‘Makes her the only prize left,’ judged Hank Levine.
‘Which we’re still going to have,’ said Fredericks.
There’s something from the airport,’ disclosed Jamieson, the Special Forces colonel who’d been awaiting their return. There’s a British military flight on its way from London.’
The prize we’re still going to have,’ repeated Fredericks.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Charlie’s first thought was to go for one of the book-by-the-hour short-time whorehouse hotels in central Kowloon, among the clothes-festooned tenements, but then he realized how easily two round-eyes could be located in such complete Chinese surroundings and so he came closer – but not too close – to the waterfront and took a room in the Asia, which dollar-a-day vacationing students shared with working girls. There were still clothes-festooned tenements and cooking smells from outside streets zig-zagged with neon and inside rooms where some people really were on a dollar a day. There was a perpetual rustle and stir of noise, too, from outside again, but competing against quick-breathed bed sounds from rooms around them and a further away competition, from transistor radios. Their room was at the back of the hotel, kept in a permanent half-light from the overshadowing buildings. The netted curtains against the window were grey with dirt and the bed covering was grey, as well, and probably from the same cause, although it was difficult to be sure even from the additional illumination of the single bedside lamp with its lopsided shade. The lamp was on a table containing the only drawers, and when Charlie opened the plywood wardrobe a solitary bent metal hanger clattered at him. Light in the adjoining bathroom was better. There was a tide-mark of blackness at the water level of the lavatory and several more, at varying heights, around the bath, the bottom of which had completely lost its enamel and was uniformly black. When Charlie put the light on, three fatly contented cockroaches made for the safety of the skirting board but unhurriedly, more confident of their permanence of occupation than he was. Just the sort of place where Harkness would expect him to stay, thought Charlie.
‘We are occupying the same room?’
Charlie turned hack from the bathroom at Irena’s question, and said: ‘Do you want to be alone then, after today!’
She seemed to have difficulty in replying, the demanding confidence still not recovered. Instead she said: ‘Who tried to kill me?’
‘I told you before I didn’t know,’ reminded Charlie. ‘I’m still unsure.’ There was so much to think about, maybe reconsider. He could find – just, and then certainly not justify – a rationale in the Americans blocking an escape route by destroying the plane, but today didn’t have any logic. Irena Kozlov wasn’t any advantage to them dead, and if he and Harry had been the targets of a professional CIA kill-and-snatch operation – and the weapon had most definitely been professional – why was he still alive and why hadn’t Irena Kozlov been taken? He had been a sitting duck, incapable of any effective resistance. And it would have been obvious to anyone after their first week of basic intelligence training. So if not the Americans, then who? There was only one obvious answer – an answer supported by the use of the special assassins’ gun that fired without noise – but against that were the same arguments as before. If the Russians had somehow found them there would have been a squad, and a squad of trained experts would not have let them get three feet from today’s ambush. Why the hell was the world full of questions without answers?
‘That man, the one who was killed; you said he was a friend of yours?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Charlie, reminded. ‘He was.’ Poor Harry, he thought: he wouldn’t after all be taking a family with tinkling names to settle in Cockfosters, the next stop after Oakwood.
‘I am sorry someone has died, because of me.’
Charlie looked intently at the woman, surprised by the expression of regret and the continued humility, neither of which seemed in character. ‘So am I,’ he said. Wilson didn’t like soldiers getting killed and Charlie didn’t like his mates – even mates who’d made him temporarily suspicious – getting killed.
‘What are we going to do?’ It was a little-girl question from someone who wasn’t a little girl.
Charlie moved closer to her but then didn’t know what to do because Irena Kozlov wasn’t the sort of woman to feel out to and offer some reassurance through physical contact. He did anyway and she further surprised him by responding, reaching out to take his hand. ‘We’re going to get out,’ he said, wishing he believed it himself and hoping she did. Already rehearsed from his earlier reflections, Charlie went on: ‘They tried to kill us but we got away, so we must have lost them. Otherwise they would have tried again. So we’re safe.’
She looked back at him uncertainly, but didn’t openly challenge him. She said: ‘It’s got to be the Americans, hasn’t it?’
Charlie caught the doubt in her mind, wondering if the fear of her own people in pursuit had brought about the changed attitude. While he preferred it to her earlier demeanour, Charlie decided it would be better if she only had the fear from one source. He said: ‘Yes, it’s the Americans.’
‘They’ll lose,’ she announced.
‘Lose?’ queried Charlie. Her hands were very soft.
‘When I tell Yuri. He explained how you tried to persuade him to have both of us come to you, like the Americans. When I tell him what’s happened, he’ll abandon them and come to you. We both will.’
‘That will be good,’ said Charlie. Something to pass on to Wilson. In fact, there was a lot to discuss with the Director and he had to stop Cartright – initially anyway – mistakenly crossing to Macao.
‘Thank you, for looking after me like you have,’ said Irena.
What would a dark-haired woman whose name meant Dawn Rising feel about the way he’d looked after her husband, thought Charlie, suddenly. The entry documents were waiting at the High Commission; something else he shouldn’t forget. He squeezed her hands in attempted reassurance and said: ‘It’s going to work out just fine.’
‘I hope Yuri is all right, now.’
‘Don’t worry,’ urged Charlie. How was he going to manage all that had to be done? It would take at least three hours, there and back, getting first to Hong Kong island and then across to the signals station, and he couldn’t leave Irena Kozlov alone, not now. And he couldn’t take her with him, either: apart from the risk of their being re-identified during the journey, it was inconceivable to take a KGB agent – albeit a defecting one – anywhere near an installation with the security classification that existed at Chung Hom Kok. It looked like rule-breaking time again.
It took a long time for him to be connected with the duty officer: Charlie sat perched on the bed-edge, aware how hard it was, wondering if the bathroom cockroaches had any friends between the covers. When the man came on to the line, Charlie dictated his Foreign Office number, conscious of the intake of breath from the other end at the breach of security, and hurried on, stopping any protest or reaction, giving the hotel and the room and insisting Cartright be directed there the moment he made contact.
Able finally to speak, the man began: ‘London will …’ but Charlie put the receiver down before he could continue: he bet London – Harkness – would complete the threat, whatever it was.
Irena was at the window, staring out at the dark, inner courtyard, properly standing to one side so that she would not be openly visible. There seemed more than a difference in the way she was behaving; she appeared physically smaller, weighed down by what had – and was – happening. She was probably wishing she’d never defected and if she was, she would be thinking there was no going back.
‘Are you hungry?’
Irena turned, without coming away from the window. ‘Would it mean going out?’
‘Only immediately outside; I saw some places, in the same road as we are.’
‘No.’
‘Tell me, if you change your mind.’
‘We just left him, sitting there!’ she burst out.
/> ‘He was dead: we couldn’t do anything.’
‘Was he married?’
‘Yes.’
‘Children?’
‘A girl.’
She shuddered. ‘What will happen to them?’
‘I’ll see to it.’
Some sort of emotion moved through her again and Irena said: ‘It’s awful, this business, isn’t it?’
The disillusionment that brought about the defection? wondered Charlie; it seemed a strange reaction from someone knowingly married to a killer. Coaxing, he said: ‘Is that what Yuri thinks?’
‘He says not – that it’s imprisonment he’s frightened of – but I know it is.’
Charlie didn’t want to lose the momentum, but he had to make the briefest of pauses, correctly to phrase the question. He said: ‘He’s worked a lot, then?’
Now Irena hesitated, not lost in any reverie but very aware of what she was being asked. ‘A lot,’ she said, not offering any more.
A mistake to push in that direction, decided Charlie. He said: ‘Did you find it difficult?’
Irena considered the question and said positively: ‘No, not at all.’
‘Where were you, before Tokyo?’
She moved finally, coming further into the room. ‘Is this the start, the debriefing?’
‘No,’ said Charlie.
‘Acceptance interview?’
‘It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?’
Irena smiled, big-toothed. ‘Far too late. What then?’
‘Obvious, professional interest.’
The woman examined him curiously, as if she didn’t fully believe him, and said: ‘Bonn. It was the first posting Yuri and I had together; he was in London by himself.’
An attempted deflection, gauged Charlie. ‘And you stayed behind in Moscow, throughout the time he was in England?’
The smile came again. ‘No,’ she said. ‘For part of the time, but then I worked supposedly as a secretary at the Soviet consulate in San Francisco.’
Which monitors the American hi-tech industry to the south, in Silicon Valley, thought Charlie. There was a determined and recognizable pattern from the places where Irena Kozlov had worked: Silicon Valley, the technology crucible of the West, from there to West Germany, the major European smuggling conduit, and then on to Japan, the major Asian route to the Soviet Union. The complete cell-building, spy-suborning tour, in fact: Moscow would unquestionably and immediately order her killed, to prevent what she knew being passed on. At once came the stumbling block question: so why hadn’t it been done? Knowing that all defectors try to elevate their importance – and wanting to prod Irena’s previous boastfulness – Charlie said: ‘You must be highly regarded.’
She sat on the bed, the only place available at the bottom, away from him, and said: ‘Yes, I am.’ The boastfulness he’d expected wasn’t there.
Remembering the fears that prompted their split defection, Charlie said: ‘You will be well treated, in England. I can promise you that.’
‘I’m afraid it might be a problem,’ she said.
‘There’s bound to be uncertainty, a period of adjustment …’ began Charlie, but she talked across him.
‘Not that,’ she said. ‘I know what will be expected of me … the cooperation. I think that’s what I will find difficult …’ The smile came once more, a sad expression this time. ‘I’m well aware of what I’ve done but I still regard myself as a loyal Russian. Does that surprise you?’
‘Utterly,’ admitted Charlie. Weren’t there enough ambiguities, without this!
‘I did it because of Yuri,’ disclosed Irena. ‘It was he who wanted to come over, not me.’
More guidance for Wilson; or rather for the debriefer who would eventually handle Irena, if he managed to get her out. It meant the woman would have to be treated quite differently from how they might have envisioned: not as someone hostile but certainly as someone who would be reluctant to impart what she knew. Charlie thought back to his earlier reflection about how defectors usually embroidered, to enhance their value; Irena Kozlov was going to be the reverse. One reflection prompted another: now he definitely hoped he wasn’t going to be the unlucky sod appointed her case officer. Get her out first, Charlie reminded himself, soberly. Unable to think of anything better, he said again: ‘Believe me, things will be fine.’
‘I’d like to think so,’ she said. ‘So much has happened, so quickly, that I’m not finding it easy.’
Neither am I, love; neither am I, thought Charlie. He was spared the search for further echoing assurances by Cartright’s knock, a hard sound, just once. Irena started up from the bed and went to the wall by the window again, the furthest point from the door. She remained there after the Tokyo Resident identified himself and was admitted by Charlie who said to her: ‘It’s OK.’
Cartright offered his hand, which she took hesitantly, and then the man looked doubtfully around the room.
‘It’s what the brochures call unchanged,’ said Charlie.
‘What’s happened?’
Charlie gave an edited account in front of the woman, avoiding any reference to Chung Hom Kok or the pressure Harry Lu had imposed, for the cooperation that cost the man his life. Throughout Cartright stood nodding, and when Charlie finished he said: ‘I never knew Harry Lu.’
‘He was all right,’ said Charlie. It didn’t seem much of an epitaph for someone who’d worked his balls off for the service since he’d literally been a kid. Charlie was glad Cartright didn’t waste time asking questions to which he didn’t have answers.
Cartright looked at the woman, recognizing the difficulty of full conversation in front of her. ‘London want to talk. Urgently,’ was all he allowed himself.
Charlie wanted to talk to them, but not yet: postponing confrontations seemed to be a growing habit, he thought, remembering his initial reluctance in Tokyo. He said: ‘More important things to do first. We’ve got to stay clean, as far as local law is concerned. We ran out on the Hyatt, in Macao, and that’s going to show up when the investigation starts and puts Harry there, as well. I want you to go back and settle the account: just ours, of course. There was no obvious contact between Harry and us – only in our rooms – and I don’t want any connection established. Cash, no traceable credit cards.’
‘They’ll still have names, from registration records.’
‘Along with a hundred others,’ said Charlie. ‘They won’t mean a thing as long as there’s nothing suspicious like skipping out on a bill.’
Cartright nodded and said: ‘London was very insistent.’
‘I’ll let them know you passed the message on,’ promised Charlie.
Cartright looked uncertain, but didn’t press the argument. ‘What after Macao?’ he said.
Christ knows, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Back here. And be careful. There’ve been enough casualties.’
After Cartright left, Irena said: ‘He seems very young.’
‘I always think that about policemen in the street. Must be age,’ said Charlie. He’d meant it as a remark against himself but it didn’t come out as he intended. She didn’t seem offended. He wondered how old she was: late thirties perhaps, forty top whack.
‘Thank you, for what you’ve done.’
‘You already thanked me,’ reminded Charlie.
‘I mean you don’t have to go on looking after me so closely. I’m feeling much better now. I’ll be all right.’
Was she worried about both of them sharing the same room? She hadn’t seemed to mind the reference to age and Charlie wondered if she’d be upset by the assurance that the last thing he had in mind was making any sort of sexual approach: the handholding had been part of the job, nothing else. He said: ‘I wasn’t strictly honest with you, that first night at the Mandarin, when you asked me if everything had gone wrong and I said no. Everything hadn’t gone wrong: but too much had. It still is going wrong. And like I say, I don’t know why. I’ve got to get you safely to England and I am going to do it. And a
fter what happened today I’ve decided that means not leaving you alone, for a moment.’
‘He said London wanted you, urgently.’
‘They want you more urgently,’ said Charlie. ‘Cartright won’t be long. When it’s not me, it’ll be him.’
In fact he took longer than Charlie expected, so that it was already genuinely dark by the time the man got back to the Kowloon hotel: the single lamp was like a match in a coalmine.
‘Any problems?’ asked Charlie. There were enough, surely.
‘None at all,’ said Cartright. He handed Charlie the hotel receipt and said: ‘London will want this.’
Harkness really had the poor bugger trained, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Too late to speak to them now.’
‘The time difference is in our favour,’ disputed Cartright.
‘I meant too late from this end,’ said Charlie, still avoiding any mention of Chung Hom Kok: avoiding London, too. To Irena he said: ‘Sure you’re feeling better?’
‘Positive,’ she said at once, brightly.
‘Good,’ said Charlie. ‘Then we can go out to eat.’
They went to the restaurant Charlie had already identified, just across the road from the hotel. It was bare-floored and the tables were formica-topped, and Charlie recognized a Chinese restaurant that Chinese used and decided they’d scored, which they had. It was Sichuan: Charlie had Governor’s Chicken and Cartright chose Ma-Pa Do Fu. Irena only picked at her fish, the brightness no longer there. Any normal conversation was practically impossible, although Cartright tried and Charlie did his best, and there were still long periods of echoing silence between them. But then, reflected Charlie, it was hardly a social event. They went directly back to the hotel, where Cartright had a room on the floor above theirs. At the door to their room, Irena stopped and said: ‘I really don’t think this is necessary.’
‘I do,’ insisted Charlie. He opened the door and went in, refusing a corridor argument.
Irena followed and said: ‘Richard’s room is just one floor up.’
Cartright stood uncertainly at the door, looking between the two of them, unsure what – if any – contribution to make.
See Charlie Run Page 23