Comrade Charlie

position, a bystander to others gaining the glory he’d once seen to be his. Deserved to be his.

Dismayed though he was by the twist of events, Losev remained too professional to allow his despair to affect what he had to do, peripheral or lowly though he considered it to be. He personally supervised the imposed surveillance upon Charlie Muffin, monitoring the Vauxhall apartment and the journeys to and from Westminster Bridge Road and to a pub on the Thames embankment called The Pheasant and to a mews house in Chelsea which the convenient Voters’ Register showed to be owned by a Mr and Mrs Paul Nolan.

And when Berenkov’s specific instructions arrived, Losev again took personal charge, rehearsing everything that had to be accomplished before moving.

The entry into the Vauxhall flat and what had to be deposited there was obviously the essential part of the operation so Losev decided that was where his presence had to be. He divided the operatives into two groups, himself with the KGB break-in team in one, six field officers in the other. They stayed together on the Thursday morning outside the Vauxhall block until Charlie left, to be picked up at once by the field officers. They, in turn, divided again. Three rotated foot surveillance on Charlie while the others followed to Westminster Bridge Road in a radio-transmitter-equipped car from which they could warn Losev, wearing an ear-piece receiver, if Charlie left the headquarters building with the possibility of returning to Vauxhall before the break-in squad completed what they had to do.

Such was the degree of caution Losev observed, although what had to be accomplished inside Charlie’s flat was not going to take a great deal of time, because like everything else Losev had planned ahead.

Losev insisted his team remain in their cars until he got the message that Charlie had entered the office building. And then initially he dispatched only one lock-picking expert into the apartment block, unwilling to risk arousing the suspicion of another resident or a caretaker with the entry of any larger group. The rest entered at staged, five-minute intervals: Losev was the first, so he could supervise everything when they arrived inside the flat to ensure their entry and departure remained completely undetected.

Individual responsibilities had been assigned before they’d left the embassy. The locksmith’s function finished with the actual entry, although the man remained just inside the door and alert for any outside activity, like an attempted entry by a cleaner or a services inspector, such as a meter reader. Against any such surprise the man began fitting rubber wedges beneath the door and rubber-cushioned clamps at the two top corners. Another positioned himself at once at the window overlooking the street, a guard against the unexpected return of Charlie Muffin if the man succeeded in leaving Westminster Bridge Road unseen by the observers in the radio car. The third man, Andrei Aistov, was to work with Losev. Before they began Losev warned the inside group not to touch or disturb anything that didn’t need to be touched.

‘Although it would hardly matter,’ he said, gazing around the disordered room. ‘This place is more like some sort of nest than a home.’

‘What’s so important about this man?’ queried Aistov.

Losev shrugged. ‘Something we haven’t been told.’ Messenger boy, he thought again bitterly. ‘Let’s get started.’

‘Where?’ asked Aistev.

‘The bedroom,’ said Losev at once. ‘That’s where people hide money they shouldn’t have.’

The station chief followed Aistov from the living room. It was Aistov who found the place in the skirting board, a break in the panelling where an additional piece of wood had been inserted to complete the length running along the wall against which the bed and a small dressing table abutted.

‘I don’t want the slightest mark.’

Aistov looked up sourly. ‘There aren’t going to be any.’

The man lay full length on the floor, the bed eased carefully away to allow him room to work. The fill-in boarding was held in place by four screws. Aistov worked patiently but surely, testing the resistance of each fastening before unscrewing it, not wanting the screwdriver to slip and noticeably score the screwhead. He had trouble with only one screw but he was able to release it by gently tapping the screwdriver handle, jarring it loose. Behind, when the panel came free, there was a hollowed gap about six inches deep.

‘Perfect,’ assessed Aistov. From his pocket he took ?1,000, all in ?50 notes and all contained in a Russian- manufactured envelope, together with one of the keys to the safe-custody facility in King William Street. After feeling around, to guarantee there were no unseen holes or spaces down which the cache could drop and be lost, he placed everything carefully inside. He said: ‘It could be a terrible waste of money.’

‘Moscow’s loss,’ reminded Losev.

Aistov replaced the panelling with the care with which he’d taken it out and stood back for Losev’s examination. The man lay as close as Aistov had, gazing intently not just at the metal screws but at the disturbed wood, finally straightening up and nodding. ‘A good job,’ he praised.

From the bedroom Losev and Aistov went directly into Charlie’s cluttered kitchen. They found the electric meter in a cupboard alongside an overcrowded sink and Losev stood back while the other man squeezed in to dismantle a casing panel as gently as he’d worked earlier in the bedroom.

‘Is there sufficient room?’ asked Losev, unable from where he stood to see past the other KGB man.

‘Just,’ guessed Aistov. From his pocket the man took the one-time cipher pad and taped it tightly against the inside of the casing section, hefting it in his hand to gauge the additional thickness he had created. Satisfied, he inched it back into its housing, cautious to avoid the obstruction interfering with the working mechanism. It went home without any halting blockage and as he tightened the butterfly screws to secure it into position Aistov said to his supervisor: ‘This will bring it even further from any moving parts.’

‘Let’s be sure,’ insisted Losev. Still unable to squeeze into the meter cupboard himself, the rezident gazed around the kitchen, seeking a site for the third item to be left in Charlie’s flat, smiling as the ideal spot presented itself.

‘It’s fine,’ came a muffled voice. ‘The dial arms are revolving exactly as they should.’

‘Let me see,’ insisted Losev.

The technician stood back to give Losev room. The rezident squinted at the unmarked meter, wrinkling his nose at the damp, undersink smells of the space into which he was jammed, offended by them. The arms spun around the faces of the dials, as the technician had assured him they did. Losev backed out and said: ‘It’s all going remarkably easily.’

‘Why shouldn’t it?’ asked Aistov. ‘What about the micro-dot?’

Losev pointed to the calendar on the inside of the kitchen door: the illustration for this month was a nakedly splayed, hugely busted woman with a wisp of chiffon draped to conceal her sex.

Aistov said: ‘I’ve never known a woman with a body like that.’

‘Not many men have,’ agreed Losev. ‘You choose: what month?’

‘August,’ decided Aistov. He hesitated. Then he said: ‘The second Friday: it’s my mother’s birthday.’

This time Losev did the work. He carried everything in a box that fitted easily into his jacket pocket. He extracted it and settled at the kitchen table for the initial preparation. He took the dot from its protective plastic container with the special pointed-arm tweezers which he held in his left hand to apply the adhesive with the single-fibre brush in his right. When he nodded that he was ready Aistov took down the calendar and turned to the month of August. His hand trembling slightly from the concentrated strain, Losev lowered the dot to fit in the spot designated by his companion: it did so perfectly. Losev tamped it firmly into position and Aistov hung it back on the door. Losev stood back about two yards and said: ‘It’s absolutely undetectable.’

The breasts of the August pin-up were less pendulous but her sex was quite visible. Aistov said: ‘I prefer this one.’

‘Could be mother and daughter,’ said Losev. ‘Let’s put it back like it was.’

Aistov returned the calendar to its original reading and followed the rezident back into the main room. The locksmith was at his post near the door and the other man was at the window, as they had left him. To the locksmith Losev said: ‘Free the door; it’s time to go.’

They left as they’d arrived, one by one, Losev being the last to be sure everything was secured and left exactly as it has been when they entered.

The message and the time of the promised callback were waiting for Losev when he reached the embassy. He responded at once, forcing the unavoidable anger back as he drove through Kensington to the ‘safe’ house and its telephone which Blackstone had as his contact point.