Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘Berenkov used Chekhov,’ remembered Charlie, at once. ‘Took his codes from The Cherry Orchard and Uncle Vanya. ’

‘Yes,’ said Wilson. ‘We had it personally carried out – together with the message saying he wanted to defect – to prevent any monitor interception.’

‘Could it be Berenkov?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s practically impossible.’

‘But not completely,’ said Wilson.

‘There’ll have to be a time limit.’

‘Six months,’ suggested Wilson.

‘Then what?’

‘Just walk into the British embassy and demand repatriation.’

‘What if there’s been no contact?’

‘He’ll be blown, I’d guess.’

‘There must be something else!’ insisted Charlie, desperately.

‘We think it’s headquarters,’ said the Director.

‘Why?’ seized Charlie, eager for anything.

‘The range,’ said Wilson. ‘Politburo meetings, Baikonur, crop yields. That’s the sort of stuff that would be compartmented, except at headquarters.’

‘And even there not co-ordinated at a low level,’ said Charlie.

Wilson smiled again, in further appreciation. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘I think it’s Dzerzhinsky Square itself and I think it’s high level. Very high level.’

‘What if I make contact?’ said Charlie. ‘What then?’

‘See what he wants, how he wants it. And agree to anything. This is too good to let go. Tell him we’ll guarantee safety, homes, schools for any kids… whatever.’

Charlie looked around the office of the prison governor. ‘What if I’m caught?’ he said.

‘You’ve been caught, Charlie,’ reminded Wilson. ‘Don’t be again.’

‘It took long enough,’ said Berenkov, looking down at the transcribed messages laid out on Kalenin’s desk.

‘Too long,’ said the chairman. ‘Look at it!’

For an hour Berenkov was silent, reading through the information. At last he said, ‘It’s got to be from inside here.’

‘I’d already decided that,’ said Kalenin.

Wilson evolved the cover story, anticipating that in any nervousness preceding the break Sampson might become suspicious. The prison records – to which the administration trusties might have access – was endorsed with a not proven verdict on the accusation of attempting to steal the knife but with a sentence of a week in solitary confinement for insubordination to prison officials, particularly the governor. Isolating Charlie gave the opportunity for a further, short briefing. Wilson had Charlie relate back to him all the contact procedures, to ensure Charlie fully understood, and actually provided a copy of Three Sisters for Charlie to read.

‘I still think you’re screwing me,’ protested Charlie, as the Director prepared to leave.

‘What would you do, if the circumstances were reversed?’ demanded Wilson.

‘The same,’ conceded Charlie.

Wilson nodded. ‘This is a Heaven sent opportunity,’ he said. ‘I’ll fulfil every undertaking and promise, when it comes off.’

‘If it comes off,’ qualified Charlie.

‘Everyone says you were good, Charlie. The best,’ said the Director.

When he returned to the cell at the end of the week Charlie realised it was a reputation he was going to have to live up to. Sampson’s attitude was predominantly one of anger but Charlie detected an uncertainty, too, an uncertainty that easily could have become the suspicion the Director feared.

‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’ demanded the man.

‘Nothing was proven,’ said Charlie, defensively.

‘I know nothing was proven,’ said Sampson, with sighing impatience. ‘That isn’t the point. Why draw attention to yourself?’

‘Thought the knife might come in useful,’ said Charlie, feigning sullenness. So Sampson had checked it out, through a trusty. Wilson was clever to have foreseen that.

‘So you did try to get a knife?’

Charlie grinned, as if welcoming the chance to prove himself. ‘Course I bloody did.’

‘Fool!’ said Sampson, ‘Stupid, idiotic fool.’ His voice menacingly soft, Sampson said. ‘I warned you what would happen if you did anything to endanger the attempt. And you did endanger it. OK, so you got away with it, but you’re still a stupid bastard to have tried it in the first place. From now on you’ll do exactly as I say, when I say and how I say. You understand?’

If everything were for real and he’d got the knife Charlie thought how much he would have liked to shove it right up the ass of this cocky little sod. ‘Yes,’ he said, humbly. ‘I understand. I’m sorry.’

‘Good!’ said Sampson, savouring the bully’s control. ‘So from now on you’re going to be the model prisoner. From now on you do everything by the book and you don’t even let an insolent thought enter your thick head. I don’t want any screw or any instructor to be aware of your existence even.’

‘A knife might have come in useful,’ said Charlie, exploring.

‘I’ll decide any protection we might need,’ said Sampson. ‘And arrange it.’

So there was a possibility, somehow, of weapons. Charlie realised he’d have to be careful of that, like he had to be careful of everything else. ‘You heard anything?’ he said, nodding to the radio.

Sampson nodded, the anger slipping away at the opportunity of boasting about a favourite toy. ‘All fixed,’ he said. ‘Practically all, anyway.’

‘So what is it?’ demanded Charlie. ‘When? How?’

Sampson smiled at Charlie’s urgency. ‘What’s the rule, about information? Our sort of rule?’ he prompted.

‘A need-to-know basis,’ recited Charlie.

‘Good to know you haven’t forgotten everything you were ever taught,’ said Sampson. ‘For the moment, you’ve no need to know.’

‘I thought you trusted me,’ said Charlie, knowing he had to make the protest.

‘I never said anything about trusting you,’ corrected Sampson. ‘I said I was glad that after so long you were becoming sensible, that I knew you couldn’t stand to stay in here and that I was taking you along because there isn’t any alternative and I know bloody well that because of how you feel you’d shop me if I tried to go without you. That isn’t trusting you: that’s knowing you.’

‘I know I risked cocking everything up, over that damned knife. That it was a mistake,’ said Charlie. ‘But there’s the danger of an even bigger mistake – a disastrous mistake – if you leave me blind. I’ve got to know something.’

‘I won’t leave you blind,’ assured Sampson. ‘You’ll be told, every step of the way.’

He’d forced it as far as he could – as far as Sampson would professionally expect him to force it and become unsettled if he didn’t – but Charlie recognised it was now time to stop. He said, ‘Christ, I can’t wait to get out of this bloody place!’

‘You won’t have to, not much longer,’ promised Sampson.

The corridor leading into the administration block to which he was still assigned passed the former library and as he filed along it to work the following morning Charlie was aware of the partially erected scaffolding, through the window. It was a restricted view and he only looked fleetingly in the direction because he didn’t want to attract the interest of any prison officer, but Charlie’s impression was that there appeared a lot of it. Charlie assumed, obviously, that the break would be at night; wouldn’t be easy, negotiating all that planking and tubing, in the dark. Certainly not in these pinching, constricting bloody prison boots. He didn’t expect there would be Hush Puppies, in Moscow. What would there be? he wondered. Difficulty, he decided. A hell of a lot of difficulty. With no choice – indeed, confronting a positive threat as an alternative – he’d had to agree to everything that Wilson had demanded but with the opportunity of proper, sensible examination that had been possible during his period of solitary confinement Charlie recognised it was a near impossible mission. He’d made blind contacts in the past, several of them, but then the authorities hadn’t been able to monitor or suspect his doing it. He didn’t know but he very much doubted that they’d let him wander around Moscow, going where he liked and doing what he liked. Not at first, anyway. And he didn’t intend staying a day over the agreed six months. Or did he? Back in the department, Wilson had promised. Past misdeeds forgotten and everything reinstated. Be nice to go back to a place where it appeared, from what everyone said, he still had a name and some sort of reputation with a brand new coup under his belt. Be like going back with a reference, a testimonial that he was as good as he’d ever been. Be showing he could win, too. That was how Charlie always thought of any operation in which he was successful. Winning. Charlie Muffin liked to win.