See Charlie Run

Chapter Eighteen

The silence lasted a long time, building into a division between them – a barrier neither had known before – Olga Balan all the while staring fixedly at him, wanting Kozlov to say more. When he didn’t, the woman said: This isn’t how it was planned; how we planned it.’

‘You said then that you’d do anything I wanted,’ reminded Kozlov. He hadn’t expected her to agree at once.

‘Not kill her.’

‘You’ve been trained.’

Olga shook her head, a positive denial. ‘For the State. This is different.’

Kozlov indicated the just-replaced telephone upon which he’d burned with discomfort assuring his wife he loved her with Olga looking at him, stony-faced. ‘I told you what she said: that they’re moving her on, but she doesn’t know where. That telephone is our only link. So it can’t be me, not now. I’ve got to stay here.’

Olga stood abruptly, breaking the tension between them. She looked at her empty glass and the nearby bottle, then appeared to change her mind, going instead to the window. Tokyo was quite outside, so late; a lot of the neon illumination was temporarily resting and the streets briefly empty, until another day. With her back to him, she said: ‘You’d already decided it had to be me, before she called, hadn’t you?’

Kozlov swallowed, glad she wasn’t able to see. He was surprised she’d guessed. He said: ‘Think of another way! Anything!’

Still not looking at him, Olga said hopefully: ‘Maybe Moscow wouldn’t recall you if we just let her go?’

‘You prepared the tapes … conducted the interviews and sent them to Moscow and involved Filiatov …’ reminded Kozlov. ‘Do you really believe that!’

She turned back into the room. There were only sidelights on, so it was difficult to see if she were near tears but he thought she was. She said: ‘We’re trapped, aren’t we?’

‘With a way out!’ he said, urgently.

‘How long!’ she demanded, suddenly angry. ‘How long before Irena becomes suspicious at your still being here in this apartment or Moscow starts demanding answers or Filiatov does something; we’ve prepared him, don’t forget!’

‘You can do it,’ coaxed Kozlov. ‘It could all be over this time tomorrow. So there’s no risk of anything from Moscow or Filiatov. Irena either. You’d even be doing your job, as far as Moscow is concerned.’

‘You never told me about the other time,’ she said, ignoring the assurance with another abrupt change of direction.

‘Other time?’

‘You said in Moscow Irena told you she’d never be a rejected woman. Why did she say that?’

Kozlov poured himself more vodka, not wanting the drink but needing the break from her demanding stare. ‘There was a woman. A choreographer at the Bolshoi. I told Irena I wanted a divorce. That’s when she said it.’

‘So what happened!’ The anger was obvious again.

‘It was just before I came to London: met you. Irena stayed in Moscow, as you know. Used all the power she had in Dzerzhinsky Square – which was a lot – to hurt her. I didn’t know, of course. Didn’t discover it until I went back, between London and Bonn …’

‘You tried to see her again … this other woman …?’

‘Valentina,’ supplied Kozlov.

‘You tried to see Valentina after our affair had already started … when you were telling me that you loved me!’

Kozlov brought his eyes to hers, knowing the suspicion and wanting to convince her. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Not like that. Irena boasted what she’d done: taken care of your whore, she said. She actually arranged criticism of the choreography in Pravda and Tass. Valentina had been dismissed, by the time I got back to Moscow. Unsatisfactory had been registered in her workbook and you know that makes her unemployable.’

‘You met her again?’

Kozlov shook his head. ‘I think she went back to her home, to Kiev. I couldn’t find out, not definitely. I’d have had to enquire through Irena’s directorate and she would have learned about it: made it even more difficult for Valentina.’

‘So you never saw her again?’

‘No,’ said Kozlov.

‘And don’t know what happened to her?’

‘No,’ said the man, once more.

There was a long hesitation and then Olga said: ‘Do you still love her?’

Kozlov shook his head. ‘I feel responsible.’

‘Would it be as easy, to get over me?’

‘I didn’t say it was easy.’

‘It sounds that way.’

‘Darling!’ Kozlov stood, holding out his arms. She refused to come to him and he dropped them, feeling foolish. Instead he went to her, reached out a second time and took her shoulders, bringing her face close to his. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘No one else. That’s all I can say … no better way – other way – to make you believe me.’

It was several moments before she replied, and when she said ‘I believe you’, there was doubt.

‘Will you do it?’

Another long pause. Then she said: ‘There’s no other resolve, is there?’

‘No,’ he said, positively.

‘I’m not sure I can.’

‘Trapped,’ he said, coaxing some more. ‘Your words.’

Olga started crying, making no sound but with tears moving across her face. ‘I’m so scared,’ she said, broken-voiced. ‘So very scared.’

‘You can do it!’ he encouraged again.

‘I have to, don’t I?’

Kozlov didn’t reply, knowing it would be wrong at that second in time to say anything.

‘Just Irena,’ insisted Olga. ‘Not him.’

‘Just Irena,’ agreed Kozlov.

‘Over by this time tomorrow?’

‘Everything,’ he assured her.

‘You do love me, don’t you?’

‘Don’t doubt me. Ever.’

There was another period when her eyes searched his face and she said: ‘I won’t’, and this time there wasn’t any doubt.

They left Levine at the airport, with two of the crew of the C-130 controlling the surveillance of the military section, and Elliott accompanied the rest of the arriving CIA group to the Peninsula Hotel on the mainland Kowloon side.

Elliott was already established as the contact point for the colony’s CIA informants, and at Fredericks’ urging he went individually through everything that had been assembled.

‘Definite airport arrival?’ pressed the CIA supervisor.

‘Three separate confirmations, from Langley’s stock photographs,’ confirmed the man.

‘Cars?’ seized Fredericks, picking the most important point.

Elliott shook his head, the reluctance obvious. ‘Ground staff and immigration. Nothing outside.’

‘Son of a bitch!’ said Fredericks, vehemently.

‘Just a matter of time,’ said Elliott. ‘We’re running checks on all the taxis and courtesy buses and hire cars.’

‘We haven’t got time!’ said Fredericks, exasperated. ‘This thing is on a very short fuse.’

Elliott looked around the assembled group. ‘Now we’re all here,’ he said, ‘we can start spreading out. There are a lot of hotels, but we’ve got informants in most of them so it isn’t really such a difficult task.’

‘I’d like to believe that!’ said Dale, entering into the conversation to ease the pressure on a colleague.

‘I don’t care how difficult it is!’ reminded Fredericks. ‘I want it done and I want it done completely, and I want it done now!’

Elliott and Dale actually exchanged looks, their faces open but with no need of expression to convey their feeling at the burr-under-the-saddle attitude that was so obvious from the supervisor.

Elliott said: ‘It really is just a matter of time. An itty bitty matter of time.’

Fredericks’ face suddenly opened, more a grimace than a smile. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘The cork’s in the bottle.’