‘They’ve sought involvement,’ conceded the Director. ‘But I’m keeping the whole project British; they can have access to the debriefing in the course of time.’
Charlie made much of walking back around the chair and seating himself. Washington would be furious at being kept out, he knew.
‘I am aware,’ he began, speaking very quietly and with control, ‘that I am badly regarded in this department, a reminder of a British intelligence system that made some very bad mistakes … mistakes that meant changes were almost inevitable …’
He hesitated. They were back with him now, he saw.
‘But I have proved myself, if proof were needed, with the Berenkov debriefing,’ he continued. ‘I know espionage intimately … I’m an expert at it. You are a soldier, used to a different environment … a different set of rules …’
‘What is the point you are trying to make,’ broke in Cuthbertson, testily.
‘That we’re being set up,’ said Charlie, urgently. ‘A trap is being created and you are walking blindly into it …’
Again, Cuthbertson shook his head in refusal.
‘… Cut off now, before it’s too late,’ pleaded Charlie. ‘A committed man like Kalenin wouldn’t defect in a million years.’
‘You’re scared,’ accused the Director, suddenly.
‘You’re damned right I’m scared,’ agreed Charlie, open in his irritation. ‘Two agents plucked off within days of encountering Kalenin! We should all be terrified. If he has his way, he’ll wreck the whole bloody department.’
‘I want Kalenin,’ declared Cuthbertson, pedantically.
‘But he isn’t coming,’ insisted Charlie.
‘He is,’ said the Director.
‘Then tell me why Harrison and Snare have been hit,’ demanded Charlie.
‘Because Kalenin is frightened.’
Charlie frowned, genuinely confused. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
Cuthbertson paused at the impertinence, then dismissed it.
‘On each occasion,’ enlarged the Director, ‘sufficient time elapsed for both men to dispatch full reports to London. Kalenin has allowed that, wanting the meetings to be relayed here. Both meetings were in public places … they would have been noted. And Kalenin would have known that. So he protected his back by going for them, once they’d served their purpose …’
He groped among the papers that leafed his desk.
‘… Snare refers several times to Kalenin’s ill-concealed fear …’
‘… bloody right,’ said Charlie. ‘And I might concede your point if Snare had been killed too. But he’s alive. By now, scientifically and without any pain, they will have taken apart the man’s mind, right back to the age of two. Kalenin wouldn’t have risked the inevitable exposure of his defection by letting Snare live, if the defection were genuine.’
‘They’ve promised us consular access in three weeks,’ rejected Cuthbertson, triumphantly. ‘They wouldn’t do that if Snare wasn’t perfectly fit and had been subjected to any torture, physical or mental …’
Charlie sat, waiting, opening and closing his hands.
‘Rubbish,’ he said, at last. ‘They will have stripped him to the bone.’
‘The terms of your employment with the department do not allow you to refuse an assignment,’ reminded the Director.
‘I know,’ said Charlie quietly.
‘And I am ordering you to go.’
Charlie knuckled his eyes, then looked up at the men who despised him. He sighed openly. He’d given them the chance to avoid making fools of themselves, he decided. Now it was entirely their fault.
‘Did American intelligence know how Harrison and Snare were making contact?’
‘Not that we know of,’ said Wilberforce.
Charlie sat, unconvinced. ‘Both meetings were at public functions,’ he said, talking almost to himself. ‘Washington would have known.’
He looked up to Cuthbertson.
‘They want involvement?’ he queried.
‘Desperately,’ agreed the Director.
‘Give it to them,’ advised Charlie. ‘The payment stipulates dollars. Let the money be their entry.’
‘Why?’ demanded Cuthbertson.
‘To give me the opportunity for contact,’ said Charlie. ‘I don’t want the Americans to have any idea that anyone is trying to pick up from Harrison or Snare. String them along by discussing money for a week, to give me time …’
‘That won’t work,’ warned Wilberforce, happy to have found a flaw. ‘Our embassy cover for you to go to Moscow doesn’t come into operation for another three weeks.’
‘I’m not going to Moscow under your cover,’ lectured Charlie. Again he was reminded of Edith’s warning about conceit, but discarded it.
‘… In the last three months you’ve arranged the crossing into Eastern Europe of two men whom you regarded highly,’ he said. ‘One is dead, the other is in Lubyanka. I’ll get to Moscow myself.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Charles,’ rebuffed Cuthbertson. ‘No one can enter Russia like that.’
‘Charlie,’ reminded the operative.
‘Charlie,’ accepted the Director, tightly.
Charlie smiled, openly, so both men could see. He would have to be very careful not to go too far, he decided.
‘Do you want the defection … if defection there is … to work?’ asked Charlie.
‘Yes,’ said the other man, instantly.
‘Then I want to operate as I always have done.’
‘If it goes wrong,’ cautioned the Director, ‘then you’ll be the sufferer.’
‘Sir Henry,’ accepted Charlie, smiling. ‘We both know why I’m being brought back into active service. And what will happen if I fail.’
Cuthbertson did not answer the accusation.
‘I’ll need a large petty cash advance,’ stipulated Charlie. He’d take some good wine to Janet’s flat that evening, he decided.
The Director nodded, defeated.
‘I’ll want to know what’s happening all the time,’ said Cuthbertson, hopefully. ‘And I’ll need receipts.’
Charlie nodded.
‘Of course,’ he agreed.
Cuthbertson waited, guessing there was more.
‘… And it would help to have my old office back,’ said Charlie. ‘If we’re going to work on this, we’ll need instant contact with each other …’
Cuthbertson nodded, his normally red face puce with emotion.
‘I’m very worried about this,’ said Wilberforce, after Charlie had left.
‘I’m terrified,’ confessed Cuthbertson. Why couldn’t it have been Charlie Muffin shot in an East German ditch, he thought, regretfully. Even if he succeeded in this operation, decided the Director, he’d still ease him from the department, despite the promises he’d given. The man was quite insufferable.
The orange blossom trees were in full bloom, whitening the shrubbery outside Keys’s office. Far away, people wandered ant-like into the Lincoln memorial, and in the park in front teenagers were clustered around an improvised guitar recital. It was very American and comforting, he thought.
‘So how do you assess it?’ demanded the Secretary of State, turning back into the room.
Ruttgers, who had arrived in Washington just one hour before and knew he would be affected by jet-lag very soon, shrugged, unwilling to commit himself.
‘I don’t honestly know,’ he said. ‘Kalenin has appeared, almost too easily. And from my last meeting with the British Director, it’s obvious the man is discussing asylum.’
‘Do you believe it’s genuine?’
‘I don’t know enough about it to make a judgment,’ avoided Ruttgers, easily.
‘Do the British suspect why their operatives have been hit?’
‘They haven’t a clue,’ assured Ruttgers, confidently. They think it’s just K.G.B. surveillance and Kalenin being over-cautious.’