He looked with contempt at Sampson, belatedly conscious of the argument that had erupted between Sampson and the front seat passenger, a bulky, bull-shouldered man twisted round to face them both. Charlie hadn’t recognised the row being in Russian, engrossed in his own thoughts, but he isolated the language now. But didn’t understand it. He’d had a passing ability, a long time ago; but this was too fast; Sampson appeared as fluent as the man whose natural language it was. Not that Charlie needed to understand, even with the driver joining in with matching anger. The demanding gestures from the front seat passenger were indication enough, beckoning insistence on being given the gun, matching with Sampson’s head-shaking refusal to surrender it. It was the driver who resolved the row, pulling the car into the side of the road, stopping the engine and turning to shout ‘Out!’ in English.
For several moments there was complete silence in the vehicle. Then Charlie said, ‘For Christ’s sake, give him the bloody thing. You’ve caused enough trouble with it already. We’re just asking to be caught, stuck here like this!’
If he got to Russia and managed to achieve what Wilson wanted, the deal might just stick. But not if they got picked up now. If, if, if, thought Charlie; every consideration was ruled by a doubtful if.
Reluctantly, actually halting the movement in the middle of making it, Sampson offered the Russian the gun. In the sudden illumination of an outside street lamp Charlie saw it was a Smith and Wesson. Sampson handed it over butt first, so that the Russian took it with the barrel directed towards Sampson.
‘Why not shoot the stupid bastard!’ said Charlie, bitterly.
As the car started again the Russian in the passenger seat said, ‘Why the gun? Everything was already difficult, before this.’
‘Ask him, not me,’ said Charlie. He was glad the conversation had reverted to English.
Sampson looked despisingly across the car at Charlie and then said to the Russian. ‘Because it was necessary. And you damned well know it. If I hadn’t been able to silence the policeman as I did we’d have been caught, which would have been an embarrassment to Russia. And worst, the vehicle would have been linked to the escape and to the Soviet embassy and been an even greater embarrassment. I didn’t want to kill the damned man. It was his misfortune to be in the wrong place. I didn’t have any alternative and every one of you knows it. Just as I know you were bluffing back there. You wouldn’t have forced me out of the car.’
‘Maybe it was a good thing for everyone that the challenge wasn’t put to the test,’ said the Russian, appearing unimpressed at Sampson’s bombast.
Charlie turned away from the ridiculous dispute. Through the car window he saw a direction sign to Tower Hamlets. They were travelling east. Where, he wondered. The London streets about which he’d reminisced all the long days and nights in the cell were eerily deserted, the actual City of London always quieter than the rest of the capital. He thought he heard the wail of a police siren and tensed but didn’t detect it again, so guessed he must have been mistaken. How long would it be before they found the man crumpled back there by the prison wall?
From inside the car he heard Sampson say, ‘Where are the clothes? Surely you thought of clothes?’
The arrogant sod was trying the position of command even here, Charlie recognised. From the front the passenger handed back two grips.
‘Me first,’ insisted Sampson, twisting and turning in the confined rear space. After he had changed and stuffed the prison uniform into the grip Charlie switched, aware of the good quality of the clothing as he put it on and aware, too, that the pockets had things in them, as they would have done if they were normally worn suits. What he thought was grey worsted and definitely a well laundered white shirt. The shoes pinched but with his feet Charlie was used to that. He left them half on and half off, for comfort.
‘There,’ said the Russian, in front, an order.
Obediently the driver stopped and the other man stuffed the refilled hold-alls into a refuse bin at the pavement edge, carefully ensuring the covering flap came back concealingly into position.
‘We are returning from a dinner, in London,’ dictated the Russian, as the car moved again. ‘There are counterfoils of the tickets in your left hand jacket pocket. Tombola tickets, too…’ He smiled back at them, holding up a crystal decanter with a ticket still attached. ‘I was the lucky one.’
Very good, decided Charlie, realising as he did so that they were clearing London. Any road block would be hurried, particularly out of the capital. Photographs certainly wouldn’t be available, not this quickly. It was the sort of cover story that might get them through, if the need arose. The ever present if, he thought once more.
‘It’s fortunate we made the departure arrangements that we did,’ said the man in front. ‘Let’s hope they’ll still be possible.’ Heavily he added to Sampson, ‘And this car is not traceable to our embassy in London.’
Charlie was caught by the disclaimer as the man came to him. ‘You are called Muffin?’
‘Yes,’ nodded Charlie.
‘I am Letsov.’
Charlie frowned at the introduction. There shouldn’t have been identities if the man were attached to London. The frown deepened, in self-irritation. It had taken him too long to realise that the Russians would never have risked anyone actually from the embassy. He looked with renewed interest at the two in front. They were called spetnaz he remembered; an elite and highly secret commando group within the KGB, the equivalent, he supposed, of the British SAS or the American Special Forces. Moscow must regard Sampson as very important indeed to go to all this trouble. The other Englishman appeared relaxed and comfortable in the opposite corner, hand casually looped through an assistance strap near the door, as if he were actually being chauffeured back from some mundane, late night outing.
To Letsov, Charlie said, ‘We’re getting out tonight?’
‘Of course,’ said the Russian, as if he were surprised at the question.
Outside Charlie caught brief sight of a signpost to Braintree. ‘And you’re coming all the way?’
‘No further reason to stay,’ said Letsov, confirming Charlie’s guess at their being spetnaz.
The driver said something that Charlie didn’t catch, in Russian, and he didn’t hear Letsov’s reply, either, but from the way the man stared through both the front and the rear windows at the remark Charlie guessed it was a reference to there being no obvious police presence.
‘Thank you,’ said Charlie, to Letsov. ‘For all this.’
The Russian shrugged. ‘There were orders,’ he said.
‘Which I initiated,’ Sampson reminded.
Fuck you, thought Charlie.
They even risked the motorway when it came, travelling almost completely along its full length before a warning from Letsov at a sign that took them off on an obviously reconnoitred route through minor roads. There were two darkened, sleeping villages and then a bigger place, a small town, which they entered without Charlie being aware of any name. They parked once more to an obviously prepared plan, in a covered, multi-storey car park. Letsov turned back towards them, hefted the decanter and said, ‘It seems my luck is holding.’
Almost at once, the smile went. ‘The car was a cover. It isn’t any longer,’ he warned.
Reluctantly Charlie put his feet fully into the shoes, feeling his ankle as he did so. There wasn’t any swelling from his clumsy landing and he was glad: he didn’t want any indication of weakness in front of Sampson. Or the other two men, either.