The Run Around

Chapter Sixteen

There was a queue to interview Vladimir Novikov, although it did not actually extend to the Sussex border. There should not have been, because the meetings were arranged with sufficient intervals between each. The delay was created by the Americans. They did not depute someone from their London embassy to conduct the questioning but on the President’s instructions flew overnight a Russian-speaking interrogator from Washington, accompanied by a polygraph team. Novikov at once displayed the arrogance that Charlie had encountered and protested at being subjected to a lie detector test, refusing to submit to it and there was a delay of two hours and a flurry of telephone calls between Whitehall, Westminster Bridge Road and the US legation in Grosvenor Square before he could be persuaded. Novikov remained hostile and it showed on the first polygraph test so the operator asked for a second, to make comparisons against his first readings, further antagonizing the defector. For the first hour of the interview he was intentionally awkward, choosing to misunderstand at every opportunity. A debriefing that had been timed for two hours took four and was still ended without being as comprehensive as that which Charlie obtained.

A Mossad team followed, a man and a woman, both Russian speakers again and they capitalized upon the preceding episode, flattering Novikov by insisting they did not doubt his genuineness or honesty and asked for his co-operation instead of demanding it.

It was the better approach to a man of Novikov’s ego. He consciously tried to provide more than he had for the Americans, volunteering information he thought the couple had failed to seek, which they hadn’t: they just let Novikov talk himself out and then confirmed what he had provided by asking their questions in a different form.

Novikov complained of tiredness when it came to the Swiss interview, at first giving clipped answers, only expanding them properly after the initial thirty minutes when he realized that the interrogator intended persisting with the same questions until he was satisfied with replies.

The focus of each session was whether Novikov believed the assassination was planned for either of the Geneva meetings and he became irritated again, this time at the persistence about something of which he had no knowledge.

Each debriefing was, of course, automatically recorded on the electronic system installed in the Sussex house and simultaneously translated, so that complete transcripts were available to Sir Alistair Wilson and his deputy within an hour of the completion of the final meeting.

‘Not a thing that Charlie didn’t get, despite their having the advantage of his interview to prepare themselves in advance,’ judged the Director. ‘We’ll pouch it to him, with the other stuff.’

‘I’d like to see the detailed assessment of the analysts before committing myself,’ said Harkness, with his customary reluctance.

‘How about the airline interviews?’

‘All completed,’ said Harkness. ‘No other recognition whatsoever.’

‘And the Watchers?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So all we can do is go on the belief that it’s Geneva,’ said Wilson.

‘Why not let it remain there?’

‘Bring Charlie home, you mean?’

‘You said he should withdraw, if the Swiss remained difficult.’

‘What are you worried about?’

‘What I’m always worried about with that man,’ said the deputy. ‘Of his doing something to damage our interests. At the moment we’ve got the gratitude of the intelligence agencies of three countries, America among them. That’s sufficient, surely?’

‘We’ll stay involved, for a little longer,’ decided Wilson. ‘Like Charlie, I don’t really like leaving things half done. I only talked about his coming home to keep him in line.’

‘I’d like to get him back in London,’ said Harkness, more directly.

‘Why?’

‘There are some financial difficulties to be resolved.’

‘They can wait, can’t they?’

‘There’s something else.’

‘What?’

‘He’s applied for a bank overdraft. For?10,000,’ disclosed Harkness. ‘The bank referral was naturally channelled to me.’

‘So?’

Harkness blinked, disappointed with the Director’s response. ‘Considering the man’s history, I would have thought an apparent need for money was something with which we should concern ourselves. It’s obviously necessary to bring it to the attention of the Review Board.’

Wilson made clear his stifled laugh. ‘You think there’s a risk of Charlie going across to the other side for thirty pieces of silver!’

‘He did before.’

‘No he did not,’ refused the Director, no longer amused.

‘The point’s academic.’

‘The point is that he won when he was supposed to lose and others lost in the process.’

‘We had to replace an embarrassed Director. So did the CIA.’

‘The embarrassment was of their making, not his. They were prepared to abandon him. The bloody fools deserved to spend a few days in Soviet captivity.’

‘When they were released they both had to undergo delousing!’ said Harkness, outraged.

‘I think they deserved that, too,’ said Wilson. ‘There’s actually a poetic justice to it.’

Conscious of engaging in a losing battle, Harkness said: ‘It’s covered in regulations.’

‘Do you intend instituting a deep investigation into Charlie Muffin’s loyalty and background?’

‘Yes,’ said Harkness, in further disclosure.

‘Because of the overdraft application?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’d better extend it,’ said the Director.

‘Extend it?’

‘There’s a second charge on my place in Hampshire, to cover a?50,000 facility. I’m pretty close to the ceiling:?48,000, I think.’

It made practical sense for the Secretary of State to fly to Europe with the President, because the Berlin visit that Anderson was making preceded by two days the Geneva Middle East conference.

‘I just adore Air Force One!’ said Martha Bell. She was a diet-trim, exercise-fit woman fifteen years younger than her husband. She’d had her bust siliconized, but discreetly, so that it was not outrageously inflated, and undergone more plastic surgery to have the cellulite removed from her thighs and buttocks.

‘It’s certainly a special way of travelling,’ agreed her husband.

‘What should I wear?’

‘You’d better check with the White House: see what Janet Anderson is going to wear,’ reminded Bell. ‘It’s protocol to do so.’

‘It’ll be something garish, like it always is. Red or orange, to brighten herself up. Why did he marry such a dowdy woman!’

‘Her father was worth $50 million and she was his only daughter.’

‘I fancy my blue suit with the muted stripe.’

‘You should still call the White House.’

‘After Geneva we go to Venice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Need we come straight back afterwards?’

‘What would you like to do?’

‘Spend a few days in Paris, to do some shopping. And then London. It’s practically on the way home, after all, isn’t it?’

‘I guess we could manage that,’ agreed Bell. He was going to need the predicted income after he ceased being Secretary of State just to pay her bills.

‘If Janet isn’t wearing red, I will,’ declared the woman.

‘I’m sure you’ll look fine.’

‘Did I tell you about Women’s Wear Daily?’

‘No.’

‘They called my secretary. They want to do a feature about me being the fashion leader of Washington.’

‘Say no.’

‘I’d like to do it: it’s true, after all.’

‘It would be a mistake, politically.’

‘What’s politics got to do with the way I dress?’

‘Everything, when it’s an obvious comparison with Janet Anderson.’

‘We’ll be photographed going aboard Air Force One, won’t we?’

‘I guess so.’

‘They’ll make the comparison then.’

‘That’s different: we don’t have any say about that.’

‘Will there be caviar and champagne on the flight?’

‘There usually is.’

‘Do you think you’ll do well enough for us to have a jet of our own when you leave government? Only something small, obviously.’

‘Maybe,’ said Bell.

At that moment Sulafeh Nabulsi was disembarking from a Libyan commercial flight at Geneva airport. With the rest of the support staff she had travelled in the tourist section.

The British intelligence chief based at the embassy in Bern was a career officer named Alexander Cummings who had been on leave for Charlie Muffin’s first visit to the embassy and who had hoped there would be no more. He knew of Charlie’s reputation and did not want to become involved in any way with the man, reluctant even to summon him from Geneva but with no alternative because the instruction came from the Director himself.

Charlie, who sensed the reserve and wasn’t interested in discovering the reason, strolled in off the Thunstrasse after lunch and Cummings could smell the alcohol on his breath.

‘Quite a lot for you in the diplomatic pouch,’ announced the locally based man.

‘Borrow your office then?’ asked Charlie. ‘Hadn’t better go wandering about the streets with it, had I?’

‘Of course,’ said Cummings, tight-lipped.

Charlie studied intently the transcripts of the three different debriefings with Novikov, recognizing at once how the American team had mishandled it with their insistence upon the polygraph and smugly aware that no one had got any more than he had. The Washington embassy had replied at length to his query about the importance attached by the USA to the Middle East conference, from which Charlie found it easy to understand the CIA man’s attitude at their meeting. In addition there was included the CIA query to London about his personal involvement in Switzerland and Charlie sighed, easily able to understand that, too. He supposed it was obvious Giles would have alerted Langley to his being here. He tore open the last envelope, imagining it would be the Director’s reply to the American agency, but it wasn’t. As required by regulations, it was the official notification that a full investigation was being initiated into his affairs, with the warning that he would at some stage of the enquiry be required to undergo positive vetting.

‘Fucking Harkness,’ said Charlie, vehemently.

Cummings, who was waiting in an outer office, looked in through the door. ‘Did you say something?’ he enquired.

‘Yes,’ confirmed Charlie. ‘I said, “Fucking Harkness.” I often say it.’

Cummings breathed in sharply, shocked. Everything that they said about this dreadful man was obviously true.