital. He could not live without the pills.”

  “After forty years, we call him Crohan when we know he is not. I suppose he actually believes at times that he is Crohan. He has lived in that dead man’s skin for so long.”

  “But the trap is sprung and empty.”

  “Yes. Too bad.” Again, he reached for the cigar. It had gone out. He fumbled for his lighter. “A lot of work, that. Too bad. But do you see, my dear fellow? Even if I am implicated by the Russian, what good is his charge? If I am vetted by Auntie, I shall come through with flying colors. I am in charge of Computer Section, after all; I am the man who controls Seeker and I know what my records say about me. They are spotless, full of commendations. If it is necessary, we will bring up the matter of Bluebird to the PM. We handled that rather well, it reflects well on me, considering our people kidnapped the poor darling themselves.” George smiled again. “Poor old Wickham. But when we have thrown Wickham to the wolves, they will be satisfied and, in a half year’s time, I shall be as unassailable as I have always been inside Auntie. Don’t forget the case of American cooperation with us—the Yanks want us to handle their missile bases, they need British support to keep NATO from collapsing. It is not in their best interest to raise doubts of Her Majesty’s Secret Service based on the ramblings of a Soviet defector who may or may not have any solid information. Even if the old man makes it back to the U.S., which I seriously doubt, who is he and why will his voice be heard?”

  “The journalist?”

  “This Macklin woman? She’s a spy, Latvia, for the love of God; she’s under her own orders.”

  “Can we be certain?”

  “Nothing is certain.” George paused. “Uncertainty is the only interesting proposition left to us.”

  “But the Americans will suspect you.”

  “The Americans suspected Philby from 1948 on and not a damned thing was done about it. The Americans suspect a lot of people but getting proof is something else, and Tartakoff is no proof. Her Majesty’s government is rather prickly on the subject of internal affairs; we do not wish to be told how to manage our affairs by the Americans. No, Latvia, nothing will happen because no one wants the embarrassment of the secrets of Tomas Crohan or Michael Brent—not you, not us, not the Americans. None of us.”

  And George was absolutely right.

  31

  STOCKHOLM

  The sun lay low in the west. The light of the sun danced on the copper steeples poking above the massive buildings huddled on the islands of the city. The city lay in a frozen mosaic of stone that stretched clearly into the gray Baltic beyond.

  Devereaux and Rita Macklin made love.

  The blinds were thrown up to catch the last of the light falling gently into the large, quiet hotel room. Next door, in a locked room, the old man slept. As the ferry from Finland had approached Stockholm harbor, the old man suddenly in tears had confessed to Rita that he was Michael Brent, not Tomas Crohan. The story had thrilled her but depressed Devereaux.

  The old man’s story seemed to doom them, Devereaux thought. Every side would be turned against them. But Devereaux said none of these things to Rita when they were finally alone. He still had silences but she had shattered his coldness. Devereaux realized he loved her. It was absurd but it was true.

  He kissed her breasts gently. He licked them. He kissed her mouth. He held her in the hollow of his body and arms. He warmed her as he felt the warmth of holding her seep slowly into the icy crevices of his own feeling. He made love to her as though she were as fragile as a glass angel; he loved her slowly; when she spoke, once, he held his hand over her mouth because he hated words. Words glossed every real thing with brittle artifice and deceit. Words were always lies, always intended to deceive even when they held the truth; the truth of things was in not speaking, was in touching and not telling.

  When they were finished, they lay back on the bed, side by side, their arms extended and their hands touching but their bodies apart from each other. They were like exhausted survivors of some shipwreck washed up on a foreign shore. They stared at the ceiling and the last light of afternoon colored the room with shades of gold.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked at last. She might have been asking the question for herself or for the sake of the old man in the next room; the question might have had many answers due it.

  “I don’t know. Wait.”

  “This is a helluva story in case I haven’t mentioned that.”

  He did not look at her. He stared at a spot on the ceiling that was not like any other spot. He stared until he actually did not see the spot but was in a trance; he had the trick of travelers and spies to induce a trance to escape the constraints of time passing. It was also the trick of prisoners who survived.

  “Is it?”

  “When I first met you, Dev, you pretended to be a newspaperman. At least pretend now to see the possibility that someone named Michael Brent went in from British Intelligence to kill one of our agents who happened to be an Irishman named Crohan. You haven’t heard that story lately.”

  “There’s no proof.”

  “I
’m not a lawyer, I’m a journalist. Besides, isn’t that old man proof sitting there in that room?”

  “No.” The cold eyes did not see; the cold voice fell flatly between them. “The only thing he can prove is how to get us killed. He’s a loose cannon, Rita. The British must want him dead, the Russians certainly want him dead. For all I know, so do we.”

  “Why did they let him out?”

  “It was a trap from the beginning. I don’t have proof either, but there has to be some logic to this. The priest in Dublin; he must have been prodded into making contact with the old woman in Chicago. Maybe a letter or photograph or something dropped on him by the Opposition. She contacts a journalist and that is not coincidence either; she was a friend of the publisher of your magazine. You pursue the story and become intrigued when the old priest is killed. All of it was so subtle and yet so clumsy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He turned and looked at her. They were naked. Her body was lean and unmarked; his was lean and pale and marked with wounds. Her face was soft, he thought, though it was not; he merely saw the golden light falling on it. Her red hair framed the paleness of her face and he thought she seemed so young it was only that he felt himself so old. Her green eyes held his simply and without aversion. He touched her hair with a clumsy hand, unaccustomed to caresses. “Rita Macklin would write an investigative piece of journalism that would thumb its nose at the evil and corruption in the American espionage establishment. At the same time, the government would be embarrassed and would ask embarrassing questions of the British when it was discovered the old man was not Tomas Crohan. Perhaps they were going to kill him after he talked to you; perhaps the Russians were playing the British side at the same time, exciting their suspicions of an American plot to discredit them. Paranoia is the coin of the business; it could be spent both ways. What did they want with all this? To destroy Cheltenham, I suppose, to make it too difficult for the Americans and the English to work with each other in trust anymore. Maybe that’s why Sims was in Helsinki and maybe that is why the prostitute was killed. She didn’t know she was a danger to the Russians because she had slept with me and with Sims.”

  Rita turned away from his touch. She stared at the wall opposite him.

  “Why did you sleep with her?”

  He stared at her back and smiled at her, with affection and yet with a sort of mocking look in his gray eyes. “Because I was tired. Because I wanted to make love.”

  “That wasn’t love.”

  “Rita, be still.”

  “No. I love you. I told you. You never needed anyone else.”

  He said nothing.

  She turned suddenly and looked at him. Her green eyes were burning bright in the sunlight low in the sky. “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Is this a test?” Gently, mocking.

  “No, goddamn you, there isn’t any test. Fuck you.”

  He said nothing.

  “Damn you. What moves you? What makes you feel? What makes you cry or get mad or anything?”

  “You.”

  “What?”

  The trance was broken, he realized. What he had said to Hanley would now come true. He did not feel any emotion but release, as though everything he felt had been dammed up by his silence.

  “I love you, Rita,” Devereaux said for the first time and they both knew that was all they had waited for, that a few words had committed both of them to some uncertain future. He had meant it when he told Hanley he would quit this time and he had mentioned Rita as part of it only to protect her from the wrath of the Section; at least, that is what he thought at the time.

  She reached for him then. She held his face in her soft hands and kissed him softly and they moved together, touching and holding each other. The light finally fell away beneath the buildings and the sky turned purple; clouds streaked across the horizon of the Baltic but they did not see them. In the dusk, they held each other. “I would do anything for you,” she said. He knew it was true and it frightened him.

  What could he say to her now?

  “I was afraid,” she said. “When that man followed me… when he tried to kill me. I was afraid for a moment that you had sent him. I have to tell you that.”

  “No,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me anything. I won’t tell you anything. I have secrets and you will never know them. I don’t want your secrets.”

  “Don’t we have to understand each other?”

  “No.” He kissed her to silence. “No. No words. No secrets. No betrayals. I didn’t want you, Rita. I didn’t want to see you again. Once I could send you away; I can’t send you away again.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Get rid of this thing. I have a promise from Hanley. I’m quitting the Section.”

  “I thought it was the only thing that kept you alive.”

  “It was.”

  “Will he do it? Will he let you quit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you believe him?”

  “Because the alternative isn’t acceptable, to him or to me.”

  “How can you resolve this?”

  “Do nothing,” he said. “You will tell the story of Tomas Crohan and it won’t be a secret anymore. There is one other matter.”

  “What?”

  “George.”

  “The British agent?”

  “Yes. That’s part of the story you can’t tell.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then they could never let us alone,” Devereaux said. “Tell what you have with the old man and let the rest of it alone.”

  “I’m a newspaperman,” she said. “I’m not a goddamn spook. I don’t start changing the way the story is told to suit myself.…” She paused in her outburst as suddenly as she had started speaking. My God, it isn’t true anymore, is it? This changes all the rules for me as well as him.

  “You are what people think you are, Rita,” he said with gentleness. “George thinks you’re a spy, by now, I’m sure of it. Who else does? Antonio did.”

  “I would do anything for you.”

  He smiled. “Even betray all your journalism ethics.”

  Her face was grave. “Would do anything. Lie or steal or even kill for you.”

  “How fierce you are,” he said, again in a voice of peculiar gentleness. His tone was still flat, his words were without emphasis, and yet he spoke as a child speaks describing a wonderful thing and uncertain how to frame it in words. “I love you.” And they suddenly came together without any more words between them. She touched his body and let her fingers follow down his belly and when she bent to kiss him there and there, he touched her hair again and held her head in his hands and said her name again. He opened her legs and lay in her lap and they made love again as dusk turned into the cold night of Stockholm beyond their windows.

  Rita slept next to him, on her belly, her head buried in pillows. She slept like a child, deeply and trustingly. She was naked and he could see the ribs of her back as her body rose and fell, rose and fell with heavy breaths. For a long time, in the glitter of moonlight pouring through the window, Devereaux sat in bed and watched her sleeping.

  He had always counted on his own survival as the goal of life, from Vietnam to here. There had been a thousand hotel rooms in the twenty years, a thousand places like this one. He had known women when he wanted them and taken little pleasures like a priest sipping brandy on Sunday; but he had stayed apart from the world, from its attachments. He had chosen to be a stranger because it was the only way to survive.

  “I know what you are. You’re a goddamn spook, a spy.” She had said it to him once in her curious tough, little-girl way, her slight overbite making her aggressive face seem more threatening but, at the same time, not really a threat; she was a make-believe bully who might be tough.

  Yes, he thought, Was she tough enough?

  Did he believe Hanley?

  No. Not at all. But the time to survive was over for him, he realized. I
t meant nothing to him if there was nothing left to survive for. Devereaux realized that he was afraid of Rita Macklin because she had offered herself to him a second time and if he had refused her again, then it would all be ended for him. An odd fate had given him a second chance and he had instinctively seized it, enmeshing her in the assignment until she could no longer be extricated. Until she could no longer leave him.

  But what would happen a month from now or a year from now, when she had lived with him and slept with him and found that it was not enough for her? He was afraid of that as well. But then, he had been afraid before and he had lived with the fear without reward, except for survival. This was something more.

  Devereaux watched the old man eat. It was morning and Rita still slept in her room, but Devereaux had taken the old man downstairs to a restaurant in the hotel. The restaurant was decorated with green plants and with its huge windows it resembled a sort of greenhouse shut down by winter. A blustery morning buffeted the solemn city beyond the large plate-glass windows. The windows were coated with frost.

  Again, the old man ate eggs as he had on the Finlandia, but this time, he had reduced their numbers because he had eaten too many before. He ate two eggs and ate them with relish, as though eggs were not a common thing.

  “What story are you going to tell Rita Macklin?” Devereaux said. A cup of coffee smoldered in front of him but he did not eat. Devereaux ate only for fuel and only when his body demanded it; he took no pleasure in food.

  “About Tomas Crohan?”

  Devereaux waited.

  The old man had egg yolk on his lips. He sucked his lips and the smear disappeared. He licked his lips with his thin tongue. His thin throat was all movement as he ate—Adam’s apple bobbing, lines of muscles quivering as he swallowed.