Brian Freemantle - Charlie M

Charlie looked beyond the post, across the twenty yards of no-man’s-land and into Czechoslovakia. There was no sign of activity from the communist side.

‘We’ll drive up,’ decided Charlie.

He took the car slowly, stopping against the customs office and dowsing the lights.

‘It’s too quiet,’ started Braley, worriedly, staring through the barriers.

‘We’re three minutes ahead of time,’ reminded Charlie.

Inside the customs post the telephone rang and one of Marshall’s commandos answered, the dialect perfectly modulated. Ruttgers and Cuthbertson had considered every detail, conceded Charlie, listening to the exchange. The telephone call was a routine time check and the receiver was replaced within seconds. Beside him, Braley was dragging breath into his lungs, his shoulders rising and falling with the effort.

‘Come on!’ demanded the American, gazing over the border, hands clenched against his knees. ‘Come on!’

Charlie checked his watch.

‘10.35,’ he recorded.

‘Shall I radio the delay?’ enquired Braley, quickly.

‘It will have been done already,’ soothed Charlie. ‘If we make contact as well, it will create panic’

‘Where is the bloody man?’ asked Braley, irritably.

‘There,’ responded Charlie, pulling forward in his seat.

Two hundred yards across the border, a set of headlights had flashed, once. It was not possible to discern the outline of a car.

‘What now?’ asked Braley. His voice was uneven, the words jumping from him.

Charlie sat momentarily uncertain. The lights flickered on again, briefly.

‘I go across,’ said the Briton, simply.

He tried to get quietly from the car, but this time the sound of the door opening seemed to echo in the quiet night. From the back seat he hauled the bugged money-bag, hefted it in his right hand and looked briefly back into the vehicle.

‘See you in a few moments,’ predicted Charlie.

The American stared back at him, but didn’t reply.

The men in the border posts were watching him, Charlie knew, as he began to walk towards the barrier; the signal indicating contact would have already been flashed by one of Marshall’s men to the secluded house in Wipplingerstrasse. He wondered what Cuthbertson and Ruttgers were doing.

Around him the sounds of the night chattered and rustled and he started looking into the darkness ahead, trying to detect movement. It was a warm, mellow evening: ideal for walking, reflected Charlie. At the Austrian barrier he paused, then ducked beneath it. He hadn’t realised the money would weigh so heavily. He stopped, transferring it to the other hand. It was the unexpected weight of the bag that had made his hand shake, he decided.

‘Keep cool, Charlie,’ he advised himself. ‘Don’t ruin it all now.’

He could make out the outline of a car, a small, inconspicuous shape hah* hidden by the Czech border installation. Barbed wire stretched from either side of the barrier posts and he could just identify the triangular shapes of tank obstructions. There would be mines, guessed Charlie, and electronic sensors. Just like East Berlin.

At the Czech barrier, he stood still, right hand resting on the pole. The shaking had stopped, he saw, gratefully. The impatient light burst from the darkened car, urging him on.

He hesitated several seconds, then ducked beneath it. The Czech border posts were completely deserted, he saw, yellow lights pooling into empty rooms. Beyond the control houses, he walked through a cathedral of tall pines which made it completely dark. It was still and quiet, like a church, he thought, extending his metaphor.

Gradually the whiteness of a face registered through the windscreen of the car he was approaching and when he got nearer he saw the figure move, winding down the driver’s window.

‘You appear very nervous, Mr Muffin,’ greeted Kalenin.

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie.

The General got from the car, smiling up at him. He opened his coat, disclosing civilian clothes.

‘I had intended to wear my uniform and medals,’ he said, calmly. ‘But then I decided it might have created difficulties in Vienna.’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, ‘it might have done.’

Around them the night was wrapped like a blanket. There was no sound from the forest, realised Charlie, suddenly. Which was wrong. There should have been animal movement, as there was on the Austrian side.

‘I’ve a great many medals,’ said Kalenin.

‘I know,’ said Charlie.

The Russian nodded towards the bag.

‘Is that the money?’

Charlie lifted it on to the bonnet of the car.

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘I suppose I should examine it?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘It was bloody heavy carrying it all this way.’

Kalenin unsnapped the fastenings and ruffled the notes.

‘So much money,’ he said, whimsically.

‘Enough for a lifetime,’ assessed Charlie.

Kalenin jerked his head back across the border.

‘They’ll be watching through infra-red nightglasses,’ he guessed.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie. ‘The advance party will have them. The message will have already been sent to Vienna that we’ve met.’

Kalenin nodded. He seemed reluctant to move, thought Charlie.

‘The whole border seems deserted,’ pressed Charlie.

‘Yes,’ said Kalenin, easily. ‘I’ve got very great power in all the satellite countries. Whatever I say is obeyed. It was really very easy.’

Charlie looked back into Austria.

‘There’s a man back there who hoped you’d be pursued by armed guards,’ he reported.

‘Sometimes I feel sorry for the Americans,’ said Kalenin. ‘There’s so many who’d like still to go West in covered wagons, shooting Indians.’

The two men stood for several seconds looking at each other.

‘Well,’ said Kalenin, finally, ‘shall we go?’

‘Yes,’ said Charlie.

‘I think I should carry the money,’ said Kalenin, reaching out.

‘Of course,’ agreed Charlie.

Wilberforce remained on duty in the Whitehall office, waiting for the message from Vienna that Kalenin was on his way. He had delayed until late in the evening seeing Janet, hoping a signal would make the encounter impossible, but no contact had been made and now he sat gazing down into his lap, embarrassed by the completeness of the girl’s account of the previous night. He’d already listened to the recordings of the tapes of which she was unaware and knew she had omitted nothing. Involving her had been an offensive mistake, decided Wilberforce.

‘In many ways,’ he said, apologetically, ‘I regret the decision to ask you to inform upon the man. It’s proved completely unnecessary. And distasteful.’

‘I know,’ said Janet.

Wilberforce looked up at her and for the first time she realised how pale his eyes were. They gave his face an unreal, frightening expression.

He smiled, kindly.

‘You’ve grown very fond of him, haven’t you?’ he probed.

‘Yes,’ admitted Janet, immediately, ‘which makes what I’ve done even worse.’

‘You’ll have to get over it, you know,’ advised the civil servant. ‘Nothing can possibly come of any relationship.’

‘I know,’ accepted the secretary.

She moved forward in her chair.

‘Tell me,’ she demanded, ‘he’ll be all right, after this, won’t he? I mean the Director won’t dump him, like he was planning to, all those months ago.’

Wilberforce took several minutes to reply.

‘I don’t know,’ he lied, finally.

The telephone made them both jump.

‘They’ve met,’ reported Wilberforce, replacing the receiver. ‘Kalenin and Charlie have met.’

‘It’s very heavy,’ complained Kalenin, as they approached the Austrian border.