Fredericks’ face stiffened, realizing his early advantage had gone. Striving to regain it, he leaned across the table towards Charlie and said: ‘You listen and you listen good. We’ve got a hell of a file on you so I know all about the act, too: the fuck-everybody-I’m-the-best routine. And I don’t buy that, either. You’re a jumped-up jerk and if you try anything clever – anything at all – it’s going to be your ass. That’s a personal promise. You understand?’
He’s a big bastard, thought Charlie, letting the silence grow between them: probably thinks he could do it. Charlie said: TU be careful crossing roads.’
Fredericks’ face grew taut once more, at the open mockery. ‘Yes,’ he said, with soft-voiced sincerity: ‘You be very careful.’
‘Haven’t we sidetracked a little?’ It was good to be in control, Charlie thought. It had definitely been careless, earlier, though. He promised himself he wouldn’t make another mistake like that: he couldn’t afford to.
‘What?’ demanded Fredericks.
‘You’ve got a contact procedure?’
‘Of course.’
‘Use it, to set a meeting up for me. Alone.’
Fredericks shifted, uncomfortable at Kozlov’s reaction the last time. He said: ‘He expects the crossing details at the next meeting.’
‘Before anyone’s met the woman!’ jeered Charlie. ‘You just answered a question. The guy’s not professional and the whole thing is a load of balls. No one in their right mids would move, at this stage. He should know that. So should you.’
Fredericks was sweating, angry at being so easily exposed. He said: ‘He’s frightened. Wants things to happen as quickly as possible.’
‘I’m frightened,’ said Charlie. ‘Too frightened to move things more quickly than they should be moved.’
‘He’s very cautious, too,’ said the American. ‘I’m his contact. He won’t make a rendezvous with anyone else.’
‘Meet him first then,’ agreed Charlie. ‘Tell him the reason. I won’t come in, to scare him away, until I get the signal from you.’
Fredericks controlled any expression of satisfaction. It would mean that he would be present throughout the entire encounter: that the son-of-a-bitch couldn’t try anything smart. ‘You won’t go ahead, without a meeting?’ said Fredericks, as if the agreement were being forced reluctantly from him.
‘Definitely not,’ said Charlie, positively.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Fredericks. ‘It’ll take a day or two.’
‘So there’ll be time for you fully to brief me, on everything that’s happened so far?’ said Charlie.
Fredericks just succeeded in biting back the go-to-hell refusal that came automatically to mind. ‘Sure,’ he said, instead.
Later, back at the tower block window and looking out over the now lit-up Tokyo, Charlie decided it hadn’t been bad, after all. Not as good as it should have been, of course, but still not bad. He’d made a good enough recovery and recognized sufficiently early that Fredericks was over-confident and been able to use it, against the man. There was always the danger that Fredericks would review everything that had been said and promised and realize the mistakes he’d made, but Charlie didn’t think so. The American attitude at how he’d screwed their director was inevitable, Charlie supposed. It had been another mistake of Fredericks, making it as obvious as he had. It meant, reflected Charlie, that he’d had good early warning. Which was always a bonus.
‘You were lucky, Charlie: bloody lucky,’ he said, to his own flop-haired, loose-tied reflection. He hoped he stayed that way.
‘I don’t believe it!’ exploded Levine, when Fredericks finished the account to the assembled CIA team. ‘What the hell does he think he’s doing, running the operation!’
It hadn’t been posed as that sort of question, but Fredericks paused before responding and then said: ‘Yes. I guess that’s exactly what he thinks. Or wants to do.’
‘Tell him to go kiss ass,’ said Elliott. ‘This thing is going to fuck up and it’s going to fuck up over Charlie Muffin.’
‘I’d have argued the same way as he did, in the same circumstances,’ said Yamada, more reasonably. ‘I wouldn’t take second string in a British set-up, not without trying to make some sort of independent assessment.’
‘From the sloppy way he behaved when he arrived today, I’m surprised he thought of it,’ said Levine.
‘Sloppy is a good word,’ said Fish, who had been the airport surveillance. ‘I’ve seen bag women on 42nd Street in better shape than he’s in.’
‘Think he meant it, about pulling out?’ asked Dale. ‘We’d be in bad shape if he did. Don’t forget what Kozlov said.’
Fredericks looked irritably at the man, not needing any reminder. ‘I think he meant it,’ he said. ‘What I don’t know is if he’s got the authority. Which is why I’m checking. Be great, to slap the cocky bastard into line.’
Harkness handed the Director the enquiry that had come from Langley and said: ‘That’s directly contrary to what you insisted. There
‘I know what I said,’ smiled Wilson. That morning he’d brought some Anne Cocker floribunda from the garden in Hampshire. He took one of the roses from the vase on his desk, sniffing it reflectively. ‘Charlie’s only been in Tokyo a matter of hours,’ he said. ‘That’s not enough time for anyone to decide whether to abort or nor. He’s bargaining.’
‘He should have made contact,’ insisted Harkness.
‘Maybe the circumstances didn’t allow it,’ said Wilson.
‘Shall I advise Langley he hasn’t got the authority?’
‘Good God, no!’ said Wilson, hurriedly. ‘Tell them he has.’
‘But that’s …’
‘Backing our man in the field,’ finished Wilson.
‘There are some other things I’d like to discuss with you,’ said Harkness, starting to open Charlie’s accounts file he’d brought with him to the Director’s office.
‘Later,’ said Wilson. ‘Not now.’
The deputy director decided he had been right in alerting Cartright.
Not having to pay for his own laundry was a perk of foreign travel. Charlie included for pressing the more creased of his two suits – the one that had been a give-away bargain in the January sales with the green check in the trousers only slightly different from that in the jacket – and gave himself odds of 6-4 that Harkness would knock it off his expenses. Charlie was still pissed off, getting caught out the previous evening. Only temporary, he thought, a private promise to himself.
He left unhurriedly, increasing his pace immediately outside, going at once to the lifts serving the shopping area. He managed to get himself into the corner with his back to the wall, enabling him to see everyone who entered after him. Three Asian men, a Caucasian couple and a man by himself, Charlie noted. The single man disembarked on the first floor and two more Japanese got in after another couple talking animatedly in what Charlie thought to be German, but wasn’t sure. The new arrivals filled the elevator, so the grouping stayed until it reached the ground floor. Charlie made as if to emerge, behind everyone else, but then mimed the pocket-patting charade of
