Brian Freemantle - The Run Around

‘Convinced now that you’ve got a Soviet illegal roaming somewhere in Geneva?’ demanded Charlie.

‘It would seem that something illegal is taking place.’

Didn’t this idiot know that with his head in the sand his arse was exposed? Charlie said: ‘The man at the Bellevue said he was tired, after a long journey. Yet he didn’t ask for anything to eat or drink.’

‘I don’t find that significant,’ dismissed Blom.

‘That night and the second he went directly to his room and stayed there,’ persisted Charlie.

‘There could be a dozen reasons for his doing that,’ argued Giles. He wasn’t as obviously resistant as Blom but he thought it necessary to avoid viewing everything as sinister.

‘How about hiding away as much as possible?’

‘One of the dozen,’ said the American.

‘He made mistakes, trying to appear Swiss-Deutsch,’ said Charlie. ‘The clerk was able from his accent to know immediately that he wasn’t, and also to discern in his German an accent with which he was not familiar. It was the speech of someone perfectly taught, in a classroom. And he didn’t know the coinage. He was very pedantic about counting out the fifteen per cent. Again, someone instructed but not accustomed to living in the West.’

‘Circumstantial again,’ said Blom. ‘All of it.’

Charlie sighed, talking directly to Levy. He said: ‘He carried a small suitcase, that was all. He expected the clerk to carry it to his room for him. And it was very light.’

The Israeli came slightly forward in his seat, smiling again. ‘Really!’ said Levy. ‘That’s interesting.’

Charlie looked expectantly at the American. Giles said: ‘Could be a lot of other explanations, apart from the obvious.’

‘Perhaps someone would like to explain the significance to me,’ complained the Swiss.

‘It means at that time, six days ago, he didn’t have a weapon,’ insisted Charlie. ‘No professional would risk carrying anything on an aircraft, because the electronic security checks are too good. He hadn’t picked it up directly after his arrival, either. The time he got to the hotel fits with the distance from the airport but it doesn’t allow for any detour. But the most positive evidence of all is that he let the clerk carry the case, a case so light that the clerk remembered it. Guns are heavy, noticeably so. No professional would have let the man anywhere near it, if he’d already made a collection.’

‘Diplomatic pouch?’ guessed Levy, more in private conversation with Charlie than in general discussion.

‘It’s the safest against interception, until the moment of hand over,’ agreed Charlie.

‘And then it’s noticeably bulky,’ said Levy.

To the Swiss counter-intelligence chief Charlie said: ‘You maintain Watchers on the Soviet embassy, of course?’

For a moment Blom appeared reluctant to concede a piece of routine trade-craft. Then he said: ‘Of course.’

‘Did you increase the cover, after the alert?’

‘The alert, such as it is, meant that my personnel was stretched,’ complained Blom, imagining criticism.

I offered manpower help,’ reminded Giles.

‘So you didn’t increase!’ demanded Charlie, exasperated.

‘The people deputed to cover the embassy are trained, experienced men who knew how to react,’ said Blom, defensively.

‘Like the trained, experienced men who hadn’t checked the phoney address as a car salesroom until you told them to!’ accused Charlie.

‘Nothing unusual has been reported from the embassy as of midnight last night,’ assured Blom, with pedantic formality.

‘That’s precisely what I’m frightened of,’ said Charlie. ‘That it hasn’t been reported.’

‘ Was any special instruction issued after the alert?’ demanded Giles.

‘The men on such specialized duty do not need reminding what that duty is,’ said Blom, still stiff.

‘The Watcher in England had been specially warned,’ reminded Charlie, in sad resignation. ‘ And he knew he was sitting right on top of a drop. By the time he was aware of what was happening, it was almost all over.’

‘Perhaps there should have been additional instruction,’ conceded Blom, finally. Throughout his operational life he had been accustomed to the neutrality of Switzerland rarely being challenged — never having had to confront the sort of terrorism and violence that these men appeared to accept almost as a normal part of their day-to-day operational lives — and he was frightened of the speed with which they thought ahead of him because of that experience and the assumptions they seemed so quickly able to make, and most concerned of all at their attitude towards him, which appeared to be increasingly hostile even from the American, whom he had seen as an ally.

‘These reports you talk of?’ questioned Charlie. ‘They’re logs, aren’t they? Recorded entries and departures, against times. With anything unusual isolated?’

‘Yes,’ said Blom.

‘I’d like to see them,’ said Charlie. ‘I’d like access to every twenty-four hour period, from the thirteenth.’

Blom opened his mouth to protest, but before he could speak Levy said: ‘I would like to examine them, as well.’ And the American said: ‘Me too.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Blom. ‘I hope you’ll find it a vindication of my people.’

‘I hope so, too,’ said Giles.

‘I think it would also be a good idea if we had a daily meeting,’ said Charlie, innocently. ‘Say here, at three o’clock every afternoon? To exchange information and ideas, stuff like that.’

Blom looked between Giles and Levy, trying to guess the traitor.

‘I think it would be a good idea as well,’ supported Giles. Damn Langley and their living-in-the-past vindictiveness and hands-off edict against the Englishman. The American decided he couldn’t give a damn how or why the scruffy bastard had screwed the Agency. He meant the promises he’d made in the letter to Barbara, but that didn’t mean neglecting his career. And his career was very much tied up at the moment with whether or not Clayton Anderson left in a blaze of international glory; and that was the only sort of blaze with which Giles intended to be connected. Charlie Muffin was calling too many shots ahead of the rest of them to be ignored. The man had to be brought aboard, not cast adrift.

So the traitor had been Giles, Blom recognized. He would have imagined the Israeli the more likely suspect. He said: ‘If that is the wish of you all.’

‘I think it’s got merit,’ said Levy.

Charlie looked at the Israeli, trying without success to gauge from the expression on the man’s face what he was thinking. Trying to make it easier for the cornered Blom, Charlie said: ‘We’ve not got a lot of time, after all.’

‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ said Blom.

Never one to let an advantage go, even from a cliche, Charlie said: ‘So we can see those logs right away then?’

There were two Searchers, the senior supervisor a balding, paunchy old-timer named Sam Donnelly, the younger a new entrant still with six months to complete before final graduation. His name was Peter Ball. He was a small, terrier-like man, eager to the point of arrogance, disdainful of advice for the same reason. It was Ball who picked the lock of Charlie’s flat, hot with irritation that the instructing Donnelly was able to isolate the barely visible scratch the wire had made against the Yale edge, halfway down. Ball considered it absurd even to imagine Charlie Muffin would be able to know from it that his apartment had been turned over.

‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Ball, who always smelled of strong cologne. ‘This is like one of those medieval places where people lived with their animals!’