Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘Charlie Muffin,’ reminded Berenkov. ‘The debriefing is finished now. I think he’d be an asset.’

‘He can be your responsibility,’ agreed Kalenin, distracted still. ‘If you think he can be of some use, put him to it.’

It was a long month for Charlie. Frustrating, too. Increasingly so. There was no formal announcement from Natalia Fedova that the debriefing was ending. They had become repetitive, certainly, but that was not infrequent with such interviews and Charlie had become to rely upon them, his only source of outside, daily contact. He left the by now familiar building by the peripheral one evening expecting another summons – getting up at the regularly established time and bathing and waiting for the telephone to ring on several subsequent days – but nothing happened. Charlie was disorientated by the abrupt halt, recognising that his reliance upon the encounters extended beyond the simple fact of meeting another human being. He recognised, too, his was a predictable response: there’d even been lectures about it, during the instructional sessions, the attachment that a subservient interviewee psychologically develops towards his debriefer in situations of stress, cut off and far from home. Knowing the attitude, Charlie was surprised it had happened to him; the instructional sessions were, after all, warnings to prevent it. Had it been what the psychologists had warned about? OK, so he was cut off and far from home but he knew the way back. And the stress of the unstarted mission wasn’t anything he didn’t think he could handle. Charlie didn’t like falling into categories evolved by mind doctors, most of whom he thought were a bloody sight dafter than the people they were supposed to treat anyway. So what was it then? Had he fancied her? She was the first woman he’d seen – been near at all – for a long time because of the circumstances. And he had, on several occasions, got the impression that she was responding to the flirta tion: wasn’t offended by it at least. Yes, he answered himself finally: he had fancied her. Which was dafter than he’d just considered all psychologists to be. The debriefed didn’t pull their debriefers; Charlie smiled, realising another definition for the word. Debriefers kept their briefs on, he thought. He supposed there was nothing wrong in fantasising as long as he didn’t lose sight of the fact that that was exactly what it was, a fantasy. Still a bloody attractive woman: big tits, too. And the termination meant he was imprisoned again, stuck inside the smelly flat.

He was disappointed, too – on a professional as well as a social level – that there was no further contact with Berenkov. He’d expected it – they’d arranged it that night, after all – but no calls came. After the first four empty, echoing days, Charlie decided upon another rebellion and found things different there, as well. No one tried to stop him.

Charlie had an excellent, inherent sense of direction and he had the advantage of the drive – even though it had been at night – on his way to Berenkov’s apartment so he set off confidently towards the centre of the city. The excursion began as the test to see if he were still under restriction but as he walked he realised what he’d find in the centre of the city and thought why not? It was the only contact point he had. And it was the reason for his being in Moscow at all. Having decided actually to go to the GUM complex, Charlie wondered about clearing his trail, smiling as he had earlier in the apartment as the tradecraft expression came automatically to mind. No, he determined. Not on this, the first outing. He didn’t have any doubt that there was surveillance but if he evaded it they’d become suspicious and that was the last thing he wanted. It was better to make the journey just that, an apparently aimless outing of someone trying to relieve his boredom – and he genuinely felt that, after all – by visiting the most obvious tourist spots in the city. Which naturally – unsuspiciously – included the largest department store in the Soviet Union. For those who watched unseen – and he didn’t intend even trying to see them – it would be nothing. For Charlie, it would be a useful reconnoitre for the real thing. If the real thing ever happened.

The streets were drab and uniform and depressing and Charlie thought how crushing it would be to imagine having to spend the rest of his life here. Which was what Sampson would do. Enthusiastically. For how long? Charlie wondered. The stupid bugger was eager enough now, full of cliche and cant but Charlie couldn’t believe that later – a year, maybe two, maybe five but some time later – he wouldn’t realise he’d just changed prisons. Serve the bastard right. Charlie hoped the realisation came sooner, rather than later. Christ, how Charlie wished there were some way he could really find out if Sampson were involved in trying to trace the Russian traitor. He thought – he bloody well knew – that he’d rather confront and defeat Sampson in a competition of professional ability than he would compete in the best of three falls in Natalia Fedova. It would be a hell of an experience, falling on to Natalia Fedova. Silly, fantasising sod, he thought.

The massive expanse of Red Square opened up before him and Charlie experienced a spurt of satisfaction at having found his way unfailingly there. He hoped – after the absence – that all the other abilities were still as good. For the benefit of those dutifully observing, Charlie meandered without any apparent direction through Kitav-Gorod, the oldest part of the Soviet capital. Charlie remembered the Russian for what was now the dominating area, pleased once more that things were coming back so well. It was, he was sure, Krasnaya Ploshchad. And it meant Beautiful Square. And it was beautiful, compared to the drab boxes upon boxes arranged around the regimented rectangles through which he’d walked on his way there. The very centre of Soviet history, for four hundred years, reflected Charlie. Here had been enacted slaughters and executions and triumphs and failures. And only a few hundred yards away – maybe not even that – was the meeting place with an unknown stranger through whom, if he were very clever and very devious and very lucky, he was going to be able to rehabilitate himself completely and go back to a life he should never – in a moment of conceited vindictiveness – have considered abandoning. Another ‘if, held like an admonishing finger. Would Red Square – Beautiful Square – be for him a triumph or a failure? Charlie wondered. And was the Russian really unknown? If it were Berenkov – and circumstantially there were enough pointers – then the man would have been astonished to find Charlie in Moscow. And until his actual appearance at GUM wouldn’t anyway know he was the deputed route-master. Charlie hoped very much it was Berenkov.

Charlie had forgotten, from his previous, long-ago visit, how vast the architecture was. Gulliver’s houses in the land of Lilliput. No, he thought, unhappy with the impression. All around were the despised edifices of the Tsars and Tsarinas and the oppressive, heel-crushing rich which the new tsars and tsarinas and oppressors chose not to hate but to occupy, like grateful hermit crabs warm and safe inside the shells that had once been the homes of bigger, better crabs. Charlie grimaced, to himself. He wasn’t sure the succeeding impression was any better than the first. Maybe he should stop trying; trying so hard at least.

Lenin’s mausoleum didn’t accord with the surroundings. The memorial to the goatee-bearded opportunist who chased away the bigger crabs was an ill-fitting apology of a place. If they were going to bother, they should have got it right, thought Charlie. Whether Lenin had been an opportunist or a dedicated revolutionary against an unjust regime – and Charlie thought he was more of an opportunist than dedicated revolutionary – he had caused a pretty dramatic body swerve in world history. So he deserved more than something that looked like a 1940s bomb shelter against a chance air raid. Charlie wondered if the always-present, dutifully waiting queue – were they really genuine visiting Soviet territory tourists or permanently employed actors, on a job for life? – were as disappointed as he was.