Brian Freemantle - Charlie M

Janet lay, damp with perspiration, against his chest, nudging him with her tongue. He’d have to do it again in a minute, he knew. He really was getting too old.

‘Sir Henry is very impressed,’ she said.

‘So he should be.’

‘But I gather he and Wilberforce are annoyed you made the trip without their knowing.’

‘Too bad.’

‘What’s Kalenin like?’

‘Little bloke. Frightened, but he doesn’t show it.’

‘Half a million is a lot of money.’

‘But worth it,’ insisted Charlie. What would she do for half a million, wondered Charlie, stroking her hair.

She pulled away from him and wedged herself upon one arm.

‘Do you think it will work, Charlie?’

‘It’s got to,’ replied the man.

‘For whom?’ she demanded. ‘You. Or the department?’

‘Both,’ said Charlie, immediately. ‘It’s equally important for both.’

‘They’re only using you, darling,’ warned Janet, stretching back again. ‘They’ll fuck you in the end if it serves a purpose.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, softly. ‘That’s the worrying thought.’

The distrust was tangible, a positive obstruction between them, thought Charlie, sitting comfortably in the Director’s office.

He’d created the situation and was contented with it, examining the reactions like a researcher studying slides beneath a microscope.

Wilberforce was in his accustomed chair, examining his peculiar hands as if seeing their oddness for the first time and Cuthbertson was attempting to improve the design on an already tattooed blotter. He regretted now his earlier agreement to the Moscow tape recording being played in full, guessed Charlie.

Ruttgers stood by the window, driven there by the anger that had pulled him from the chair as the Neskuchny Sad recording had echoed in the lofty room. The American Director was swirled in a cloud of tobacco smoke.

Braley perched in the stiff, uncomfortable chair, pumping at his inhaler.

‘I repeat what I have already told Sir Henry,’ protested Ruttgers, staring out into Parliament Square. ‘Kalenin, if indeed the voice we have heard is that of Kalenin, is lying.’

‘To what purpose?’ enquired Charlie, in apparent innocence.

‘What right have you got to question me?’ demanded the American, imperiously.

‘The right of a man whose two colleagues have already perished as a result of C.I.A. involvement and whose neck is currently on the block,’ retorted Charlie, judging the offence.

Ruttgers looked at Cuthbertson for rebuke, but when none came reiterated, ‘The C.I.A. did not inform upon your operatives.’

‘Then what can it mean?’ coaxed Charlie. This encounter couldn’t have gone better, he thought.

‘That he was lying,’ said Ruttgers, without thought. ‘Or that it isn’t really Kalenin.’

‘Do you really feel that?’ seized Cuthbertson, ahead of Charlie, but prompting for different reasons.

‘It’s a reasonable assumption,’ said the American.

‘Then it’s an equally reasonable assumption that the whole episode is phoney — as I have argued for many weeks now. And that we should stop this thing now without any more risk to either service or any more people,’ said Charlie.

Ruttgers stayed at the window, recognising the alley into which he had been backed.

The cracking of Wilberforce’s knuckles came over the sound of Braley’s wheezing; it was like being a sick visitor in a terminal ward, thought Charlie.

‘It must be pursued to the end,’ asserted Ruttgers, finally.

Cuthbertson looked up from his defaced blotter.

‘By my service,’ he qualified.

Ruttgers said nothing.

‘And on my terms,’ stipulated the ex-soldier.

Ruttgers sighed, accepting he had no bargaining counters. He nodded, briefly.

‘On our terms,’ demanded the British Director, insistent on a commitment.

‘Agreed,’ confirmed the American, tightly.

‘Which means I want somebody …’ Charlie paused, looking at the asthmatic Braley,’… him, with me in Czechoslovakia. At all times, in fact …’

Cuthbertson and Wilberforce looked up, frowning curiously.

‘Because having a C.I.A. man with me guarantees I won’t be exposed by them, doesn’t it?’ smiled Charlie, looking between the two Americans for reaction.

Ruttgers turned away from the window, his face clearing.

‘… But that’s …’

‘… me setting you up,’ interrupted Charlie. ‘I want him with me, but taking as little part as I determine in the discussions I have. He’s just always got to be within ten yards.’

‘Ten yards?’ queried Braley, the inhaler held loosely in his hand, like a blackboard pointer.

‘From that range, I’m classified as an expert shot,’ said Charlie, simply. ‘I’d see an arrest coming, long before ten yards …’

He stared directly at Ruttgers.

‘… I shall draw a gun from the British embassy,’ he recorded. ‘And before any arrest, I’ll kill your man. And that would create an embarrassing international cause celebre, wouldn’t it?’

‘This is preposterous!’ complained the American, going to Cuthbertson.

‘Yes,’ agreed the British Director, ‘it is, isn’t it? But after the misfortunes that have occurred so far, I can see Muffin’s point of view.’

‘You want constant involvement,’ contributed Wilberforce. ‘This is surely what’s being proposed?’

Another blocked alley, saw Ruttgers.

‘I want to make it quite clear,’ began Ruttgers, formally, ‘that a full account of this meeting will be sent to the Secretary of State, Willard Keys, for whatever use he might see fit to make of it in his discussions with the President about the forthcoming European visit. I’m sure he’ll find it sad that the special relationship between our two countries has reached such a point.’

‘I’m sure he will,’ picked up Cuthbertson, unafraid. ‘I hope his distress will be matched by that of the British cabinet when they have had the opportunity fully to study the transcript of the Kalenin conversation.’

This was very bad, realised Ruttgers. If the British pressed the point, Keys would abandon him, assuring the President he had no knowledge of the entrapment of Snare and Harrison. He could be brought down by this debacle, realised the American.

‘I think we are allowing stupid, unwarranted animosity to cloud the point of this meeting,’ he attempted.

‘Which is to bring successfully to the West the most important Russian defector since 1945?’ lured Charlie.

Ruttgers nodded, suspiciously.

‘To a scenario which you don’t accept?’ said Braley, to help his superior.

‘Doesn’t it seem to you that, Harrison and Snare apart, the whole thing has gone just a little too easily?’ asked Charlie.

‘Yes,’ agreed Ruttgers, immediately. ‘But then again, how else could it have gone? Kalenin is in a unique position to manipulate circumstances to his own advantage and to behave in a manner that others would find impossible.’

‘So now you accept it’s genuine?’ said Wilberforce, head sunk deeply on his chest so that the words were difficult to hear.

‘I’m saying we …’ Ruttgers paused, remembering the rebuke, ‘… you,’ he corrected, ‘should make the Prague meeting.’

‘Have your analysts examined every report and transcript?’ asked Charlie.

‘Yes,’ said Braley, shortly.

‘To what conclusion?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Apprehension,’ accepted Ruttgers. ‘But not the outright doubt that you’re expressing, Charles.’

‘Charlie,’ stopped the Englishman.

Ruttgers frowned. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ demanded the American Director.