Here Comes Charlie M cm-2

by Brian Freemantle

  She laughed with him, trying to match his enthusiasm. Please God, she thought, make it last. She hadn’t liked Charlie Muffin very much in the last two years.

  ‘John Packer?’

  The safebreaker looked up from his drink, gazing steadily at the man standing at the other side of the table.

  ‘Yes,’ continued the man, as if satisfying some private question. ‘You’re John Packer.’

  Packer sat back, waiting. The man pulled out a chair and sat down, smiling. Smart, decided Packer. But not flash. Good voice; air of breeding, too, so he could make everyone else feel a turd. Confidence trickster, maybe. Nasty scar on his face. Perhaps a job had gone wrong.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Packer.

  ‘Want?’ echoed the man, as if it were an amusing demand. ‘I want to put you into the major league, John Packer.’

  TEN

  George Wilberforce sat easily at his desk, moving a pipe between his long fingers, letting everyone else settle in the Whitehall office. They’d all come to him, he thought. And that was how it was going to be, until the end of the operation. He was going to be in command.

  ‘We’re ready to move against Charlie Muffin,’ he announced. ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Still think it’s a waste of time,’ said Ruttgers defiantly.

  ‘Not if it makes Charlie Muffin suffer.’

  Everyone turned to the speaker, one of the two men whom Wilberforce had accepted for the final planning session. It had taken almost a year for Brian Snare to recover physically from his Moscow imprisonment, Wilberforce remembered. He looked at the man. Perhaps, in other ways, he never would. Snare’s hand had gone automatically to the jagged, star-shaped scar where the skin had burst, rather than been cut, on the left side of his face. A warder’s boot in Lubyanka had caused that, Wilberforce knew. But at least he was still alive. Douglas Harrison had been shot down by East German Grenzschutztruppen.

  Wilberforce moved to speak, then paused, halted by a sudden thought It had been Snare and Harrison, following Cuthbertson’s instructions, who had actually set Charlie Muffin up for sacrifice in East Berlin. And Charlie’s retribution had been planned as carefully as that which he himself was now evolving to destroy the man, decided Wilberforcft. In many ways, he thought, he and Charlie were very similar. He was just a little cleverer, determined the Director. As he was going to prove.

  ‘It would be a mistake to let personal feelings overly affect our judgment on this,’ warned the other newcomer. William Braley had been the C.I.A.’ Resident in the American embassy in Moscow specially appointed to work with Charlie on the last stages of Kalenin’s supposed crossing. Few people knew Charlie better, which was why Braley was being included in the discussion.

  Reminded of the association, Wilberforce said: ‘Do you think there’s any undue risk in what has been proposed?’

  The man squinted nervously at the direct question. Braley was a man fattened by a glandular malfunction and given to asthma in moments of tension. Predictably, his breathing became jerky and he wondered if he would be able to use his inhaler.

  ‘There’s always a danger with Charlie Muffin,’ he pointed out. ‘We should never forget that.’

  ‘But can he react any other way than that which we expect?’

  Again Braley delayed replying, feeling his chest tighten further.

  ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve thought about it, putting myself in his place. And I don’t think he can.’

  Wilberforce smiled, turning to the others in the room, patting as he did so the thick file that lay before him on the desk.

  ‘You’ve all read the dossier,’ he said. ‘There hasn’t been a moment since we picked him up at the cemetery when Charlie Muffin has not been under detailed surveillance. There’s not a thing we don’t know about him. And we’ve planned against every eventuality.’

  ‘He seems to have found a friend in Rupert Willoughby,’ remarked Cuthbertson.

  ‘For the moment, that doesn’t affect what we are going to do,’ said Wilberforce. But it might, later on, he thought, remembering the report of the Russian exhibition. He was beginning to enjoy the idea of Charlie Muffin dancing in whatever direction he dictated; and if tonight went as he expected, that was all the man would be able to do from now on — perform as ordered.

  ‘So we go ahead?’ demanded Snare anxiously.

  Wilberforce came back to the man who was going to be most dangerously involved in manipulating Charlie Muffin. He seemed desperate for them to agree, thought the Director. Which was out of character, for what he was being expected to do. But then, he’d suffered probably more than any of them. So his need for revenge was stronger.

  ‘Well?’ queried Wilberforce, taking the question to the Americans. He still had to give them the impression of consultation, he thought, even if it were really he who was making the decisions.

  ‘You’re still sure that what you propose will bring Charlie Muffin back to England?’ said Onslow Smith.

  ‘He won’t be able to do anything else.’

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’ said Ruttgers.

  It was time, realised the British Director, to make concessions. Hardly a concession; if Charlie didn’t respond as he expected, then it would have to be done anyway, despite the risk of any incriminating documents Charlie might have prepared.

  ‘If Charlie Muffin isn’t back in Brighton within three days,’ said Wilberforce, ‘then I agree he should be immediately killed.’

  He smiled, deciding to extend the offer.

  ‘Why not send an assassination squad to Switzerland, just in case?’ he suggested. ‘That way there would be absolutely no risk.’

  Onslow Smith shrugged, an almost embarrassed gesture.

  ‘We already have,’ he admitted.

  ‘And I’m going there tonight,’ added Ruttgers, smiling to expose his yellow teeth.

  Wilberforce frowned. Ruttgers was determined to be present when it happened, he thought. And the unexpected independence of Onslow was irritating.

  ‘So we go ahead,’ he announced.

  ELEVEN

  A professional, judged Johnny Packer. A bloody good professional, too. The knowledge tightened inside him, a comforting feeling. Which meant he was regarded in the same way. So this was going to be proof. No one would doubt him, after this.

  ‘Drill.’

  Johnny looked up at the order. The other man was breathing heavily through the exertion of crawling along the confined space and the jagged, star-shaped scar on the left side of his face had reddened into an ugly blotch. Appearing suddenly aware of the disfigurement, he put his hand up, covering it. He often made the gesture, Johnny realised. When they’d got to know each other better, he’d have to ask him how it had happened. They would become friends in time, he hoped. Proper friends.

  Johnny passed the tool along the narrow air conditioning duct to the other man, wondering what his real name was. If he hadn’t been such an obvious expert, Johnny would have sniggered at the man’s insistence on Brown. But he hadn’t. It wouldn’t have been right. He wasn’t the sort of person you laughed at. Or with, even. If he wanted to play around with names, that was all right with Johnny. Another indication of how good he was, really; neither knew the other, so there couldn’t be any risk of grassing if one were caught. Not quite true, corrected the safebreaker. The other man knew his name. And his record. And that he’d only been out for four months. The knowledge didn’t disturb Johnny. He regarded it as another indication of professionalism.

  The drill, rubber-cushioned, began eating into the ducting at the spot the other man had selected, working from a set of draughtsman’s plans. Johnny leaned against the cold metal, experiencing another surge of admiration. Plans not just of the adjoining buildings and central heating and air conditioning systems, but every alarm installation in the place. And all the tools they were likely to need, brand new and bought with cash, one at each town along the south coast in an undetectable preparation that had taken over a week. They’d
spent at least?4,000, guessed Johnny. He’d even queried the figure.

  The man had smiled and said: ‘You’ve got to speculate to accumulate,’ and made it sound original.

  Bloody professional.

  ‘Cutters.’

  The snips went along the narrow passageway and Snare enlarged the hole, then drilled into the mortar. Johnny started back at the sudden eruption of dust, lacking the protection of the face mask that Snare had put on.

  ‘Vacuum.’

  The more subdued whine of the cleaner came as a relief after the harsher bite of the drill.

  ‘There!’

  Johnny strained forward, narrowing his eyes at the brightness of the extension lamp which Snare had erected over the hole he had begun to mark. The blue and green wires of the alarm system embedded into the concrete stood out like veins in an old man’s hand.

  Snare reached back and Johnny gave him the bypass leads. Snare clamped them at either end of the exposed alarms, scraping his way through the plastic covering with a surgeon’s scalpel, then cut through the middle of the wire. They had made long connections, maybe five feet, giving themselves room for a big entry hole. Snare taped the surplus wire against the metal sides of the ducting so there would be no risk of dislodging it, and then began drilling again, enlarging the hole.

  It took almost an hour, with two stops to vacuum away the debris before Snare stopped.

  ‘Enough,’ he announced. He turned, gesturing Johnny back. Dutifully, the safebreaker turned and crawled along the shaft until he reached their carefully reinforced entry point, then dropped down into the basement of the building adjoining the bank in Brighton’s North Street.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked worriedly, as the other man dropped through immediately behind him.

  ‘Coffee break,’ announced Snare.

  He went to one of the four haversacks they’d brought in, took out a Thermos and poured the drinks. His hands were shaking, Johnny realised, embarrassed, as he cupped the plastic beaker to his lips. And the heat of the drink was making the surgical gloves he wore wet and sticky.

  ‘We’re thirty minutes ahead of schedule,’ he said.

  ‘You mustn’t worry about time.’

  Johnny smiled, knowing the other man had seen his nervousness.

  ‘It’s not yet midnight. Tomorrow’s Sunday, so you’ve got all the time in the world,’ the man assured him.

  Johnny nodded.

  ‘Shan’t need it,’ he said, trying to sound confident. ‘Couple of hours and there won’t be a lock still in place.’

  Snare smiled tolerantly, hand up to his scarred face. It wasn’t proving as difficult as he had feared, he decided, feeling the well-concealed apprehension ebbing away. He found a strange comfort in having so many plans to work from: it was always easier, having properly prepared diagrams to follow.

  ‘Just don’t worry,’ he advised the other man.

  It was ten minutes before they went back into the air conditioning system and this time Johnny led, hauling the light with him. There was a hole about three feet in diameter cut into the bank wall. Careful to avoid the clamped arms, Johnny eased through, wedging the light on top of a filing cabinet.

  ‘Storeroom,’ Snare identified it, a fresh set of plans in his hand now. He felt out for a switch and the neon light flickered into life. Filing cabinets lined the walls and in one corner files were heaped, one on top of the other.

  They went out of the room, Johnny still in front.

  ‘Manager’s office first,’ instructed Snare.

  The door at the top of the steps was secured from the far side, but by squinting through Johnny saw the key was still in the lock.

  ‘Easy,’ he smiled, looking for some reaction. Snare gazed back, unimpressed.

  From the attache case, new like everything else, Johnny took the long-spined dentist’s pliers, poked through to grip the key shank and unlocked the door.

  On the main floor of the bank they relied upon shielded torches, moving slowly between furniture towards the office which Snare had designated. That, too, was locked and this time the key was missing. Johnny smeared thick grease on to a sliver of plastic, pushed it into the lock and then gently twisted, as if it were a key. He withdrew it and the tumbler edges were imprinted clearly into the grease. He lay the coated plastic along a matching piece of metal, plugged a dentist’s electric drill into a table lamp socket and within five minutes had cut the basic shape of the key from the impression he had made. It took a further ten minutes to file away the mistakes and open the door. As he moved to do so, Snare touched his shoulder, pushing the light around the surround. The alarm breaker was near the top of the jamb. They used another bypass, magnetised this time, putting wedges either side of the door so that it wouldn’t swing and pull the wire free.

  ‘The first safe,’ said Snare.

  ‘Standard Chubb.’

  ‘Difficult?’

  ‘Course it’s difficult’

  ‘But not impossible?’

  ‘Not impossible,’ said Johnny.

  He worked with a stethoscope, hearing the tumblers into place. Twice, in his nervousness, he over-adjusted, missing the combination.

  ‘What about the key?’ asked Snare, reaching out to the second lock.

  ‘Drill it out,’ decided Johnny. ‘Can’t work the same trick as with the door.’

  He used the dentist’s drill again, first driving out the rivets and securing screws and then, when there was sufficient looseness in the lock to pull it back, revealing the securing arm, inserted the blade of the electric saw and cut through it.

  Johnny pulled the door back and then stood away, for Snare to get to it. Files and documents were neatly stacked on the shelves and at the bottom there was a small cash box.

  Snare worked through the documents in complete concentration. Anything he didn’t want he replaced tidily within the file and then put the file back upon the shelf from which he’d removed it.

  ‘Ah!’

  Snare turned, smiling.

  ‘Here it is.’

  The man moved away from the safe with a sheaf of papers.

  ‘What about the cash box?’

  Snare turned to the safebreaker, the pain etched into his face.

  ‘Let’s leave them their tea money, shall we?’

  Johnny trailed the man from the office, face burning with regret at his first mistake. At Snare’s insistence, he relocked the manager’s door, then went back down the stairs, turning off at the first landing towards the barred safety deposit room.

  The opening was like a huge safe door, set into metal barriers within the protection of the wall. Johnny felt another jump of excitement. He’d done one before, he recognised. So it wouldn’t be difficult; he’d pass the test.

  He used the stethoscope again, more controlled this time, so he didn’t over-adjust the combination control. After the third tumbler, he allowed himself the conceit, counting aloud as each combination clicked home.

  ‘No alarms,’ declared Snare, bent over another blueprint.

  The man hadn’t noticed the expertise, realised Johnny, annoyed. Irritably he pulled open the entrance to the vault.

  The gates that formed the secondary barrier were ceiling to floor, protected by a wire alarm system and then by an electrified beam which triggered a signal when it was broken by any interruption between the ‘eyes’. Snare bypassed the first as he had the other wired precautions, then placed immediately in front of the door two wire cages used in hospitals to keep the pressure of bedclothes off patients suffering from broken limbs. Securing holes had been bored in the frames and he quickly bolted them to the floor. The beam played unbroken beneath the cages. To get into the deposit room, they would have to step over but even if their feet hit the protection, the bolts prevented it sliding into the beam.

  Johnny stooped before the lock, then shook his head.

  ‘Have to blow it.’

  Snare nodded, accepting the judgment.

  From the attache cas
e, Johnny took his favourite, the P-4 plastic and a detonator, pressing it around the lock. Briefly in command now, he sent Snare to an office to get cushions and these he wired around the explosives, legs straddling the invalid hoops.

  The explosion, decided Johnny, made up for the mistake over the petty cash box. He’d wedged the door, in case it swung too hard against the cages, but so well had he primed it that the caution wasn’t necessary. The lock blew with a muffled, crackling sound, hardly displacing the cushions.

  ‘Very good,’ Snare praised him. The department’s detailed training in use and construction of explosive devices would have been more than sufficient, decided Snare. But then, the real purpose of Packer’s involvement came later.

  Johnny smiled, grateful for the remark.

  Inside the safety deposit room, Johnny worked again from impressions, operating to Snare’s quiet instructions from the list of box holders. They took only cash and jewellery. Documents were replaced and then the boxes locked again. Snare stood in the middle of the room, packing the cash into stiff-sided cases and the jewellery into a leather hold-all.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ demanded Johnny, unable to control the excited question. ‘How much?’

  The other man looked at him, as if he found the query curious.

  ‘Maybe a million,’ he said, casually.

  It wasn’t normal, thought Johnny, for someone to be as calm as this bugger was.

  They worked for another hour, the only conversation Snare’s commands to the other man. Suddenly, Snare said: ‘Try 216.’

  It took Johnny fifteen minutes to get the key right. He moved the lock, tugging at the deep metal tray as he did so and then stopped in amazement.

  ‘Jesus!’ he said softly.

  Snare made no response, calmly reaching over his shoulder and extracting the dollars, banded together in tight bricks. He abandoned the suitcases, counting the money out on a small table in the corner of the room.

  ‘Two hundred thousand,’ he announced. ‘And some insurance policies.’

  Christ, he was cool, admired Johnny. Still not showing the slightest excitement. His own stomach was in turmoil and he knew he’d have diarrhoea in the morning.