Brian Freemantle - Charlie M

Kalenin shrugged, replacing the tanks into their boxes. Perhaps it was time Kastanazy was taught a lesson, he thought, sighing. The man wasn’t liked in the Praesidium, Kalenin knew.

The General went into the regimented living-room, carefully positioned the cover over the headrest of the easy chair and sat down, looking with satisfaction around the apartment, enjoying its clinical neatness. Not one thing out of place, he thought. He smiled at the thought. The words that could sum up his life, he decided: everything in the right place at the right time.

He rose abruptly, without direction, bored with the inactivity. The next month was going to be difficult to endure, he realised.

He poured a goblet of Georgian wine, then stood examining it. Berenkov had been disparaging about his country’s products, recalled Kalenin. ‘Bordeaux has much more body. And a better nose,’ his friend had lectured, during their last meeting.

He envied Berenkov, Kalenin suddenly realised. The man was all he had ever wanted to be. But Berenkov had been caught, Kalenin rationalised. Which made him fallible.

Will I be detected? wondered Kalenin, finishing his wine.

A large map table had been brought into Cuthbertson’s office and several two-inch ordnance sheets pinned out in sequence showing the Czech border with Austria, with all the routings into the capital. Beside the maps were boxes of blue and green flags, awaiting insertion.

It was an exercise that Cuthbertson understood and he moved around the table assuredly, aided by Ruttgers, who had returned that morning from Washington and from a meeting with both Keys and the President. The C.I.A. Director was pleased the President was involved; it elevated the operation to exactly the sort of status he considered necessary.

‘By the thirteenth, we’ll have moved over a hundred men into Austria,’ recorded Ruttgers. ‘And we’re airlifting in sufficient electronic equipment to guarantee a complete radio link-up between every operative.’

Cuthbertson nodded. The previous day there had been a full Cabinet meeting which he had attended and he knew that afterwards there had been direct telephone calls be tween the Prime Minister and the American leader.

‘We’re matching that commitment,’ he confirmed. ‘Man for man.’

The resentment at the American involvement still rankled with him: the Cabinet hadn’t shown sufficient outrage, he thought, critically.

Cuthbertson stared fixedly at Ruttgers, then at the map table.

‘Your cigarette is smouldering,’ he complained. ‘Can’t you extinguish it?’

‘Once Kalenin crosses that border,’ said Ruttgers, casually stubbing the offensive butt and looking down at the map, ‘the net will be so tight that a fly couldn’t escape.’

‘I’m still a little concerned about Austria,’ said Wilberforce, ‘we can’t mount an operation of this size without them learning about it.’

‘We can and we will,’ bullied Ruttgers, immediately. ‘By the time they discover anything, it’ll be all over.’

‘It still seems diplomatically discourteous,’ protested the tall man.

‘That’s not the way they’ll see it,’ guaranteed the C.I.A. chief. ‘Austria is the bridge between East and West, don’t forget. They’d be scared gutless knowing in advance someone of Kalenin’s importance was going to move through their territory. Sure they’ll bleat and complain at the United Nations and both our governments will dutifully apologise at the intrusion. But privately Austria will be bloody glad we kept them out so their relations with Moscow don’t suffer.’

Cuthbertson smiled patronisingly at Wilberforce, indicating he shared the American’s assessment.

‘It’ll be difficult to make all our displacements until we know when and how Kalenin intends crossing. But we can bottle up the city.’

He paused, looking at Ruttgers.

‘You sure your house is safe?’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Ruttgers, ‘the C.I.A. have owned it for twenty years …’

‘… which means the K.G.B. probably know about it,’ intruded Wilberforce.

‘Not this one,’ promised Ruttgers, who regarded it as vitally important that Kalenin should be lodged instantly at an American-owned property. He was growing increasingly confident he could elbow the British aside once Kalenin had defected.

‘Do you think I’d run the risk if I wasn’t a hundred per cent certain?’ he added.

Cuthbertson nodded, accepting the assurance. He took a gold flag indicating Kalenin from a third box and inserted it into the marked house on Wipplingerstrasse.

‘Anyway,’ pointed out the British Director, ‘he won’t be there longer than an hour. It will just be somewhere to stop, change his clothes and then leave for the airport.’

‘You’ve fixed that?’ queried the American.

Cuthbertson, who had already entered another gold marker in Schwechat, nodded.

‘We’ve officially informed the Austrians we want to shift embassy furniture and equipment over a three-week period. There will be four dummy flights, moving things around for no reason except to get them used to it.’

As he talked, Cuthbertson was flagging the area around the house where Kalenin would be held. He worked on a grid pattern, marking down from the Danube Canal, bordered by the post office and Aspern Square across to the old city hall and Am Hof Square and embracing the Hofburg Palace, the Spanish Riding School and running up to Volksgarten. Blue flags indicated concealed observations; green designated open surveillance, on foot or in cars.

‘That’s a hell of an area,’ remarked Ruttgers, echoing Wilberforce’s thoughts.

‘But necessary,’ insisted Cuthbertson. ‘This outline covers the situation for a concealed, unpursued crossing …’

He opened a drawer and took out some red-headed pins.

‘… I think there should be a contingency situation for an emergency flight, possibly under pursuit …’

He held up the crimson markers.

‘… and we won’t be able to insert these, showing it, until Muffin’s meeting on the thirteenth from which I hope to know the crossing point.’

‘Then what?’ queried Ruttgers.

Cuthbertson sighed.

‘I hope it doesn’t happen,’ he said. ‘But in case it does, we’ll want a back-up team at the crossing spot. If the Russians learn it’s Kalenin, they’ll come across without bothering whose country they’re violating. I’ll have a transfer car waiting, into which we can put Kalenin …’

He hesitated at the American’s frown.

‘I’ll only need three minutes at the outside,’ he said. ‘If the Russians chase, I want them to be able to locate almost immediately the crossing car, which will take off to loop Vienna and apparently make for the Italian border…’

‘While the real car completes the journey to the airport?’ accurately guessed Ruttgers.

‘There’s a lot wrong with that,’ argued Wilberforce. The two Directors stood, waiting.

‘What do you imagine the Austrian authorities are going to do while all this is happening?’ criticised the civil servant.

‘As much as possible,’ said Cuthbertson, confidently. ‘All I want is the transfer. The Austrians will be chasing the car that crossed and which the Russians or Czechs followed. Not one of my operatives — or an American — will be involved, apart from the initial holding operation. From then on, Austrian police pursuit is exactly the sort of diversion I want.’

‘What about the driver of Kalenin’s original car?’ probed Wilberforce, obstinately.

‘He’ll have to be sacrificed,’ said Cuthbertson, easily. ‘I want an explosive device fitted, during the transfer. To detonate within five minutes.’