See Charlie Run

really needs glasses, then the opportunity for an appearance change is still there. He could use contact lenses and even alter the proper colour of his eyes.’

‘Why!’ demanded Fredericks, annoyed there was more. ‘What’s the point of debating disguise! The man isn’t trying to hide from us.’

The point was intentionally to cause an apparent side issue to lure the other man into disclosing everything there was to learn, but Charlie didn’t tell him that. Instead he said: ‘I would have thought that if this thing goes ahead the possibility of disguise might be pretty important to you.’

Fredericks swallowed, uncomfortable at the lapse. ‘Getting Kozlov out is our problem, not yours,’ he said, belligerently.

‘How tall?’ resumed Charlie.

‘Five ten.’

‘Weight?’

‘About 168 lbs,’ said Fredericks.

Charlie, who had never adjusted to the American weighing system, made the quick mental calculation: twelve stone. He said: ‘So what’s his appearance, average, heavy or what?’

‘Average.’

‘No gut?’ said Charlie, instinctively breathing in. ‘It’s possible, even though the weight is about right for the height.’

Fredericks shook his head. ‘He’s completely nondescript.’

Charlie decided that it was the first time the other man had said anything to indicate that Kozlov might be genuine. Fredericks, with his distinctive bulk, must find operational work difficult. But then, thought Charlie, in contradiction, he hadn’t isolated the man during the arrival-day surveillance. Subjugate the irritation! he told himself. He said: ‘He admits to being Executive Action?’

‘Yes,’ said Fredericks.

‘Did you take him through it?’

‘Through enough,’ said Fredericks.

Enough for you but not for me, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Tell me about it.’

‘It came out the first time,’ recalled Fredericks. ‘He always insists on stipulating the meeting places: sets out several so that we can’t stake them out properly and then chooses the one at which to make the contact …’

‘So he can check and ensure he’s not going to be jumped, cither by you or his own people …?’ clarified Charlie.

‘That’s the reason he gives.’

That was certainly professional, judged Charlie. ‘You were talking about the first meeting?’ he encouraged.

‘It was at Tsukuba, where the ‘85 Expo was held,’ resumed Fredericks. ‘Good choice. Crowded with people. He identified me …’

‘How?’ came in Charlie. It was a genuine and important question, but he also wanted to jolt the other man from the prepared, withholding delivery he suspected.

‘Part of his proving himself,’ said Fredericks. ‘Claims to know every Agency man on station here. The instruction was that I should simply tour the various stands and the exhibition site and wait for an approach … it came in a revolving theatre, in the Hitachi Pavilion …’

‘How?’ broke in Charlie again. ‘How did that instruction come, in the first place? How did the CIA learn Yuri Kozlov wanted to come across?’

Charlie Muffin was a bastard who didn’t deserve to be readmitted into any intelligence environment. But Fredericks realized the man wasn’t the jerk he’d accused him earlier of being. As he prepared to answer, Fredericks thought again how much the defection was his personal operation and felt a fresh surge of annoyance at the degree of cooperation that was being surrendered. He said: ‘It was direct, to me. There was a reception, at the Swiss embassy. Low-key affair that the ambassador didn’t even bother to attend. I only went for a drink. There was an anonymous note in my car, when I left.’

‘Wasn’t the car locked?’

Fredericks smiled, in further grudging admiration at Charlie’s attention to detail. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Kozlov seems to enjoy showing how good he is.’

Don’t we all, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Was the car alarmed?’

Fredericks nodded: ‘That too. He by-passed it. I checked with the guards. No one heard a thing.’

‘What did the note say?’ demanded Charlie.

‘Just that I was to go to the Expo site.’

‘No indication who it was from?’

‘No.’

‘Not even Russian?’

‘No.’

‘So why’d you go?’ said Charlie.

‘Because whoever it was who’d written it had got into a supposedly secure CIA car without anyone knowing about it,’ listed Fredericks. ‘Because whoever it was knew who I was; it was addressed to the CIA Resident. Because the word “Resident” was used, it had to be from someone who was in intelligence.’

‘All of which could have been setting you up.’

‘Wouldn’t you have gone?’

‘The note said something else,’ insisted Charlie. ‘It just didn’t say “Go to the site of Expo ’85”.’

Fredericks felt a renewed burst of anger at how easily the other man appeared to have backed him into a corner. ‘“I have killed and now I want freedom”,’ recited Fredericks. ‘That’s what it said.’

‘That the lot?’ insisted Charlie.

‘That was it,’ said Fredericks. ‘“I have killed and now I want freedom.” Expo site. 27 …’ He stopped and then added: “That indicated the date, February 27. The Swiss reception was on the 24th.’

It was coming, decided Charlie. Slowly – too slowly – but the snippets were there. Would there be enough, though, to build the sort of picture he wanted to see, to be satisfied? ‘Dramatic!’ he said.

‘Good enough to go,’ insisted Fredericks.

‘So it wasn’t at the first meeting you learned he was a killer?’ questioned Charlie. ‘You knew, from the note?’

‘If you want to be picky,’ sneered Fredericks.

‘I want to be picky,’ insisted Charlie. ‘So what happened, in the Hitachi Pavilion?’

‘I just wandered about,’ said Fredericks. ‘That first time he didn’t set out a route, like he has done since.’

More professionalism, recognized Charlie: the note could have been intercepted by someone other than Fredericks if Kozlov had been seen planting it, so the Russian would have needed as many escape routes as possible. He said: ‘Didn’t you have back-up?’

‘Two guys,’ said Fredericks. ‘That was the first occasion we got some photographs.’

‘If Kozlov knows the identity of every Agency person, he would have identified them.’

‘He did,’ admitted Fredericks. ‘He said he was glad I was a cautious person and just that time he would allow it, but in future it had to be one for one. Like I said, he enjoys proving himself.’

‘Has it been?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So you’ve endangered any crossing already?’

Despite the air conditioning, Fredericks was conscious of the perspiration moving down his back, a physical irritation to match the other he was feeling at having to make a further concession. ‘He didn’t tell me until the third meeting that he knew them all and I’m not convinced he does, anyway.’

‘You told me there have been four meetings,’ remembered Charlie. ‘Did you go to the fourth meeting by yourself?’

‘I told them all to be careful.’

‘How about the guy you sent after me?’ said Charlie. ‘Didn’t you tell him to be careful?’

‘Kiss my ass!’ said Fredericks, in a fresh eruption of anger. ‘I’m not answerable to you!’