If you had been — and done what I know you to have done — then you’d be six feet under in some unmarked grave, thought Giles. Anxious to escape the pressure, he said: ‘I’ll agree its potential.’
To Blom, Charlie said: ‘I would like to interview the hotel clerk.’
‘A copy of the statement will be made available.’
‘Interview him myself,’ insisted Charlie.
In the intervening hesitation, Charlie was conscious of the look that passed between the Swiss counter-intelligence chief and the CIA supervisor. Blom said: ‘There was a clear understanding from the outset that the Swiss service were to remain in control of this investigation.’
‘I am doing nothing to contravene that understanding,’ soothed Charlie, sure of his argument. ‘I’ve had the advantage of closely questioning the one man in our service in England actually to see the person we’re seeking. There is surely an obvious benefit in my being able to compare his impressions with those of your witness?’
‘I would have thought so,’ came in Levy, supportively.
‘Absolutely everything would be shared with you, of course,’ assured Charlie. ‘Exactly the same as our making Vladimir Novikov available to you.’
‘The Bellevue,’ identified Blom, reluctantly.
‘Thank you,’ said Charlie. Although the remark appeared to be general, Charlie looked directly at the American when he continued: ‘And naturally I’ll let you know if anything comes from the check on the passport records,’ he said.
‘The run-through on the visa applications might take a while,’ said Giles, trying to obey headquarters instructions. ‘Like you said, Schmidt isn’t a particularly unusual name in the United States.’
‘But it’ll be made available?’ pressed Charlie.
‘Yes,’ said Giles, tightly.
‘I really wish I could contribute more,’ offered Levy. ‘All I seem to be doing is sitting here taking advantage of everyone else’s efforts.’
‘Nothing at all from your records search?’
The Israeli shook his close-shaved head. ‘Nothing from either the picture or the physical description that was specific enough. There was one man who looked a possibility for a while but he turned out to be a Syrian terrorist we already had in custody, serving ten years.’
‘Are there still hotels to be questioned?’ Charlie asked the Swiss.
‘Some,’ conceded Blom. He was pink with irritation but Charlie didn’t think it heightened the albino impression this time: the man looked more like a doll badly decorated in the Christmas rush.
‘And they will be?’ persisted Charlie, careless of annoying the man further: he was going to remain an awkward bugger whether Blom was offended or not.
‘Of course!’
‘You could always publish the photograph,’ prodded Charlie.
‘I thought I had made it abundantly clear that publication is not considered an appropriate option.’
‘Problem is, options are things we don’t really seem to have,’ reminded Charlie.
Levy lingered in the foyer of the building, obviously hanging back when the American got into the waiting embassy limousine. They both watched the car merge into the traffic and Levy said: ‘Do you drink?’
‘It’s been known,’ said Charlie.
After two streets they found a cafe tucked away in an alley off the Rue Alcide Jentzer. Charlie chose whisky, a brand he didn’t recognize, and Levy said he’d risk it, too. It turned out to be a risk, harsh to the back of the throat.
‘You didn’t make any friends back there,’ said Levy.
‘Always a problem,’ admitted Charlie.
‘You were very quick to see what was wrong.’
‘It seemed obvious.’
‘Not to me it didn’t. Or the other two.’
‘Fluke,’ dismissed Charlie. What was this hand-on-the-knee stuff all about? he wondered.
‘They’re talking about closing you off,’ revealed the Israeli. ‘The meeting started half an hour before the time you were given.’
So there had been some earlier discussion. ‘They are?’ said Charlie. ‘Not you?’
‘I didn’t express an opinion,’ said Levy, honestly.
‘Express one now.’
‘With Blom it seems to be a matter of personality and I’ve always thought it juvenile to let personal feelings interfere with professional judgements,’ said Levy. ‘As far as the CIA are concerned, you can hardly be surprised by their wanting you out after what you did, can you?’
Still not an opinion, decided Charlie, but revealing nevertheless. If Levy knew what he’d done to the Americans then the Mossad chief had run more than a check on a blurred photograph. And the Israeli records had to be more comprehensive than he’d believed them to be. He said: ‘What was their decision?’
‘They didn’t make one,’ said Levy. ‘And after today they’d be mad to think of doing so.’
‘I think I’ll switch to brandy,’ said Charlie. ‘What about you?’
‘Probably a good idea,’ accepted Levy.
After the drinks were changed, Charlie said: ‘You still haven’t said what you’re going to do?’
‘We wouldn’t be sitting here if that wasn’t obvious, would we?’
The Israeli was still on the fence, able to look into both backyards, Charlie recognized. Sneaky bastard. Charlie felt quite at home. He said: ‘Sounds good to me. Everything shared?’
‘Between the two of us,’ qualified Levy. ‘If they want to cut you out I don’t see why they should get any feedback through me.’
Levy had given the undertaking with a completely straight face, too, Charlie acknowledged. He said: ‘What about a feed-back from them?’
‘We’re not going to be able to sort this out exchanging half of what’s in the picture, are we?’
Levy seemed to have the habit of answering questions by asking others and therefore never openly saying anything, thought Charlie. He said: ‘No. And thanks.’
Levy gestured to the man behind the zinc bar for more drinks and when they came raised his glass in a toast and said: ‘Here’s to a working relationship.’
Charlie drank and said: ‘Let’s start right away. How important does Israel regard this conference?’
‘Vital,’ said Levy, at once. ‘Do you know the state of our economy, from having constantly to remain on a war footing! Getting rid of the Palestinian problem would be to get rid of a lot of others as well.’
‘You’ve warned Jerusalem about a possible outrage here?’
‘Of course.’
‘What was the reaction?’
Levy shrugged. ‘I guess my people are more accustomed to outrages than most. They’re concerned, obviously, but not panicking. The message came back for more proof.’
‘Always the same message,’ said Charlie, wearily.
‘Something else you must expect.’
‘If only the bastard would make a big enough mistake!’ said Charlie, fervently.
‘It’s been almost a week,’ reminded Kalenin.
‘I know,’ said Berenkov.
‘And there’s not been the slightest indication of any increased surveillance on the Bern embassy.’
‘It’s time for Zenin to make the pick-up,’ said Berenkov.
‘And that’s his only moment of contact,’ said the KGB chief, in further reminder. ‘We would still be able to turn him back but it isn’t any part of the training that we contact him at the Geneva apartment.’
‘Let’s hope we don’t have to,’ said Berenkov. ‘What about Lvov?’
‘I hear he’s making quite a lot of the time and effort being wasted in Bern,’ said the KGB chief.
‘He’s right,’ said Berenkov, objectively.
‘Unfortunately he is,’ agreed Kalenin. Would he cut himself off from his friend, if the need for survival demanded it? He hoped he was not confronted with the choice.
Chapter Nineteen
Vasili Zenin had always acknowledged — as had ever
y instructor at Kuchino and Balashikha — that the greatest danger of his being identified would be going to the Soviet embassy in Bern to collect the weapons. But the bulk precluded their being left safely at any dead-letter drop, as the passport had been in London, and there was anyway the essential need for him to examine and approve what had been provided: his was the ultimate responsibility, overriding that of the officers at Balashikha who had packaged and despatched them. And any immediate, on-the-spot examination would have clearly been ridiculous anywhere but in the maximum security of the KGB rezidentura within the building, an area forbidden even to the ambassador himself.
Like everything else it had been rehearsed until supposedly perfect in the Kuchino complex, with mock-up streets and avenues and a re-creation of the front of the building behind the protection of its gates and iron railings. KGB personnel performed the role of ordinary diplomats, tradesmen and visitors using the embassy. Created all around were less elaborate false fronts upon which were specifically isolated spots to suggest where Swiss counter-intelligence Watchers might be placed. Their imagined positions had been indicated by automatic cameras triggered by remote control by Watchers of the Soviet service and for a week Zenin had done nothing but attempt to enter and leave without being photographed. On the last day he had managed three unrecorded entries and two missed departures.
He’d succeeded by improvising upon the instructor training, recognizing that what he had to carry marked him more obviously than anyone else going in or out. So he prepared himself to merge with it as naturally as possible into the background, like he had earlier done by becoming a jogger at Primrose Hill. He hoped they’d remembered to pack more than just the M21 and the Browning and their ammunition.
Having had a week to study workmen on the streets of Bern and Geneva, Zenin easily found the day before the planned pick-up a shop in the Speichergasse selling the most commonly worn type of dungarees, blue, with bib and braces. He bought a matching cap as well, a pair of heavy boots and a set of rubber wedges. A comparable bag was the most difficult to locate and it was late afternoon before he discovered a store off the Munstergasse. Everything, of course, had to be kept separate from the hotel in which he was staying, as a supposed tourist, so he took all the packages back to the lock-up garage in which he had parked the hired Peugeot. Unselfconsciously Zenin stripped naked, putting on only the overalls and for an hour vigorously exercised, bending and twisting to crease the newness from them and to get them as sweat-stained as possible. He dried his face with the cap, to mark that as much as he could and scuffed the boots along the floor and against the concrete sides of the garage. The bag was canvas, like that he had to collect, and he dirtied that with dust from the floor. The dungarees were damp with his perspiration when he took them off and Zenin screwed them tightly into a ball, so that they would dry further crumpled.
He approached the garage cautiously the following day, not wanting to be seen entering in a suit and emerging a workman, having to wait fifteen minutes before he was satisfied the road was clear. It was more difficult to leave, because his vision was restricted by the narrowly opened door but again he did so sure that he was unobserved. Zenin travelled back into the centre of town on a tram, confident he’d done a good job on the overalls when a woman already on the seat on which he lowered himself perceptibly moved away.
A hesitant man attracts more attention than a confident one and Zenin went assuredly along the most direct linking street into Brunnadernain, which, somewhat to his surprise, had been dismissed by the professional Watchers at Kuchino as being the unlikeliest to house surveillance spots. He hoped they were right. Protectively, Zenin wore the cap pulled low over his forehead and walked looking slightly down: if there were observation it would be from some elevation, to avoid street level obstruction, so his face was as hidden as it could be.
He made no pause going through the embassy gates, someone with a right to enter, and neither did he approach the main entrance. Instead he went to a smaller side door not obviously marked for tradesmen deliveries, but which was its proper purpose. And which he would have known if he were familiar with the building. To the guard he said: ‘Run Around,’ and was admitted immediately.
The KGB rezidentura was at the rear of the embassy, as distanced as it could be from any overlooking buildings from which directional listening devices could be aimed, an interlocking series of rooms absolutely divided from the rest of the legation by a barred and locked gate behind which sat a uniformed KGB guard. Zenin gave him the same operational identification but before he was admitted the man verified the code with the rezident-in-charge, Yuri Ivanovich Lyudin.
The locally based KGB officer was striding down the corridor, beaming, by the time the security gates thudded closed behind Zenin.
‘Vasili Nikolaevich!’ greeted the rezident.
‘Yuri Ivanovich,’ responded Zenin, more restrained.
Lyudin stopped some way away, still smiling, looking at the workman’s outfit. ‘There were many photographs from which to recognize you today. But we weren’t warned how to expect you!’
‘Of course you weren’t,’ said Zenin, more than restrained. He’d memorized Lyudin’s face from photographs as well but none had shown the man as fat or as flush-faced as he was.
‘It’s very good concealment,’ praised Lyudin.
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Zenin. ‘Have things arrived for me?’
‘A sealed container,’ confirmed Lyudin.
‘Which has remained sealed?’
‘Of course,’ said Lyudin. Why had Dzerzhinsky Square been so insistent that no indication be given to this man about the additional surveillance teams that had been drafted from Moscow?
‘I need an equally sealed room,’ demanded Zenin.
‘One is set aside,’ said Lyudin. ‘But perhaps a little refreshment first? I have some excellent Polish vodka.’
‘It’s ten-thirty in the morning,’ reminded Zenin.
‘I waited for you before I began,’ sniggered Lyudin, wanting the other Russian to accept it as the joke it was intended to be.
Zenin didn’t, nor did he smile. He said: ‘There were some requests from Moscow: detailed information about Geneva?’
Lyudin’s smile became hopefully broader at the awareness of Zenin’s involvement. ‘Which I personally responded to. Myself.’
‘And personally made the surveys?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed Lyudin. ‘I trust it was satisfactory.’
From a series of bars, guessed Zenin. It was easy to guess how Lyudin had gained the patriotic complexion. And why so much of the Geneva information had been inaccurate. The need for protest to Moscow was far more than personal now: such a man, particularly a man in a position of command like Lyudin, represented a positive danger to the entire rezidentura. But more importantly to the KGB itself. Zenin said: ‘I’ve decided upon my report to Moscow.’
‘I am grateful, Comrade Zenin,’ said the other Russian, misunderstanding.
‘The sealed room and the container?’ reminded Zenin.
Lyudin led the way further back into the rezidentura, to a chamber actually within the building, with no connection to any outside surface. It was so small Zenin was practically able to reach out sideways and touch either wall. There was harsh strip lighting around the four sides of the squared ceiling and it illuminated the entire area in a glare so fierce that Zenin had to squint against it.
‘This is the examination room: we were advised you would need to conduct an examination,’ said Lyudin.
Zenin was curious at what other things at what other times might have been examined here: despite his profession he’d never been into a mortuary but imagined this must be very like such a place. There was just a metalled table, a single chair, metal again, and a wall-mounted telephone: there was even a smell of antiseptic cleanliness. He said: ‘This will do adequately.’
‘The container is in my personal security vault.’
‘I would like it now.’
‘I thought at first it was a standard container, the sort we get all the time?’ said Lyudin, enquiringly.
‘It isn’t,’ said Zenin.
‘Something unusual then?’
‘Get out, Yuri Ivanovich!’ dismissed Zenin.
Zenin locked the door behind the departing Russian and turned back to the container, savouring its very appearance like a child knowing its most asked-for Christmas toy was beneath the wrapping. But there was no excitement shake in his hand as Zenin reached out for the combination, which moved without any perceptible click as the memorized numbers were engaged and discarded: he paused when the final one was released and then snapped open the catch. The container fell apart, either side opening like a giant mouth from its bottom hinges. It was a superbly packed Christmas toy.
The Run Around cm-8 Page 15
