when we give them their new life.”
3
The self-admission wasn’t easy for Charlie Muffin but he acknowledged that his mistake had been reverting to tradecraft. Establishing a predictable daily routine and unexpectedly breaking it was an operational ploy Charlie had frequently used to lose lulled-into-complacency observers. And precisely what he’d set out to achieve to continue his financial support for Natalia and Sasha.
Now there wouldn’t be any lulled complacency. Now, because of a Middle Earth hobbit psychiatrist’s belief that he was suicidal, his observers would be on a higher than normal alert. With their number increased, which was a compounding setback because Charlie was sure he’d identified his five regular walkabout watchers. Which was scarcely surprising. Under strict supervision-and budgetary restraints-it was standard practice to train surveillance teams in protection situations like this, where those within a program were expected to cooperate by protecting themselves in the first place. But George Cowley’s ridiculous diagnosis would change all standard practice.
If the concern were as great as Cowley intimated, the improved surveillance would be fully qualified professionals, conceivably some who guarded defectors and at-risk foreign royalty and dignitaries.
But not yet, not today. Today the changeover wouldn’t be complete.
The one ever-present weakness in Charlie’s determination to conceal his relationship with Natalia was their unavoidable link to the money he provided. It hadn’t been a problem when he was operational, with unfettered freedom of movement between assignments. But even then he’d been ultracareful, personally carrying the money-in cash, practically all amassed from expense-account banditry-to a lawyer-nominee-controlled Credit Suisse fiduciary holding in the bank secrecy haven of Jersey, in the Channel Islands off the coast of northern France. From where it was electronically transferred to Natalia in Moscow in tranches kept below any legally enforced Russian reporting requirement.
There was nine thousand pounds in expense-account profits still in the Harrods safe deposit box that Charlie, who distrusted his own service almost as much as those of his supposed enemies, had rented under an assumed name years before ever meeting Natalia. That now had to be moved to Jersey, as much to reassure Natalia of his survival as to continue her financial support, alone as she was with Sasha, and for which, after three too-closely- watched months, there remained insufficient funds in the Credit Suisse account. And if her allowance stopped she might believe he’d been killed, like the others about whom there’d been so much publicity.
Charlie was eager to gain as much advantage as possible from the morning rush-hour crush but at the same time was concerned at alerting his CCTV monitors that today’s outing was different from those previously. He was ready an hour earlier than usual, although he maintained the cultivated aimlessness as he meandered from room to room up to the moment when he made as if to return to his upstairs bedroom but instead snatched his jacket from the closet in which he’d stored it in readiness the night before.
The Chelsea safe house was expertly chosen, a solitary building lost among a coppice of one- and two-story utility blocks and garages, additionally dwarfed by anonymous high-rise mansion apartments-in one if not more of which his observers would be housed-on all four sides. The layout created a choice of four escape runs intersected by a spider’s web of walkways connecting each of the four overshadowing buildings. Charlie followed the regular route his watchers would expect to the traffic-clogged King’s Road and used its gridlocked congestion to pick his way through the unmoving traffic to the far side to isolate his followers. Which, worryingly, he didn’t. He let people board the bus ahead of him until he was sure he could recognize the few who followed. The most immediate was a harassed woman with an uncontrollably screaming child in a buggy from which it was desperate to escape and a scarlet-coated, medal-decorated Chelsea Hospital pensioner.
Neither disembarked after him at Sloane Square, and all those who did hurried away while he lingered at reflecting store windows. Charlie bought a newspaper from the underground station seller, grateful that this early the pavement cafe on the corner with the Eaton Square approach was already open. It was from this spot, over the preceding three months, that he’d identified two of his regular watchers. Neither was evident today. As his coffee and croissants were served, Charlie was aware of a raincoated man seating himself on a bench on the pedestrianized central square behind a half-raised newspaper. Charlie felt a blip of relief at the identification, curious where the backup team was. It was ten minutes before three vacant-lighted taxis emerged in convoy from Sloane Street, the first two turning for their cab stand, the last continuing toward Eaton Square. Charlie hailed it at the controlled crossing, aware of the newspaper-reading follower in Sloane Square jerking up from his bench.
No hurriedly mobilized vehicle joined those directly behind before Charlie’s taxi turned into Pimlico’s grid system, by which time Charlie was talking to the driver of his, being late for a cross channel ferry, introducing the Belgian town of Bruges as his destination as he urged the man to hurry for his Victoria Station train. Charlie had his fare ready when the taxi pulled up, threading his way through the last of the rush-hour commuters not to the overland-departure gates serving Channel ports but down into the underground system. He went one stop to Green Park and took another cab as far as Trafalgar Square, reluctantly walking on already protesting feet to Covent Garden to ensure he’d cleared his trail, despite which he still boarded another underground train to Oxford Circus. From there he took a third taxi to the huge Park Lane subterranean parking lot, scuffing his burning feet its full length to Marble Arch and ground level.
Charlie got to the Harrods bank by one thirty, hesitating after removing the nine thousand pounds from his safe deposit and the long-held and always meticulously renewed passport, international driving license, and American Express card in the assumed name of David Merryweather, in which the facility was rented. After fifteen undecided minutes, Charlie firmly closed and relocked the box. Knowing from already having established the train- connecting times of trains to and from Poole, in Dorset, to Jersey, he allowed himself a leisurely lunch in the store’s premier restaurant, complete with a bottle of celebratory Aloxe Corton.
The small conference room adjoining the Director-General’s office suite was totally silent, everyone waiting for someone else to risk the first contribution.
Relentlessly, Aubrey Smith demanded: “How was it allowed to happen?”
Simon Harding, the head of the surveillance bureau, managed, “Things weren’t fully in place.”
“Why weren’t things fully in place?” echoed Smith.
“The upgrading designation wasn’t issued until the evening of the psychiatric interview,” said Harding, an exercise-toned, Lycra-wearing health fitness exponent whose discomfort at wearing a suit was heightened by his being the focus of the inquest.
“Between which and the time Charlie Muffin disappeared there was a period of more than twenty-four hours,” said the ever aggressive Jane Ambersom.
“Personnel had to be reassigned from other duties,” tried Harding.
“Tell me from the beginning,” demanded Smith.
“The watch personnel were doubled, to be in place today,” said Harding, defensively. “But it wasn’t
“But it wasn’t in place either,” anticipated Ambersom, too eagerly.
“No,” admitted the surveillance supervisor. “We found Muffin’s taxi at Victoria Station, his most obvious destination. He’d talked to the driver of cross-channel ferries, actually mentioned Bruges. I got people on all but one Channel port trains leaving Victoria. He wasn’t on any of them.”
“He didn’t go across the Channel,” dismissed the exasperated Director-General. “He just left you a stinking red herring.”
“So your guess is that he’s still somewhere in England?” said Harding.
“I don’t have any idea where the hell he is or what the hell he’s going to do,” complained Smith. “He could by now have flown from a dozen airports into Europe, where he wouldn’t have had to show his passport, and from any airport in Europe flown on to anywhere in the world.”
“You still determined against bringing in America’s help?” asked Ambersom, hopefully.
