Here Comes Charlie M

by Brian Freemantle

  “You’re quite sure?” demanded Onslow Smith urgently. The American Director, whom he had had to tell in advance of the meeting, was a large open-faced man who seemed constantly restricted within the confines of an office chair, business suit and subdued tie. As if in apologetic explanation for his build, the wall behind his desk was patterned with sports pennants, shields and group pictures of the Yale rowing and boxing teams. The Onslow Smith smile was featured in all.

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Wilberforce, keeping the exhilaration from his voice. ‘We’ve caught Charlie Muffin.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Smith distantly. ‘It’s about goddamn time.’

  Appearing suddenly aware that the remark could be construed as criticism, he added quickly: ‘Congratulations.’

  Wilberforce’s shrug of uncaring dismissal was perfect.

  ‘And now can we kill him?’ demanded Garson Ruttgers.

  Wilberforce came up from the pipe at which he had already begun probing, staring at the diminutive, frail-seeming American whose ambition to become, as chief of the C.I.A., what Edgar Hoover had been to the F.B.I., had been destroyed by Charlie Muffin. Ruttgers was an unsettling feature of the group, thought Wilberforce, watching the man light a cigarette from the stump of that which had preceded it, never once breaking the staring-eyed gaze across the table through clerk-like, half-lens spectacles. About Ruttgers there was an aura of unpredictability, thought the Briton. And something else. The man physically frightened him, Wilberforce realised, surprised.

  ‘It’s not quite as easy as that,’ he said guardedly.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Ruttgers.

  The constant inhalation of nicotine had turned the man’s false teeth yellow. Why, wondered Wilberforce, didn’t the American soak the dentures in stain remover? His breath must smell appallingly.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  The repeated question in the unpleasantly recognisable, phlegmy tone, came from Wilberforce’s right and he turned to Sir Henry Cuthbertson. The baronet was a bulky, cumbersome man proud of family links that went back to the service of James I, who had conferred the original baronetcy. He’d earned the D.S.O. in the Second World War and been seconded from the Chief of Staff council to revitalise Britain’s intelligence system after the fading, twenty-five-year directorship of Sir Archibald Willoughby. And lost the job in less than a year. Four hundred years of honour wrecked in a few short months by a scruffy ex-grammar school boy with an irritating Mancunian accent and the distressing tendency not to change his shirt every day, reflected Wilberforce.

  It was hardly surprising Cuthbertson and Ruttgers wanted Charlie Muffin’s immediate assassination, thought Wilberforce. But neither had operated under the new governments. Or knew – because nobody knew – of Wilberforce’s determination to make Charlie Muffin’s capture a personal triumph.

  ‘Because there mustn’t be any mistake,’ said the British Director simply.

  ‘No,’ agreed Onslow Smith hurriedly. ‘No mistakes.’

  To be convinced, the feelings of the two older men would have to be bruised, realised Wilberforce.

  ‘Let’s not forget,’ he said, ‘that the errors made with Charlie Muffin in the past were absolutely horrifying.’

  Ruttgers and Sir Henry shifted, both discomforted at the prospect of being reminded.

  ‘Four years ago,’ said Wilberforce, ‘the British uncovered in Europe the most successful Russian infiltration of NATO since the Second World War. The man who led their operation, Alexei Berenkov, was jailed for forty years. It was one of the worst disasters ever suffered by the Russians – so grave, in fact, that it came as little surprise to either America or Britain to learn, as they did within a year, that Valery Kalenin, operational chief of the K.G.B., wanted to flee for asylum to the West …’

  ‘We’re all aware of the history,’ said Ruttgers, in an attempt to halt the other man.

  ‘And now we must put it in proper perspective,’ insisted Wilberforce. ‘It was a deceit. A deceit conceived and operated by Charlie Muffin, working not for the British intelligence organisation that employed him, but with Kalenin. A deceit to expose not just ordinary agents, but the British and American Directors; for them to be seized and offered in exchange for the repatriation of Alexei Berenkov.’

  The embarrassment, recalled Wilberforce, had been incredible after that numbing evening in the C.I.A. ‘safe’ house in Vienna when Kalenin had arrived not nervous and alone, as they had expected, but followed by a Russian commando team who had carried Ruttgers and Cuthbertson back across the Czechoslovakian border. Charlie Muffin had shown a surprising knowledge of psychology, judging the ambition of both men would drive them to such close involvement. Upon reflection, it seemed lunacy. He hadn’t thought so at the time, though. That was something else ho one was ever going to learn.

  ‘The man is a traitor,’ insisted Ruttgers. ‘So he should be shot.’

  ‘A traitor,’ agreed Wilberforce. Legally so, he qualified. But aware as he was – and as Charlie Muffin had certainly been – that Cuthbertson had decided he could be abandoned at the East German border in the final stages of the Berenkov seizure, Wilberforce found the accusation difficult. Another reservation, never admitted to anyone. Any more than it had ever been admitted that it had been Charlie who had co-ordinated Berenkov’s capture, fitting together the disparate jigsaw so cleverly that not only Berenkov but nearly everyone in the European cell was caught. Charlie, who had deserved first praise and then acceptance within the reorganised department Sir Henry was establishing. And who instead had realised that he had been selected for sacrifice in the final stages. Sir Henry would never concede he had decided Charlie should die, of course. Convenient amnesia wasn’t a new affliction in the department.

  ‘But a traitor who should not be allowed to cause further embarrassments to either government,’ Wilberforce added.

  The irritation of Ruttgers and Cuthbertson was increasing, Wilberforce saw. The American fussily lighted yet another cigarette and the British baron twisted the family-crested ring on the little finger of his left hand as if seeking solace in a talisman of his family’s greatness.

  ‘That’s vitally important,’ said Onslow Smith, once more in immediate agreement.

  ‘And we couldn’t guarantee that by a simple elimination,’ declared Wilberforce. The American Director was definitely deferring to him, he decided.

  ‘Why not?’ demanded an unconvinced Ruttgers.

  ‘To start with,’ said Wilberforce, ‘because he isn’t in England. He was, very briefly. That’s where we picked him up and from where we followed him back to Zürich.’

  ‘I don’t see the problem,’ argued Cuthbertson. ‘What’s wrong with killing the man in Switzerland?’

  The British Director sighed. They were very obtuse, he thought. But then, they hadn’t considered the long-term advantages as he had.

  ‘Initially,’ he said, ‘the problem is risking an assassination in a country other than our own, where we could not ensure complete co-operation of the civil authorities.’

  ‘We’ve done it dozens of times before,’ disputed Ruttgers.

  ‘Maybe so,’ agreed Wilberforce. ‘But not so soon after your President and my Prime Minister have pledged, publicly, that theirs are going to be open governments, free from unnecessary criticism.’

  He paused. They still weren’t accepting the reasoning, he knew.

  ‘But more importantly,’ he started again, ‘we can’t kill Charlie Muffin without knowing whether he has established any automatic release of information from, say, a bank vault that would compound the difficulties he has already caused. Don’t forget how devious the damned man is.’

  ‘There’s no way we could do that, for Christ’s sake,’ objected Ruttgers.

  ‘Oh, yes there is,’ said Wilberforce, smiling. ‘And it’s the way to ensure that Charlie Muffin comes back to England like an obedient dog answering a whistle.’

  He was going to enjoy himself, decided Wilberforce. Enjoy him
self very much indeed.

  Johnny Packer, who was never to learn the real reason for his good fortune or how closely his life was so very briefly to become linked with a man called Charlie Muffin, decided that the party to celebrate his release from Parkhurst was exactly right. Far better than he could have expected, in fact. He’d ruled there wouldn’t be any rubbish, no amateur tearaways in their flash suits and cannonballs of money where the other sort should have been, to impress whatever slag they were trying to pull that night. But he hadn’t been able to guarantee who would come. And that was the value of the party, showing how well he was regarded. Everyone was there, he saw. Everyone who mattered, anyway. Harry Rich, the soft-voiced Irishman, who’d personally put two people into the supports of the M-4 flyover while the concrete was still wet and was now the undisputed controller of the East End as far west as Farringdon Street; Herbie Pie, who had wept – though from pleasure, not remorse – carving the faces and the Achilles tendons during the last confrontation in Soho and now giggled at the rehearsed joke and said he had the whole place stitched up; even Andie Smythe, who rarely came this far east, silk-suited, smooth-haired and shiny-faced, looking always as if he’d been polished all over with a soft cloth before setting out for the nightly tours of the Mayfair casinos to receive what was rightfully his for ensuring that the unloading of the innocent was never violently interrupted.

  Like an actor in a long-running play aware of his spot on stage at any one moment, Johnny stood stiffly in his two-day-old suit, away from the bar that had been erected in the upstairs room of The Thistle, nodding and smiling to everyone but getting involved in no prolonged conversation.

  The positioning was decreed by the rules of such gatherings, as formalised as the steps of a medieval dance or the mating rituals of some species of African birds.

  It was Herbie who broke away from the group, the appointed spokesman.

  ‘Good to see you out, Johnny.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Pie. Nice of everyone to come.’

  ‘Always happy to come to such functions. Specially when it’s kept to the right people.’

  Johnny sighed at the reminder of why he had served five years in Parkhurst.

  ‘No more amateurs who can’t stop boasting about what they’ve done,’ he promised.

  ‘Hope not, Johnny,’ said Pie. ‘Craftsmen like you shouldn’t take risks.’

  And he wouldn’t, any more, thought Johnny. If he were caught again through not taking sufficient care about the people he was working with, he’d go down for ten. Maybe longer.

  ‘Any plans, Johnny?’ enquired the other man.

  ‘I’m in no hurry, Mr Pie. Got to get myself together first.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Still got the little house in Wimbledon?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Johnny. ‘Neighbours think I’ve been working on a five-year contract in Saudi Arabia.’

  Pie nodded again, the encounter concluded. Everything was to a formula, even the apparent small talk.

  ‘So should anyone want you, they could contact you there?’

  ‘Any time,’ Johnny assured him, keeping the hope from his voice. ‘Any time.’

  ‘And no amateurs this time?’

  ‘No amateurs,’ promised Johnny.

  A clear enough warning, Johnny decided. The repeated criticism meant they still doubted him. So no one would be visiting Wimbledon until he’d proved himself again, no matter if he were one of the three top safecrackers in London. He’d have to do something pretty remarkable to recover, he decided.

  ‘I think you’ll like it,’ said Onslow Smith.

  Wilberforce sipped the wine, nodding appreciatively. The other man was unquestionably accepting his leadership, he decided, gratified.

  ‘Not French,’ he judged.

  ‘Californian,’ agreed the American Director.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Wilberforce. Surrounding himself with sports mementoes was all part of a carefully maintained affectation on Smith’s part, decided the other Director generously, an invitation for people to imagine his thinking and intelligence as muscled as his body. Which would have been a mistake. Smith’s decision to involve Ruttgers in the meeting that morning, just as he had included Cuthbertson, showed they were both aware of the dangers of the operation upon which they were embarking. And were taking out insurance. Both he and Smith could afford to be magnanimous in the vengeance hunt; if it were successful, then both would gain sufficient credit because of their association, while the two men worst affected would salvage something of their reputations. But if anything went wrong, then the fault could be hopefully offloaded on to those already disgraced. Perhaps that was why Smith was letting him take the lead, he thought fleetingly.

  ‘It is a bank, isn’t it?’ guessed the American, suddenly.

  Wilberforce smiled. Definitely very intelligent.

  ‘What made you realise that?’

  ‘When Charlie Muffin walked out of the house in Vienna, leaving Ruttgers and Cuthbertson to be grabbed, he took with him $500,000 we’d provided in the belief it was what Kalenin wanted to cross over. But you didn’t mention the money this morning. So you must know where he’s hiding it … along with anything else that might embarrass us.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Wilberforce. ‘It’s a bank. And I know which one.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We picked him up in a cemetery. Eventually he went to a house in Brighton, where he collected a woman we’ve since identified as his wife. It was obviously a house they’d had for some time. From the voters’ register we got the name they had assumed. From then on, it was merely a routine job of having a team of men posing as credit inspectors calling up all the banks in the area until we found an account. We didn’t expect a safe deposit, though … that’s what has made me worry he might have tried to protect himself with some documents.’

  Wilberforce paused. Just like the drunken sot of a previous Director, Sir Archibald Willoughby, had tried to do. He hadn’t succeeded, though: they’d sealed up that difficulty just as they’d erase this if it existed.

  The American added more wine to both their glasses.

  ‘You know something that surprises me?’

  ‘What?’ asked Wilberforce.

  ‘That Charlie Muffin didn’t go to Russia. He’d have been welcome enough there, for God’s sake.’

  Wilberforce sighed. It was increasingly obvious, he thought, why it would have to be he who initiated everything in this operation.

  ‘But Russia is the last place he would have gone,’ he tried to explain. ‘Charlie Muffin wouldn’t have regarded what he did as helping Russia. Any more than he would think of it, initially anyway, of being traitorous to Britain or America.’

  Onslow Smith frowned curiously at the other man.

  ‘What the hell was it then?’

  ‘Charlie Muffin fighting back,’ said Wilberforce. ‘When he realised we were prepared to let him die.’

  ‘This isn’t going to be easy, is it?’ said Smith thoughtfully.

  ‘No,’ said Wilberforce. ‘But it’s the only way we can guarantee there won’t be problems.’

  ‘And it’s necessary for us to be personally involved, potentially dangerous as it is?’

  He seemed to be seeking reassurances, thought Wilberforce.

  ‘There’s no one else we could trust with it.’

  Onslow Smith nodded, slowly.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ he accepted.

  He smiled uncertainly.

  ‘I bet the President never had this in mind when he promised to correct mistakes with the utmost vigour,’ mused the American.

  ‘But that’s exactly what we’re doing,’ encouraged Wilberforce. ‘But neither he nor the Prime Minister will ever appreciate it.’

  ‘If they did know,’ said Smith, ‘they’d be damned scared. Tell me, George, are you frightened?’

  ‘Properly apprehensive,’ answered Wilberforce evasively. Somehow, he had decided, the British Premier would learn what
had been done for him. When it was all safely concluded, of course.

  The C.I.A. Director smiled across the table.

  ‘I’m scared,’ he admitted. ‘I’m damned scared.’

  SEVEN

  He wasn’t asleep, Edith knew. Any more than he had been the previous night at this time, just before dawn. Or the night before that. Any night, in fact, since the cemetery incident.

  She breathed deeply, hoping Charlie wouldn’t realise she was awake and start talking. If they talked, they’d row. It was too late for rows. And anyway, Charlie’s response would be to fight back. Survival, he called it. She sighed, maintaining the pretence of sleep. The need to survive: Charlie’s panacea for anything unpalatable.

  She became annoyed with herself, recognising the criticism. She had no right to think like that, she thought. No right at all. They had decided that Charlie was a disposable embarrassment, someone who could be dumped because he didn’t have the right accent or public school tie and was a remnant from another, discredited era. So he had had every justification for what he had done. Justification on the filthy terms within which they operated, anyway.

  If only Charlie hadn’t stopped believing that. Poor Charlie. No matter what explanation or reasoning he advanced, he could never lose the feeling of remorse that had grown during the last year. Misplaced remorse, she thought. Because Charlie Muffin wasn’t a traitor. An opportunist, she accepted. Amoral, too. Worryingly so. But no traitor. He couldn’t dislodge the doubt, though. Perhaps he never would. And from that uncertainty, all the others had grown. And the drinking. Perhaps the drinking most of all. The churchyard mistake had certainly been through booze.

  And all the others, before. At least that had stopped, after the latest scare. Odd how real fear made him abandon alcohol. Survival again, she supposed.

  ‘How long have you been awake?

  She turned at his question, discarding the charade of sleep.

  ‘Quite a while. You?’

  ‘Quite a while.’

  ‘I still wish you wouldn’t go.’