evaluate the evening. Extremely productive, he decided: more so than he might have expected. A most important discovery – which he shouldn’t have needed her to point out to him – was that he had not been taken off active operational duties, like all the other instructors and stiff-backed men on duty at safe houses.

If he had been reduced in status, he would have been assigned to some building or place other than Westminster Bridge Road, every occupant of which was only ever on active duty. There was, of course, a counter-balance to that reassurance: that it was about to happen but delayed by departmental bureaucracy. Which in turn could be argued against, in his favour. Julia Robb wouldn’t have made the point if the transfer instruction had been issued but still blocked on its way through the pipeline, because she would have known about it. Charlie, always the optimist until the first falling slate warned him that the roof was caving in, decided it was in his favour. He hadn’t yet been officially dumped, so there was still a chance of his being restored to his old function. Maybe.

What else?

The hint about Patricia Elder was the most fascinating: and not just about the deputy Director-General, if he was reading the runes correctly. They work incredibly closely all the time, Julia had said. And then – despite the verbal gymnastics – had made it crystal clear that the lady was very much out of bounds. Which she would have been anyway to someone as lowly as him, but he didn’t think that had been the point of Julia’s remark. Still just a hint, Charlie cautioned himself again. But he did not think he was stretching it too far to wonder if Peter Miller, the very proper and upright Director-General, wasn’t unfastening those pin-striped trousers to throw a leg over the very proper but perhaps not always upright deputy Director-General.

It was very definitely a possibility to be looked at extremely closely: always a useful thing, to know as much as you could about potential enemies. Not that he regarded either of them as enemies, not yet.

He didn’t consider them friends, either. So it was well worth a little further enquiry.

Behind the locked doors of his Yasenevo office, further protected by the bright red ‘no entry’ light, Colonel Fyodor Tudin spread out for convenience the bulky file that he knew Natalia had already studied on the intriguing Englishman.

As Natalia Fedova’s immediate deputy, Tudin was aware of most ongoing operations, and there had been no indication, in any discussion or internal memorandum, of any official activity involving someone called Charles Edward Muffin: no indication of anything ongoing concerning England at all. Which left the possible conjecture that the woman was interested in someone with whom she had once been connected. And retained an interest.

Only a conjecture, Tudin warned himself. But wasn’t conjecture one of the central threads of basic intelligence? Unquestionably. It was definitely worth pursuing. But how? He couldn’t initiate any enquiry to London. It would be traceable, to him by name. And officially Western targets weren’t his responsibility anyway, so he had no explainable reason. The only obviously safe way would be to continue discreetly monitoring everything the bitch did. And be ready to move when she made a mistake.

Tudin felt the excitement warm through him at the thought of at last finding what he had been looking for.

Sixteen

Jeremy Snow’s initial reaction was a reason-blurring, breath-robbing anger which diminished only gradually, never completely leaving him. Neither did the asthma. He rejected outright the congratulatory cable and the warning messages as any sort of praise or concern for his safety. Instead he saw them – and the refusal for the second meeting he’d insisted upon – as London accepting Walter Foster’s bowel-opening hysteria rather than his own properly balanced assessment.

He’d come inches close to making the open accusation – actually considering calling Foster a coward – in the first few irrational hours, after waiting fruitlessly in the park and later collecting the London communications from the dead-letter drop. In his drop-delivered reply he accused both Foster and London of blatant over-reaction. He appreciated their congratulations and their evaluation of his worth. He was not, however, any longer prepared to operate under the conditions now being imposed. He wanted an entirely revised operational procedure and most particularly to work through someone different at the embassy. He had no intention, therefore, of doing anything further until he heard direct from London. Until the changes were agreed, he was temporarily terminating their relationship.

It was the letter he’d wanted and planned to write about Foster for a long time – even before the latest panic had brought everything to a head – but there still remained more frustration than satisfaction after he sent it.

In the days following the threat to quit, Snow’s anger subsided further and he had time to consider what it would mean. And concluded, with some concern, that it would mean a great deal to him not to go on.

He rationalized that his feelings did not in any way conflict with his more important vocation as a Jesuit. Rather, they were closely related. It was impossible, in any sense of the word, for him properly to function in his true vocation. It was a sham, lecturing on basic English to a varying handful of Chinese: as much a sham as Father Robertson remaining as caretaker of an echoing, dead church in which only the two of them could practise their faith and that – because of the old man’s fear – surreptitiously, afraid the simple act of praying might offend some unknown official into some unanticipated gesture of correction or punishment. So he’d come to see his second role as the only way he could operate as a soldier priest. At his theological college, his Jesuit tutor had frequently preached Busenbaum’s creed of the end justifying the means. Snow could relate to that: get something like spiritual comfort from it, in the sterile religious situation in which he was forced to exist. Until now, the secret work had justified his continuing there, with no one able to forecast what the end might be. But now Snow realized that by quitting he had precipitated that end. It was too late to change his mind – he didn’t want to change his mind, about working with Foster – but he didn’t want to stop an activity he believed gave some purpose to his being in Beijing.

His concern kept the anger bubbling, particularly with his conviction that London had already come down on Foster’s side.

Having demanded a decision direct from London, Snow daily visited the four use-at-random message drops in and around the Forbidden City for their reply. Each day they remained empty. He considered trying to prompt a response by leaving a message for Foster to collect and transmit to London, before accepting he’d already told them he would not any longer communicate through the man, who therefore probably wasn’t maintaining any checks upon the drops anyway. After a week Snow came close to eroding his threat against Foster by activating the emergency meeting procedure at the Taoist temple, but in the end he didn’t do that either: the warning cancellation of the second park meeting had prohibited any further public place encounters, so Foster would not have turned up, even if he’d monitored the demand.

Snow recognized that effectively he had, for the moment, been abandoned, as much by his own decision as by London’s. Nevertheless he knew when there would be a meeting. Only a week away there was a reception at the embassy for visiting British industrialists to which both he and Father Robertson had been invited.

It became a period of permanent impatience which Snow thought, however, he kept from becoming obvious. Despite their being thrown together in such a self-enclosed environment, from which a mutually dependent friendship might have been expected, Snow’s relationship with the head of mission had always been distantly formal, so Father Robertson did not notice the younger man drawing even further within himself. And the association with the current English students was even more formal: only twice did Snow come close to snapping at irritating mistakes and both times stopped himself.

He was glad of the restraint on the second occasion, because that was the day Mr Li made his unexpected visit.

Snow was not initially aware of the man’s presence, so he did not know how long he had been standing in the half-lit rear of the room. It was only after he’d almost shouted at a boy he’d taught for six months and who therefore should not have repeatedly confused the verb with an adjective in a practice sentence that Snow detected movement at the back. It had started off as a small class, and Snow thought it might have been a late arrival, momentarily holding back from interrupting the session. Or someone temporarily sheltering: there had been two Gobi storms, although the wind outside hadn’t seemed too strong that day.

Вы читаете Charlie’s Apprentice
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату