Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

Crunch point, decided Charlie. He’d have to give if he were going to stand any chance at all of achieving what Wilson wanted. But immediate acquiescence hadn’t been the role he’d adopted that morning. Trying to maintain the established attitude, he said, ‘I don’t know.’

Natalia Fedova snapped the folder shut, staring at him across the desk. ‘We’ll talk further,’ she said. She wasn’t smiling any more.

Such a debriefing would not normally have occupied the chairman but Kalenin wasn’t any ordinary chairman in his attention to detail and in addition he was anxious to get through the necessary interrogation as quickly as possible, to involve Sampson in the effort to trace the spy working through the British embassy. So he saw the video recording of Charlie’s interview that night, with Berenkov who was the deputy in charge of Natalia Fedova’s division and who had personal experience of the Englishman. They watched it completely once, without any halt or discussion and then a second time, stop-starting the tape at moments they considered might be important. A written transcript had also been provided and they studied that, too, so it was several hours before they began to talk.

‘Well?’ said Kalenin.

Berenkov made an uncertain rocking motion with his hand. ‘There’s not much there we didn’t already know. Nothing in fact.’

‘I only personally met Charlie a couple of times. You knew him better. What do you think?’

‘He’d have conducted a better debriefing than that,’ said Berenkov, honestly.

‘I thought he was sloppy,’ said Kalenin. ‘Careless and sloppy.’

‘Maybe,’ said Berenkov, not so convinced.

‘He couldn’t have cared less about the answers he gave,’ argued the chairman.

Instead of replying Berenkov rewound and replayed the tape to the part of Charlie’s momentary pause when Natalia reached the Italian arrest. ‘He changed his mind there,’ Berenkov judged. ‘And was sharper, from then on.’

‘You sure?’

‘No, I’m not sure,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘I got caught by under-estimating Charlie Muffin once, remember?’

‘He’s not the important one,’ said Kalenin. ‘Sampson is important.’

‘Charlie could still be useful, in many ways,’ insisted Berenkov. ‘I think they should be kept together in that apartment. It’s wired and I think it might be interesting.’

‘To learn what?’

‘I don’t know, not yet,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘I know it’s important to find as quickly as possible the spy for Britain. But I don’t think we should cut corners.’

‘I don’t intend cutting corners,’ said Kalenin, stiffly. ‘I just think it would have been better if we’d begun the debriefing with Sampson.’

Berenkov accepted it as an observation, not a criticism. He said, ‘We’d have to make a lot of adjustments if the British uncovered the ambassador in Italy. And it was important to establish Sampson’s stability. We know from our own people how he responded, confronted with the policeman.’

‘What’s Sampson’s stability got to do with anything?’ said Kalenin. ‘Maybe he panicked. It’s understandable. And maybe he likes inflicting pain. I don’t see how either thing is going to affect our use for him.’

‘Everything is an eagerness to please, to impress us,’ pointed out Berenkov. ‘We want to get whoever it is in contact with the British, not be misled by somebody saying anything that comes into his head, imagining it’s going to be what we want to hear.’

Kalenin gestured towards the now blank screen in the viewing room. ‘There was nothing there to give any indication that Sampson might do that,’ Kalenin paused. ‘In fact,’ he added. ‘From your assessment the person that might do that is Charlie Muffin.’

Berenkov shook his head. ‘Charlie Muffin won’t trick me again,’ he said.

‘He made it possible for you to be repatriated,’ reminded the Chairman.

‘Because it suited his purpose, not because of me,’ said Berenkov. Now Berenkov indicated the screen in front of them. ‘My first loyalty is always to me,’ he quoted.

‘Do you want to meet him again?’ asked Kalenin.

‘Very much,’ admitted Berenkov. ‘Very much indeed.’

Not bad, judged Charlie, reviewing the debriefing. But not good, either. A stupid start, from which he’d had to make a hurried recovery and he would never know if that recovery was obvious. And she’d backed him into a corner at the end. But they were minimal uncertainties. The biggest – and one he’d failed to realise until now because everything had been so hurried – was the possibility that Sampson knew, from his then undiscovered position in London, how Wilson had used the Italian ambassador. Would there be any trace of his own involvement? The British Director had been personally involved, keeping it a top echelon matter, but Charlie supposed there would have had to be some headquarter discussion. And official paper work. Sampson had been number three on the Russian desk, he recalled. If there had been paper work, no matter how minimal, then at that clearance level Sampson would have read it. If he’d read it, then Sampson would have alerted Moscow, Charlie thought, carrying the internal discussion further. So why had she bothered to quiz him so closely? Maybe not the sort of test he’d imagined. Maybe he’d misinterpreted the whole damned thing and they’d just been checking to see whether he’d co-operate or lie. If that were the case then he’d emerged worse than he imagined. Worse but still recoverable. He’d said he wasn’t sure he’d co-operate and if he were later accused of lying about Italy he could convincingly argue that he wasn’t lying but uncertain at the time of his first debriefing about a full commitment. Could he argue it convincingly? He wouldn’t know until he tried. Back in the familiar labyrinth, he recognised. Difficult to imagine that just a month earlier – five weeks at the most – he was actually missing it.

As Charlie entered the shared apartment, to find the anxious Sampson waiting directly beyond the threshold, Charlie realised a way to retrace some of his steps if he had been trapped.

‘What happened?’ demanded Sampson at once.

‘A debriefing, that’s all,’ said Charlie, moving further into the main room.

‘What do you mean, that’s all! What happened? Was it a committee? Just one man? What do they want?’ He jerked his hand, irritably towards the telephone. ‘I’ve been sitting in this damned box all day and there’s been nothing, nothing at all.’

‘You keep telling me how important you are,’ said Charlie. ‘Perhaps they need time to prepare.’

‘Cut it out,’ insisted Sampson, voice quiet in his anger. ‘I want to know what it’s like.’

It had gone well, decided Charlie. ‘Just one person,’ he recounted. ‘A woman in my case. Natalia Fedova. Said she knew nothing about me, which had to be a lie. You know as well as I do the sort of records they keep. Went over everything, in a pretty general manner, from the time I exposed the Director. Finally asked me if I’d co-operate.’

‘You said yes, of course,’ anticipated the other man.

‘No,’ said Charlie.

‘No!’

‘Depends what they want me to do.’

‘No it doesn’t and you know it,’ said Sampson. ‘Christ, when are you going to learn?’

‘I won’t betray everything, not like you.’

‘You haven’t got any choice.’

Not the response he’d wanted, thought Charlie. ‘Maybe you haven’t,’ he said. ‘You’re committed.’

‘There was discussion about me!’

Better, thought Charlie. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘What? When?’

Perfect, decided Charlie, taking the second query. ‘Soon after I was questioned about my detection in Italy. You knew all about that, of course.’