All in all it was turning out to be a pretty productive night, thought Charlie.
Sir Alistair Wilson stumped into the office and Harkness knew at once how angry the Director was and thought that although it had taken long enough, it had finally happened. He remembered wondering – although not precisely when – how long Wilson’s loyalty would last, once Charlie Muffin was positively caught out. He’d never imagined – hoped – it was going to be quite so complete as this: despise the man as he did, Harkness had still believed Charlie Muffin possessed more native cunning than to make quite so many mistakes.
‘Bad?’ prompted the deputy.
‘Bloody awful,’ said Wilson. ‘A full session of the Intelligence Committee. Actually chaired by the Prime Minister. Foreign Secretary moaning about the issuing of passports and entry documents, Army Minister insisting upon an enquiry into the plane crash and Electronic Intelligence demanding what right we’ve got to use their facilities like a public telephone box. And I had to sit and take it because I know bugger all about what’s going on: not even if anything is going on.’
‘I warned you about the confounded man’s arrogance: the insubordination,’ reminded Harkness.
Wilson ignored the direct invitation. ‘Where is the bloody man!’ he said, getting up from his desk to find more comfort for the stiff leg.
‘I briefed Cartright very fully,’ said Harkness.
‘It had better be a good explanation!’ said Wilson. ‘It had better be the best explanation that Charlie Muffin has ever given, for anything he’s ever done in his awkward, bloody life.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Which it was, although not at first. The news of Harry Lu’s killing stopped the Director’s tirade and before Wilson could recover, to continue the furious demands, Charlie talked hurriedly on, setting out what he knew – and even exaggerating what he thought he knew – from his confrontation with Irena, anxious because of Wilson’s obvious attitude to justify all the short cuts. There was no immediate reaction when he stopped speaking and Charlie briefly thought that despite the electronic expertise of the signal station to which he had crossed on the first available ferry from the mainland the connection had been broken. Then Wilson said, obviously unconvinced, ‘You telling me you believe that!’
‘It fits all the inconsistencies and uncertainties better than anything else.’
‘It’s preposterous!’
‘Why?’
Again there was a long pause from London. Eventually Wilson said, less sure of his own assessment: ‘It has to be preposterous.’
‘Explain it another way?’ invited Charlie.
‘Good God!’ said the Director. Then, with gradual conviction, he said: it would have been very effective, wouldn’t it? Had she been aboard the plane, we would have had the embarrassment of explaining the presence of someone attached to the Soviet embassy travelling in a British military aircraft and the Russians would have had the internal warning they like so much to any other would-be defectors.’
‘And Yuri Kozlov, who appears to spend a lot of time waving his dick in the air, would have been home free with Olga Balan,’ finished Charlie.
There was another pause and then the Director said: ‘Except that you stopped it, if indeed that were the way it was supposed to happen. Which doesn’t matter any more, now that you’ve discovered the telephone contact and blocked it. We’re still ahead, Charlie. Well done.’
Umbrella up just in time to keep off the nasty smelling brown stuff, thought Charlie. He said: ‘I haven’t finished.’
‘Getting – and keeping – Irena Kozlov is enough,’ said Wilson.
‘I can do better than that,’ insisted Charlie.
‘Like what?’
It took a long time for Charlie to explain, setting out what he considered had developed into a practical, feasible idea during the remainder of the previous night. When he had finished, Wilson said: ‘You could never carry that off, not completely.’
‘You’ve wrapped up Herbert Bell?’ asked Charlie, at once. Everything depended upon their known spy still being in place.
‘No,’ said Wilson, at once.
‘So we could use him as the conduit?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it could succeed in stages, couldn’t it?’ pressed Charlie. ‘Every stage that comes off is a benefit: if it goes wrong, it goes wrong. We don’t – we can’t – suffer.’
‘It’s very clever,’ conceded Wilson, reluctantly. ‘Ingenious.’
‘Soldiers died,’ reminded Charlie, adding to the pressure. ‘Harry Lu, too. Someone I liked.’
‘Someone could suffer,’ disputed Wilson. ‘You.’
‘Not now,’ said Charlie. ‘Not now I think I know what’s happening.’
‘Have you got a name?’
‘Boris Filiatov,’ listed Charlie. ‘He’s the Rezident: that alone makes it worthwhile.’
‘What’s he supposed to have done?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Charlie. ‘Anything you like.’
‘It would be marvellous, if it all came off,’ said Wilson, reflectively.
‘I think it can,’ said Charlie. ‘Just like I think we can get Cartright and the woman out.’
‘How?’
Charlie told the Director, who said at once: ‘Whose idea was that?’
‘Cartright’s,’ said Charlie, who refused to take other people’s credit like he refused to be responsible for their mistakes. ‘I suppose it was obvious why it didn’t occur to Harry Lu but I should have thought of it.’
‘When will you know?’
‘They’re seeing if it’s possible now.’
‘What about Commander Clarke?’
‘I left the military until we’d talked,’ said Charlie. ‘I wanted your agreement, first.’
‘You’re right, I suppose; about losing nothing.’
‘So I can go ahead?’
There was the now familiar pause. ‘Boris Filiatov?’ Wilson said.
‘That’s the name.’
‘I’ll do it today.’
‘Make it good,’ urged Charlie. ‘I want it to happen quickly.’
‘You think Irena’s a worthwhile catch?’
‘Tremendous.’
‘Something for the Americans,’ said Wilson, moving on. ‘Bonn looks like an American senator. The name was William Bales: ascribed at the time as an assassination carried out by the Baader Meinhoff gang. It was a shotgun. Messy, like Kozlov admitted.’
‘Doesn’t that add to what I’ve already said?’ seized Charlie. ‘Kozlov could never have risked that coming out.’ He decided it was something more for him than the Americans, at the moment.
‘I’m prepared to go along, Charlie,’ said Wilson, in final capitulation. ‘Prove to me you’re right.’
‘I intend to,’ said Charlie. The reason for that determination recurred to him and he went on: ‘There was a difficulty, about Lu’s entry permission?’
‘The Foreign Office didn’t like it.’
‘But they haven’t withdrawn it?’
‘Isn’t that an academic question now?’
‘There’s still the wife and a child. A girl.’
‘I don’t know, Charlie,’ said the Director, cautiously. ‘It’s outside the existing laws.’
‘So’s getting a funny sort of bullet in the head.’
‘There’ll be hell to pay, when they find out.’
‘Harry was working for us when he was killed.’ Fucking Whitehall mandarins, thought Charlie: why was the world full of regulation-governed wankers?
‘It won’t be so bad if you can bring everything off.’
Charlie accepted the further demand, on top of all the others. By the time he succeeded or failed, Harry’s wife and kid could be in England: he’d find a way of arguing from there, if he had to. He said: ‘I’ll bring it off,’ and remembered Harkness and the stupid accounts: he’d have to clear that off Harry’s records to prevent the man doing something bloody awkward.