The Run Around cm-8

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I wanted to go out covered in glory and instead I leave covered in shit.’

  ‘What you did get confirms a lot: I’m grateful,’ said Charlie, sincerely. ‘It could have happened to anyone.’

  ‘It happened to me,’ said Johnson.

  ‘There have been worse cock-ups already, believe me,’ said Charlie. He wondered how many more holes-in-one Witherspoon had managed.

  ‘Any idea who he is?’

  ‘Not a clue.’

  ‘Or what the job is?’

  ‘Nope.’ There’d been eight responses to his embassy requests and none of them had meant a thing. Gale had replied from Moscow, too.

  ‘Be careful, Charlie. He’s good, bloody good.’

  ‘That’s what frightens me,’ admitted Charlie.

  ‘I’m giving the retirement party at the Brace of Pheasants,’ said the Watcher. ‘Any chance of your getting along?’

  ‘Ever known me miss a piss-up?’ said Charlie.

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Johnson, again.

  ‘A pint of beer and we’re even,’ assured Charlie.

  ‘I’d like to think it was as easy as that,’ said Johnson.

  As he spoke Vasili Zenin was entering Terminal Two at London airport with the driving licence and passport which identified him as Henry Smale — and which fortunately the dog had missed peeing over — snug in his inside pocket. His ticket, however, was in the name of Peter Smith: he’d been lucky with the Swissair reservation and had decided it was an omen. He saw the pregnant woman ahead stumble, just before she fainted, and managed easily to switch to another passport line, to avoid becoming involved. Lucky again, he thought.

  Because she was a member of the secretariat and therefore part of the official delegation, Sulafeh Nabulsi had a place on the platform but at the rear. The backs of those who were going to Geneva for the conference were against her but beyond she could see the faces of the hundreds of Palestinians gathered to hear what the current speaker was describing as an historic breakthrough in their demands for an independent homeland. Fools, she sneered, mentally. Worse than fools. Cowards. There was no struggle any more; no fight. Just a lot of ageing men posturing in camouflage fatigues, playing at being freedom fighters and using words like the actors they were. Most of the council at whose backs she was staring in well-concealed loathing each had a million dollars discreetly hidden in numbered Swiss bank accounts and would find it difficult to identify the muzzle of a Kalashnikov from its butt. And most definitely didn’t give a damn about the trusting idiots here whom they were deceiving at the final Tripoli assembly of the PLO with talk of a conference and a political settlement. Any more than they gave a damn about the Palestinians forgotten and rotting in the refugee camps of the Lebanon, target practice for any Shi’ite or Jew who felt like expending a bullet. None of them had even lived in a refugee camp, not like she had. At the age of nine, in the last hours of the 1973 Six Day War, Sulafeh had seen her grandfather shot in one by the Israelis, as a spy for Syria, which he had been. Four years later her mother and older brother had been blown up — accidentally said the later contemptuous report — when the Jews destroyed their house in retribution for a grenade attack upon a passing Israeli patrol. And she’d been raped in one. It had happened when she was fifteen and still a virgin. Her attacker had been one of the smirking clowns in a tiger uniform, like those smirking clowns in the audience in front of her, applauding and cheering every lie being told them. She’d fought as hard as she could, gouging at his face with her nails, and he’d punched her almost senseless and so finally she pretended to be unconscious when he tore at her pants and then drove himself into her, splitting her. And while he grunted and pumped above her she’d taken his own knife from his belt, halfway down his thighs, and put her arms around him in what he’d thought to be belated passion to be better able to stab him to death, plunging the knife into his back again and again like he’d plunged into her.

  Sulafeh had an orgasm, doing it. She’d never had one since: certainly never during the countless couplings that had been necessary for her to insinuate and manoeuvre herself into the favour of the senior hierarchy to achieve the role she now occupied. She wondered if she might know the sensation again, at the moment of what was going to happen in Geneva. It was an often longed-for feeling.

  Chapter Seven

  Four of Johnson’s exposures had been developable but the face of the jogger who picked up the drop was only shown on one of them and then indistinctly, as the man half-turned to run on from snatching up the package. Two others showed his back view, as he went towards Primrose Hill Road — in one the name was actually visible — and the fourth at the moment of his mounting the bicycle but again completely turned away.

  ‘Bungled!’ complained Harkness. ‘How the hell could it have happened!’

  ‘Easily,’ said Charlie at once, in defence of a friend. ‘It was a brilliantly carried-out collection.’

  The Director was wedged as usual against the window-sill, with his back to the depressing view. The roses today were yellow-hearted Piccadilly, with pink edging, and Wilson wore one in the buttonhole of his jacket to match those arranged in the window vase. Charlie decided that the Director’s tweed suit was as bagged and shapeless as his. Funny how clothes collapsed like that.

  ‘Tell me why you think this is significant: the sort of thing you’ve been looking for,’ demanded the Director. ‘Why couldn’t whoever it is have been an English contact of the Russians that MI5 haven’t yet got on to?’

  ‘It was brilliant, like I said,’ insisted Charlie. ‘So the man is a complete professional. No amateur — and an Englishman would have been an amateur suborned by the Russians, not properly trained — would have done it like this.’

  ‘What’s so completely professional?’ persisted Harkness.

  ‘Becoming a jogger in the first place,’ set out Charlie. ‘The first essential is becoming invisible, which is exactly what he did. Johnson openly admits that he’d accepted the joggers in the park that afternoon: wasn’t really seeing them any more. But think of the other advantages it gave the man. He was entitled to run, because he was dressed for it. So having made the pick-up he did run, like hell Johnson says. But that would not have looked unusual to any passer-by because joggers do sprint. What it did mean is that the man could literally run away and any Watcher would have disclosed himself, setting out in open pursuit: so it was an abort-or-continue test as well. He was actually looking for us!’

  ‘I hardly consider using a bicycle professional,’ argued the deputy.

  ‘It was absolutely professional,’ refuted Charlie. ‘The distance from the drop to where the bicycle was parked is just over half a mile: Johnson later carried out a positive measurement. So he would have begun to flag, after sprinting so far. But on the bicycle he could carry on running — but remain invisible to anyone he passed because he was dressed exactly for riding as he was for jogging — and outpace anyone trying to follow on foot.’

  ‘What about anyone in a car?’ seized Wilson.

  ‘Possibly the cleverest part,’ said Charlie. ‘Elsworthy Road runs into The Avenue. And that joins Prince Albert Road, at a junction controlled by traffic lights. The change gives preferences to Prince Albert Road, which means there is always a back-up of traffic in The Avenue. And I know it is always blocked because Johnson checked it and the Metropolitan Police confirmed it when I asked them. On a bicycle he could overtake the lot, dismount and even ignore the lights if they were red against him, while any following car was stuck hundreds of yards back up the road, helpless to follow.’

  ‘I think you’re making a lot of assumptions,’ said the Director, doubtfully.

  ‘Look at the picture,’ urged Charlie. ‘Not just the one half-showing his face but all the rest. What — beyond the running gear — is common to them all in the disguise?’

  Harkness went to the Director’s side, so they could study the prints together. Both did so without any sign of recognition.

  ‘
What?’ asked Harkness, at last.

  ‘There’s one thing always impossible to alter in a disguise, other than by plastic surgery,’ reminded Charlie. ‘Ears. The ears always remain the same shape and size and are a marker for a trained observer. But he managed it and not just with the headset but additionally with the sweatband. It would not be obvious unless you were looking for it — which we are — but people don’t usually wear a band like that, not completely encompassing the ears. But he did. And he even arranged it to disarrange his hair, so that we can’t be sure of any positive style.’

  Wilson was nodding, in growing acceptance. He said: ‘Do we have any identifying marks at all?’

  ‘None,’ said Charlie, gesturing towards the pictures again. ‘I’ve had them blown up to the greatest possible enlargement. There’s no jewellery, like a ring or a neck chain. And not one visible scar or blemish.’

  ‘What about the jogging clothes he wore?’ said Harkness.

  ‘I’ve had all the photographs professionally analysed,’ said Charlie. ‘The assessment is that all the clothes were brand-new, freshly bought. It’s possible to detect the crease lines from the packaging in the larger pictures and to pick out the absolutely unworn tread on the soles of the shoes. We can isolate the maker’s name every time but it’s no advantage. My guess is that he bought each piece separately, all from different shops. We could never run a trace in a hundred years because it would have been cash every time.’

  ‘And the bicycle?’

  ‘A standard Raleigh, blue, with a three-speed attachment,’ said Charlie. ‘From the photograph the company say they think it could have been manufactured about two years ago but they’d need actually to examine the machine to be sure. They say it’s the sort of model most popular among hirers.’

  ‘We haven’t got a thing, have we?’ said Harkness, showing his earlier anger.

  ‘Quite a lot,’ disputed Charlie. ‘Like I said, all the shots have been professionally analysed. Which means a complete description. He’s precisely five feet ten inches tall and from the physique that’s clearly visible is obviously extremely fit: that was also Johnson’s impression from the way and the speed with which he ran, after picking up the package. And from the style that’s clear on the photographs — the way he holds himself and the measured paces — he’s someone accustomed to running. The physique is confirmed by his measurements: his waist measures twenty-nine inches against a chest of thirty-eight inches. He weighs ten stone eleven pounds, so equating his height against his measurements — and we’ve got biceps and calf and thigh readings, as well — he’s practically all muscle. He takes a size eight shoe, slim fitting.’

  ‘We still lack any facial description,’ complained Harkness.

  ‘Not entirely,’ said Charlie. ‘And what we do have might be important. He’s absolutely clean-shaven but although the sweatband and the headset make any hairstyle impossible to establish it can’t conceal the colour. It’s completely black. Like his eyes, black as well or certainly deep brown. And there’s the very definite complexion. He’s dark-skinned.’

  ‘Meaning?’ queried Wilson.

  ‘Combined with another indicator that he’s definitely not English, disregarding the professionalism,’ said Charlie.

  ‘What indicator?’

  ‘There was just one mistake he made. And that hardly a mistake. When he got on to the bicycle he appeared to Johnson instinctively to ride on the right-hand side of the road, not the left. It was a good hundred yards before he adjusted. He’s not accustomed to travelling on our roads.’

  ‘Tenuous,’ insisted Harkness.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Charlie, with matching insistence.

  ‘What’s your thought about the package itself?’

  ‘“You will despatch the catalogue,”’ said Charlie, quoting the second message Novikov had encoded. ‘And then: “You will wrap the November catalogue.” Johnson guessed it at five inches by eight inches and that’s confirmed by the photo-analysis because it’s visible in his hand, at the moment of his coming up by the marker post. Too large for any written letter then. Put together with the two messages, I’d guess a passport or a plane ticket or possibly both.’

  ‘Airports and ports?’ said the Director.

  ‘I’ve covered as many as I think reasonable, the full description as well as the half-face photograph,’ assured Charlie.

  ‘What about major political events?’ asked Wilson. ‘I’ve had the Foreign Office bitching about the time they’re having to spend on that.’

  ‘Eight possibles, all in November,’ said Charlie. ‘There’s a meeting of OPEC in Vienna, an IMF conference in Paris, which is also hosting the bi-annual gathering of African non-aligned nations. In Geneva there is the continuing arms limitation talks and again in Geneva there is the American-initiated conference for which they’ve finally persuaded Israel to sit at the same table as a delegation from the PLO. Jordan and Syria are also involved. In Brussels there’s a Council of Ministers meeting. The United Nations is sponsoring a Foreign Ministers’ assembly in Madrid, to put pressure on the drug smuggling countries in Latin America: the majority of Colombian and Bolivian cocaine comes into Europe through Madrid. The American President is visiting Berlin, on the 28th. The Secretary of State will be with him and then go on to the Middle East conference in Geneva. From Berlin the President is going to Venice, for a NATO summit.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ said Wilson, despairingly. ‘With how many is Britain involved?’

  ‘The Chancellor of the Exchequer is attending the IMF meeting in Paris, obviously,’ set out Charlie. ‘The Foreign Secretary is going to Brussels and to Madrid. And the Prime Minister is scheduled for Venice.’

  ‘What’s the first meeting?’ asked Harkness.

  ‘The drug meeting in Madrid, 2 November.’

  ‘That means we’ve got exactly three weeks,’ said Harkness. ‘That’s not enough …’ He looked at the Director and said: ‘I propose that we immediately issue warnings to the counter-intelligence services of every country involved, with what we’ve got.’

  ‘That would come to thirty-two,’ said Charlie. ‘I counted.’

  ‘Then it’s impractical. It would cause chaos,’ said the Director.

  ‘Let’s assume for a moment that the pick-up was a passport,’ said Harkness. ‘What about the chaos if there is an assassination and the man is caught with a British passport in his possession …?’ He hesitated, as the idea came to expand the argument. ‘That could even be part of whatever is going to happen: somehow, some way, to embarrass us with some false involvement.’

  ‘I acknowledge the risk but I don’t think there is sufficient to sound alarm bells yet,’ refused the Director. ‘How would we look if nothing does happen and we’ve got the counter-intelligence services of thirty-two countries — and possibly their external agencies as well — looking under every bed they can find? We’d make ourselves the laughing stock of the century.’

  ‘I’m sure there is going to be an assassination,’ said Charlie. ‘Gale, in Moscow, responded positively to every query I sent about Novikov. If Novikov is OK then so’s the information.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to be the people to stop it,’ declared Wilson. To Charlie he said: ‘Are you sure enough about Primrose Hill to call off the intense surveillance of everything Russian?’

  ‘God no!’ said Charlie. ‘I think Primrose Hill looks right and I think we should pull out all the stops to find whoever he is but I’m not at the moment putting it any higher than fifty per cent.’

  ‘Which is a further reason for not yet involving anyone else prematurely,’ said the Director. Still addressing Charlie, he said: ‘What now?’

  ‘I wish to Christ I knew,’ said Charlie, regretting the carelessness of the remark as soon as he’d made it, conscious of Harkness’s face tightening in disgust at the blasphemy. The man was an avid churchgoer, usually three times every Sunday: it was common knowledge he’d spent his last holiday in a retreat.

&
nbsp; They left the Director’s office together and in the anteroom outside Harkness said: ‘Make an appointment to see me alone tomorrow: we have to talk about administration matters.’

  Over the man’s shoulder, Charlie saw the Director’s secretary make a grimace of sympathy. Was Alison Bing looking for a bit of rough? wondered Charlie. As the deputy turned away, Charlie grinned and winked at the girl. She winked back. Forget it, love, thought Charlie: I’m old enough to be your father. Pity, though. It could have been fun.

  By six o’clock in the evening Koretsky had five confirmed and independent reports of the continuingly tightened observation and hoped he had not been too quick with his assurance to Berenkov. And then he relaxed, realizing how he could comply with the instruction and satisfy Dzerzhinsky Square at the same time. He set out in close detail how the cordons were being detected, around every Soviet installation in London. But then pointed out that it proved the hand-over had gone as well as he’d already reported: if it had been detected, the British would not still be bothering, would they?

  By the time he sent the cable, Vasili Zenin had been in Switzerland for two days.

  Chapter Eight

  The Geneva mock-up, like all the rest at the KGB’s artificial cities installation at Kuchino, was supposedly in specific and street-named detail; like at the instruction centre at Balashikha, it was isolated behind high concrete walls to separate it from all those other less specifically detailed training re-creations of Western towns. Geneva after all had Politburo priority, which supposedly again permitted no element of error. But Vasili Zenin discovered there were errors. Stupid, dangerous mistakes, like there having been no warning of bicycling being forbidden by law in Primrose Hill Park, something which could have ended the entire mission before it even began.

  Zenin was determined against anything endangering his first assignment, because of another, paramount determination. He had enjoyed, come to need, the best-every-time accolades of Balashikha and wanted them to continue. He needed, quite simply, to be acknowledged the foremost agent operating from Department 8 of Directorate S — to be the most successful assassin they’d ever known.