See Charlie Run

Chapter Twenty-Three

Charlie considered the inevitable delays — for any aircraft to arrive and for Cartright to get from Tokyo and for Wilson to discover if there were a British naval vessel in the vicinity — and accepted that someone as seemingly impatient and difficult as Irena Kozlov was going to get very pissed off indeed, like he was. Which made a monotony-breaking outing not a bad idea for all of them. It took an hour for Harry Lu to carry out the precautionary checks. Lu extended the checks to the High Commission, who confirmed London’s instructions to issue his entry documents. Three of the calls confirmed the CIA concentration on people working exclusively for the British.

‘It was the obvious short cut,’ pointed out Lu, objectively. ‘We knew they were doing it, before you arrived.’

‘Did you speak to your wife?’

‘She hasn’t noticed anything unusual.’

‘She wouldn’t if they were good, would she?’

‘My not being around is going to provide the confirmation,’ said Lu. ‘Why don’t I get back to Hong Kong; play the innocent?’

And get hold of those immigration documents, thought Charlie. He didn’t criticize the man for his eagerness. If Lu returned to Hong Kong it would put him by himself. But Cartright would be arriving sometime that day and being by himself was something he was accustomed to anyway. Providing Lu played his part convincingly, the man could actually send the Americans on enough wild goose chases to stock a dozen Christmas larders. And now that he had his entry permission, there was no cause to doubt Lu’s loyalty. Charlie said: ‘Any indication of their looking here, in Macao?’

Lu shook his head. ‘Just Hong Kong, at the moment.’

‘How sure are you?’

‘As sure as I can be: I trust my sources.’

Back in the colony, Lu would be able to monitor the Americans’ movements far better than he could here, thought Charlie, recognizing another advantage to the man’s return. He said: ‘Think you could carry it off?’

‘No problem,’ said Lu.

Too quick, judged Charlie: understandably the man was thinking more of getting out to the safety of England than he was about what it would be like to confront the Americans. He said: ‘It is. If they think you know something — get the slightest suspicion — they’ll put your prick through the mangle. Maybe literally.’

‘I can do it,’ insisted Lu.

‘It could be useful,’ conceded Charlie, in final agreement, setting out how he wanted the Americans watched and misled.

‘I can do that, too,’ assured the other man.

‘Just be careful,’ urged Charlie.

‘The balance had changed now, hasn’t it?’ said Lu.

‘What?’ frowned Charlie.

‘I said when you arrived that you owed me: I guess now that I owe you.’

‘I’m glad it worked out,’ said Charlie, vaguely discomfited by the man’s gratitude. Surprised, too: he hoped it was all as clear cut as it appeared.

Furthering the discomfort, Lu extended his hand and said: ‘Thanks Charlie: you’re a friend.’

Trying to lighten the mood, Charlie said: ‘It’s the last station on the Piccadilly Line.’

Now it was Lu’s turn to be confused. ‘What?’

‘Cockfosters,’ grinned Charlie. ‘The stop after Oakwood.’

Lu smiled back and said: ‘Visit us there?’

‘All the time,’ promised Charlie. He hesitated, considering the shoulder bag containing the material the Director had freighted from London and decided it was safer carried than left lying about in an hotel room. He picked it up and said to Lu: ‘Come on. Let’s give Irena the de luxe tour.’

In the bar below, Olga Balan finished the second drink and shifted in her seat, disconcerted at the limited view of the lobby. She decided to risk checking with reception that Irena was actually in Room 525 and not out of the hotel. Olga paid, gathered the unneeded protective magazines and was halfway back towards the desk when she saw them emerge from the elevator bank and the magazines ceased being unneeded after all.

There was a rank of taxis, so Olga let one go, to create a buffer over that solitary, easily identifying bridge, tensed forward on the seat to keep their car in sight. Only two protectors, which surprised her; one a shambles of a man, the other sallow-skinned, more aware of his surroundings: Irena in between, not actually dwarfing the two men but still noticeably big, just — but only just — deferring to their guidance. Olga’s worries at the actual practicality of what she had to do began to case away, confidence coming from the actual physical movement. She was undetected and stalking her quarry and crossing away from that impossible-to-operate peninsula. And Irena Kozlov was visible not more than twenty yards ahead. There was still the morality, but she felt it was becoming something she could lock away in the private safe of her mind, that strong — or was it weak? — room to which only she had the key, to open or close as she decided.

Where were they heading? Back to Hong Kong? The barnyard of a man had a shoulder bag but no one else carried cases, so that scarcely constituted luggage. And they had not paused at any cashier’s desk, after that so near confrontation close to the elevators, to pay a bill. She hoped it was a return at least to the colony. The pierhead had been jostle on her arrival, a melee of a place, ideal for the sort of … her mind blocked, refusing to go on … for what she had to do.

In the vehicle in front, Lu was playing the tourist guide to the aloofly unimpressed Irena, talking of the Floating Casino where the Chinese indulged their passion for fan tan and provided the multi-million a year income for Stanley Ho, who ran it, and the other betting outlets like the greyhound races and the trotting track and even the grand prix around the closed-off, tortuous roads every November, where the odds were more important than the invariable accidents, on the number of which bets were also taken.

It relieved Charlie, who tried to remain alert to everything about him, realizing the impossibility of any practical trail-clearing once they entered the enclosed, street-on-top-of-alley-on-top-of-street part of the town and hoping Harry Lu’s informants had got it right about Macao being safe. They stopped near the genuine day-to-day street market, not any tourist creation, and as Irena got out from the car she said: ‘it smells.’

‘So does Moscow,’ said Charlie, who remembered that it did.

Olga was alert for the stop lights and managed to direct her driver into a side street, so that she was able to get out completely concealed. She returned to the corner cautiously, unsure it they would be walking towards or away from her, smiling when she reached it. It was Irena’s height, rather than that of the two men, which provided the marker: they were moving unhurriedly, sightseeing, their backs to her. She eased her way into the street, glad of the crowded market. She was trembling, willing the shaking to stop.

Irena halted at an open-fronted shop, fingering a Members Only windbreaker suspended from an outside rail, and said to Charlie: ‘What is this price, in roubles?’

Charlie grimaced at the conversion, making the most approximate of calculations, and said: ‘About fifteen.’

She looked at him disbelievingly and said: in Russia it would be four times that, on the black market.’

‘It’s a fake, counterfeit,’ said Lu, patiently. ‘That’s the business here. And in Hong Kong.’

‘The authorities do not stop it!’ she demanded.

‘Are the militia having a lot of success against the black market in Russia?’ asked Charlie, pointedly. Maybe she had to be indulged, but he did not see that they had to put up with patronizing, party-line crap: Irena was going to have to make a lot of adjustments.

Olga risked getting closer, only four or five people separating her although one, a woman, was surrounded by a family which increased the protection. Olga slipped her hand into the bag, feeling for the special pistol, her perspiration making the grip greasy. The compressed air had to be primed and she pumped the lever to make it operate, keeping on until the resistance was such that it wouldn’t depress any more. Inexperienced and with slipping fingers, she was unsure whether she had prepared it sufficiently: she tried to push the lever down another time but it wouldn’t move.

At the road junction ahead Lu indicated first left, then right and said: ‘That way to the casino, on the river, that way to St Paul’s church and the fort.’

Charlie, whose feet dictated that tours were for tourists, never for him, said: ‘Which is nearest?’

‘The church and the fort.’

‘The church and the fort,’ Charlie decided. For all the interest that Irena was showing, they might just have well stayed at the hotel and watched incomprehensible Chinese television, piped in from Hong Kong. Time soon to stop for a drink, thank Christ.

Olga stopped, at their pause. It had to be now, somehow: there wouldn’t be another opportunity so good. The shaking wouldn’t stop and the sickness had come back: she swallowed, again and again, fighting the need to retch, and the perspiration worsened, leaking from her. The gun was silent, any faint discharge hiss certain to be lost in the babble of the street hawkers: all she had to do was get slightly nearer — not more than a yard or two — and fire. It doesn’t matter where you hit, Yuri had said: the poison will do the rest. Just fire then, lose herself momentarily in one of the open-fronted, labyrinthine stalls and then melt away, in the confusion. Easy. Now, then. She pressed forward through the separating people, getting to the edge of the squabbling, gabbling family. Irena Kozlov appeared magnified, bigger than she really was. Small things registered, as if they were important. Olga could see how the faint wind had ruffled the other woman’s hair, creating a gap at the back. The suit had a pink flower motif on a brown background, some sort of woollen cloth and too well made to have been bought in the Soviet Union and the handbag looked foreign, too, well thumbed to the point of blackness in places but still good leather, like her shoes. The left heel was badly worn, needing repair. Close enough now; she couldn’t miss. Olga turned her own handbag, its length hiding the weapon, easing it up so the muzzle was unimpeded, wet finger around the trigger.

They moved.

It wasn’t abrupt but it appeared to be, to Olga. They’d been waiting for a break in the congested traffic and Lu saw it and walked through, leading the woman forward: one moment Irena had been no more than five feet away, the next she was twisting through the traffic block and the chance had gone. Olga sagged against the corner stall, oblivious of the immediate bargaining approaching from the salesman, whom she vaguely saw to be a child, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. She backed away, shaking her head in refusal.

The steps leading up to the facade of St Paul’s were shallow but there were a lot of them, and Charlie looked dolefully at the huge castle alongside that they still had to tour and wished now he’d gone to the casino. This whole expedition was definitely a bloody great mistake.

Trying to avoid the castle, he said to Lu: ‘What time you going back?’

‘There’s a hydrofoil at three,’ said the other man.

‘Back where?’ intruded Irena, at once.

‘Hong Kong,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s got things to arrange.’

‘For me?’

‘Naturally.’

‘For tomorrow?’

Charlie hesitated, momentarily forgetting his hotel room lie. ‘Right,’ he said, remembering and repeating it. ‘Tomorrow.’ He had things to do, as well: link up with Cartright and contact the signals station, to discover what the Director had arranged. Most definitely too much to tramp around a bloody great castle he just knew would smell of a lot of quick pees and have walls covered with ‘John loves Jane’ graffiti records stretching back practically to the time when the Portugese fought off a Dutch take-over from its battlements.

There were protective stalls at the beginning of the steps but the huge walkway was entirely open, with no cover whatsoever, and Olga realized the other woman only needed to turn, to gain a view from the top of the promontory, to identify her.

There weren’t even enough tourists to give her cover, just an occasional straggle, groups of no more than two or three. She got behind the biggest party, five but not together, just co-incidently ascending at the same time, tensed against a new but actual collapse this time. Irena and the two men were at the entrance now but their figures were blurred, and Olga blinked against the sudden surge of faintness. Mustn’t collapse: fall down so that she would be discovered. Too close to fail.

‘There’s nothing here!’ protested Irena. She stood just inside but to the left of the enormous front wall of the church, all that remained apart from the stone-flagged floor through which weeds and even flowers were tufted.

‘It got sacked, then fell down over the years,’ said Lu, almost apologetically. He gestured towards the solitary remaining wall. ‘It’s still quite a monument: very old.’

He’d been right about the graffiti, Charlie saw: there was even a John and Jane who’d left their mark. At least, with so much openness, there wasn’t any urine smell. He agreed with Irena. There didn’t seem a lot of purpose in bothering to preserve just one wall: God — as well as Kilroy — had been here but hadn’t stayed.

They were further away than they had been on the street corner below but still very obvious from where Olga hid, tight against the slight snag of masonry that had once been the continuing right-hand wall of the surviving front. She squeezed in there from the front without having to go through the only entrance, and was glad she hadn’t tried because they were just to one side and she would again have been immediately visible, to Irena. But not here. Here she was absolutely concealed, the stone against which she was pressing her head for its coolness in front, tangled undergrowth and stunted trees at her back, shielding her perfectly from the fort. Olga took the primed pistol from its encompassing bag and laid it against the stonework, which formed a solid, unmoving support practically in line with her eye. She scrubbed her hands dry against a handkerchief this time, blinking again to clear her vision. Suddenly she was cold, no longer worried by the perspiration, and her eyes were focussed, too. The impression of enlarged detail came once more, of them all: Irena in that pink patterned suit and the scruffy man with a shoulder bag and those strange, spread-apart shoes and the neater one, European but sallow skinned, who appeared to be doing most of the talking. Olga crouched slightly, sighting. Only Irena now filling her vision, in the very centre of the V-piece, big, very big, big enough to hit: anywhere, it didn’t matter providing she was hit. There was no slack in the trigger, tight at once against her finger, and Olga blinked for the last time, surprised now the moment had come how calm she felt, knowing she could do it.

And she did.

At which precise moment Harry Lu said: ‘We might as well go,’ and turned, cupping Irena’s elbow, putting himself directly into the line of fire.

He said: ‘Oh!’ more in surprise than pain, and because there had been no sound of a shot neither the woman nor Charlie immediately realized what had happened. Lu slumped, falling against her and Irena said: ‘What the …!’ and Charlie became aware of the man falling and a lifetime’s expertise and experience made the reaction split-second instinctive.

Charlie actually managed to catch Lu, taking the weight to bring him down against the wall. As he did so Charlie saw the wound, the hole where Lu’s eye had been but wasn’t any more.

Charlie’s physical response was quite separate from his immediate thoughts.

Before Lu finally reached the ground Charlie was searching for the heartbeat, wrist first, then against the chest, confirming that there was none, but he was thinking of an excited man with a wife and a kid in a party frock planning a life in a place with a stupid name like Cockfosters and how they’d got drunk together when Edith had been alive, and that Harry Lu had been a professional and there weren’t a lot of those, not real professionals. And then he promised himself there would be the balance and that he would see to it himself, and then that lifetime of expertise and experience refused any more personal reaction, because if he were to balance the books he had to be alive to do it.

Surprisingly little blood but a bullet, obviously. But no detonation. Special then: professional. Not intended for Lu, though. Charlie snatched Irena down, reducing her as a target and also to cover the dead man from the smattering of sightseers who remained in the false-fronted church, all oblivious to what had happened. Closer, Irena saw the wound and knew the man was dead, and she said ‘Oh,’ too, a throat-tight exclamation, frightened.

Charlie couldn’t tell from which direction the shot had come but he spread himself, going away from the man he couldn’t help better to protect the woman, searching both sides for the vantage point where the assassin would be, seeing nothing. The instinct ran on, the reasoning unwinding in his mind. A professional killer who missed would try again, because he was a professional, and they were exposed like lined-up ducks at a funfair.

Charlie felt forward, gently despite the need to hurry, tilting Harry Lu’s head against the stonework to hide the gaping wound, making him a man sleeping or maybe drunk, resting.

Irena began: ‘I don’t …’ but Charlie said: ‘Shut up. Later.’

He kept her close to the wall until the door, hesitated and then bustled her through and down the wide steps, hurrying but not running, which would have attracted attention. Still lined-up ducks, but going more quickly at least; the muscles were tight, across his back and legs, tensed for the impact from a bullet that made no sound. Near the bottom he turned, one professional alert and searching for another, in automatic reaction. Nothing.

They plunged into the narrow lanes, protective but dangerous too because among the very people who provided the shield could be the man using them in the same way, to cloak his next attempt. Charlie thrust himself into the path of the cab, forcing it to stop, physically pushing Irena ahead of him and stumbling in after her, careless that the urgency might later be remembered, when the police enquiries began. He demanded the pierhead and sat back beside her, looking through the rear window for any obvious signs of pursuit but not seeing any.

‘Me?’ said Irena. She was tightly controlled, another professional after all, but the fear was there, like it had been in the exclamation at the church.

‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie honestly, because he didn’t. When the fuck was something going to make sense!

‘Where are we going?’

Something else he didn’t know. Charlie said: ‘Kowloon.’ It was the only place they hadn’t been: he didn’t bother to consider whether it would be safe or not, because nowhere was safe. Charlie emerged tight-muscled again from the protection of the car: there were a lot of people at the ferry terminal but it was not as jam-packed as the Macao alleys. Charlie hurried Irena through, arm around her back, guiding and hopefully protective, manoeuvring always to maintain space around them. He made her stand in front of him — minimizing her as a target — at the ticket kiosk, and aboard the hovercraft managed to get her into a bulkhead seat at the rear, so no one could sit behind, with himself blocking her from the left.

And as the craft throbbed back from the moorings, to become airborne, Charlie looked around the crowded cabin and decided that if the killer had got aboard with them, all the attempted precautions wouldn’t be worth a bugger and they were dead.

But Olga Balan wasn’t aboard. She was back down in the alleys, walking without direction or awareness, knowing that she’d failed and knowing, too, that she couldn’t try again. There’d been the opportunity, when they’d crouched over the body: she’d actually tried to aim again, squinting down the barrel and fixing Irena Kozlov in the sights, but she couldn’t pull the trigger that second time. Or when they’d fled down the steps, the steps she’d later stumbled down herself, waiting for the shouted discovery which never came. She tried to focus her mind, decide what to do. Get away, she supposed, before the authorities sealed the colony: put a search-check on the ferries maybe. Dump the incriminating weapon. Contact Yuri. Tell him she’d failed. That they were trapped, still trapped. More than ever now.

Fredericks and the CIA team spread the word about Harry Lu throughout their informants and sources and the word came back within an hour of the body being found, on Macao.

‘Right person, wrong place,’ said Elliott, when Fredericks announced the wrapping up of the now pointless Wanchai surveillance.

Assembled back at the Peninsula Hotel, Fredericks said: The way I see it, Charlie Muffin hasn’t got Kozlov. His own people have. The Soviets somehow stopped him but missed the woman, when they blew the plane. Now they’re chasing.’

‘Makes her the only prize left,’ judged Hank Levine.

‘Which we’re still going to have,’ said Fredericks.

There’s something from the airport,’ disclosed Jamieson, the Special Forces colonel who’d been awaiting their return. There’s a British military flight on its way from London.’

The prize we’re still going to have,’ repeated Fredericks.