The Run Around cm-8

by Brian Freemantle

  His speed was reduced when he had to quit the motorway for the minor road going to Pulborough but he was still ahead of the appointed time so he stopped at a pub promising home cooked food, deciding that if it served anything like he cooked at home he wouldn’t bother. It wasn’t. Instead of his customary Islay malt he chose beer, which was drawn from the wood, and ordered crisply baked bread and fresh pickles and tangy cheese and carried it all out to a table and bench which a craftsman had clearly spent hours fashioning to appear as something that had been knocked up in minutes by a child with a Christmas gift carpentry set. All around geraniums blazed from tubs and window boxes and there was a dovecot for real birds which commuted between it and the thatched roof of the pub. Charlie identified it as just the sort of place to which people drove for those Saturday lunchtime sessions, wearing cravats tucked into checked shirts and cavalry twill trousers and suede shoes and complained that the English cricket selectors didn’t have a damned clue, did they? Charlie stretched his feet out before him. At least he had the suede shoes. And they looked bloody marvellous after the going-over he’d given them, for the meeting with the bank manager. Last another year at least: maybe longer, if he were careful. It was always important to be careful, about his Hush Puppies. Took a long time to break them in properly: had to be moulded, like a sculptor moulded his clay. What was the saying about feet of clay? Charlie couldn’t remember precisely but it didn’t apply to him anyway. His feet usually felt as if he were walking on that other stuff sculptors worked with, hard and sharp.

  He used the car radio system to advise the gatehouse of his imminent arrival, so they were waiting for him when he pulled into the driveway of the house, about five miles outside of the town. The first man wore an unidentifiable but official-looking uniform and was posted at what appeared to be the proper gate, a huge and secured affair with a crest on top. His function — apart simply from opening the gate — was to deter casually enquiring or wrongly directed strangers. The real checks came at the guard post out of sight of the road, where the electronic surveillance began and where the guard staff were armed. Charlie presented his documentation and stood obediently for his photograph to be taken and checked by one of those electronic systems not just against the picture on his pass but against the film records to which it was linked in London.

  One of the guards, who knew Charlie from other debriefings at other safe houses, nodded to his bank manager’s outfit of the previous day and said: ‘Dressed up for this one, then?’

  ‘I like to make an effort,’ said Charlie.

  He continued slowly up the winding drive, locating some of the electronic checks and cameras and sensors but knowing there were others he missed. The drive was lined either side by thick rhododendron and Charlie regretted they were not in bloom; it would have been quite a sight.

  The driveway opened on to a huge gravelled forecourt, with a grassed centrepiece in the middle of which was a fountain with nymphs spitting water at each other. The house was a square, Georgian structure, the front almost completely covered with creeper and ivy. Charlie parked to one side and as he walked towards the carved oak door he wondered what the reaction of the British taxpayer would be to knowing how much they shelled out each year, maintaining places like this. Charlie had carried out defector interviews in at least six, all in different parts of the country but all equally grand and expensive. The need for the Establishment always to be well established, he decided, particularly if some other unsuspecting bloke is picking up the bill. Shit, thought Charlie, reminded too late: he’d forgotten to get a receipt for the pub lunch.

  The door opened before he reached it but Hubert Witherspoon did not come forward to meet him.

  ‘There you are!’ greeted Charlie. ‘I was worried about you: thought you’d done a header wearing your best trainers.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Witherspoon. He was a tall, languid man who had trouble with a flick of hair that strayed permanently over his left eye. He wore an immaculate grey suit, hard-collared shirt and a school tie. Stowe, Charlie recognized.

  ‘Nothing,’ dismissed Charlie. ‘So you’ve been debriefing?’

  ‘Took over a month ago. And very successfully,’ insisted the man. ‘I asked who was coming down today but London didn’t reply.’

  ‘Perhaps they wanted it to be a surprise.’

  ‘Are you to take over now?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Charlie. ‘Just the assassination.’

  ‘London has got all there is on that,’ said Witherspoon, in further insistence. ‘There’s nothing more.’

  ‘That came out at one of your sessions?’

  ‘I said it was a successful debrief, didn’t I?’

  ‘What did you do about it?’

  ‘Told London immediately, of course.’

  ‘That all?’

  ‘What else would you expert me to do?’

  Not behave like a prat, thought Charlie. It wasn’t worth an argument; be unfair in fact. Instead of replying, Charlie said: ‘Tell me about Novikov.’

  ‘Everything points to his being genuine,’ said Witherspoon. ‘Handled a lot of important stuff, right up to Kremlin level. And he’s got a damned good recall, so he’s going to be a very productive gold-mine for a long time. Hates Russia, for the reasons set out in the report, so he’s anxious to co-operate. There’s already been a request for access, from the CIA.’

  ‘I bet there has,’ said Charlie.

  ‘How long do you think you’ll be?’ asked Witherspoon.

  ‘How the hell should I know?’ said Charlie. ‘As long as it takes.’

  ‘Thought I might cut away for a round of golf,’ said Witherspoon. ‘There’s a jolly good course the other side of Pulborough.’

  ‘You don’t want to sit in?’ asked Charlie, surprised the man entrusted with the overall debrief didn’t want a comparison with Novikov’s replies, against those to another questioner. Charlie would have jumped at the opportunity, in reversed circumstances.

  ‘I told you, I’ve already covered the assassination,’ said Witherspoon.

  ‘So you did.’

  ‘Unless you’d like my assistance, of course.’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ assured Charlie. Some people were beyond help, he thought.

  Vladimir Novikov was waiting in what Charlie supposed was called the drawing room. It was very large and at the side of the house, with huge windows and French doors leading out on to a paved verandah beyond which was a view of lawns and long-ago planted trees whose branches now drooped to the ground, as if they were tired from holding them out for such a long time. An intricately patterned carpet protected most of the wood-tiled floor and the furnishings, two long couches, with six easy chairs, were all chintz-covered. There were flowers on two tables and an expansive arrangement in a fireplace the mantelpiece of which was higher than Charlie’s head. The Russian seemed to fit easily into such surroundings. He was tall, easily more than six feet, and heavy as well, bull-chested and thick around the waist. His size was accentuated by the thick black beard he wore in the style of the Russia he was supposed to despise, flowing to cover his neck and tufted where it had never been trimmed. The suit was clean but appeared worn, shiny at the elbows, the lapels curling inwards from constant wear. His suit had bent like that, until he’d had it cleaned for the bank meeting, recalled Charlie. He guessed it would collapse again, in a few days. It usually did.

  The Russian stood, as Charlie moved further into the room, but from the stance Charlie decided it was more a gesture of politeness than nervousness.

  ‘Mr Witherspoon said I would be seeing someone else today,’ said Novikov.

  The man’s voice matched his frame, deep and resonant, but that was not Charlie’s immediate thought. Witherspoon was a bloody fool, disclosing his real identity. Charlie said: ‘Just one or two points. Finer detail, really.’

  ‘I will do everything I can to help,’ said the Russian.

  ‘So I have been told,’ said Charlie, gesturing th
e man back on to the couch he’d been occupying when he entered. For himself he chose one of the easy chairs, slightly to one side.

  ‘What is it particularly interests you?’ asked Novikov.

  Dance around a bit first, thought Charlie. He said: ‘You were making plans to defect, in Moscow?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I was leaving that to my control at the British embassy: the military attache, George Gale. Waiting for him to tell me what to do.’

  Charlie wondered if that were the man’s real name, as well. Silly buggers might as well hand out visiting cards, with spying listed as their occupation. He said: ‘Why?’

  ‘I believed I was under suspicion.’

  ‘Why?’ repeated Charlie. He decided his initial impression was correct. There was no nervousness about the man, which there usually was with defectors, caused by natural uncertainty. Novikov appeared actually confident and relaxed.

  ‘You know I was security cleared to the highest level?’ said the man.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In the last few weeks I was only allocated low level material, the sort of stuff ordinary clerks could handle. I was not an ordinary clerk.’

  And I bet you never let anyone forget it, thought Charlie. He said: ‘But it was only suspicion? You had no actual proof?’

  ‘If there had been any actual proof I would have been arrested, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ agreed Charlie, content for the man to patronize and imagine he was in the commanding role. The sessions with Witherspoon would have been something to witness. He said: ‘So what happened?’

  ‘One day I was unwell: went home early. I found someone in my apartment. He went out a rear window as I opened the door and it was dismissed by the KGB militia as an attempted burglary but I knew it was not.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Precisely because attempted burglaries at the homes of senior KGB cipher clerks are never dismissed,’ said Novikov.

  It was a convincing point, accepted Charlie. He said: ‘What do you think it was?’

  ‘A search, perhaps. Or technicians installing listening devices. Most likely both.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I had an emergency contact system arranged with Major Gale,’ recounted the man. ‘I telephoned him at the embassy from an untraceable call box and said I could not keep our appointment — that was the code phrase, I cannot keep our appointment — and that told him to go to another untraceable call box so that we could speak between the two without the risk of our conversation being intercepted. I said I had to cross at once and he agreed.’

  ‘The Finnish crossing could not have been arranged just like that,’ challenged Charlie, at once.

  ‘Mr Witherspoon did not question the point.’

  It was automatic for this encounter, like every other, to be recorded: there was actually a simultaneous replay facility to London. If that remark got the careless little prick censured then too bad, decided Charlie. The rules and regulations by which Witherspoon existed were no more than guidelines, like the guidelines in the weapons manuals set out in perfect detail how to fire a bullet but failed to follow through by explaining that a well-placed bullet of sufficient calibre could separate top from bottom. And troublesome though his feet permanently were, Charlie wanted his top to remain in every way attached to his bottom. So all it took was that one careless little prick not recognizing where the trigger was. He said: ‘My name isn’t Witherspoon.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me your name, reminded Novikov.

  ‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ agreed Charlie. And stopped.

  There was a long moment of silence. Then Novikov said: ‘Is this a hostile interview?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘A proper interview.’

  ‘Haven’t the others been properly conducted?’

  The Russian was very quick, acknowledged Charlie, admiringly. It was wrong to let Novikov put questions to which he had to respond. Charlie said: ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you doubt me, that I made a mistake in crossing to the British. I shall go to the Americans instead,’ announced the Russian.

  ‘That wasn’t the answer to my question.’

  ‘I do not wish to answer any more of your questions.’

  ‘Why not, Vladimir Andreevich? What are you frightened of?’

  ‘Mr Witherspoon does not properly know how to use the Russian patronymic. Nor did the interrogator before him.’

  ‘Why not, Vladimir Andreevich?’ persisted Charlie, objecting to what he thought was an attempted deflection but curious about it just the same.

  ‘Neither spoke Russian properly, like you do, either,’ said the man. ‘Their inflection was copy-book, language school stuff. From the way you instinctively form a genitive from masculine or neuter I know you lived in Moscow. And as a Muscovite.’

  Charlie thought he understood at last. Not as a Muscovite, he thought: with a Muscovite. Darling, beautiful Natalia against whom he’d consciously and for so long closed the door in his mind, because it was a room he could never enter again. It had been the Russian mission, his own supposed defection which he hadn’t known until it was too late to be a prove-yourself-again operation, when he’d met and fallen in love with someone he’d hoped, so desperately hoped, would replace Edith. But who had refused to come back, because of the child of another man. He said: ‘I am not Russian.’

  ‘What then?’

  The questioning had reversed again, Charlie recognized. He said: ‘English.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘There was a time when I knew Russia well,’ conceded Charlie. Was it right for him earlier to have been so critical about Witherspoon and some military attache in Moscow, disclosing details that should have been disclosed when he was volunteering too much information himself?

  ‘I will not be tricked.’

  ‘How can you be tricked?’

  ‘I never want contact with a single Russian, ever again!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous: you know full well I am not Russian!’ said Charlie. Was Novikov’s anti-Sovietism over-exaggerated? It would not be difficult to imagine so. But then the first principle of defector assessment was imagining nothing but only to proceed on established facts.

  ‘Why do you doubt me, then?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t 1?’

  ‘All the information I have given is the truth.’

  ‘I hope it is.’

  ‘Everything I have told you about Major Gale can be checked.’

  ‘It will be,’ assured Charlie. And would have been already if other people had done their jobs properly.

  ‘What do you want of me!’

  ‘An answer to a point I made a long time ago,’ reminded Charlie. ‘How, when you were having to make a panicked move and when travel within the Soviet Union is so closely restricted, could you go at once to the Finnish border?

  Novikov smiled, in reluctant admiration. ‘You really have lived in the Soviet Union, haven’t you?’

  ‘We’ve had that routine,’ said Charlie, refusing another deflection.

  ‘I had been granted travel permission to visit Leningrad, before the suspicion arose,’ said Novikov.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A vacation.’

  ‘You were planning a vacation at a time when you believed your people suspected you?’

  ‘I did not plan it after I believed they suspected me,’ said Novikov. ‘I applied and was granted permission before I became alarmed. It was the ideal opportunity.’

  ‘Yes it was, wasn’t it?’ agreed Charlie. He’d achieved a great deal already, he decided, contentedly.

  ‘You think I am a liar!’ erupted Novikov, goaded by Charlie’s sarcasm.

  ‘I don’t know yet whether you are a liar or not,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re the defector. You have to convince me.’

  ‘I am telling the truth!’

  Impatient with any con
tinued defence, Charlie said: ‘Tell me how you got to the Finnish border.’

  ‘I was lucky,’ admitted Novikov. ‘The visa to visit Leningrad was already in my internal passport. I did not remind anyone in the cipher department that Friday that I was going on holiday. Nor did I go back to my apartment when I left. I went directly from headquarters to Vnukovo airport, without bothering with luggage. It was late when I arrived in Leningrad: I intended to go to my hotel, the Druzhba on the Ulitza Chapygina, and not move on until the morning but when I approached it I saw militia cars everywhere. There was no one else they could have been looking for. I just ran. The arrangement I had made with Major Gale was to cross into Finland near a place called Lappeeranta: it’s just a few miles inside their border. I caught the train to Vyborg and then walked the rest of the way to the border. My passport was checked on the train. The visa only extended to Leningrad so I knew the alarm would be raised. They almost caught me at the border: I only just got across.’