Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘Never thought we’d get you back,’ said an anonymous man, to his right.

Charlie recognised at once the official, accusing voice. ‘Life’s full of surprises,’ he said, knowing the apparent absence of fear would irritate the man. Running time again, he thought. What about the murder warrant that had been announced at Moscow airport? Charlie looked out at the yellow lighted streets of London and wondered how soon it would be before he saw them again, without an escort.

The men who had met him at the airport remained grouped about him as he got from the car, at the building that had once been so familiar to Charlie. Instinctively Charlie hesitated, looking up at the features he had so often thought about nostalgically and the man behind wasn’t expecting the pause, colliding with him.

‘Come on,’ said the man, brusquely and Charlie moved on, going inside. Nothing seemed to have changed. There were the same brown-painted, sighing radiators and the chipped, yellow-washed walls and the ancient mesh-faced lifts that snatched uncertainly upwards, as if they were unsure they’d complete the journey.

Wilson’s office was different. Willoughby had occupied rooms at the rear of the building, on the fourth floor and Cuthbertson inherited them. Sir Alistair Wilson’s suite was on the top floor at the front and as Charlie entered he saw the necklace of lights through the uncurtained window and realised it overlooked the river. The director was standing beside his desk, with Harkness behind him, nearer the window. There was a vase of roses on the desk and a flower that matched the display in the director’s buttonhole. The perfume permeated the room.

‘Charlie!’ greeted Wilson, someone greeting an old and much missed friend. ‘Charlie!’

The man stumped forward, stiff-legged, hand outstretched and Charlie stayed just inside the door, utterly confused. Hesitantly he took the greeting, aware of Wilson’s head jerk of dismissal to those who had accompanied him from the airport. The less effusive Harkness advanced, too, and offered his hand and Charlie shook that, as well.

‘You made it, Charlie! And got back. Congratulations! Damned well done,’ said Wilson.

The older man seized Charlie’s shoulders, moving him further into the room. What was happening: what the bloody hell was happening! thought Charlie. Surely they realised it had all gone wrong, with the first secretary’s arrest.

Charlie stood by the chair that Wilson offered, not immediately sitting. ‘It didn’t work,’ he said. There was never any contact.’

‘No,’ accepted Wilson, at once. ‘Of course not.’

‘So it was the first secretary?’ said Charlie. ‘I guessed that was how it was blown. There were reports in the papers of his arrest; of the destruction of a major spy cell.’

Wilson turned, to look briefly at Harkness. ‘One of the tragedies of the whole affair,’ he said, momentarily distant. Having read the Soviet reports, as Charlie had, Wilson said, suddenly reminded, ‘You wouldn’t know, of course: it wasn’t reported there. Wainwright committed suicide, in our own embassy, after the Russians released him.’

‘Did they break him?’ demanded Charlie at once.

‘Of what he knew,’ said Wilson. ‘He was the initial control. We’d switched.’

So that’s how he’d been able to go to GUM undetected, apart from Natalia! At once came another thought. All the contacts had been blind, Wilson had said that day in jail. Which meant Wainwright hadn’t known an identity to disclose, to his questioners. So the defector was undetected, just obviously holding back until the pressure lessened. Oh God, thought Charlie: he’d got out too soon!

‘I said there was never any contact,’ he reminded the older man.

Wilson smiled, apologetically. ‘There couldn’t have been.’

Charlie slowly sat, knowing it was time to stop guessing. ‘Couldn’t have been?’ he said.

‘There never was a spy, Charlie. Never anyone for you to meet,’ said the director. He leaned forward, demandingly. ‘Tell me something,’ he said. ‘Something important. Did you manage to meet Berenkov.’

Charlie frowned, doubtfully. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Several times. And that’s why the operation wasn’t a complete failure. Berenkov arranged for me to teach at a spy school. I’ve got the complete lay-out of Balashikha: identities of staff and at least twenty agents. Training methods, too. But I don’t understand, about there never being a spy.’

‘You couldn’t Charlie,’ said Wilson, apologetic again. ‘You had to be blind, like Wainwright. I knew Wainwright would break, under interrogation. Planned for it to happen, although not for him to take his own life. And you might have got caught, although that wasn’t planned for. And if you were caught, I couldn’t take the chance of your breaking, too…’ Wilson raised his hand. ‘I know you wouldn’t have given in easily but everyone’s got their breaking point.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ protested Charlie.

Wilson arranged himself against the radiator, injured leg straight out before him. ‘You were part – a vital, additional part – of one of the most complicated operations that we’ve ever devised,’ said the man. ‘Five years ago, when I became director, I decided to hit the Russian service. Hit it and cause as much damage as I could. It was, as I say, a complicated scheme but actually one of certain simplicity. I was lucky, because some of the groundwork had already been done. Just before he was replaced as director Willoughby, whom I know you greatly admired, set up a classic disinformation operation with a brilliant and very brave operative. In Beirut he had Edwin Sampson let himself be approached and apparently suborned by the Russians…’

‘What!’ erupted Charlie.

Wilson made his hand-stopping gesture. ‘I expected you to be surprised, Charlie. Hear me out. Hear just how brilliant and brave Sampson is. I decided to build upon what Willoughby had started. It meant giving a lot away, of course, but I decided the prize was worth the investment. When the Russians were completely convinced of Sampson’s loyalty to them, they asked him to get himself transferred back here. I agreed, of course. Got him on the Soviet desk and again let him give them a lot of good, genuine stuff, to keep on convincing them. They actually made him a major, did you know that?’

Charlie nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

‘Then we got you,’ said Wilson. ‘We got you and I decided how the operation could be made doubly effective. We knew by then, of course, that Berenkov had been taken into Dzerzhinsky Square, promoted officially to deputy. I saw the way to hit the Russian service harder than I ever thought possible…’ Wilson paused, smiling his apologetic smile. ‘I had you under a microscope in jail, Charlie. I knew, from all the assessment reports and from what you did to Cuthbertson what sort of a person you were but I had to know for myself, to be sure. I knew from week to week how you refused to give in and fought back against everyone and everything and I decided it would work. From here I had the trusted Sampson tell Moscow he believed they had a spy, someone so high that I was dealing directly with him, running control. And then we had a cultural attache named Richardson put a contact note into the pocket of his colleague, Cecil Wainwright…’ Wilson hesitated again. ‘Richardson was told as much as was necessary but Wainwright had to remain blind, like I said, for it to work. Weeks before what Wainwright believed to be a genuine approach at the Bolshoi, I’d pouched to Moscow a top security code, to be used in the event of something really important. I wanted the Russians to intercept, to know that something was happening. Having got Sampson to light the fuse, we pretended to catch him. It was all timed, practically to the minute, for the moment when we knew you were getting close to breaking point. We went through the pretence of a trial, which wasn’t difficult because it was in camera, of course. Got Sampson sent to Wormwood Scrubs and put in the same cell as you and made him cultivate you, like he did…’ Wilson shook his head, in admiration. ‘Like I said, a brilliant and very brave man. Did he make you hate him?’