Hanley had not thought to shave and now he was acutely aware of it. The bristles—brown and gray—on his thin chin somehow made him more tired than he was; he rubbed at them as he drove down the deserted Sunday morning stretch of Wisconsin Avenue into Bethesda.
He had been up all night.
He had, in fact, not left the Section in the Department of Agriculture building since Devereaux’s telephone call over thirty-six hours before. He had not been aware of sleep or human needs or food for two days; he had merely been the hunter, searching through the records and reports and magnetic tapes on the big computer for clues to the leak in the Section and a clue to the mystery left by Devereaux.
Part of that mystery had been in the message found on the body of the dead agent. The man Devereaux had eliminated in a Belfast hotel stairwell.
The message: ETRAYSDVERDANTYGER
He had used the computer to break the code. Effortlessly, it had hummed through the variants possible in routine codes—the letter plus one, the letter plus two, the letter plus three… E became H in the plus-three code, T became W, R became U, and so on. The machine had tried all the plus combination up to forty and printed out the variants, and then it had been programmed to use the minus codes—letter minus one made E become D and so on. The machine tried “book” codes.
The message was meaningless.
The message was not meaningless. What was it? Did it name the leak? Was it a code within a code?
And all the time, he had burrowed into the other files with the loyal secretaries and with Hallman of the Asian desk borrowed for the hunt. Hanley was like a man who had mislaid his eyeglasses: Half blind with fatigue, worry, and frustration, he pawed through familiar things in familiar places again and again, always with growing irritation at his own stupidity. It must be there in the piles of manpower reports, training reports, recommendations of new agents, reports from field agents, 201 files. In all those familiar things, there must be the mark of the traitor.
Hanley spurred the others on ruthlessly. He had no life outside the Section; it was home and hearth, wife and child to him. If Hanley were to admit it, the endless hours thrilled him as well. The Section had caught a kind of wartime fever, an excitement that Hanley had not felt since the days he’d served in the old O.S.S.
Chief-of-Section Galloway had called four times during those hours.
As usual, the voice was mild but clearly disapproving of the delay in tracing the leak in the Section. Rear Admiral Galloway (USN Ret.) was at the best of times a frustrating man to work for but now it was much worse: He was the type who said little but expected you to catch intricate meanings in and shadings to his few words.
Of course, Hanley had considered that Devereaux himself was wrong. That Devereaux had relayed a bogus message. That Devereaux, for unclear reasons, was playing a game with the Section.
That thought had occurred to Hanley but he told no one.
It had occurred to Galloway and he chewed on it and then finally relayed it on to Hanley in the second telephone conversation.
And there was the business with Miss Elizabeth Campbell. Formerly Mrs. Donald Frieze. Mother. Child deceased. Divorce. Who was Frieze? That was part of the hunt as well. Inquiries were made about Frieze in the Justice Department, where he worked in the civil rights section. A tap was set on his telephone. It recorded only inanities—two calls from salesmen, one selling subscriptions to a Washington newspaper, the other offering central air conditioning. And a long, late conversation with a Margo Cole of Fairfax in which sexual relations were suggested and agreed to.
Elizabeth Campbell. Born in Buffalo, New York. Raised in New York City by Thomas A. Campbell, patent attorney. Mother dead. Columbia University. Peace Corps—Addis Ababa. Married Donald Frieze in Bergen, New Jersey; one child, David. Killed at six years of age by Mrs. Eleanor Hodkins, 64, of 122 Briar Lane, Arlington, Virginia, at 3:45 in the afternoon. Automobile accident. Divorce.
Everything was checked.
Hanley finally came to Devereaux’s own 201 file.
Peter Devereaux. Born in Chicago. Orphaned at four. Raised by an elderly aunt. Two arrests while a teenager, one for assault and battery, the second for assault. Scholarship to the University of Chicago. Graduate, postgraduate. Ph.D. Professor of history, Columbia University, New York. Recruited to the Section. Four attached recommendations; three attached letters of demerit.
But Hanley already knew everything about Devereaux.
And the message: ETRAYSDVERDANTYGER
In the twenty-seventh hour, half dozing at his desk while his eyes dimly perceived the manpower reports in his hands, Hanley understood. The thought came to him and lingered just long enough for him to become alert again. He put down the manpower reports and got up from the desk and went into the hall and drank a long sip of water from the fount.
The message was not in code. That was why it couldn’t be broken. The message had been composed, not sent. The dead agent had written out the message to be transmitted later, by someone else.
That was it.
Hanley stood for a moment in the half-darkened hall. Several doors away, Hallman was culling the list of employment recommendations and recruiting comments on new agents. He had been at it all night.
Hanley thought he should tell Hallman, to buck him up. But the secret was too important for that.
He went back into his office and closed the door and sat down at the desk.
E TRAYS D VERDANT YGER.
E for Elizabeth.
TRAYS for…
D for Devereaux.
VERDANT YGER for…
He pondered it again, penciling in the new words beneath the original letters. If it was a message to be sent, then the words were in a sort of rough code at first and then were translated into a number code for transmission.
Elizabeth TRAYS Devereaux VERDANT YGER.
Hanley got up and went to the coffeepot plugged into the wall. He poured a cup with shaking hands and dropped two small saccharin pills into the black liquid. He sipped at it. How much coffee had he consumed since it began? His hands were shaking, he realized suddenly.
Betrays.
Betrays. Elizabeth betrays Devereaux.
He pushed the cup down onto the counter and went back to his desk. Elizabeth betrays Devereaux VERDANT YGER.
Green yger?
Tyger. VERDANTYGER was green tyger.
There was something there, at the edge of consciousness, shyly peering at him. Waiting for discovery. He mustn’t frighten it or it will run away; he must let it come of its own accord, like a fawn in the woods investigating a salt lick.
Come, come.
Hanley waited, stared at the paper.
He saw the eyes of the beast in his mind, flashing in the darkness. Like a tyger.
Saw the tiger.
Burning.
And then it was in the light and Hanley knew:
Tyger.
He got up and raced to the door, opened it and called down the hall. He understood the code now; he knew who the traitor was.
So, with some satisfaction, he had awakened Galloway before dawn and was soon on his way to the Chief’s residence.
He turned off Wisconsin Avenue onto Old Georgetown Road into residential Bethesda. The trees were droopy in the still air of morning but they carried their colors like flags. Leaves littered the lawns; autumn in Washington was eternal. In the distance, he could see the bare outlines of the naval hospital.
The Chief had instructed him to tell no one. Hanley had complied; he had merely told Hallman to go home, that the matter was closed. Hallman had been disappointed not to learn Hanley’s secret.
It wasn’t quite eight A.M.
Morning birds continued their songs as the sun began to filter through the trees.
Chief of Section lived in a comfortable house off the main road, back in the trees, surrounded by green privacy. There was a little turning circle in front of the impressive brick home. Hanley left his car there and went up the stone steps. But the door was open before he rang; the Old Man was waiting for him.
“Good, Hanley,” Galloway said at last as Hanley entered the hall of the immense old house.
But no praise could take the heaviness out of him. With the end of the chase, there came an end to the excitement of the hunt. There was a traitor in the Section and Hanley felt it as personally as if someone had struck him. He did not even try to smile in return.
The Old Man closed the door as though he understood Hanley’s private grief. He led the way into the library; the house was dark; there were people still sleeping within, upstairs, beyond the lights of the book-lined room.
Hanley took the proffered chair. The Old Man stood by the window, waiting.
Hanley cleared his throat. And then began:
“Green. In our London safe house. He’s the traitor.”
“Ah.” The old man waited.
“Verdant Tyger. Green is obvious for verdant. Tyger. Why the old spelling for tiger—with a Y instead of an I? It was just their little game over at Langley, inventing a funny code name for Blake House.” Hanley paused; in that moment, he hated the CIA as though it was not a rival agency but the enemy of the nation. “Tyger, sir. From William Blake’s poem.
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”
Again, Hanley paused. The Old Man shook his head. “Such a simple code.”
“It wasn’t the code, sir. It was merely the preparation for a code, with bogus names. And then it would be translated into a code for transmission. Devereaux killed their agent before the message was sent.”
“I see.” The Chief gazed out the window at the limp, lush trees. There was an awkward silence for a moment, as though both men were suddenly embarrassed by the fact of the CIA’s mole in their operation. Hanley knew that the Chief was considering not only the next move but the move after that, was weighing not only the operational danger to R Section but the political danger as well. R Section must survive; to survive, there must be a demonstrated confidence in it. Would the existence of a CIA mole in R Section hurt the CIA—or the Section? The Old Man weighed it all and then gave Hanley his instructions.
Hanley sat and listened and did not take notes. He never took notes. He remembered everything.
Nothing must be done at the moment, the Chief explained.
Hanley pointed out that an agent from the Section could be sent to London immediately, to clear up the matter with Green. Ericson was available, stationed for the moment in Berlin.
The Chief nodded but rejected Hanley’s plan. There might still be other leaks in the Section. Ericson might be a CIA mole as well; the Section was small, all jobs must be considered vital. They must run a careful clearance check on everyone, including secretaries. Hanley must return to headquarters and carry on and wait.
But what if Green moved in the meantime to eliminate Elizabeth Campbell, since she had betrayed the CIA mirror game to Devereaux?
The old man lit his pipe then and went to his desk and sat down and blew puffs of smoke at the ceiling. Yes, he said. That would be a difficulty. It would be a problem. It was too bad.
Hanley understood: The retired Navy admiral had to be a little careless of life for the sake of the action, for the safety of victory.
Hanley understood everything.
The Section had to be protected. It was presumed—strongly so, based on everything that Devereaux had reported—that the CIA had created the ghost Section and that Green was a part of the CIA operation. But what if Green worked for another agency? For the Soviets? He could not be given a chance to bolt. The Old Man explained patiently.
Another scenario: If Green worked for the CIA, he must not be given a chance to inform them that the Section was totally aware of their game. The CIA must be caught in an embarrassment. So Hanley must wait upon contact from Devereaux and then Hanley must instruct Devereaux to go to London and eliminate Green. There must be no public notice of what took place within R Section and no warning given to Green.
“But how can we embarrass the CIA with that?” Hanley asked.
“Leave two exits open,” the old man explained. Depending on how it turned out, expose the CIA to the President or make a deal with the CIA to quietly fold their ghost operation against R Section. Exchange that for R Section’s silence. Blackmail the CIA, in other words.
“Is the existence of the Section in danger, then?” Hanley asked at last.
The Old Man nodded in his absent way and explained: The President was hostile to R Section; even some congressmen grumbled at the expense of maintaining various espionage agencies which essentially served as checks on each other. If the CIA feud with R Section surfaced now, would the President use the incident to push for his single agency? Or could the CIA’s game against the Section be turned back to tarnish the Agency so badly that no one would trust a single espionage organization? Both were possibilities.
“So we must do nothing,” Hanley said with a trace of sarcasm.
Galloway raised an eyebrow at that. “We must proceed cautiously. If Devereaux handles the elimination of our mole, we keep the matter quiet, at least temporarily. We can use Green as a trump card against the Langley firm. Dead or alive. If Devereaux botches the job, the CIA will hardly reveal it.”
But the woman—this Elizabeth Campbell—might be killed.
“It might be better that way,” shrugged the old man. “She was a traitor to Langley; they want her dead. Might she not betray us as well? You cannot trust a traitor.”
It was useless to argue; Hanley knew the Chief was right, that he was playing a dangerous game on many levels at the same time and that the least important element in the game was the fate of Elizabeth Campbell.
And so Hanley had returned again to the grim, gray building off the Ellipse and had recalled Hallman from his bed back to the Section and to resume the careful hunt through the records for other traitors. He worked through the morning until he could no longer focus his eyes on the words dancing across the pieces of paper.
So tired.
He yawned and finally gave up. Going to the couch in his office, he stretched out on it, and in a moment, fell asleep. He did not even remove his shoes.
But his last waking thought was of Devereaux.
Call. Damn you. Call.
At the precise moment that Hanley had decided Green was the traitor, Green pushed through the door of The Orange Man public house in Wingate Crescent, off the Marylebone Road.
It was Sunday noon in London, five hours ahead of Washington.
The usual pleasant crowd was already there, stoking up on pink gins and pints of Bass Ale at the bar. They all smiled at the young American and they made way for him and he exchanged friendly sallies and pleasantries; copies of the Observer and Times and Sunday Express were scattered on the low tables. The atmosphere was like an American Sunday brunch but with more of a sense of celebration; these were the upper middle classes and Sunday in winter in London was a cozy, comfortable time.
Green ordered and the bartender, taking a beautiful, round, stemmed glass from the rack above the bar, held it beneath the upside-down bottle of Grant’s whisky. He pushed twice on the measure, letting the drams of amber liquid fall into the glass, then put the glass on the bar in front of Green and let the young man mix his own water. Green drank it without ice, in the English manner.
There were many things about Green that were in the English manner. He had only been in London nine months, but it had seemed longer to him; he had let his admiration for things English develop into a quiet mania. His clothes were from Savile Row, quiet dark pinstripes or smoothly fitting Harris tweeds, custom-made. He could not begin his mornings without thick, black tea and cold toast and the Times and the Telegraph. He even thought he might buy a bowler hat this winter, though he secretly feared he would look ridiculous in it.
This was the part of the assignment that had most pleased him. They had emphasized he must “keep up appearances.” There was a generous expense account, fortified with a gold American Express card that provided an “open sesame” to the whims of his purchases.
He was twenty-six years old, and had never been overseas before.
Green was the nephew of Senator Hubert Green of Ohio, a member of the Senate Agricultural Committee who, incidentally, oversaw part of the budget for R Section.
Green had been attracted to intelligence work while still in the Navy. His father had insisted on the Navy after college. A nice Midwestern college where Green did well enough; “the Navy,” his father had insisted, and he had gone along. Green was a mild man, really, and he had gone along with his father all his life. And with anyone else who had decidedly strong ideas about things.
The Navy had not worked out well. He had been a bit of a failure as an ensign, and by mutual agreement—with the aid of Uncle Hubert—he had been allowed to quietly resign. It wasn’t that Green was not conscientious; he was, almost too much so. But he could not seem to handle simple assignments in a simple manner. His very sense of duty seemed to get in the way of direct solutions to direct problems. Finally, even the Navy had come to realize it, especially when a series of blunders were laid down—coldly—in his 201 file and his last commander had read the file and then had begun to watch Green and then harass Green and, at last, drive Green a little crazy.
Not crazy, really. No. But a little nervous. Just a little bit overwhelmed by events.
But that was in the past, nearly three years ago. Uncle Hubert had understood when Green told him he wanted to continue in intelligence work.
Green had tried to get into the CIA. But the CIA was a special club and it was not particularly afraid of the Ohio senator on the Agricultural Committee.
Green did not know then that the CIA was staffed at the upper reaches almost exclusively by an “old boy” network every bit as closed and foolish as that which had pervaded British Intelligence in the years between—and immediately after—the Second World War. The Kim Philbys and Burgesses of the CIA were there and so were the Graham Greenes and other amateur patriots who “knew someone” from Yale or Groton or Harvard and dabbled at intelligence-gathering. The CIA drew heavily on members of the Establishment. The CIA was a club and Green could not get in.
At first.
Uncle Hubert had managed to get Green assigned to R Section, and he had routinely passed through the training program. Green was bright enough and his Midwestern education did not matter since his uncle was a powerful man on the subcommittee charged with overseeing R Section’s budget.
In fact, Green had done quite well and had been rapidly promoted within the Section. There had been a year with the African desk in which he had brilliantly coordinated a series of seemingly unimportant reports which first showed the Cuban presence in the Horn of Africa.
During the period in Washington, Green was happiest. His work was sufficient and it was interesting to him. A bit dull, but then, perhaps Green felt most comfortable with things that were a little dull. He was conscientious and when that quality of his character did not involve dealing with enlisted men or the vagaries of military life, it made him an outstanding worker in a limited way.
Green worked to the level of his capabilities.
He had an apartment in Georgetown and he had a pretty girlfriend. They had met one afternoon on the Ellipse while he took his lunch hour. She was friendly and pretty and not too demanding of him; Green was inherently shy and a little frightened of women.
After a while, he thought he was in love.
For a long time, almost up to the time he left for the London station job, he didn’t understand that she was part of it all. Part of the plan.
That hurt him at first, a little, but Green’s love was not so deep, he came to realize. She had genuinely liked him, she told him, and she still did. Perhaps they could see each other again when he was posted back to Washington.
In the meantime, she explained, there were certain things he would be expected to do.
Green said he could not be a traitor.
They had said he was not a traitor. After all, he had wanted to work for the CIA in the beginning; he must consider that he had always worked for the CIA.
Green listened to them.
The R Section had been set up in the old days, they explained, when the CIA had overextended itself. He certainly knew the history of it all.
Green had listened.
Now, the President wanted to get rid of R Section. He had reformed the CIA. The CIA was now completely under control of the elected officials to the point where the President could lobby to abolish the R Section. But the people in the Section were, naturally enough, obstinate. Even some senators who had powerful ties. Like Uncle Hubert? asked Green.
Yes, said the man he had first spoken to. The girl had been there as well and that had made him more comfortable. The man was very friendly. He was open and kind; he had made a drink for Green and his large brown eyes had looked Green directly in the face. He had been honest about Uncle Hubert. Hubert was an enemy of the CIA and Green knew it, and the CIA man did not try to hide the fact. They were being honest with him.
The President felt that R Section had become too powerful. That its loyalty was in question, according to the CIA man.
Green protested.
No, it did not have to do with the information they gathered; that was direct enough. But it had to do with what R Section did with the information. R Section was manipulating Congress and the country for its own ends, using legitimate information in a perverted way.
Even Green had been, unwittingly, a part of the process. The report on the presence of Cuban troops in the African horn. Why had it been suppressed by R Section, only to be finally brought to the public’s attention by the CIA?
Green had wondered about that as well. It had been something of a coup for the African desk but he had been told to say nothing about it, and, in fact, Hanley had admonished him twice about being certain that no word of the report leaked to others in the Section.
Green did not know that the President—engaged in a delicate negotiation involving the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Ethiopia—had ordered the report suppressed. Or that the CIA, perversely enough, had found the report and leaked it, thus freezing the Soviet stance and the Cuban presence.
The interview with the CIA man had continued for several days at different locations. Green came to trust the man’s frank, open manner and he was a little envious of the other’s familiarity with French restaurants and wine lists and important names.
If the truth were known, Green was something of a snob, and the rejection by the CIA had always bothered him. But now the CIA was wooing Green. It was flattering.
And finally, Green had acquiesced. There was money, too, but he didn’t do it for that.
There had been the first little bit of information. Not from Africa. But on the Section. On Hanley. And on Miss Dickens, Hanley’s secretary. About Hanley’s luncheon habits.
They knew most of it, of course. But Green was coming their way and they were leading him gently.
And then the assignment in London. And the contact with the embassy and the CIA staff quartered there.
The CIA man he dealt with was Ruckles.
Ruckles was a Virginian, soft-spoken, with an amused chuckle just waiting at the edge of a conversation to break in. A Navy man, like Green. A Princeton man.
They didn’t talk about college.
They had chosen The Orange Man because it was a safe pub. No one they knew ever went there and they met there infrequently, only when Green gave Ruckles an urgent signal or the other way around. They had each signaled the other on Saturday.
Green took his second glass of whisky to the table in the corner of the saloon. He waited and fingered his tie. The stripe was a Cambridge school tie, Ruckles had pointed out. Green didn’t care; he said he had only bought it for the colors. But that was not true. The tie was Cambridge and it was part of his English wardrobe, part of his other self, the self only he saw.
After a few moments, Ruckles came, carrying a glass of dark ale to the table. He nodded to Green but he was not smiling.
“Where is she now?”
“In the safe house. She hasn’t moved out of it.”
“We have to get her out of it.”
“I don’t know how.”
Ruckles looked at him. “To meet Devereaux, of course. We’ll message Blake House and tell her to meet Devereaux at Victoria Station. We could arrange it at Victoria Station.”
“But that’s murder.”
Ruckles looked at him. “It’s a job. An elimination job. She’s betrayed us. She may have betrayed you.”
Green tried to smile. “But it’s not betrayal, is it? I mean, we’re all on the same side.”
“She’s not on our side anymore.”
“But this is crazy. This is a game.”
Ruckles stared at him.
Green felt giddy. They wanted to kill her. He had signaled them because she represented danger. He knew that as soon as Devereaux sent her back to him. It was only when he talked to Ruckles on his urgent Saturday mission to the embassy that he understood she was part of the “ghost Section.” Ruckles did not tell him that Elizabeth did not know she worked for the CIA.
Ruckles said, quietly, “If they—if Devereaux—discovers you, he will kill you. It is that much of a game. You’ll be eliminated by them.”
“But I’m not a traitor. I’m serving the nation. I’m serving the Agency, the President.…”
Ruckles nodded. Green was a little on edge. Ruckles didn’t want that. He wanted Green safe and a little too sure of him, of his own rightness.
“The Section is riddled with traitors. Real traitors. To the nation. It is not a game to them. We now know that Elizabeth was a double agent, infiltrating us, learning our secrets so she could betray us to Devereaux. And you know about Devereaux.”
Green sipped furiously at his drink. There did not seem to be enough of it.
The whole thing was hard to believe, but, in the end, he had been forced by the facts to accept the truth about Devereaux. Devereaux was a traitor, a double agent. Green had wanted to tell Hanley, to go to the Chief; Ruckles had persuaded him not to. Devereaux was not dangerous as long as the Agency knew he was a traitor; he was useful to the Agency.
Green thought he understood. Devereaux had betrayed the United States in Asia. He had been one of the many small factors that had led to the losing of that war; he had sent damaging and dangerous reports about the situation in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam which had led the government and the military to make gross miscalculations.
The evidence had convinced Green, finally, and had angered him.
Green was a quiet patriot in his own way.
Now Ruckles said Elizabeth was one of them as well. He felt shy with her in Blake House; he did not know what to say to her. He had done as Ruckles instructed him—and tried to learn what she had told Devereaux about the “ghost Section” and about the Agency but she would not respond. He wondered if she knew he worked for the Agency. He wondered if he was in danger.
The thought chilled him. Danger was alien to him. The reports, the work of intelligence in Washington, the games they had learned at the training school… none of it had been dangerous, none of it had, at one level, even been real.
The bright, polite, hearty afternoon talk of the others in the pub swirled around him. They were dressed well, dressed for Sunday, in tweeds and sweaters. Good fellowship, fed by good English ale and good Scotch whisky.
Green stared at the others for a moment like a person who knows he will always be on the outside.
“Here’s the message,” Ruckles said at last. He handed it to Green.
A cable from Belfast. It was brief, cold:
ELIZABETH. VICTORIA STATION 4 PM TO DOVER. LAST SECOND-CLASS CAR. D.
“Why would he go to Dover?” Green asked.
“Why not? What does she know? Perhaps he’ll meet her at the station. She will go.” He said the last as a declaration but there was a note of worry in it.
“I don’t know. I’m not… very good, that is… talking to her.” He blushed. “I think I’d like another whisky.” He got up.
Ruckles looked at him. “By all means.” Green was cracking up, he thought. He had read Green’s file. He knew about the Navy, and about Green’s psychological profile. He knew about Green’s drinking and his problems with women.
Green brought the glass back and sat down again.
They were silent for a moment.
“What will you do?” Green asked.
“Do? I won’t do anything. One of our other men, I suppose.”
“What will you do? You know what I mean.” Green looked at him.
Ruckles smiled. “We’ll get a plumber to stop the leak.”
Green paled.
“Eliminate a traitor. A traitor, Green.” Ruckles added.
“Eliminate. It doesn’t sound so bad when you say ‘eliminate.’ But you’ll kill her just the same.”
Ruckles looked at him. “It doesn’t affect you, Green.”
Green laughed a high shrill laugh. “It doesn’t affect me? I have to get her out of the house. It doesn’t affect me?”
Green felt trapped, panicked. It was as though he were in a submarine under tons and tons of water, pressed down by the water, surrounded by it, his every breath dependent on the thin supply of oxygen while the sea around probed at the vessel, looking for the way in. Green had never been on a submarine.
He took the bogus cable and placed it in the pocket of his Harris tweed jacket.
“This afternoon,” said Ruckles quietly.
It had to be done. It had to be seen through.
“This afternoon,” repeated Green. And then he finished the glass of whisky in front of him.