Charlie’s Apprentice

him it’s his last chance. He either comes out, or we’re severing all responsibility: disowning him.’

‘What if he goes on refusing?’

Patricia produced the Shanghai pictures from the folder on her desk. ‘He’ll never even reach the airport unless he hands these over to the Chinese. The top four are quite innocent, but we’ve tricked them, to be slightly different from any copy prints his escort might have taken. It’ll confuse them: occupy their time working that out. The rest are the important ones: they told us a lot about Chinese naval technology. We’ve doctored them, too: as much as our technical people say is possible. But it’ll show, under scientific examination. Make it absolutely clear to Snow that these pictures give him time to run. But that’s all. If he doesn’t come out with you, they’ll be used against him to prove he’s an agent. If he accuses us of blackmailing him, tell him he’s damned right: that’s exactly what we’re doing.’

‘You’re showing a lot of loyalty,’ admired Gower.

‘Mutual protection,’ said Patricia Elder.

Natalia Fedova was far too professional to be panicked by the discovery of Fyodor Tudin’s surreptitious interest in her. She was forewarned: now she had to find some way of being forearmed. Which presented problems of differing urgency.

She had every right to consult her own records: so an explanation would be easy to provide, if one were officially sought. Not so if she were asked why, from among the thousands of still retained former KGB files on foreign intelligence officers, she had withdrawn the one upon a man with whom she had provable links in the past. She’d have to find a justification to protect herself there. Which still left the biggest problem of all: not knowing if consulting the files was all that Tudin was doing. And what she didn’t know, she couldn’t guard against.

Very quickly Natalia contradicted herself. That wasn’t the biggest problem. The biggest problem was that now she was aware of being spied upon, she would have to abandon any hope of locating Charlie Muffin to tell him he was a father.

Twenty-four

The apprehension settled deep within him during the long outward flight. Gower went through the pretence of trying to sleep but couldn’t, lying cocooned in an airline blanket for hours in the darkened, droning aircraft, trying instead to exorcize the unformed ghosts: to put everything in order in his mind and anticipate what he was likely to encounter. Had he been told to do that, or not to do that, during the final, street-wise training sessions? He couldn’t remember. At once fresh anxiety flared, because that had certainly been one of the edicts, always to remember, always to be aware. The scruffy man who’d refused to be identified had told him it was all right to feel nervous. But how nervous?

Nothing in the training had equipped him to work in Beijing. Apart from the two inadequate briefing sessions with the deputy Director-General and from what he’d learned from the equally inadequate file in the few days prior to his visa approval, there’d been no preparation or guidance whatsoever.

He had to take hold of himself: accept the nervousness but not the panic. It could, in fact, be an easy operation. Certainly one upon which, by specifically obeying London’s instructions, he was always going to be protected, beyond the reach of Chinese seizure.

He wasn’t bringing anything dangerous into China: the incriminating photographs of Shanghai and all the file material and the methods and locations for clandestine contact were arriving in the untouchable diplomatic bag.

And again following London’s instructions, he was forbidden to make any contact with the Jesuit priest outside the diplomatically secure embassy compound. Safe again. So why the stomach-emptying fear? Twenty per cent first-time nerves, eighty per cent uncertainty at being in Beijing, Gower decided.

It wasn’t going to be a difficult operation, he determined, positively. He would always have the protection of the embassy, literally all around him. And the awkward priest – confronted with the ultimatum of the photographs – had no alternative but finally to get out, as he should have done weeks earlier.

Beijing airport was a maelstrom of people and noise and confusions: Gower thought it was like being in the middle of a river full of debris constantly colliding and bruising into him. Only occasionally did the flow slacken, as people swirled off at the last moment, not to avoid bumping against him but to regard him curiously, as an oddity. As he queued through immigration and Customs control, Gower thought wryly back to another lecture in those final sessions, about awareness of people surrounding him. Recognizing the colonial cliche before it completely formed, he decided it was another lesson difficult to follow here: in a crowd in which there were perhaps only another twenty or thirty Westerners, everyone else did look identical to his unaccustomed eye, making it impossible to isolate one from another.

Gower had been told he would be met but not precisely how. He stopped and looked uncertainly around him directly outside the official arrival area. At once he saw an almost unnaturally tall, sharp-edged man moving easily through the crowd that still bewildered and jostled him.

‘Peter Samuels,’ introduced the man. ‘Political officer. Your photograph’s a good likeness. Good flight? Goes on forever, doesn’t it? Car’s outside. Come on.’ The man was turning practically before the handshake was completed, uninterested in any reply: Samuels loped rather than walked and Gower had difficulty keeping up, constantly obstructed by people.

Gower was caught by the oddness of the other man’s speech. It was as if the words were glued together and had to be prised apart at the moment of delivery.

The car, an English Ford, was parked almost directly outside. Samuels left Gower to open the boot himself to dump his suitcase, continuing on around to the driver’s side. There were a reasonable number of cars in the immediate vicinity of the airport, but almost as soon as they got out upon the road they became immersed in bicycles, some engulfed in produce or wrapped bundles. Curiously Gower turned, to look behind them. Another gap in the training, he reflected, remembering the motorway avoidance trick: how was he supposed to identify a bicycle that looked the same as every other bicycle ridden by a man who looked the same as every other rider?

‘According to what we’ve been told from London, you’re not going to be here very long?’ said Samuels.

‘No,’ agreed Gower, shortly, letting the other man lead.

‘Meeting new arrivals is the usual custom,’ announced Samuels. ‘But normally by a chauffeur.’

Gower began to concentrate inside the car. ‘Yes?’

Samuels jabbed his finger impatiently on the horn, staring directly ahead at the two-wheeled melee through which he was manoeuvring. ‘Important to understand the way things are here.’

‘I’d welcome any guidance,’ said Gower, politely but still cautious.

‘Probably the most difficult diplomatic posting in the world,’ said Samuels. ‘But it is opening up. Very slowly. There was a trade delegation here recently that could bring in orders to Britain well in excess of ?300,000,000.’

‘That’s impressive,’ agreed Gower. Despite his concentration on the other man, he found himself looking curiously at the wooden houses with their curled roof corners by which they were driving. He thought of fairy tales and gingerbread houses.

For the first time Samuels turned briefly but directly to Gower. ‘Important nothing is done to upset relationships.’

Gower supposed the political officer would be one of the diplomats aware of his true function. Trust no one, he remembered. And then another edict: In an unknown situation, you take, never give. ‘I understand the point.’

There was another snatched look. ‘We don’t want anything to sour relations.’

‘I can understand that, too.’ He wished he’d managed to sleep on the plane, to avoid the tiredness dragging at him. There was no sun getting through the low, sullen yellow clouds but it was very hot, his shirt already clinging.

‘The ambassador wants to see you as soon as you’ve settled in.’

‘Entirely at his convenience,’ said Gower.