Zenin was conscious of the change in her tone and wondered at it. He said: ‘Have you slept with him yet?’
‘No,’ said Sulafeh. Her excitement continued to grow at the equally casual and detached way he was now talking of sex, and she wondered if it showed.
‘You might have to, if it’s the only way.’
Stop it! she thought, as a fresh surge swept through her. She said: ‘I suppose so.’
‘Could you do it, if you had to?’
‘I can do anything to ensure that we don’t fail,’ insisted the woman, striving for control and for the professionalism she was supposed to have. ‘I just don’t want to: like I said, he’s repulsive.’
‘Like you also said, it’s a nuisance,’ agreed Zenin, reflective again. ‘I don’t like the risk of anything unforeseen.’
‘There was no way I could have known.’
‘I wasn’t criticizing you.’ He thought she was flushed and said: ‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
‘There’s no change in the schedule, for the commemorative photograph?’
‘No,’ she said.
Zenin gestured towards the bag and said: ‘Is the site marked there?’
‘Yes.’
He would have to visit the unseen apartment soon, to ensure the sightline was as he needed it to be. For his own enjoyment he reached across the cafe table, taking her hand. She reached forward to help him, enjoying his feel. ‘Such a small hand!’ he said.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Have you ever fired a Browning automatic?’
It had not been necessary for him to touch her, to ask a question like that. ‘I thought you were trained in the Libyan camps, like I was?’ she said. Throughout the planning Sulafeh had been told, by cut-outs she believed to be Arab but who were, in fact, KGB agents like Zenin, that he was a fanatical member of a breakaway faction of the Palestinian militant Abu Nidal group.
‘I know the weapons I was trained on,’ said Zenin, the escape easy and still holding her hand. ‘Not how women were instructed.’
‘Usually it was Kalashnikov, Chinese as well as Russian,’ said Sulafeh. ‘But there were others — including Brownings.’
‘It’s a parabellum: heavy,’ said Zenin, freeing her hand at last. ‘You will need to be very close: the recoil could make you fire wide. Soft-nosed bullets, of course. Guaranteed to kill.’
Sulafeh felt the sensation growing again, at the return to casual talk about killing, and thought, please no! She did not think she could sustain much more. She said: ‘Interpreters have to get close; that’s their job.’
‘What about conference security: getting the gun in that day?’
Sulafeh snorted a dismissive laugh. ‘Ridiculous!’ she said. ‘I’ve completed the accreditation and got all my passes and I’ve made a particular point of becoming known to the security personnel, so that they recognize me.’ She touched the bag. ‘I’ve carried that all the time, so that it has become accepted without question, like I am. Not once has anyone demanded to look inside.’
‘What about metal-detecting devices?’
‘They have the hand-held sort, to run over the body. Again, I’ve never been checked.’
‘There aren’t any electronically governed doors you have to pass through?’
‘No.’
‘Careless,’ judged Zenin.
‘To our advantage,’ she pointed out.
‘I’ll get you out, you know,’ said Zenin, in sudden promise. ‘We’ll need to go through everything very thoroughly, to make sure you understand, but I’ve already planned it. It’ll work.’
‘I was told you would,’ she said. ‘Look after me,’ she added.
‘Trust me.’
‘I can, very easily,’ she said, holding him with another of her direct looks.
There was the need to examine the apartment off the Colombettes road, thought Zenin. But alone. To consider — wildly imagine — taking her there would be madness, contravening all the training: that too intense, too action-packed training he’d earlier thought of so critically. It was part of the tension to want a woman, Zenin knew: excitement heightening all the senses and all the needs. He’d actually been warned about — and against — it during that training. But hadn’t believed it, until now. He said: ‘Have you got to go to the conference centre any more today?’
Sulafeh shook her head. ‘I went this morning, to collect the up-to-date schedules.’
‘What else do you have to do?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I left everything open.’ Sulafeh allowed the pause and then added: ‘I did not know what you would want.’
It would be safer for her to hand over the schedules somewhere less open, he thought. And then he thought it was a very weak excuse. He said: ‘There is somewhere I have to go. To an apartment.’
‘Yes,’ she said, expectantly. Ask me, she thought: please ask me!
‘Would you come?’
‘You know I will.’
‘I want you.’
‘I want you, too. Very much.’
‘It’s not far.’
‘When we leave would you walk close behind me?’
‘Why?’
‘There might be a mark on my skirt.’
They sat apart in the taxi, savouring a pleasure by denying it to themselves. They did not talk, either. He took her arm after paying the cab off in the Rue du Vidollet and he felt her shiver and they were hurrying when they reached the apartment block, off Colombettes. The vestibule was deserted and so was the elevator — where again they stood apart — and Zenin was sure they entered the apartment unobserved by anyone. Inside neither could wait. He snatched at her and she grabbed back at him, pulling off his clothes as fast as he tried to undress her and they made love the first time on the floor just inside the entrance, Zenin still half wearing his shirt. They climaxed almost at once and together and he left her lying there while he hurriedly explored the apartment to find a bedroom. He led her there and they made love again, twice, but more calmly now, exploring one another, finding the secret, private spots, each wanting to please the other.
‘Wonderful,’ Sulafeh gasped, the last time. ‘You’re wonderful.’
‘So are you: fantastic,’ said Zenin. He wanted to make love to her again, immediately, and knew he would be able to. He wondered if his excitement were hardened by realizing that in a few days’ time he was going to kill her.
Charlie missed it the first time, picking out the significance only on the second, comparable study of the logs. Determined to be sure of everything, he caught the afternoon train to Bern and walked several times around the streets bordering the Soviet Embassy on Brunnadernain, expertly studying all the overlooking buildings to isolate the observation points from which the Swiss Watchers would maintain their surveillance. Although official checks were still necessary, Charlie was sure he knew what the answers would be, and that he was not mistaken.
‘Fuck it!’ he said, to himself. ‘Too fucking late again!’
Back in Geneva he telephoned David Levy in advance of the Swiss counter-intelligence chief, curious to know if the Israeli had spotted the same inconsistency as he had. As a test, Charlie let Levy lead the conversation. The Mossad chief mentioned it at once.
‘Have you told Blom yet?’ asked Charlie.
‘No. Have you?’
‘I want to make absolutely sure, from the service people first.’
‘You’re wasting your time.’
‘It’s still got to be done,’ insisted Charlie. ‘Has there been any independent contact from the others?’
‘Giles called. Said he thinks it’s ridiculous to exclude you: he’s told Blom, apparently.’
Loved at last, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Did Giles see anything in the logs?’
‘If he did he hasn’t told me.’
‘Do you think they’ll accept this as positive evidence that the bastard is here somewhere?’
‘No,’ said Levy, at once. ‘And neith
er do I. It’s proof of something, perhaps. But not that he’s our man.’
‘You know what you’re all going to do!’ demanded Charlie, exasperated. ‘You’re all going to be pissing about trying to convince yourselves nothing’s wrong when the shooting starts!’
‘I do think we should meet tonight, instead of waiting until tomorrow, though,’ conceded the Israeli.
Charlie had been marked by two squads of the specially drafted Soviet Watchers when he walked past the embassy on Brunnadernain the second time and positively targeted on the third occasion by both. Between them the two groups managed five exposures and the photographs were included in that night’s diplomatic despatch from Bern to Moscow, under a priority designation so that instead of remaining overnight in Dzerzhinsky Square they were taken at once by special courier to Berenkov’s apartment in Kutuzovsky Prospekt.
The courier meant it was official and normally Valentina would have said nothing but she was abruptly conscious of her husband’s startled reaction.
‘Alexei Aleksandrovich!’ she exclaimed, alarmed. ‘What is it!’
‘Someone from the past,’ said Berenkov. He remembered his wife had met Charlie Muffin, during the Moscow episode, but decided against mentioning the name.
The special meeting in Geneva was already under way when Berenkov summoned his emergency session in Moscow.
Chapter Twenty-two
‘So your people didn’t need any specific instruction!’ accused Charlie. The rudeness was intentional: he wanted to stir one of them — or more hopefully all of them — into some sort of reaction.
‘I don’t think it is as indicative as Charlie does,’ said Levy, ‘but it’s certainly curious.’
‘I think so too,’ endorsed Giles, pleased he had isolated the inconsistency like the other two.
‘There might be an explanation different from that you are reaching,’ tried Blom. He was burning with impotent anger.
Charlie tossed the log records on to the desk of the Swiss counter-intelligence chief and said: ‘Look at it! The entry of a workman carrying a toolbag is recorded at ten-thirty in the morning: they actually wrote it down for Christ’s sake!’
‘I know what they wrote down,’ said Blom.
‘So where’s the matching entry of his leaving!’ demanded Charlie. ‘You trying to suggest that the Soviets have kidnapped a Swiss workman and have still got him in the embassy!’
‘They could have missed the departure,’ suggested the American. ‘A workman is a pretty normal sort of arrival and departure, after all.’
‘That’s exactly what it is not!’ insisted Charlie. ‘It just seemed so to these Watchers and it shouldn’t have done; they need their arses kicked. The Russians never employ local labour for any work inside their embassies. It’s their standard trade-craft to have everything done by Russians: to fly people in from Moscow, if necessary.’ He hesitated, for effect, then he said: ‘And just in case they changed the habit of a lifetime I checked, with every service agency I could think of: telephone, electricity, gas, everyone. There is no record of any call to the Soviet embassy at Brunnadernain: I asked about the past, too. They never get called.’
‘You think he came out with that mass exit, recorded at lunchtime?’ asked Levy, referring to his own copy of the Watchers’ log.
‘It’s the most obvious answer,’ said Charlie. He looked at the Swiss intelligence chief. ‘And your Watchers did not think that was significant enough to report specially either, did they?’
‘There appears to have been some slackness,’ conceded Blom, with no choice. ‘I still think it would be wrong to twist it to fit the circumstances.’
‘I’m not twisting it to fit any circumstance,’ argued Charlie. ‘It’s actually got a pattern. He almost beat us by merging into the background in England and he beat us here by merging into the background again. It was actually a mistake on his part.’
‘What about a different exit?’ said Giles.
‘I went to Bern and looked at the embassy for myself,’ said Charlie, unaware of his own mistake. ‘They’re all covered.’
‘I think the squad on duty when the workman went in should be interrogated to see if we can get a description that matches the one we’ve already got,’ said Levy.
‘It was the pick-up,’ said Charlie, in adamant frustration. ‘This was when he collected the weapon. Or weapons.’
‘There’s no record on the log of anyone in that lunch-time crowd carrying anything out,’ said Giles.
‘The squads should be interrogated on that, too,’ said Charlie.
‘They will be,’ promised Blom.
‘You’ve got five days before the Middle East conference begins,’ reminded Charlie. ‘The delegation leaders start arriving in the next forty-eight hours.’
‘So?’ said Blom.
‘So publish the damned photograph!’ said Charlie. ‘Frighten the bastard off!’
‘I don’t think anything has happened to change the attitude on that,’ said the Swiss.
‘Suggest it again,’ urged Charlie, looking to each of the other three men. ‘And warn the other delegations.’
‘I won’t start a panic,’ said Blom.
‘It’s the way to avert one,’ said Charlie.
‘Give me some positive proof,’ demanded Blom. ‘Better proof than this.’
‘By the time you accept it, it’ll be too late,’ warned Charlie.
‘I’ll raise it again with Jerusalem,’ undertook Levy.
‘I’ll play it back, too,’ said Giles.
‘I’m sure the answer will be the same as before,’ said Blom, confident his security committee would not change their minds.
‘If it is it’ll be a mistake,’ said Charlie. Christ how he hated working with a committee!
Sulafeh stirred and Zenin shook her gently, fully awakening her.
‘We should go,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘It’s late.’
‘Can we come here again tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Every day?’
‘We’ll see,’ avoided the Russian. ‘I think we should leave separately. You first.’
‘Shall we meet at the same place tomorrow?’
‘No.’
‘Where?’
Zenin hesitated and then said: ‘The Cornavin terminal: the main concourse.’
‘What time?’
‘Three.’
‘Make love to me again.’
Chapter Twenty-three
Alexei Aleksandrovich Berenkov regarded Charlie Muffin as his equal, which was an accolade. The Russian had frequently concluded during those long, sleepless and gradually despairing nights in London’s Wormwood Scrubs that no one but Charlie Muffin would have persisted, sifting and checking and cross-checking and then pursuing with the relentlessness of a starving Siberian wolf the labyrinthine maze Berenkov had created for his own protection and which eventually ensnared him. Or behaved, either, as Charlie had after the arrest. Not treating him as a hydra-headed monster, to be looked at like some fairground curiosity through the prison-door peephole, but treated as an equal, professional to professional. It had been a challenge, being debriefed by Charlie. Berenkov still sometimes wondered what the score had finally been, before his release. He’d meant to ask, when they’d met later in Moscow, but the occasion had not presented itself. They’d been fools, the British, to imagine such a man as expendable. But to his benefit, Berenkov recognized. If the British had not decided to use Charlie Muffin as the disposable bait in the crossing of the Berlin Wall — and been caught out by the man doing so — Berenkov guessed he could still now be decaying in that damp-walled cell with the stinking pisspot in the nighttime corner and the eight boring hours in the prison library and the one boring hour in the exercise yard and the rest of the time alone with the smell of damp and piss. Charlie Muffin had hardly been his capturer then. Saviour in fact. No, that was not correct, either. There might have been professional admiratio
n between them, but that was where the feeling ended: where it had to end, as professionals. His repatriation to the Soviet Union in exchange for the British and American intelligence directors whom Charlie lured into Soviet entrapment in Vienna had been convenient, that’s all. He’d been an advantage and Charlie had used him, like he used all advantages. Which was why the man was so dangerous. And why he had to be destroyed. Berenkov reached the conclusion quite dispassionately: again it was professional, not personal. He knew Charlie Muffin would understand that. Were the situation reversed, it was the sort of decision Charlie would have reached. It was regrettable but necessary: that was why he had not mentioned the man’s name to Valentina. She’d liked Charlie: perhaps rightfully considered him to be the man who had restored a husband to her, after so many — too many — years as an espionage agent in the West. Women thought like that; with their hearts rather than with their heads. Men had to think differently.
Berenkov arrived first at Dzerzhinsky Square, of course, but Valery Kalenin was close behind, with such a short distance to travel from Kutuzovsky Prospekt: Berenkov had considered their coming together in the same car but decided upon some time to himself, fully to consider the implications of the Swiss sighting.
‘A problem?’ demanded Kalenin at once.
Instead of replying, Berenkov handed the other man the set of photographs.
The KGB chief gazed down at them, slowly shaking his head. Then he looked up and said: ‘Charlie Muffin!’
‘They were taken today outside the embassy in Bern,’ announced Berenkov.
‘How many were there!’ demanded the KGB chief, at once.
‘That’s the confusing part,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘I checked, obviously. But it was not a concentrated sweep. Just Charlie Muffin. And he was too late. Zenin had already made the pick-up.’
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