See Charlie Run

Chapter Five

Charlie set himself the test as he left the embassy, guessing at the black Mazda, and got the confirmation that it was the CIA surveillance car when it pulled out at once and began following his taxi. Charlie turned back inside his vehicle, shaking his head. It was something he’d have to sort out with the American: things were going to be difficult enough as it was, without constant game playing between them. Not this sort of elementary game playing, anyway. He still needed positively to know whether Fredericks had checked his abort authorization. The man should have done, if he were the professional that Cartright suggested. And if the American believed he had the power, then Charlie knew he possessed the lever which put him slightly ahead, in the forthcoming bargaining. About bloody time. He tried to shrug off, literally, the irritation of the previous night. He’d been caught with his pants down and his pride had been hurt, but it was stupid – and worse, a distraction – to go on thinking about it. Keep it in mind, for when the opportunity came. But in its rightful, second place, where the need to even the score didn’t intrude.

At the entrance to the compound he identified himself to the Marine guard and then again to the receptionist in the main vestibule. While the receptionist made a muffled telephone confirmation a second Marine checked his identification, closely comparing Charlie’s photograph against the man in front of him, obviously reluctant to allow him any further into the embassy.

He’d worn a fresh shirt, too, thought Charlie. Indicating the photograph, he said: ‘I could have been in pictures. A star.’

The soldier looked back, face unmoving. ‘You got any ID other than this?’

Miserable bugger, thought Charlie. ‘Afraid not,’ he said.

From behind the guard, the receptionist said: ‘Someone’s coming. Will you wait?’

‘There,’ said the unhappy Marine, pointing to a seating area near the door, where Charlie would have been directly in sight.

Charlie ignored it, going instead to the American Tourist Office information rack and leafing through the brochures. It had been a long time since he’d been to America: during the time he’d been on the run from his own people, after setting the Directors up. Which had been a silly thing to do, he thought, in rare self-recrimination. They had been prepared to sacrifice him at a Berlin border crossing and so they deserved the embarrassment of Soviet arrest and humilating exchange. But he hadn’t properly calculated the personal cost. And not just the running and the hiding; he could have managed that, because so much of his professional life had involved running and hiding. It was the other things. If he hadn’t determined his own personal vengeance, Edith wouldn’t have been killed, in their retaliation hunt for him. So lonely, for so long. And then Natalia … Charlie snapped the unfocussed brochure shut, closing out with it the reflections and the unaccustomed self-pity. His wife was dead and Natalia beyond reach, and to think about either was another distraction he couldn’t afford: he’d made his mistakes and they couldn’t be undone and he had to live with them.

‘You’d never get a visa.’

Charlie turned, to the huge figure of Art Fredericks, putting the booklet back into the rack. ‘Got some good references.’

‘Soviet or British?’

Fuck you, thought Charlie. Take your pick,’ he said.

Charlie walked deeper into the embassy alongside the CIA Resident, grinning at the Marine as he passed and thinking what an incongruous couple they must look; Charlie realized he scarcely reached the other man’s shoulders. There was a further identity check from more Marines at the actual entrance to the intelligence section of the embassy, and Fredericks signed his personal authority for Charlie’s admission. Beyond the desk, the corridors were blank walled and the doorways contained no glass, so that the offices beyond were completely concealed. Charlie looked up expectantly, found the camera monitor and winked.

Fredericks’ office was large, because he was the CIA officer in charge, but it still didn’t seem big enough for the man. Charlie guessed the enormous enveloping chair had been specially imported. There was the obligatory US flag in the corner and the nameplate on the front of the desk, and behind, on a low cabinet, an array of sports pictures and pennants. Charlie identified the boxing prints and thought there was also a photograph of Fredericks in American football kit. It would, thought Charlie, have been a sight to see. On the desk itself was a family photograph of a pretty blonde-haired woman and two blonde-haired girls, faces of both dominated by freckles and a foundry’s supply of steel that always seemed to go into American teeth braces.

‘So we’re going to work together?’ said Charlie.

‘That was always the plan.’

‘You’re setting up the meeting for me, with Kozlov?’

Fredericks hesitated, glad he’d given the undertaking the previous night and was not being forced into an open capitulation or admission of how he’d tried to screw the scruffy son-of-a-bitch. Harry Fish was right; the bag women on 42nd Street were in better shape. He said: ‘I’ve started things off. Like I said, it’ll take a while.’

‘You also said you thought Kozlov was genuine. Why?’

There was another pause from the American. He’d worked his butt off, regarding this as probably the most important case he was likely to encounter in a dozen years, and now this guy was coming in and expecting to be fed it all on a plate. ‘Everything he’s said checks out.’

Charlie sighed, conscious of the attitude. Openly to challenge would make things worse. He said: ‘OK, let’s start at the beginning. Anything known, in your records?’

Fredericks shook his head. ‘We’ve run the name – and his wife’s – through every computer there is: ours, FBI, NSA and military and navy. FBI have two Kozlovs, both who served in Washington at one time or another. One is now in the Soviet embassy in Ankara, the other in Paris …’

‘Photo-comparisons, to make sure they’re the same people?’ interrupted Charlie.

‘Of course we made photo checks!’ said Fredericks, irritably. ‘The Kozlovs who are in Ankara and Paris are the guys who were in Washington. Neither of the wives’ names were Irena, either. Kozlov’s clean.’

‘Sure that’s his real name?’

‘We’ve no way of telling.’

Charlie frowned openly at the evasion. ‘You want me to believe you haven’t taken a photograph, during one of your four meetings!’

Fredericks smiled, in reluctant admission. He said: ‘Twice. We freighted the pictures back to Washington. He’s not on any mug file we or any other agency have.’

‘Born?’

‘Leningrad, 1940.’

‘Age seem right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anything unusual?’

‘Unusual?’ queried Fredericks.

The man knew what he meant, for Christ’s sake! Charlie said: ‘Facial hair. Or lack of hair. Scars. A limp. Missing fingers. Jewellery. Odd-shaped rings. That kind of unusual.’

Fredericks decided that Charlie’s mind was sharper than his suit. He said: ‘No.’

‘No what?’ pressed Charlie, determinedly.

‘Nothing unusual whatsoever. No facial hair. He’s not losing it up top, either. Full head. No scars or limps. Doesn’t wear any jewellery at all, not even a ring,’ itemized the American.

‘Full head?’ isolated Charlie. ‘Do you mean he’s got more than you’d expect, for a man of his age?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Colour?’

‘Lightish brown.’

‘Lightish brown? Or a tendency to greyness?’

Fredericks paused and then said: ‘I’m sorry. Would you like a coffee or a drink or something?’

‘Nothing,’ said Charlie, refusing a deflecting interruption. ‘Genuine light brown or greying?’

Beneath the desk, Fredericks gripped and ungripped his hands in frustration. Why this guy, of all people? ‘Genuine brown.’

‘You said light brown,’ reminded Charlie. ‘So what is it, light brown? Or brown?’

‘What the hell is this, a fucking inquisition!’ erupted the American, at last.

‘If you like,’ agreed Charlie, unperturbed by the outburst. ‘You’ve already told me it’s my ass. And it is. And I’ve already told you that I’m not risking it until I’m satisfied. Which I’m not … not by a long way. If I don’t get it all, then we both get nothing…’ He hesitated, wondering if he should take the risk, and thought shit, why not? He said: ‘London confirmed my authority to abort, didn’t they?’

‘Wouldn’t you have checked?’ said Fredericks, defensively.

‘Of course I would. That’s what I’m doing now,’ said Charlie. No doubt about it: General Sir Alistair Wilson was a bloody good man to have watching your back. Or ass, which seemed the buzzword.

‘Light brown,’ capitulated the American. ‘His hair is definitely light bown, without any grey.’

‘Eyes?’

‘Blue.’

‘Light blue or dark blue?’

‘Dark blue.’

‘Spectacles?’

‘Yes.’

Charlie came forward slightly in his chair. ‘Don’t you regard that as an unusual feature?’

‘No,’ said Fredericks.

‘Of course it is,’ disputed Charlie. ‘Heavy framed, light frame, metal frame or frameless?’

‘Heavy,’ replied Fredericks. There was very little he was going to be able to hold back, for themselves.

‘Heavy what?’

‘Plastic, I guess. Black.’

‘Thick lens?’

‘Not particularly.’

‘So they could be false, some sort of minimal disguise?’

‘It would be minimal, wouldn’t it?’

‘That’s all it’s got to be, in most cases,’ lectured Charlie. ‘People, even trained people, respond to immediate impressions, not careful studies. Heavy black glasses are a feature, and if they are missing when you expect them the immediate impression might be that it’s the wrong person … the sort of hair you’ve described can easily be tinted, to heighten the change …’ Charlie stopped, annoyed at an oversight of his own. ‘Is it parted?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Fredericks.

Charlie noted the hesitation. ‘Which side?’ he said.

‘Left,’ said the American. The hesitation was still there.

‘You sure?’

‘Yes,’ said Fredericks, doubtfully.

Charlie hoped the photographs were good: they were a bonus he shouldn’t forget. He said: ‘And if Kozlov really needs glasses, then the opportunity for an appearance change is still there. He could use contact lenses and even alter the proper colour of his eyes.’

‘Why!’ demanded Fredericks, annoyed there was more. ‘What’s the point of debating disguise! The man isn’t trying to hide from us.’

The point was intentionally to cause an apparent side issue to lure the other man into disclosing everything there was to learn, but Charlie didn’t tell him that. Instead he said: ‘I would have thought that if this thing goes ahead the possibility of disguise might be pretty important to you.’

Fredericks swallowed, uncomfortable at the lapse. ‘Getting Kozlov out is our problem, not yours,’ he said, belligerently.

‘How tall?’ resumed Charlie.

‘Five ten.’

‘Weight?’

‘About 168 lbs,’ said Fredericks.

Charlie, who had never adjusted to the American weighing system, made the quick mental calculation: twelve stone. He said: ‘So what’s his appearance, average, heavy or what?’

‘Average.’

‘No gut?’ said Charlie, instinctively breathing in. ‘It’s possible, even though the weight is about right for the height.’

Fredericks shook his head. ‘He’s completely nondescript.’

Charlie decided that it was the first time the other man had said anything to indicate that Kozlov might be genuine. Fredericks, with his distinctive bulk, must find operational work difficult. But then, thought Charlie, in contradiction, he hadn’t isolated the man during the arrival-day surveillance. Subjugate the irritation! he told himself. He said: ‘He admits to being Executive Action?’

‘Yes,’ said Fredericks.

‘Did you take him through it?’

‘Through enough,’ said Fredericks.

Enough for you but not for me, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Tell me about it.’

‘It came out the first time,’ recalled Fredericks. ‘He always insists on stipulating the meeting places: sets out several so that we can’t stake them out properly and then chooses the one at which to make the contact …’

‘So he can check and ensure he’s not going to be jumped, cither by you or his own people …?’ clarified Charlie.

‘That’s the reason he gives.’

That was certainly professional, judged Charlie. ‘You were talking about the first meeting?’ he encouraged.

‘It was at Tsukuba, where the ‘85 Expo was held,’ resumed Fredericks. ‘Good choice. Crowded with people. He identified me …’

‘How?’ came in Charlie. It was a genuine and important question, but he also wanted to jolt the other man from the prepared, withholding delivery he suspected.

‘Part of his proving himself,’ said Fredericks. ‘Claims to know every Agency man on station here. The instruction was that I should simply tour the various stands and the exhibition site and wait for an approach … it came in a revolving theatre, in the Hitachi Pavilion …’

‘How?’ broke in Charlie again. ‘How did that instruction come, in the first place? How did the CIA learn Yuri Kozlov wanted to come across?’

Charlie Muffin was a bastard who didn’t deserve to be readmitted into any intelligence environment. But Fredericks realized the man wasn’t the jerk he’d accused him earlier of being. As he prepared to answer, Fredericks thought again how much the defection was his personal operation and felt a fresh surge of annoyance at the degree of cooperation that was being surrendered. He said: ‘It was direct, to me. There was a reception, at the Swiss embassy. Low-key affair that the ambassador didn’t even bother to attend. I only went for a drink. There was an anonymous note in my car, when I left.’

‘Wasn’t the car locked?’

Fredericks smiled, in further grudging admiration at Charlie’s attention to detail. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Kozlov seems to enjoy showing how good he is.’

Don’t we all, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Was the car alarmed?’

Fredericks nodded: ‘That too. He by-passed it. I checked with the guards. No one heard a thing.’

‘What did the note say?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Just that I was to go to the Expo site.’

‘No indication who it was from?’

‘No.’

‘Not even Russian?’

‘No.’

‘So why’d you go?’ said Charlie.

‘Because whoever it was who’d written it had got into a supposedly secure CIA car without anyone knowing about it,’ listed Fredericks. ‘Because whoever it was knew who I was; it was addressed to the CIA Resident. Because the word “Resident” was used, it had to be from someone who was in intelligence.’

‘All of which could have been setting you up.’

‘Wouldn’t you have gone?’

‘The note said something else,’ insisted Charlie. ‘It just didn’t say “Go to the site of Expo ’85”.’

Fredericks felt a renewed burst of anger at how easily the other man appeared to have backed him into a corner. ‘“I have killed and now I want freedom”,’ recited Fredericks. ‘That’s what it said.’

‘That the lot?’ insisted Charlie.

‘That was it,’ said Fredericks. ‘“I have killed and now I want freedom.” Expo site. 27 …’ He stopped and then added: “That indicated the date, February 27. The Swiss reception was on the 24th.’

It was coming, decided Charlie. Slowly – too slowly – but the snippets were there. Would there be enough, though, to build the sort of picture he wanted to see, to be satisfied? ‘Dramatic!’ he said.

‘Good enough to go,’ insisted Fredericks.

‘So it wasn’t at the first meeting you learned he was a killer?’ questioned Charlie. ‘You knew, from the note?’

‘If you want to be picky,’ sneered Fredericks.

‘I want to be picky,’ insisted Charlie. ‘So what happened, in the Hitachi Pavilion?’

‘I just wandered about,’ said Fredericks. ‘That first time he didn’t set out a route, like he has done since.’

More professionalism, recognized Charlie: the note could have been intercepted by someone other than Fredericks if Kozlov had been seen planting it, so the Russian would have needed as many escape routes as possible. He said: ‘Didn’t you have back-up?’

‘Two guys,’ said Fredericks. ‘That was the first occasion we got some photographs.’

‘If Kozlov knows the identity of every Agency person, he would have identified them.’

‘He did,’ admitted Fredericks. ‘He said he was glad I was a cautious person and just that time he would allow it, but in future it had to be one for one. Like I said, he enjoys proving himself.’

‘Has it been?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So you’ve endangered any crossing already?’

Despite the air conditioning, Fredericks was conscious of the perspiration moving down his back, a physical irritation to match the other he was feeling at having to make a further concession. ‘He didn’t tell me until the third meeting that he knew them all and I’m not convinced he does, anyway.’

‘You told me there have been four meetings,’ remembered Charlie. ‘Did you go to the fourth meeting by yourself?’

‘I told them all to be careful.’

‘How about the guy you sent after me?’ said Charlie. ‘Didn’t you tell him to be careful?’

‘Kiss my ass!’ said Fredericks, in a fresh eruption of anger. ‘I’m not answerable to you!’

Charlie was as unperturbed as before, aware of how successful it had been to anger the man and juggle the interview. He wondered if Fredericks realized the importance of what he had just admitted. ‘Let’s go back to the first meeting,’ he said, quietly.

Fredericks blinked again, assembling his disarrayed thoughts, and said: ‘I said he was nondescript and he is. That time he was alongside me before I realized it and it’s happened that way since. He thanked me for coming …’

‘In English …?’

‘He speaks it very well …’ resumed Fredericks. ‘It’s an unusual theatre. It revolves in front of various stages. I’d taken a seat and was just watching the show, thinking the whole thing was some sort of dumb hoax. And then there he was, suddenly beside me. Like I told you, he thanked me for coming …’

‘Just like that? “Thank you for coming”?’

‘Yes.’

‘No!’ said Charlie.

‘What the hell do you mean, no?’

‘You said he knew your name?’

The American began feeling drained. He said: ‘“Thank you for coming, Mr Fredericks.”’

‘Mr Fredericks? Or Art Fredericks?’

‘Does it matter, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Of course it matters,’ said Charlie. ‘Mr Fredericks indicates some subservience: that he was uncertain. Art Fredericks would show that he was proving himself again. Haven’t you ever carried out any in-depth debriefings?’

Fredericks hadn’t, but wished now that he had. ‘He used my first name. He said: “Thanks for coming, Art. That is your name, isn’t it? Art Fredericks?”’

‘Exact words?’

‘Exact words.’

‘What then?’

‘I asked him what he wanted.’

‘How?’

‘This is ridiculous!’

‘How did you ask?’ persisted Charlie.

‘I said: “OK, I’ve come here: what is it all about?”.’

‘You sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’

‘You’d gone to an exhibition after a mystery note in a locked car, wandered about for a long time, sat down in a theatre believing you were wasting your time, and suddenly a man sits beside you and says “Thanks for coming, Art. That is your name, isn’t it? Art Fredericks?” And you didn’t ask him how he knew your name!’

‘Of course I asked him!’

‘Then?’

‘Yes!’

‘That wasn’t what you said.’

The drained feeling worsened. ‘I asked him how he knew my name and he said he knew all the names … that he knew the two who were with me that day …’

‘Did he …?’

Fredericks nodded. ‘Yes.’

‘By name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which was?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘A sparrow you saw pissing in the next field is important. Who were they?’

‘Harry Fish and Winslow Elliott.’

Cartright was right, Charlie recognized. ‘Used them since?’

Fredericks paused. ‘They’re experts!’

‘You’re not!’ accused Charlie, wanting the man’s anger again.

‘There’ve been a lot of places to cover: five or six each time.’

Got it! thought Charlie. If Fredericks conducted the meetings and had an extra man at each, that meant a minimum of six, against him. He would have expected more. ‘You asked him again how he knew?’

‘Yes,’ said Fredericks. Maybe he’d let Elliott loose on this guy.

‘And?’

‘He said it was his job to know. Although his English was very good, like I said, I guessed from the accent he was Russian. I said what was his job and he said he was KGB …’

‘He said that!’ demanded Charlie. ‘He said KGB?’

‘Yes.’

Charlie caught the doubt again and said: ‘You sure? Absolutely sure?’

‘He used a Russian word and I said I didn’t speak Russian and he said KGB,’ recalled Fredericks.

Charlie wondered whether to prompt the other man and decided against it. ‘You can’t remember what it was?’

‘I told you, I don’t speak Russian.’

He wouldn’t give it to Fredericks, decided Charlie. The awkward bugger wasn’t giving him anything without a struggle.

‘It is important?’ asked Fredericks.

‘We’ll never know, will we?’ avoided Charlie, easily. ‘What happened then?’

‘I asked him straight away what he meant by having killed and wanting his freedom.’

‘And?’

‘He said he was Executive Action. That he’d murdered and that he wanted to stop but they wouldn’t let him, so he had to defect …’

‘Let’s stop for a moment,’ said Charlie. ‘Is that what he called it, Executive Action?’

Fredericks was cautious now. ‘Not at once,’ he conceded, immediately. ‘I asked him what department he was attached to and he said the First Chief Directorate, and then I repeated what department and he said another Russian word …’

Charlie cut across, decided he had to prompt this time. ‘Taini otdel?’

Fredericks remained cautious, frowning. ‘That sounds like it,’ he said. ‘I can’t be sure but it sounds like it.’

‘It means secret division,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s an expression they sometimes use. What happened then?’

‘I told him again I didn’t speak Russian, so he said “Department V.” I recognized that, but to be sure I said, “Executive Action” and he said, “Yes.”’

‘Who’s he killed?’

‘He won’t say.’

‘He must have given some indication!’

‘He point-blank refused,’ insisted the American.

‘To a direct question: you asked?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Of course I damn well asked!’ said Fredericks. ‘Told me the knowledge was his value and that he’d tell us everything … victims, reasons, dates and locations, Russian rationale, everything … once he was safely across and his wife was safe, too …’

There was no way to discover if Fredericks were lying. There was a pathway he could follow, from what the American had given away so far. He said: ‘Tell me about that; it’s the reason I’m here, after all. Why this separate crossing business, with him and Irena?’

‘He’s frightened of being cheated … of being brought across, sucked dry of everything and then dumped … prosecuted even,’ said Fredericks. ‘I told him we didn’t operate that way: that we kept our word. But he said intelligence agencies were the same anywhere and that he wanted a guarantee.’

That’s what the Director had said, during the briefing, remembered Charlie. ‘He’s right about one thing,’ said Charlie, pointedly and from personal experience. ‘Defectors are always traitors, to whichever side: they’re usually shat on, once their usefulness is over. Did he explain how the splitting of the defections gave him protection?’

‘He talked of going public, in England and America.’

Autobiographies and lecture tours had made a few crossovers rich, reflected Charlie. The thought continued, worryingly: lecture tours in America, not England. It was a remark to remember and pass on to London. He said: ‘The figure was $500,000?’

‘We’d pay more,’ said Fredericks.

And had probably offered it, for the double package, guessed Charlie. Throwing out the lure, he said: ‘You just talked in generalities?’

‘That’s all,’ said Fredericks.

Too quick, judged Charlie. ‘No specifics?’

‘No specifics.’

Charlie decided to let Fredericks run awhile and believe he was getting away with the bullshit: there was plenty of time to open the trap and let the man fall in. He said: ‘How was he?’

‘How was he?’

‘Demeanour?’

Fredericks appeared to consider the question, sure he was conning the bastard. ‘Strangely calm,’ he said. ‘It’s been something very obvious, from that first occasion in the theatre.’

‘And that doesn’t strike you as unusual?’

Fredericks’ caution returned. ‘I don’t follow?’

‘He’s wants to quit being a murderer: presumably sickened and revulsed by it,’ challenged Charlie. ‘He wouldn’t be calm, surely? Particularly with the additional tension of planning as complicated a defection as this?’

‘He’s a trained man,’ argued Fredericks.

‘Who’s going against that training,’ said the Charlie. ‘Further cause to be nervous.’

‘He is nervous!’ insisted the American. ‘I’ve told you about all the crap of separate meeting places and only he being the person able to make the contact.’

‘That’s not nervousness,’ disputed Charlie. ‘That’s trained, professional caution. The opposite of nervousness, in fact.’

‘I think you’re making too much of it.’

‘I’m not making too much of anything,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m just trying to separate facts from impressions.’

‘You’re getting all the facts,’ said Fredericks.

Almost time for the drop, thought Charlie. He said: ‘How long has he been here, in Tokyo?’

‘He said he arrived in late ‘83. It checks out with the diplomatic registration at the Japanese Foreign Ministry,’ said Fredericks.

‘Before that?’

‘He talked of London. And Bonn,’ said Fredericks, intent for an obvious reaction from the Englishman.

There was none. Charlie remained quite unmoved and expressionless. He said: ‘What came from the checks of the diplomatic lists in both places?’

‘Nothing,’ said Fredericks, disappointed. ‘No Kozlov listed in either place.’

Inwardly Charlie was churning with excitement. If Kozlov had been posted – and killed – in London, then they and not the American had to have the man. And they would, Charlie determined. He determined something else, too. It had been right not to challenge the American until now. He said: ‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it,’ said Fredericks. There was even a look of satisfaction.

Charlie sighed, loudly, wanting the other man to hear. ‘Do you know what I think?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I think we should decide something, you and I,’ said Charlie. ‘I think I should stop regarding you as stupid and I certainly think you should stop regarding me as stupid. Which is what we’re both doing at the moment. Like it or not – and I don’t like it any more than you do – we’re going to have to work together on this. Those are my instructions from London and yours from Washington …’ He paused, for the point to register. Then he took up: ‘You told me he’s genuine. You told me everything he said checks out … and you know what you’ve got so far, from what you’ve told me? You’ve got fuck all: absolutely fuck all. Nothing from what you’ve told me could check out, because there’s no independent corroboration. No photographs, no confirmation of posting, just the name on a Japanese Foreign Ministry register: you don’t even have proof that the man who’s met you four times, has the name of a few CIA agents and speaks in accented English, really is Yuri Kozlov …’ Charlie stopped again. ‘Now you know and I know that isn’t right. And you know and I know that a Boy Scouts’ group wouldn’t accept him on what you’ve so far told me. And although it’s sometimes debatable whether they actually succeed, the CIA try to do better than the Boys Scouts. So why don’t you stop buggering about and imagining you’re conning an idiot, and tell me how the man in the Hitachi roundabout theatre proved he was genuine?’

Charlie was intent upon the other man, pleased at the obvious reaction. Fredericks shifted in the chair, appearing to find it constricting despite its size. Then he sighed, for a different reason than Charlie earlier, and said: ‘On the second meeting, he gave us a name. It was one we didn’t have: we checked it out and it was right.’

Charlie shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That won’t do.’

‘The name was Rodgers, William Rodgers,’ conceded the American. ‘Kozlov said he was an illegal, infiltrated into America from Canada five years ago. His real name is Anatoli Ogurtsov. He’s settled in San Francisco: runs an importexpor t business there. Deep cover. We’ve liaised with the FBI, of course; it’s their responsibility. They’ve so far identified four others that he’s suborned. Silicon Valley stuff, all hi-tech.’

‘You said it was a name you didn’t have?’ insisted Charlie.

‘The FBI either,’ expanded Fredericks. ‘Rodgers – or Ogurtsov – wasn’t on any file. And he’s been getting a lot of stuff out. It means we’re able to block a damned great hole.’

There was more, Charlie knew. He said: ‘OK, so illegals are run through the First Chief Directorate. But they’re trained by a completely closed off Directorate: just like Department V – Kozlov’s supposed division – is closed off. Because they both have to be. There is never any liaison or link-up, to prevent what’s just happened, identification from someone who’s become disaffected. So how come Yuri Kozlov knows that William Rodgers is really Anatoli Ogurtsov?’

The goddamned man really did want to know about sparrows pissing in adjoining fields, thought Fredericks. He said: ‘The routing. The major conduit for the hi-tech stuff that Ogurtsov has been getting into the Soviet Union has been through here, Tokyo. It’s been a known throughway for years.’

‘He told you that?’ said Charlie. ‘That he discovered Ogurtsov’s name because they were the onward shippers?’

‘Irena’s the source,’ said Fredericks. ‘She’s the Control, apparently.’

Bingo, jackpot and all the other winning words, thought Charlie. If Irena Kozlov had masterminded technology espionage into the Soviet Union from America – and maybe elsewhere – since the couple’s posting to Japan in 1983, she was a potentially bigger catch than her husband. Because she would know the identities of other illegals and other technology smugglers running operations, throughout the world. Who was it who had said this could be spectacular, Wilson or Harkness? Charlie couldn’t remember. It had been a pretty accurate assessment, though. Charlie’s mind ran on, objectively honest: if he’d been Fredericks, he’d have been as difficult and tried to hold as much back as he could. No, not as difficult; more so. He hoped he would have done better. Charlie said: ‘That’s the sort of bait that catches the fish.’

‘The Kozlovs are the fish,’ said Fredericks. ‘Prize-winners.’

‘Can the FBI bring Ogurtsov in without any suspicion coming back here?’ asked Charlie.

‘Easily,’ said Fredericks, confidently. ‘There are others, don’t forget. All the evidence will be that the Bureau found out through crooked American businessmen, out to make big bucks. There’ll be a plea-bargaining deal, lesser sentences for full confessions. All the usual stuff. Japan won’t even enter into it.’

‘All nicely topped and tailed,’ accepted Charlie.

‘Well?’ asked Fredericks.

‘I said the bait looked good,’ qualified Charlie. ‘I didn’t guess at the fish. You did.’

‘You’re the smart-ass!’ challenged Fredericks. ‘Have you ever known a better cross-over offer?’

Charlie considered the question and then said, honestly: ‘No.’

‘So it’s kosher?’

‘I didn’t say that,’ contradicted Charlie.

‘For Christ’s sake!’ exploded Fredericks. ‘What does it take to convince you!’

‘Not even Him,’ said Charlie, twisting the American’s exasperation. ‘He should have fingered Judas as a double.’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘Nothing,’ evaded Charlie. ‘Just me smart-assing.’ Why should he keep warning the Americans that things were not always as they seemed? Let them work it out, like he hoped to do.

Fredericks looked doubtful. Then he said: ‘That’s it. You’ve got it all now.’

Charlie had distrusted people who told him he had it all from the moment he’d been parted from the tit. What he did have was enough – well, almost enough – for the moment: more, in fact, than he’d expected to get. He wanted just one more thing. In passing, Charlie wondered if Fredericks would ever know how much he’d conceded; and apparently missed. He said: The photographs?’ and recognized at once from the expression on the American’s face that Fredericks had hoped he would not make the request. Silly sod, thought Charlie; as if he’d overlook something as important as photographs.

‘I said …’ started Fredericks but Charlie interrupted him yet again, aware of the advantages he’d finally secured and aware, too, that the time was for apparent impatience. ‘Don’t!’ warned Charlie. ‘Don’t tell me that you sent everything for picture analyses to Washington and nothing is left here. Because I thought we’d agreed to stop being stupid towards one another, and if you told me that I’d say you were stupid to entrust something so important to a diplomatic pouch which might have been destroyed in an air-crash or intercepted and opened during an aeroplane hijack. And if you said it was done by personal air courier, I’d say you were mad to let go of one of the most importance pieces of material you’ve so far managed to obtain, since Kozlov’s approach. And then I’d go on to say that I don’t think you’re that stupid. Any more than I hoped you wouldn’t think I’d be stupid enough to believe it …’ Charlie grinned, accusingly. ‘Do you know what I think? I think that somewhere in a safe not very far away – maybe in this very room – you’ve not only got the negatives of every photograph you took of Kozlov but a whole interesting selection of prints, as well.’

Fredericks made as if to speak but then shook his head, in self-refusal. Instead he moved slightly to his left and opened what appeared to be a panel where the desk drawers should be. Charlie couldn’t properly see, from where he was sitting, but guessed it was a safe, floor-mounted. Unspeaking, the American offered four photographs to Charlie, who took them and said: ‘Thanks.’ They wouldn’t be all, and they wouldn’t be the best, Charlie knew: but at least he had four. He took his time, examining each. Fredericks’ assessment of the Russian being nondescript was very apt: ten Kozlovs had a place in every bus queue there’d ever been.

‘The right,’ insisted Charlie.

‘What?’

‘You said he parted his hair on the left. But you forgot the reversal effect of a photograph. It’s the right.’

‘It’s a deal: I won’t regard you as a fool,’ said Fredericks.

‘It’s a deal: I won’t treat you like one either,’ said Charlie. Which was altogether different from promising not to cheat and lie and do everything else he could to screw the other man, to come out on top. To achieve which it would, in fact, be stupid to consider Fredericks … well … stupid. Suddenly remembering, he added: ‘Stop having people follow me. It’s ridiculous.’

‘I won’t do it any more,’ promised the American, again too easily. He said: ‘There’s not a lot that we can do now until we get Kozlov’s meeting arrangements?’

‘No,’ agreed Charlie. Not much, Sunshine, he thought. Charlie extended the reflection, on the way back to the hotel from the US embassy. He’d still have liked to have known more. But then possibly, with the benefit of hindsight, so would the captain of the Titanic. What he had was sufficient, and it would take a lot of assembly and assessment, and he was glad there was going to be a gap before any possible meeting with the Russian. Thank God he’d contacted Harry Lu. He wondered what additional fall-out protection he could get together: sure as eggs were things that usually ended up all over his face, he was going to need some.

He called Cartright at once, and when they were connected he said: ‘I need to come into the embassy.’

‘You do,’ agreed Cartright. ‘There are messages.’

‘Problems?’ asked Charlie.

‘How do I know?’ said Cartright.

He was able to confront Harkness now, Charlie decided. He said: ‘Tell them I’m coming.’

Those sections of Soviet embassies occupied by the KGB – and by the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye or GRU, the military branch of Russian intelligence – are internally the most restricted, without exception anywhere in the world forbidden to any ambassador or any supposedly genuine diplomatic staff. Intelligence personnel are an elite – as they are, indeed, within the Soviet Union – answerable to no one, beholden to no one. Except within their own rigidly enforced, rigidly observed confines, where KGB informs upon KGB and GRU informs upon GRU and each service informs upon the other. Ostensibly, for each service, there is a Rezident or chief, but so well is a tangled intricacy of suspicion constantly maintained that no Rezident knows whether he truly occupies the office or whether someone he considers his subordinate is in fact the real holder of the position, reporting upon him and monitoring his performance. The situation is further complicated by the official existence within each branch of the service in every embassy of a security officer, who is not responsible to the Rezident – and certainly not to the ambassador – reporting and monitoring as actively and as independently as everyone else.

The same-colour jigsaw creates the maximum suspicion and uncertainty, and the Soviet Politburo remain convinced since 1953, when Nikita Krushchev innovated the system, that it has preserved their intelligence organizations against dissent and defection better than any other in the world. Statistics of known defections appear to support that confidence.

Boris Filiatov was officially the KGB Rezident in Tokyo, but the security officer was a woman whose reputation was such that the majority of Tokyo-based Russian agents believed that Olga Balan was the bona fide Rezident, unencumbered by any unknown superior. Olga – whose job it was to know of these and other rumours – did nothing to discount them, because she enjoyed the respect and because it encouraged the informants to confide their secrets to her, which increased her reputation and revolved the wheel of rumour full circle. The earned reputation for ruthless determination contrasted with Olga Balan’s obvious and real femininity. She was taller than most Slavic women and she did not have the usual square-jawed features either, but a soft, oval face and a cowl of blonde hair: those who feared her complained her very appearance made her all the more frightening, because it concealed the sort of person she really was. The stories positively identified two agents who had been sent to number 27 gulag in the Potma complex upon her evidence of their enjoying too much the pleasures of the West and involving themselves in the black market, to guarantee some comforts back in Moscow against the time of their recall. They were true. One had been her fiancé, for whom she had genuine affection and whom she had therefore warned several times to stop before filing her report. If she hadn’t, she knew someone else would have done, and she did not want to occupy a prison cell herself, either for failing properly to do her job or because of her known involvement with the man. Olga Balan regarded being a good Russian as more important than being a loyal fiancée, and anyway towards the end she found the man sexually lacking.

Olga conducted everything to order and most of all the weekly meetings. Kozlov entered precisely on time, because such things were noted, exchanged the formalized greeting and sat in the already arranged chair. Each KGB officer maintained a work-log, which was required to be submitted the morning in advance of the afternoon encounter; his was open in front of the woman.

‘Kamakura?’ she said, looking up at him. She had deep brown eyes.

‘Yes,’ said Kozlov. ‘A day visit.’

‘Why?’ She had an unnerving, staccato way of questioning.

‘We are maintaining observation on CIA personnel attached to the American embassy here. A joint operation with my wife, approved by Moscow. I was following their Resident, Art Fredericks,’ said Kozlov, pedantically. All interviews were recorded.

‘It appears to be taking a long time.’

‘We isolated another one, at Kamakura. Samuel Dale. We’ve confirmed it from their diplomatic list.’ He spoke intentionally in the plural.

‘Your wife is Control for this operation?’

‘She suggested it to Moscow,’ said Kozlov. ‘They approved.’

‘How is it worked?’

‘The object is identification,’ said Kozlov. ‘I maintain observation on known CIA officers and through them discover others.’

‘You operate as a team?’ persisted the woman.

‘We do not remain all the time together,’ qualified Kozlov. ‘That would be dangerous.’

‘Why dangerous?’

‘In the event of one of us being identified, leading to the other,’ said Kozlov.

‘You suspect your identities are known to a Western intelligence agency!’ The demand was peremptory.

‘I consider separation a sensible precaution,’ said Kozlov, qualifying again.

‘Any findings, from this surveillance?’

‘I believe there is a build up of CIA strength,’ said Kozlov.

‘Why!’ demanded the woman.

‘I hope to find out,’ said Kozlov.

Fredericks sanitized his account to the other CIA operatives, but even so it was clear that the Agency supervisor had conceded more than he wanted, in the encounter with Charlie Muffin.

‘Was it right, to disclose Ogurtsov?’ questioned Elliott.

‘Do you think I’d have done it, if it hadn’t been necessary!’ said Fredericks, upset at the obvious criticism from the other men.

‘He winked!’ said Levine. ‘The bastard winked at the monitor!’

‘Listen. And listen good,’ instructed Fredericks. ‘Don’t let tricks like that upset you. Because that’s what they are: nothing more than tricks.’

‘Why?’ questioned Yamada.

‘So we’ll underestimate him,’ judged Fredericks. ‘And that would be a mistake. We all know what he did once. He’s a tricky son-of-a-bitch.’