A full circle, without finding an answer, recognized Charlie: an answer to anything. One step at a time, he decided: he’d argued throughout the night for them to proceed in the proper order, so that’s what he had to do. Keep the sequence right. And there was a lot he had to do before deciding about Natalia. The self-honesty refused him. He was dodging the issue, he knew. Wanting it to go away – be resolved for him – so that the decision wouldn’t be his. He was only sure about one thing. That he loved her. Wanted her. That none of this – whatever this was – had changed or affected his feelings for Natalia at all. What then? Muddied the waters, he supposed, unhappy at the cliché. Made it difficult, certainly, for him to see – to think – clearly.
Charlie left his office long before the appointment time, descending to the basement cafeteria where the just-finished security-cleared cleaners were bunched at tables and who looked accusingly at his intrusion into their early morning domain, some – because of his unshaven and more than usually dishevelled appearance – even with suspicion. Charlie smiled a general good morning. No one said anything back. He bought grey-coloured coffee and a glazed bun with currants on top, which was stale and filled up his throat before finally going down in an uncomfortable lump. When he blinked it was like closing his eyes against sandpaper and he kept wanting to yawn. Charlie decided he felt like shit. It would be better soon, when he was calling up the adrenaline to work things out. At least he hoped it would be. He abandoned the bun and the coffee, guessing that for the refreshments the previous night – or was it strictly speaking the same night? – they must have sent out because everything had been a bloody sight better than this. It was no wonder ail those blokes like Burgess and Maclean and Philby and Blunt had gone over to the other side: they were probably just trying to get away from the canteen food.
In the brief period they’d been away the furniture in the conference room had been rearranged. The half-moon table remained, to provide a focus, but there was only one chair behind it now. Some – but Charlie didn’t think all, from his recollection of the bulk – of the folders and binders were stacked at one end of it. The table at which Witherspoon had sat and upon which the evidence had previously rested had gone completely. There were a new stenographer and a new recording technician at the note-taking desk, which had been moved to a further and less obtrusive side of the room. A series of chairs had been set out in the room itself, possibly no more than ten although Charlie didn’t bother to count.
Wilson was already there, crumpled and unshaven like Charlie. The Director General was in conversation with Springley, who turned and at once introduced Charlie to the third man, John Bishop. The company chairman was putty-faced and clearly disorientated, shaking his head for no particular reason, just in general, all-encompassing horror.
The man said: ‘I can’t believe it! Won’t believe it. It just couldn’t be. Impossible.’
‘It isn’t and it has,’ said Charlie brutally. The basic belief of man, he thought: Misfortune always befalls someone else. This would have been the moment for that remark about life being a bitch. Then again, maybe not. He said: ‘Have you any idea where Krogh stayed, in London?’
‘I already asked,’ said Wilson.
Bishop answered anyway. He gave a helpless shrug and said: ‘My secretary might have kept a number…’ He looked at his watch. ‘She won’t be at the factory yet. I wasn’t told what it was all about until I got here.’
‘We’ve got someone going to her home, to get her there early,’ said the Director General. He went on, talking over the two men: ‘I’ve had Blackstone put in a police cell.’
Charlie nodded. ‘Let him sweat. No conversation with anyone, not even when he’s served food or drink. He folded up last time at the thought of long imprisonment: let him get a taste of what it can really be like inside a cell.’
There was the sound of further arrivals behind. The two Whitehall men entered first and remained anonymous because Wilson made no attempt to introduce them to the company chairman. He didn’t introduce the following Harkness by name, either, just as his deputy. Charlie stared at Harkness in open surprise. The man had completely changed, into a brown suit with cream accessories, and was fresh and pinkly shaved: around him hung a miasma of cologne, with lemon the predominant aroma.
‘Bloody hell!’ Charlie muttered.
‘Did you say something?’ demanded Harkness.
‘Nothing,’ said Charlie.
‘This isn’t over, you know!’ said Harkness. ‘All this. It isn’t over.’
Charlie gazed at him, innocent-faced. ‘I know it’s not over,’ he said, intentionally misunderstanding. ‘That’s why we’ve all come back here.’
The Americans’ arrival prevented the exchange continuing. The two men halted uncertainly just inside the door and then the one slightly in front, a plump man with a crewcut and rimless spectacles isolated the Director General and smiled in recognition. He said: ‘Sir Alistair! It’s good to see you!’
Wilson gestured the men further into the room and named the names. The crewcut man turned out to be the CIA station chief, Hank Bowley. The FBI liaison, a much thinner, unsmiling man but about the same height as the other American, was identified as Philip McDonald.
Charlie watched them while the handshakes were exchanged, aware of both men looking intently at everyone – particularly their appearance – and thought, hopefully, that they seemed professional. They were certainly crisply fresh. There was a further smell of cologne, too.
‘So what’s all this about!’ demanded Bowley. ‘Our duty man said you put a fire-alarm and earthquake priority classification on this!’
‘Yes,’ accepted Wilson. ‘I suppose that’s about right. Why don’t we sit down, first?’
The Director General went to the one chair behind the half-moon table and the rest spread themselves among the waiting chairs. Charlie sat in the front row, at one end of the line. No one tried to join him. At the table Wilson cleared his throat, sighed and said: ‘There’s no pleasant or easy way to put this. We’ve every reason to believe that details of your most recent Strategic Defence Initiative development are compromised.’
There was one of those complete silences to which Charlie was becoming so accustomed. It was McDonald who broke it. The man said: ‘I’d like you to run that by us again, real slow.’ He had a very broad Southern accent, Texas or perhaps Louisiana.
Wilson picked up from the table the drawing that had been removed from the King William Street deposit box, starting to offer it and then stopping. Because he was nearest Charlie got up and ferried it to the two American intelligence men.
‘What is this?’ asked Bowley at once. There was no longer any affability about the man.
Wilson indicated the white-haired Springley, separated from the Americans by two rows of seats. Formally the Director General said: ‘It has been positively identified by the project leader involved as a genuine copy-drawing from one forming part of the British participation in a Star Wars defensive missile due to be put into permanent, geo-stationary orbit by American shuttle.’