The Run Around

Chapter Thirty-three

They swept up to the Palais des Nations in Blom’s official car and were gestured straight through the criss-cross barriers and on into the conference complex. The vehicle stopped at the front entrance, where another man in uniform who was never introduced saluted the brigadier smartly and nodded to Levy, Giles and Charlie, all of whom nodded back.

‘Central control first,’ announced Blom.

The uniformed man led into the main building and along a wide, sweeping corridor where other uniformed security guards were obvious and very visible: one group were actually looking through a bag being carried by a woman in one of the side offices as they went by. There was an average of two men in each group carrying handheld metal detectors.

The control room was on the second floor, its entrance guarded. The man came smartly to attention, opening the door as they approached for them to enter unhindered. It was a large, circular room, its walls lined in serried rows with television monitors in front of which sat operators manipulating banks of camera adjustments and sound switches. The camera placings inside the huge conference chamber ensured no part of it was unobserved. The corridor along which they had earlier walked was also well covered, as well as the entry area where the delegation leaders would be received. Externally the cameras were clustered over the entrance area, so that every section of the approach was displayed, and further cameras were installed around the building to give practically a complete view of the grounds outside. The special area where the commemorative photographs were to be taken had a separate camera grouping, supplying three different monitors with visibility almost as good as that in the conference room. Blom handed each of them the final, definitive conference schedule.

Charlie accepted it but did not look at it. Instead he said: ‘If any of these operators see something suspicious what is the system for them to raise any alarm?’

Blom’s unidentified aide indicated telephones in front of each operator and said: ‘They are direct lines to security control.’

‘Does security control have a matching monitor system?’ demanded Charlie.

‘No.’

‘So a verbal description has to be given of whatever appears suspicious: and where it’s happening has also got to be verbally described?’ persisted Charlie.

‘Each man — the operator here and the security supervisor in their section — work from identical, grid-divided maps,’ came in Blom. ‘The location is instantaneous: the system has been extensively practised and works very satisfactorily.’

‘How long, from the moment of picking up a telephone in this room, until someone from security gets to the designated spot on the map?’ asked Levy.

Blom looked to the assistant, who hesitated. Then he said: ‘Five minutes.’

A guess if ever he’d witnessed one, thought Charlie. He said: ‘You think you’d have five minutes in a real security emergency situation?’

‘No doubt you’ve got a superior suggestion,’ said Blom, sarcastically.

‘What about a sound alarm, a klaxon?’ said Charlie. Was it all a waste of time? he wondered. Or might it just stir some reaction? Whatever, he supposed he had to try, if only for his own satisfaction.

‘A klaxon has no other practical benefit beyond making a noise and alarming people without letting them know where the danger is,’ rejected Blom.

‘Making a noise has a very practical benefit,’ disputed Charlie. ‘It makes your villain run.’ He nodded to the other two security chiefs next to him. ‘And they don’t need initially to know where the danger is, just that there is danger and that they’d better throw a cordon around the people they’re supposed to be protecting.’

‘This is a system that has been perfected over a number of years and never found to be wanting,’ insisted Blom.

‘How many potential security disasters has it averted?’ asked Giles.

‘There have been a number of alarms,’ said Blom.

‘False alarms or real alarms?’ asked Levy.

‘Fortunately there has never been a real danger,’ conceded Blom.

The American appeared to be coming over like Levy, thought Charlie. How much real pressure were either prepared to exert, though? He said: ‘So it’s never been properly tested in real circumstances? Just practise and false alarms?’

‘I’ve not the slightest doubt it will work as it is designed to do in any real situation,’ said Blom. He paused, looking directly at Charlie. ‘Which we’ve yet to confront,’ he added.

Any discussion with Blom was like making rude faces at himself in the mirror, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Is this it? Just this television surveillance and the physical security checks?’

‘All the bomb checks have been carried out. Every member of every support staff had been vetted,’ assured Blom.

‘That wasn’t what I was immediately thinking about,’ said Charlie. ‘Do you intend having aerial surveillance, from helicopters, while the conference is on?’

There was the briefest of pauses. Blom said: ‘There is a helicopter provision within the complex.’

‘Will there be helicopters in the air?’ asked Giles, coming out even more strongly with demands upon the Swiss.

‘If it is considered necessary,’ conceded Blom.

‘While we’re talking about it, what about air space?’ said Levy.

Blom experienced yet again that stomach-sinking sensation of things moving too quickly away for him to be able to grasp. ‘Air space?’ he asked, weakly.

‘Is the entire overflight area being closed to commercial aircraft?’ asked the Israeli.

‘It will be,’ promised Blom, with increasing discomfort.

Charlie indicated the group of screens showing the approach and entrance areas and said: ‘Five manholes, I’ve just counted them. Are they sealed?’

Once more Blom looked to his assistant, who responded with a shoulder-shrugging gesture of uncertainty.

Charlie said: ‘The sewers must extend out beyond the boundary into the city. It would be the obvious and perhaps the easiest way for anyone to get in undetected.’

‘Why bother to get in?’ asked Levy.

Charlie looked to the screen again and nodded in agreement. ‘You’re right,’ he said to the Israeli. ‘With the area swept and declared clean all that’s necessary is to clamp explosive devices beneath those manhole covers and set them to detonate when the cars of the delegation leaders pull up for the official arrival. No one would survive.’

Blom swallowed and said: ‘All the manholes will be checked and then sealed. And the sewer lanes secured against any human entry at the complex boundary, until the conference concludes.’

It had not been a waste of time, decided Charlie. In fact it had been very worthwhile. He said: ‘Can we look outside?’

It was a more subdued Swiss intelligence chief who led the group into the gardens, deferring to the assistant unnecessarily to point out the cameras feeding the control room they had just left. Giles made a point of identifying manholes as they made their way through the side courts and surrounding gardens, picking up two in the gardens where the photograph was to be taken, and at Blom’s urging the aide made notes on a small pocket pad for them to be sealed.

At the gardens Charlie stared around, starting to isolate the overlooking buildings, when Levy announced: ‘I wasn’t happy with our entry this morning.’

Charlie turned back on to the group as Giles said, in agreement: ‘We weren’t checked.’

‘The car was recognized to be official!’ insisted Blom.

‘The cars carrying all the delegation leaders will be official,’ pointed out Levy. ‘My people are going to sweep our vehicles before we set out each day and I know the Americans will do the same. But what if someone were to attach a bomb to one of the other delegation cars, in some hotel park overnight? And again time the explosion?’

Charlie was glad Levy had brought it up, sparing him the need.

‘It could cause a bottleneck,’ protested Blom.

‘I think it would be justified,’ said Giles. ‘And the congestion could be eased by opening up more than one entry point and covering it with more men.’

‘Possibly with sniffer dogs,’ encouraged the Israeli.

‘Yes,’ admitted Blom. ‘It would possibly be a good idea.’ He started back towards the conference block, anxious physically to get away from the concerted pressure: they were playing games, all of them, each trying to prove who was the best counter-insurgency expert. Damn the scruffy, ridiculous, posturing Englishman who’d started it all! Blom was glad the Swiss protest had been made to London. He could not understand why the man had not been withdrawn: certainly it had been a mistake letting the other two persuade him into letting the man accompany them on the security tour. The final satisfaction was going to be his, of course, when the conference ended and all these fantasy precautions were going to be shown to have been quite unnecessary.

There was a moment of uncertainty among them back at the entrance, where Blom’s car was waiting, and Giles said: ‘My people picked up something about an attack on a member of the Palestinian secretariat?’

Blom’s face tightened, perceptibly. ‘It is not a matter for us,’ he said. ‘It is a police investigation.’

‘What happened?’ asked Charlie, curiously.

‘Street crime: a mugging,’ said Blom. ‘A member of the Palestinian translator staff. Mohammed Dajani.’

Long-time Arafat supporter, Charlie remembered, from the Israeli files. Identified as a moderate and advocate of negotiation, certainly with no marked involvement in what Jerusalem regarded as terrorism. Charlie said: ‘Have your people talked to him?’

Blom sighed. He said: ‘This is not something into which to start reading significance. I have personally seen the full police report. He was attacked last night near the university. Unfortunately quite badly injured: a broken pelvis. But it was a robbery, pure and simple. He lost a watch and a quantity of money.’

‘What about any sort of documentation to have gained access here?’ demanded Levy.

Blom smiled, happy for the first time with a question. ‘Precisely why the evidence was submitted to me,’ he said. ‘There were some accreditation documents found near him. There’s been the most detailed check with what was found and what remained in his hotel room. Nothing whatsoever is missing.’ Blom saw the disappointment on the faces assembled around him. ‘As I already told you,’ Blom said, continuing to enjoy himself, ‘it is a regrettable street crime, nothing more.’

‘How many people involved in the attack?’ asked Charlie.

‘He thinks only one, but he’s not sure.’

‘Description?’ pressed Giles.

‘There was absolutely no street lighting: he saw nothing.’

‘It wouldn’t seem to have any significance,’ agreed Levy. ‘Not with all the documentation remaining intact.’

‘I am glad you agree with me,’ said Blom.

It was Giles who resolved the impasse about what to do next, inviting everyone into the American secretariat section where American security had established their headquarters. Blom declined, remarking heavily that there were further arrangements he had to make, but Charlie and Levy accepted.

Giles had a separate but necessarily cramped office very close to where the conference was to take place. Everything appeared temporary, a snake’s nest of telephone, teleprinter and television cables across the floor of the outside rooms and a lot of people looking lost, trying to remember where their assigned places were. From a desk drawer Giles produced a bottle of Jack Daniels and apologized for only having two glasses. Charlie said he was happy with the cup.

‘Well?’ said Charlie. It was nice to be admitted at last but he was unsure how genuine was their acceptance.

‘I think we closed a few doors that were too wide open,’ said Giles.

‘I don’t have any authority to interview Dajani,’ said Charlie. He looked at Levy. ‘And I guess it would be difficult for you, as well …’ He turned to Giles. ‘Don’t you think it might be an idea to investigate the attack yourselves?’

‘For what?’ said Levy. ‘According to Blom, the man didn’t see anything.’

‘According to Blom, there’s no danger!’ said Charlie, conscious as he spoke of the look which passed between the two other men. In full awareness, he said: ‘So you would have suggested all the tightening up today even if there hadn’t been any warning!’

‘That’s our job, Charlie,’ said the Israeli.

Being patronized was something that pissed Charlie off the most and he thought it was close to happening here. So much for acceptance. He said: ‘You don’t think it’s worth looking at independently: you’re the people talking about doors that have been left too wide open.’

‘I think it’s been checked out,’ said Levy.

‘I don’t believe it’s anything to get spooked about,’ agreed the American.

‘Believers in coincidence!’

‘Don’t make a monster out of every shadow, Charlie!’ pleaded Levy. ‘The poor bastard was mugged: the one thing that would have made it suspicious — the loss of any conference documents — didn’t happen!’

‘Like nothing else is going to happen,’ accused Charlie. Cunts, he thought. He was still thinking it three hours later when Alexander Cummings reached him at the Beau-Rivage from the Bern embassy.

‘You’re to come right away,’ ordered the British intelligence rezident. ‘London says it’s important.’

Back and forth like a fiddler’s elbow, thought Charlie.

Alexei Berenkov had studied all the interrogation transcripts and the records of the trial evidence and reviewed yet again his own interview with Edwin Sampson. And acknowledged that the only conclusion possible was that which Kalenin had reached, that Natalia Nikandrova Fedova was a loyal and dedicated KGB intelligence officer whose brilliant intervention had prevented Sampson infiltrating the Soviet service.

And he refused to accept it.

Berenkov had survived in the West for so long by refusing ever to believe the obvious — intrigued during the debriefing after his capture to realize it was also a precept of Charlie Muffin’s — even when it was supported by incontestable fact.

The need was to uncover something which did contest the facts. Because Natalia was attached to the First Chief Directorate and subject to his authority it was easy for Berenkov to know at all times where she was, enabling his squads to enter her apartment without any fear of discovery. The searchers went in first, under Berenkov’s strict instructions that nothing should be disturbed for her to realize her apartment had been burgled, and after them the technical experts went to work. There were two video cameras installed, both with fish-eye lenses capable of recording the activities throughout the entire room, one in the main bedroom and another in the living room. The encompassing lenses were the size of pinheads and fitted high in the ceiling cornice in both rooms. The audio equipment was not put actually into the telephone, where Natalia might have discovered it, but installed as an additional wire alongside the regular lead-in line. An extra microphone was fixed as a transistor to a small portable radio which usually appeared to be kept in the kitchen but which she sometimes carried from room to room, particularly to the bathroom in the mornings.

Berenkov hoped the break would not take long: Charlie Muffin was a problem that should be eradicated as quickly as possible.