(17)
Charlie had protested about the danger of attracting attention, but Ruttgers and Cuthbertson, in complete and unified command now, had insisted on final rehearsals, actually driving to within a mile of the frontier along the winding, tree- and meadow-edged road to the Czech border and then back again, stop-watching the journey and testing the surveillance over every mile.
Satisfied, they had toured first by car and then on foot the streets surrounding the secure C.I.A. house in Wipplingerstrasse, isolating the watchers and ensuring each team had the necessary and prepared back-up group to move on any emergency radio command.
To the safe house the Directors had then summoned the section leaders for a final briefing. An American marine commander, Gordon Marshall, was controller of the resistance team at the crossing point. Another American, named Alton, was responsible for the route security into Vienna and a Briton, Arthur Byrbank, was co- ordinator for the journey to the airport. A British commando, Hubert Jessell, was to supervise the house and grounds.
The Directors agreed the placings were perfect and then took the four men through the entire operation, checking and cross-referring the codes and call signs until they were completely satisfied.
Neither Ruttgers nor Cuthbertson was going to allow the slightest possibility of error reflecting upon their personal involvement, decided Charlie, wryly, sitting near the window while the four section leaders received their final instructions.
It was a perfect house for the operation, apart from the absence of a courtyard in which to conceal the car, thought Charlie. It occupied its own grounds; tree-dotted and easily guarded, and secure behind an electronically controlled gate opened by a command room console switch to a password known to only ten men.
The ground floor was given over to radio communications and staffed by three men. The lounge in which they were now gathered and in which they intended to greet Kalenin was a huge, first-floor room, illuminated by chandeliers that hung from the high, vaulted ceilings. Despite the obvious cleaning, the faint, dusty smell of disuse still clung to the over-padded Viennese furniture which had been arranged in a loose circle around the table.
If the crossing went without incident, there was actually talk of a snack meal before the flight to London, remembered Charlie, amused.
At 6 p.m, the section heads left to get into position and Cuthbertson and Ruttgers were alone with the two operatives. The American Director was chain smoking; the occasional jerk in Cuthbertson’s eye and the increased redness of his face were the only indications of his nervousness.
‘Well,’ asked Cuthbertson, confidently.
‘It was a mistake to have gone so completely over the route,’ criticised Charlie again, knowing Braley shared his view. ‘It created an unnecessary risk.’
Ruttgers sighed. Increasingly, the C.I.A. Director found himself agreeing with the view that Cuthbertson had expressed: the Englishman was losing his nerve.
‘It excluded the possibility of an error once the thing starts rolling,’ insisted the American.
‘Or created it,’ argued Charlie.
‘Are you frightened?’ demanded Ruttgers, aggressively.
‘Yes,’ came back Charlie. ‘Very frightened …’ he paused. ‘… Only a fool wouldn’t be frightened,’ he added, then concluded, pointedly, ‘or a psychopath.’
Ruttgers jerked up at him, sharply, and Charlie answered the challenge. It was Ruttgers who looked away first.
Cuthbertson shifted, embarrassed at the hostility that had grown in the room.
‘This isn’t going to help the operation,’ he complained. ‘We’re all on edge … bound to be. Let’s make allowances, for God’s sake …’
He moved to a side table and held up whisky.
‘A drink, Charles,’ he suggested, immediately turning back. ‘Charlie,’ he corrected.
He was trying very hard, thought Charlie, sympathetically, watching the British Director pour quickly and then hurry the glasses to each man. The four of them stood embarrassed, like abandoned strangers at a party seeking conversation.
‘To everything going well,’ toasted Cuthbertson, raising his glass.
Sir Archibald had usually given him a drink before the commencement of any operation, recalled Charlie. The hope had always been ‘a safe return’.
He drank self-consciously, then looked pointedly at his watch, wanting to quit the company of men whom he despised.
‘I think we should move,’ he said. ‘We can always stop en route if we make good time, but I don’t want to be late,’
Both Directors nodded agreement. It was going to be a diarrhoetic four hours for them, thought Charlie, waiting alone in the lofty room with only sporadic radio messages to tell them what was happening.
Ruttgers stopped them at the door.
‘Good luck,’ he said.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Braley.
‘And you, Charlie,’ pressed the American, smiling at his acceptance of the other man’s affectation.
Charlie nodded, without replying, leading the way from the room.
Unchallenged, Charlie took the driver’s seat and began moving the car along the now familiar route towards the Marien Bridge. Within fifteen minutes he had picked up the road to Langenzerdorf and had begun to relax. The traffic was comparatively light and it was a warm, dry evening with clouds, which would reduce the light during the cross-over. Perfect, thought Charlie.
As they passed each monitoring point, Braley depressed the code key on the radio, signalling their progress. Ruttgers and Cuthbertson would be in the control room now, guessed Charlie, charting their route on the map that had been laid out there.
‘There’s no reason why you should like them,’ said the American, after a while. ‘But equally there’s no reason why you should be so bloody rude.’
‘They’re fools,’ judged Charlie.
‘That’s ridiculous and you know it,’ rejected Braley. ‘Fools can’t hold down the positions they do.’
Charlie shrugged, unwilling to pursue any argument. As they approached the border, Braley’s breathing became more difficult, he noticed. When they got on the outskirts of Ernstbrunn, their radio clattered briefly as the units in Stockerau and Wolkersdorf identified themselves.
‘It’s working well,’ said Braley, nervously.
‘Traps always do until they close around you,’ said Charlie, unhelpfully.
There was hardly any traffic on the road and they cleared Ernstbrunn in minutes. At the junction with the road to Mistelbach, Charlie slowed and then halted, knowing he was well ahead of time.
‘It’s a terrible road for a chase,’ he assessed, professionally.
Braley nodded agreement.
‘I’ve been thinking that for miles,’ replied the American, miserably. ‘Let’s hope to Christ we can hold anything sufficiently long to make the decoy work.’
Charlie looked sideways at him, questioningly.
‘Just how hard do you think the Russians and the Czechs would go to get Kalenin back?’ he demanded, rhetorically. ‘There’s hardly a man in the Soviet Union more important to them. If they come, they’ll cross that border like a steamroller, flattening everything in their path.’
Braley slumped in his seat.
‘Let’s get going,’ he avoided. ‘I don’t want to be late.’
They reached the back-up cars, parked two miles from the border, at 9 p.m. Braley and Charlie stopped and crossed to the lead car, where Braley stared in momentary amazement at Cox sitting in the front seat.
‘Jim,’ he exclaimed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Part of the team,’ said the athlete, happily. ‘Recalled from Moscow a week ago. I’m handling the decoy car. Think it’ll work?’
‘We hope so,’ replied Braley. He wondered what real diversion had been planned to involve Cox: certainly there would be no question of his getting captured. Poor bastard: still, he wasn’t a very good operative.
