See Charlie Run

Chapter Seven

Identifying the man called Yuri Kozlov turned out to be remarkably — and in a truly literal sense comparatively — simple. And there was an irony in the fact that it was made so by the American pictures from which Washington appeared to have learned nothing. Britain’s counter-espionage service, MI5, has since 1965 maintained current and past photo files on all known Soviet personnel who have served in any capacity, either diplomatic or trade, in the country. In 1976, for speed analysis, the entire system was computerized under a system in which photographs can be compared not side by side but from physiognomy characteristics, and four years later it was updated with technological improvements which enable a thousand images an hour to be considered. General Sir Alistair Wilson, who in the 1950s Malaysian campaign led his Ghurka troops on horseback and wore a regimental sword, was a committed believer — and user — of technology. While he was still considering the incoming cable from Charlie — before, even, they talked on the secure line — Wilson invoked the internal agency’s technical help at Director-to-Director level but guided by Charlie restricted the picture comparison to Russians appointed to trade rather than diplomatic positions.

The computer recognition is not positive; it singles out similar or matching characteristics, requiring final identification to be made by visual examination. By mid-afternoon, London time, thirty possibilities had been electronically pulled from MI5’s picture library, and by the time Wilson summoned his deputy to Earl Grey tea and digestive biscuits the photographs which Charlie had wired only hours before lay beside three separate stock prints of a Russian attached to the Highgate Trade Centre from 1976 until 1981.

‘The name then,’ disclosed Wilson, consulting the accompanying files, ‘was Gordik: Ivan Gordik.’

Harkness stood at the Director’s side, staring down. Two of the London prints illustrated the man they knew to be Kozlov at what appeared to be reception-like functions. The other, obviously snatched by a concealed camera, showed his getting into a car. ‘It’s the same man,’ Harkness said. ‘There can’t be the slightest doubt.’

‘There isn’t,’ said Wilson. ‘To be absolutely sure I’ve had our analysts confirm it. Gordik is Kozlov: or Kozlov is Gordik, whichever way you want it.’

‘What’s the record say?’ asked Harkness, going to his chair.

Wilson looked briefly up from the dossier, shaking his head. ‘Very little, factually: nothing, in fact. But what is there is fascinating, put against what we now have, from Japan.’

‘Proof?’ demanded Harkness, coming forward in his chair in unaccustomed eagerness.

‘No,’ disappointed Wilson. ‘Just supposition. Kozlov — we’ll use that name, to avoid any confusion — was among a party of Russian trade representatives kept under surveillance in March 1980, during a visit to a technology fair at the exhibition centre in Birmingham. The fair ended on March z8. On the night of March 28 a car carrying the Permanent Under Secretary to the Board of Trade, his secretary and the driver went out of control on the MI. The severity of the crash was never explained; a police scientific engineer said he couldn’t confirm that the accelerator was jammed, because of the damage, but that was his surmise. The brake drums were smashed, so it wasn’t possible to establish if they failed, either …’

‘Were they killed?’ asked Harkness.

‘The Permanent Secretary and his secretary,’ said the Director. ‘The driver lost a leg. They hit one of the bridge supports: there was another car involved, a family going on holiday. A child died.’

‘Holy Mary!’ said Harkness, a Catholic who went to mass twice on Sunday and usually extended the swearing ban to any open blasphemy.

‘There’s more,’ said Wilson. ‘The Secretary to the Board of Trade should have been in the same car: at the last moment he decided instead to go back early to his constituency, in Wales.’

‘Who was …?’

‘Harold McFairlane. He was opposing both in the House of Commons and in Cabinet a technology exchange programme which would have allowed Russian engineers, as inspectors, access to some of our restricted factories with which the Soviets had placed orders,’ completed the Director.

‘All very circumstantial and completely unproveable,’ judged Harkness.

‘Very professional, in fact, if it were an assassination attempt,’ said Wilson, making a different judgment.

‘That all?’

‘MI5 have five dossiers open on unexplained but suspicious deaths, during the period,’ said Wilson. ‘A division technician at the Fylingdales early warning station in Yorkshire whose death was ascribed to a heart attack, two months after an annual medical passed him completely fit. Harry Albert, the anti-communist president-elect of the Electricians Union, who became ill shortly after returning from an official visit to Nigeria. Pathologists at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases couldn’t identify what it was, after he died. Bill Paul was an American, based in London, who edited a right-wing magazine which the CIA funded, through a Delaware-incorporated charity foundation. His was straight murder, in his Islington home. There appeared to have been a burglary attempt. Inquest verdict was murder by a person or persons unknown. Valeri Solomatin was an exiled Ukrainian writer who’d been published by Paul’s magazine. Solomatin, who was a strong swimmer, was found drowned on a fishing holiday in Scotland …’ The Director looked briefly up from the recital. ‘And then there was McFairlane. There was open speculation of his being chosen party leader, which the way the election went would have meant prime minister. Happily married, no mistresses, no scandal, millionaire through family money, everything to live for. There was some discussion at the inquest about pressure of work, but it was no more than any other government minister: certainly not sufficient for a man with no history whatsoever of mental illness to contemplate suicide. And there was no note …’

Wilson stopped, sipping the tea although it was cold now, looking questioningly across his desk at the other man.

‘Kozlov couldn’t have killed them all!’ said Harkness.

‘I’m not suggesting he did any of them,’ said Wilson. ‘I’m just recording an incident from Birmingham, where we know Kozlov was present, and five other cases when important people died in this country in questionable circumstances, also while Kozlov is known to have been here.’ He stopped, head to one side. ‘Just one would have been too many, surely?’

‘How about West Germany? And America?’ asked Harkness.

‘Too soon,’ said Wilson. ‘And Charlie’s right in not wanting us to go through any official channels, so it’s going to take a bit longer. I don’t want anyone else to get the name Gordik: that’s the key.’

‘Let’s hope it goes on unlocking doors,’ said Harkness, in an unusual entry into metaphor. ‘What about the wife, Irena?’

‘Nothing,’ said Wilson. ‘No record, under either name, while he was here.’

‘I find the technology association interesting,’ said Harkness, who had already read everything Charlie sent from Tokyo. ‘The Birmingham trade fair was technology and McFairlane was technology and the Fylingdales technician and the trade unionist could be put under the same umbrella … and now Irena Kozlov is Control for a technology routing in Tokyo.’

‘It’s the focus of most of Soviet intelligence,’ reminded Wilson.

‘To find out precisely how much of a focus, which would seem to be possible if we got them across, would be incredible,’ said Harkness, distantly.

‘I’m ahead of you,’ said the Director. ‘It was good from the moment of the American contact: to call it then potentially spectacular was really an exaggeration. Now it’s not.’

‘You going to tell the Americans?’

The Director looked surprised. ‘Of course not!’ he said. ‘Do you think they would have told us?’

‘What if they’ve made an identification of their own?’

‘Charlie wouldn’t have got the photographs,’ said the Director, positively. ‘Kozlov is supposed to be theirs, don’t forget: we get the wife. The Americans in Tokyo would have jumped backwards through blazing hoops to deny the existence of any pictures if they’d proved useful. We got them in the hope we would make a connection and a greater hope we would share. Besides which — not that it’s a factor which would affect the decision — Charlie says they aren’t properly cooperating.’

‘This is big?’ said Harkness. ‘Genuinely spectacular?’

The Director’s expression was one of curiosity at the question. ‘Yes?’ he said, doubtfully.

‘“Heavy on the ground”,’ quoted the deputy. ‘That’s what the transcript of your conversation with Charlie says about the American presence. I know the intention was to wait, until Charlie was completely sure, but don’t you think we should start sending more people in? It would be a disaster if this went wrong because we relied too much and too long on Charlie Muffin.’

‘You haven’t thought he was the right choice from the start, have you?’ challenged Wilson, openly.

‘I think there are other operatives who might have been more suitable,’ said Harkness, formally. ‘But that’s not the consideration, not now. We need numbers.’

Wilson paused, needlessly adjusting the vase of poppy-red Paprika roses on his desk to cover the hesitation. He said: ‘The timing has got to be just right. A circus could frighten Kozlov and his wife away. You’ve heard the tapes: I’ve promised Charlie help the moment he calls for it.’

‘Charlie Muffin is arrogant, always looking for a windmill to tilt at,’ said Harkness. ‘We plan to snatch. So will the Americans, obviously. Where will we be if the Americans move at the very moment of crossing, before each gets to the supposed safety of either America or England. And we’re not ready or, worse, not in place? Charlie has done well enough. I think we should move, now. Certainly not wait.’

Wilson, who was an objective man, recognized Harkness’s argument to be the right one. He said: ‘Start assembling a squad. Not proveably SAS because they’ll have to be deniable. All sorts of logistic back-up, too. Better liaise closely with the Foreign Office: we’ll be over flying God knows how many countries and intruding into all sorts of air space. The routing will have to be over the most friendly countries and of course it’s going to have to be a westerly route: I won’t risk bringing her out over or through any American territory. We wouldn’t last five minutes.’

‘The Americans have Clark Air Base and Subic Bay, in the Philippines,’ reminded Harkness. ‘That covers them in the west.’

‘And to the immediate north we have the Soviet Union,’ completed Wilson. ‘Geographically it’s a mess.’

‘We’ll need all the surprise time we can get,’ said Harkness.

‘It’s hardly necessary, but I’ll warn Charlie,’ said the Director, more a personal reminder than a remark to Harkness. ‘Tell him about the incoming squad, too …’ He smiled across at the other man. ‘He has done well, hasn’t he?’

‘It would appear so,’ said Harkness, clearly reluctant.

‘What’s it going to take, for you to trust Charlie Muffin?’

‘A lot,’ conceded Harkness, who was disappointed at how little Cartright was providing, from Tokyo.

Irena Kozlov smiled as she greeted Olga Balan, but the other woman did not respond so Irena knew the recall interview, which in itself was unusual, was being filmed as well as recorded.

‘There are still things about the Kamakura outing that I find difficult,’ announced the security officer, at once.

‘What?’ asked Irena. There was a defiance about her attitude.

‘The degree of separation from your husband.’

‘We travelled separately, for safety, and each protected the other at the various tourist spots,’ said Irena.

‘You were always aware of where and what your husband was doing? As he was with you?’

Irena hesitated. The perspiration was a problem on her upper lip and forehead but because of the unseen cameras she knew it would be wrong to be seen wiping it, indicating nervousness. ‘Not all the time,’ she said, cautiously.

‘How did you know they were going to be in one place at one time?’ The question snapped out, like the closing of a sprung trap.

‘We didn’t,’ avoided Irena, easily. ‘It began as a surveillance of Fredericks. He led us to the others: my impression was that it was some sort of cultural outing.’

Olga Balan looked doubtfully across her desk. ‘The idea of such an operation was yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought the identification of CIA personnel had a high priority,’ said Irena, refusing to be intimidated. Playing her ace, she said: ‘Moscow agreed with me. Comrade Filiatov, too.’

Olga Balan coloured, at the reminder of superior authority. She said: ‘Do you think everyone at the embassy has been identified now?’

‘I am not sure,’ said Irena. ‘I think it’s possible, which is why I intend putting another proposal to Moscow.’

‘What!’ demanded the security officer.

‘That we should extend, to do the same with the British.’

‘I do not think that is a good idea,’ said the other woman.

‘I have the right of direct approach, to Moscow,’ said Irena, in direct confrontation.

Olga Balan accepted it as such. ‘I will oppose it,’ she announced.

‘That is your right,’ said Irena. It was ridiculous the way people — grown men, even Filiatov — practically wet themselves at the thought of an encounter with this woman. Irena knew she was handling things quite correctly, in opposing her; to show the slightest fear, at this stage, would be disastrous.

‘Which I shall utilize to the full,’ said Olga Balan, matching the arrogant opposition.

‘Is there anything further?’ said Irena, wanting the end of the encounter to come from her.

‘Have you ever made contact with a member of a Western intelligence organization?’ asked the security officer, formally.

‘What!’ The question fortunately emerged as outrage, covering Irena’s uncertainty. It was right not to show fear but she was unsure that she had not overplayed her part.

‘Made contact with a member of a Western intelligence Organization?’ repeated Olga Balan. There was a wearing-down relentlessness at the way she conducted an interrogation.

‘Of course not!’ said Irena. ‘The question is preposterous!’

‘I shall also recommend to Moscow that this American surveillance is terminated,’ declared the other woman. ‘I consider enough has been achieved and that to continue any longer is pointless.’

‘There is a need to continue,’ insisted Irena.

An hour later, in the security of the Shinbashi apartment, Irena said: ‘Damn the woman! Cow!’

‘There is a definite time limit now,’ accepted Kozlov.

‘She’s suspicious,’ agreed the woman. ‘I think Filiatov, too.’

‘It’s her job to suspect,’ said Kozlov, soothingly. ‘We made the allowance, by getting Moscow to approve the surveillance. For headquarters to terminate would be an admission that they made a mistake in the first place. When have you ever known them admit a mistake?’

Irena smiled a big-toothed smile at him. ‘I told her I was going to suggest isolating the intelligence officers in the British embassy.’

‘What did she say?’

‘That she’d oppose it.’

‘Hayashi made contact, while you were with her,’ announced Kozlov.

‘Why did you wait to tell me!’

‘Wanted it to be the good news, after the bad,’ said Kozlov. ‘London have filed a flight plan, for a military arrival.’

‘That’s got to be it,’ she said.

‘I only hope we can hold Olga Balan off long enough.’

‘Of course we can,’ said Irena, in impatient confidence. ‘Olga Balan is an irritation, nothing more. And Filiatov is a fool.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Kozlov.

‘I’m always right,’ said the woman. She looked pointedly in the direction of the bedroom and said: ‘I like the illicit of it here. Let’s make love. A lot of love.’