Brian Freemantle - The Run Around

‘What’s the security like?’

‘Better than it was.’

‘Seems like it might have been a good idea for you to stay on, after all,’ said Wilson.

‘Could easily be.’

‘I said advisory, Charlie!’

‘I heard.’ To cover his arse he would eventually need to advise as ordered: and the problem with trying to be a one-man band was playing the trumpet and the trombone at the same time as banging the drum. Charlie said: ‘Any objection to Cummings coming back to Geneva with me?’

‘Why?’ demanded Wilson, the surprise obvious.

Every cloud turns out to have a silver lining in the end, thought Charlie. He said: ‘The Swiss complained, don’t forget. It might be better if he were involved, as the local man whom they know and have worked with before.’

There was a long silence from London. Wilson said: ‘Involved with what?’

‘Liaison,’ said Charlie. He hoped this part of the conversation didn’t continue much longer because there weren’t many words left before he fell over the edge.

Wilson spoke slowly, spacing the delivery, wanting Charlie to understand every nuance. He said: ‘Strictly speaking, I disobeyed higher authority by not bringing you home.’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, shortly.

‘Now there seems to be an excuse. Just.’

‘Yes,’ repeated Charlie.

‘This conversation — everything I’ve said — is being recorded at this end.’

‘I know,’ said Charlie. ‘It’s automatic.’

‘It’s a protection device, to ensure accuracy,’ said the Director. ‘Don’t forget it, will you?’

‘No,’ promised Charlie. ‘I won’t forget.’

There was another discernible pause. ‘Have Cummings, if you think it’s necessary,’ conceded the Director.

The Bern rezident suggested driving back to Geneva in his own car and Charlie readily agreed, wanting to be cocooned with his thoughts. There was a need to be careful, he accepted; despite the experts’ assessment the identification could still be mistaken. And the Dajani assault really could be concidence, although he didn’t personally believe coincidence, space ships, ghosts or that the world was round. That long-absent sensation wouldn’t go away, though: that tingle of anticipation, the gut feeling that at last something was going right after so much going wrong. Inside looking out, he’d told the Israeli. There would obviously have been the need for someone on the inside. Christ he’d been slow, not thinking of it before! Still not too late: almost, but not quite.

‘I still don’t know what I am supposed to be doing,’ protested Cummings beside him. ‘What this is all about?’

Charlie told the other man as much as he felt necessary, editing completely the restrictions imposed upon him by their Director in London, realizing as he talked that it would be an advantage to have a car. Beside him Cummings listened in increasing discomfort, physically shifting in his seat. Cummings had felt safe in Switzerland. It was one of the easiest postings in the service, a place where nothing ever happened and where his role had previously been to transmit between Bern and London low level intelligence judged so unimportant by both that neither side minded the other knowing. Which was how he wanted to continue, acting out the role of a special postman, enjoying the overseas allowances and the embassy cocktail parties and avoiding anything and everything which might upset the status quo. Like this, he recognized, worriedly.

‘I don’t believe it!’ he said.

‘Millions don’t.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Sit in my hotel room and drink Harkness’s whisky until it comes out of your ears,’ said Charlie. He felt cheerful — ebullient — at finally having a pathway to follow.

‘What!’

‘I need a contact point: a number and a person I know will be there, when I call. Just leave the bathroom door open when you pee, so that you’ll hear the phone.’

‘Why!’

‘There’ll be a need to tell the Swiss.’ And I hope the time, Charlie thought, remembering Wilson’s injunction.

‘Why not tell them now?’

‘Because we don’t know enough to tell them anything, yet.’ Which was a lie and could get him hanging by his balls from the ceiling hook if it all went wrong and Wilson launched an enquiry.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked the man.

‘See what the second-class hotels of Switzerland are like,’ replied Charlie, nebulously. ‘And I’ll need this car, incidentally.’

‘I’m not sure about that,’ protested Cummings.

‘It’s a department car, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And we’re in the same department, aren’t we?’

‘Mr Harkness is very strict about office property,’ reminded Cummings.

And don’t I know it, thought Charlie. He extended his hand across the vehicle, so that Cummings could see his fore and middle fingers tight together. ‘Dick and I are like that,’ he said.

‘Is that his name, Dick?’ said Cummings. ‘I never knew.’

Dick was very much the man’s name, reflected Charlie. ‘Richard,’ he said. ‘One of the best.’

‘I thought you said “fucking Harkness” that day at the embassy,’ accused Cummings.

‘Joke!’ said Charlie. ‘You don’t really think I’d call the Deputy Director that, do you?’

‘I suppose not,’ said Cummings. ‘You will be careful of it, won’t you?’

‘Look after it like it was my own,’ assured Charlie.

He escorted Cummings up to the room at the Beau-Rivage and actually ordered a bottle of whisky, taking a quick nip himself, and said: ‘OK. Just wait for my call.’

‘How long?’ asked Cummings.

There was no way he could make the assessment because he had no idea what was going to happen, Charlie accepted. ‘The formal session starts at noon tomorrow,’ said Charlie. ‘If you haven’t heard from me by eleven-thirty, press every button you can find.’

‘I should know where you’re going to be.’

‘The hotel where the Palestinians are staying, off the Barthelemy-Menn.’

‘How do you know you’ll get a room!’ said Cummings, clerk-like.

‘One of their guests is in hospital, with his balls in a bandage,’ said Charlie, confidently.

It was almost midnight when Charlie approached the night desk. As he signed in Charlie said casually: ‘Too late to call Miss Nabulsi tonight, I suppose? Two-oh-eight, isn’t it?’

‘Three forty-nine,’ corrected the night clerk, turning to check the key on the hook. ‘She appears to be in her room.’

‘I’ll wait until tomorrow,’ said Charlie. ‘What time does she usually leave?’

‘Depends,’ said the man, consulting a ledger. ‘But tomorrow she’s booked a call for six.’

‘Thanks,’ said Charlie, surprised how easy it often was with just a little bit of knowledge. And then thinking in immediate contradiction that it was about time things became easier. Charlie didn’t bother to undress, just to remove his Hush Puppies to stretch his feet out before him on top of the bed, his back supported against the headboard. Should he have told the others, instead of trying to go it alone? he wondered, in rare second thoughts. No, he decided, in immediate reply. Time enough to bring them in if there were no contact and he was wasting his time: the fail-safe was established with Cummings, after all.

Charlie left the hotel at five-thirty, using the fire exit on the ground floor to avoid the informative clerk of the previous night, shivering in the early morning mist that spilled over from the lake to cloak everything in wet, clinging greyness. To have started the engine to get the heater working would have created tell-tale steam from the exhaust so he remained hunched in the front seat, arms wrapped around himself, occasionally leaning forward to clear the condensation from the window so that his observation of the hotel was unobstructed.