See Charlie Run

Chapter Seventeen

Harry Lu lit an inevitable cigarette as the car dipped into the tunnel to Hong Kong island and said: ‘It’s put a strain on my loyalty, Charlie. If it hadn’t been you, I’d have sold out, after the way London’s cut me off.’

‘Tell me about it,’ said Charlie. Fuck Harkness and his columns of figures. He hoped Lu was telling the complete truth, not just covering his back.

‘The Americans have woken up everybody they’ve ever used. I’ve had three separate calls from people, asking if I know anything. Money no object.’

Let Harkness argue that away, thought Charlie. He said: ‘I expected it.’

‘People are coming in, apparently.’

‘That too,’ said Charlie. He smiled at Lu’s reflection in the mirror and said: ‘See you’ve still got Hong Kong buttoned up.’

‘Like to know what’s going on; feel safe that way,’ said the other man.

‘How is she?’ asked Charlie.

‘Edgy,’ said Lu. ‘Very edgy.’

‘What have you told her?’

‘That there had to be a change of plan and that you’re coming.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Mandarin,’ said Lu. ‘That was before I heard what the Americans were doing. Warned her we’ll be moving on; it’s too high profile and obvious now.’

‘She knows there’s a pursuit?’

‘Of course not!’

Charlie registered the frown of the man in front of him and said: ‘Sorry. Silly question.’ The American reaction meant any civilian aircraft was impossible. Charlie wished he’d agreed to a military plane being despatched; now there would be at least a day’s delay in getting Irena Kozlov away.

Lu said: ‘Russian?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

‘Any link with the plane explosion in Tokyo?’

‘They all died,’ said Charlie.

‘Who did it?’

‘CIA,’ said Charlie.

‘They must want her very badly?’

‘They’re going for the double,’ said Charlie. ‘They’ve already got the husband.’

The Mercedes emerged on to Hong Kong island into an immediate traffic clog. Charlie looked up at the jumbled skyline of uneven skyscrapers and thought Lu was right about moving from the Mandarin Hotel: the island was too easy to block off.

‘London know I’m in?’ asked Lu, from the front of the vehicle.

‘The Director himself,’ assured Charlie.

‘No objection?’

Charlie hesitated. ‘They had no choice, did they?’ he said. Lu was too experienced to be bullshitted; would be offended, in fact.

‘What’s my problem there?’

Charlie told him, feeling embarrassed, and Lu said: ‘I was building up my get-out fund. My name is going to be on the list after 1997.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Charlie. Harry Lu had been literally born into espionage. His father was a colonel in the communist Chinese army whose spying for Britain was discovered in the last year of the Korean war. Ironically it was a British not a pursuing Chinese bullet that shattered his arm as he fled across the dividing line, and it was in the Seoul hospital that he met the British nurse he later married. In Hong Kong, Harry’s father established himself as London’s foremost China watcher and inculcated the craft into his son when he was still in his teens, to take over the operation when he died. Charlie said: ‘You really think Beijing will still have the file open, after all these years?’

‘Don’t forget the Asian mentality: a thousand years is a speck in time,’ said Lu. Apart from his surname and an olive complexion, there was no indication of his parentage. He was actually fair-haired and European-featured. He said: ‘Beijing have had their cells operating here for years. They know all about me.’

As the traffic jam cleared and they began moving again, Charlie said: ‘I would have thought your father was the target.’

‘Sins of the father,’ quoted Lu, glibly. ‘Over the years I provided as much — maybe more — on China as he did: he began during a war, that’s all.’

‘Convinced it’s going to be that bad, when China takes over?’

‘People like me don’t even have a proper passport: not officially anyway,’ said Lu. ‘We’re second-class citizens, just promised consular protection.’

‘What are you going to do?’

There was a gap before Lu responded. Then he said: ‘Canada is taking people.’

‘Without proper passports?’

‘Something’s always available, at a price. Like everything else in Hong Kong,’ said the man.

‘So why didn’t you, Harry?’

‘Sell you out?’

‘You don’t owe any loyalty in London,’ accepted Charlie. ‘And this goes beyond whatever there is between us.’

Lu smiled, rekindling another cigarette. ‘Never the fool, Charlie.’

‘It costs too much.’

‘I’m displaying a Chinese characteristic,’ admitted Lu. ‘I’m gambling.’

Ahead, to the right, Charlie saw the Star ferry terminal and automatically registered another escape point from the island. Remembering the London remark of Sir Alistair Wilson, Charlie said: ‘What’s the game?’

‘Getting a proper passport and all the entry permits to settle in England,’ announced Lu. He risked a brief, backwards smiling glance. ‘Would you believe I’ve got relatives in a part of London called Cockfosters! What sort of place gets a name like Cockfosters!’

Charlie spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness, knowing of the other man’s absolute attention from the front of the vehicle. ‘I can’t guarantee anything: you know that!’

‘Wilson could,’ said Lu confidently and at once. ‘And after tonight I’m owed, Charlie. I’m owed a lot.’

‘I’m not sure he could, either,’ said Charlie, doubtfully.

‘You going to try to fix it for me, Charlie?’

Charlie sighed, momentarily closing his eyes. Hubert Witherspoon was probably at this moment in his safe and centrally heated 6? by 6? office, with its synthetic carpeting, completing his up-to-date expenses in triplicate and concerned with nothing more than memorizing the latest amendments to regulations. He said: ‘Of course I’ll try.’

The Mandarin was very close now, and although the traffic was not particularly congested, Lu slowed the car. ‘I’d like something positive,’ he said.

‘Or?’ said Charlie, who realized the other man meant want, not like.

‘It’s nothing personal. You must understand that.’

‘I do understand it,’ assured Charlie. And he did. Harry Lu was talking about survival, and in Harry’s place he would have done the same.

‘It’s an opportunity I can’t let go.’

‘You don’t have to explain.’

‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’

‘You don’t need to be.’

‘It’s just that I’d much rather live in Cockfosters than Poughkeepsie or Peoria.’

‘I think I would, too,’ said Charlie. ‘You want an answer before I leave?’ He intentionally did not say can leave, but there was no misunderstanding between them.

‘That’s what I’d like,’ said Lu, still avoiding the absolute insistence. Heightening the awareness between them, he said: ‘That’s what I’d like best of all.’

At the current state of the game, although game was the last way in which he regarded it, Charlie knew the CIA would offer Harry Lu a passport, guaranteed residency and promise to change the US constitution so he could take a shot at the Presidency, in exchange for what he knew.

‘Let’s get the woman somewhere secure first,’ said Charlie. Lu’s strength was knowing where she was anyway, so he wouldn’t balk at that.

‘Sure,’ agreed Lu, easily. He took the car into the narrow runway to the Mandarin Hotel, nodded familiarly to the doorman, and parked in front of a prohibited sign. The doorman didn’t protest.

When they got out, it was the first time they had faced each other. Lu gave another of his hesitant smiles and said: ‘No hard feelings?’

‘No hard feelings,’ assured Charlie. He remembered the last time he’d agreed that had been to Fredericks, and a few hours later a plane had blown up. He said: ‘Let’s keep everything clean: you settle the bill and I’ll get the woman.’

‘Why is it called Cockfosters?’ asked Lu.

‘Maybe a lot of cock-ups happened there sometime, too,’ said Charlie, leading the way into the hotel.

General Sir Alistair Wilson held the message towards his deputy, shaking his head in uncertainty. He said: ‘Why should the American Director — the Director himself, don’t forget — initiate a cable to me to say there appears to be a delay with Kozlov’s crossing and making it clear, in a roundabout way admittedly, that they had nothing to do with the explosion!’

‘Distancing themselves?’ suggested Harkness at once. ‘That’s what we’d do.’

Wilson nodded, but immediately came in with the qualification. ‘At division level,’ he pointed out. ‘The Director himself would not risk later being exposed as a liar in a signed message. I certainly wouldn’t.’

‘What then?’

‘I just don’t know,’ conceded Wilson. ‘Everything about their approach is wrong.’

‘Unless they’re telling the truth,’ suggested Harkness.

‘That’s a novel idea,’ said Wilson, disbelievingly. ‘No contact to Cartright, from Charlie?’

‘Not as of an hour ago,’ said the deputy.

‘I wish to hell I knew whether or not we had the woman,’ said Wilson.

As he spoke, 8000 miles away in Hong Kong, Irena Kozlov opened the door to Charlie Muffin and said: ‘It’s all gone wrong, hasn’t it?’

‘Not yet,’ said Charlie. But almost, he thought.

It would have been ludicrous to regard the approach from Olga Balan as anything like friendship, but Boris Filiatov looked upon it as a gesture of cooperation at least. And certainly, from the material she had made available, there was strong circumstantial evidence that Irena Kozlov had orchestrated the American surveillance for a personal advantage. His immediate — and lasting — reaction was nothing as facile as a concern for any damage to the State: Boris Filiatov’s concern was for Boris Filiatov. And he was well aware that other material was available from which it could be construed that he had supported the operation. Which he had, knowing of Moscow’s approval and always quick to jump on to a safely rolling bandwagon: a bandwagon, he reflected bitterly, showing all the signs of running away down a very rocky road to an appalling disaster. Filiatov recognized at once that he had to disassociate himself: it didn’t matter if the suspicions about the woman were later shown to be unfounded, the only consideration now was to get out before Moscow discovered what was happening, realized its own culpability, and moved to apportion the blame.

Filiatov sighed, replacing the telephone that had remained unanswered in four earlier attempts to contact Olga Balan. He intended his approach to appear reciprocal, a courtesy returned for a courtesy given, but in reality he was desperately anxious to know if the woman had already despatched her reports to Dzerzhinsky Square.

The movements of all Soviet personnel attached to overseas embassies are strictly monitored, travel-logs existing to record every exit from or re-entry to the diplomatic compound, against the reasons for those journeys. Filiatov checked the duty clerk, frowning at there being no listing against the Security Officer’s name to account for her absence. Of all people, Filiatov supposed, Olga Balan could risk scorning regulations, but he hadn’t been aware of her doing so ever before.

Filiatov decided to wait. But not for long: he’d already decided he couldn’t wait long.