most likely.’
‘Sorry to hear it,’ said Charlie.
‘Causing havoc,’ said the Director.
‘I’ve heard that it does.’
‘Some of the stems will die.’ The Director, at the windowsill, leaned absent-mindedly downwards, massaging his stiff leg.
‘Sorry,’ said Charlie again, unable to think of anything else.
‘It’s Islay malt, isn’t it?’ said the Director, limping towards the drink cabinet, enclosed behind a bureau door.
‘For preference,’ accepted Charlie.
‘Never could acquire a taste for whisky,’ said Wilson, with the sadness of someone confessing a failing. ‘Pink gin man, myself. The Russian isn’t saying anything, you know.’
‘I didn’t expect him to.’
‘The photograph of Koretsky’s surveillance that day in Primrose Hill is a positive link to Moscow,’ said Wilson. ‘And there is the corroborative affidavit from Novikov.’
‘We’d have to move against Koretsky, if he were identified as the London
The Director nodded. ‘That’s the bugger: means MI5 would have to spend a lot of time identifying his replacement. But the Cabinet feeling is that causing as big a sensation in Switzerland as possible is worth the sacrifice.’
‘Probably,’ concurred Charlie.
‘If you hadn’t got him, the whole thing would have been put down to a suicide assault by a Palestinian zealot: there would not have been any proof of Soviet involvement because all the hollow-nosed ammunition flattens out and is impossible to differentiate forensically.’ Wilson hesitated and said in begrudgingly professional acknowledgement: ‘You’ve got to give them credit, the bloody Russians are nothing if not devious.’
‘There was a second plot,’ announced Charlie, abruptly. ‘Or maybe it was the first, I don’t know. The Israelis set the whole thing up. Let the woman run, to wreck everything. Whether the Russians had been involved or not really wouldn’t have mattered a damn.’
Wilson turned, the whisky bottle suspended over Charlie’s glass, but not pouring. He said: ‘I think you’d better explain that.’
Charlie did, not once trying to disguise or gloss over his own mistakes. By the time he finished Wilson was nodding. He finished making the drinks, handed Charlie his glass and said: ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ responded Charlie.
‘Levy admitted that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bastards!’
‘That’s what I said. Several times.’
‘Despite everything, you still did well,’ praised the older man.
‘I want to do something more.’
‘What?’
Charlie told him, in as much detail as he’d given in the earlier explanation and when he finished Wilson said: ‘Why?’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s no benefit for us,’ protested the Director, objectively.
‘Yes there is,’ disputed Charlie. ‘Levy was right, saying that I was the flavour of the month with the CIA. It would make them more grateful: not to me personally, but to the service as a whole.’
‘Maybe,’ said Wilson, doubtfully.
‘People died,’ said Charlie. ‘People needn’t have died.’
‘No,’ accepted Wilson. ‘No, they didn’t have to let it go to that extreme.’
‘So can I go to Washington?’
Wilson gazed for several moments down into his glass, like a fortune teller trying to forecast an event from the arrangement of tea leaves. Then he looked up and said: ‘Why not? Let’s strengthen the bonds of Atlantic friendship.’
‘Thank you,’ said Charlie.
Wilson put his glass down positively on the desk in front of him and said: ‘You passed your positive vetting.’
‘I’m grateful for your telling me so soon,’ said Charlie.
‘You were worried?’
‘One never likes having one’s honesty and integrity doubted.’
‘Were you surprised that one was ordered?’
‘Such decisions are always at the discretion of senior management,’ said Charlie, feeling safety in formality.
Wilson sat in silence, observing Charlie over the rim of his glass. He said: ‘You made application for a bank overdraft? For ?10,000?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, cautiously.
‘Harkness has refused to provide the necessary reference.’
‘Oh,’ said Charlie.
‘And you’ve been passed over, in the last two grading assessments?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve written a memorandum today correcting that,’ said the Director. ‘You’re upgraded, with backdated effect from 1 January. The salary increase is ?5,000 a year.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Charlie was uneasy.
‘I want you to tell me something.’
‘What?’
‘Do you think I am a stupid man?’
‘I don’t understand, sir.’
‘Do you think I am a stupid man?’ insisted Wilson.
‘No, sir.’
‘Good,’ said the Director. ‘Now I am going to tell you something. I think you knew that any overdraft application like that needed a reference and that it would be referred to the Deputy Director. I think you knew regulations automatically required an investigation and a vetting procedure, which would declare you one hundred per cent clean. I think you knew that I would be involved in discussions upon it and that during those discussions the oversight of your promotion would become known to me … you got anything to say about that?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You never wanted a bloody overdraft in the first place, did you? You were playing silly buggers, making sure I got to know you’d had a rotten deal.’
‘Still nothing to say, sir.’
‘Don’t you ever try a trick like that again, Charlie. I don’t care who else you try to con – and I know you con everybody – but don’t you ever try it again with me, you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Now get out!’
‘Yes, sir.’ All in all, decided Charlie, descending to his own office on the lower level, it really hadn’t been a bad day. Not a bad day at all.
The bodies had been kept in Geneva for the necessary autopsy and forensic examination and Clayton Anderson re-routed his return from Venice personally to escort the coffins and the widows home, to the United States.
There was a full military guard of honour when the coffins, both draped with the Stars and Stripes, were loaded aboard the aircraft and the President stood bowed-headed with his arms around Martha Bell and Barbara Giles. During the days of medical delay Martha had managed to buy a black mourning suit and a black hat, complete
