Brian Freemantle: The Run Around

‘Long time since I had one of these,’ he said to the technician.

‘You know the rules then?’ He was a doleful, long-faced man so accustomed to uncovering human frailties that he could no longer be shocked.

‘Yes or no answers to everything with a lot of sexy stuff at the beginning to see if I’m telling the truth,’ said Charlie. ‘Tell you what, why don’t we try to speed things up a bit? I’ve masturbated since I was nine, try to get my leg over as often as possible and I’ve never had a homosexual relationship but I’ve always been curious.’

The man sighed, wearily. ‘Let’s just do it my way, shall we?’

Charlie let himself be hooked up to the sensors that would monitor his sweat, pulse and heart beats and said: ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

It took two hours. Throughout Charlie sat quite relaxed, Hush Puppies extended before him, his legs crossed at the ankles, part of his mind not concentrating upon the examination but what he still wanted to do about Switzerland. That afternoon’s appointment was at Sir Alistair Wilson’s demand but if it had not come Charlie would have sought a meeting anyway. He hoped Wilson would agree. What was the greater spur, he asked himself objectively. His hurt pride or his offended sensibilities over what had happened in Geneva? It didn’t really matter. Getting the Director’s approval was all that mattered. Charlie was damned if he were going to be beaten.

Charlie was almost surprised when the test ended. As the technician unhooked him Charlie said: ‘How did I do?’

‘Well enough,’ said the man.

‘Mum always said that honesty was the best policy,’ said Charlie.

‘I’m not impressed,’ said the man. ‘Why don’t you save the independence bullshit for elsewhere?’

Arseholes, thought Charlie. His inclination was to go to the pub at lunchtime but he resisted it, remaining instead in his office to complete his Swiss expenses, smiling at the confetti of receipts and bills he had amassed. Keep Harkness happy for hours, he thought. Charlie squinted through the opaque glass, trying to see if Witherspoon were in his office. It appeared to be empty. Charlie wondered if the man had been switched back to Novikov or put on something else: school crossing warden, for instance.

Charlie arrived at the Director’s office promptly on time and was admitted at once, immediately conscious of something being different but not initially able to recognize what it was. And then he became aware that the room was devoid of roses.

Wilson saw Charlie looking curiously around the room and said: ‘Some sort of aphid: chafer grub seems the most likely.’

‘Sorry to hear it,’ said Charlie.

‘Causing havoc,’ said the Director.

‘I’ve heard that it does.’

‘Some of the stems will die.’ The Director, at the windowsill, leaned absent-mindedly downwards, massaging his stiff leg.

‘Sorry,’ said Charlie again, unable to think of anything else.

‘It’s Islay malt, isn’t it?’ said the Director, limping towards the drink cabinet, enclosed behind a bureau door.

‘For preference,’ accepted Charlie.

‘Never could acquire a taste for whisky,’ said Wilson, with the sadness of someone confessing a failing. ‘Pink gin man, myself. The Russian isn’t saying anything, you know.’

‘I didn’t expect him to.’

‘The photograph of Koretsky’s surveillance that day in Primrose Hill is a positive link to Moscow,’ said Wilson. ‘And there is the corroborative affidavit from Novikov.’

‘We’d have to move against Koretsky, if he were identified as the London rezident ,’ reminded Charlie.

The Director nodded. ‘That’s the bugger: means MI5 would have to spend a lot of time identifying his replacement. But the Cabinet feeling is that causing as big a sensation in Switzerland as possible is worth the sacrifice.’

‘Probably,’ concurred Charlie.

‘If you hadn’t got him, the whole thing would have been put down to a suicide assault by a Palestinian zealot: there would not have been any proof of Soviet involvement because all the hollow-nosed ammunition flattens out and is impossible to differentiate forensically.’ Wilson hesitated and said in begrudgingly professional acknowledgement: ‘You’ve got to give them credit, the bloody Russians are nothing if not devious.’

‘There was a second plot,’ announced Charlie, abruptly. ‘Or maybe it was the first, I don’t know. The Israelis set the whole thing up. Let the woman run, to wreck everything. Whether the Russians had been involved or not really wouldn’t have mattered a damn.’

Wilson turned, the whisky bottle suspended over Charlie’s glass, but not pouring. He said: ‘I think you’d better explain that.’

Charlie did, not once trying to disguise or gloss over his own mistakes. By the time he finished Wilson was nodding. He finished making the drinks, handed Charlie his glass and said: ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers,’ responded Charlie.

‘Levy admitted that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bastards!’

‘That’s what I said. Several times.’

‘Despite everything, you still did well,’ praised the older man.

‘I want to do something more.’

‘What?’

Charlie told him, in as much detail as he’d given in the earlier explanation and when he finished Wilson said: ‘Why?’

‘Why not?’

‘There’s no benefit for us,’ protested the Director, objectively.

‘Yes there is,’ disputed Charlie. ‘Levy was right, saying that I was the flavour of the month with the CIA. It would make them more grateful: not to me personally, but to the service as a whole.’

‘Maybe,’ said Wilson, doubtfully.

‘People died,’ said Charlie. ‘People needn’t have died.’

‘No,’ accepted Wilson. ‘No, they didn’t have to let it go to that extreme.’

‘So can I go to Washington?’

Wilson gazed for several moments down into his glass, like a fortune teller trying to forecast an event from the arrangement of tea leaves. Then he looked up and said: ‘Why not? Let’s strengthen the bonds of Atlantic friendship.’

‘Thank you,’ said Charlie.

Wilson put his glass down positively on the desk in front of him and said: ‘You passed your positive vetting.’

‘I’m grateful for your telling me so soon,’ said Charlie.

‘You were worried?’

‘One never likes having one’s honesty and integrity doubted.’

‘Were you surprised that one was ordered?’

‘Such decisions are always at the discretion of senior management,’ said Charlie, feeling safety in formality.

Wilson sat in silence, observing Charlie over the rim of his glass. He said: ‘You made application for a bank overdraft? For?10,000?’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, cautiously.

‘Harkness has refused to provide the necessary reference.’

‘Oh,’ said Charlie.

‘And you’ve been passed over, in the last two grading assessments?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’ve written a memorandum today correcting that,’ said the Director. ‘You’re upgraded, with backdated effect from 1 January. The salary increase is?5,000 a year.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Charlie was uneasy.

‘I want you to tell me something.’

‘What?’

‘Do you think I am a stupid man?’

‘I don’t understand, sir.’

‘Do you think I am a stupid man?’ insisted Wilson.

‘No, sir.’

‘Good,’ said the Director. ‘Now I am going to tell you something. I think you knew that any overdraft application like that needed a reference and that it would be referred to the Deputy Director. I think you knew regulations automatically required an investigation and a vetting procedure, which would declare you one hundred per cent clean. I think you knew that I would be involved in discussions upon it and that during those discussions the oversight of your promotion would become known to me … you got anything to say about that?’