Brian Freemantle - See Charlie Run

Charlie wasn’t at all sure he wanted one, from a bed like that, but he said ‘Thanks’ and she manoeuvred one from beneath the sheets, still managing to keep herself covered. He made a support for his back and tried to get comfortable.

‘I want the light left on,’ she said.

Usually the request was made in different circumstances, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Richard is relieving me, incidentally. Don’t panic at someone else coming into the room.’

She turned heavily on to her side, away from the light, bringing the covers further up so that he could not see her face. Charlie gazed around the decayed room and then at his watch: Christ, it hadn’t even gone ten! Should have brought a bottle back from the restaurant: the rice wine had been good, like the food. Pity Irena hadn’t enjoyed it. Her breathing seemed heavier, but Charlie didn’t think she was really asleep. Maybe a good idea he hadn’t brought any wine back. Better that he sat there, boringly sober, and started all over again, from that moment in Wilson’s office if necessary, and ran everything over just one more time, trying to find the key that would unlock all the doors so far remaining steadfastly shut in his face. Irena shifted, a settling movement, and Charlie eased slightly away, giving her room. It ruckled his jacket, awkwardly. He went away further, actually from the bed, taking the jacket off and hoping she didn’t look over her tented barrier and start yelling rape: in a place like this, there wouldn’t be a translation for the word, in any known language. As he did so Charlie detected in an inside pocket the Hyatt bill that Cartright had given him earlier: like Cartright had said, Harkness would want it, to make his tidy sums add up in their tidy columns. He took it out, glancing without interest at the total and then stopped, looking closer, at first unsure in the dull light. Charlie stayed unmoving for a long time, although bringing his eyes up quite quickly from the no longer necessary bill. Then, quietly now, not wanting to disturb her yet, he went to the always-carried shoulder bag containing the material the Director had freighted from London, looking not for that but for the other bill he’d sent Harry Lu to pay that first night in Hong Kong: he remembered using the same phrase then — about keeping things clean — that he had today to Cartright. It was in the side-pocket, still in the special departure envelope that the Mandarin always gave. The initial check only took Charlie seconds, but after so many mistakes and wrong turns — and with at last something which might at least lead him part way out of the maze — he determined to be sure, so he went right up to the bedside, directly beneath the light.

Fuck me, he thought. And then, that they had. He went back to the base with its supportive pillow and said: ‘Irena!’

She didn’t respond at once and so Charlie said again: ‘Irena! You’re not asleep: I know you’re not asleep.’

She came over the bedclothes, looking at him. ‘What?’

‘I think we’ve got things to talk about.’

Irena pushed the coverings down still further, although remaining completely concealed. ‘What?’ she asked again.

‘Everything,’ said Charlie. ‘Everything you’ve got to tell me.’

Olga didn’t know — couldn’t remember — how long the aimless wandering had gone on through the alleys and then the wider streets of Macao. The floating casino was a positive recollection, the beginning of the gradual recovery, because she’d dropped the gun into the water there, tensed against the splash between the boat and the jetty that had sounded to her like the explosion that guns usually made when they were fired but appeared to be heard by nobody else. And where the second fear had immediately come, that it wouldn’t sink, because it was plastic and light and floated initially on the surface while people jostled past behind her, eyes only for the fan-tan tables: and then the barrel seeped and filled with water and it gurgled down and still no one had seen. She supposed she must have taken a taxi to the ferry, but she couldn’t remember: her concentration had been upon the terminal itself, apprehensive of thronged police and person-by-person checks which never occurred because when she arrived the departures proceeded quite normally, without any interruption. The crossing to Kowloon was gone, too — not completely, but almost — and it was not until she finally regained the mainland that any positive recollection and cohesion started to formulate in her mind. She knew she had to get off the streets and she took a hotel which smelled and where babies cried, comparatively close to the Kowloon arrival jetty. And then she knew she had to speak to Yuri in Tokyo, at the Shinbashi apartment where he would be waiting according to their strictly time-tabled schedule to hear that everything had gone as they’d hurriedly planned, and that Irena was dead and they were secure, forever. Which they weren’t: couldn’t be, not now. Because she’d failed. Olga actually felt out towards the telephone several times, never once able to lift the receiver. Finally — instead — she let herself go sideways, against a counterpane that smelled like everything else.

‘Oh God,’ she said, uttering the forbidden word for the first time. ‘Oh, dear God, what am I going to do?’

There was a bizarre irony in that Olga Balan and the CIA group led by Art Fredericks — each of whom were pursuing Irena Kozlov for different reasons — were both at that moment just over a mile from the Asia, where the woman sat upright against the bed head, still covered but confronting Charlie Muffin.

‘I’m waiting,’ said Charlie.

Irena drew her feet up, creating a more positive barrier, the bedclothes still protective, staring at him but not saying anything, and Charlie refused to prompt with a positive question, just staring back. The hotel sighed and breathed around them, but in the room there was a silence noisy between them.

After a long time, Charlie said: ‘Well?’

‘I don’t know what you mean … what you want.’

‘Look at the hotel bills,’ said Charlie, pointing to where they lay, between them.

To pick them up Irena had to reach over the clothing and from the straps Charlie saw she still wore her bra. The woman made as if to study them but Charlie knew it wasn’t necessary for her. He didn’t know enough to ask probing questions, although he was giving the impression he did; the leads had to come from her. He said: ‘That really wasn’t very clever, was it? Careless, in fact.’

‘I still don’t know what you mean … what I’m supposed to have done wrong.’

‘Look again,’ urged Charlie, trying sarcasm. ‘It’s marked with a T, on both accounts. Stands for telephone. The second symbol — still on both accounts — indicates long distance. You’re supposed to be running, Irena: hiding were no one can find you. And all the time you’re making long-distance telephone calls …’ Charlie stopped, intentionally. He — or perhaps the British service — was being set up but he couldn’t work out how, so she had to provide the way to let him understand.

She smiled, an obviously open expression, and it surprised him although Charlie didn’t think it showed. She said: ‘Is that all?’

‘You tell me,’ persisted Charlie. Come on, come on!

‘It was all part of the caution,’ she said. ‘The way Yuri devised to stop anyone tricking us. You. Or the Americans.’

‘Yuri!’ exclaimed Charlie. He had the impression of a very small corner of a very dark curtain being lifted. But not enough.

‘You know how careful Yuri was: how he always knew the Americans would try to cheat; you, too, if you could.’ The woman sat now with her arms comfortably wrapped around her knees, relaxed. ‘He never planned to go across, not at the same time as me. Always he was going to wait, until he knew I was safe … that way he could have forced the Americans to release me: keep to the bargain …’ The smile came again, rehearsed, like the words sounded. ‘He loves me, you see …’