A man with a gun. Sitting in the darkness.
Devereaux thought of his own death now and examined the thought with curiosity.
“So you were the man in the gray car,” Devereaux said at last.
Denisov was silent.
“Why did you come here?”
“Perhaps I was not in the gray car. Perhaps, I say, because you use that word to say nothing, to mean nothing. Denisov does not lie to you.”
“Why have they let you out of the Soviet Union?”
He said it to provoke the Russian but he heard no sound, no sharp intake of breath, no indication in the half-darkness that Devereaux’s betrayal two years before had hurt him.
“You are to provoke me? I do not grudge.”
“Carry a grudge.”
Silence. “Yes. As you say. You see how badly is become my English since it has been? In England, two years ago, I spoke well.”
“And then they called you back to Moscow,” Devereaux said.
“You betray me.”
“Yes.”
“And I do not grudge. I am not your enemy now. I am come to you.”
“My enemy has a gun in a dark room.”
“Do you think I am come to kill you?” The Russian voice struggled gravely against the rusty usage; he had once spoken the intricate language with barely an accent.
“Yes. You have a gun.”
“I save your life in Ireland.”
Devereaux waited.
“Did I do this?”
“Yes. And you tried to take it in Cambodia.”
Denisov made a face and spoke softly. “Another time, Devereaux. We must change to this time. The gun is to make you listen to me because you are too quick to the act, Devereaux.”
“You have my attention.”
Another face, as though Devereaux would not understand him. “No jokes. I come to you from my country, to expose myself to you.”
“The second miracle of the day.”
“We cannot trust the CIA. You know they are here and that this is against your law. They must not operate in this country, is it so?”
“And you must not operate in this country.”
“Devereaux.” The Russian stared sadly at the gray, hard-faced American standing in the half-darkness at the door. “After so many bad starts, America and my country speak now. In Denmark. We speak of peace, of a new treaty.”
“That’s politics.”
“Yes. And the CIA is in politics again. This priest is their agent.”
“Is he?”
More silence, heavy and ticking like an unseen clock.
“This is not a game against us, you and me, your country and my country,” Denisov said, struggling ponderously with the language. “The priest Tunney was an agent for the CIA in Laos. That is true. The priest is an agent now but not to watch, not for intelligence. Agent provocateur.” The French came easily. Both men knew French and had spoken it when they had played against each other in another game in Southeast Asia long before. “You must trust me.”
“Trust me,” Devereaux repeated. His voice was cold, without tone or resonance.
“You are here because you do not trust the CIA. We can give you proofs. We have proofs of this man Tunney, he is an agent, he is still working for the CIA, that he is in their plot to destroy the treaty of peace between us.” Sweat broke in a line on the heavy forehead.
“What proof?”
“Papers. Many proofs. Photographs. I can give you proofs.”
“Let me see them.”
Slowly, Denisov put down the gun on the dresser. Devereaux did not move from the door. It was as though he were watching Denisov move in slow motion.
Denisov reached into his coat and took out a paper-wrapped parcel. He placed the package on the long plastic “teakwood” dresser and slid it soundlessly to the other end. The package fell with a soft thump on the thick carpet.
“You see,” Denisov said. He did not move toward the gun again.
Devereaux picked up the parcel and opened it, removing the string carefully as though he intended to save it. He unfolded the brown butcher paper.
The first item was a photocopy of a routine teletype transmission between the office of the Assistant Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the payroll department. The message indicated that Leo Tunney was resumed on salary “immediately.” The internal message was open, uncoded. It was dated ten days ago.
The second piece of paper was also a photocopy, but this time of a coded transmission. The code was translated at the bottom of the paper, first in Russian and then, painfully on what appeared to be a manual typewriter, in English:
CONTINUE CAMBODIAN PROBE.
EXPECT FRESH EVIDENCE SOON.
RETURN OF M8SLASH44 WILL HELP OPERATION ABORT.
HAWKSHIELD.
The third piece of evidence was a photograph of Leo Tunney, a shy and smiling Tunney, in the embassy grounds at Bangkok. Devereaux knew the embassy and he knew the second man in the photograph who was also smiling. Victor Taubman.
“What is Abort?” Devereaux said.
“A CIA operation against the treaty for SALT Three in Denmark.”
“Do I take your word for that?”
Denisov stared at the package in Devereaux’s hands. “The last piece.”
Two pages, crudely phrased, outlining Abort.
“From your section on Disinformation,” Devereaux said with distaste, glancing over the sheets. Besides operating normal propaganda sections, the sprawling bureaucracy of the Committee for State Security — the KGB — also operated a clever section devoted to inventing whole new “truths” for dissemination in Western media. The American intelligence community referred to these “truths” as “disinformation.”
“Four pieces of proof.”
“Four pieces of paper,” Devereaux said.
“Information,” Denisov said patiently. “You know it is like this, in bits and pieces. Leo Tunney is their agent, but now an agent to fabricate lies against us, to turn your public and your Administration against the peace treaty.”
It was true, of course; real information — the stuff gleaned after sifting through mountains of lies, thousands and thousands of pieces of unrelated information — was usually just as fragmentary as these four sheets.
“Why would I reveal myself to you, Devereaux?”
“A bluff.”
“You are obliged to give this to your Section.”
“I have no obligation to you.”
“Devereaux, Tunney is not what he seems.”
For the first time, Devereaux smiled, a hard smile without mirth. “Don’t you believe in miracles, Denisov?”
“This is not for a joke,” Denisov said. “The Agency is to deceive you, to deceive us, to destroy our détente again. But we are not deceived. Do you think I would give you this — to give you the work of a mole inside the CIA — as a ruse? The Agency has gone too far. They cannot put the sheep over our eyes.”
“Wool,” Devereaux corrected absently. He looked at the papers again. Photocopies, bits of information. Or disinformation. Part of it might be true, part of it a lie. All of it might be true, all of it lies.
He put the papers down.
“Tunney will use the television to denounce us, to invent a lie about us.”
“A lie?”
“This is an Agency operation,” Denisov said.
What lie?
Devereaux suddenly made a series of connections: the Section’s interest, Hanley’s insistence on using him because of his Asian experience, the odd behavior of the CIA throughout. But what about this incident at Mass in the church? And what about the presence now not only of the Vatican but of the Soviets?
Four factors. Five factors. And there was the matter of the gray car as well.
“The Agency does not want the truth,” Denisov said. “The Agency does not want friendship between our countries.”