Brian Freemantle - Betrayals

“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!”

I t 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.”

“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.”