See Charlie Run

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Why?’ questioned Yamada.

  ‘So we’ll underestimate him,’ judged Fredericks. ‘And that would be a mistake. We all know what he did once. He’s a tricky son-of-a-bitch.’

  Chapter Six

  Charlie opened the first Suntory, closed the curtains against the intrusive glitter of the night-time awakening of Tokyo and sat at the desk facing the blank wall, paper and pen before him. As he set out the preparations, Charlie guessed Witherspoon would go apeshit at his writing down in insecure surroundings the conclusions of a secure briefing. It transgressed every regulation codified in the British intelligence system since Walsingham founded it after Queen Elizabeth I agreed it was a good idea if it singled out the bad guys in the black hats from the good guys, wearing the white ones, although not quite in those words. At least after four hundred years the principle remained the same. It was a pity, he reflected further, that the assholes who sat in panelled offices with the very pictures of Lord Walsingham and Queen Elizabeth I on the walls got their colours and images blurred and relied too much upon those old school ties when it came to judging Blunt and Cairngorm and Philby and Burgess and Maclean, and all the others who’d made the service a bad joke as well as an object of suspicion among other intelligence organizations. Was he one of the others, minus that all-important school tie? Charlie asked himself. Certainly Fredericks thought so; which showed clearly enough the thinking within the American agency. Rubbish, of course: absolute rubbish. He’d never been a traitor – just vindictive – and proved his right to re-entry in a Moscow operation that would have worked if Wilson had at the time trusted him completely. Not just a professional loss, either: personal, as well. Darling, wonderful Natalia who had refused to come back with him …

  Consciously, as he had before, Charlie closed his mind to the distraction, concentrating upon what he’d got from the meeting with Fredericks. Which had been a hell of a lot. Charlie wrote ‘Leningrad 1940’ as a reminder for the major calculation he had to make, qualifying it at once by noting that he would be working from the birth dates which Kozlov provided, which might for any number of reasons be inaccurate. Against it he put 1983, which appeared to be a positive date because Fredericks insisted he’d checked Kozlov’s arrival with the Japanese Foreign Ministry records. Forty-three years then from the time of the man’s birth and his posting to Tokyo. In between which he’d worked in London and Bonn. And killed. Kozlov would not have been chosen for KGB training until high school or early university entry. Eighteen was the average, for initial entry. From his unsuccessful Moscow infiltration, Charlie knew there were two years of aptitude testing and training before specialized selection in the Soviet service. Full instruction took two years. And in the case of Department V, from which men emerged assassins, there was a further year of psychological evaluation, to guard against breakdown and the sort of revulsion from which Kozlov appeared to be suffering. Charlie added up a total from his jottings, did a quick subtraction from the forty-three and came out with a figure of twenty. There would not have been an immediate posting. Charlie reckoned he could afford to build in an extra year – maybe two – before Kozlov would have been judged safe for overseas service. Which gave him the date of 1963. Where? During the interview Fredericks had said London first, then Bonn. Was that the way Kozlov itemized the tours? Or the way Fredericks had translated them, because he was talking to an Englishman and London would have come more obviously to his mind? No way of knowing. Certainly not of checking with the American because it might show him the way. Thank God for computers, thought Charlie. He circled 1963 as the date from which London would have to start checking any suspicious political, trade union or expatriate dissident deaths and then considered the way the search could be narrowed. Fredericks had been insistent, more than once, that Kozlov’s name appeared on no diplomatic register or list in England or West Germany. But Russians serving at Highgate or with international commercial organizations like the Wheat Council were not accredited diplomats and therefore did not appear on any such lists. Any more than they did in Germany. It was an unlikely oversight, but Charlie was well aware how rigidly requests relayed through headquarters from one overseas intelligence Residency to another overseas intelligence Residency were frequently interpreted; asked to check diplomatic lists they only checked diplomatic lists, without spreading the enquiry further. Charlie wrote the unanswered questions on the page in front of him, listing identity first. Fredericks had twisted and turned and tried to avoid giving anything away. So had he been lying, in insisting they hadn’t found a trace of the man, anywhere? Or had they covered the trade outlets after all and maybe come up with some sort of cover posting in the United States, despite Fredericks’ denial? Maybe even knew someone he’d killed there? To his English and German checklist of trade missions Charlie added those in America and then made a further addition not just of the US diplomatic list but that of the United Nations in New York.

  Charlie sat back, examining his graph of positive results from his meeting with Fredericks, beyond those which had been obvious to him at the time. With the bonus of the photographs, which he could wire to London from the embassy, it was pretty good: pretty damned good, in fact.

  What about the not-so-positive intangibles? From the few indications that emerged from Fredericks, Kozlov did appear to operate in a way that Charlie would have expected a professional intelligence agent to conduct himself. Naming Fredericks’ two guardians at the first meeting was professional, and confidently identifying Fredericks himself was further professionalism. And more again with the Russian, according to Fredericks, picking out the surveilling CIA men on the subsequent meetings and actually warning Fredericks not to be accompanied any more. Which Fredericks had ignored. Knowing the sort of training to which Kozlov had been subjected – and how comparatively easy it had been, once he’d started being professional himself, to isolate his own tail on the subway – Charlie decided it was inconceivable that Kozlov would not have picked out the Americans the last time. Yet the man maintained a further meeting, without apparent protest. Which didn’t make sense. Anxious disregard? A possibility: Charlie knew from experience that nearing the moment of crossing, a defector’s nerves were invariably piano-wire tight. But against that was another contradiction: Kozlov’s calmness. Strangely calm, were Fredericks’ actual words. A calm man – let alone a strangely calm, well-trained professional – did not behave with anxious disregard. Charlie annotated several question marks after that query.

  Irena Kozlov shouldn’t be ignored, either: not at all, in fact. Charlie’s immediate impression of her importance, at the American’s disclosure, hadn’t been an exaggeration. Providing there was nothing he’d missed – and Charlie needed a lot more yet – the couple were the prize that Fredericks determined them to be. So why was she remaining the mystery woman? Professional caution? Or something else he didn’t yet understand?

  Charlie sat back, sighing. Why weren’t things always easy to understand, like the plots in those spy books with hammer and sickle motifs and Kaleshnikov guns on the front cover?

  Charlie ran the encounter with Fredericks once more through his mind, determined against any omission, wondering if the American would ever realize the mistakes he’d made. Charlie remained attentive going through the rambling lobby area, interested to see if Fredericks would ignore that afternoon’s undertaking about surveillance, like he’d ignored it with Kozlov. When he passed the piano bar the girl of the previous night was entering; she smiled in recognition and Charlie smiled back. His greater duty was to Queen and country, Charlie decided. Sadly. There was the minimal delay for the cab to come up the ramp and Charlie was glad of it, openly studying those who followed him from the hotel. No one seemed at all interested in him, but that didn’t mean much. There were lots of well polished shoes. Charlie abandoned the exercise, as he entered the car: tonight it didn’t really matter.

  The British embassy is outside the diplomatic enclave in which those of the other countries are clustered, and as t
he vehicle began moving through Niban-Cho Charlie looked around, frowning to remember if it were the sex-and-sake district where Harry Lu had proved to him that the Japanese geisha was something of another sort of romance. It looked familiar but he wasn’t sure. If Kozlov stalled on a meeting, maybe he’d be able to find out; be an interesting experience if he still had some of Fredericks’ people in tow. The gardens and parkland of Chiyoda-Ku formed to his right, a mass of comparative blackness against the surrounding lights, and almost at once the car stopped at the embassy. Cartright hurried into the main vestibule within minutes of being summoned by the night-duty clerk and Charlie said: ‘Good of you to stay on.’

  ‘Need any help in the code room?’ asked the man.

  ‘No thanks,’ said Charlie. Had it been a polite question or one from a man given an over-the-shoulder brief?

  ‘London have reacted predictably, I’m afraid,’ said Cartright. ‘Can’t really say I’m surprised.’

  Neither was Charlie, in absolute honesty. Cartright’s office was antiseptically clean – there was actually a smell of some chemical cleanser – with the desk and cupboard tops clear and the filing baskets empty.

  ‘Just like home,’ said Charlie. ‘Can I see the traffic?’

  Cartright went through the ritual of opening a double-security key and combination safe and handed across the manilla folder. Charlie saw it was marked ‘Confidential’ and thought at this stage that was an exaggeration, like his colour designation that morning in the code room. Cartright had set out the passport request very simply, not intruding any local objections, and Wilson’s response was a one-line message demanding personal contact.

  ‘Not exactly an outright refusal,’ qualified Charlie.

  ‘Not approval, either,’ said the local man.

  ‘Ever worked out of London?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Try to avoid it,’ advised Charlie. ‘Full of wankers.’

  ‘Always treated me all right,’ said Cartright.

  ‘Matter of personality, I guess,’ said Charlie.

  ‘How’s everything going?’ queried Cartright, openly.

  Definitely a too direct, entrapping question, gauged Charlie. ‘Who knows?’ he said, as awkwardly as possible.

  Cartright wondered what irregularities Harkness expected from this man: at the moment he was behaving and operating quite properly.

  In the code room, with the door security slide showing red this time, Charlie sent London the notification of his presence with the request that they open up the photo-transmission line while he encoded his material. The response was immediate and Charlie worked concentratedly, breaking away from his hotel room notes only when one picture had been completed and needed replacing with another on the revolving drum. When the picture wiring was finished he opened up the separate transmission line and began sending his impressions of the encounter with Fredericks, checking as the message was relayed against his original reminders. At the end there was the formal acknowledgement from London and at once an instruction to stand by. While he waited, Charlie fed his notes through the shredder and then burned them: just like the hammer and sickle books, he thought again.

  The telephone ring jarred, making Charlie jump. He picked up the red receiver, switched on the scrambling device which would distort his voice to anyone except the person at the other end whose telephone had the antidote scrambler, and said: ‘Hello?’

  ‘You seem to have got quite a bit,’ said Wilson. The Director’s voice was clear and unaffected by the electronic protection.

  ‘It will mean a lot of work, for the analysts,’ said Charlie.

  ‘That’s what they’re employed for,’ said the Director. ‘The Americans are being helpful?’

  ‘No,’ corrected Charlie at once. ‘Suspicious and difficult.’

  ‘So we shouldn’t channel any of this checking officially through Langley?’ said Wilson, just as quickly.

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t want them to know what we’re doing.’

  ‘Or the West Germans?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Able to reach any impression?’ asked the Director.

  ‘Not yet,’ replied Charlie. ‘As I said in the message, some things fit, others don’t. It’s still too early.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll get your own meeting?’

  ‘I warned the Americans I wouldn’t continue without one: told them to make that clear to Kozlov, as well …’

  ‘I would have liked some warning about that,’ broke in the Director.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Charlie. There wasn’t time.’ Thank God Wilson would never know how Fredericks had scooped him up and blown him out in bubbles that first night. He added: ‘Thanks for backing me up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like it to happen too often: not without some prior contact.’

  ‘It won’t,’ promised Charlie.

  ‘Why a passport?’

  ‘Giving myself options,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I told you I’d send a squad in,’ reminded Wilson. ‘Rather have trained men with our own transport than any civilian aircraft.’

  Military preferences emerging, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Just covering eventualities. I don’t like getting boxed in, with only one choice.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ conceded the Director. ‘But I want to keep the local embassy at a safe distance, apart from necessities. Passports are numbered: be easily traceable back to Tokyo if there were some sort of problem and it got into the wrong hands.’

  ‘Any meeting with Kozlov won’t be immediate,’ pointed out Charlie. ‘There’s a contact procedure, which causes delays. You could pouch one out from London.’

  ‘It would be better,’ accepted Wilson. ‘Foreign Office will raise hell, of course.’

  ‘Tell them I’ll be careful.’

  ‘They wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘What about Cartright?’ asked Charlie, directly.

  ‘I don’t understand the question.’

  ‘Any change of heart, about his involvement?’

  ‘We discussed it before you left,’ said Wilson.

  If Cartright did have a watching brief, it didn’t come from the Director! Charlie said: ‘So Cartright is out?’

  ‘Restricted to the barest minimum,’ confirmed the Director.

  ‘I believe the Americans are heavy on the ground,’ said Charlie.

  ‘If you confirm, you’ll get all the help you want,’ insisted Wilson. ‘And don’t you take any chances yourself.’

  ‘I never do,’ said Charlie, sincerely.

  ‘Sometimes, Charlie, sometimes,’ disputed the Director.

  ‘Don’t forget the passport,’ said Charlie, anxious to move what he knew to be a London-recorded conversation beyond the point where the refusal might later prove to be a positive order.

  ‘I won’t,’ undertook Wilson, who was as anxious as Charlie to progress, not wanting to restrict the man either. ‘And pouch the original photographs of Kozlov from your end. The quality of those you’ve wired is good but the originals will be better.’

  ‘I’d like to get something, before I meet Kozlov,’ said Charlie.

  ‘It’s been a good start,’ praised Wilson. ‘And there’s something else. Herbert Bell was positive. Well done.’

  ‘Brought him in?’

  ‘Better as a conduit at the moment,’ said Wilson. ‘Do as well on this. But be careful.’

  ‘It’s the same thing as not taking chances.’

  After breaking the London connection Charlie packaged and sealed the photographs that Fredericks had supplied and signalled his emergence to the waiting Cartright.

  ‘London want this in the diplomatic bag,’ he said.

  ‘It’ll go tonight,’ guaranteed Cartright. Pointedly, the man said: ‘No problems?’

  ‘I asked London if there had been any change of heart about your involvement. Wilson forbade it,’ said Charlie. If the man were playing Sneaky Pete on Harkness’s instruction, invoking the Direc
tor’s authority might reduce his enthusiasm.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ asked Cartright.

  ‘Thought maybe that things should be re-clarified,’ said Charlie. He hoped Cartright got the message. He wondered if the man would attempt to open the sealed envelope of Kozlov’s pictures, to see what was inside. That’s what he would have done, in Cartright’s position. He knew Harry Lu would have opened it, as well.

  Kozlov thoroughly swept his car electronically for any listening devices with Irena watching, but she was dissatisfied and insisted upon carrying out a second, independent check. When she was finally sure, they drove aimlessly around the streets of the darkened city, feeling safe to talk about Irena’s weekly encounter with Olga Balan.

  ‘You satisfied her?’ demanded Kozlov.

  ‘I’m positive,’ said his wife, at once.

  Kozlov glanced briefly across the vehicle at the woman. ‘We shouldn’t be too confident,’ he warned.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean!’ she said.

  ‘Just what it said.’

  ‘That I shouldn’t be too confident!’

  ‘Both of us,’ said Kozlov, avoiding the dispute.

  ‘It was Kamakura, like you,’ said Irena. ‘She’d checked and it was obvious she didn’t like it that the CIA identification had the approval of Moscow.’

  ‘What about Kamakura?’

  ‘How we travelled,’ remembered the woman. ‘Whether I was aware of what you were doing all the time? And if you were aware of what I was doing.’

  ‘She believed you?’

  ‘I told you – she was satisfied,’ insisted Irena.

  ‘I think we should cover ourselves further,’ said the man.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Moscow knows how successful this apparent surveillance of the Americans has been. We should suggest extending the evaluation to the British.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Americans want to meet again,’ disclosed Kozlov. ‘I’ve said the day after tomorrow.’