Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘Where’s the car?’ said Charlie, urgently.

‘We’re early.’

‘We’ll never be able to get the ladder over that metal lip,’ said Charlie gesturing behind him. ‘Too much risk of losing our grip and letting it fall back and wake up every bastard in the nick.’

‘We’ll have to jump,’ agreed Sampson. ‘Let ourselves down as far as possible from the edge and then drop the rest.’

Charlie looked down again, concentrating upon the distance this time. ‘Bloody long way,’ he said.

‘You got a better idea?’

After several moments, Charlie said, ‘No.’

‘You first.’

‘Why?’ protested Charlie.

‘Why not?’

It didn’t make any difference, Charlie supposed. He twisted over, on to his stomach, and wriggled himself backwards, so that first his feet and then gradually the rest of his body first stuck out and then hung over the edge. Charlie clung, at the very point of release and the plunge down to the unseen road beneath, frightened of letting go. And then he did, pushing himself out slightly at the moment of release, away from the rough wall, trying to keep himself loose and ready to roll at the first intimation of contact, as he had been taught during the physical survival courses. He’d never got it right, on the course, when he had been fitter and younger. The ground came sooner than he anticipated and he wasn’t able to roll properly, jarring sideways instead. The pain, as his ankle twisted, felt like someone thrusting a hot prod throughout the length of his leg.

‘Fuck!’ said Charlie. It didn’t do anything to ease the pain.

He supported himself against the wall, looking upwards to Sampson. There was the briefest outline against the night sky as the man came over the edge and then Charlie had an impression rather than saw him falling. Sampson landed as Charlie had intended to, a fluid, sideways movement at the moment he reached the ground, the classic parachute drop.

‘Fuck,’ said Charlie again, disappointed.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Hurt my ankle.’

‘Just don’t become a burden. Or an obstruction,’ warned Sampson.

‘Get off my back,’ said Charlie. He wouldn’t let the antagonism interfere if they got to Moscow, because that would be stupid as well as unprofessional, but if it were at all possible Charlie determined that he was going to teach Sampson the sort of lesson that old ladies used to embroider on cloth and frame over bedheads, as reminding cliches.

The main road, where the main gate and the prison forecourt were, was to their right. Sampson moved off in the opposite direction, close against the wall now, wanting its black shadowed protection. Charlie followed, trying to control the limp as much as possible, the pain burning up through his leg at every step. He swore again, but mentally, not aloud, not wanting Sampson to know his difficulty. Just before they reached the end of the wall they were following, getting actually to the rear of the prison, a far-away clock began to strike and Sampson stopped, bringing Charlie to a halt, while he counted. It was a clock that chimed the quarter hours. They both counted three and Sampson said unnecessarily ‘Quarter to twelve.’

Charlie stood with his foot lifted slightly off the ground, like a lame animal, trying to ease the discomfort. ‘We can’t stay out here in the open, for fifteen minutes,’ he said.

‘I didn’t intend to,’ said Sampson.

Just before the very end of the wall, Sampson darted across the road, to the bordering houses, holding himself briefly in the protective cover of an unkempt hedge and then, bent double, actually entering the garden in which it grew. Charlie was directly behind, accepting as he finally crouched that the concealment was perfect. The house in whose garden they hid was in darkness but there was light on in the front of the immediate neighbour and Charlie could just detect the sound of a television show. It could, he supposed, have been a radio but he didn’t think so: there were too many breaks for applause.

‘Know what I wish?’ whispered Sampson.

‘What?’

‘That this were the garden of that prick Hickley.’

Despite everything, Charlie wished it too.

It seemed a very long fifteen minutes, so long that once Sampson risked raising himself, very carefully, to look over the hedge, imagining as Charlie imagined that they’d failed to hear the hour strike. But then it did strike, easily audible, and Sampson said, ‘Come on,’ getting up again and scurrying around to the front of the house, still shielded by the hedge but in the road where there was no possibility of their missing the pick-up car.

It came, precisely on time, some indistinguishable black limousine turning the corner from the rear of the prison, going neither too fast nor too slowly.

‘How do we know if it’s the right one?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Wait,’ cautioned Sampson.

About fifty yards down the road, approaching them, the vehicle stopped. The driver got out, came forward and kicked the front offside wheel as if testing for a puncture, then went to the boot, lifted it, appeared to gaze inside and then closed it again, softly.

‘That’s the right one,’ said Sampson. ‘That’s the identification.’

He thrust out from their concealment, leading as he had throughout. Charlie hobbled behind, trying to keep up. They were very near, Sampson actually against the front of the car, when the figure rounded the corner. There was a street light there and in its perfect illumination Charlie registered the bell-helmeted shape of a policeman.

The policeman began walking down the road and then hesitated and Charlie realised they would be completely visible in the light and that the light would show perfectly prison uniforms that the policeman would instantly recognise.

‘What the…’ he actually heard the man start and then there was a fumbled movement as he groped for something in his pocket, a truncheon or whistle maybe.

Sampson’s reaction was quicker. He ran across the road, directly at the policeman. Charlie saw his arm come out, not at once realising what was happening and then there was the muffled explosion of a shot, too muffled because the gun was held directly against the policeman’s body for the sound even to reach the late-night television viewers in the opposite houses. The policeman staggered back, arms thrust out in a physical reaction of surprise and then his legs buckled and he fell, in a stumbling collapse. Sampson did not step back immediately. Instead he stood over the body and Charlie saw him lean down, put his arm out again and then heard another muffled explosion. Charlie was against the edge of the door, leaning weakly against it, when Sampson ran back.

‘A copper,’ said Charlie. ‘You shot a copper!’

‘You knew nothing was going to stop me,’ said Sampson.

‘A copper!’ repeated Charlie.

Sampson’s arm came up, the muzzle against Charlie’s chest like it had been against the policeman’s. ‘Get into that fucking car,’ ordered Sampson.

Berenkov stared down at the brief freedom signal that had been transmitted from the prison pick-up car to the embassy and sent from London, an hour before, trying to think and digest clearly through a swamp of conflicting emotions. It wasn’t easy, because his mind kept being blocked by the name he often – almost daily – thought about but which he never thought he would again professionally confront. Charlie. Muffin. Would the man have changed, over the years? Maybe not: only four, maybe five, after all. Shambling, untidy man, suit buttons strained and shirt collar frayed, spread-apart shoes for feet that were always causing him discomfort. The sort of man people dismissed as some object of fun, which was a terrible mistake and why he dressed like that anyway, like a chameleon alters its colours to match its surroundings and stay safe. Berenkov knew the Russian service regarded him as their foremost agent, which was why he occupied the position he did today, despite Kalenin’s friendship. Yet despite that expertise, Charlie Muffin had got him. Got him brilliantly and professionally and debriefed him with matching expertise, without any hostile stupidity that the others had shown, imagining they were different people just because they were on different sides. Charlie had admired him as a professional and Berenkov had admired Charlie as an equal – no, better – professional. Just as he had admired Charlie’s brilliant retribution against his own service, when it decided to dump him. And admired it for its brilliance, not because he was a lucky part of it, the prisoner upon whose release Kalenin insisted after the KGB arrest of Cuthbertson and Wilberforce in Vienna, an arrest to which Charlie had led them, like innocent lambs to the slaughter. Except they hadn’t been slaughtered. Just rightly exposed as the incompetent, over-promoted fools they were, incompetent first for imagining that Charlie was disposable and secondly for falling into the Viennese trap anyway. Berenkov had often wondered, during the frequent reflections, how Charlie was withstanding imprisonment. Now, it seemed, he could ask him personally when he arrived.