Brian Freemantle - The Blind Run

‘It’s important,’ insisted Sampson, ‘I’ve been operating for them for eight years: I was on station in Beirut, so I was able to monitor all the Middle East activities of the British. Then I was liaison in Washington. Made some good friends there, not just in the CIA but in the FBI as well. Managed to let Moscow have a hell of a lot of personnel and biographical stuff; you know how they like that, for the personality index they keep. For two years I was in European Planning, with access to the NATO desk. I suppose that was the most productive time…’

‘I said I didn’t want to know,’ said Charlie, not looking at the man. Sampson was a bastard, to have done all that. Even his arrest would have worked in Moscow’s favour: disclosure of what Sampson had leaked would make America as well as NATO suspicious about co-operating with British intelligence for a long time. Mean a lot of agent and schedule changes would be necessary, too.

‘I’ve got rank, in the Russian service,’ said Sampson, ‘I’m a major.’ He sounded proud, ‘I warned them they could face a disaster.’

‘Good for you,’ said Charlie, uninterested in what the man meant. Bastard, he thought again.

‘You don’t understand why that’s important, do you?’ said Sampson, impatiently.

‘Yes,’ said Charlie, with equal impatience. ‘For your sake I hope you’re not disappointed.’

‘I won’t be,’ said Sampson, with confidence. ‘The great difference between the Russian service and every other one is that they’ll never let their people rot in jail. They always arrange an exchange. They will, for me, certainly after all I’ve done.’ He started up, suddenly encouraged. ‘I won’t spend thirty years in here,’ he said. ‘Maybe a year: perhaps two. That’s all.’ The man had been moving jerkily between the bunks. Caught by the thought he stopped and said, ‘How long have you been in?’

Charlie hesitated. He wouldn’t let the other man know about the daily count. ‘Nearly a year and a half,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Sampson’s confident excitement leaked away.

‘Don’t use that as any sort of criterion,’ said Charlie. ‘Moscow wouldn’t regard me as they do you. I’m not one of theirs.’ That was the biggest illogicality of all; the people for whom he was supposed to have been an operative knew he wasn’t a traitor and couldn’t give a sod about him.

‘That’s not true,’ said Sampson, more to reassure himself than Charlie.

‘Yes it is,’ said Charlie. ‘Don’t get any half-assed idea that you and I are the same.’

‘Why are you so fucking belligerent?’ demanded Sampson, in sudden, surprising anger.

Fuck: the ultimate defiance, thought Charlie. ‘Can’t seem to help it,’ he said.

‘We’re stuck together,’ said Sampson, the anger growing. ‘Whether you like it or not, that’s a fact. From what I’ve seen thus far, I don’t like you. I think you’re scruffy and you smell and I think you go out of your way to be unpleasant. And all the stories I ever heard, about your stupid social attitudes, they seem to be true, as well. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t touch you with a long, disinfected pole. But I haven’t. I’ve got to live just five feet away from you: I hope to Christ for the shortest amount of time possible. But still live with you. I know all about this crap that you did what you did because the Director set you up to be sacrificed: that you’re still loyal. It’s all bullshit, something you cling to like a child clings to a comfort blanket. You know the Russian way is best, just like I do. I know what’s going to happen to me. I’ve just got to tolerate you, until my release is arranged. So what do you say? Are we going to be friends? Or fools?’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Charlie, turning determinedly against the wall, with his back to the man.

Behind he heard Sampson laugh at him. It was a fitting reaction, decided Charlie. He was being a prick.

‘Chekhov,’ identified Wilson.

‘Yes,’ agreed Harkness. ‘It’s from Three Sisters. ’

The British Director looked down at the chosen identification message. ‘If I lived in Moscow,’ he quoted. ‘I don’t think I’d care what the weather was like.’

‘The preceding lines provide the response,’ said Harkness. ‘“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”’

‘Good,’ judged Wilson. ‘Innocent enough.’

‘Do you know the other play of Chekhov’s, The Seagull?’ asked Harkness.

Wilson shook his head.

‘There are two characters in it, Medvedenko and Masha,’ reminded the deputy. ‘There’s a scene in which Medvedenko asks Masha “Why do you wear black all the time?” And Masha replies “I’m in mourning for my life. I’m unhappy.”’

‘Maybe that’ll be appropriate,’ agreed Wilson.

It was a tenet of his early training always to remain objective, irrespective of whatever stress or pressure, because the ability to consider everything objectively was essential for that absolute necessity, survival.

Within a month of Sampson’s arrival Charlie decided, with that long practised objectivity, that the man was bloody good at making the world rotate in exactly the direction in which he decreed it should turn. Better than bloody good: practically a fucking genius.

It shouldn’t have been that way, of course. Not according to the unofficial prison lore. Prison rule dictated that the lowest common denominator was the governing factor, everything and everybody dragged down to the bottom. Anything contrary – like Charlie was contrary – was a worrying challenge to the system, something that had to be attacked and defeated.

Except in the case of Sampson.

Charlie watched Sampson swan around with the languid public school demeanour of inherent superiority with every bugger – the very same buggers giving him a hard time for being different – appearing happy, eager even, to accord the man the rank.

Hickley, who thought spies should be shot, behaved towards Sampson with an attitude that Charlie considered practically respect and Butterworth, as dutiful as ever, did the same. While Charlie had to have his boots laced and be ready and waiting at the cell door for the push-and-shove slop out, Sampson was allowed to take his time, a place always available for him in the unhurried, ready-when-you-are procession.

With the boarding school and university expertise of recognising the dormitory leader, Sampson marked Prudell as the landing boss. Sampson wasn’t gay and Prudell knew it but they established a relationship nevertheless, a compact of understanding that in no way impinged upon Sampson’s inherent superiority or Prudell’s unquestioned rule, the sort of reliance that exists between the owner of the manor and his trusted butler.

There was always a good piece of meat for Sampson in the canteen – not the shitty sort of gristle that always got dumped on Charlie’s plate – and the vegetables were always hot and there was a seat readily available, wherever he wanted to sit. Just as there was, always, in the recreation room, right in front of the television set, where Prudell and his boyfriend of the moment and the other landing chiefs had their reserved places, not where Charlie was always heaved and shunted, if he bothered to go at all, at the back, usually against the wall. If he hadn’t wanted it that way – for the protection – there wouldn’t have been a bloody seat anyway.

Sampson’s uniform jacket was altered, to fit, in the prison tailoring shop and in the second month he got one of the better jobs, in the prison hospital, not as cushy as the library but a damned sight better than the workrooms where they made the mail sacks and the street name signs and car registration plates.