Charlie wondered about mentioning the scratch and then decided it could be Harkness’s ulcer irritant for that day.
He reached Geneva’s Cointrin airport by mid-afternoon and made himself immediately known to the security colonel there. The man checked, as Charlie suggested, with the central intelligence unit in Bern, who confirmed his arrival had already been signalled from London and together they questioned the four immigration officers who had been on duty on the night of the 13th. One man said he thought the face in the photograph looked familiar but admitted when pressed that he could not swear to it. Charlie hopefully toured all the car rental desks at the airport but there was no recognition from any of them.
The colonel suggested the Beau-Rivage because it was the best hotel and Charlie, who hadn’t been to Geneva before, accepted the choice. The man insisted upon driving him into the city. As they drew up outside the hotel on the Quai de Mont Blanc the colonel, who had not been given a reason for the order to assist Charlie in everything, said: ‘This man likely to cause us a lot of trouble?’
‘If he’s who I think he is, more trouble than you’d believe,’ said Charlie.
Thirty minutes later Charlie stood at the window of his lake-fronting room, never to know that four days earlier Vasili Nikolaevich Zenin had enjoyed the same view from the hotel’s restaurant and later strolled into the town along the quai that Charlie could see below.
Charlie turned back into the room, gazing down at the picture which was becoming bent and cracked with use. ‘Got something else on you,’ he said. ‘You’re a rude bugger. Silly mistake to have made, sunshine, silly mistake to have made. But thank Christ you did.’
And then he remembered his own mistake and thought, Shit! He’d forgotten to ask those restaurants that knew him to agree those phoney receipts were theirs when Harkness’s men came around, as Charlie knew they would.
Roger Giles was grateful the marriage appeared to be ending amicably because he’d never been able to understand how people who had once loved could end up hating. And he and Barbara had loved each other once: gone as far as to talk about how sad it was that other people got divorced, never imagining it could happen to them. He still found it difficult to realize that it was happening. Or why.
It had been Barbara’s suggestion they stop sleeping together, although sex had not been the problem between them. Barbara stood in the doorway of his single bedroom at the Alexandria house, watching him pack.
‘Any idea when you’ll be back?’ Like the wives of all intelligence operatives, she never talked in specifics, like she never referred openly to his being a member of the CIA or blamed the Agency for what had collapsed between them, although she considered his commitment to the Agency the reason.
‘November 30,’ he said. ‘Definitely no later than 1 December.’
‘Unusual to be so definite.’
‘Positive dates this time.’
‘I can go ahead with lawyers’ appointments then?’
Giles hesitated and then said: ‘Sure.’
‘If I need to arrange anything on your behalf, can I do that too?’
‘Certainly,’ said Giles, quicker this time. ‘I’ve settled all the bills and there’s almost a thousand dollars in the checking account. Draw whatever you want.’
‘Thanks,’ said Barbara. They were each going to miss each other an awful lot, she knew. Somehow it all seemed so unnecessary, like the nonsense over the bedrooms. She could not think now why she had insisted upon it.
Chapter Fourteen
Charlie met the head of Swiss counter-intelligence in a tall-windowed, polish-smelling office on the corner of Spitalgasse, in the cuckoo-clock part of Bern. It was a ‘safe’ house, away from the headquarters of the service and Charlie admired the caution. But then, he thought, caution was a Swiss characteristic. The man’s name was Rene Blom and although he apparently had the rank of brigadier he wore civilian clothes, a grey suit with a waistcoat that appeared tight, like a corset. Blom was a stiff, reserved man, with an unusual and almost unsettling appearance. His hair and eyebrows were completely white but naturally, not through age: Charlie guessed the man to be no more than forty years old. A pink face contributed to the impression of albino but his eyes, behind square-lensed, rimless glasses, were sharply blue.
‘London marked the advisory cable highest priority,’ said Blom. And should have sent a senior official, he thought, offended.
‘I think it is,’ said Charlie. He recounted the story chronologically, from the moment of Novikov’s defection, going into detail about the debriefing and his assumptions from it and offering the photograph to Blom when he reached the part about the drop in Primrose Hill. Blom glanced at it, very briefly. When Charlie got to the Swissair identification at London airport Blom asked for the names of the airline staff, noting them on a pad in front of him. There was already a notation and Charlie wondered if it were the name of the immigration official who’d made the uncertain recognition at the airport the previous night. It would be basic trade-craft for the security chief to make what independent checks of his own were possible.
After Charlie finished Blom sat without any response for several moments, tapping his teeth with the thin silver pencil with which he had taken his brief notes. At last he said: ‘Which do you think, the Middle East conference or the disarmament talks?’
‘I don’t have a clue,’ said Charlie.
Blom picked on the word. ‘Clues seem to be in short supply,’ he said. The other man’s appearance, as well as inferior rank, was also offensive.
‘We’ve got more now than we had a few days ago,’ said Charlie, defensively. What the fuck else did the awkward sod expect, with what he’d had to work from? Miracles cost extra.
‘The Middle East conference starts first,’ reminded Blom.
‘So we’ve got just over two weeks,’ said Charlie.
‘For what?’
Charlie frowned, surprised by the question. ‘To stop it happening, of course.’
Blom nodded, reflectively. He said: ‘Switzerland enjoys its reputation of neutrality.’
And that of being the world’s moneybox, thought Charlie; Harkness would be at home here. Unsure of the direction of the conversation, Charlie said: ‘I would imagine it does.’
‘So nothing can be allowed to endanger that neutrality.’
‘No,’ said Charlie, still cautious.
‘The sort of episode you’re suggesting could do just that.’
Snow-head appeared very fond of stating the obvious, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Which is why my service gave you the warning they did, within an hour of the identification. And why I am here.’
He would not be lectured at by this peculiar man, thought Blom. He said: ‘We have already expressed our gratitude.’
Charlie did not get the impression he was making much headway. He said: ‘There’s a simple way of avoiding the problem arising.’
‘How?’
Charlie gestured towards the photograph. ‘Publish it,’ he suggested. ‘Issue prints to all the newspapers, with a story saying he’s a terrorist you’re hunting. Once the Soviets know we’re on to them they’ll scrap the whole thing. They won’t have any alternative.’
For several moments Blom stared across the desk at him wide-eyed. Then he said, obviously incredulous: ‘Are you serious!’
‘Quite serious,’ said Charlie.
‘Announce to the world that there’s a terrorist somewhere loose in Switzerland!’
