Brian Freemantle - The Run Around

‘I know,’ said Charlie. ‘Makes it easy, doesn’t it? What about picking up Koretsky? Make out that we know more about Primrose Hill than we do and sweat the bastard?’

‘I suggested it to the Joint Intelligence Committee,’ admitted Wilson. ‘The word came back that it was politically unacceptable.’

‘I’ve always thought killing someone was pretty unacceptable,’ said Charlie.

‘That doesn’t look like being on our patch any more, does it, Charlie? Out of sight, out of mind.’

‘What about the passport?’

‘Deniable, if it ever comes out. It’s obviously a forgery or feloniously obtained, isn’t it?’

‘Has there been a change of heart over this?’

‘Let’s call it rationalization.’

‘Blom has promised to include me,’ reminded Charlie. ‘What’s my response if he doesn’t?’

‘Come home,’ ordered Wilson.

‘Come home!’ Ask a silly question, get a silly answer, Charlie thought: he wasn’t going to leave things in limbo, like this.

‘Like I said, it’s not our patch any more.’

‘I don’t like leaving things half done.’

‘It’s not a question of what you like or don’t like,’ said the Director. ‘It’s a question of following orders.’

‘Sure,’ said Charlie.

‘I mean it,’ insisted Wilson. ‘Positively no one-man vigilante stuff. And that’s an order.’

Charlie realized he was getting boxed in, with insufficient room to plead misunderstanding. He said: ‘I recognize my position here. I won’t upset anyone.’

‘I’m determined that you won’t,’ said the Director.

‘If you want me I’m staying at the Beau-Rivage,’ said Charlie.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘The most expensive hotel in Geneva,’ acknowledged the Director.

‘Very central,’ tried Charlie.

‘Did you know by the way that the Mercedes was scratched at London airport?’

‘I’m not having a lot of luck with cars, am I?’ said Charlie.

‘Harkness says there appears to have been a great deal of drinking done, too.’

‘Necessary hospitality,’ insisted Charlie. ‘I was making a lot of demands on the airlines and airport personnel. Considered it a good way of saying thank you.’

‘According to Harkness you were very grateful.’

‘I was,’ said Charlie. ‘Very grateful indeed.’

‘Be careful, Charlie,’ warned the Director.

‘Always,’ assured Charlie.

The Swiss intelligence committee met in a room in the Bundeshaus, because the federal parliament building was the most convenient for the emergency session. There were five on the committee, two parliamentarians and three permanent civil servants and it was a civil servant, Klaus Rainer, who acted as chairman, to maintain impartiality. They listened without interruption to Blom’s account and when he finished Rainer said: ‘You were quite correct in asking for this meeting.’

‘Should we publish the picture, like the Englishman suggests?’ asked Blom.

‘Absolutely not!’ said the younger of the two MPs, Paul Leland. As well as being a leading hotelier in Geneva he was also deputy chairman of the national Tourist Board. He said: ‘Remember how Americans stopped coming to Europe after the last terrorist scare!’

‘This might not be a scare,’ warned Blom, anxious completely to absolve himself from any later problems.

‘It goes beyond tourism,’ said the second MP, Pierre Delon. ‘As you yourself have so rightly pointed out, Switzerland is a neutral country, the place where other countries that cannot agree with each other consent to meet. Everything possible must be done to preserve that image: to maintain that confidence.’

‘What then?’ asked Blom.

‘The most intensive investigation possible,’ insisted Leland. ‘But in the utmost secrecy. Nothing must become public.’

‘Should the Englishman be included?’

‘Until it is no longer an advantage for us to co-operate,’ said Rainer. ‘The Middle East conference comes first?’

‘Yes,’ confirmed Blom.

‘I think it would be wrong to be overly alarmist with the delegations,’ said the permanent official. ‘I think America should be consulted, Israel, too. Both have excellent intelligence facilities, from which we could benefit. But I do not see any purpose in extending the discussion to any of the other countries. A withdrawal, by just one, would wreck the conference: undermine just the sort of confidence it is necessary to sustain.’

Rainer looked around the small room, to be acknowledged by nods of agreement from every member of the committee.

‘It could be a false alarm, of course,’ said Leland. ‘A mistake.’

‘Let’s hope it is,’ said Rainer. ‘Let’s sincerely hope it is.’

The US advanced party for the conference, including the entire secretariat, landed that night in Geneva, just two hours ahead of the El Al flight from Tel Aviv carrying the Jewish party. The television at the Marthahaus, in Bern, was in the bar. Vasili Zenin sat in its most shadowed corner, making a small beer last, and watched each arrival.

Both Roger Giles and David Levy were professionally careful against being filmed, although Zenin could not have identified either.

It was a safe house again but in Geneva this time and much larger, almost half a floor of a black-glass-and-aluminium tower block far away from the lake, on the Rue Saint Victor. The outer offices were occupied, like some sort of buffer to guard the conference suite, which was on the corner of the building with a panoramic view of the city. Charlie arrived intentionally early, wanting the psychological advantage of being there first with his territory already established. Levy and Giles entered simultaneously, right on time. Levy was a large man, both in height and size, bulge-chested and heavy bellied and he walked with a strange, shoulder-swinging swagger, as if it were difficult to carry so much weight. His hair was cropped very close to his head. He appeared to wear clothes for necessity, not style: the sleeves of his jacket and the legs of his trousers, behind the knee, were lined with creases and although he wore a tie it was pulled down from his open collar. He dwarfed the American. Giles was small to the point of almost being petit, an impression heightened by his neatness. His hair was not as short as the Israeli’s but it was more carefully combed. His tie was precisely in place, the knot clipped by a pin which secured both edges of his collar and each of the three buttons of his uncreased suit was secured. The red-toned brogues glistened and Charlie was glad it was so late in the year; if there had been any sunlight the reflection would have been dazzling.

The Swiss counter-intelligence chief made the introductions and as he did so Giles put his head curiously to one side and said: ‘Charlie Muffin …? Weren’t you the guy that — ?’

‘Yes,’ cut off Charlie. It was best to get it out of the way as soon as possible.

‘Well I’ll be a son of a bitch!’ said Giles.

‘Do you two know each other?’ asked Blom.

‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s something that happened a long time ago.’ Like Edith’s death, he thought. And then Natalia.

‘The word was that you were back,’ said Giles, the surprise still showing.

‘Is it something we should know about?’ asked Levy. The voice, like the man, was heavy.

Charlie looked enquiringly at Giles who turned to the other two men and said: ‘I don’t think so. Like he told you, it was something that happened a long time ago.’ He looked back to Charlie and said: ‘But I don’t understand what you’re doing here.’

‘You will,’ promised Charlie.

Blom, playing the part of the uncertain host, gestured them to seats around a conference table and summoned someone from the outside offices to provide coffee, which he poured. To Levy and Giles he said awkwardly, confirming his difficulty: ‘Thank you both for coming.’