Comrade Charlie

and scalded everything in the flat and finally scoured herself in the hottest bath in which she could bear to immerse herself, trying to wash away the feeling of being befouled.

And cried.

The state of the flat had been the excuse that night. And for some nights after, but she couldn’t call upon it any more, not after all these weeks. Not that she wept so much, not any longer. Only when she let herself think back to those nights: remembered the tenderness and the words they’d said to each other, the promises made but not kept. Like now. Natalia felt her eyes begin to fill but didn’t care because she was quite alone in the apartment, as she was resigned to being for ever.

‘Why didn’t you come, Charlie?’ she sobbed aloud. ‘Oh dear God why didn’t you come!’

49

The Soviet publicity surrounding the launch was brilliantly engineered and manipulated. The Foreign Minister’s announcement in Geneva created the furore that Moscow anticipated, although it continued longer than expected, with Western analysts and commentators concluding that Moscow was at least ten years further advanced in its space technology than had been previously imagined and that the gap was probably too great for the United States to catch up. The Kremlin capitalized upon the reaction, staging a press conference for the world media at which the Foreign Minister expanded upon his initial announcement, pressing the fact that the Soviet Star Wars platform was entirely defensive – as America had always insisted theirs to be – and that its being put into space in no way affected or reversed the scaling down of missiles and weaponry already agreed and undertaken by the Warsaw Pact nations.

There was a frenzied response to the invitation to attend the actual launch, which was organized to obtain the maximum international impact. Satellites enabled television pictures to be transmitted live and worldwide, and the lift-off of the shuttle to take the missile into its two-hundred-mile-high geostationary orbit timed specifically to coincide with peak viewing time, particularly in America. As well as permitting full photographic facilities at the lift- off gantry, complete access was also made available inside the space control centre, to enable the launch to be followed up to orbiting height, where television cameras aboard the shuttle were to show the moment of launch and the establishment of the missile into its planned position in space.

The lift-off went faultlessly on a brilliantly clear day.

The shuttle arced off into its trajectory, with simultaneous translations into English of the crew conversation and after a momentary, snow-like flicker of interference the television pictures beamed back from space became perfectly clear.

The missile housing being disgorged from the belly of the shuttle looked remarkably like some space animal giving birth, which was how at least two television commentators described it. For the first few seconds it was hard to differentiate the platform from the shuttle but then, as it floated free, its shape became obvious.

It was about twenty yards from the mother ship when the explosion happened. One moment the television screens were filled with the picture of a square-shaped, box-like structure, the next it burst apart into a thousand fragments but in complete silence, which heightened the shock of its destruction. Then the television screens went blank.

‘Good God!’ said Wilson. Although he’d been expecting it – hoping for it – he still sounded shocked.

Charlie, who was in the room at Westminster Bridge Road with the Director General, watching the Soviet transmission, slowly released the pent-up breath. ‘It worked,’ he said, relieved.

‘It’s difficult to believe that something as simple as the grease of ordinary hand cream could prevent the bonding of the carbon fibre sheets and create an airbubble void that would expand and explode like that in the vacuum of space, isn’t it?’ said Wilson.

‘But it did,’ said Charlie gratefully. ‘It did.’

A Biography of Brian Freemantle

Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain’s most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.

Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the Daily Mail, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city’s orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle of newspapers.

Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with Charlie M. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carre, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series, The Blind Run, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is Red Star Rising (2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.

In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle’s other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia’s organized crime bureau.

Freemantle lives and works in London, England.

A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.

Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.

Freemantle’s parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.

Brian Freemantle and his wife, Maureen, on their wedding day. They were married on December 8, 1956, in Southampton, where both were born and spent their childhoods. Although they attended the same schools, they did