‘Prick,’ he said.
The London home and elegant, sophisticated refuge of George Wilberforce was a second-floor apartment overlooking Eaton Square. Here, from Monday to Friday, he lived, returning only at the weekends to a nagging, condescending wife who refused him the respect that everyone seemed to find so difficult, and from whom he would have welcomed divorce but for the admittedly remote but nevertheless possible harm such an event might have caused his career. Those responsible for appointments in the permanent civil service were known sometimes to possess strong religious views and it was wise not to take chances.
Particularly not now. Because now his career was more assured than it had ever been.
Delius, he decided, would suit his mood.
Apart from the habit with never-smoked pipes, the Director was a man who rarely betrayed any emotion, but now after standing for several movements by the stereo unit he suddenly moved away in a halting, stiff-jointed attempt at what appeared to be a waltz. He stopped, embarrassed by his efforts.
‘I’ve got you, Charlie Muffin,’ he said. ‘And now you’re going to suffer for what you did. Christ, you’re going to suffer.’
SIX
George Wilberforce blinked at the gritty sensation behind his eyes, knowing he should have allowed more time after the flight from London before this conference in the C.I.A. complex in the Virginia countryside. But this time he had wanted the meeting in America; to arrive the courier of news for which they had waited so long and sense the approbation, even if there were no open praise.
“You’re quite sure?” demanded Onslow Smith urgently. The American Director, whom he had had to tell in advance of the meeting, was a large open-faced man who seemed constantly restricted within the confines of an office chair, business suit and subdued tie. As if in apologetic explanation for his build, the wall behind his desk was patterned with sports pennants, shields and group pictures of the Yale rowing and boxing teams. The Onslow Smith smile was featured in all.
‘Quite sure,’ said Wilberforce, keeping the exhilaration from his voice. ‘We’ve caught Charlie Muffin.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Smith distantly. ‘It’s about goddamn time.’
Appearing suddenly aware that the remark could be construed as criticism, he added quickly: ‘Congratulations.’
Wilberforce’s shrug of uncaring dismissal was perfect.
‘And now can we kill him?’ demanded Garson Ruttgers.
Wilberforce came up from the pipe at which he had already begun probing, staring at the diminutive, frail- seeming American whose ambition to become, as chief of the C.I.A., what Edgar Hoover had been to the F.B.I., had been destroyed by Charlie Muffin. Ruttgers was an unsettling feature of the group, thought Wilberforce, watching the man light a cigarette from the stump of that which had preceded it, never once breaking the staring-eyed gaze across the table through clerk-like, half-lens spectacles. About Ruttgers there was an aura of unpredictability, thought the Briton. And something else. The man physically frightened him, Wilberforce realised, surprised.
‘It’s not quite as easy as that,’ he said guardedly.
‘Why not?’ demanded Ruttgers.
The constant inhalation of nicotine had turned the man’s false teeth yellow. Why, wondered Wilberforce, didn’t the American soak the dentures in stain remover? His breath must smell appallingly.
‘Yes, why?’
The repeated question in the unpleasantly recognisable, phlegmy tone, came from Wilberforce’s right and he turned to Sir Henry Cuthbertson. The baronet was a bulky, cumbersome man proud of family links that went back to the service of James I, who had conferred the original baronetcy. He’d earned the D.S.O. in the Second World War and been seconded from the Chief of Staff council to revitalise Britain’s intelligence system after the fading, twenty- five-year directorship of Sir Archibald Willoughby. And lost the job in less than a year. Four hundred years of honour wrecked in a few short months by a scruffy ex-grammar school boy with an irritating Mancunian accent and the distressing tendency not to change his shirt every day, reflected Wilberforce.
It was hardly surprising Cuthbertson and Ruttgers wanted Charlie Muffin’s immediate assassination, thought Wilberforce. But neither had operated under the new governments. Or knew – because nobody knew – of Wilberforce’s determination to make Charlie Muffin’s capture a personal triumph.
‘Because there mustn’t be any mistake,’ said the British Director simply.
‘No,’ agreed Onslow Smith hurriedly. ‘No mistakes.’
To be convinced, the feelings of the two older men would have to be bruised, realised Wilberforce.
‘Let’s not forget,’ he said, ‘that the errors made with Charlie Muffin in the past were absolutely horrifying.’
Ruttgers and Sir Henry shifted, both discomforted at the prospect of being reminded.
‘Four years ago,’ said Wilberforce, ‘the British uncovered in Europe the most successful Russian infiltration of NATO since the Second World War. The man who led their operation, Alexei Berenkov, was jailed for forty years. It was one of the worst disasters ever suffered by the Russians – so grave, in fact, that it came as little surprise to either America or Britain to learn, as they did within a year, that Valery Kalenin, operational chief of the K.G.B., wanted to flee for asylum to the West …’
‘We’re all aware of the history,’ said Ruttgers, in an attempt to halt the other man.
‘And now we must put it in proper perspective,’ insisted Wilberforce. ‘It was a deceit. A deceit conceived and operated by Charlie Muffin, working not for the British intelligence organisation that employed him, but with Kalenin. A deceit to expose not just ordinary agents, but the British and American Directors; for them to be seized and offered in exchange for the repatriation of Alexei Berenkov.’
The embarrassment, recalled Wilberforce, had been incredible after that numbing evening in the C.I.A. ‘safe’ house in Vienna when Kalenin had arrived not nervous and alone, as they had expected, but followed by a Russian commando team who had carried Ruttgers and Cuthbertson back across the Czechoslovakian border. Charlie Muffin had shown a surprising knowledge of psychology, judging the ambition of both men would drive them to such close involvement. Upon reflection, it seemed lunacy. He hadn’t thought so at the time, though. That was something else ho one was ever going to learn.
‘The man is a traitor,’ insisted Ruttgers. ‘So he should be shot.’
‘A traitor,’ agreed Wilberforce. Legally so, he qualified. But aware as he was – and as Charlie Muffin had certainly been – that Cuthbertson had decided he could be abandoned at the East German border in the final stages of the Berenkov seizure, Wilberforce found the accusation difficult. Another reservation, never admitted to anyone. Any more than it had ever been admitted that it had been Charlie who had co-ordinated Berenkov’s capture, fitting together the disparate jigsaw so cleverly that not only Berenkov but nearly everyone in the European cell was caught. Charlie, who had deserved first praise and then acceptance within the reorganised department Sir Henry was establishing. And who instead had realised that he had been selected for sacrifice in the final stages. Sir Henry would never concede he had decided Charlie should die, of course. Convenient amnesia wasn’t a new affliction in the department.
‘But a traitor who should not be allowed to cause further embarrassments to either government,’ Wilberforce added.
The irritation of Ruttgers and Cuthbertson was increasing, Wilberforce saw. The American fussily lighted yet another cigarette and the British baron twisted the family-crested ring on the little finger of his left hand as if seeking solace in a talisman of his family’s greatness.
‘That’s vitally important,’ said Onslow Smith, once more in immediate agreement.
‘And we couldn’t guarantee that by a simple elimination,’ declared Wilberforce. The American Director was definitely deferring to him, he decided.
‘Why not?’ demanded an unconvinced Ruttgers.
‘To start with,’ said Wilberforce, ‘because he isn’t in England. He was, very briefly. That’s where we picked him up and from where we followed him back to Zurich.’
‘I don’t see the problem,’ argued Cuthbertson. ‘What’s wrong with killing the man in Switzerland?’
The British Director sighed. They were very obtuse, he thought. But then, they hadn’t considered the long-
