The Blind Run

by Brian Freemantle

  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 aptitude 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 bastard, 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 bloody fool and adjust.’

  He wasn’t going to be a bloody 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-ass – 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 bloody 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 identity pass 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 hell of it.

  The man looked back expressionless, without replying. He led out on to the upper floor and produced his pass 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 spacious 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’ Association 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 damned 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 Muffin,’ said Harkness.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Wilson. ‘For the moment everything depends upon Charlie Muffin.’

  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 sex – 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 bloody 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 Muffin – 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 bastards 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 …’

  Natalia showed no reaction whatever to his impatience. She said, ‘What happened then?’

  Then I had four miserable years on the run and never a day went by without my realising what a bloody fool I’d been, thought Charlie. He said, ‘At first I stayed in England, because I knew there would be a hunt and they wouldn’t have expected me to do that. Seaside towns, where there are always lots of visitors, so strangers aren’t unusual. Then Europe, holiday places again, never staying anywhere too long …’

  ‘What about your wife?’ demanded the woman.

  It was several moments before Charlie replied, confronting the deepest and bitterest regret of all. Then he said, ‘I was almost caught, after the first year. A combined operation by my own service and the CIA, because I exposed their Director, too, and the Americans wanted me as well. I got away. She was killed.’ Dear Edith, he thought. Neglected and cheated on and forced by what he did into a life of a fugitive, which she’d hated. And never a moment of complaint or criticism. Why the hell had it taken her death to make him realise how much he’d loved her?

  ‘And then?’ persisted the woman, bent over the papers in front of her.

  ‘The British service was by tradition one of university graduates,’ remembered Charlie. ‘I never did fit. I was kept on by a marvellous man, one of the best Directors ever. He had a son, a Lloyds underwriter. He let me work for him – it had never been made public, what I did, because of the embarrassment it would have caused, so he didn’t know.’

  ‘You were working for him when you were caught?’

  Charlie nodded, ‘In Italy,’ he started. The pause was momentary and he didn’t think she would have noticed it before he finished – differently from the way he intended – by saying ‘Two and a half years ago.’ Part of the original deal – the deal he believed Wilson had reneged on – had been to say nothing at the trial, even though it was held in camera, about the entrapment in Italy of the British ambassador as a Soviet spy because Wilson wanted to keep the conduits open to feed as much disinformation as he could to Moscow. Dismissive of this meaningless encounter with the woman Charlie realised he’d allowed himself to become careless, unthinking about the answers. Unthinking! The word stayed with him, an accusation. He was being unthinking. And stupid and arrogant and the worst – unprofessional – in imagining the meeting was meaningless. She’d made the mistake and he’d almost missed it. Natalia Nikandrova Fedova had said she knew nothing about him and then interposed the question about Edith: about whom she was supposed to have no knowledge. So the clerk-demeanour was a trick, a trick that had worked to achieve precisely the effect it had, lulling him into carelessness by the time they reached the point of the meeting, their need to know if the Italian ambassador had been uncovered. Charlie remembered the beaten prison officer and the murdered policeman and supposed Sampson would be absorbed into the Soviet service. Maybe it was a convoluted way of getting back at the man – misleading the KGB Sampson would undoubtedly join – but at the moment it was the only opportunity he had. He’d have to be careful to maintain his earlier attitude.

  ‘What were you doing for Willoughby’s son?’

  Another mistake, isolated Charlie. He hadn’t named Willoughby as the Director for whom he’d worked all those years and ended practically idolising. Charlie said, ‘He was an underwriter, like I said. Sometimes some of the claims seemed suspicious. I’d investigate them.’

  ‘What was suspicious about Italy?’ pressed the woman.

  ‘It was a huge jewel robbery, involving the wife of the British ambassador,’ said Charlie, lounged in the chair physically to convey the uncaring attitude he wanted her to go on believing; the hidden cameras, too. ‘It coincided with the renewal at a vastly increased valuation of the policy and it looked a bit doubtful. People sometimes over-insure and then conveniently lose things if they’re short of money.’

  She smiled disarmingly across the desk and said, ‘Even British ambassadors?’

  ‘Even British ambassadors,’ said Charlie, trying to recapture the earlier flirtation.

  ‘Was there?’

  ‘Was there what?’ said Charlie, knowing the question but maintaining the pretence.

  ‘Anything suspicious about the robbery?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Never had time to find out. The station officer at the embassy for British intelligence was someone who had been in the department with me. He recognised me and sounded the alarm. And I got caught.’

  The basic lesson of every interrogation course Charlie had ever undergone – and reinforced during countless actual sessions
when he was operating – was that a good liar tells as few lies as possible, to minimise the chance of being caught out. He’d been as vague and as flippant about Italy as he had about everything else and he knew damned well they couldn’t trap him upon what he had said so far.

  ‘Was America involved in your capture?’ asked Natalia, approaching from another direction. ‘You said they tried in an earlier operation; the one in which Edith was killed.’

  He hadn’t mentioned Edith by name, remembered Charlie: another slip. He said, ‘No, just the British.’

  ‘Still a large operation, though?’

  The ambassador would have warned Moscow of the influx and the personal danger, Charlie supposed. He said, ‘I caused the disgrace of both the British and American Directors. And they failed to get me once. They didn’t take any chances, the second time. They flooded the place with people.’ He stopped for just the right amount of time and added, ‘And they got me, well and truly.’

  ‘Why did you betray your country?’ she demanded, suddenly.

  ‘I didn’t betray my country,’ responded Charlie, instinctively. Yet another direction surprised him and he decided definitely that she wasn’t as inexperienced as he had first thought. With that realisation came another; so he wasn’t being dismissed as unimportant. It pleased him.

  ‘Of course you did,’ she said. ‘You exposed two Directors to arrest and enabled the repatriation of a Russian your country had jailed as a spy.’

  ‘It was a personal thing,’ insisted Charlie. ‘I told you they were prepared to screw me: I screwed them instead.’

  ‘What gave you the right to question the decision of your superiors?’

  ‘The fact that it was my life they were making a decision about,’ said Charlie, vehemently.

  ‘To whom do you consider the first loyalty.’

  ‘Me,’ said Charlie at once. ‘My first loyalty is always to me.’ There was no danger in this philosophising but Charlie was cautious now, conscious how she used directional changes in attempts to off-balance.