Charlie Muffin: The Blind Run Part 10

Natalia showed no reaction whatever to his impatience. She said, 'What happened then?'

Then I had four miserable years on the run and never a day went by without my realising what a b.l.o.o.d.y fool I'd been, thought Charlie. He said, 'At first I stayed in England, because I knew there would be a hunt and they wouldn't have expected me to do that. Seaside towns, where there are always lots of visitors, so strangers aren't unusual. Then Europe, holiday places again, never staying anywhere too long ...'

'What about your wife?' demanded the woman.

It was several moments before Charlie replied, confronting the deepest and bitterest regret of all. Then he said, 'I was almost caught, after the first year. A combined operation by my own service and the CIA, because I exposed their Director, too, and the Americans wanted me as well. I got away. She was killed.' Dear Edith, he thought. Neglected and cheated on and forced by what he did into a life of a fugitive, which she'd hated. And never a moment of complaint or criticism. Why the h.e.l.l had it taken her death to make him realise how much he'd loved her?

'And then?' persisted the woman, bent over the papers in front of her.

'The British service was by tradition one of university graduates,' remembered Charlie. 'I never did fit. I was kept on by a marvellous man, one of the best Directors ever. He had a son, a Lloyds underwriter. He let me work for him it had never been made public, what I did, because of the embarra.s.sment it would have caused, so he didn't know.'

'You were working for him when you were caught?'

Charlie nodded, 'In Italy,' he started. The pause was momentary and he didn't think she would have noticed it before he finished differently from the way he intended by saying 'Two and a half years ago.' Part of the original deal the deal he believed Wilson had reneged on had been to say nothing at the trial, even though it was held in camera, about the entrapment in Italy of the British amba.s.sador as a Soviet spy because Wilson wanted to keep the conduits open to feed as much disinformation as he could to Moscow. Dismissive of this meaningless encounter with the woman Charlie realised he'd allowed himself to become careless, unthinking about the answers. Unthinking! The word stayed with him, an accusation. He was being unthinking. And stupid and arrogant and the worst unprofessional in imagining the meeting was meaningless. She'd made the mistake and he'd almost missed it. Natalia Nikandrova Fedova had said she knew nothing about him and then interposed the question about Edith: about whom she was supposed to have no knowledge. So the clerk-demeanour was a trick, a trick that had worked to achieve precisely the effect it had, lulling him into carelessness by the time they reached the point of the meeting, their need to know if the Italian amba.s.sador had been uncovered. Charlie remembered the beaten prison officer and the murdered policeman and supposed Sampson would be absorbed into the Soviet service. Maybe it was a convoluted way of getting back at the man misleading the KGB Sampson would undoubtedly join but at the moment it was the only opportunity he had. He'd have to be careful to maintain his earlier att.i.tude.

'What were you doing for Willoughby's son?'

Another mistake, isolated Charlie. He hadn't named Willoughby as the Director for whom he'd worked all those years and ended practically idolising. Charlie said, 'He was an underwriter, like I said. Sometimes some of the claims seemed suspicious. I'd investigate them.'

'What was suspicious about Italy?' pressed the woman.

'It was a huge jewel robbery, involving the wife of the British amba.s.sador,' said Charlie, lounged in the chair physically to convey the uncaring att.i.tude he wanted her to go on believing; the hidden cameras, too. 'It coincided with the renewal at a vastly increased valuation of the policy and it looked a bit doubtful. People sometimes over-insure and then conveniently lose things if they're short of money.'

She smiled disarmingly across the desk and said, 'Even British amba.s.sadors?'

'Even British amba.s.sadors,' said Charlie, trying to recapture the earlier flirtation.

'Was there?'

'Was there what?' said Charlie, knowing the question but maintaining the pretence.

'Anything suspicious about the robbery?'

Charlie shrugged. 'Never had time to find out. The station officer at the emba.s.sy for British intelligence was someone who had been in the department with me. He recognised me and sounded the alarm. And I got caught.'

The basic lesson of every interrogation course Charlie had ever undergone and reinforced during countless actual sessions when he was operating was that a good liar tells as few lies as possible, to minimise the chance of being caught out. He'd been as vague and as flippant about Italy as he had about everything else and he knew d.a.m.ned well they couldn't trap him upon what he had said so far.

'Was America involved in your capture?' asked Natalia, approaching from another direction. 'You said they tried in an earlier operation; the one in which Edith was killed.'

He hadn't mentioned Edith by name, remembered Charlie: another slip. He said, 'No, just the British.'

'Still a large operation, though?'

The amba.s.sador would have warned Moscow of the influx and the personal danger, Charlie supposed. He said, 'I caused the disgrace of both the British and American Directors. And they failed to get me once. They didn't take any chances, the second time. They flooded the place with people.' He stopped for just the right amount of time and added, 'And they got me, well and truly.'

'Why did you betray your country?' she demanded, suddenly.

'I didn't betray my country,' responded Charlie, instinctively. Yet another direction surprised him and he decided definitely that she wasn't as inexperienced as he had first thought. With that realisation came another; so he wasn't being dismissed as unimportant. It pleased him.

'Of course you did,' she said. 'You exposed two Directors to arrest and enabled the repatriation of a Russian your country had jailed as a spy.'

'It was a personal thing,' insisted Charlie. 'I told you they were prepared to screw me: I screwed them instead.'

'What gave you the right to question the decision of your superiors?'

'The fact that it was my life they were making a decision about,' said Charlie, vehemently.

'To whom do you consider the first loyalty.'

'Me,' said Charlie at once. 'My first loyalty is always to me.' There was no danger in this philosophising but Charlie was cautious now, conscious how she used directional changes in attempts to off-balance.

'There must have been many times, as an active field agent, when you were engaged in an operation which put your life at risk.'

'No,' said Charlie, refusing the argument. 'All the other operations carried the acceptable risks, which I knew and understood. This time they made an active, positive decision to sacrifice me. That wasn't acceptable.'

'To you?' she said.

'To me,' agreed Charlie. He thought he knew the tactic: to prod and goad until he lost his temper. Never lose your temper: another caution in interrogation.

'Many people would regard that att.i.tude as arrogant,' said the woman. She paused and added. 'Which it is.'

'And many people would regard it as an instinct for survival,' said Charlie. 'Which it is.' He feigned annoyance, raising his voice, curious where she was leading the questioning.

'The court that sentenced you thought otherwise.'

Back to Italy, recognised Charlie. Very clever. He said, 'I didn't expect anything else.'

She waited several moments, waiting for him to continue. When he didn't she said, 'Didn't you try to put your point of view to the court?'

It had been a secure hearing and he didn't think there could have been any way for them to learn of the evidence. He said, 'Of course I did. But they didn't want to listen, did they! Made their minds up before the trial started.'

'They weren't seen to get their revenge, were they?' she said. The hearing was in secret.'

Good again, admired Charlie. He said, 'It's customary, under our law, in the case of security. Like I've already said, they'd have been embarra.s.sed if the full facts had come out about their own Director being seized.'

'What did come out?'

'Not much,' said Charlie, hoping he sounded dismissive enough. They made it sound as if I was a long term Soviet agent, which I wasn't and never had been: that my whole purpose in being in intelligence was to get to the point where I could trap the Director. That wasn't true, either.'

'Wasn't and never had been,' echoed Natalia.

'You know that,' said Charlie, antic.i.p.ating another move.

'Then why have you come to Moscow?'

Charlie laughed, genuinely. 'I didn't have any choice, did I? Sampson was in the same b.l.o.o.d.y cell.'

'Is that all?'

'No, that's not all. I came because I couldn't stand another day in that d.a.m.ned prison,' said Charlie, genuine still.

'But you don't think of yourself as someone subscribing to the communist way of life?'

Careful, thought Charlie. No more lies than absolutely necessary, he remembered. 'No,' he admitted honestly. 'I don't see myself subscribing to your way of life.'

'Why then should we give you sanctuary?' she asked forcefully, staring up at him. 'People were hurt, killed, during your escape. Why should we harbour you to the embarra.s.sment of ourselves?'

'I didn't hurt anyone. Or kill anyone,' said Charlie.

'Something else you're not guilty of?' she said, jeeringly.

She almost won. Charlie felt the burn of anger, coming close to giving way to it and then stopped himself. He said, 'Sampson is a maniac.'

'What if he attests the same against you?'

'Your own people saw him shoot the policeman,' said Charlie, scoring. 'Ask them.'

'You don't like him?'

Charlie laughed again. 'Like him! I despise him. He's a traitor and he's dangerous. Not as a traitor. As a man. I think he gets pleasure from inflicting hurt.'

'How was he regarded within your service?'

Another pathway, recognised Charlie. He was comfortable with the interrogation now, no longer complacent but confident he could antic.i.p.ate the traps. 'I don't know,' he said.

'Weren't you contemporaries?'

'No.'

'Not even in the same departments?'

'No.'

'You don't consider yourself a traitor?'

Which way was she going now? 'No,' repeated Charlie.

'If you had been in the same department knew his capabilities would you tell me? Or would you regard that as being a traitor?'

'My dear Natalia,' said Charlie, intentionally patronising and seeing an easy escape. 'If I knew anything at all about Edwin Sampson I'd tell you.'

'So what do you know about him?'

She'd refused to become irritated by his att.i.tude just as he had by hers, Charlie knew. He said, 'About his work in the service, nothing. And about his betrayal only what I read in newspapers, like everyone else. In jail he was very clever, a.s.s-crawling to everybody who mattered and getting himself trusted, which made the escape possible. And during that he delighted in causing as much physical harm as possible, as I already told you.'

'Just as you already made it clear to me that you don't like him,' said Natalia. 'Would you trust him, professionally?'

'No,' said Charlie immediately. 'Sampson's first regard would be to himself, not to the operation.'

'Wasn't that your att.i.tude when you exposed your Directors?' she pounced. 'And isn't it still?'

s.h.i.+t, thought Charlie. He said, 'I never failed, in any operation in which I was ever involved. I always won.'

'Was that because of loyalty to the service?' she asked, presciently. 'Or personal pride?'

s.h.i.+t again, he thought. Charlie said, 'The two made a great contribution.'

'Will you co-operate with us?' asked his interrogator. 'Cooperate in a full debriefing and supply us with whatever information we ask of you?'

Crunch point, decided Charlie. He'd have to give if he were going to stand any chance at all of achieving what Wilson wanted. But immediate acquiescence hadn't been the role he'd adopted that morning. Trying to maintain the established att.i.tude, he said, 'I don't know.'

Natalia Fedova snapped the folder shut, staring at him across the desk. 'We'll talk further,' she said. She wasn't smiling any more.

Such a debriefing would not normally have occupied the chairman but Kalenin wasn't any ordinary chairman in his attention to detail and in addition he was anxious to get through the necessary interrogation as quickly as possible, to involve Sampson in the effort to trace the spy working through the British emba.s.sy. So he saw the video recording of Charlie's interview that night, with Berenkov who was the deputy in charge of Natalia Fedova's division and who had personal experience of the Englishman. They watched it completely once, without any halt or discussion and then a second time, stop-starting the tape at moments they considered might be important. A written transcript had also been provided and they studied that, too, so it was several hours before they began to talk.

'Well?' said Kalenin.

Berenkov made an uncertain rocking motion with his hand. 'There's not much there we didn't already know. Nothing in fact.'

'I only personally met Charlie a couple of times. You knew him better. What do you think?'

'He'd have conducted a better debriefing than that,' said Berenkov, honestly.

'I thought he was sloppy,' said Kalenin. 'Careless and sloppy.'

'Maybe,' said Berenkov, not so convinced.

'He couldn't have cared less about the answers he gave,' argued the chairman.

Instead of replying Berenkov rewound and replayed the tape to the part of Charlie's momentary pause when Natalia reached the Italian arrest. 'He changed his mind there,' Berenkov judged. 'And was sharper, from then on.'

'You sure?'

'No, I'm not sure,' admitted Berenkov. 'I got caught by under-estimating Charlie m.u.f.fin once, remember?'

'He's not the important one,' said Kalenin. 'Sampson is important.'

'Charlie could still be useful, in many ways,' insisted Berenkov. 'I think they should be kept together in that apartment. It's wired and I think it might be interesting.'

'To learn what?'

'I don't know, not yet,' admitted Berenkov. 'I know it's important to find as quickly as possible the spy for Britain. But I don't think we should cut corners.'

'I don't intend cutting corners,' said Kalenin, stiffly. 'I just think it would have been better if we'd begun the debriefing with Sampson.'

Berenkov accepted it as an observation, not a criticism. He said, 'We'd have to make a lot of adjustments if the British uncovered the amba.s.sador in Italy. And it was important to establish Sampson's stability. We know from our own people how he responded, confronted with the policeman.'

'What's Sampson's stability got to do with anything?' said Kalenin. 'Maybe he panicked. It's understandable. And maybe he likes inflicting pain. I don't see how either thing is going to affect our use for him.'