Brian Freemantle: Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

‘Why don’t we tell the police, so they can get a warrant and bust him for what he’s got so far?’

‘We don’t know how much of the local justice department he’s got working for him,’ said Bowler. ‘And that’s almost immaterial anyway. There’d be a leak long before it got to the warrant stage. By the time anyone penetrated that funny castle, the collection would be as clean as my eleven-year-old son’s. This has got to be independent of the local police.’

‘What’s the bait?’

‘Nearly all the collection that Tsar Nicholas of Russia had created five years before his death,’ said Warburger. ‘It was broken up, years ago. But we’ve managed to get a lot of it back together and we’ve filled the gaps from a collection assembled by the man who organised the Tsar’s folios. Terrilli will never be able to resist it.’

Pendlebury looked doubtful. ‘Wouldn’t someone as careful as Terrilli check how it suddenly came to be on show?’

‘We don’t think so,’ said Warburger. ‘It’s his religion, and people don’t usually question their gods. And Cosgrove and his charity would withstand any scrutiny.’

‘What do I do?’

‘Let it be stolen,’ said Warburger. ‘I don’t want any half-assed security hero discovering locks taped open and imagining another Watergate. You’re going in as a Pinkerton’s man, with over-all responsibility. It’s got to look good… in fact, it’s got to be good. Terrilli’s people won’t come in with panty hose over their heads and stolen cars at the kerb, even if they don’t suspect a set-up. They’ll check and they’ll check and they’ll check again and before they do anything, they’ll want to be one hundred and one per cent sure everything is kosher.’

‘I’ll have no back-up?’

‘Not actually attached to the exhibition. Cosgrove will be in attendance at all times, for the public recognition afterwards. But I promise he won’t interfere. So you’re by yourself. No matter how we tried to disguise it, they’d spot a squad, if we put one in. But you’ll have an army outside. The moment that collection or any part of it gets lifted, you blow the whistle and they’ll be with you, covering you every step of the way.’

‘And we hit Terrilli’s house the moment it’s inside?’

Warburger nodded. ‘We got Capone for income tax evasion and we’ll get Terrilli for stealing stamps.’

‘What happens if you’re wrong?’ demanded Pendlebury suddenly.

‘Wrong?’

‘What happens if Terrilli doesn’t make a move? Or does, and for some reason we haven’t considered, gets away with it?’

‘If Terrilli does nothing,’ lectured Warburger patiently, ‘then a kids’ charity gets a few thousand dollars it wouldn’t otherwise have received. I don’t accept that there’s anything that we haven’t considered, but if the stamps go and we lose them, then they’re insured.’

‘There’s always the unexpected,’ said Pendlebury professionally. ‘No matter how much planning or rehearsal, there’s always something that threatens to screw it up.’

As Pendlebury spoke, three and a half thousand miles away Charlie Muffin was walking into the City office of Rupert Willoughby.

He is such an unprepossessing man, thought the underwriter.

Charlie shook his head emphatically. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not a job… not a proper one, anyway. Something for a caretaker.’

‘The security of?3,000,000 worth of stamps is hardly something for a caretaker,’ argued Willoughby.

‘There’ll be security,’ pointed out Charlie.

‘Of course,’ agreed the underwriter. ‘We insisted upon that before agreeing any sort of cover. But it’s still an unusual situation. I’d feel happier if you were there.’

‘And it’s Russian,’ Charlie reminded him.

‘Not any more. The collections have been in Western ownership for years. What interest would they still have?’

Charlie shook his head again. ‘Never underestimate the Russian national pride. They’ll be interested.’

‘Surely you don’t expect them to put in observers?’

‘They might.’

‘But what harm would it do? You wrecked your own department and the American service, not the Russians.’

Charlie smiled at the other man’s innocence of the world in which he had existed – sometimes only just – all his life. He found it easy to envy Rupert Willoughby.

‘I don’t want anyone to find me,’ said Charlie.

‘I think you’re exaggerating the risk,’ Willoughby accused him.

‘Perhaps,’ admitted Charlie. The dangers weren’t as great as he was attempting to make them, despite what had happened in Hong Kong. He frowned in sudden awareness. He was raising objections because he felt it was expected, not because he sincerely believed in them.

‘I’m asking you as a personal favour to me,’ said the underwriter, choosing the strongest lever to use on Charlie. ‘And because I know of your association with my father… how much he admired you.’

‘It’ll be a waste of time,’ said Charlie, conscious of the weakness in his voice.

‘I thought your complaint was that you had too much of that to waste anyway.’

It would be activity, conceded Charlie. And he was bored. Anything occurring within America came under the jurisdiction of the F.B.I., not the Central Intelligence Agency. So the danger would be far less than it had been in Hong Kong.

‘All I’m suggesting is a month in America, three weeks of that in the sunshine of Florida,’ said the underwriter.

‘What’s Florida got apart from Disneyworld, oranges and vacationing Jewish mothers worrying about their sons becoming doctors?’ demanded Charlie.

‘You never know,’ said Willoughby, relieved. Charlie was going to accept, Willoughby realised. He was glad he had warned the organisers that he would be sending a representative.

The stomach tightening came as his passport was checked, even though Charlie knew that it was the certificates with which it had been obtained that were the danger, not the document itself, which was as genuine as the visa that accompanied it. He wasn’t unhappy at the apprehension: it showed that he was properly cautious, which was how he was going to have to continue throughout the entire assignment. Properly cautious, despite his agreement with Willoughby that there was little risk. He’d been persuaded too easily, he realised, belatedly. Why? Had it been boredom? The conceit about which Edith had constantly warned him? Or the closely connected flattery at being asked again for help by someone like Rupert Willoughby?

It had been eight years since the deception that had cost the C.I.A. its Director. If they discovered that he was still alive, they would be as keen to get him now as they had been in those early years, when they had pursued him throughout Europe. It would only take one mistake: like the error of going to Sir Archibald Willoughby’s grave that they had observed so carefully, waiting for just such a slip. Charlie was uncertain whether during the past eight years he had retained the expertise that had enabled him to survive so successfully in the past.

The immigration official flicked dutifully through the black-bound prohibited aliens’ book by his left hand, stamped the passport, gave a quick, professional smile and gestured him through to reclaim his baggage.

There was the usual delay, so it was a further hour before Charlie cleared the airport complex and settled back for the drive along the Van Wyck Expressway into Manhattan. The driver was a dour, taciturn man, which suited Charlie, who didn’t want conversation anyway.

Although the exhibition was being staged at the Waldorf Astoria, Willoughby’s office had made him reservations at the Pierre. Charlie hurried through his registration, not feeling any jet-lag and anxious to examine the security precautions as soon as possible. He smiled, recognising another link with his past. It had always been like this, once an assignment had begun. Sir Archibald had even worried about it, in the early days, concerned that in his eagerness to become involved, Charlie might miss something. He rarely had, though.