Charlie M

(11)

In other circumstances, decided Charlie, as the coach left Sheremetyevo airport and picked up the Moscow road, he’d have enjoyed the experience. Perhaps he and Edith would be able to take one of the weekend holidays, some time. Then again, perhaps not.

His method of getting to Moscow had been simple and he was confident that neither Cuthbertson nor the C.I.A., who surrounded their activities with mystique and confusion, would realise how it had been done.

He’d simply gone to the Soviet-authorised travel agency in South London, knowing they issued the Intourist coupons for Russian vacations, and bought himself a?56 weekend package tour to the Russian capital.

The visa had taken a week and he’d had a pleasant flight out with a clerk from Maidenhead on his first trip abroad (‘I read in a travel magazine that you need bath plugs; you can borrow mine if you like’) and fifteen members of a ladies’ luncheon club from Chelmsford fervently anxious to experience romance without actual seduction (‘there’s such excitement about forbidden places, don’t you think?’).

By now Cuthbertson would have discovered he’d left England, decided Charlie, gazing out at the Soviet woodland.

The observation in London had been rather obvious and easy to evade. He glanced at his watch: the men outside the Dulwich house, which he’d left under a clearly visible pile of cleaning in the Porsche driven by Edith, would probably still be assuring Cuthbertson he hadn’t left.

Would Cuthbertson approach Edith directly? he wondered. Unlikely, decided Charlie. But if the Director did summon his wife, Charlie was confident Edith would have no difficulty convincing the former soldier that when she had left on her cleaning expedition, Charlie had been inside the house. Edith had always found it easy to lie, he thought, reflectively.

Which was different from Janet, he thought. Her sudden interest in the operation (‘I know what happened to Harrison; isn’t it natural I should worry about you?’) had amused him. Poor Janet, he thought. He wondered what incentive Cuthbertson had offered. Money, probably. She was a greedy girl.

The coach crossed the river and then pulled along the Moskva embankment towards the Rossiya hotel. Charlie disembarked as instructed by the officious Intourist guide and stood patiently for thirty-five minutes to be allocated a room, assuring the Maidenhead clerk when he finally collected his key, that he wouldn’t forget the bath-plug offer.

There was still twenty-four hours before Kalenin was supposed to appear in Neskuchny Sad, so Charlie continued to be the tourist, prompt for the regimented mealtimes, always waiting for the coaches taking them in their pre-paid tours, diligent in his purchases of souvenirs. He’d surprise Janet, he decided, by taking her Beluga caviar.

I should feel nervous, he thought, during the interminable wait for dinner on Saturday night. Almost immediately, he corrected the thought. Not yet. So far there was nothing about which to be apprehensive. But there would be, soon, he knew. Then he would need the control of which he had always been so confident.

He was able to avoid the Sunday morning tour with less difficulty than he had expected, placating the Russian woman with the promise that he would be ready for the Basil Church and Lenin’s tomb in the afternoon, then happily watching the Maidenhead clerk depart in close conversation with the secretary of the ladies’ luncheon club who appeared likely to admit access to forbidden places.

‘To work,’ Charlie told himself, stepping out on to the embankment. He touched his jacket, in needless reassurance: the pocket recorder that he had checked and rewound lay snugly against his hip, quite comfortably.

It would be a long walk, he realised, striding out towards the Karmeni Bridge. But it would be safer to travel on foot, he knew. It was a fine, clear morning and he found the exercise stimulating; if it all goes wrong, he thought, wryly, then the only exercise he would know for the rest of his life would be the sort that Berenkov was getting in Wormwood Scrubs.

In the middle of the bridge spanning the Moskva, he rested, gazing over the parapet at the island in the middle, apparently an aimless tourist with time to waste. After fifteen minutes, he determined he was not being followed and continued his walk, turning down towards the Alexandre Palace.

It was 10.45 a.m. when he entered the park. A standing man is conspicuous, according to the instruction manual, he reminded himself. He meandered along the path-way leading towards the river, pacing the journey, turning back in perfect time to the entrance. The walk had reassured him. The park was not under obvious observation, he decided. His close survey didn’t preclude watching and listening points immediately outside, of course.

Kalenin entered exactly on time, a short, chunky figure in an overcoat too long for him and a trilby hat that seemed to fit oddly upon his head. The General hesitated, then began strolling along the same path that Charlie had taken a few minutes earlier, gazing curiously from side to side, a man hopeful of an appointment.

The Englishman watched him go, making no effort to follow. It was ten minutes before Charlie accepted Kalenin was free from close surveillance and another ten minutes before he located the man again.

The General had stopped walking, sitting on a seat halfway down one of the longest paths, the uncomfortable hat alongside him on the bench. The man was so short his feet scarcely touched the ground, Charlie saw, as he approached. It was difficult to believe he was one of the most feared and powerful men in Russia.

General Kalenin turned to him, his eyes sweeping Charlie’s westernised clothes and appearance as he smiled, very slightly.

Charlie gave no response, but sat the far end of the bench, stretching in the pale sun. It would be too cold to sit there very long, he decided. He hoped Kalenin didn’t engage in the ambiguity he’d shown Snare and Harrison. There was little reason why he should.

‘A wise man always breaks his exercise by sensible rest periods,’ opened Charlie.

‘Yes,’ agreed Kalenin.

Both spoke without looking at each other.

‘This is my fourth Sunday here,’ complained Kalenin. ‘I was beginning to think Snare had missed the point during our conversation at the embassy.’

‘How is he?’ asked Charlie. Snare wouldn’t have enquired after his well-being had the situation been reversed, Charlie reflected. He was glad Kalenin was going to avoid nuance and innuendo.

‘Perfectly all right,’ assured the Russian.

‘There’ll be a suspicion if he’s not accused or released soon,’ warned Charlie.

‘I know,’ agreed Kalenin, looking along the bench for the first time. ‘I want to get it over with as soon as possible.’

‘How soon?’

‘Three weeks?’

Charlie looked back at the Russian, frowning.

‘That’s very short,’ he protested.

‘But very possible,’ argued Kalenin. ‘There has been arranged for months that I should make a visit to Czechoslovakia …’

‘… So the crossing would be into Austria …?’

Kalenin nodded. ‘Difficult?’ he queried.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ve got a pretty strong system there.’

‘So it would suit you?’

‘Yes. I think it would be perfect.’

Kalenin shivered, conscious of the cold.

‘The Americans are deeply involved,’ announced the General, unexpectedly.

Charlie was suddenly attentive.

‘What do you mean?’

‘They identified both Snare and Harrison to our people … I had to act …’

Charlie laughed, surprised.

‘The bastards,’ he judged mildly.

‘If Harrison hadn’t run, our people wouldn’t have shot him. They’re trained to react that way.’

‘I know,’ accepted the Briton, remembering Checkpoint Charlie. ‘Why do people always run?’

‘Lack of experience,’ recorded Kalenin, sadly. ‘And neither he nor Snare were very good. It would have been difficult for them to have avoided suspicion.’

The same assessment that Berenkov had made, recalled Charlie. He was glad he had the tape recorder.

‘Why would Washington do it?’ probed Charlie, still conscious of the recording.

‘Involvement,’ said Kalenin, looking surprised at Charlie’s question. ‘They don’t know of you, do they?’

‘I hope not.’

‘They suspect somebody is here, though,’ said the General. ‘They’ve alerted their embassy staff.’

The K.G.B. would have an excellent monitoring system on the American embassy, Charlie knew. He supposed Washington would be aware of it: it would have been safer for them to have sent the instructions in the diplomatic bag. The mistake showed a lack of planning, decided Charlie. Or panic.

‘Have they listed the name of Charles Muffin?’ asked the Briton. He’d had to register in the hotel under his real identity and knew it would take little more than a day to check the hotels on the Intourist list.

‘No,’ reassured the General. ‘They just know somebody is coming.’

So Cuthbertson was keeping him anonymous to the Americans. Thank God.

‘Who’s working on the request?’ asked Charlie.

‘The new C.I.A. station chief is a man called Cox,’ identified Kalenin. ‘A sportsman … runs around the embassy.’

‘We won’t meet again,’ stipulated Charlie, protectively. He was leaving the following night and knew that unless he monitored Kalenin’s movements, which was virtually impossible, Cox could never discover his presence in the capital. If there were a confrontation, he’d kill the man. It would be necessary for his own protection: and Cox’s organisation had been responsible for a British operative’s death, which would give the killing some justification in Cuthbertson’s view.

‘There’ll be no need,’ said Kalenin. He was silent for several moments. Then he asked, ‘Will Washington provide the money?’

‘On the promise of participation, I would expect so,’ responded Charlie. ‘If they won’t, Whitehall will …’ he smiled. ‘… they’re extraordinarily keen to get you across.’

Kalenin grinned back.

‘It feels strange to be so important.’

‘You never had any doubts, did you?’ asked Charlie.

Kalenin shrugged. ‘I was concerned the request wouldn’t have been taken seriously.’

Charlie thought back to the last dispute with the Director and Cuthbertson’s insistence that the defection was genuine. The little man was very convincing, thought Charlie. But then security men were often excellent actors.

The Briton became conscious that Kalenin was studying him minutely.

‘You’re recording this meeting?’ the Russian demanded, expectantly.

‘Whitehall will need some proof, other than my word.’

‘Of course,’ accepted Kalenin. ‘But it would be awkward if the tape were found at the airport.’

‘It won’t be,’ promised Charlie.

‘Just in case, I’d better guarantee the flight,’ cautioned Kalenin.

Momentarily Charlie hesitated, then gave the flight number of the aircraft in which he was leaving Moscow on the Monday night. It was getting very cold and there was still a lot to discuss, Charlie realised.

‘Shall we walk?’ invited Kalenin and Charlie stood, gratefully, falling into step beside the Russian. The man couldn’t be more than five feet tall, thought Charlie. Maybe less.

‘The Americans will mark the dollar notes,’ warned the Russian.

‘I expect so,’ agreed Charlie.

‘So the money will be worthless.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie.

‘That won’t do,’ protested Kalenin.

‘I can ask for it in advance of the cross-over and “wash” it,’ offered Charlie.

‘It’s important to do so.’

‘I know that,’ said Charlie.

‘I’ll need to know that it’s been done.’

They turned on to a bisecting path.

‘What date do you have in mind?’

‘The nineteenth,’ said Kalenin. That will give me a week in Prague.’

‘We’ll need to meet again,’ said Charlie.

‘You’ll have to be careful of the Americans,’ continued Kalenin. ‘They might leak it to the Statni Tajna Bezpec-nost and the involvement of the Czech secret police could be embarrassing.’

‘I’ll think of something,’ promised Charlie. After today’s meeting there could be protection in American presence, he decided.

They walked in silence for several minutes.

‘Alexei Berenkov is probably my best friend,’ Kalenin announced, suddenly.

‘Yes,’ prompted Charlie.

‘How is he adapting to prison?’

‘Badly,’ said Charlie, honestly.

‘He would,’ agreed Kalenin. ‘He’s not a man to be caged.’

Kalenin would have adjusted fairly easily, assessed Charlie. The General was a man who lived completely within himself.

‘Poor Alexei,’ said the Russian.

Again there was silence.

‘Do you think there’ll be any serious problems?’ demanded Kalenin, suddenly, stopping on the pathway to reinforce the question and looking intently up at the Briton.

Charlie answered the look.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Are you frightened?’

Kalenin considered the question, hands deep inside the pockets of his overlarge coat. He was right to feel uncomfortable in that hat, decided Charlie; he looked ridiculous.

‘Yes,’ replied the General, finally, ‘I’m a planner, not a field operative like you. So I’m very scared. I’m under intense pressure from a man in the Praesidium. That’s why I want it all over so quickly.’

‘Being a field operative doesn’t help,’ offered Charlie. ‘I’m nervous too. I always am.’

The smaller man stood examining him for several moments.

‘The other two men wouldn’t have admitted that, Mr Muffin,’ he complimented. ‘I’d heard you’re very sensible.’

It came as no surprise to learn the K.G.B. had a file upon him.

‘I’m a survivor,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Aren’t we all?’

‘We’ll know the answer to that on the nineteenth,’ said Charlie.

They stopped inside the park gate, hidden by shrubbery.

‘If the crossing is to be on the nineteenth, then I will be in Prague by the thirteenth,’ undertook Charlie.

‘It should be a casual encounter, like that of today,’ advised Kalenin.

‘Do you know the Charles Bridge?’

The Russian nodded.

‘Let it be at midday on the fourteenth, on the side looking away from Hradany Castle towards the sluices.’

Kalenin nodded, but stayed on the pathway, looking downwards. His shoes were brightly polished, Charlie saw.

‘The Americans frighten me,’ said Kalenin.

Charlie waited, frowning.

‘I could arrange quite easily for you to have a minder,’ offered the Russian.

Charlie laughed, genuinely amused.

‘A British operative guarded by the K.G.B.?’ he queried. ‘Oh, come on!’

‘It could be done without suspicion,’ insisted Kalenin.

Such detailed surveillance would pad the file already existing upon him in Dzerzhinsky Square, he realised. The awareness alarmed him.

‘I prefer to work completely alone,’ reminded Charlie. ‘I always have.’

‘As you wish,’ said Kalenin. ‘But sometimes that’s not possible.’

So I’m to be watched, realised Charlie. In Kalenin’s position, able to invent any reason for such observation, he would have taken the same precautions, he knew. The irony amused him. It would soon need a small bus to accommodate the number of people assigned to him.

‘Until the thirteenth,’ said Kalenin, offering his hand.

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Isn’t that number considered unlucky in your country?’ asked the Russian, suddenly.

‘I’m not superstitious,’ rejected Charlie.

‘No,’ said Kalenin. ‘But I am.’

Charlie arrived back at the hotel in time for the afternoon tour, content with the morning’s encounter. He was very alert, conscious of everyone around him, but was unable to identify anybody who could obviously have been an American paying special attention to his party.

When he attempted to run his bath that night, he discovered the plug missing. Smiling, he crossed the corridor and paused outside the clerk’s doorway, listening before knocking. The noise they were making, thought Charlie as he turned away, was quite astonishing. But then, some girls were inclined to shout a lot. At the top of the corridor, he saw one of the women concierges who occupy a desk on every floor of Russian hotels. She had a pen in her hand and a book was open before her. She was staring fixedly towards the sounds.

‘My friend suffers from catarrh,’ said Charlie, smiling.

The woman looked expressionlessly at him, then began writing.

‘Miserable sod,’ judged Charlie, going back to his own room and jamming the bath with a wad of toilet paper.

‘I have been asked,’ said Cuthbertson, stiffly, ‘to make this operation a joint one between our two services.’

‘Yes,’ said Ruttgers, happily. He looked appreciatively around the Whitehall office: the British knew how to live, he thought. All the furniture was genuine antique.

‘It might not be easy,’ protested the Briton.

Ruttgers spread his hands, expansively.

‘Not a mater for us, surely?’ he said, soothingly. ‘We merely have to obey the instructions from our superiors.’

Cuthbertson sat staring at him, saying nothing. The left eye flickered its irritation and Ruttgers looked down at the cigarette in his hand: just like Keys, he thought. There was a hostility in the man beyond that which the American had expected from being told to co-operate.

‘I’m sure it will work fine,’ said Ruttgers, briskly. ‘Now what I want to do is send in one of my men to make contact with Kalenin. You haven’t had much success so far, after all.’

From Moscow that morning he’d been assured that no new operatives had been posted to the British Embassy. Now was the time to make demands, when they were unsure of themselves.

‘I’m afraid things have progressed beyond that point,’ said Cuthbertson, smirking.

Ruttgers waited, apprehensively.

‘We have made very successful contact with Kalenin and arranged a crossing,’ continued Cuthbertson, condescendingly. ‘There really is very little that we will need you for.’

Ruttgers flushed, furiously. Braley had been right, he thought. Cox was an incompetent idiot to have placed him in this position. He’d order the withdrawal immediately.

‘It’s a ministerial order that we co-operate,’ reminded Ruttgers. He was confused, trying to recover his composure.

‘I wonder,’ mused Cuthbertson, completely sure of himself, ‘if that order would have been issued had the Cabinet had the opportunity to listen to what Kalenin had to tell my man in Moscow.’

‘What?’ demanded the C.I.A. Director, nervously.

‘I know how Harrison and Snare were detected, Mr Ruttgers,’ said the Briton.

‘It’s a lie,’ snapped the American, instinctively.

‘What?’ pounced Cuthbertson.

Ruttgers fidgeted, annoyed with himself.

‘Any allegation about my service,’ he insisted, inadequately.

‘I’m accepting your presence, under protest, because it’s an order,’ said Cuthbcrtson, in his familiar monotone. ‘I’m making the transcript available to the Cabinet, together with my feelings about it. But make no mistake, Mr Ruttgers. The part you and your service play in this matter will be a very subservient one.’

The matryoshkas dolls, the rotund, Russian figures that fit one in the other, making a family of eight, were displayed on the dressing-table, reflected into the bedroom by the mirror. She’d liked the caviar, too, thought Charlie.

Janet lay, damp with perspiration, against his chest, nudging him with her tongue. He’d have to do it again in a minute, he knew. He really was getting too old.

‘Sir Henry is very impressed,’ she said.

‘So he should be.’

‘But I gather he and Wilberforce are annoyed you made the trip without their knowing.’

‘Too bad.’

‘What’s Kalenin like?’

‘Little bloke. Frightened, but he doesn’t show it.’

‘Half a million is a lot of money.’

‘But worth it,’ insisted Charlie. What would she do for half a million, wondered Charlie, stroking her hair.

She pulled away from him and wedged herself upon one arm.

‘Do you think it will work, Charlie?’

‘It’s got to,’ replied the man.

‘For whom?’ she demanded. ‘You. Or the department?’

‘Both,’ said Charlie, immediately. ‘It’s equally important for both.’

‘They’re only using you, darling,’ warned Janet, stretching back again. ‘They’ll fuck you in the end if it serves a purpose.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, softly. ‘That’s the worrying thought.’