See Charlie Run

Chapter Twenty-Eight

There was a room booked at the Mandarin in Charlie’s name — by coincidence on the same floor as the one Irena so briefly occupied — but the CIA group found Charlie sitting in the ground-floor lobby lounge, opposite the bar: there was a reserved tag on the table and six chairs arranged in a half moon around a small circular table. Charlie sat with his back to the wall.

When Fredericks led the other three CIA men into the huge room Charlie indicated the prepared seats and said: ‘I wasn’t sure if you would all be coming …’ He looked pointedly beyond them, to the reception area, and added: ‘Why not bring the others in?’

Fredericks remained standing, with Levine, Elliott and Yamada grouped tightly behind him. The American said: ‘You surely don’t think we’re going to talk business here, out in the open!’

‘We did in Tokyo,’ reminded Charlie. He looked past the supervisor, to the fixed-face men. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘I feel more comfortable out in the open.’

‘Somewhere private,’ insisted Fredericks.

‘You want Kozlov?’ demanded Charlie.

Fredericks stared hurriedly around and the other men did the same.

Charlie indicated the adjoining, empty table that also carried a reserved tag and said: ‘I booked that one too, so we’re not going to be overheard. And if we were, it wouldn’t mean much anyway. You want Kozlov, get your ass in a chair.’ It was ridiculous to think of friendship: any sort of professional compatibility even. So why bother?

Hesitantly, aware of losing face in front of the others, Fredericks sat in the space directly facing Charlie, who looked at the others, waiting. At a head jerk from Fredericks, they sat too.

Charlie nodded to Yamada and said: ‘See you still keep those shoes polished.’

The Japanese American looked at Charlie’s footwear but didn’t say anything.

‘You got a hell of a nerve!’ said Fredericks.

‘I’ve also got Irena Kozlov and I know you haven’t got him,’ said Charlie. ‘And I know why, too.’ He spoke studying the entire group, instinctively gauging the opposition. The two men alongside the one who followed him on the Underground had been those in the car, when he’d made contact with Irena. Levine and Elliott, he remembered, from her identification.

‘Go on,’ encouraged Fredericks.

‘Ground rules first,’ said Charlie. ‘Out at the airport you’ve got an army group and you plan to intercept and snatch Irena, right?’

‘They were an escort group for Kozlov,’ said Fredericks.

‘That’s bullshit and you know it,’ rejected Charlie. ‘But it doesn’t matter …’ He looked at his watch. It was an overly theatrical gesture but the conversation had purpose: it was important for them to believe him and this was a way. Charlie went on: ‘Irena Kozlov landed at London’s Heathrow airport thirty minutes ago …’ He smiled up. ‘Hardly likely I’d make any sort of meeting with you until she was safe, was it? It was a Pakistani Airways flight, out of Beijing. She travelled as Rose Adams. Our Resident in Tokyo, Richard Cartright, accompanied her. You can confirm the names off the flight manifest, to know I’m telling the truth …’ Charlie allowed another pause and said: ‘Why don’t you?’

There was a hesitation from Fredericks, who nodded. Takeo Yamada was the one who got up and hurried out to the telephone bank.

‘So your guys at the airport — and all of you, at the moment — are wasting your time, OK?’ continued Charlie.

‘Are we?’ It was Elliott who spoke, ignoring Fredericks’ instruction only to follow him and by so doing confirmed Charlie’s earlier impression of meanness.

Charlie was apprehensive of the man but knew it would be disastrous — maybe quite literally — to let the nervousness show. He said: ‘Elliott, isn’t it? Picked you up in minutes, that day you followed me to the airport. Irena identified you, too. Actually told me your name …’ He watched satisfied as the flush spread across Elliott’s face and wondered which was the greater, fury or embarrassment. ‘We’re talking about ground rules, aren’t we?’ Charlie picked up. ‘So let’s agree on a very important one. Let’s not fuck around with any “bang, bang, you’re dead” routines, because at the moment all you’ve got — every one of you — is a lot of finished careers, and I’m the only one who can make it otherwise.’

Charlie was probing when he threw in the suggestion of physical violence, and from the darted looks that passed between the three men he guessed that was exactly what they had been planning. He supposed — like he supposed when he thought about it before — that it was only to be expected, after the business with their Director, but the virtual confirmation still gouged a hollow place in his stomach. He’d been wise to set up the meeting and not try to get past their airport armada. More important than ever not to give any indication of nervousness.

‘How make it otherwise?’ asked Fredericks.

By not arguing the point, Fredericks was agreeing that their careers were in the balance, Charlie recognized; and believing he was responsible was a further reason to cause him some pain. Once more Charlie refused a direct answer. Instead he said: ‘Kozlov never intended to defect. It was a trick.’

‘What for?’

‘To get rid of Irena. That’s why the plane blew up and Harry Lu got shot.’

‘You mean he pushed her across and then put his people in pursuit!’ said Fredericks, incredulous.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, shortly. He intended telling them only what he had to, and that didn’t include anything about Olga: they might learn about her later, in the little time available to them, if they were lucky.

‘That’s ridiculous!’ refused Fredericks.

‘Did you blow up the plane in Tokyo?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Or shoot Harry Lu?’

‘No,’ said Fredericks, more quietly and with obvious growing acceptance.

‘Well we certainly didn’t destroy a squad of our own soldiers or kill our leading agent here, did we?’ demanded Charlie. ‘So who the hell did?’

‘Jesus!’ said Fredericks. He looked sideways at Yamada’s return. The man said: ‘Pakistan Airways confirm that a Rose Adams and a Richard Cartright were on the London flight. And it was scheduled to land at the time he said.’

Charlie decided Yamada’s re-entry had come precisely at the right moment, one truth coming right on top of another accepted truth. He said: ‘I can make him come across to you.’

Fredericks sat regarding him cautiously. ‘How?’

‘How is my business,’ refused Charlie. ‘You want him or not?’

‘Why?’ said Fredericks, the suspicion more open now. ‘If you’ve got some way of making Kozlov cross over, why not keep him for yourself?’

The American had isolated the weakest part of the whole proposition, accepted Charlie: he hoped he’d prepared a strong enough reply. Greatly exaggerating but knowing there was no risk in being caught out, Charlie began: ‘He doesn’t want England. We’ve got Irena.’

‘There’d be no reason for them ever to get together,’ persisted Fredericks.

The man wasn’t stupid, Charlie decided. He was glad he’d started as he had. He said: ‘I told you about Bill Paul, one of your guys, when Kozlov was in England. And Valeri Solomatin?’

Fredericks nodded, remembering the reverberations the information had brought from Langley.

‘That wasn’t the only killing,’ said Charlie. ‘There was an anti-Soviet politician named Harold McFairlane, who was expected to become our Prime Minister. Kozlov knows we’ve the proof that it was him and thinks we’d charge him, once we’d debriefed him.’

‘What about Paul? And Solomatin?’ questioned Fredericks, at once.

‘He doesn’t have any idea that you know,’ said Charlie, honestly.

‘Would your people charge him?’

‘Probably,’ said Charlie, the cynicism prepared like everything else. ‘Can you imagine the uproar in Parliament if they found out we were protecting someone who’d assassinated a government minister! And if we’d got all we wanted from Kozlov, a public trial would be a hell of a propaganda coup against the Russians, wouldn’t it? Your people will arraign him, if there’s a benefit in it. You know they will.’

Fredericks was nodding, agreeing the amoral logic of an amoral business, and Charlie wondered if the same argument would work when he used it later, but in reverse. Fredericks smiled, the briefest of insincere expressions, and said: ‘I think we’ve got a deal.’

Directly regarding Elliott, Charlie said: ‘Straight play: no fucking about?’

‘Straight play,’ agreed the CIA supervisor.

‘I can make him cross. Or I can make him stay, by letting him know I’ve told you about the CIA magazine people,’ insisted Charlie, unhappy with the quick assurance. ‘If I pick up any surveillance … anything I don’t like …’ He gave himself the necessary pause. ‘If I get the slightest impression that I’m not safe, he stays. And you’re all drawing Welfare. Understood?’

‘Understood,’ said Fredericks, with difficulty. ‘How we going to play it?’

‘Same as before,’ said Charlie. ‘Set up a room at the Imperial. I’ll make him contact you there.’

‘You seem very sure,’ said Fredericks.

‘Would I have openly met you here today, if I hadn’t been?’ said Charlie.

‘How long is it going to take?’ demanded Fredericks.

‘Just days,’ promised Charlie. ‘He’ll have to move quickly, now that he’s lost Irena.’

‘I agree the ground rules: everything your way,’ conceded Fredericks. ‘Straight play, all the way … He allowed himself the hesitation. ‘This time.’

‘As long as we both understand each other,’ said Charlie. He wondered if Fredericks would remember and try to invoke the threat if everything worked as he intended? Something to worry about then, not now.

‘You wouldn’t believe how much I understand you!’ said Fredericks. ‘You just wouldn’t believe!’

Must be nice to be liked, just occasionally, thought Charlie. He wondered if his mother had liked him; she’d never said. ‘Everything’s agreed, then?’

‘It had better be.’

‘I’m going back immediately,’ said Charlie. ‘Could you be in position at the Imperial by tonight.’

‘Of course,’ said Fredericks, nodding to Yamada again to start making the arrangements immediately.

‘You know what’s going to happen?’ said Charlie.

‘What?’

‘It’s all going to work out like it was supposed to, from the beginning. You get him and I get the woman.’

‘We’d better,’ said Fredericks, another threat. ‘Believe me, we’d better.’

Kozlov stood aside for Olga to enter the apartment, startled by her appearance. She was bedraggled, her hair lank and her clothes crumpled where she hadn’t bothered to undress, to sleep. Closer, he didn’t think she’d bothered to wash, either: there was a smell. He reached out for her, uncertainly, and just as uncertainly she regarded the gesture, unsure whether to accept it, and when she did, finally, she merely stood in his embrace, making no effort to respond and embrace him in return. Kozlov decided the smell was definitely from her.

‘How are you?’ he said, which he knew was a ridiculous question but all he could think of saying in his surprise.

‘Do you know what you made me do!’

‘You already told me.’

‘He just sat there, like he was asleep!’

Kozlov moved from the ridiculous way they were standing. He poured from what remained of their supposed celebration bottle of vodka — how many millions of years ago had they talked about their own private, secret party! — and offered it to her. Olga looked at the glass as if she had never seen one before and then took it but didn’t drink. Kozlov swallowed half his glass in one, topping it up at once. Because she appeared to have no motivation of her own, Kozlov led her to a seat by the window, pushing her down into it, and said: ‘I’m sorry. So very sorry. It was a mistake.’

Olga snorted a laugh, cynical now. ‘That’s what it was!’ she said bitterly. ‘A mistake: one big, huge mistake.’

Kozlov had been unsure how to tell her but decided now that it was the way to break Olga out of her crushed and beaten lethargy. He said: ‘She knows. Irena knows about us. I’ve no idea how she discovered it but she knows.’

It worked. Olga blinked, as if she were coming awake, and said: ‘But how do you …!’

Kozlov gestured towards the telephone. ‘The Englishman, Charlie Muffin. He used the system: called me. Talked about everything.’

‘Oh my God!’ said Olga, not even consciously aware of the invocation any more.

‘And then he said I was to see what happened to Filiatov because they had a disinformation source and could do whatever they wanted.’

Olga’s lassitude was completely gone. She was tensed forward, the glass in two hands before her. ‘And Filiatov …?’

‘They came for him. A squad. They got here quickly, from Sakhalin …’ said Kozlov.

‘They’re still here!’ she demanded, the fear immediate.

He shook his head. ‘Took everything with them … files, cable records, everything. Drugged Filiatov, of course. And had a closed off section on an Aeroflot flight.’

Olga brought her hand up against her mouth to prevent the mew of despair, but didn’t quite succeed. ‘What’s going to happen to us!’

‘He said — the Englishman said — I had to stay here. Wait for him to come,’ said Kozlov, practically as listless now as Olga had earlier been.

‘What’s going to happen to us?’ she repeated, her mind blocked by only one thought.

‘He’s proved it,’ said Kozlov. ‘He can do anything to us he wants: we’ve got to wait, like he says.’

Olga gulped at her drink, heavily. ‘I was right, wasn’t I?’ she said. ‘We are trapped.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Kozlov. ‘Absolutely trapped.’

‘You know what he did!’ said Elliott. ‘He made us eat shit! Eat shit! That’s what he made us do!’

‘We don’t have any alternative, not on this occasion,’ said Fredericks. ‘But there’ll be another time. I promise myself there’ll be another time.’

They were all in the Peninsula suite, even Harry Fish and Jim Dale, whom Fredericks had withdrawn from the Mandarin surveillance, strictly observing the agreement. Everyone was gripped with the feeling of impotence but only Elliott was openly expressing it.

‘You sure Langley would agree with that!’ demanded Elliott.

‘Why don’t you ask them!’ demanded Fredericks. ‘Why don’t you tell them how we were suckered by the Russian as well as the Englishman and how you think we should blow Charlie Muffin away just to get our rocks off and not go for Kozlov after all.’

‘You like the sound of all that crap he gave you!’ said Elliott, shouting.

‘I like the sound of it a damned sight better than I like the sound of the word Welfare,’ said Fredericks. ‘How’s Welfare sound to you?’