Comrade Charlie

Chapter 34

The next day Charlie walked all the way to Marble Arch, where he finally succumbed to the protests from his feet. From there, on impulse, he took a cab to his home territory and The Pheasant. There the landlord, who knew him, suggested it was a nice day and Charlie said he’d known better. He didn’t eat, because he didn’t feel like it, and back at the hotel he avoided the bar in the evening. Natalia slipped into his room before midnight.

Charlie said: ‘I worried like hell, all day.’

Natalia kissed him and said: ‘There was no need.’

‘We’ve got to talk.’

‘Yes.’

‘You first,’ urged Charlie.

‘What?’

‘Everything. From the day I left you.’

Natalia’s shoulders rose and fell. ‘The strange thing is there doesn’t seem a lot to say. I thought there would be but there isn’t.’ There was another shrug. ‘I know that’s silly and there must be but I can’t think of it. All I can think of is being with you again.’

Charlie pressed her into the only easy chair in the room, perched himself on the edge of the bed directly in front of her and said: ‘Tell me what there is. What you can think of.’

Natalia started hesitantly, unprepared. She talked of being finally admitted by Kalenin the day Charlie fled and of recounting the story they had rehearsed and of how frightened she had been, but how she’d been believed. ‘Actually congratulated,’ she volunteered.

‘What happened to Edwin Sampson?’ interrupted Charlie.

‘I don’t know. I told Kalenin he was a plant to infiltrate the KGB, like you said I should, but I never learned the outcome.’

‘Poor bastard,’ said Charlie softly.

‘I thought you despised him.’

‘He was a plant,’ disclosed Charlie, telling her because there was no further hurt the man could possibly suffer. ‘I didn’t know it. I really thought he was a traitor from the very heart of our service but he wasn’t. He’d been prepared for years, built up his credibility by leaking a lot of good stuff to convince Dzerzhinsky Square he was genuine. The idea was to embed him deeply into your Moscow headquarters to be the best source we’d ever had.’

‘He would have broken under interrogation,’ said Natalia distantly. ‘It’s easier to understand now why my story was accepted so readily.’

‘I hope he did confess quickly enough,’ said Charlie. ‘There wouldn’t have been any point in his resisting: in suffering. But he wouldn’t have known that, would he?’

‘No,’ agreed Natalia, conscious of Charlie’s guilt. ‘Like you said, poor man.’

‘I didn’t know,’ repeated Charlie.

‘What about you?’ demanded Natalia quickly. ‘What was your part in the operation if you didn’t know about Sampson?’

Charlie hesitated, and wondered why he did. He said: ‘My being there was nothing to do with Sampson at all. I’d trapped Berenkov here in England and we knew he had been promoted through the KGB after he was repatriated. Our Director General guessed Berenkov, being the sort of man he was, would befriend me in Moscow, which he did. The hope was that by my running back he’d come under suspicion in Dzerzhinsky Square: maybe even be discredited. That was something else I didn’t know, until I returned. I was told to make a series of contact meetings with a source whose identity I didn’t know but that if the source didn’t turn up — which of course he didn’t, because there wasn’t one — to get back here.’

‘Which you did,’ reminded Natalia pointedly.

‘I’ve wished I hadn’t, a million times,’ said Charlie, just as pointedly.

‘Berenkov wasn’t discredited,’ she revealed. ‘He’s still head of the First Chief Directorate. It was he who transferred me from debriefing.’

Charlie’s hesitancy now was from his uncertainty how to guide the conversation. He said: ‘Berenkov appointed you personally?’

‘When I was summoned I thought it was to do with us: that they’d found out something we hadn’t thought of and that I was going to be punished, after all.’

‘What is your function now?’ demanded Charlie.

Natalia told him of Berenkov’s appointment interview and of the overseas visits she had already made and of which Charlie was already aware. She said: ‘Berenkov regards the move as worthwhile: my assessments have proved accurate so far.’

‘Are there often department changes like this within your service?’

Natalia lifted and dropped her shoulders again. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard of them.’

Neither had he, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Weren’t you surprised?’

‘Very,’ conceded Natalia at once. She smiled and added: ‘Pleased, too. I never thought it possible but I prayed for this.’

Enough, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Who’s the man you were with?’

‘Man?’ frowned Natalia, puzzled.

‘Last night, in the bar?’

Natalia smiled again, shaking her head this time. ‘His name is Golovanov. He’s the chief aeronautical engineer from the Ilyushin plant and I’ve only known him for two days and he gropes a lot. OK?’

Charlie smiled back at her, shamefaced. ‘I wanted to know.’

‘There isn’t anyone, Charlie. There hasn’t been, not at all.’

‘Good.’

‘And?’

‘No,’ assured Charlie in return. ‘No one.’ What about Laura? Not the same, he told himself: not the same at all.

‘I wondered,’ admitted Natalia. ‘Worried, which was stupid. Not my business, I mean.’

‘Isn’t it your business?’

‘We’ve talked enough tonight.’

‘Why avoid it?’

‘I’m frightened.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘I know.’

‘So?’

‘Please, Charlie!’

‘No,’ he refused.

‘Later.’

‘You’ve got to decide.’

‘I know.’

‘You said you loved me.’

‘I do.’

‘So what’s left to decide?’

‘You decided: you came back. You wouldn’t stay in Moscow.’

‘I told you it was a mistake I’ve regretted, a million times.’

‘And I’ve told you I’m frightened.’

‘You don’t have to be.’

‘Of course I do!’ said Natalia impatiently.

Charlie wished he had not been so glib. ‘We can do it!’ he implored.

‘I don’t want to talk any more, not tonight.’

‘Or last night, either.’

‘Please!’ she said again.

‘I want you to stay. I want you to stay and marry me,’ he declared.

Natalia stared at him, knowing that was exactly what she wanted, too, but unable to bring herself to say the actual words. She said: ‘Let me think.’

‘There’s nothing to think about!’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘What’ll be different then from now?’

‘Tomorrow,’ she insisted.

‘I…’ started Charlie and then stopped. Enough again, he decided.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It’s late; I should go back.’

‘You were later going back last night,’ he reminded her.

‘I don’t feel…’

‘…that wasn’t what I meant.’

Once more they stared at each other for several moments, neither speaking. Then Natalia said: ‘It’s been my fault.’

‘Mine,’ contradicted Charlie.

She made an impatient gesture. ‘Both our faults then!’

‘I don’t want there to be another mistake, not like last time.’

Natalia stood, impulsively. ‘Tomorrow,’ she repeated.

‘Tomorrow,’ Charlie accepted.

There was a minuscule escalation, the requirement for the London embassy to reply on the same eavesdropped code. The message from Berenkov, in Moscow, said: HAS PAST VISITOR MET GUEST? Losev, obedient to his instructions, replied: ENCOUNTER CONFIRMED.

‘It’s building up!’ insisted Harkness.

‘A visitor is a guest,’ pointed out Witherspoon.

‘Legend identities?’ queried Harkness.

‘It’s a possibility,’ suggested Witherspoon.

‘Work on the supposition,’ said Harkness.