‘What now?’ asked Johnny.
‘Now,’ said Snare. ‘We just help ourselves if not to the actual crown jewels, as near as makes no difference.’
He paused, checking the time.
‘And there’s still forty minutes before the attendant patrol.’
The Russian collection was in the main exhibition room, every piece under glass. They stopped, as the torches picked out the jewels of the Faberge reproductions.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Johnny.
‘A miniature jewelled train,’ said Snare. ‘It’s usually kept in the Armoury, in Moscow, along with those Easter egg ornaments in the next case …’
‘Imagine those in a necklace,’ said Johnny, wistfully.
‘Beautiful,’ agreed Snare. Pity you’d never have a chance to wear it, he thought, cruelly.
‘What sort of people have jewelled trains and Easter eggs?’ mused Johnny.
‘Rich people,’ said Snare. ‘Very rich people.’
‘Didn’t they all get killed though?’ queried Johnny.
Snare frowned at the qualification.
‘Only because they were too stupid to realise the mistakes they were making,’ he said.
He moved forward, gesturing to Johnny for the bags he had taken from the sledge. Against the side of each exhibition case he affixed a handle, with adhesive suckers at either tip, then sectioned the glass with a diamond-headed cutter. Gently, to avoid noise, he placed each piece of glass alongside the stand, put each exhibit into a protective chamois leather holder and then, finally, into a bigger container.
Apart from the eggs and the train, Snare took the copies of the Imperial Crown surmounted by the Balas ruby, the Imperial Orb, topped by its sapphire and the Russian-eagle-headed Imperial Sceptre, complete with its miniature of the Orloff diamond.
Snare lifted the bags, testing their weight.
‘Enough,’ he decided.
He turned, looking at Johnny.
‘You know what you’ve just done?’ he demanded.
‘What?’
‘Carried out the jewel robbery of the century,’ said Snare, simply.
‘Now all we’ve got to do is sell them back,’ said Johnny. And then let Herbie Pie and all those other doubting bastards know. But discreetly, so they wouldn’t think he was boasting.
‘That’ll be no trouble,’ said Snare, confidently. He was glad there wouldn’t be any more burglaries, he decided. From now on he could sit back and watch all the others do the work, enjoy the sport of watching Charlie squirm.
Johnny humped the straps of the bags comfortably on to his shoulders, then followed Snare’s lead down the stairs. Neither spoke until they reached the entry hole in the basement floor. Johnny stood, gazing apprehensively into the blackness.
‘I’d very happily give back one of those funny eggs to avoid having to go back down there,’ he said plaintively.
Snare dropped through first, turning on the beam of his helmet to provide some light. Johnny lowered the jewellery first, then wriggled through, hanging for a moment before letting himself go. He misjudged the drop, stumbling up to his knees in the drainage channel.
‘Shit,’he said.
‘That’s right,’ agreed Snare.
They had almost finished the meal in their Moscow apartment when Berenkov apologised, explaining the cause of his silence to Valentina.
‘There couldn’t be any doubt?’ asked the woman.
Berenkov shook his head, positively.
‘Comrade General Kalenin was very sure — they’ve definitely found Charlie.’
She shook her head sadly.
‘Poor man.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Poor man.’
‘Why torture him?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Just like children … cruel children.’
‘Yes,’ he accepted. ‘It’s often very childlike.’
‘But in the end they’ll kill him?’
‘Yes,’ he said, saddened by the question. ‘They will have to do that.’
Valentina didn’t speak for several minutes. Then she said, ‘Is he married?’
‘I think so.’
‘It’s her I feel sorry for,’ said the woman. ‘Perhaps more than for him. He knew the risks, after all.’
‘Yes,’ said Berenkov. ‘I suppose he did.’
‘I wonder what she’ll do?’ said Valentina, reflectively.
‘You should know, perhaps more than anybody,’ Berenkov reminded her impulsively.
His wife looked at him sorrowfully.
‘I’d just weep,’ she said. She lingered, unsure of the admission.
Then she added: ‘Because I wouldn’t be brave enough to kill myself.’
SIXTEEN
Onslow Smith had taken over the larger conference chamber in the American embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square. He stood on a dais at one end of the room, a projection screen tight against the wall behind him. While he waited for everyone to become seated, he fingered the control button connected to the screening machine that would beam the pictures through the tiny square cut into the far wall.
The diminutive figure of Garson Ruttgers bustled into the room, moving towards the seat which Smith had positioned just off the raised area but still in a spot separating him from the other operatives, a considerate recognition of the importance he had once enjoyed.
Immediately behind sat Braley, clipboard on his knee. It was a great pity, decided the Director, that the Vienna episode had marked the end of any promotional prospects for the man. Braley appeared to have a fine analytical mind and worked without panic, despite the obvious nervous reaction to stress. He’d arranged everything for that day’s meeting and done it brilliantly; one of the few people affected by Charlie Muffin who would easily make the transition to a planner’s desk.
One of the few people, he repeated to himself, staring out into the room. Eighty men, he counted. Eighty operatives who had been trained to Grade 1 effectiveness; men from whom the Agency could have expected ten, maybe fifteen years of top-class service. All wiped out by Charlie Muffin. And Wilberforce expected him to sit back and do damn all except be the cheerleader. The apparent success of the early part of the entrapment had gone to the British Director’s head, he decided.
‘Shall we begin?’
The room quietened at the invitation. Smith stood with his hand against the back of the chair, looking down at them.
‘Some of you,’ he said, ‘may have guessed already the point of drafting you all to London …’
He waited, unsure at the harshness of the next part of the prepared text. It was necessary, he decided. It would remind them of what they had lost and bring to the surface the proper feelings about the man responsible.
‘… because you all, unfortunately, shared in the operation that ended your active field careers.’
Ruttgers, who had been initially grateful for the seating arrangement, moved uncomfortably in front of the men he had personally led to disaster, realising too late its drawbacks. Needing the activity, he lighted the predictable cigarette.
‘Because of this man …’ announced Smith, dramatically. He pressed the control button. A greatly enlarged picture, several times bigger than life, of Charlie Muffin appeared on the screen. It had been taken in the churchyard. Several times Smith pressed the button, throwing a kaleidoscope of photographs on the wall, shots of Charlie Muffin in Zurich, coming through passport control at London airport, outside his Brighton house and entering and leaving the offices of Rupert Willoughby.
‘Taken,’ said Smith, ‘by the British.’
He paused to let the murmur which went through the room settle into silence. It was like baiting animals, bringing them to the point where their only desire was to fight, thought the Director.
‘Charlie Muffin has been found,’ he declared.
He waited again for the announcement to be assimilated.
‘Found,’ he picked up, ‘by a very painstaking but rewarding operation conducted by the British …’