Brian Freemantle - Betrayals

Sheridan’s apartment was sold. Then lawyers at Sheridan’s bank wanted to check directly with Sheridan about his power of attorney for the house purchase, despite already having the legally sworn deposition from the Lebanon. Janet said of course, and by using the diplomatic channel the confirmation came back from Beirut in five days.

“I’m sorry,” the bank executive said. “We want always to be sure.”

“I understand,” assured Janet.

That night, in the third letter of that week, Janet wrote that everything had been finalized and that the purchase was expected to be completed in six weeks, which was perfect timing for the carpet fitters and curtain hangers to move in to get everything ready. Sheridan’s letter by return-just four days-was the one for which Janet had been waiting, from the moment of his going to the Middle East. It began beguilingly, responding to what she had written and saying that he was delighted and that he was sure the house was going to be wonderful. He could hardly wait, Sheridan said. And then wrote that he was not going to have to wait much longer-neither of them were-because he’d been officially notified that the date of his return was May 24. Which was just three and a half months away: or put another way, not more than six weeks beyond the originally chosen wedding date. Why didn’t she, Sheridan demanded, start sending out the invitations and warn her parents to rearrange the wedding for some convenient date after the twenty-fourth?

Janet called Harriet and then her parents in London, and that night sat with a celebration glass of brandy in one hand, cradling George with her other, watching the evening news, which it had become her unthinking habit to do since Sheridan’s assignment.

“There is a top-of-the-hour development which we will update during the course of this program,” announced anchorman Tom Brokaw. “There has been another American embassy kidnap in Beirut. The victim has been confirmed as John Patrick Sheridan, aged 38…” The screen was filled with a stilted, full-faced photograph. “Tonight NBC has confirmed through Washington sources that Sheridan was the CIA officer in charge…”

“Oh no!” said Janet. “Dear God no!”

J anet’s immediate, crowded impression was that she had been betrayed: cheated. That for all these months she had gone with a man and slept with a man and learned to love a man whom she thought she knew and now realized she knew not at all. As always she found it easy to remember words and phrases in the tone in which they had been uttered and Sheridan’s remark forced its way mockingly into her mind, the plea he’d made the night he’d told her of the Beirut posting. Trust me, he’d said. And she had, not just then but before: trusted him completely. Believed that he was a senior but otherwise run-of-the-mill analyst in the anthill of the State Department, unimportant, uninvolved. With that reflection came more taunting words. Nothing spooky about me. Not much, she thought bitterly: not bloody much.

Janet blinked against her fogged vision, aware of library footage of the shell-cratered streets of West Beirut being put up on the screen, with Brokaw’s voice commenting over.

“… no official confirmation of his CIA position,” intoned the anchorman. “But the official diplomatic listing records Sheridan to be a political officer…”

Janet sucked the breath into her body, conscious of the significance before it was made obvious as another picture was flashed on to the screen, a still photograph this time of a hollow-faced, bearded man.

“… Political officer was the designation of William Buckley,” recounted the newscaster. “Buckley, it will be recalled, was the CIA station chief in Beirut who was kidnapped and murdered by the Islamic Jihad in March, 1984…”

The very name she’d identified to John, the night he’d made the Beirut announcement! Janet knew about the Buckley case: knew how a tape of Buckley’s agonizing, screaming torture had been made and sent to the CIA in direct challenge to the Agency. Who had taken it as a challenge. There had never been a denial from the CIA headquarters at Langley or the Reagan administration that the Buckley tape had so disgusted and frightened CIA Director William Casey that he had personally urged upon the President the hostage freeing attempts that were later to emerge as Irangate.

The photographs were side by side on the screen now, Sheridan and Buckley, and illogically Janet thought how ordinary they both looked: just ordinary, open, American faces. Run-of-the-mill, she reflected again. It was the briefest of considerations because abruptly, horrifyingly, there was another, too vivid intrusion. Janet pictured what had happened to Buckley and imagined it happening now, at this moment, to Sheridan in some cellar or cell or lonely house. She physically squeezed her eyes shut against the mental picture and the mental sounds and clamped her mouth closed, too, until she could keep her lips together no longer.

“Don’t let him be hurt!” she begged. “Dear God don’t let him be hurt!”

Janet was distantly aware of a sound, beyond the television, and recognized the telephone but could not move herself to respond to it. Almost at once there was another bell, the downstairs summons this time, and Janet shifted at last, momentarily unsure which to answer. She chose the intercom and at once Harriet’s voice babbled into her ear, demanding to be let in. Automatically Janet pressed the release button and unlatched the door, careless of leaving it open. She turned back to the strident telephone but as she moved towards it, the ringing stopped. Janet remained gazing down at it, wondering who it had been.

Harriet burst into the apartment in her usual flurry, throwing her arms around Janet and said: “I came as soon as I heard.”

“Thanks,” said Janet, dully. Harriet’s was the sort of remark people made after a bad accident or a bereavement. Maybe, she thought, it was fitting.

“What have you been told!” demanded Harriet.

Janet indicated the television, now showing some baby cream commercial. “Just that.”

“No one’s called?”

Janet had not until now considered any official notification. She looked again to the telephone and said: “I didn’t get to it in time.”

“How long have you known!” pressed Harriet.

“I just told you…” began Janet but the other woman talked over her, impatiently.

“About John being in the CIA, I mean!”

“I didn’t,” she admitted, simply.

“Not a clue!”

“Nothing. I thought he worked in the State Department, like I told you.” Another recollection came to Janet as she talked, of the invariable delay in reaching Sheridan when she’d called the office number he’d given her. She supposed it would have been some complicated switching device, transferring the calls from Foggy Bottom to… to where? Something else she didn’t know, she accepted: even where he worked. His voice came into her mind once more, the glib, easy explanation when she’d complained of the difficulty in reaching him. I spend more time verbally analyzing situations than working at my desk.

“I’d heard that’s the way it was but I never really believed it,” said Harriet.

“The way it was?”

“Wives and girlfriends never ever being told… always a secret,” said Harriet.

Janet realized, annoyed, that her friend was excited, enjoying it all. Would Sheridan have told her, after their marriage? Janet supposed officially he would have been forbidden to tell her anything. Janet said: “It’s very serious.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, darling!” assured Harriet. “Don’t you think I don’t know what you’re going through!”