And had probably offered it, for the double package, guessed Charlie. Throwing out the lure, he said: ‘You just talked in generalities?’
‘That’s all,’ said Fredericks.
Too quick, judged Charlie. ‘No specifics?’
‘No specifics.’
Charlie decided to let Fredericks run awhile and believe he was getting away with the bullshit: there was plenty of time to open the trap and let the man fall in. He said: ‘How was he?’
‘How was he?’
‘Demeanour?’
Fredericks appeared to consider the question, sure he was conning the bastard. ‘Strangely calm,’ he said. ‘It’s been something very obvious, from that first occasion in the theatre.’
‘And that doesn’t strike you as unusual?’
Fredericks’ caution returned. ‘I don’t follow?’
‘He’s wants to quit being a murderer: presumably sickened and revulsed by it,’ challenged Charlie. ‘He wouldn’t be calm, surely? Particularly with the additional tension of planning as complicated a defection as this?’
‘He’s a trained man,’ argued Fredericks.
‘Who’s going against that training,’ said the Charlie. ‘Further cause to be nervous.’
‘He is nervous!’ insisted the American. ‘I’ve told you about all the crap of separate meeting places and only he being the person able to make the contact.’
‘That’s not nervousness,’ disputed Charlie. ‘That’s trained, professional caution. The opposite of nervousness, in fact.’
‘I think you’re making too much of it.’
‘I’m not making too much of anything,’ said Charlie. ‘I’m just trying to separate facts from impressions.’
‘You’re getting all the facts,’ said Fredericks.
Almost time for the drop, thought Charlie. He said: ‘How long has he been here, in Tokyo?’
‘He said he arrived in late ‘83. It checks out with the diplomatic registration at the Japanese Foreign Ministry,’ said Fredericks.
‘Before that?’
‘He talked of London. And Bonn,’ said Fredericks, intent for an obvious reaction from the Englishman.
There was none. Charlie remained quite unmoved and expressionless. He said: ‘What came from the checks of the diplomatic lists in both places?’
‘Nothing,’ said Fredericks, disappointed. ‘No Kozlov listed in either place.’
Inwardly Charlie was churning with excitement. If Kozlov had been posted – and killed – in London, then they and not the American had to have the man. And they would, Charlie determined. He determined something else, too. It had been right not to challenge the American until now. He said: ‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it,’ said Fredericks. There was even a look of satisfaction.
Charlie sighed, loudly, wanting the other man to hear. ‘Do you know what I think?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘I think we should decide something, you and I,’ said Charlie. ‘I think I should stop regarding you as stupid and I certainly think you should stop regarding me as stupid. Which is what we’re both doing at the moment. Like it or not – and I don’t like it any more than you do – we’re going to have to work together on this. Those are my instructions from London and yours from Washington …’ He paused, for the point to register. Then he took up: ‘You told me he’s genuine. You told me everything he said checks out … and you know what you’ve got so far, from what you’ve told me? You’ve got fuck all: absolutely fuck all. Nothing from what you’ve told me could check out, because there’s no independent corroboration. No photographs, no confirmation of posting, just the name on a Japanese Foreign Ministry register: you don’t even have proof that the man who’s met you four times, has the name of a few CIA agents and speaks in accented English, really is Yuri Kozlov …’ Charlie stopped again. ‘Now you know and I know that isn’t right. And you know and I know that a Boy Scouts’ group wouldn’t accept him on what you’ve so far told me. And although it’s sometimes debatable whether they actually succeed, the CIA try to do better than the Boys Scouts. So why don’t you stop buggering about and imagining you’re conning an idiot, and tell me how the man in the Hitachi roundabout theatre proved he was genuine?’
Charlie was intent upon the other man, pleased at the obvious reaction. Fredericks shifted in the chair, appearing to find it constricting despite its size. Then he sighed, for a different reason than Charlie earlier, and said: ‘On the second meeting, he gave us a name. It was one we didn’t have: we checked it out and it was right.’
Charlie shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That won’t do.’
‘The name was Rodgers, William Rodgers,’ conceded the American. ‘Kozlov said he was an illegal, infiltrated into America from Canada five years ago. His real name is Anatoli Ogurtsov. He’s settled in San Francisco: runs an importexpor t business there. Deep cover. We’ve liaised with the FBI, of course; it’s their responsibility. They’ve so far identified four others that he’s suborned. Silicon Valley stuff, all hi-tech.’
‘You said it was a name you didn’t have?’ insisted Charlie.
‘The FBI either,’ expanded Fredericks. ‘Rodgers – or Ogurtsov – wasn’t on any file. And he’s been getting a lot of stuff out. It means we’re able to block a damned great hole.’
There was more, Charlie knew. He said: ‘OK, so illegals are run through the First Chief Directorate. But they’re trained by a completely closed off Directorate: just like Department V – Kozlov’s supposed division – is closed off. Because they both have to be. There is never any liaison or link-up, to prevent what’s just happened, identification from someone who’s become disaffected. So how come Yuri Kozlov knows that William Rodgers is really Anatoli Ogurtsov?’
The goddamned man really did want to know about sparrows pissing in adjoining fields, thought Fredericks. He said: ‘The routing. The major conduit for the hi-tech stuff that Ogurtsov has been getting into the Soviet Union has been through here, Tokyo. It’s been a known throughway for years.’
‘He told you that?’ said Charlie. ‘That he discovered Ogurtsov’s name because they were the onward shippers?’
‘Irena’s the source,’ said Fredericks. ‘She’s the Control, apparently.’
Bingo, jackpot and all the other winning words, thought Charlie. If Irena Kozlov had masterminded technology espionage into the Soviet Union from America – and maybe elsewhere – since the couple’s posting to Japan in 1983, she was a potentially bigger catch than her husband. Because she would know the identities of other illegals and other technology smugglers running operations, throughout the world. Who was it who had said this could be spectacular, Wilson or Harkness? Charlie couldn’t remember. It had been a pretty accurate assessment, though. Charlie’s mind ran on, objectively honest: if he’d been Fredericks, he’d have been as difficult and tried to hold as much back as he could. No, not as difficult; more so. He hoped he would have done better. Charlie said: ‘That’s the sort of bait that catches the fish.’
‘The Kozlovs are the fish,’ said Fredericks. ‘Prize-winners.’
‘Can the FBI bring Ogurtsov in without any suspicion coming back here?’ asked Charlie.
‘Easily,’ said Fredericks, confidently. ‘There are others, don’t forget. All the evidence will be that the Bureau found out through crooked American businessmen, out to make big bucks. There’ll be a plea-bargaining deal, lesser sentences for full confessions. All the usual stuff. Japan won’t even enter into it.’
‘All nicely topped and tailed,’ accepted Charlie.
‘Well?’ asked Fredericks.
‘I said the bait looked good,’ qualified Charlie. ‘I didn’t guess at the fish. You did.’
‘You’re the smart-ass!’ challenged Fredericks. ‘Have you ever known a better cross-over offer?’
Charlie considered the question and then said, honestly: ‘No.’
‘So it’s kosher?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ contradicted Charlie.
‘Not even Him,’ said Charlie, twisting the American’s exasperation. ‘He should have fingered Judas as a double.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘Nothing,’ evaded Charlie. ‘Just me smart-assing.’ Why should he keep warning the Americans that things were not always as they seemed? Let them work it out, like he hoped to do.
Fredericks looked doubtful. Then he said: ‘That’s it. You’ve got it all now.’
Charlie had distrusted people who told him he had it all from the moment he’d been parted from the tit. What he did have was enough – well, almost enough – for the moment: more, in fact, than he’d expected to get. He wanted just one more thing. In passing, Charlie wondered if Fredericks would ever know how much he’d conceded; and apparently missed. He said: The photographs?’ and recognized at once from the expression on the American’s face that Fredericks had hoped he would not make the request. Silly sod, thought Charlie; as if he’d overlook something as important as photographs.
‘I said …’ started Fredericks but Charlie interrupted him yet again, aware of the advantages he’d finally secured and aware, too, that the time was for apparent impatience. ‘Don’t!’ warned Charlie. ‘Don’t tell me that you sent everything for picture analyses to Washington and nothing is left here. Because I thought we’d agreed to stop being stupid towards one another, and if you told me that I’d say you were stupid to entrust something so important to a diplomatic pouch which might have been destroyed in an air-crash or intercepted and opened during an aeroplane hijack. And if you said it was done by personal air courier, I’d say you were mad to let go of one of the most importance pieces of material you’ve so far managed to obtain, since Kozlov’s approach. And then I’d go on to say that I don’t think you’re that stupid. Any more than I hoped you wouldn’t think I’d be stupid enough to believe it …’ Charlie grinned, accusingly. ‘Do you know what I think? I think that somewhere in a safe not very far away – maybe in this very room – you’ve not only got the negatives of every photograph you took of Kozlov but a whole interesting selection of prints, as well.’
Fredericks made as if to speak but then shook his head, in self-refusal. Instead he moved slightly to his left and opened what appeared to be a panel where the desk drawers should be. Charlie couldn’t properly see, from where he was sitting, but guessed it was a safe, floor-mounted. Unspeaking, the American offered four photographs to Charlie, who took them and said: ‘Thanks.’ They wouldn’t be all, and they wouldn’t be the best, Charlie knew: but at least he had four. He took his time, examining each. Fredericks’ assessment of the Russian being nondescript was very apt: ten Kozlovs had a place in every bus queue there’d ever been.
‘The right,’ insisted Charlie.
‘What?’
‘You said he parted his hair on the left. But you forgot the reversal effect of a photograph. It’s the right.’
‘It’s a deal: I won’t regard you as a fool,’ said Fredericks.
‘It’s a deal: I won’t treat you like one either,’ said Charlie. Which was altogether different from promising not to cheat and lie and do everything else he could to screw the other man, to come out on top. To achieve which it would, in fact, be stupid to consider Fredericks … well … stupid. Suddenly remembering, he added: ‘Stop having people follow me. It’s ridiculous.’
‘I won’t do it any more,’ promised the American, again too easily. He said: ‘There’s not a lot that we can do now until we get Kozlov’s meeting arrangements?’
‘No,’ agreed Charlie. Not much, Sunshine, he thought. Charlie extended the reflection, on the way back to the hotel from the US embassy. He’d still have liked to have known more. But then possibly, with the benefit of hindsight, so would the captain of the Titanic. What he had was sufficient, and it would take a lot of assembly and assessment, and he was glad there was going to be a gap before any possible meeting with the Russian. Thank God he’d contacted Harry Lu. He wondered what additional fall-out protection he could get together: sure as eggs were things that usually ended up all over his face, he was going to need some.
He called Cartright at once, and when they were connected he said: ‘I need to come into the embassy.’
‘You do,’ agreed Cartright. ‘There are messages.’
‘Problems?’ asked Charlie.
‘How do I know?’ said Cartright.
He was able to confront Harkness now, Charlie decided. He said: ‘Tell them I’m coming.’
Those sections of Soviet embassies occupied by the KGB – and by the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye or GRU, the military branch of Russian intelligence – are internally the most restricted, without exception anywhere in the world forbidden to any ambassador or any supposedly genuine diplomatic staff. Intelligence personnel are an elite – as they are, indeed, within the Soviet Union – answerable to no one, beholden to no one. Except within their own rigidly enforced, rigidly observed confines, where KGB informs upon KGB and GRU informs upon GRU and each service informs upon the other. Ostensibly, for each service, there is a Rezident or chief, but so well is a tangled intricacy of suspicion constantly maintained that no Rezident knows whether he truly occupies the office or whether someone he considers his subordinate is in fact the real holder of the position, reporting upon him and monitoring his performance. The situation is further complicated by the official existence within each branch of the service in every embassy of a security officer, who is not responsible to the Rezident – and certainly not to the ambassador – reporting and monitoring as actively and as independently as everyone else.
The same-colour jigsaw creates the maximum suspicion and uncertainty, and the Soviet Politburo remain convinced since 1953, when Nikita Krushchev innovated the system, that it has preserved their intelligence organizations against dissent and defection better than any other in the world. Statistics of known defections appear to support that confidence.
Boris Filiatov was officially the KGB Rezident in Tokyo, but the security officer was a woman whose reputation was such that the majority of Tokyo-based Russian agents believed that Olga Balan was the bona fide Rezident, unencumbered by any unknown superior. Olga – whose job it was to know of these and other rumours – did nothing to discount them, because she enjoyed the respect and because it encouraged the informants to confide their secrets to her, which increased her reputation and revolved the wheel of rumour full circle. The earned reputation for ruthless determination contrasted with Olga Balan’s obvious and real femininity. She was taller than most Slavic women and she did not have the usual square-jawed features either, but a soft, oval face and a cowl of blonde hair: those who feared her complained her very appearance made her all the more frightening, because it concealed the sort of person she really was. The stories positively identified two agents who had been sent to number 27 gulag in the Potma complex upon her evidence of their enjoying too much the pleasures of the West and involving themselves in the black market, to guarantee some comforts back in Moscow against the time of their recall. They were true. One had been her fiancé, for whom she had genuine affection and whom she had therefore warned several times to stop before filing her report. If she hadn’t, she knew someone else would have done, and she did not want to occupy a prison cell herself, either for failing properly to do her job or because of her known involvement with the man. Olga Balan regarded being a good Russian as more important than being a loyal fiancée, and anyway towards the end she found the man sexually lacking.
Olga conducted everything to order and most of all the weekly meetings. Kozlov entered precisely on time, because such things were noted, exchanged the formalized greeting and sat in the already arranged chair. Each KGB officer maintained a work-log, which was required to be submitted the morning in advance of the afternoon encounter; his was open in front of the woman.
‘Kamakura?’ she said, looking up at him. She had deep brow
n eyes.
‘Yes,’ said Kozlov. ‘A day visit.’
‘Why?’ She had an unnerving, staccato way of questioning.
‘We are maintaining observation on CIA personnel attached to the American embassy here. A joint operation with my wife, approved by Moscow. I was following their Resident, Art Fredericks,’ said Kozlov, pedantically. All interviews were recorded.
‘It appears to be taking a long time.’
‘We isolated another one, at Kamakura. Samuel Dale. We’ve confirmed it from their diplomatic list.’ He spoke intentionally in the plural.
‘Your wife is Control for this operation?’
‘She suggested it to Moscow,’ said Kozlov. ‘They approved.’
‘How is it worked?’
‘The object is identification,’ said Kozlov. ‘I maintain observation on known CIA officers and through them discover others.’
‘You operate as a team?’ persisted the woman.
‘We do not remain all the time together,’ qualified Kozlov. ‘That would be dangerous.’
‘Why dangerous?’
‘In the event of one of us being identified, leading to the other,’ said Kozlov.
‘You suspect your identities are known to a Western intelligence agency!’ The demand was peremptory.
‘I consider separation a sensible precaution,’ said Kozlov, qualifying again.
‘Any findings, from this surveillance?’
‘I believe there is a build up of CIA strength,’ said Kozlov.
‘Why!’ demanded the woman.
‘I hope to find out,’ said Kozlov.
Fredericks sanitized his account to the other CIA operatives, but even so it was clear that the Agency supervisor had conceded more than he wanted, in the encounter with Charlie Muffin.
‘Was it right, to disclose Ogurtsov?’ questioned Elliott.
‘Do you think I’d have done it, if it hadn’t been necessary!’ said Fredericks, upset at the obvious criticism from the other men.
‘He winked!’ said Levine. ‘The bastard winked at the monitor!’
‘Listen. And listen good,’ instructed Fredericks. ‘Don’t let tricks like that upset you. Because that’s what they are: nothing more than tricks.’
See Charlie Run Page 8