Comrade Charlie

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Can I ask you something very personal?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘What about children?’

  Charlie took several seconds to reply. He said: ‘We decided against it, at first. It was Edith’s decision, really. Because of what I did. She thought…well, that it wasn’t a good idea. Then she changed her mind: she’d left the department by then, wasn’t doing anything. Not working, I mean. She became pregnant about a year after she quit. She lost it, just beyond two months. It didn’t happen again. Her becoming pregnant. There were tests and things and there was no reason why it shouldn’t have done. Medical, I mean. It just didn’t.’

  ‘Would you have liked a baby?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Charlie, again with complete honesty. ‘It all seemed to be over before I’d become used to the idea of having one in the first place. I don’t ever remember making up my mind.’

  ‘I’m thirty-eight, Charlie. Nearly thirty-nine.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The chances of our having one aren’t good.’

  He laughed. ‘You thinking that far ahead!’

  ‘I haven’t been, not until now. But why not?’

  ‘No reason,’ conceded Charlie. ‘I haven’t, that’s all.’

  ‘Think about it now,’ she demanded.

  ‘That’s not the way it’s decided!’ protested Charlie.

  ‘How is it decided?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ struggled Charlie. ‘People talk about it…discuss it for a while…’

  ‘You don’t want one, do you?’ challenged Natalia openly.

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Frightened, I suppose.’

  ‘What’s there to be frightened of?’

  ‘Something happening. Going wrong.’

  ‘I never imagined you’d feel like that.’

  Charlie shifted impatiently. His arm was numb from the length of time Natalia had been lying on it. He said: ‘Isn’t this part of the conversation academic, anyway? There’s a lot of other things to think about first.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘Job,’ said Charlie.

  Now it was Natalia who did not speak for several moments. When she did she moved further away, off his arm, and said: ‘Put a light on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Put a light on!’

  He did. Natalia sat up, careless of the covering falling, unembarrassed at her nakedness. Her body was very firm, a young girl’s litheness, her breasts with hardly any sag, her stomach hard.

  ‘So?’ he said. Charlie came up in the bed too, propping himself on his tingling arm, hoping it would restore the circulation. He wondered how she was going to phrase it.

  ‘So what are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m talking about getting another job, of course.’

  ‘Where does of course come into it?’

  ‘Darling!’ said Charlie, pleading for her understanding. ‘You surely don’t imagine I can stay on in the service if you cross over and we stay together…get married! It would be absurd. I’ll have to resign.’

  ‘No!’ She had to convince him, Natalia thought desperately.

  ‘There’s no alternative.’

  ‘No, Charlie,’ she insisted. ‘You’ve got to find a way!’

  ‘There isn’t one!’ said Charlie, just as insistently.

  ‘Find one!’ she hissed, wanting to shout at him but unable to risk the noise in the sleeping hotel.

  ‘Why must I find a way, Natalia?’ asked Charlie solemnly.

  ‘Because if you don’t it will destroy us.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It does to me. It makes very good sense. I might not have known much about Edith from our time in Moscow but I learned a lot of other things. Chief of which was what the service and the department mean to you. It’s ingrained into you, Charlie. You think it, live it, exist on it.’

  ‘It’s a job I’m good at,’ Charlie tried to qualify. ‘There’ll be others.’

  Natalia shook her head in refusal. ‘It wouldn’t happen at once,’ she said. ‘Maybe not for quite a few months. But then you’d start to miss it and think about it more and more and it would grow up into a barrier between us. We’d start to fight, blame each other, and then it wouldn’t be perfect any more.’ She was right, Natalia knew: she was more convinced than she had been about anything in her life that she was right.

  ‘The department isn’t like it was, before I was in Moscow,’ said Charlie. ‘There have been changes. It isn’t that important to me.’

  ‘That’s not true. I don’t think you believe it even.’

  Charlie remembered the long-ago determination to endure whatever shit Harkness dumped upon him and conceded that it wasn’t true, not completely. It was inevitable he would miss the department and there would always be regrets at not being part of it but Natalia was exaggerating to consider it becoming a problem between them. He said: ‘It’s what I have to do.’

  There had to be a persuasion, a threat even! She thought of it and momentarily held back but then said: ‘I can’t be part of it.’

  ‘I want you to say that properly,’ said Charlie, more solemn that before.

  ‘I won’t cross to you,’ announced Natalia.

  ‘That’s nonsense.’

  Dear God, let him believe the lie, thought Natalia. Because at that moment she knew it to be an empty threat, so much did she want him. Having started it she had to go on, to make it sound convincing. She said: ‘In Moscow you said you loved me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was it true?’

  ‘Of course it was true!’ said Charlie, unhappy at the impatience sounding in his voice.

  ‘Yet you came back: you wouldn’t cross to me.’

  ‘That’s not even logical,’ rejected Charlie. ‘Then I was on an assignment, although I didn’t know fully what it was. And I’ve told you how many times I wished I’d stayed.’

  It had been a convoluted argument and Natalia was sorry now she’d tried to make the equation. She said: ‘I’m not trying to tell you I wouldn’t regret it. I’d regret it every day for the rest of my life. But not as much as I would everything collapsing between us if I stayed.’ She hoped that had sounded better, but she wasn’t sure it had.

  Charlie was about to say that the decision wouldn’t be his to make anyway – that he’d be instantly dismissed if he didn’t resign first – but he stopped. This was a fatuous dispute and it was even more fatuous to protract. It was important, though, to end it so that Natalia didn’t do – or consider doing – anything he didn’t want her to. Charlie shrugged in apparent capitulation and said: ‘All right! I’ll find a way.’

  Her face broke into an immediate smile. ‘You truly mean it!’

  ‘I truly mean it,’ lied Charlie. The moment she fled she was irrevocably committed: that was the time to discuss what little personal future he might have.

  Natalia seized his face between both her hands to kiss him, pulling him close so their nakedness touched and said: ‘Oh my darling! I love you, love you, love you!’

  ‘No more talk of changing your mind?’

  ‘No more talk of changing my mind.’

  Charlie lay sleepless for a long time after Natalia had slipped out to go back to her own room, hands cupped behind his head, not even bothering at first to extinguish the light she had insisted should be put on.

  The following morning Charlie went for his usual promenade in the vicinity of the hotel but was back soon after the bar opened, where he hadn’t been for several days. The barman’s face opened at his entry and the man said: ‘Hello! Thought you’d changed your mind and booked out early.’

  ‘Been busy,’ said Charlie. ‘But I might have to leave sooner than I thought.’ He never had enjoyed playing the fool for too long. It made him feel uneasy, like so much else.

  ‘Unbelievable!’ exclaimed Ha
rkness, jagged voiced in genuine shock. ‘Absolutely unbelievable.’

  The product of Witherspoon’s organized search of Charlie’s office and Vauxhall flat, together with the swamping surveillance of the hotel, was set out on a narrow conference table that Harkness had had moved in specially to accommodate all the evidence. The dossier containing all the intercepted cable transmission was also there.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ agreed Witherspoon. ‘Absolutely unbelievable.’

  ‘Give me the sequence,’ demanded Harkness.

  ‘The dossier on the woman, Natalia Fedova, was among the material we seized in his desk…’

  ‘No official logging of it being created! No indication of who she is? Why she’s important.’

  Witherspoon shook his head. ‘No. Nothing in Records, either.’

  Harkness gestured towards a set of photographs of Natalia. ‘When were these taken?’

  ‘This morning,’ said Witherspoon. ‘We’re trailing her to Farnborough, of course.’

  ‘Go on!’ urged the acting Director General.

  ‘The rest of the stuff we located at his flat,’ said Witherspoon. ‘An indescribable mess, incidentally. It wasn’t easy to find. Some of the stuff was behind a skirting board in the bedroom. Some more in the casing of an electricity meter.’

  Harkness started to reach towards what was on the table and then stopped. ‘Forensically examined yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Harkness withdrew his hand and said: ‘A thousand pounds exactly?’

  ‘To the penny,’ confirmed Witherspoon, guessing the point of the question.

  ‘Reactivate payment by one thousand,’ quoted Harkness.

  Witherspoon smiled at guessing correctly. ‘Has past visitor met guest?’ he recited back ‘Charlie Muffin qualifies as a past visitor, from that episode in Moscow. And the woman is a guest.’

  Harkness’ head moved up and down jerkily in his eagerness to agree. Excitedly he said: ‘It fits! It all damned well fits!’ and then looked up uncomfortably at the other man, having used the word damn. Quickly, with his accountant’s mind, he said: ‘We can step down all the other activities and surveillance. There’s nothing to be gained now by the unnecessary use of manpower. We’ve solved our mystery.’

  ‘I don’t think we should let him run much longer,’ warned Witherspoon.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Harkness. ‘Not just yet. I want to assemble the proper inquiry panel. I hope one particular man can be there. I want Sir Alistair Wilson there to learn how his preciously guarded operative has been a Soviet spy all along.’ And members of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Harkness thought: properly conducted, a preliminary inquiry to get rid of two men, not just one.

  40

  Everything had so far unfolded strictly according to the schedule he’d dictated – each puppet dancing to the strings he chose to pull – and Alexei Berenkov was disconcerted by the London warning of increased British surveillance on the delegation hotel, because it was not in response to anything he had initiated. Not yet. He had intended other moves, further ensnaring evidence. But this put the timing out: disrupted the carefully conceived pattern. Of course there could be other explanations for the sudden British interest. Several, in fact. But Berenkov, first a field professional before he’d become a headquarters planner, decided he couldn’t take any chance, not at this stage. He had to assume it rezident’s was a premature reaction to what he’d done so far: that it was to do with Charlie Muffin.

  Berenkov stood abruptly, angrily, from his desk in the First Chief Directorate building and went to the window overlooking the multi-laned highway that circles Moscow: the windows were double glazed, so there was no sound, although the road streamed with vehicles. Berenkov saw none of it, his entire concentration elsewhere. Right to assume but wrong to behave prematurely himself, he thought. He had to reassess, to analyse. Although it was not as complete as he’d planned, the circumstantial evidence was well enough spread. And sufficient for any determined prosecutor to present conclusively. What was left undone? The positive, linking connection to Blackstone, but that could be created easily enough, within twenty-four hours. Which left the apparent crime itself. Which in turn was dependent upon Emil Krogh. Surveillance, Berenkov thought, with a flood of relief. At the moment the British only appeared to be watching, not acting. He’d always planned to fill the supposed ‘dead letter’ drop in King William Street before triggering the arrest but in further realization Berenkov accepted that did not necessarily need to be the sequence. Providing he knew the moment any move was made against Charlie Muffin – which meant continuing their own observation, despite the concern that Losev had passed on – he could do it quickly after.

  Berenkov turned away from the ignored window, hurrying back to his desk, excited by the resolve. He had to think it through, to guarantee there were no pitfalls, but it seemed to be the perfect answer, the way for him to pick up the puppet strings again. The essential requirement was to decide how much time he would have, following any seizure of Charlie Muffin, to complete everything in King William Street. Which was dictated by the length of the British interrogation. Berenkov smiled in continuing satisfaction, because he had the perfect guide to that from his own arrest and questioning. A month, he remembered: almost an entire month of morning till night inquisition from Charlie Muffin, the man he intended, with exquisite irony, to place in precisely the same position. Not that he would need a month to complete everything, Berenkov estimated. Two days, perhaps: three at the most. For the first two or three days of his own detention they’d hardly come near him. They’d followed the classic interrogation technique, leaving him absolutely alone in a cell to let his imagination build up the fears and uncertainties and panic. He couldn’t rely upon whatever happened to Charlie Muffin being exactly the same as his own experience, of course. But it was more than enough for him to plan around.

  What about Valeri Kalenin? It would be protocol to brief the man, now that everything was so close: certainly an act of friendship. But there could be dangers in his discussing it with the other man. Although Berenkov himself was completely satisfied he’d evolved a way to compensate for anything the British might do there was always the possibility that the more nervous Kalenin wouldn’t agree. He might even use the unexpected London activity as an excuse to cancel the entrapment altogether, irrespective of how advanced it already was. And Berenkov knew he could not ignore a direct order. Better – safer – that he wait. There was, after all, a perfectly reasonable explanation, if one were later demanded, for his saying nothing. There was no proof that the British moves concerned Charlie Muffin. He was simply taking precautions if it did: there could be no criticism or censure in that.

  Berenkov spent more than an hour drafting and redrafting his detailed orders to London, the most insistent of which was that the Soviet watch upon the Bayswater hotel be maintained and not lifted. And that he be alerted the moment something – anything – occured involving Charlie Muffin, be it day or night.

  Which necessarily meant his remaining permanently at the First Chief Directorate building, Berenkov accepted. After ensuring the dispatch of the London instructions Berenkov had a cot moved into his office.

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Valentina when he telephoned to tell her he was not coming home.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ replied Berenkov. With his customary belief in himself he added: ‘But something will, soon now.’

  Vitali Losev was in a foul mood, in no way alleviated by this being the last occasion he would have to deal with or even talk to a man he despised. It had started to rain after he left London and he didn’t have a topcoat. The weather worsened the further south he travelled and although he managed to dodge from cover to cover after getting off the train he was still soaked when he reached the Portsmouth bar he’d established as their meeting place, his trouser cuffs clinging wetly to his ankles, his jacket soggy on his shoulders.

  Blackstone was already there. The man smiled up hopefully when Losev en
tered and said, unwisely: ‘Rotten day?’

  Losev didn’t bother to answer. Instead he slid an envelope along the bar top and said: ‘Here it is: the retainer.’

  ‘How much is it?’ demanded Blackstone. His tongue edged out, wetting his lips, as if he were tasting something.

  ‘Two hundred,’ said Losev.

  ‘You’re not wasting your money, believe me,’ said Blackstone, thrusting the envelope into his pocket. ‘I still need to know the recognition procedure for this new man, Visitor.’

  Losev smiled. ‘He knows you.’

  ‘Knows me!’

  ‘Why do you think no action was taken against you after the interview with that British security man?’

  ‘Him!’ exclaimed Blackstone, incredulous.

  ‘What better way to protect ourselves?’ said Losev. ‘He’s been on our side for years.’

  Fifteen of the notes in the envelope in Blackstone’s pocket were numbered consecutively with the money that had been secreted in Charlie Muffin’s flat.

  41

  Charlie failed: despite all Natalia’s patience and coaxing tonight nothing happened, would happen, not like it finally had when the problem occurred before. Charlie said Oh Christ and he was sorry and Natalia kissed him and told him not to be silly, that it didn’t matter and who said it had to work every time.

  ‘I did,’ insisted Charlie, making a weak effort to ease his embarrassment.

  ‘Chauvinist pig!’ she accused, trying to help him here, too.

  ‘It won’t be like this again.’

  ‘It will and it won’t matter then, either.’

  Charlie gestured around the bedroom and said: ‘I’m not making excuses but this has all been a bit unreal, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Completely,’ Natalia agreed at once. ‘Unreal and wonderful.’

  ‘I’ve worried, at the risks you’ve had to take.’

  Natalia kissed him again, on the cheek, and said: ‘I’ve been lucky. And careful. And prepared.’

  ‘How prepared?’

  ‘Like you told me, the simpler the better. If there’d ever been a challenge I’d have said I’d changed my mind and decided to go to the bar for a final drink. But I haven’t had to.’