Brian Freemantle: See Charlie Run

Kozlov winced, as if he had been struck. ‘Irena told you everything, didn’t she?’

‘A lot,’ said Charlie, wondering what else he could learn.

‘I thought I loved Valentina, at the time. I don’t know, not now. I only know about Olga.’

This was like being a bloody Agony Aunt: Dear Charlie, I am humping three different women but can’t make up my mind which one … Charlie said: ‘What about Irena?’

‘Have you any idea what the woman’s like!’

‘Some.’

‘She’s made me live in hell, for years.’

‘Bad enough to kill for?’

‘I asked her for a divorce.’

‘She told me. For Valentina, not Olga.’

‘I don’t care what you think: what you believe,’ said Kozlov.

Charlie was thinking and believing a lot. He believed that Kozlov did love Olga Balan, and he thought that was going to make everything a lot easier than it might have been. Time to start wrapping it all up into neat little parcels. He said: ‘I made the right assessment, didn’t I?’

Kozlov looked at him, uncomprehending.

‘You are fucked, aren’t you, Yuri? Every way you look. How much longer before Moscow discovers Irena’s not around any more? Filiatov is back there now, talking his head off to stop the pain. And any moment I want I can feed the information through …’

‘All right!’ The yell this time was despair, not defiance.

‘You didn’t let me finish the option, Yuri.’

‘What do you want?’

‘To help you,’ announced Charlie, simply. He stopped, intentionally, wanting the idea to register with the other man.

‘Help me?’

‘Well, you don’t want to go back to an interrogation cell in Butyrki and then on to some gulag for the rest of your life, do you!’

‘Help me how?’

‘Get you safely out, to the West …’ Charlie made another intentional hesitation. ‘And Olga, too,’ he finished.

‘Olga!’

‘You want to be with her, don’t you?’

‘Yes, but …’

‘No buts. Both of you.’

‘Together?’

The training was emerging, through all the confusion, recognized Charlie. He said: ‘Not to begin with. You told me how the Americans wanted you and Irena, when we both thought it was a genuine defection. If I try to take you and Olga out, the same thing would happen: a pitched battle. My way you both get out and then you’re reunited, very soon.’

‘How soon?’ insisted the man.

‘I’d even arrange a date,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s part of the proposal.’

‘I want to hear it all,’ said Kozlov.

‘I’ll tell you and you can check,’ said Charlie. ‘Irena told me about Hayashi, at the airport. He’ll confirm the Americans are there, with a military plane. So are we. I will take Olga, first. You follow, as soon as you know that we’ve cleared air space and can’t be intercepted by the Americans. Fredericks is setting up the same contact procedure for you as before, at the Imperial. He expects to hear from you …’

‘You are working together?’

Charlie wasn’t sure how to answer the question. He said: ‘Not together: we’re keeping to the arrangement that we thought we had, originally.’

‘Are you sure it is necessary to cross separately?’ asked Kozlov, doubtfully.

‘Aren’t you?’ said Charlie.

Kozlov didn’t reply, and Charlie thought I’m ahead of you, you crafty bastard. He said: ‘You’re thinking, of course, why bother letting Olga come with me? Why don’t the both of you go together to the Americans? That’s what I’d be thinking, if I were you now. But you mustn’t ever forget the file, Yuri … the file that’s got more than McFairlane’s name on it. Names like Bill Paul and Valeri Solomatin … and a very special name, a Senator William Bales …’

Kozlov was rigidly still and ashen, lips moving but without any intention of forming words.

‘Fucked, Yuri, unless you do it all my way,’ insisted Charlie. ‘Hayashi will tell you about the military planes, like I said. We’re watching them and they’re watching us, so I’d know before the wheels went up if you ducked me, to take Olga along with you. And then I’d have London tell Washington all the names they don’t know. Can you imagine the reception you’d get? I guess there’d be some debriefing: why waste an opportunity, after all? But then do you know what I think? I think you’d end up in some stockade and you’d be able to close your eyes and believe you were back in a Russian prison, after all. Maybe worse than a Russian prison: can you imagine that!’

The words came at last, a croaking, strained sound: ‘I understand … there’s no need … no more …’

‘Oh yes,’ contradicted Charlie: ‘There’s more. I haven’t told you yet how you’re getting to England.’

Kozlov was looking at him dully, practically glazed-eyed, someone completely defeated, and Charlie said: ‘You hearing what I’m saying?’

‘Yes,’ said Kozlov. ‘I’m hearing it all.’

‘We’re using the Americans to get you out, without the sort of battle that would occur, probably getting everyone seized, including both of you,’ set out Charlie. ‘In Washington, there will be the debriefing. String it out; make them work for everything. And be difficult. Complain about the restrictions of the safe house and say you want to take trips out. They let it happen: they shouldn’t but they do. Today’s the sixteenth. Three months from today, the sixteenth, get taken into Georgetown: all the restaurants are there. And a particular hotel. It’s called the Four Seasons and it’s at the very beginning of the district. There’s a large foyer bar and lounge: lots of plants. Break away from your escort on the sixteenth and come there. I shall be waiting from noon until four …’

‘But …’ Kozlov started to protest.

‘There could be a dozen reasons why you can’t make it,’ anticipated Charlie. ‘I know that. So we’ll run a fall-back precaution. If you can’t make that first time, the sixteenth of every month from then on.’

Kozlov nodded, assimilating the instructions. ‘And then I would be with Olga?’

‘From that moment on,’ promised Charlie.

‘Thank you,’ said Kozlov, in abrupt gratitude.

‘It’s not altruism,’ said Charlie. ‘We want you both.’

‘When?’

‘At once: certainly in the next twenty-four hours.’

‘I’ll have to talk to Olga.’

‘Do you have a way to contact her?’

‘She is calling, to see if you came.’

‘Then tell her to come here.’

‘She’s a good Russian … like I think I am a good Russian.’

‘It’s too late,’ said Charlie, who’d heard it all before.

‘For me, maybe. Not for her. There could be a defence.’

‘We want her, too,’ said Charlie, quietly.

Kozlov made an effort to straighten in front of Charlie and said: ‘I see.’

‘I told you it wasn’t altruism.’

‘You’d really use your Moscow source against her?’

‘Of course we would,’ said Charlie, brutally. ‘Don’t be naive.’

‘She can’t be hurt … mustn’t be hurt …’

‘Don’t let her be.’

‘What’s it feel like, not being able to lose?’ asked Kozlov, in abrupt viciousness.

‘What’s it feel like to have someone in the cross-hairs of a gun sight seconds before you press the trigger and know there’s not a damned thing the poor bastard can do, to avoid being killed!’ came back Charlie, just as viciously. ‘Don’t moralize to me! We’re not in the business of morals.’

‘It must be her choice.’

Charlie didn’t know why the other man was playing games, but he said: ‘Set out all the alternatives and let her make it.’

Which was what Kozlov did.