‘Oh God,’ she said, uttering the forbidden word for the first time. ‘Oh, dear God, what am I going to do?’
There was a bizarre irony in that Olga Balan and the CIA group led by Art Fredericks – each of whom were pursuing Irena Kozlov for different reasons – were both at that moment just over a mile from the Asia, where the woman sat upright against the bedhead, still covered but confronting Charlie Muffin.
‘I’m waiting,’ said Charlie.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Irena drew her feet up, creating a more positive barrier, the bedclothes still protective, staring at him but not saying anything, and Charlie refused to prompt with a positive question, just staring back. The hotel sighed and breathed around them, but in the room there was a silence noisy between them.
After a long time, Charlie said: ‘Well?’
‘I don’t know what you mean … what you want.’
‘Look at the hotel bills,’ said Charlie, pointing to where they lay, between them.
To pick them up Irena had to reach over the clothing and from the straps Charlie saw she still wore her bra. The woman made as if to study them but Charlie knew it wasn’t necessary for her. He didn’t know enough to ask probing questions, although he was giving the impression he did; the leads had to come from her. He said: ‘That really wasn’t very clever, was it? Careless, in fact.’
‘I still don’t know what you mean … what I’m supposed to have done wrong.’
‘Look again,’ urged Charlie, trying sarcasm. ‘It’s marked with a T, on both accounts. Stands for telephone. The second symbol – still on both accounts – indicates long distance. You’re supposed to be running, Irena: hiding were no one can find you. And all the time you’re making long-distance telephone calls …’ Charlie stopped, intentionally. He – or perhaps the British service – was being set up but he couldn’t work out how, so she had to provide the way to let him understand.
She smiled, an obviously open expression, and it surprised him although Charlie didn’t think it showed. She said: ‘Is that all?’
‘You tell me,’ persisted Charlie. Come on, come on!
‘It was all part of the caution,’ she said. ‘The way Yuri devised to stop anyone tricking us. You. Or the Americans.’
‘Yuri!’ exclaimed Charlie. He had the impression of a very small corner of a very dark curtain being lifted. But not enough.
‘You know how careful Yuri was: how he always knew the Americans would try to cheat; you, too, if you could.’ The woman sat now with her arms comfortably wrapped around her knees, relaxed. ‘He never planned to go across, not at the same time as me. Always he was going to wait, until he knew I was safe … that way he could have forced the Americans to release me: keep to the bargain …’ The smile came again, rehearsed, like the words sounded. ‘He loves me, you see …’
Charlie sat absolutely unmoving, needing to consider it all, analyse it properly: he would have liked hours – days – but he knew he didn’t have either, just a few minutes to think it through and get it right, after so long. And he had been right, that first day in the Director’s office, when he’d said it didn’t make sense: right, too, in the continuous feeling of uncertainty. Which was still there. Bits of the puzzle were beginning to fit together but there were still some pieces missing. The biggest piece was why? Charlie remembered a man named Sampson who called him sir and Harry Lu without an eye and wanted to shout and make demands from the woman but instead, rigidly controlled, he actually managed to smile back at her, encouraging, and said: ‘Tell me about it, Irena. Tell me how it worked.’
‘Very simply,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t liaise through the embassy, of course. Too dangerous. So he took an apartment, a safe house. The telephone there …’ She stopped, nodding towards the hotel accounts with the long-distance calls. ‘That was the contact point …’
Charlie didn’t want to interrupt the flow, but he needed to get the sequence right so he risked it. He said: ‘The day we first met, on the bus: when the Americans were following? You spoke to Yuri then?’
She nodded: ‘That was the arrangement: I’ve just told you.’
‘Where from, that day?’
‘The airport. Osaka.’
Charlie remembered something else from the tourist bus ride. He said: ‘A military plane!’
‘What?’
‘That same day on the bus: when I told you about Osaka you said you thought we’d go out from Tokyo and then you said “A military plane”. Why? Why specifically a military and not a commercial plane?’
For a moment Irena looked uncertain and then she shrugged and said: ‘We had a source, at the airport. We knew about your people coming in. The Americans, too.’
‘When?’ demanded Charlie. ‘When did you know?’
‘The night before.’
The idea came to Charlie and it irritated him because it was stupid and so he dismissed it. Trying to make the question seem as casual as it could be, in the circumstances, Charlie said: ‘How was Yuri, when you spoke to him that time? From Osaka?’
Irena shrugged and said: ‘He was …’ And then she stopped, both the gesture and the sentence.
‘Was what?’ pressed Charlie.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘Was what?’ repeated Charlie.
‘I thought he sounded strange; asked him about it. He said there was nothing wrong but perhaps he was nervous,’ remembered the woman.
‘He didn’t say anything about the plane blowing up?’
‘Not then?’
‘When?’
‘Hong Kong,’ said Irena. ‘Harry took me to the Mandarin when the plane wasn’t there and I called …’ She felt out, touching the hotel bill. ‘And Yuri told me what had happened …’ She paused and said: ‘I’ve told you about the bills now. Is this really necessary?’
Instead of answering, Charlie said, angrily: ‘And I missed it!’