The Berlin Assignment Read Free Page B

about him that suggested he was about to sink, and Heywood often had a paternal urge to throw his deputy a lifeline.
    â€œWasn’t he with you for half a dozen years?” Stepney asks. “How did you put up with him that long?”
    â€œFive years and three months,” Heywood says possessively. Is this the time to open the Berlin file? He decides yes and plunges in. “Disarmament was hot. We worked our tails off. I have to say it, Manny, Hanbury treaded a lot of water, sure, but some things he did fairly well. He once had to produce a crisp piece for the PM who wanted profile at a security conference in Vienna. Hanbury knew the subject. He might have been meek, but he was smart. SS20’s, Minutemen, throw-weight equivalents – he understood the material as well as anyone. All we needed for the statement was some hard analysis and a paragraph or two of great prose. He had no problem with the analysis. It was the style, the elevated tone for the PM that eluded him. So that part I did. What I’m saying is, that after he treaded for a while, I always pulled him in.” Heywood feels a surge of sympathy. His eyes turn moist. “Funny thing is,” he confesses, “Hanbury combed his hair like his mind worked, a part right down the middle.”
    â€œI found him secretive,” Stepney says. “He never seemed to come or go. He was there, and suddenly he wasn’t there. Stealth, that’s what he had. Well, what happened in Berlin? How did he screw up?”
    â€œNobody knows. Just like nobody knew why he went. The Wall was down; the Cold War over. The German Government couldn’t make up its mind to move back from Bonn. Berlin had become uninteresting. An outpost. No self respecting political officer would go. But Hanbury snapped it up.”
    â€œA marriage made in heaven,” sneers Stepney.
    â€œAt first it unfolded fairly well. It took a while for things to go off the rails. Not like Anderson in Manila.”
    â€œYou mean he consummated the marriage,” says the trade commissioner sarcastically.
    â€œWell…partially. You know, after Hanbury left the Priory, I did too. They needed me to run Investitures. One day there was a minor blow-up. Seems he hadn’t done any reporting. The high priest asked me. Told me to talk to him. Said he wanted reports from Berlin. I called Hanbury. He was surprised, but began sending reports. The next thing, Manny, a couple of months later – I swear there was no advance warning – the marriage was over. Annulled. By the high priest, not me. I just arranged his next assignment. I sent him to Pretoria. Number two to Lecurier.”
    â€œWeird,” says Stepney.
    â€œIt was.”
    â€œSo the high priest held the dagger.”
    â€œAll done in the inner sanctum. I was nowhere around.”
    â€œWhen’s the last time that occurred?”
    â€œIt was unprecedented.”
    â€œNothing on the files? Not even in Investitures?”
    â€œNot a scrap. I swear to God. I looked. I’m still looking.” Heywood’s heavy eyebrows lift. A look of innocence unfurls around his mouth. “Pretoria is working out fine for him. Maybe it’s on account of the woman he brought along from Berlin.” Heywood slaps at another mosquito, thisone on his cheek. He sighs and reaches for the thermos.
    â€œA woman?” The trade commissioner is surprised.
    â€œIt happens, Manny.”
    â€œWell sure, but Hanbury?”
    â€œThe same thing happened to Pochovski,” Heywood says with authority. “He was a changed man once he got a steady woman. A few weeks after finding her he was on a delegation to a UN Conference in Montevideo. Everyone knew something had happened because no matter how desperate the mood in the financial committee, he came out whistling, even in the dead of night.”
    â€œWasn’t Burns the head of that delegation?” asks Stepney.
    â€œHe was. Now
he
was