The Run Around

Chapter Thirty

Charlie reckoned he’d done bloody well, complying to the letter with the Director’s instructions. He’d gone near no one, upset no one and talked to no one, except to the room service supervisor for a meal and a bottle of wine when he got back from Bern. The only thing he had not done was to sit and do nothing because that was clearly daft. Instead he worked steadily and without interruption — apart from the brief meal and even then he read on — through the Israeli dossiers, determined to absorb as much as possible despite the size of the task. By nine he had gone through the Palestinian and Jordanian backgrounds and stopped because the words were blurring before his eyes, exhausted concentration aching through him. Deciding that it was a deserved reward for effort, Charlie went back to room service and ordered brandy, two large ones because it seemed a waste to bring the waiter all the way with just one.

The more detailed examination completely confirmed his initial impression, Charlie decided, feeling the brandy warm through him: the Israeli files could not be faulted. Every Arab investigation was painstakingly detailed, in the case of the Palestinian and Jordanian records with what Israel considered terrorist links individually itemized along with the incidents and events supporting those allegations, all of which were set out in a chronological arrangement. When such people were picked out there was a red marker on the cover of the folder and top-sheet assessment of that person: in every instance the judgement was that none of them any longer represented risk or danger.

Charlie found no difficulty accepting this view, despite the scepticism of a man who never completely admitted the vice-versa logic of night following day. After all, the majority of Commonwealth leaders jostling to get as close as possible to the Queen during those London conference photo-calls had Foreign Office records identifying them as independence-fighting villains who in their time had danced around demanding the demise of the British monarchy.

He was wasting his time, Charlie reluctantly decided, creating work to convince himself he was working. Whatever or wherever the lead, it was not going to come from this filing clerk’s nightmare. Of which, objectively, he’d already been aware, from the comparable pictures. Where then? He didn’t know. And he didn’t like not knowing and he didn’t like the impotent frustration he’d felt, ever since this sodding job began. In fact he liked bugger all about any of it. If he were honest — which he always was with himself if sometimes not with other people — Charlie accepted it was easy to understand the doubt everyone else was showing. Because he had nothing. His own doubt wormed its way into his mind, disconcertingly. Had he got it wrong: clutched too eagerly at a mistaken identification and really wasted his time, spending days running around like a blue-arsed fly in quite the wrong place? He liked the prospect of that least of all.

Although he would have been surprised if they had managed it so quickly, Charlie lifted the telephone when it rang expecting it to be Cummings with a come-and-get-your-wrist slapped order from London for conning them with the photographs. But it was the barrel-toned Levy, the man’s voice echoing into the room.

‘How’s it going?’ demanded the Israeli intelligence chief.

‘Slowly,’ conceded Charlie. He was not talking to anyone else, he thought, in self-defence: Levy was talking to him.

‘Thought I might have heard from you.’

‘Why?’ demanded Charlie, immediately hopeful there might have been a development of which the other man wrongly imagined him to be aware.

‘Believed we were going to keep in touch,’ said Levy.

‘I’ve come up with nothing,’ admitted Charlie. The persistent problem, he thought.

‘This is the house phone,’ disclosed Levy. ‘I’m downstairs. How about a drink?’

Charlie looked at the file copies and remembered his impression about work for work’s sake and said: ‘Why not?’ What Sir Alistair Wilson didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Levy was already at the bar, bulged over a stool, shirt open beneath his jacket, the tangle of hair visible at the neck and along the thick wrists extending beyond his sleeves. He shifted slightly, for Charlie to join him, indicating the brandy snifter. Charlie nodded, in acceptance.

‘Well,’ said Levy, ‘everybody’s here.’

‘I’m not interested in everybody. Just one person.’

‘He’s a ghost, Charlie.’

‘We’ll see.’ Charlie wished there had been more conviction in his voice.

‘You looked at the dossiers?’

‘Not all,’ admitted Charlie. ‘A lot.’

‘And?’

‘Impressive,’ praised Charlie.

‘But leading us nowhere?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie. ‘Leading us nowhere.’

‘I warned you.’

‘It was something I wanted to do myself.’

‘No real purpose in your staying any longer, is there?’

‘That’s what London thinks,’ revealed Charlie. ‘There have been complaints from the Swiss. And the Americans.’

‘You’ve been pretty outspoken,’ said the Israeli.

‘I’ve been honest,’ insisted Charlie. About the important things at least, he thought.

‘They’ve got tender feelings, Charlie, tender feelings.’

‘A bullet in the head leaves it pretty tender, too.’

‘So are you going back?’

‘They’ve agreed my staying on for a while,’ said Charlie, non-committally. ‘No idea for how long.’ He gestured to the barman for more drinks and the man approached the unkempt couple with ill-concealed disdain. Fuck you, thought Charlie, it’s your tip you’re gambling with, sunshine.

‘It’s a bastard when a seemingly good start comes to nothing, isn’t it?’ said Levy, professionally sympathetic.

‘Happened to you much?’

‘From time to time,’ said Levy.

Charlie was unsure whether the man was being honest or carrying on with the sympathy. He said: ‘Any more separate meetings with Blom?’

Levy smiled and said: ‘How did you guess?’

‘Psychic,’ said Charlie. ‘What was it about?’

‘It was private, just Blom and myself and some Foreign Minister people who came in with our leaders this afternoon,’ said the Mossad chief. ‘Blom gave the assurance on behalf of his government that they’d done everything they could.’

‘And you didn’t call him a liar!’

‘He’d done his best.’

‘Bollocks!’ rejected Charlie.

‘His best, I said,’ reminded Levy.

‘So aren’t you worried?’

‘We’ve got a pretty good security record, Charlie.’

‘Usually on your own ground: this is an away match.’

‘So was Entebbe.’ The Israeli beckoned the reluctant barman and said: ‘Two more.’ He paused and then added: ‘And a smile.’

The barman managed one, just.

There wasn’t any functional purpose in his staying on, Charlie conceded; even in the embassy communication room he’d been unsure why he’d bothered with the photograph bullshit, apart from that hope of some later I-told-you-so satisfaction. And after the afternoon and evening in his hotel room and the self-honesty that he had been foolishly avoiding he was increasingly doubtful about that. So he’d been a damned fool, putting himself into a position from which he couldn’t manoeuvre without Sir Alistair Wilson realizing he’d been conned. It was a mistake and it angered Charlie when he made mistakes, like it angered him to lose face when others had the I-told-you-so satisfaction. He said: ‘Blom say anything about a meeting tomorrow?’

Levy nodded at the persistence. He said: ‘He’s offered Giles and me a full tour of the entire conference area. So we can satisfy ourselves about the on-the-ground security arrangements.’

‘What about me!’

‘You weren’t mentioned: Britain isn’t a participant, remember?’

‘Would you support me, if I asked to tag along?’

‘I wouldn’t have any objection.’

‘What do you think Giles would say?’

‘No idea,’ said Levy. ‘Why not ask him?’

‘I will,’ said Charlie, determinedly.

‘You’ll have to wait until the morning,’ advised Levy. ‘The Americans have got a reception tonight: everyone’s there.’

‘Why aren’t you?’

Levy grinned sideways. ‘Somehow I never learned how to drink champagne with my finger stuck out. And I always drop those little biscuit things covered with congealed mayonnaise and last week’s shrimp.’

They lay side by side, damp with each other’s perspiration and totally exhausted by sex, unable to love any more. It was Sulafeh who moved first, reaching sideways for his hand, linking their fingers.

Cautiously, she said: ‘You haven’t told me about afterwards?’

It had been an oversight not to have gone through the charade, Zenin acknowledged. He said: ‘I was leaving it until tomorrow. What time do you think you can get away from the Palais des Nations?’

‘Noon,’ she said at once.

‘We’ll do it then,’ he promised. He’d already decided to return to Bern after she left that evening and stay overnight in the retained room at the Marthahaus, to enable his collection from the garage to be early the following morning. Zenin was confident he would be able to complete most of the setting up before he had to meet her. Anything that remained could be finished off in the late afternoon or evening.

‘And then we’ll come back here?’ she asked eagerly.

‘No.’

She shifted slightly, looking more directly at him. ‘Why not?’

There was no real reason, Zenin accepted: he’d just felt it better that she did not see the assembled rifle. He said: ‘There are things I have to do here. Arrangements to make.’

‘How would I interfere?’

‘It’s the way I want it,’ he said. He’d never spoken to her harshly and was conscious of her flinching.

‘Of course,’ Sulafeh said, retreating at once.

‘There’ll be time, afterwards,’ he said, carelessly, not wanting to alienate her.

The happiness flooded through her, washing away the immediate hurt at the way he had spoken: it was only natural that he would start becoming tense, as the time got close. Sulafeh said: ‘I’ve so much wanted to hear you say that. So very much.’

For a brief moment the Russian could not understand what she was talking about and then he realized. Improvising awkwardly, he said: ‘It will be wonderful. I promise.’

‘Where will we go?’

‘I haven’t decided yet,’ he avoided. ‘Let’s get the mission over first.’

‘Of course,’ she agreed again. Emboldened, she said: ‘But you do mean it, don’t you? About our staying together?’

‘You know I do,’ said Zenin.

‘I want to say it,’ she blurted, with the shyness of a young girl. ‘I love you.’

She looked at him expectantly, so Zenin said: ‘I love you, too.’