Charlie Muffin: The Blind Run Part 9

Letsov came fully to him, smiling wearily. 'I know of you; of your street experience,' said the Russian. 'And I agree. The policeman could have been immobilised.' He looked back to Sampson. 'He never worked the streets. Always liaison or administration. A good agent to have in place but a bad one to be trapped with.'

There was a low shout, from the helmsman behind them and as they turned Charlie saw the outline of a vessel forming on the horizon. As they got closer he discerned the oddly shaped radar bubble and the stiff-haired antennae of what the Russians called trawlers and the rest of the world spy ships. Letsov depressed the transmission b.u.t.ton once again, positive identification Charlie supposed and then turned as Sampson forced himself to join them, whey-faced.

'How long to reach Russia, in that?' he asked, strained-voiced.

'Murmansk,' said Letsov. 'A couple of days.'

Sampson made a grunting sound of despair.

The helmsman manoeuvred the motor-boat into the lee of the larger vessel. They exchanged loose link-lines, which meant they had to jump for the rope ladder thrown down from the trawler. Charlie went first, easily, looking back hopefully to Sampson. At first it looked as if the man might actually baulk at jumping across the narrow channel of heaving sea but then he did, misholding at the first attempt and hanging one handed for a brief moment between the two vessels before s.n.a.t.c.hing out a second time, getting a grip, and hauling himself upwards. He stood shaking at the rail-break, almost appearing unaware of where he was. Around them seamen bustled, going through what was still a well planned exercise. There were shouted, relayed messages from the bridge wing to the sailors to the two still in the boat and then Charlie saw charges being handed down. It took minutes to place them and then the two who had rescued them made the crossing and climbed aboard. At once the trawler cast off and moved away. Letsov remained at the rail. When they were about fifty yards away, Letsov said, with professional pride and without consulting his watch to get the time 'Now!' and precisely on cue the explosion came, in a dull crump, tearing the bottom completely from the cabin cruiser. It jumped, surprised, in the water then sank at once.

'Welcome,' said a voice behind them and Charlie turned to face the captain. 'Welcome,' the man said again. 'To a new life.'

Christ, thought Charlie.

With the murder of the policeman it had not achieved the humiliating propaganda success that had been intended and Berenkov knew it, just as he knew their personal friendship would not prevent Kalenin delivering the necessary and deserved rebuke.

'I'm sorry,' he said, sincerely. 'I had no idea they would have a gun.'

'Charlie m.u.f.fin?' queried Kalenin.

Berenkov shook his head. 'Letsov radioed a full report. It was Sampson. He panicked. Charlie doesn't panic: I know that too well.'

'How are they?'

'Letsov says there's ill feeling between them.'

Kalenin indicated the intercepted messages from the British emba.s.sy: there were four more since they had last discussed it. He said, 'We planned for Sampson, even before all these. And the help he might be able to give. What about Charlie? Can he be of any use?'

'I wouldn't imagine about these,' said Berenkov, making his own indication towards the messages. 'He was on the run for three years, don't forget. Out of touch. But if he wanted to he could teach agents we intend introducing into the West more about the business and survival in a month than they could learn from our instructors in a year.'

Kalenin pulled down the corners of his mouth, at the unqualified admiration and at the reservation. 'Wanted to!' he said.

'I was considered the best, wasn't I?' asked Berenkov. There was no boastfulness in the question.

'Yes,' agreed Kalenin.

'He caught me,' reminded Berenkov. 'Just like he caught those idiots in his own department who considered him expendable.'

'I don't understand the point you're making,' complained the KGB chairman.

'Charlie's brilliant,' said Berenkov, simply. 'He's also the most awkward b.a.s.t.a.r.d imaginable.'

Chapter Ten.

Charlie was handcuffed for the return to England after his Italian arrest and there had been an escort of at least two warders for every remand appearance and then the eventual taking to Wormwood Scrubs and there was the impress of dej vu during the journey to Moscow, another guarded trip to another sort of imprisonment. Sampson was ill throughout the voyage to Murmansk, rarely leaving the cabin for which Charlie was grateful but recovered dramatically when they got ash.o.r.e. Almost at once he started behaving like a deprived child on its first outing, using his Russian wherever he could, pointlessly reading out signs and posters and staring around excitedly at buildings and streets. Letsov and the other Russian, whose name emerged as Orlov, remained with them throughout, right to Moscow, but increasingly during the voyage and more so once they reached the Russian mainland their att.i.tude grew into one of undisguised boredom and disinterest, men whose task had been completed now burdened with the irksome task of babysitting.

It was dark when the plane from Murmansk arrived at Sheremetyevo airport, which seemed larger and more brightly lit than when Charlie had last landed there, ten years earlier on secondment to the emba.s.sy. And the journey into Moscow appeared to take longer than he remembered. It was difficult, because of the darkness, to recognise any landmarks. He thought he isolated the river but wasn't sure. He definitely located one of the red stars illuminated above the Kremlin and using that as a marker realised they were being driven far out into the suburbs of the city.

Orlov, who was driving as usual, had difficulty finding their destination, twice having to stop and ask directions. It was an apartment block, a vast, anonymous pile of a place, seeming to stretch the entire block and rise blackly up into the night sky. Only a few windows were lighted and the impression was of abandonment, which Charlie decided was fitting.

Orlov didn't bother to get out of the car, leaving Letsov to complete the final part of the a.s.signment. The bulky Russian led the way into the building and up a flight of chipped and smelling stairs to an apartment at the far end of an unlighted corridor. From behind the closed doorways they pa.s.sed came the scuffing and murmur of occupation and once the louder sound of a radio; a woman was singing a melancholy Slavic dirge and Charlie decided he knew how she felt. The pervading smell was of cabbage.

Letsov entered the apartment peremptorily, snapping on the lights and indicating the place with a take-it-or-leave-it gesture with his hand.

'You must stay here,' he said. 'You will be contacted.'

'Together?' demanded Charlie, at once.

'Stay here,' repeated Letsov. He pointed towards the telephone. 'Tomorrow.'

Charlie looked around the room. It was a spartan place, just a couch and two chairs, with a table and two more chairs against the far wall. Beside the table an opening, without a door or curtaining, led into a kitchen. To the left was a short corridor. As he watched Sampson, still with his little-boy excitement, discovered the bathroom and two separate bedrooms.

'Goodbye,' said Letsov, at the doorway.

'Thanks again,' said Charlie. During the voyage he had attempted some approach to the man, whom he recognised as a complete professional, but like a complete professional Letsov had rejected anything more than the most necessary conversation. Charlie regretted it. He thought Letsov was the sort of man he could have liked; understood at least.

'Good luck,' said the Russian, making a last minute concession.

'Thanks for that, too,' said Charlie.

Sampson emerged from the further bedroom as the Russian left and announced, with his predictable command of every situation. 'I'll have this one. You take the other.'

Charlie shrugged, uninterested in arguing about it. He hoped to Christ they weren't together for much longer. 'Where did you get your Russian?' he said.

'I get my degree in modern languages at Oxford,' said Sampson. 'Got an apt.i.tude for it. And for almost the last two years I was number three on the Russian desk.'

'You were in the Russian section?' said Charlie. He wondered why the man hadn't boasted about that earlier, like he had about almost everything else.

'I was ordered to penetrate it, from here, when I was on station in Beirut.'

'So for two years Moscow had an open door into everything we knew or thought about them!' demanded Charlie. What a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, he thought.

'And a lot of what NATO thought: Washington too,' reminded the other man. 'I told you I was important, didn't I?'

'Yes,' said Charlie, emptily. He went to the uncurtained window, staring out. There appeared to be a matching apartment block on the opposite side of the street, picked out with as few lights as theirs. He wondered if that smelled of overcooked cabbage as well. Six months, he thought. Six months was bearable. But was it time to achieve what Wilson demanded? And would the deal still stand, either way, after the murder? There was, of course, another alternative. The one he had been deliberately shunting aside in his mind. What if the Russians came to suspect what he was really doing? And that's all they would need to do, just suspect. Another prison, if they let him live at all. And no limit on the sentence this time. Compared to the gulags, Wormwood Scrubs would have been a village in the sun. Charlie shuddered, a physical reaction and from his side Sampson said, 'It's not cold.'

'No,' said Charlie, who hadn't been aware of the man's approach. If I lived in Moscow, the weather would not matter, he thought.

'This is it, Charlie,' said Sampson, with his undiminished enthusiasm. 'Like the captain said, a new life.'

'Yeah,' said Charlie, unimpressed.

'Aren't you excited?'

'No.'

'You're going to have to do it, you know,' said Sampson. 'Just like in the nick.'

'What?' said Charlie.

'Adjust. Stop being a b.l.o.o.d.y fool and adjust.'

He wasn't going to be a b.l.o.o.d.y fool, Charlie decided. Sampson thought he was the clever one, the expert: but that wasn't how it was going to be. Charlie determined that no matter how difficult or impossible it seemed he was going to find whoever the unknown defector was and arrange his escape and show this arrogant, conceited smart-a.s.s and Moscow and the department in London that he was still what he always had been. Better than any of them.

'You're right,' he said. 'I am being a b.l.o.o.d.y fool. It's going to be great, when I get used to it.'

'That's better,' said Sampson, actually throwing his arm around Charlie's shoulders.

Charlie managed to resist pulling away at the touch. If Sampson was as important as he claimed and appeared to be, from the rescue the man might actually be the way to get to people in Dzerzhinsky Square. And he'd need short cuts. Only six months, after all. 'I wonder how long the debriefing will take?' he said.

'Longer for me than for you; you've been away from things for too long.'

Jesus! thought Charlie. 'You're right,' he said, actually managing to intrude the impression of admiration into his voice. 'You're the one they really rescued, after all.'

It was Sampson, of course, who answered the telephone when it rang, the following morning, the expectant greeting fading into a frown of annoyed incomprehension when he replaced the receiver. 'You,' he said to Charlie. 'They're sending a car for you first. I'm to wait.'

Satisfaction warmed through Charlie, the feeling remaining as he left the apartment building thirty minutes later. He didn't look up but hoped Sampson was at the window. The unspeaking chauffeur drove quickly, using the centre lane reserved exclusively for government vehicles, but not, Charlie realised, back into the centre of the capital but still further out, towards the peripheral road. The KGB had extensive offices in the suburbs, Charlie remembered; but Dzerzhinsky Square was the headquarters he had to penetrate and he was going in the opposite direction.

It was a huge, modern building American in style almost actually bordering the ring road. From the rear he saw the driver radio their approach, so a man was waiting when the vehicle pulled up, not at the main entrance but at a side door. The man, who was slight and bespectacled and wore a civilian suit, not any kind of uniform, opened the door from the outside and said, in English, 'You are to come with me.'

At an inner desk the escort produced an ident.i.ty pa.s.s and led Charlie, unspeaking like the driver, along an encircling corridor to a bank of elevators, selecting the sixth floor.

'If I lived in Moscow, the weather would not matter,' Charlie said to the man, just for the h.e.l.l of it.

The man looked back expressionless, without replying. He led out on to the upper floor and produced his pa.s.s again, twice, to get them through two more check points.

The door at which he stopped was unmarked, either by name or number. He knocked, opened the door immediately but just sufficient for him to look around, for fuller permission to enter and then stood back, ushering Charlie through.

Charlie started to enter the room and then stopped, in abrupt surprise. It was quite a s.p.a.cious office, with a view of the circular highway outside. There were flowers on a low table and one wall was lined with books. His debriefer sat at an uncluttered desk, smiling a greeting. And was a woman.

The escape and the shooting created an outcry in England. After three days of persistent demands the prime minister agreed to a commission of enquiry. The dead policeman was identified as a single man, a probationary constable, without parents, any immediate family or even close girlfriends and the human interest coverage in the newspapers switched to the battered prison officer, who posed for photographs at the urging of the Prison Officers' a.s.sociation demanding better protection for its members from his hospital bed, surrounded by his worried looking family. Wilson was twice summoned to Downing Street, personally to brief the Prime Minister before House of Commons question time.

Harkness was waiting when the Director returned after the second visit, conscious at once of the anger in the usually urbane man.

'Judged a disaster,' said Wilson. 'A ridiculous disaster.'

'We expected that,' reminded Harkness.

'But not quite the degree of public reaction,' said Wilson. He sat at his desk, leg out stiffly before him.

'What about the governor?' said Harkness.

'No positive commitment but I managed to get a stay of execution,' said the Director. 'Until after the enquiry, at least. But not to have the d.a.m.ned thing in camera, which I wanted. Newspapers wouldn't stand for it, I was told.'

'Who runs the country, the Government or newspapers?' said Harkness, in unaccustomed bitterness.

'Sometimes I wonder,' said Wilson.

'Do you think the Russians will make them available in Moscow? They have with defectors in the past.'

The Director pursed his lips, doubtfully. 'Not with the shooting,' he said. 'If they'd simply escaped, yes. But they'd be parading murderers and admitting to harbouring them. So no, I don't expect any press conferences.'

'So we sit the storm out and wait upon Charlie m.u.f.fin,' said Harkness.

'Yes,' agreed Wilson. 'For the moment everything depends upon Charlie m.u.f.fin.'

Chapter Eleven.

About thirty-five, guessed Charlie: maybe younger, but he doubted it. Black hair, without any attempt at style, loose to her shoulders and no make-up that he could discern. Freckles around her nose and practical, sensible spectacles, heavy rimmed. Nice teeth, shown by the smile. Grey dress, tunic fashion but not a uniform: because she was sitting behind the desk he could only see the top half but the dress was quite tight and the top half would definitely be worth seeing. Women and s.e.x had been of necessity rigidly excluded from any thoughts in prison and he'd hardly had time since. Charlie decided he'd very much like to break the celibacy of the last few years with her. And then he remembered where he was and what he was doing or supposed to be doing and realised prison rules still applied.

'Please,' she said, still smiling and holding her hand out in invitation towards the chair slightly to the side of her neat, orderly desk. As he sat, she said, 'Welcome to Moscow.'

'People keep saying things like that,' said Charlie. There was hardly any accent in her voice, which was quite deep. He tried to make casual the look around the office, to locate the likely positioning of the cameras and recording devices. Some would unquestionably be in place and the seat to which he'd been directed was clearly positioned for a reason. There were too many possible positions and he decided the examination was pointless.

'This is only a formality, you understand?'

Liar, thought Charlie. He said, 'I understand.'

She took up a pen, looked down at an open folder and said, 'I don't know anything about you, other than your name.'

Liar again, thought Charlie. The KGB index was a legend, a computerised record far more detailed than any comparable system in any Western service. He'd have been on it for years and his file would have been heavily annotated after the affair with the English Director. It wouldn't have been erased after his capture and imprisonment, either; nothing was ever removed from the Moscow index. She might be attractive but she wasn't much good. She should have known he'd be aware of the Soviet system.

'I don't even know yours,' he said. If they were debriefing him with someone as inexperienced as this he wasn't regarded as anyone of importance. Which meant what he was supposed to do was going to be b.l.o.o.d.y difficult. Charlie didn't like being regarded as someone past importance. Careful, he thought; he was beginning to think like Sampson.

The woman frowned momentarily at the clumsy flirtation, then smiled again. 'Fedova,' she said. 'Natalia Nikandrova Fedova.'

'Do I call you Comrade or Natalia?'

'I don't think you call me anything but rather remember this is an official meeting,' she said.

Charlie thought she had to force the stiffness into her voice. He said, 'But only a formality.'

'I have a file to complete,' she said, tapping the paper in front of her.

Like he'd already decided, a clerk, thought Charlie. He said, 'Charles Edward m.u.f.fin Charlie to friends. Born Elstree, England. Mother Joan, a cook. Father unknown. Entered British service from grammar school through immediate postwar exigency, when they were short and recruitment was easy. Active field agent until five years ago. Realised I was being set up by my own service as a decoy during an entrapment operation involving your own General Berenkov, who for many years ran an active cell in London and whose arrest I led. So I taught the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds a lesson and made it possible for your people to seize the British Director who should never have been Director anyway and arrange an exchange for Berenkov ...' Charlie paused, aware of the carelessness of the recital. He said, 'Most if not all of which should be in that folder in front of you because I know the sort of records you keep and I was, after all, personally involved with Berenkov and with your current chairman, General Kalenin ...'