Brian Freemantle - See Charlie Run

‘I don’t know: not yet.’ Lu smiled, fleetingly, and said: ‘I will, of course.’

‘Hope you find them before they find us,’ said Charlie, sincerely. He gestured around the hotel room and said: ‘Where, after this?’

Lu nodded across the waterway, towards the mainland. ‘It’s got to be Kowloon, hasn’t it?’

Obvious, thought Charlie again. He said: ‘What about Macao?’

Lu frowned. Surprise? Or annoyance at a change to an already-conceived arrangement? wondered Charlie.

‘It’s small,’ argued Lu.

‘That’s the problem: everywhere’s small and easily covered,’ said Charlie. ‘But it’s an alternative, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Lu, still reluctant.

‘We’ll make it Macao,’ decided Charlie. To the woman, he said: ‘Let’s go.’

At the doorway she stopped, looking directly at him. She said: ‘You lied. Everything has gone wrong. I know it has.’

Olga Balan used an Australian passport — describing her as a single woman named Hebditch — and landed in Hong Kong on the gritty-eyed dawn arrival flight which was the first available, and which had originated in Hawaii, with a Tokyo stop-over. Not that it would have been possible for her to have slept, had she tried. She knew she was right, in telling Yuri they were trapped. They were trapped and she felt trapped. Unless she killed Irena. Why couldn’t Yuri have understood, when she said she was frightened! But then how could he know? No one knew. Only her.

Charlie fought against the light-headedness of fatigue, trying to calculate the last time he’d properly slept and abandoning the exercise because it was an intrusion and there were enough intrusions already. At least Irena Kozlov was safely resting now. He hoped. Like he hoped so much else.

It was omens time and certainly luck had been following them with the hydrofoil. They’d managed to catch the last one to the Portugese colony, changed the harbour cab for another once they reached the tiny township and used a third to cross the sweeping bridge over the Pearl River to the Hyatt. Where he’d spent exactly five minutes in his own room, after settling Irena, before moving again. Not strictly true. There’d been the further fifteen minutes in the bar with Harry, trying to restore things between them and drinking the Scotch he’d needed at the time but now wished he hadn’t had, because it was contributing to his tiredness. Had he buggered things up with Harry? Certainly with the suspicion in front of Irena, but alone, in the bar, the man had appeared to relax: actually showed photographs of his Chinese wife whose name translated to Dawn Rising and their child, a five-year-old girl called Open Flower. Not just relaxing, Charlie accepted. It had been necessary for the man to introduce his family, so there would be no mistakes about the entry documents required. Wrong to read too much into it then.

Charlie sighed, staring through the water-flecked windows of the early morning return hydrofoil at the land chips of the outlying islands, haloed in a permanent haze-made rainbow. Wrong, as well, to dwell too long upon it. Harry had made his ultimatum clear enough, so it was ridiculous for either of them to imagine their relationship remaining as it had been, no matter how many different ways Harry said it was nothing personal and Charlie assured him there were no hard feelings. If Harry blew the whistle on him to the Americans, it was going to be very personal indeed and his feelings were going to be hard, fucking hard. And they both knew it.

There were other far more immediate considerations. Like keeping ahead of a mob-handed CIA squad now backed by some sort of military presence on a colony all too easily sealed. And placating a nervously demanding woman who knew very well things had gone disastrously wrong, despite the lies he tried to make sound convincing. And most important of all, at this moment, conning his way into one of the most secret spy installations maintained by Britain.

The hydrofoil edged alongside the pier from which he’d left just a few hours earlier, and Charlie slotted himself into the main body of departing passengers, instinctively using them as cover. He ignored the waiting taxis, walking instead towards the clustered-together Connaught Centre and Chartered Bank and the Landmark complex, giant trees that man made. Tiredness carried the usual ache from his feet into his legs and Charlie envied the people around him who’d slept the previous night. Further to clear his trail he detoured off the main highway several times, moving through side alleys where he could be more aware of people around him; outside several shops incense sticks burned from tiny holders to fend off evil spirits, and Charlie hoped the protection extended to passers-by who needed it, like he did.

He waited until Exchange Square with its fresh skyscrapers before hailing a cab. Once more he was cautious, isolating Repulse Bay for the first leg, settling back against the seat and momentarily closing his eyes against the growing sun glare as the vehicle began its climb over Victoria Peak. Almost at once he felt the sink of sleep and blinked awake, fighting it off, knowing he’d feel worse if he relaxed and had to start functioning again, after only an hour.

How easy would it be, to get into the Composite Signals Station? Something else he should have fixed with the Director, before severing contact in Tokyo: just like he should have agreed to the despatch of some sort of military aircraft. Charlie shifted, moving against the recurring drowsiness but also in irritation, worried at the things he had overlooked. If you lose your touch, my boy, your balls are going to end up on a hook, he told himself.

The car started its descent from the high spine of the island, edging down to sea level on the back-upon-itself road, and after one of the curves Charlie caught the first sight of the orange-roofed villas of Repulse Bay and thought it looked like a part of the French Riviera that had been put down for a moment and then forgotten.

He paid the cab off by the beach and walked slowly further into the tiny settlement while the taxi reversed and then set off for the return trip. It was more difficult than he’d thought it would be to get another car, and when he finally managed it and gave the address at Chung Hom Kok he was aware of the driver’s examination, in the mirror. To be expected, Charlie supposed. The Composite Signals base is an electronic intelligence-gathering installation with equipment sufficiently powerful for Britain to listen to radio and telephone communication as far away as Beijing and to both the Soviet naval headquarters at Vladivostok and the Russian rocket complex on Sakhalin Island. Charlie wondered what would happen to it after 1997: it would certainly be on a spy category list even greater than any upon which Harry Lu’s name appeared. Moscow were probably shitting themselves, aware of how the Chinese could use the ready-made and well functioning station. He hoped to Christ he could use it too.

He came forward in his seat as the car approached. There were a lot of angled radio dishes and Nissen-hut hedgehogs of bristling radio antennae, but like most secret installations Charlie had ever visited, it still looked like a temporary army barracks, ready for a war. Which perhaps it was. Alert, Charlie saw the camera monitor manoeuvre to their arrival, to record the car — and its number — before he even alighted, and as he walked towards the gate-house Charlie registered the inner protection of wire which he guessed was electrified and the further array of cameras beyond that focussed upon him and guessed the perimeter would be sensor-seeded, to detect any entry which got past either.

Self-rehearsed, Charlie asked for the guard commandant, and when the man — sparse-haired, sun-worship brown and in a tropical uniform so uncreased Charlie expected the starch to crack with each movement — came curiously across the quadrangle, Charlie asked for the duty officer. For identification he provided his Foreign Office registry number, as well as his name. It was obvious that the registry number meant something to the man, who withdrew without asking any questions: seconds after he disappeared into what appeared to be the main administrative building at the end of the entry road Charlie heard the muffled ring of a telephone in the gatehouse complex, and soon after that three more uniformed gatehouse attendants appeared to support their original colleague and Charlie accepted he was under guard. Which was fine with him and he wished he had more of it. He smiled at them. No one responded, but at least there wasn’t the disdain of the American embassy reception in Tokyo.