Brian Freemantle - Comrade Charlie

Emil Krogh was another dangerous uncertainty. Berenkov didn’t know what had happened to the American. Before he’d been seized Obyedkov had managed to babble on the emergency line to the embassy that there’d been an ambush in the street and that he and Guzins were about to be taken and then the instrument had been snatched from him and Losev had protectively disconnected from the English voice demanding from the other end who was there. Krogh was as weak a link as Guzins, Berenkov calculated. The American would actually be able to identify Guzins’ speciality to the interrogators and guide them on how to pressure the Russian scientist.

It did go beyond being simply bad, thought Berenkov, revising his opinion at last. So it was time for another damage assessment: a personal one now. Disastrous though it might be, no criticism — no accusation of himself having made a mistake — could be levelled at him for the British discovering the Kensington house. That, always, had had to be an accepted, recognized risk. What then? The remaining drawing, he isolated at once: the one remaining drawing which the idiot Guzins had insisted upon being duplicated, and before the receipt of which he had refused to release the photographic copies that already existed. No problem, balanced Berenkov at once, relieved. The photographic copies did exist. Safe and secure and awaiting shipment, upon Guzins’ authority. Which he could no longer exercise. When they arrived he would have satisfactorily fulfilled his brief, Berenkov told himself. There’d been a cost — possibly a very high cost — but nothing for which he could be blamed.

And there had, in addition, been the other, private success. From the messages from London the previous day Berenkov knew Charlie Muffin was now behind bars somewhere, facing the inevitability of many more years in precisely that situation. The Russian wondered if the British had started the questioning yet, giving the man the clue to how it had all been manipulated.

Berenkov stirred at last, satisfied that he had worked everything out to its proper conclusion and in its proper order of importance. There only remained one thing to complete, to make himself absolutely secure. It only took him minutes to compose the cable, ordering that the retained cassette be included in that night’s diplomatic shipment from London.

Which it was.

Losev, who was still working out his reaction to the Kensington arrests, had anticipated it anyway and had the spool ready. The diplomatic bag reached London airport with two hours to spare before the Moscow-bound flight and was receipted and guaranteed its protection under the Vienna convention by the senior Customs controller on duty.

It was placed in the Customs safe to await final loading and removed from it — without Customs awareness — within fifteen minutes by Special Branch technicians who peeled off the diplomatic seal in such a way that it could be undetectably relocked. When they opened the bag itself they used magnets to hold back the device they detected by X-ray, which was intended to destruct upon unauthorized entry. They took the film cassette they found inside to the Special Branch photographic facility permanently maintained at the airport. There — in protective darkroom conditions — it was viewed in negative, which showed the sort of drawing for which they were looking, although not at that stage precisely which drawing. Following the detailed instruction from the Director General, prints were made from every frame. The negative roll was then fogged sufficiently badly to prevent any further prints being made from that part necessarily developed — and to prevent that development being detected by the Russians — and then rewound into its original casing which was pressured to distort slightly. Finally it was replaced in the diplomatic bag, and the bag resealed.

Two hours later, at Westminster Bridge Road, Wilson looked up from the prints at Charlie and said: ‘You incredibly lucky bugger!’

‘About time,’ said Charlie.

Natalia was there.

And conducting herself well, properly, not standing on the pavement edge, looking around hopefully in a way that might have attracted attention but back against the entry to a shop and gazing in as if she were window shopping, someone with plenty of time to spare. Charlie was actually inside the opposite store, on the first floor from the overlooking window of which he could gaze down and see everything, as he needed to see everything. He thought she was alone: certainly there was no one in close proximity, a watcher or a guard. The emotion, his feeling for her, lumped inside him, a positive physical sensation. So she’d done it. She’d come. Was waiting. Waiting for him. I’ll be ready . His promise to her, Charlie remembered, the night they’d made their final plans. These plans. So was he? Was he going to keep the promise and go and get her and run with her? Charlie swayed — the start of a movement — but then didn’t move, remaining where he was, watching. Why had she had to turn up at all! Why hadn’t she just stayed away, so that he would have known at once that she’d been part of it, instead of this: being there so that he stayed confused. Didn’t know.

Maybe she should be waiting around the corner, in the main road and not in the side street directly opposite the store, Natalia thought abruptly. She’d expected Charlie to be there, prepared, so that there wouldn’t be any delay like this. That had to be it! Around the corner in the main road. She moved, casually, which was very difficult for her because she was so frightened she felt lightheaded, nerves so taut her skin itched. What she really wanted to do was run the few yards to the junction and yell for him, shout out his name to make him come to her and get her away. Natalia reached the main road and started down it, pretending to study the windows again but desperately seeking him, aching for him to emerge from some doorway, some car. Where was he! Dear God, where was he?

Was her moving a signal to someone, someone he hadn’t spotted? Still using her cover well, judged Charlie: surprisingly expert. I wasn’t trained as a field agent, like you . That’s what she’d told him, that last night. All right, her movements weren’t perfect — weren’t how he or a professional with years of experience knew how virtually to disappear on a crowded street — but she was still very good. So had she been trained? Brought up to a minimum standard at least, for this operation? And it had to be an operation. Something. What else could it be? Professional, Charlie decided: he had to be brutally, clinically professional, subjugate every feeling for her and examine everything that had happened, from the very beginning. And the very beginning had been her transfer, from a specific, highly skilled position to a nebulous, untitled role that exposed her to the West. Not just exposed her, Charlie reasoned on. Publicly exposed her because every trip she’d made out of Russia had been reported, with photographs. Wrong, determined Charlie, forcing that brutal, clinical judgement. Wrong like Sir Alistair Wilson had again insisted it was before giving him permission at last to leave Westminster Bridge Road and done it sadly and said goodbye, an unspoken reminder that if she were there and she did cross then the department would be closed to him, for ever. Not just wrong, by their assessment, either. Surely Natalia — Natalia who had been vague and casual when he’d tried to talk about it with her — knew that no service switched people around like she’d been switched around. She hadn’t been assigned to one particular ministry, even: the only essential appeared to have been a delegation, any delegation, crossing to the West. Another incongruity: like so many others.