The Run Around

Chapter Thirty-nine

Harry Johnson had taken over the rear room of the Brace of Pheasants for his farewell party, which had been going for an hour before Charlie arrived. The place was full of noise and smoke and men few of whom knew each other and were too professional to propose introductions. Johnson’s wife was with him, a wisp-haired, sharp-featured woman wearing a hat decorated with cherries and a confused expression, never before having met her husband’s friends and seeming surprised he had so many.

Charlie insinuated himself to the bar and was told they were still drinking off Johnson’s kitty so he chose a pint of beer, not wanting to deplete it too much too quickly.

The retiring Watcher saw Charlie as he turned back into the room and shouldered his way forward, beaming.

‘You made it!’ said Johnson. ‘That’s great.’

‘Promised I would,’ reminded Charlie.

‘All over now,’ announced Johnson. ‘No more leaking doorways or aching haemorrhoids from sitting too long on cold seats.’

‘Looking forward to it?’

‘Can’t wait,’ said Johnson. ‘I got a rotavator as a farewell present.’

‘A what?’

‘It’s kind of a digging machine: I’ve taken over more allotment.’

‘No more peas out of a tin, eh?’

‘What about you, Charlie? You looking forward to retirement?’

‘Long time yet,’ said Charlie, uncomfortably. No, he thought, he wasn’t looking forward to retirement. Harry had a wife with a funny hat and a smallholding to grow his own vegetables. What did he have to look forward to, when it was time to go? Nothing, he thought. There was a huge difference between working alone and being alone.

‘Still feel bad about that last bit of business,’ said Johnson.

‘Water under the bridge now.’

‘I know you can’t tell me but I’d like to know it worked out.’

‘It worked out,’ assured Charlie.

‘I’m glad, really glad,’ said Johnson. ‘Not a lot in our line of work ever really works out, does it?’

‘Not a lot,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Get down to Broadstairs at all?’

‘Broadstairs?’ queried Charlie, bewildered.

‘That’s where we’re going to be living most of the time …’ Johnson turned, gesturing to the woman in the hat. ‘That’s the wife, Beryl. We’ll be in the book so if you’re ever down that way give me a bell. Don’t want to lose touch completely with the old crowd.’

‘Sure,’ promised Charlie, emptily. Johnson didn’t want to go, Charlie realized. Funny how it was always the same, everyone bitching and moaning for years, counting days and weeks off the calender until the time came and when it did they nearly all wanted to hang on.

‘Don’t forget now,’ urged Johnson, knowing Charlie would never come.

‘I won’t,’ promised Charlie.

‘I’d better get back to the missus.’

‘Sure.’

‘Keep safe, Charlie.’

‘Always.’

Charlie got himself another pint and was edging away from the bar to make room for someone else when he felt a hand on his arm and a voice said: ‘Wondered if I’d see you here.’

Charlie turned, smiling in immediate recognition. ‘How are you doing, Sam?’

‘Fine,’ said Donnelly. ‘You?’

‘Can’t complain.’

‘Looks like being a good party?’

‘With luck,’ said Charlie. ‘You do it, Sam?’

The man who had searched Charlie’s apartment nodded and said: ‘Did you pass?’

‘Kisses on both cheeks,’ said Charlie. ‘Thanks for the warning, though.’

‘Couldn’t make it too obvious,’ said Donnelly. ‘Junior kid picked the lock to leave the scratch.’

‘It was pretty clumsy.’

‘He’s still learning,’ assured the other man. ‘He’ll get better.’

‘He needs to.’

‘I took over inside,’ disclosed Donnelly. ‘How did I do?’

‘Failed,’ declared Charlie.

‘I can’t have done!’ disputed Donnelly.

‘The bathroom cabinet,’ said Charlie. ‘After you searched it you closed it: people always do. It was ajar when I left.’

‘Shit!’ said the Searcher.

‘It wasn’t much,’ said Charlie, encouragingly.

‘It hasn’t got to be, has it?’

‘Hope your young trainee wasn’t offended by the place.’

‘He thought it was a pigsty.’

‘Did you tell him why?’

‘I tried to.’

‘Tell him again, so he doesn’t forget.’

There was a commotion at the door at the entry of the kiss-o-gram girl. She wore a long black cloak which she discarded as soon as she was inside. She was quite naked apart from a minuscule G-string and a suspender belt supporting fishnet stockings. She arranged herself on Johnson’s lap with her breasts thrust into his face and there was raucous cheering and explosions of camera flashes. Beryl blushed and looked away.

‘I think her tits are bigger than that October centrefold you’ve got,’ said Donnelly, contemplatively. ‘Not much. Just slightly.’

‘Prefer the centrefold, though,’ said Charlie.

‘Younger,’ agreed Donnelly. ‘Certainly firmer. Have you really read all those books you’ve got?’

‘Most of them,’ said Charlie.

‘What about another drink?’

‘One for the road,’ agreed Charlie.

‘Not staying long then?’

‘Got to be up early in the morning,’ said Charlie. ‘Plane to catch.’

‘You lot lead a marvellous bloody life in your division, don’t you?’ said Donnelly. ‘Bet you haven’t had a shitty job for years.’

‘Can’t remember the last time,’ said Charlie.

All the arrangements had been made between London and Washington at Director-to-Director level, even to the timing of the appointment. Charlie caught a flight that got him into Dulles airport by noon, determined against being late. He actually drove past the CIA headquarters at Langley on his way into the city, curious if his re-acceptance by the Americans would ever be complete enough for him to be received there. He doubted it. There would still be a long way to go.

He had been at the Hay Adams for thirty minutes when his telephone sounded, precisely on time.

‘Jesse Willard,’ said a strong Southern voice. ‘I’m downstairs in the lobby.’

‘Shall I come down?’ asked Charlie.

‘I’ll come up,’ said Willard.

The hotel had been the CIA choice, Charlie knew: his room would have been swept for electronic surveillance, then bugged again. The CIA officer was a tall, bony man whose handshake hurt. ‘Can I offer you anything?’ invited Charlie.

‘Just what you came here to tell us,’ said Willard, briskly.

Charlie considered it almost overly melodramatic. When in Rome do — or art — as the Romans do, he thought. He said: ‘Did you know Giles?’

‘I’m in charge of the division he worked in,’ said the American.

The Agency were definitely taking it seriously, realized Charlie. Which was good. He said: ‘He was sacrificed. Your Secretary of State, too.’ Dramatic enough? he thought.

Willard made no outward reaction, except to pause. Then he said: ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Not sufficiently.’

‘How much?’

Instead of directly replying Charlie said: ‘You can manipulate a lot of media outlets, can’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve got receptive Congressmen on Capitol Hill?’

‘Some.’

‘Then enough,’ said Charlie. From his briefcase he took the Israeli folder and said: ‘You’ll need this. The Novikov stuff, too.’

The Washington Post led with the first story a week later. It was picked up by the New York Times and all the major television networks by the following day, when the outcry erupted in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

David Levy was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office on the day the Israeli government were forced into issuing a public apology, admitting mistakes. And promising an investigation.

There had been nothing, Berenkov acknowledged. The bugging devices in the apartment of Natalia Nikandrova Fedova had recorded the perfectly innocent activities of a divorced woman with a teenage son who telephoned regularly from college and the round-the-clock visual surveillance had failed to discover anything at all suspicious about her behaviour. And her KGB work as a debriefer was beyond criticism.

She still had to be the key. Berenkov was convinced of it.