Brian Freemantle - Charlie M

‘Will we have a radio link in the Mercedes?’ asked Charlie.

‘Yes,’ took up Cuthbertson, ‘obviously you will. But I don’t think we should utilise it unless Kalenin needs any assurance that he’s being well cared for.’

‘What about separation?’ asked Braley.

Ruttgers smiled, an amateur magician with a favourite trick.

‘Kalenin is obviously determined to have the money with him at all times,’ he reminded them. ‘The bag will have a transmitter concealed in the bottom, allowing us complete monitoring at all times.’

‘Seems everything has been considered,’ said Braley, sycophantically. Both Cuthbertson and Ruttgers smiled, appreciatively.

‘Forty-eight hours from now,’ predicted Cuthbertson, ‘we’ll be sitting in this office, celebrating the biggest intelligence coup of our lives.’

‘With Aloxe Corton?’ asked Charlie, in soft sarcasm.

‘What?’ asked Wilberforce.

‘Nothing,’ said Charlie, standing up and going over to the flagged and pinned map.

‘A11 this, just for one man,’ he said, reflectively.

‘Not just for any one man,’ corrected Cuthbertson. ‘A very special man.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, after a pause. ‘A very special man.’

Charlie lay on his back in the darkness. Beside him he could just discern the smoke of Janet’s cigarette.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she answered, practically.

‘It’s never happened before,’ he complained.

‘Keep on about it and you’ll become permanently impotent,’ said the girl. ‘With what you’ve got on your mind, what happened tonight is hardly surprising, is it?’

‘Didn’t happen,’ corrected Charlie.

The girl shifted position, annoyed again at the self-pity.

‘I don’t suppose the Director told you, did he?’ she asked, obtusely.

‘What?’ said Charlie, disinterested.

‘Sir Archibald Willoughby,’ said the girl. ‘He died while you and Braley were in Prague.’

For several moments, there was silence in the room. There was no movement at all from Charlie.

‘He was an alcoholic, apparently,’ offered the girl. ‘Been drinking for years.’

‘Not years,’ corrected Charlie, quietly. ‘Just about eighteen months. That’s all.’

‘Anyway,’ accepted the girl. ‘Cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver.’

‘He was a very unhappy man,’ said Charlie, more to himself than to the girl. ‘I’m glad he’s dead.’

He felt her turn to him in the darkness.

‘What an odd thing to say,’ she picked up. ‘How can you be glad anyone is dead?’

‘I knew him very well,’ explained Charlie. ‘He really didn’t want to live.’

The girl moved, rising on one arm to grind out the cigarette and then twisting, so that she hovered over him. The tips of her breasts were brushing his chest but there was no sexual feeling between them.

‘Be careful, Charlie,’ she said, worriedly.

‘Of course.’

‘Don’t be glib. I want you to come back.’

It was several minutes before he replied.

‘I’ll come back,’ he guaranteed, finally.

Janet was glad the room was in darkness. She would have been embarrassed for him to see her cry again.

Charlie had protested about the danger of attracting attention, but Ruttgers and Cuthbertson, in complete and unified command now, had insisted on final rehearsals, actually driving to within a mile of the frontier along the winding, tree- and meadow-edged road to the Czech border and then back again, stop-watching the journey and testing the surveillance over every mile.

Satisfied, they had toured first by car and then on foot the streets surrounding the secure C.I.A. house in Wipplingerstrasse, isolating the watchers and ensuring each team had the necessary and prepared back-up group to move on any emergency radio command.

To the safe house the Directors had then summoned the section leaders for a final briefing. An American marine commander, Gordon Marshall, was controller of the resistance team at the crossing point. Another American, named Alton, was responsible for the route security into Vienna and a Briton, Arthur Byrbank, was co-ordinator for the journey to the airport. A British commando, Hubert Jessell, was to supervise the house and grounds.

The Directors agreed the placings were perfect and then took the four men through the entire operation, checking and cross-referring the codes and call signs until they were completely satisfied.

Neither Ruttgers nor Cuthbertson was going to allow the slightest possibility of error reflecting upon their personal involvement, decided Charlie, wryly, sitting near the window while the four section leaders received their final instructions.

It was a perfect house for the operation, apart from the absence of a courtyard in which to conceal the car, thought Charlie. It occupied its own grounds; tree-dotted and easily guarded, and secure behind an electronically controlled gate opened by a command room console switch to a password known to only ten men.

The ground floor was given over to radio communications and staffed by three men. The lounge in which they were now gathered and in which they intended to greet Kalenin was a huge, first-floor room, illuminated by chandeliers that hung from the high, vaulted ceilings. Despite the obvious cleaning, the faint, dusty smell of disuse still clung to the over-padded Viennese furniture which had been arranged in a loose circle around the table.

If the crossing went without incident, there was actually talk of a snack meal before the flight to London, remembered Charlie, amused.

At 6 p.m, the section heads left to get into position and Cuthbertson and Ruttgers were alone with the two operatives. The American Director was chain smoking; the occasional jerk in Cuthbertson’s eye and the increased redness of his face were the only indications of his nervousness.

‘Well,’ asked Cuthbertson, confidently.

‘It was a mistake to have gone so completely over the route,’ criticised Charlie again, knowing Braley shared his view. ‘It created an unnecessary risk.’

Ruttgers sighed. Increasingly, the C.I.A. Director found himself agreeing with the view that Cuthbertson had expressed: the Englishman was losing his nerve.

‘It excluded the possibility of an error once the thing starts rolling,’ insisted the American.

‘Or created it,’ argued Charlie.

‘Are you frightened?’ demanded Ruttgers, aggressively.

‘Yes,’ came back Charlie. ‘Very frightened …’ he paused. ‘… Only a fool wouldn’t be frightened,’ he added, then concluded, pointedly, ‘or a psychopath.’

Ruttgers jerked up at him, sharply, and Charlie answered the challenge. It was Ruttgers who looked away first.

Cuthbertson shifted, embarrassed at the hostility that had grown in the room.

‘This isn’t going to help the operation,’ he complained. ‘We’re all on edge … bound to be. Let’s make allowances, for God’s sake …’

He moved to a side table and held up whisky.

‘A drink, Charles,’ he suggested, immediately turning back. ‘Charlie,’ he corrected.

He was trying very hard, thought Charlie, sympathetically, watching the British Director pour quickly and then hurry the glasses to each man. The four of them stood embarrassed, like abandoned strangers at a party seeking conversation.

‘To everything going well,’ toasted Cuthbertson, raising his glass.

Sir Archibald had usually given him a drink before the commencement of any operation, recalled Charlie. The hope had always been ‘a safe return’.

He drank self-consciously, then looked pointedly at his watch, wanting to quit the company of men whom he despised.