‘There must have been many times, as an active field agent, when you were engaged in an operation which put your life at risk.’
‘No,’ said Charlie, refusing the argument. ‘All the other operations carried the acceptable risks, which I knew and understood. This time they made an active, positive decision to sacrifice me. That wasn’t acceptable.’
‘To you?’ she said.
‘To me,’ agreed Charlie. He thought he knew the tactic: to prod and goad until he lost his temper. Never lose your temper: another caution in interrogation.
‘Many people would regard that attitude as arrogant,’ said the woman. She paused and added. ‘Which it is.’
‘And many people would regard it as an instinct for survival,’ said Charlie. ‘Which it is.’ He feigned annoyance, raising his voice, curious where she was leading the questioning.
‘The court that sentenced you thought otherwise.’
Back to Italy, recognised Charlie. Very clever. He said, ‘I didn’t expect anything else.’
She waited several moments, waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t she said, ‘Didn’t you try to put your point of view to the court?’
It had been a secure hearing and he didn’t think there could have been any way for them to learn of the evidence. He said, ‘Of course I did. But they didn’t want to listen, did they! Made their minds up before the trial started.’
‘They weren’t seen to get their revenge, were they?’ she said. The hearing was in secret.’
Good again, admired Charlie. He said, ‘It’s customary, under our law, in the case of security. Like I’ve already said, they’d have been embarrassed if the full facts had come out about their own Director being seized.’
‘What did come out?’
‘Not much,’ said Charlie, hoping he sounded dismissive enough. They made it sound as if I was a long term Soviet agent, which I wasn’t and never had been: that my whole purpose in being in intelligence was to get to the point where I could trap the Director. That wasn’t true, either.’
‘Wasn’t and never had been,’ echoed Natalia.
‘You know that,’ said Charlie, anticipating another move.
‘Then why have you come to Moscow?’
Charlie laughed, genuinely. ‘I didn’t have any choice, did I? Sampson was in the same bloody cell.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No, that’s not all. I came because I couldn’t stand another day in that damned prison,’ said Charlie, genuine still.
‘But you don’t think of yourself as someone subscribing to the communist way of life?’
Careful, thought Charlie. No more lies than absolutely necessary, he remembered. ‘No,’ he admitted honestly. ‘I don’t see myself subscribing to your way of life.’
‘Why then should we give you sanctuary?’ she asked forcefully, staring up at him. ‘People were hurt, killed, during your escape. Why should we harbour you to the embarrassment of ourselves?’
‘I didn’t hurt anyone. Or kill anyone,’ said Charlie.
‘Something else you’re not guilty of?’ she said, jeeringly.
She almost won. Charlie felt the burn of anger, coming close to giving way to it and then stopped himself. He said, ‘Sampson is a maniac.’
‘What if he attests the same against you?’
‘Your own people saw him shoot the policeman,’ said Charlie, scoring. ‘Ask them.’
‘You don’t like him?’
Charlie laughed again. ‘Like him! I despise him. He’s a traitor and he’s dangerous. Not as a traitor. As a man. I think he gets pleasure from inflicting hurt.’
‘How was he regarded within your service?’
Another pathway, recognised Charlie. He was comfortable with the interrogation now, no longer complacent but confident he could anticipate the traps. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Weren’t you contemporaries?’
‘No.’
‘Not even in the same departments?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t consider yourself a traitor?’
Which way was she going now? ‘No,’ repeated Charlie.
‘If you had been in the same department – knew his capabilities – would you tell me? Or would you regard that as being a traitor?’
‘My dear Natalia,’ said Charlie, intentionally patronising and seeing an easy escape. ‘If I knew anything at all about Edwin Sampson I’d tell you.’
‘So what do you know about him?’
She’d refused to become irritated by his attitude just as he had by hers, Charlie knew. He said, ‘About his work in the service, nothing. And about his betrayal only what I read in newspapers, like everyone else. In jail he was very clever, ass-crawling to everybody who mattered and getting himself trusted, which made the escape possible. And during that he delighted in causing as much physical harm as possible, as I already told you.’
‘Just as you already made it clear to me that you don’t like him,’ said Natalia. ‘Would you trust him, professionally?’
‘No,’ said Charlie immediately. ‘Sampson’s first regard would be to himself, not to the operation.’
‘Wasn’t that your attitude when you exposed your Directors?’ she pounced. ‘And isn’t it still?’
Shit, thought Charlie. He said, ‘I never failed, in any operation in which I was ever involved. I always won.’
‘Was that because of loyalty to the service?’ she asked, presciently. ‘Or personal pride?’
Shit again, he thought. Charlie said, ‘The two made a great contribution.’
‘Will you co-operate with us?’ asked his interrogator. ‘Cooperate in a full debriefing and supply us with whatever information we ask of you?’
Crunch point, decided Charlie. He’d have to give if he were going to stand any chance at all of achieving what Wilson wanted. But immediate acquiescence hadn’t been the role he’d adopted that morning. Trying to maintain the established attitude, he said, ‘I don’t know.’
Natalia Fedova snapped the folder shut, staring at him across the desk. ‘We’ll talk further,’ she said. She wasn’t smiling any more.
Such a debriefing would not normally have occupied the chairman but Kalenin wasn’t any ordinary chairman in his attention to detail and in addition he was anxious to get through the necessary interrogation as quickly as possible, to involve Sampson in the effort to trace the spy working through the British embassy. So he saw the video recording of Charlie’s interview that night, with Berenkov who was the deputy in charge of Natalia Fedova’s division and who had personal experience of the Englishman. They watched it completely once, without any halt or discussion and then a second time, stop-starting the tape at moments they considered might be important. A written transcript had also been provided and they studied that, too, so it was several hours before they began to talk.
‘Well?’ said Kalenin.
Berenkov made an uncertain rocking motion with his hand. ‘There’s not much there we didn’t already know. Nothing in fact.’
‘I only personally met Charlie a couple of times. You knew him better. What do you think?’
‘He’d have conducted a better debriefing than that,’ said Berenkov, honestly.
‘I thought he was sloppy,’ said Kalenin. ‘Careless and sloppy.’
‘Maybe,’ said Berenkov, not so convinced.
‘He couldn’t have cared less about the answers he gave,’ argued the chairman.
Instead of replying Berenkov rewound and replayed the tape to the part of Charlie’s momentary pause when Natalia reached the Italian arrest. ‘He changed his mind there,’ Berenkov judged. ‘And was sharper, from then on.’
‘You sure?’
‘No, I’m not sure,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘I got caught by under-estimating Charlie Muffin once, remember?’
‘He’s not the important one,’ said Kalenin. ‘Sampson is important.’
‘Charlie could still be useful, in many ways,’ insisted Berenkov. ‘I think they
should be kept together in that apartment. It’s wired and I think it might be interesting.’
‘To learn what?’
‘I don’t know, not yet,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘I know it’s important to find as quickly as possible the spy for Britain. But I don’t think we should cut corners.’
‘I don’t intend cutting corners,’ said Kalenin, stiffly. ‘I just think it would have been better if we’d begun the debriefing with Sampson.’
Berenkov accepted it as an observation, not a criticism. He said, ‘We’d have to make a lot of adjustments if the British uncovered the ambassador in Italy. And it was important to establish Sampson’s stability. We know from our own people how he responded, confronted with the policeman.’
‘What’s Sampson’s stability got to do with anything?’ said Kalenin. ‘Maybe he panicked. It’s understandable. And maybe he likes inflicting pain. I don’t see how either thing is going to affect our use for him.’
‘Everything is an eagerness to please, to impress us,’ pointed out Berenkov. ‘We want to get whoever it is in contact with the British, not be misled by somebody saying anything that comes into his head, imagining it’s going to be what we want to hear.’
Kalenin gestured towards the now blank screen in the viewing room. ‘There was nothing there to give any indication that Sampson might do that,’ Kalenin paused. ‘In fact,’ he added. ‘From your assessment the person that might do that is Charlie Muffin.’
Berenkov shook his head. ‘Charlie Muffin won’t trick me again,’ he said.
‘He made it possible for you to be repatriated,’ reminded the Chairman.
‘Because it suited his purpose, not because of me,’ said Berenkov. Now Berenkov indicated the screen in front of them. ‘My first loyalty is always to me,’ he quoted.
‘Do you want to meet him again?’ asked Kalenin.
‘Very much,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘Very much indeed.’
Chapter Twelve
Not bad, judged Charlie, reviewing the debriefing. But not good, either. A stupid start, from which he’d had to make a hurried recovery and he would never know if that recovery was obvious. And she’d backed him into a corner at the end. But they were minimal uncertainties. The biggest – and one he’d failed to realise until now because everything had been so hurried – was the possibility that Sampson knew, from his then undiscovered position in London, how Wilson had used the Italian ambassador. Would there be any trace of his own involvement? The British Director had been personally involved, keeping it a top echelon matter, but Charlie supposed there would have had to be some headquarter discussion. And official paper work. Sampson had been number three on the Russian desk, he recalled. If there had been paper work, no matter how minimal, then at that clearance level Sampson would have read it. If he’d read it, then Sampson would have alerted Moscow, Charlie thought, carrying the internal discussion further. So why had she bothered to quiz him so closely? Maybe not the sort of test he’d imagined. Maybe he’d misinterpreted the whole damned thing and they’d just been checking to see whether he’d co-operate or lie. If that were the case then he’d emerged worse than he imagined. Worse but still recoverable. He’d said he wasn’t sure he’d co-operate and if he were later accused of lying about Italy he could convincingly argue that he wasn’t lying but uncertain at the time of his first debriefing about a full commitment. Could he argue it convincingly? He wouldn’t know until he tried. Back in the familiar labyrinth, he recognised. Difficult to imagine that just a month earlier – five weeks at the most – he was actually missing it.
As Charlie entered the shared apartment, to find the anxious Sampson waiting directly beyond the threshold, Charlie realised a way to retrace some of his steps if he had been trapped.
‘What happened?’ demanded Sampson at once.
‘A debriefing, that’s all,’ said Charlie, moving further into the main room.
‘What do you mean, that’s all! What happened? Was it a committee? Just one man? What do they want?’ He jerked his hand, irritably towards the telephone. ‘I’ve been sitting in this damned box all day and there’s been nothing, nothing at all.’
‘You keep telling me how important you are,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps they need time to prepare.’
‘Cut it out,’ insisted Sampson, voice quiet in his anger. ‘I want to know what it’s like.’
It had gone well, decided Charlie. ‘Just one person,’ he recounted. ‘A woman in my case. Natalia Fedova. Said she knew nothing about me, which had to be a lie. You know as well as I do the sort of records they keep. Went over everything, in a pretty general manner, from the time I exposed the Director. Finally asked me if I’d co-operate.’
‘You said yes, of course,’ anticipated the other man.
‘No,’ said Charlie.
‘No!’
‘Depends what they want me to do.’
‘No it doesn’t and you know it,’ said Sampson. ‘Christ, when are you going to learn?’
‘I won’t betray everything, not like you.’
‘You haven’t got any choice.’
Not the response he’d wanted, thought Charlie. ‘Maybe you haven’t,’ he said. ‘You’re committed.’
‘There was discussion about me!’
Better, thought Charlie. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘What? When?’
Perfect, decided Charlie, taking the second query. ‘Soon after I was questioned about my detection in Italy. You knew all about that, of course.’
‘About what?’ asked Sampson, impatient again.
‘My arrest in Italy. You were in London then?’
Sampson shook his head. ‘Beirut,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get back for several months after. The trial hadn’t happened, but you were back in the country.’
So the man wouldn’t have known! Safe, thought Charlie. It had been easier than he thought. Not wanting a later discernible pause he said, ‘They asked if I knew anything of you in the service. What sort of person you were. Whether I liked you even.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That I never encountered you when I was working in the department, that I thought you were a shit and that I didn’t like you.’
‘Bastard!’ exploded Sampson.
‘Do you think a reference from me is important?’
‘Because of me you’re not rotting in jail.’
‘Because of you a copper is dead and a prison officer is probably brain damaged.’
‘Aren’t you ever going to forget that?’
‘No,’ said Charlie simply.
‘You’re a cunt.’
‘One of us is.’ Had he covered everything he wanted to? wondered Charlie. It had to be now. He said. ‘You’ll cooperate, naturally? As soon as you’re asked?’
Sampson frowned, surprised at the question. ‘This is the moment I’ve been working towards – waiting for – for ten years. I just can’t understand why I’m being treated like this.’
‘It’s only the first day, for Christ’s sake,’ said Charlie. It seemed much longer.
‘I don’t deserve it,’ protested Sampson, petulantly. ‘After all I’ve done, the risks I’ve taken, I don’t deserve to be ignored, not even on the first day.’
‘Perhaps you’re not as important as you think you are then,’ jeered Charlie.
‘We’ll see,’ said Sampson. He laughed, viciously, and said, ‘And do you know what I’m going to do, when I get into some position of power?’
‘What?’ said Charlie.
‘I’m going to screw you,’ promised the other Englishman. ‘I’m going to make your existence here as miserable as I can so you’ll wish in the end that you’d stayed in jail.’
Can’t happen, asshole, thought Charlie. ‘Fuck you, too,’ he said.
Charlie made the search much later, when he was sure Sampson was asleep, using the pretext of getting water to drink from the kitchen. One listening device was concealed in the overhead light assembly in the main room, almost directly beneath which
they’d argued earlier and another was in the doorhandle of the bathroom. There would be more, Charlie guessed. But the transcripts from these would support the woman’s examination. A field agent of his expertise would be expected to search and find them, he knew. But tonight might be a bit too obvious. Tomorrow would be soon enough. He’d spent two years in jail, after all; that would be explanation enough for not looking sooner. He’d got rusty.
Wilson stumped impatiently around the office, occasionally feeling down to his stiff leg. The pain was always worse when there was some professional pressure.
‘It’s the damned waiting,’ he said. ‘Waiting and with no way of knowing what’s happening.’
‘That’s the way it always had to be,’ reminded the more controlled Harkness. They’ll be waiting, too, don’t forget. And they’ll be more anxious than us.’
Wilson sat at last. ‘And it’ll be worth everything, if it all works,’ he rationalised. ‘Spectacular, in fact.’
‘Spectacular,’ agreed Harkness, who normally wasn’t given to hyperbole.
Chapter Thirteen
It was a standard interrogation method when two people are involved, choosing one, then the other, before the first is completed, calculated to off-balance. Sampson responded excitedly to the summons the following day, smallboy enthusiasm returning. He sat forward on the edge of the seat as the car went along the capital peripheral, gazing around at his first proper view of the Moscow suburbs, several times asking the driver about buildings or monuments they passed but getting no reply on any occasion. He sat respectfully on the seat that Natalia Fedova indicated, leaning forward from the edge for the questions, answering crisply and concisely, a hopeful applicant for a new job. He gave a full résumé of his career within British intelligence, from the time of his university entrance, carefully listing the names of the operatives with whom he had come into working contact and actually spelling out their names when she paused, uncertainly. He gave a detailed background to all the information he provided, since his recruitment by Soviet intelligence, filling out the sparseness of his earlier, cryptic messages and reminding her that one of his last communications had been the warning of a possible spy in Moscow.
The Blind Run Page 12
