Brian Freemantle: The Run Around

‘Got to be up early in the morning,’ said Charlie. ‘Plane to catch.’

‘You lot lead a marvellous bloody life in your division, don’t you?’ said Donnelly. ‘Bet you haven’t had a shitty job for years.’

‘Can’t remember the last time,’ said Charlie.

All the arrangements had been made between London and Washington at Director-to-Director level, even to the timing of the appointment. Charlie caught a flight that got him into Dulles airport by noon, determined against being late. He actually drove past the CIA headquarters at Langley on his way into the city, curious if his re-acceptance by the Americans would ever be complete enough for him to be received there. He doubted it. There would still be a long way to go.

He had been at the Hay Adams for thirty minutes when his telephone sounded, precisely on time.

‘Jesse Willard,’ said a strong Southern voice. ‘I’m downstairs in the lobby.’

‘Shall I come down?’ asked Charlie.

‘I’ll come up,’ said Willard.

The hotel had been the CIA choice, Charlie knew: his room would have been swept for electronic surveillance, then bugged again. The CIA officer was a tall, bony man whose handshake hurt. ‘Can I offer you anything?’ invited Charlie.

‘Just what you came here to tell us,’ said Willard, briskly.

Charlie considered it almost overly melodramatic. When in Rome do — or art — as the Romans do, he thought. He said: ‘Did you know Giles?’

‘I’m in charge of the division he worked in,’ said the American.

The Agency were definitely taking it seriously, realized Charlie. Which was good. He said: ‘He was sacrificed. Your Secretary of State, too.’ Dramatic enough? he thought.

Willard made no outward reaction, except to pause. Then he said: ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you prove it?’

‘Not sufficiently.’

‘How much?’

Instead of directly replying Charlie said: ‘You can manipulate a lot of media outlets, can’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’ve got receptive Congressmen on Capitol Hill?’

‘Some.’

‘Then enough,’ said Charlie. From his briefcase he took the Israeli folder and said: ‘You’ll need this. The Novikov stuff, too.’

The Washington Post led with the first story a week later. It was picked up by the New York Times and all the major television networks by the following day, when the outcry erupted in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

David Levy was summoned to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s office on the day the Israeli government were forced into issuing a public apology, admitting mistakes. And promising an investigation.

There had been nothing, Berenkov acknowledged. The bugging devices in the apartment of Natalia Nikandrova Fedova had recorded the perfectly innocent activities of a divorced woman with a teenage son who telephoned regularly from college and the round-the-clock visual surveillance had failed to discover anything at all suspicious about her behaviour. And her KGB work as a debriefer was beyond criticism.

She still had to be the key. Berenkov was convinced of it.

There was a table at the side of Mordechai Cohen’s office, with newspapers and magazines in several languages heaped upon it, disordered where they had been read and discarded.

‘Have you seen them!’ demanded the Israeli Foreign Minister.

‘Nearly all,’ said Levy. He guessed it was politics time.

Cohen picked up one at random, France Soir , and said: ‘Look at that headline! The Shambles of Israeli Security.’ The man snatched up another, the current edition of Newsweek . ‘The Slaughter that Could and Should have been Avoided,’ he read aloud.

‘It’s very bad,’ conceded Levy, going along with the charade.

‘Do you know how bad?’ asked Cohen, rhetorically. ‘At best we’re being made to look an incompetent laughing-stock. At worst there are private demands being made from the American State Department for a full explanation. According to our Washington embassy a lot of Congressmen are openly doubting that it was a mistake at all. There’s a groundswell growing to block any further aid. At this morning’s Cabinet meeting the conclusion was that the whole thing has backfired. Disastrously.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ said the intelligence chief.

‘Are you sure it was the Englishman?’

‘It has to be,’ said Levy. ‘I gave him the phoney biography.’

‘Why!’

‘To deflect him,’ said Levy. ‘I wanted to bury him in paper.’

‘Why didn’t you get the damned thing back!’

‘I never thought he’d use it; certainly not like this,’ admitted Levy. Sadly he remembered: ‘And he said I’d made him look a fool.’

‘Now it’s been reversed,’ said the Foreign Minister. Pointedly he added: ‘In your case, publicly.’

‘Yes,’ accepted Levy, tightly.

‘Has there been any count of the number of times you have been openly named?’

‘Quite a lot,’ said Levy. ‘About thirty, worldwide.’

‘Israeli intelligence personnel are expected always to remain anonymous.’

Levy did not reply.

Cohen said: ‘I’m sorry.’

Still Levy did not speak.

‘The Cabinet meeting also decided that a gesture was necessary beyond the formal expression of regret,’ disclosed the Foreign Minister. ‘Something to placate the Americans.’ Cohen paused and said: ‘I know it was my instruction but if I go it will be confirmation that there was prior government awareness: make everything worse rather than better.’

At last Levy responded. He said: ‘I would like it to be a resignation, not a dismissal.’

‘Of course,’ accepted the Foreign Minister.

‘Thank you,’ said Levy.

‘I really am sorry,’ said Cohen.

‘When?’

‘Immediately.’

‘Ironic, isn’t it?’ said Levy. ‘Charlie Muffin actually called me the bastard!’

Natalia Nikandrova Fedova came with just the slightest hesitancy into Berenkov’s office, surprised at his standing politely to greet her, which was a Western courtesy, not Russian. At first Charlie embarrassed her by doing it.

‘I was told to report to you, Comrade Berenkov?’

‘Natalia Nikandrova,’ smiled the man. ‘I am evolving a mission, a very special mission. One in which you are to be involved.’

‘Yes?’

‘Concerning an Englishman,’ said Berenkov, intent upon her. ‘Someone you once knew.’

‘Someone I knew?’

‘Charlie Muffin.’

She blushed, just slightly but enough. It had been there all the time and he hadn’t realized it, thought Berenkov. But he did now. He knew the way to make it all work, too.