The following day he returned to Soho, enquiring about replies to his advertisement. The girl said one man had enquired if the boat were white, which was the arranged acknowledgement that an agent from the embassy had seen his signal. Zenin said it was green but that he wanted to withdraw the card anyway, because he’d managed to dispose of the boat elsewhere. She reminded him that the previous day she’d made it clear the four pounds was not refundable and Zenin assured her he was not seeking one. She said they’d always be willing to put a display card in their case if he had anything else to sell and Zenin said he would remember.
Zenin walked unhurriedly back through Soho, isolating four whores already plying for lunchtime trade. Would there be any sexual involvement with Sulafeh Nabulsi, he wondered. It was the briefest of thoughts, because he had many other things to arrange. There was the sports gear and the cassette playing equipment to buy. And the bicycle hire to be arranged. But most important, the preparation for the false trail, in Switzerland. From a call-box he telephoned Swissair advanced reservations, explaining he wanted to accompany a friend flying from Geneva to New York on the 16th but wasn’t sure of the flight. When the clerk asked for the name he said Schmidt, but indistinctly, in case he was out of luck. He wasn’t. The girl said there was already a Klaus Schmidt reserved in the computer for their midday flight that day and did Zenin want to confirm his seat. The Russian said he would have to call back and hung up. How useful was the universal name of Smith, he thought.
The highest secrecy accorded the assassination mission meant that all communication was absolutely restricted, with each recipient having personally to sign a receipt and any such communication having to emanate from Berenkov, whose signature accompanied and authorized every despatch.
The notification from England of Zenin’s undetected arrival in London arrived two days after Zenin’s disembarkation from the trawler in Ullapool – the word ‘catalogue’ again being used to describe the Russian – and after alerting the KGB chairman and the ambitious Mikhail Lvov, Berenkov sat gazing down at the incoming message, still unconvinced it was the right decision to proceed with the operation, irrespective of any political importance attached to it or the amount of time and effort already expended in its planning. Berenkov was curious that Kalenin, of whose caution he was very aware, had not taken the prudent course and abandoned the operation. Could there be a reason he didn’t know? The KGB chairman was a devious man who in the past had allowed apparently straightforward missions to be run on several levels. If there were a secret reason, it would be for Kalenin’s protection. What about his own?
Berenkov accepted there was at this stage very little he could attempt. But it was essential he evolve something and in time, if necessary, to turn Zenin back when the assassin approached the embassy in Bern, which was the only point of necessary contact with a Soviet installation that was being allowed the man.
Berenkov took a long time preparing the instruction, wanting the checks to be made properly but without panic. The first transmission was to Switzerland and second to England. Copies were naturally sent to both Mikhail Lvov and Valery Kalenin.
The call came from the KGB chairman the following day. ‘Lvov is complaining that you are unreasonably interfering,’ disclosed Kalenin.
‘Just to you?’
‘I suspect he’s going higher but unofficially. He believes he has important friends,’ said Kalenin.
‘What should I do?’ said Berenkov, deferring to the other man’s expertise in headquarters survival.
‘Nothing,’ said Kalenin at once. ‘Not yet.’
Chapter Five
It had been late when he got back from Sussex the previous night, practically pub closing time, and so Charlie kept the car instead of returning it to the pool, which regulations required. In the morning he found the Mercedes insignia had been ripped off the bonnet.
‘Shit,’ he said. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all to buy a car of his own. He wondered if the bank manager’s letter had arrived yet.
The summons was for ten o’clock and Charlie intended getting to the department an hour earlier, with a lot to do beforehand, but the traffic was worse than he had expected and so he was delayed. He still hadn’t finished all the Foreign Office requests by the time he should have left for the confrontation with the Director. He worked on. At fifteen minutes past Alison Bing came on from Wilson’s direct line and said: ‘It’s no good hiding: we know you’re there.’
‘Ten more minutes,’ said Charlie.
‘Now!’ she said.
It only took Charlie five minutes to complete the last message, to Moscow, and he left in what was for him a run which with his feet he never normally attempted. As he went by the window he saw that the upside-down training shoes weren’t in the courtyard rubbish any more.
Sir Alistair Wilson was sitting formally behind his desk, which he rarely did and there was none of the personal affability of which Charlie was usually conscious. Harkness was in his customary chair, prim hands on prim knees, making no attempt to hide the expression of satisfaction: Charlie thought he looked like a spectator at a Roman arena waiting for the thumbs down. Attacking at once, the deputy said: ‘You were specifically told ten o’clock.’
‘One or two things came up,’ said Charlie. ‘Sorry.’
‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing!’ erupted Wilson. The complete whiteness of his hair was heightened by his red-faced anger.
‘About what, precisely?’ Charlie hadn’t intended the question to sound insolent but it did and he was aware of Harkness’s sharp intake of breath.
‘You have caused absolute bloody chaos,’ accused the Director, hands clasped for control in front of him on the desk. ‘In my name – but without any reference or authority from me – you’ve demanded – not politely asked but
‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie. ‘I have.’
‘Have you any idea of the manpower involved?’ said Wilson.
‘Or the overtime payments?’ came in Harkness, predictably.
‘Quite a lot,’ said Charlie, answering both questions.
‘MI5 is not our service,’ lectured Wilson. ‘When we want co-operation we ask, politely. We don’t insist. And we don’t make requests which will tie up every Watcher they’ve got and require extra men being seconded. Do you know what their Director said, when he complained! That Britain’s entire counter-intelligence service was at the moment working for
‘I hope they are,’ said Charlie.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Harkness.
Instead of answering the man Charlie said to the Director: ‘But
Wilson frowned, momentarily not replying. Then he said: ‘Yes. I wasn’t going to cancel without knowing what was happening, but by God you’d better have a good explanation – a bloody good explanation.’
Charlie sighed, relieved. ‘I’m glad,’ he said.
‘And not just an explanation for that,’ said Harkness. ‘We’ve studied the full transcript of your interview with Novikov.’
‘And?’ lured Charlie. Come on, you penny-pinching arsehole, he thought.
‘Appalling,’ judged Harkness. ‘Unnecessarily antagonistic, putting at risk any relationship that might have been built up between the man and other debriefers. And absolutely unproductive.’
‘Absolutely unproductive?’ coaxed Charlie. He didn’t just want Harkness to dig a hole for himself; he wanted a damned great pit, preferably with sharpened spikes at the bottom.
‘Not one worthwhile thing emerged from the entire meeting,’ insisted Harkness. Confident enough to try sarcasm, he said: ‘And for whose benefit was the whisky episode!’
