The Run Around

it was a very weak excuse. He said: ‘There is somewhere I have to go. To an apartment.’

‘Yes,’ she said, expectantly. Ask me, she thought: please ask me!

‘Would you come?’

‘You know I will.’

‘I want you.’

‘I want you, too. Very much.’

‘It’s not far.’

‘When we leave would you walk close behind me?’

‘Why?’

‘There might be a mark on my skirt.’

They sat apart in the taxi, savouring a pleasure by denying it to themselves. They did not talk, either. He took her arm after paying the cab off in the Rue du Vidollet and he felt her shiver and they were hurrying when they reached the apartment block, off Colombettes. The vestibule was deserted and so was the elevator – where again they stood apart – and Zenin was sure they entered the apartment unobserved by anyone. Inside neither could wait. He snatched at her and she grabbed back at him, pulling off his clothes as fast as he tried to undress her and they made love the first time on the floor just inside the entrance, Zenin still half wearing his shirt. They climaxed almost at once and together and he left her lying there while he hurriedly explored the apartment to find a bedroom. He led her there and they made love again, twice, but more calmly now, exploring one another, finding the secret, private spots, each wanting to please the other.

‘Wonderful,’ Sulafeh gasped, the last time. ‘You’re wonderful.’

‘So are you: fantastic,’ said Zenin. He wanted to make love to her again, immediately, and knew he would be able to. He wondered if his excitement were hardened by realizing that in a few days’ time he was going to kill her.

Charlie missed it the first time, picking out the significance only on the second, comparable study of the logs. Determined to be sure of everything, he caught the afternoon train to Bern and walked several times around the streets bordering the Soviet Embassy on Brunnadernain, expertly studying all the overlooking buildings to isolate the observation points from which the Swiss Watchers would maintain their surveillance. Although official checks were still necessary, Charlie was sure he knew what the answers would be, and that he was not mistaken.

‘Fuck it!’ he said, to himself. ‘Too fucking late again!’

Back in Geneva he telephoned David Levy in advance of the Swiss counter-intelligence chief, curious to know if the Israeli had spotted the same inconsistency as he had. As a test, Charlie let Levy lead the conversation. The Mossad chief mentioned it at once.

‘Have you told Blom yet?’ asked Charlie.

‘No. Have you?’

‘I want to make absolutely sure, from the service people first.’

‘You’re wasting your time.’

‘It’s still got to be done,’ insisted Charlie. ‘Has there been any independent contact from the others?’

‘Giles called. Said he thinks it’s ridiculous to exclude you: he’s told Blom, apparently.’

Loved at last, thought Charlie. He said: ‘Did Giles see anything in the logs?’

‘If he did he hasn’t told me.’

‘Do you think they’ll accept this as positive evidence that the bastard is here somewhere?’

‘No,’ said Levy, at once. ‘And neither do I. It’s proof of something, perhaps. But not that he’s our man.’

‘You know what you’re all going to do!’ demanded Charlie, exasperated. ‘You’re all going to be pissing about trying to convince yourselves nothing’s wrong when the shooting starts!’

‘I do think we should meet tonight, instead of waiting until tomorrow, though,’ conceded the Israeli.

Charlie had been marked by two squads of the specially drafted Soviet Watchers when he walked past the embassy on Brunnadernain the second time and positively targeted on the third occasion by both. Between them the two groups managed five exposures and the photographs were included in that night’s diplomatic despatch from Bern to Moscow, under a priority designation so that instead of remaining overnight in Dzerzhinsky Square they were taken at once by special courier to Berenkov’s apartment in Kutuzovsky Prospekt.

The courier meant it was official and normally Valentina would have said nothing but she was abruptly conscious of her husband’s startled reaction.

‘Alexei Aleksandrovich!’ she exclaimed, alarmed. ‘What is it!’

‘Someone from the past,’ said Berenkov. He remembered his wife had met Charlie Muffin, during the Moscow episode, but decided against mentioning the name.

The special meeting in Geneva was already under way when Berenkov summoned his emergency session in Moscow.

Chapter Twenty-two

‘So your people didn’t need any specific instruction!’ accused Charlie. The rudeness was intentional: he wanted to stir one of them – or more hopefully all of them – into some sort of reaction.

‘I don’t think it is as indicative as Charlie does,’ said Levy, ‘but it’s certainly curious.’

‘I think so too,’ endorsed Giles, pleased he had isolated the inconsistency like the other two.

‘There might be an explanation different from that you are reaching,’ tried Blom. He was burning with impotent anger.

Charlie tossed the log records on to the desk of the Swiss counter-intelligence chief and said: ‘Look at it! The entry of a workman carrying a toolbag is recorded at ten-thirty in the morning: they actually wrote it down for Christ’s sake!’

‘I know what they wrote down,’ said Blom.

‘So where’s the matching entry of his leaving!’ demanded Charlie. ‘You trying to suggest that the Soviets have kidnapped a Swiss workman and have still got him in the embassy!’

‘They could have missed the departure,’ suggested the American. ‘A workman is a pretty normal sort of arrival and departure, after all.’

‘That’s exactly what it is not!’ insisted Charlie. ‘It just seemed so to these Watchers and it shouldn’t have done; they need their arses kicked. The Russians never employ local labour for any work inside their embassies. It’s their standard trade-craft to have everything done by Russians: to fly people in from Moscow, if necessary.’ He hesitated, for effect, then he said: ‘And just in case they changed the habit of a lifetime I checked, with every service agency I could think of: telephone, electricity, gas, everyone. There is no record of any call to the Soviet embassy at Brunnadernain: I asked about the past, too. They never get called.’

‘You think he came out with that mass exit, recorded at lunchtime?’ asked Levy, referring to his own copy of the Watchers’ log.

‘It’s the most obvious answer,’ said Charlie. He looked at the Swiss intelligence chief. ‘And your Watchers did not think that was significant enough to report specially either, did they?’

‘There appears to have been some slackness,’ conceded Blom, with no choice. ‘I still think it would be wrong to twist it to fit the circumstances.’

‘I’m not twisting it to fit any circumstance,’ argued Charlie. ‘It’s actually got a pattern. He almost beat us by merging into the background in England and he beat us here by merging into the background again. It was actually a mistake on his part.’

‘What about a different exit?’ said Giles.

‘I went to Bern and looked at the embassy for myself,’ said Charlie, unaware of his own mistake. ‘They’re all covered.’

‘I think the squad on duty when the workman went in should be interrogated to see if we can get a description that matches the one we’ve already got,’ said Levy.