Charlie M (15 page)

‘My friend suffers from catarrh,' said Charlie, smiling.

The woman looked expressionlessly at him, then began writing.

‘Miserable sod,' judged Charlie, going back to his own room and jamming the bath with a wad of toilet paper.

‘I have been asked,' said Cuthbertson, stiffly, ‘to make this operation a joint one between our two services.'

‘Yes,' said Ruttgers, happily. He looked appreciatively around the Whitehall office: the British knew how to live, he thought. All the furniture was genuine antique.

‘It might not be easy,' protested the Briton.

Ruttgers spread his hands, expansively.

‘Not a mater for us, surely?' he said, soothingly. ‘We merely have to obey the instructions from our superiors.'

Cuthbertson sat staring at him, saying nothing. The left eye flickered its irritation and Ruttgers looked down at the cigarette in his hand: just like Keys, he thought. There was a hostility in the man beyond that which the American had expected from being told to co-operate.

‘I'm sure it will work fine,' said Ruttgers, briskly. ‘Now what I want to do is send in one of my men to make contact with Kalenin. You haven't had much success so far, after all.'

From Moscow that morning he'd been assured that no new operatives had been posted to the British Embassy. Now was the time to make demands, when they were unsure of themselves.

‘I'm afraid things have progressed beyond that point,' said Cuthbertson, smirking.

Ruttgers waited, apprehensively.

‘We have made very successful contact with Kalenin and arranged a crossing,' continued Cuthbertson, condescendingly. ‘There really is very little that we will need you for.'

Ruttgers flushed, furiously. Braley had been right, he thought. Cox was an incompetent idiot to have placed him in this position. He'd order the withdrawal immediately.

‘It's a ministerial order that we co-operate,' reminded Ruttgers. He was confused, trying to recover his composure.

‘I wonder,' mused Cuthbertson, completely sure of himself, ‘if that order would have been issued had the Cabinet had the opportunity to listen to what Kalenin had to tell my man in Moscow.'

‘What?' demanded the C.I.A. Director, nervously.

‘I know how Harrison and Snare were detected, Mr Ruttgers,' said the Briton.

‘It's a lie,' snapped the American, instinctively.

‘What?' pounced Cuthbertson.

Ruttgers fidgeted, annoyed with himself.

‘Any allegation about my service,' he insisted, inadequately.

‘I'm accepting your presence, under protest, because it's an order,' said Cuthbcrtson, in his familiar monotone. ‘I'm making the transcript available to the Cabinet, together with my feelings about it. But make no mistake, Mr Ruttgers. The part you and your service play in this matter will be a very subservient one.'

The matryoshkas dolls, the rotund, Russian figures that fit one in the other, making a family of eight, were displayed on the dressing-table, reflected into the bedroom by the mirror. She'd liked the caviar, too, thought Charlie.

Janet lay, damp with perspiration, against his chest, nudging him with her tongue. He'd have to do it again in a minute, he knew. He really was getting too old.

‘Sir Henry is very impressed,' she said.

‘So he should be.'

‘But I gather he and Wilberforce are annoyed you made the trip without their knowing.'

‘Too bad.'

‘What's Kalenin like?'

‘Little bloke. Frightened, but he doesn't show it.'

‘Half a million is a lot of money.'

‘But worth it,' insisted Charlie. What would she do for half a million, wondered Charlie, stroking her hair.

She pulled away from him and wedged herself upon one arm.

‘Do you think it will work, Charlie?'

‘It's got to,' replied the man.

‘For whom?' she demanded. ‘You. Or the department?'

‘Both,' said Charlie, immediately. ‘It's equally important for both.'

‘They're only using you, darling,' warned Janet, stretching back again. ‘They'll fuck you in the end if it serves a purpose.'

‘Yes,' agreed Charlie, softly. ‘That's the worrying thought.'

(12)

The distrust was tangible, a positive obstruction between them, thought Charlie, sitting comfortably in the Director's office.

He'd created the situation and was contented with it, examining the reactions like a researcher studying slides beneath a microscope.

Wilberforce was in his accustomed chair, examining his peculiar hands as if seeing their oddness for the first time and Cuthbertson was attempting to improve the design on an already tattooed blotter. He regretted now his earlier agreement to the Moscow tape recording being played in full, guessed Charlie.

Ruttgers stood by the window, driven there by the anger that had pulled him from the chair as the Neskuchny Sad recording had echoed in the lofty room. The American Director was swirled in a cloud of tobacco smoke.

Braley perched in the stiff, uncomfortable chair, pumping at his inhaler.

‘I repeat what I have already told Sir Henry,' protested Ruttgers, staring out into Parliament Square. ‘Kalenin, if indeed the voice we have heard is that of Kalenin, is lying.'

‘To what purpose?' enquired Charlie, in apparent innocence.

‘What right have you got to question me?' demanded the American, imperiously.

‘The right of a man whose two colleagues have already perished as a result of C.I.A. involvement and whose neck is currently on the block,' retorted Charlie, judging the offence.

Ruttgers looked at Cuthbertson for rebuke, but when none came reiterated, ‘The C.I.A. did not inform upon your operatives.'

‘Then what can it mean?' coaxed Charlie. This encounter couldn't have gone better, he thought.

‘That he was lying,' said Ruttgers, without thought. ‘Or that it isn't really Kalenin.'

‘Do you really feel that?' seized Cuthbertson, ahead of Charlie, but prompting for different reasons.

‘It's a reasonable assumption,' said the American.

‘Then it's an equally reasonable assumption that the whole episode is phoney – as I have argued for many weeks now. And that we should stop this thing now without any more risk to either service or any more people,' said Charlie.

Ruttgers stayed at the window, recognising the alley into which he had been backed.

The cracking of Wilberforce's knuckles came over the sound of Braley's wheezing; it was like being a sick visitor in a terminal ward, thought Charlie.

‘It
must
be pursued to the end,' asserted Ruttgers, finally.

Cuthbertson looked up from his defaced blotter.

‘By my service,' he qualified.

Ruttgers said nothing.

‘And on my terms,' stipulated the ex-soldier.

Ruttgers sighed, accepting he had no bargaining counters. He nodded, briefly.

‘On our terms,' demanded the British Director, insistent on a commitment.

‘Agreed,' confirmed the American, tightly.

‘Which means I want somebody …' Charlie paused, looking at the asthmatic Braley,'… him, with me in Czechoslovakia. At all times, in fact …'

Cuthbertson and Wilberforce looked up, frowning curiously.

‘Because having a C.I.A. man with me guarantees I won't be exposed by them, doesn't it?' smiled Charlie, looking between the two Americans for reaction.

Ruttgers turned away from the window, his face clearing.

‘… But that's …'

‘… me setting
you
up,' interrupted Charlie. ‘I want him with me, but taking as little part as I determine in the discussions I have. He's just always got to be within ten yards.'

‘Ten yards?' queried Braley, the inhaler held loosely in his hand, like a blackboard pointer.

‘From that range, I'm classified as an expert shot,' said Charlie, simply. ‘I'd see an arrest coming, long before ten yards …'

He stared directly at Ruttgers.

‘… I shall draw a gun from the British embassy,' he recorded. ‘And before any arrest, I'll kill your man. And that would create an embarrassing international
cause célèbre,
wouldn't it?'

‘This is preposterous!' complained the American, going to Cuthbertson.

‘Yes,' agreed the British Director, ‘it is, isn't it? But after the misfortunes that have occurred so far, I can see Muffin's point of view.'

‘You want constant involvement,' contributed Wilberforce. ‘This is surely what's being proposed?'

Another blocked alley, saw Ruttgers.

‘I want to make it quite clear,' began Ruttgers, formally, ‘that a full account of this meeting will be sent to the Secretary of State, Willard Keys, for whatever use he might see fit to make of it in his discussions with the President about the forthcoming European visit. I'm sure he'll find it sad that the special relationship between our two countries has reached such a point.'

‘I'm sure he will,' picked up Cuthbertson, unafraid. ‘I hope his distress will be matched by that of the British cabinet when they have had the opportunity fully to study the transcript of the Kalenin conversation.'

This was very bad, realised Ruttgers. If the British pressed the point, Keys would abandon him, assuring the President he had no knowledge of the entrapment of Snare and Harrison. He could be brought down by this débâcle, realised the American.

‘I think we are allowing stupid, unwarranted animosity to cloud the point of this meeting,' he attempted.

‘Which is to bring successfully to the West the most important Russian defector since 1945?' lured Charlie.

Ruttgers nodded, suspiciously.

‘To a scenario which you don't accept?' said Braley, to help his superior.

‘Doesn't it seem to you that, Harrison and Snare apart, the whole thing has gone just a little too easily?' asked Charlie.

‘Yes,' agreed Ruttgers, immediately. ‘But then again, how else could it have gone? Kalenin is in a unique position to manipulate circumstances to his own advantage and to behave in a manner that others would find impossible.'

‘So now you accept it's genuine?' said Wilberforce, head sunk deeply on his chest so that the words were difficult to hear.

‘I'm saying we …' Ruttgers paused, remembering the rebuke, ‘… you,' he corrected, ‘should make the Prague meeting.'

‘Have your analysts examined every report and transcript?' asked Charlie.

‘Yes,' said Braley, shortly.

‘To what conclusion?' demanded Charlie.

‘Apprehension,' accepted Ruttgers. ‘But not the outright doubt that you're expressing, Charles.'

‘Charlie,' stopped the Englishman.

Ruttgers frowned. ‘What the hell are you talking about?' demanded the American Director.

‘If you must use it, the Christian name is Charlie,' he corrected.

Ruttgers looked in bewildered exasperation at Cuthbertson, who shrugged. Muffin was amazingly vindictive, decided Cuthbertson. Almost childishly so.

‘It just doesn't feel right,' swept on Charlie, enjoying his control of the meeting. They were all uncomfortable and confused, he saw, happily.

‘I know what you mean,' said the American, staring at the peculiar Englishman. ‘But at this stage, we've got no choice but to go along with it.'

‘What about access to Snare?' reminded Charlie, coming back to Cuthbertson.

‘Deferred,' reported the permanently red-faced man. ‘Without any explanation.'

Charlie shook his head, unhappily, as if the delay confirmed his concern.

‘We can do nothing except follow Kalenin's lead,' stressed Braley, again taking his chief's lead.

‘I believe Kalenin when he said he's putting me under surveillance,' said Charlie, opening a new course of discussion. ‘Even here, in London.'

Both Ruttgers and Cuthbertson frowned.

‘Have you been aware of it?' asked Wilberforce.

‘No,' said Charlie. ‘But if they were good, and they will be, then I wouldn't know of it, would I?'

‘So?' queried Ruttgers. He examined the Englishman with interest. He was a complete professional, thought the C.I.A. Director: the only one, apart from himself and Braley, in the room.

‘So we
must
wash the money.'

Ruttgers moved, uncomfortably, like a subordinate aware of an indiscretion in front of the managing director at a firm's Christmas party.

‘Now wait a minute …'

‘… we can't wait a minute,' cut off Charlie. ‘If that money isn't broken down, Kalenin will know about it. You heard the tape. He just won't cross.'

‘What'll that involve?' asked Braley.

‘To do it sufficiently publicly?' said Charlie, rhetorically. ‘I'd say about two weeks to cover London, the South of France and Austria. And that's not allowing for any unforeseen difficulties.'

‘We
did
record the numbers,' confessed Ruttgers. ‘And it took us nearly a week, even feeding into a computer.'

‘We'll still be able to keep a check,' said Charlie.

‘How?' asked Ruttgers.

‘Knowing every number is the optimum. And unnecessary,' Charlie lectured. ‘To trace the money, if you need to, we'd need just a sample. Braley and I could use a pocket assessor and feed in a section of the cleaned money.'

Ruttgers frowned, doubtfully.

‘And let's face it, you're being incredibly cautious,' stressed Charlie. ‘At a conservative estimate, it'll take two years completely to debrief Kalenin. And even then he'll need and probably demand help with a new identity, place to live and permanent guards. We'll be aware of his location for ten to fifteen years from now. The money is very unimportant, except to him.'

And to the American Congress, thought Ruttgers. But the Briton was talking complete common sense. It really didn't matter and Keys would have to accept that ground conditions made the change necessary. Equated against the amount of money the C.I.A. spent yearly, sometimes on madcap projects, this investment was infinitesimal, anyway. Ruttgers nodded acceptance, shifting from the window.