Brian Freemantle - Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

‘Wednesday or Thursday is only a guess?’ asked Willoughby.

‘I think I’m right,’ said Charlie.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Nothing,’ said Charlie. ‘Just keep the whole thing in the air.’

‘I’ll have to put it to the company lawyers tomorrow. If it’s judged that we’re introducing frivolous objections, I would be contravening Lloyd’s regulations. The American lawyers might claim that.’

‘I don’t care what arguments go on,’ said Charlie. ‘Just as long as nothing is resolved. When have you ever known lawyers to give an opinion in hours rather than days?’

‘Never,’ admitted the underwriter.

‘Exactly,’ said Charlie. ‘As long as we’re known to be doing the proper things, we can’t be accused of breaking any regulations.’

‘Have you thought you could be wrong about all this?’ asked Willoughby suddenly.

The question momentarily stopped Charlie. Despite his apparent success in tilting Pendlebury off balance, Charlie still had a vague feeling that there was something he had missed.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m not wrong.’

Charlie replaced the receiver after his call to Willoughby at about the same time as Pendlebury, two floors below, ended his conversation with Warburger, in Washington. Pendlebury went to the window of his room, worried by the panic he’d detected in the Director’s voice. He stared down at the specks on the beach far below, knowing it was ridiculous but trying to see Terrilli and Chambine and his surveillance team. An impending disaster, Warburger had called it. An exaggeration, Pendlebury thought; but considering the meeting that morning, not much of one.

Pendlebury had been right in guessing that Terrilli would choose the hotel section of the beach. Despite owning it, Terrilli had rarely been down to his private seafront. He crunched awkwardly over the beach now, unhappy at the surroundings. He found it easy enough to relax by the side of his pool, assured of people in attendance and with cleanliness guaranteed, but the sand irritated him, getting into his shoes and making it uncomfortable to walk, and although the beaches had been swept that morning. there was still the occasional palm frond or scrap of paper, which he found messy. He crossed the barrier designating his own property, and among the bathers his feeling of distaste increased. There seemed to be a lot of shouting and children were screaming, and he knew that when they all went home they’d leave the place like a garbage tip. Disdainfully he lowered himself to the sand, on a soot as far away from other people as he could find, and while he waited for Chambine he took off his tennis shoes and tried to clean the grit from between his toes. He looked up as the sun was temporarily shaded from him, but made no sign of recognition to the man for whom he was waiting. Chambine did not stop beside him. Instead he spread a beach mat several feet away, stripped off his towelling top and lay out, not looking at Terrilli.

‘You heard the news?’ demanded the older man.

‘Not the first announcement,’ admitted Chambine. ‘But I picked it up after the meeting that was held in the hotel this morning.’

‘What was the result?’

‘Inconclusive. There are going to be greater security measures taken. But the insurers still seem unhappy.’

‘What about cancellation?’

‘Not yet… but it seems likely.’

‘So we can’t wait until Thursday?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Will that be a problem for you?’

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Chambine. ‘They seemed ready when I went to the warehouse.’

‘Could it be tonight?’

Chambine didn’t reply immediately. ‘Yes,’ he said, after thinking.

‘I think it would be best, before they get any extra men organised and in place.’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t like having to make the change.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘But I don’t think there’s a choice.’

‘No,’ agreed Chambine, ‘I don’t think there is.’

‘You’d better leave first,’ said Terrilli. ‘You’ve things to organise.’

‘Your people will be expecting us?’

‘I’ll see to it. We’ll keep to the original timing.’

Chambine got up slowly, dusted off his mat and rolled it up.

‘See you tonight,’ he said, still bending so that the conversation would be hidden from any observers.

‘I’ll be waiting,’ promised Terrilli.

He remained for the minimum amount of time upon the beach, then rose gratefully and returned to his house. He went straight to the changing cabin alongside the pool, stripped off his sand-gritted clothes and left them for collection later. He looked up as Santano approached.

‘There’s been a change,’ he said. ‘Warn everyone who needs to know. It’s going to be tonight.’

Two miles away, a relieved Jack Pendlebury learned the same thing from his communications unit, which was monitoring all the telephone calls into the Contemporary Resort hotel in Disneyworld. Pendlebury smiled across at Roger Gilbert, who had just given a depressing report of their quite unsuccessful attempt to discover the purpose of Cham-bine’s beach meeting with Terrilli.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ said Pendlebury, unconcerned by the emotion evident in his voice. ‘They haven’t called it off; they’ve brought it forward. It’s tonight.’

Gilbert half stood, imagining the need to respond in a hurry, but Pendlebury waved him down, content that he was in control of the situation once more.

‘Everyone is in the right place,’ he said. ‘There’s no hurry. It’ll all go just as we planned.’

‘What about the Englishman?’ asked Gilbert.

‘Kill him,’ said Pendlebury decisively. ‘Kill him and dump him in the exhibition room. And then let’s see Terrilli get out of that.’

Pendlebury had argued with Warburger and Bowler that it was possible. And now he was going to prove it: he was going to get a murder indictment against Terrilli as well as one of robbery.

Williamson knew he would have to get Moscow’s agreement, but he could not foresee any objections. Having learned from his monitoring of Pendlebury’s rooms of the Americans’ intention to assassinate Charlie, Williamson intended merely to remain on the sidelines, to ensure that they carried out the operation satisfactorily; and then, virtually free from any possibility of involvement, to return to California.

Williamson knew that he had been exceptionally lucky. But Moscow wouldn’t know that. As far as they were concerned, he would have responded brilliantly to a difficult assignment.

Because he was anticipating congratulation, he was not surprised at the summons from the Washington Embassy, telling him to cross from Palm Beach to the mainland and establish contact from a call box. Williamson actually passed Charlie Muffin as he left the hotel and drove over the Flagler Bridge. The number he called was not any of those attributed to the Embassy and therefore free from interception.

Williamson’s superb training which, as much as luck, was responsible for what he had achieved in so short a time, again prevented his expressing the slightest surprise at the succinct instructions he was given.

Under no circumstances was he to carry out his original instructions to kill Charlie Muffin. Rather, he was to do everything to protect the man from any harm.

Williamson’s instructors had never sought to eradicate fear, because Russian psychologists at the training academy considered that a man who was not frightened was incapable of proper caution. And so while he had still been talking to Washington, Williamson had recognised the danger that the alteration to his instructions created, and felt the first wash of apprehension.