Comrade Charlie

by Brian Freemantle

  She could defect, Natalia realized suddenly. Properly defect, like other people had before her. Let herself be sucked into the system of debriefing and interrogation that she’d told Charlie she wouldn’t do. But bargain, in return, demand to know what had happened to him and to be allowed to see him, to be with him again. She started to tremble and had to hold herself again. It had taken every ounce of courage she could find to get this far: she didn’t think she could do any more, endure the suspicion and hostility there would be, until she got back to Charlie. And she wasn’t a defector, Natalia told herself: couldn’t be. Defectors were traitors, people who hated their country, and she wasn’t that. And there was another bar, one she’d stopped herself so far considering. What if Charlie had changed his mind: decided from their brief time at the hotel that Moscow had been a mistake and that he couldn’t go on with the charade? He hadn’t been able to make love to her that last night, had he? Hadn’t wanted to. She’d only defect properly if she were guaranteed to see him again. And there was no way she could get that guarantee: no way she could know – really know – that he wanted her.

  I’ll learn echoed in Charlie’s mind again, like a mocking taunt. There was something else she could learn, by being there today. Charlie knew the Russians had seen his arrest: one of the vehicles he’d identified from its registration number had been parked further along the street, nearer the Bayswater Road, when it all happened. But they’d like to know what happened afterwards; get some idea whether their entrapment had been completely successful or whether it had failed – as it had failed – for some reason they had been unable to anticipate. His approaching Natalia would tell them that. All it needed was for there to be some continuing observation of Natalia, the knowing bait – observation that could be a long way off even and be impossible for him to isolate this time – and they’d know. It could be the simplest but surest indicator they could possibly have, the entire reason for her being there. Their absolute, final insurance.

  He couldn’t watch any longer, Charlie decided. Didn’t want to watch any longer. There were too many incongruities, too much that didn’t have a logical, acceptable explanation. He’d gone along with it like he’d run hare to the Soviet surveillance, always suspecting Natalia to be part of it but hoping she wasn’t, letting himself be deluded for a while because he’d wanted to be deluded. Which hadn’t been hard because their nights at the hotel had been perfect and it had seemed that she did love him. But he couldn’t allow the delusion to continue any longer. It had to end. Now. All over. Charlie’s last sight of Natalia Nikandrova Fedova was of her standing with her arms across her body, as if she were cold. He turned, walking across the store, towards a far exit.

  Charlie wasn’t going to come, Natalia finally accepted. She’d waited long enough – too long – and now she had to hurry to get back to the others, to protect herself. That was all that mattered now, just protecting herself. She’d have to concoct some story of becoming bewildered, lost: of being glad that she’d found them at last. Bondarev would probably be suspicious but she would have come back so that’s all he could be, just suspicious. It was difficult for her to care – properly to care – anyway, Natalia thought, hurriedly re-entering the store. Why hadn’t Charlie come! She’d never know, Natalia realized: never be able to find out. She’d been so sure, too. So very sure that Charlie had loved her.

  Berenkov panicked now.

  Blind panic initially, his mind refusing to function which had never happened before, not even in England when he’d realized his arrest had been inevitable. He’d refused at first to believe the Technical Division report that the film was fogged and insisted on crossing to the department himself to be shown it under darkroom conditions, ordering that they try to develop some prints off it before at last conceding it was useless. It was then that Berenkov started to think, forcing himself to calculate and consider because it was important that he understand. Yevgennie Zazulin was a professional, an expert and none of the other films had been spoiled, and Berenkov’s first demand was to know if the damage were accidental or whether the diplomatic bag had been tampered with. The technical experts showed him the slight distortion of the cassette and judged it sufficient to have admitted the erasing light. They also reminded Berenkov of the destruct device which prevented the unauthorized entry into the diplomatic bag and assured him the seal had been intact when it arrived.

  Back in his office Berenkov had consciously to force himself to think rationally and not let the fears jumble his reasoning. The one drawing that mattered! The only one for which there was not a drawn or photographic duplicate! Yuri Guzins’ responsibility, Berenkov thought bitterly: it had been the space scientist’s decision to withhold it. Would it not have been so disastrous in every other way he’d have hoped the interfering bastard be put on trial and jailed for a hundred years, without any possibility of getting out. Stupid reflection, recognized Berenkov, self-critical. He had to survive: escape censure. And there would be censure – more than likely dismissal and the punishable accusation of unprofessional negligence – if it were ever discovered, suspected even, that he’d seeded a trap in a minor, personally motivated operation with the one drawing they were missing.

  There was still a chance, Berenkov decided frantically. He knew the safe custody facility in King William Street hadn’t yet been cleared by the investigating British, because of course he’d ordered the closest observation to tell him everything had succeeded against Charlie Muffin. Now that wasn’t important any more. The operation – the attack – upon Charlie Muffin had to be abandoned, forgotten if necessary. Only one thing was important now: recovering the drawing.

  Berenkov sent his instructions, specifically entrusting Vitali Losev with the task of emptying the King William Street box, within two hours of learning that the film cassette was useless.

  Losev went nervously. He knew there had been no formal protest yet to the Soviet embassy but it was impossible to assess how fast or in what direction the British investigation was proceeding. What he did know was that King William Street had been set up for the British to discover and that there was a very real risk of his walking into a trap of his own creation.

  He was extremely careful approaching the security firm’s offices, scouring the street and overlooking buildings for the slightest indication of surveillance but not finding it. He entered at last and asked for the box, every moment expecting an authoritative challenge or an arresting hand upon his shoulder. It was as quick to empty the box as it had been earlier to fill it, a matter of seconds, and then he was outside again, still without any interception. Knowing it could still happen – that the British would most likely have waited for him to get something incriminating in his possession before moving at all – Losev remained twitchingly tense. He’d intended recrossing London by underground but when the time came he decided against it, wanting the security of being enclosed and alone rather than to be among a lot of other people. He hailed a taxi and asked for Notting Hill Gate, leaving himself with just a short walk into Kensington Palace Gardens and the embassy.

  Losev travelled alert to every vehicle around them on the jammed London streets, only starting to relax when they came close to Hyde Park. He walked hurriedly into the diplomatic enclave after paying off the cab, letting the breath gush from him when he pushed closed the side door admitting him to the embassy and the protection of what was officially regarded as Russian territory, where his safety was guaranteed.

  Throughout the visit to King William Street, the recovery of the drawing and his return across London, Losev had been constantly monitored by British intelligence officers.

  47

  It was a week before Charlie was called to the ninth floor, a week during which he was forbidden to go anywhere near his Vauxhall flat but had to live in a department-owned house in Hampstead and was required, each succeeding day, to build up in the minutest detail a report upon everything he had done from the moment he’d detected the Soviet surveillance on the Isle of Wig
ht. There were two interviews with the executives from the department’s internal security division, hostile, antagonistic encounters with men who considered Charlie had exposed the inadequacies and failings of their colleagues and were determined to catch him out and find cause for some internal disciplining. Charlie didn’t believe they did, to any degree of seriousness, but was in any case hardly concerned. He obeyed the instructions and endured the interrogations but existed through it all in a slough of crushing despondency, his mind and feelings absorbed to the exclusion of anything else by that morning at the department store window, gazing down upon Natalia for the last time. He’d hesitated that day, at the moment of leaving the store, all the conflicting reasoning and common-sense decisions wiped out, his sole, overwhelming desire abruptly to run back and get to her. For several moments he’d remained just inside one of the exit doors, almost literally pulled in opposing directions. He’d fought against the yearning and carried on, quitting the place, but since then, every day and every night, he’d thought about nothing else, mentally rearranging the arguments, trying to reach – pointless though that would now be – a resolve different from that he’d made.

  During the week the office across the corridor normally occupied by Hubert Witherspoon had remained empty and there had been no contact or communication from Richard St John Harkness, which Charlie had half expected but did not regret failing to receive.

  He was curious, when he received the ninth-floor demand, if at last it was to be confronted by Harkness: the interview request was illegibly signed pour procurationem on Director General notepaper but during Sir Alistair Wilson’s absence Harkness had frequently used it, according himself the promotion that had never occurred in reality.

  But it hadn’t come from Harkness. At the reestablished security counter on the ninth floor he was collected by the primly permed Miss Harriet Jameson-Gore, Wilson’s personal secretary who had been in temporary charge of the typing pool during the Director General’s illness and escorted by her to the old man’s office, where Wilson was waiting. Wilson was by the window, where the sill was just the right height for him to perch and take the pressure off his leg without actually sitting down. There were two vases of pink parfait roses on the man’s desk, filling the room with their scent. Growing roses at his Hampshire home was Wilson’s overriding hobby: oddly it was the presence of the flowers, more than Wilson being there to receive him, that told Charlie the man was back permanently in control. Charlie still didn’t think the older man looked completely fit.

  Wilson gestured Charlie towards the sagging visitor’s chair that had been absent during Harkness’ tenure, a scored and stained leather thing with a seat that kept descending after a person sat in it. Without extending any invitation the Director General poured Islay malt into two tumblers, which he held before him for examination and then added more whisky to both.

  He handed one to Charlie and said: ‘I’ve got the report from internal security. And their recommendations. They’ve itemized eight positive breaches and recommend your severe reprimand and that those reprimands be logged on your service record.’

  They’d have been pissed off at that being the best – or rather the worst – that they could do, Charlie knew. He said: ‘I suppose that’s about right.’

  ‘I’ll say it again,’ remarked Wilson. ‘You behaved like a bloody fool. An absolute bloody fool.’

  ‘Yes,’ accepted Charlie meekly. He didn’t accept it at all but now was not the time to argue, sitting there with a glass of the Director General’s whisky in his hand.

  Wilson propped himself at the window again, gazing into his drink. ‘Did she turn up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘She appeared to be. It was impossible in surroundings like that to be absolutely sure.’

  ‘Why didn’t you make the contact?’

  ‘It wasn’t right,’ said Charlie. ‘She had to know.’

  Wilson nodded, in agreement. ‘I would have thought so. We could be wrong, of course, but I doubt it…’ He looked up from his glass. ‘Was it important to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Charlie at once. ‘Very important.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry. Personally sorry, I mean.’

  Charlie shrugged, not immediately speaking. Then he said: ‘Whatever the full story, I had to allow the doubt.’

  ‘Let’s move on,’ said Wilson briskly. ‘There are other things that need to be discussed. I’ve read your account…’

  ‘Yes?’ said Charlie inquiringly.

  ‘My impression is that it is completely honest.’

  ‘It is,’ assured Charlie.

  ‘Then be honest about something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you intentionally embark, before the Isle of Wight business, to set up the deputy Director General or Hubert Witherspoon?’ demanded Wilson. ‘Create situations – aware as you were of certain personal feelings concerning you – that would lead them to overstep the mark perhaps?’

  Charlie stared directly across at the other man, holding his eyes. ‘No, sir,’ he lied, ‘I did not.’

  Wilson gazed back, matching Charlie’s look just as directly. There were several moments of silence. Wilson said: ‘I want your assurance on this. You are being utterly truthful about that?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ said Charlie, feeling no discomfort.

  Wilson nodded three or four times, quite slowly, and made a sound as if he were humming to himself. He said: ‘There were some serious management mistakes. The credibility of the department has been called into question.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Charlie. He still felt no discomfort. Remorse, either. The bastards wouldn’t have felt anything for him, if they’d caught him out in the beginning or if the Soviet manipulation had turned out differently. They’d have been out somewhere celebrating by now, two glasses of lemonade and lots of self-satisfied back-slapping about how clever they’d been, ridding the department of an embarrassing oddity called Charlie Muffin.

  ‘It’s been decided there should be certain changes,’ disclosed Wilson. ‘Mr Harkness is being appointed Finance Director.’

  It was difficult for Charlie to remain straightfaced. No longer deputy Director General! Charlie had never expected that: imagined trying to achieve it, even, because he wouldn’t have thought it possible. And it wouldn’t have been, not from what he’d done, he recognized objectively. Their overreaction, their embarrassing mistakes, had been related to what they were fed by Moscow. His part in their downfall had been to expose the Soviet manoeuvre for what it was. He said: ‘Who is the new deputy Director General going to be?’

  ‘That’s still to be decided,’ refused Wilson.

  ‘And Witherspoon?’

  ‘Administration,’ said Wilson vaguely. ‘He will no longer be maintained on the active roster.’

  Charlie supposed he should feel some satisfaction – be grateful at least that his two most active critics in the place had been dumped at the same time – but he didn’t. Somehow it now seemed quite unimportant. He said: ‘What about me? Is any change to be made to my role here?’

  Wilson’s face relaxed, into something of a smile. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Nothing at all. But I want you to listen, very carefully. Don’t you ever take so many chances again: try to run everything like a one-man army. It’s an absolute bloody miracle that things did not turn out to be a bigger disaster than they were: a miracle that the whole Russian scheme didn’t get you sent away for more years than you’ve got left to live.’

  ‘What has happened?’ asked Charlie.

  Wilson gave an uncertain movement with his hand. ‘One of the many things we’ll never know is why they held back the film roll of the drawing they planted in King William Street. We can only thank Christ that they did and we were able to destroy it. We know they retrieved what we put there because we followed Losev every step of the way. Now all we can do is sit and pray, which is hardly enough but all there is. There’s been a lot of dire
ct telephone conversations between the President and the Prime Minister. Between the American directors and myself, as well. No one believes it’s going to work; that it stands a chance in hell.’

  ‘What about the people rounded up from the safe house?’

  ‘There’s a lot of squabbling over that. America is pressing for a full-blown spy trial: certainly they want to sweat every drop they can out of the scientist. His name turns out to be Yuri Guzins, incidentally: we traced him from some photographs taken at the Soviet installation at Baikonur.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘Guzins is tempting: bloody tempting,’ said Wilson. ‘The other two don’t matter. I’d prefer to have Obyedkov expelled: usual grounds about activities not in keeping with his supposed diplomatic status. The other one too, for entering on a false passport. The FBI have identified him as Alexandr Petrin. He’s based in the Soviet consulate in San Francisco. Washington take that as positive confirmation that Krogh’s leaked everything there is to tell about the work his company were doing.’

  ‘What about Krogh?’

  ‘That’s what really angers the Americans,’ disclosed Wilson. ‘There’s been a second operation and there doesn’t seem to be any doubt there’s permanent and severe brain damage. He can’t talk even if he wanted to. Seems it’ll never be possible to bring him to trial.’

  ‘So who’s going to get their way?’ pressed Charlie.