Devereaux wrote this paper while Jimmy Carter was President. Once Bush was told about this, he was eager to see “this analyst no one paid any goddamn attention to.” Nobody at the table moved when the President was finished. Bush stood up, looked at them and shouted again. “Get him over here! Now!” He mumbled something about Devereaux being “a beacon in a pitch-black shithouse.”
That was Devereaux’s first time in the Oval Office. It was a long and productive meeting. With the Soviet Union folding its tent, adjustments were necessary and he told the President all about them.
“We have people, throughout Europe and quite a few in Russia herself, and the other former republics as well,” he told Bush. “These are people who were of use to us in the last forty years. Many of them, the vast majority of them, never left the other side. They’re still there. In addition, there are quite a few, among our friends, who helped us without their government’s knowledge. Many of these people-agents, spies, informers, collaborators-know things about us, things that could be damaging if they became widely known. Some things, even small bits of personal information, might someday be used as blackmail. What I’m saying is, there’s a population walking around out there who could embarrass us and hinder us in our new agenda.”
“People who couldn’t talk before,” Bush began.
“Because it was too dangerous.”
“But they can now. Right?”
“Precisely, Mr. President. I am talking about people who no longer offer us any benefit. They present only a downside risk.” When this conversation started, there were two other people also in the Oval Office. Devereaux didn’t know either of them, but made one for a secretary and the other an aide of some sort. Bush looked over and waved them from the room. Then they were alone, Louis Devereaux and the President of the United States.
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Bush, this time in a more casual, conversational tone the nature of which was clearly intended to put Devereaux at ease-a sign of respect for him from the President. The touch was not lost on Louis who had used the same device many times himself. “What do you have in mind?” Bush asked.
Devereaux laid it all out. The United States needed to eliminate dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people associated with covert activities during the Cold War. Some were enemies then, and still might be. Others were friends, friends who knew things they shouldn’t. Each of them-especially with such a large number of them-was a possible danger. Every one of them had to be dealt with. Devereaux was not one to beat around the bush. “They needed to be killed,” he said. Then he proposed setting up a special network of agents to accomplish this task.
“Over time,” he said. “Over years. Many will be easy, but many others will be well protected. We can’t just waltz into Europe and begin killing people left and right. Those left alive will sense what we’re doing. We need to move slowly, with resolve. But, the longer we wait to get started, the greater the jeopardy to us.” That afternoon Louis Devereaux received Presidential authority to set up and manage a network of agents with a single mission: Clean up. He had, as he expected, no budgetary limits. And, of course, he was given the first of his misleading job titles.
The Bambino called two minutes after Devereaux’s page. Nearly all of his agents were women, The Bambino included. He considered her his very best. None of them were Agency people, Company employees. All his agents were casuals, private independents recruited and brought together personally by him. Most were not Americans. They worked for money, and Devereaux had a river of cash that flowed with a swift current. They took their orders only from him. They knew no one else, not even each other. He gave them code names he derived from sports figures. He admired great athletes. He marveled at their success and had a professional’s appreciation and respect for the discipline and determination the very best among them constantly exhibited. And he loved their nicknames. He was sorry he never had one himself. He named the women of DEVNET-as his group came to be known within the tiny circle of people who even knew it existed-to match their special characteristics. So it was that a Latvian agent, whose tireless dedication produced results when most would have conceded defeat, was called The Horse, after the great Baltimore Colts fullback Alan Ameche, a player who never gave up, especially on third and short. And there was Spike, a French agent with a distinctly unpleasant personality, who had no manners at all and who would just as soon cut your balls off as give you the time of day. She was named for Ty Cobb. The Bambino earned her code name one evening in Prague. Once he heard the story, in all its detail, Devereaux selected the name he had saved for just such a person. He hadn’t even met her yet. Hired her, sight unseen. She had taken out eight targets in a single episode, killed them all, including five bodyguards, in a hotel suite in the heart of the city. Afterward, she calmly changed clothes, took the elevator down to the lobby and had a drink in the bar before leaving. Obviously, she could hit for power. She could also hit for average and rarely swung and missed. Best of all, she could bat cleanup. She could carry a whole team. The nickname Babe was too sexist-he had five older sisters to heighten his sensitivity to things like this-so Devereaux settled on The Bambino. She was his Babe Ruth. The Bambino worked out of an office in London, pretending to be some sort of Public Relations outfit. The conditions presented by Harry Levine were perfect for his big hitter. She was convenient, moments away in the same city, and Devereaux always liked being able to use the best.
In her own apartment, a small flat with a distinctly academic look about it, DEVNET’s Ruthian equivalent poured herself a cup of tea, kicked off her shoes, flipped them through the open door into her bedroom, muted the Tom Waits CD she was playing, and sat down to return the page left by Louis Devereaux. She did not recognize the number, but it had to be Devereaux. He was the only person in the world who had the number to her pager. The phone next to the couch in the Oval Office rang. Louis Devereaux picked it up.
The drive from the Atlanta airport to Roswell goes straight through the middle of the city of Atlanta. After picking up his rental car, Walter took I-85 North and merged onto the Downtown Connector just south of the city’s center. As he passed the exit for Freedom Parkway, the one that would have taken him past the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, right to the Carter Center and a nearby neighborhood bar he couldn’t forget, he realized he was not riding alone. The 800-pound gorilla in the back seat was Isobel Gitlin. Could she see him from her office window? Right now, while he was on the highway? And if she could, would she know it was him? “Five years,” he whispered. His cheeks flushed and he felt a small lump gather in his throat. Could it be five years since Isobel moved here to be the Executive Director for The Center for Consumer Concerns? Five years she’s been living in Atlanta. And five years since the last time he saw her, at that old bar, the one with a lot of photographs of the owner on the walls. Five years since Leonard Martin. Five years since… He turned the radio on, very loud and jerked the car into the left- hand lanes of the Connector. When it split apart, I-75 heading north to Tennessee and I-85 turning east toward the Carolinas, he stayed on I-85 until he exited at GA Rt. 400, and headed north to the Atlanta suburbs.
Sadie Fagan lived in an older subdivision with rolling hills, heavily wooded lots and a large lake, around which Walter had to drive to find her street. She and her husband bought the house in 1967. The house was just up the block, within walking distance of the pool and tennis complex. Back then, living here was thought of as way out of town. Not so far now. In those days, people in Atlanta looked at Roswell as almost being in Tennessee or North Carolina. It wasn’t, of course. The Tennessee state line was more than a hundred miles from Roswell and North Carolina a good two-hour drive. Roswell was barely fifteen miles from downtown Atlanta. But back then, there were no major highways or interstates connecting Atlanta and Roswell. Larry Fagan’s original commute, about half on tree-lined, two lanes and half on Atlanta’s city streets, took about forty-five minutes each way. Even without traffic the trip could take nearly that long. For him, that was nothing compared to what he was used to-getting into Manhattan every morning from Brooklyn. More than a few of his co-workers in the Atlanta office thought he was nuts to live so far away. There were plenty of nice neighborhoods in Atlanta, they said. None of them, of course, came from New Jersey or Connecticut. The Fagans liked their house and never saw a need to buy another one. Elana lived and died there. Harry grew up there. Now, it was just Sadie and Larry. It was a big house for the two of them, but it was their home.
On its headlong rush to Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s northern sprawl reached Roswell not too long after Sadie did. By the time Harry was grown up, the once small town with its own cobblestone Historic District and antebellum mansions, had become a bedroom community. Some of the old mansions were turned into trendy restaurants. Others were available for weddings and other special occasions.
The instructions she gave him were simple. Walter found Sadie’s house with no trouble. He parked in the driveway and rang the front doorbell. An older woman, about his age he realized with a little shock, short, squat and heavy set, with a smile that strangely reminded him of Ike, greeted him warmly.
“Mr. Sherman. Come in. Please come in,” she said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fagan.”
“Come in. Come in.” Sadie led Walter through a narrow foyer into a living room or den. In a new house such a
