The Infant of Prague

“He hasn’t gone to work for them,” she said. She said the words in a very plain and sure way, to make Hanley understand she believed them.

“He has come into this country and he has not made contact with Section,” Hanley said. His voice was soft, exceptionally so; it was nearly a whisper. “He is here and he was held by the Czechs.”

“We don’t know it was them.”

“No. There was a person described in this business by Chaser in Brussels whom we assume was Colonel Ready. Perhaps Devereaux was held by Ready. Perhaps this is a repeat of all that happened in St. Michel. Ready did get the girl and got Devereaux to do his bidding for a time. I know the agent.” He closed his eyes and saw Devereaux clearly, heard his voice, saw the arctic calm in his face. “I know the agent. He draws the line. He came in through regular customs when he could have gone through the Canadian or Mexican doors. So he knew the passport number would flash back to us in time. He doesn’t mind letting us know he’s out and that he’s here. He just hasn’t gotten around to giving us a jingle.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“Of course,” Hanley said. “Whatever he is doing, we would not wish him to do. And perhaps he feels a bit misused. We never told him all the implications of conducting Miki to our station.”

“We misused him. We should have told him all the implications of the train.”

“There was no need for him to know,” Hanley said.

“There was, in retrospect.”

“I told him to be careful.”

“Mothers tell their children to watch at street corners and not to talk to strangers. There are specifics in warnings and there are generalities.”

“Mrs. Neumann, I—”

“The world knew that Miki wanted to come out. And no one wanted to touch him because it smelled. It was too easy. And what could Miki do for us? He hinted and hinted and we thought he was worth a small risk, out of channels, to get him on our side, to hear what he had to say about our competition at Langley. To give us leverage today for the next budget battle tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. Was it all worth it? We always put a price on things, don’t we, even when we don’t know what they are really going to be worth.”

She said it the way she had said it before, almost in the same words. She said it like a dull child repeating a lesson she does not understand. She said it like an incantation, as though the words might change the result.

Hanley waited for the words to end. The result was the same.

“If he isn’t alive, then someone is very stupid using his passport,” he said.

“Or smart. Perhaps it’s an illusion. Perhaps it’s a way of cocking a snook at us.”

“Colonel Ready?” Hanley said.

“Perhaps. He was the heart of the deal. At least, according to the description we got from Chaser about the man at Club Tres. And Mason—”

“Yes. He’s kicked the traces. Chaser said he bollixed things up. Just brutality. He knew the rules, he knew the regs. But he was young,” Hanley said.

“It’s no excuse,” she said. “Let the CIA fight their secret wars. We are in the business of intelligence. We are in the business of putting two and two together in all the combinations. We are not thugs, enforcers, hit men.”

Hanley said nothing; Lydia Neumann came from order and computers and pure intelligence. She was not of this world, he thought. She would have to learn that sometimes they broke the rules because there are no rules when it comes down to it.

“Perhaps he had no choice,” Hanley said.

“What does Devereaux want here?”

Hanley waited a moment for Mrs. Neumann to see the obvious. She did.

“The girl,” she said.

“Our little infant of Prague,” Hanley said. He was the prairie Protestant again. “And we don’t know where to find her. So we’re of no use to him. Or, perhaps, he might think we arranged the kidnapping ourselves. In any case, he doesn’t want to consult us for advice.”

“We don’t have private operators,” she said.

“That isn’t true, Mrs. Neumann.” Gently. “You think of this as a vast army because you are an orderly person with an orderly mind. You can speak to computers; it is your background and your genius. There is no order out there, Mrs. Neumann, only chaos. We sort through the billions of bits of chaos hurled at us and we try to understand a billionth part of it.”

She said, “You are becoming a philosopher. There still have to be rules of procedure.”

“There are no rules. Rather, there are rules that are always broken.”

“He can’t do this. He’s making a run for the Czechoslovakian Secret Service.”

“Yes,” Hanley said. Mrs. Neumann finally understood what Hanley had realized the moment he saw the passport number flash on his computer terminal screen two hours ago. It had been intuitive for him; Mrs. Neumann proceeded by logic. Hanley was the man who held the lamp until she could become accustomed to seeing in the dark.

“I will not permit this,” she said. “I want him in. I want to notify the other agencies.”

Hanley said, “This is our thing.”

“No. Section comes before the man.” She stared at him. “The good of Section.”