‘He winked!’ said Levine. ‘The bastard winked at the monitor!’
‘Listen. And listen good,’ instructed Fredericks. ‘Don’t let tricks like that upset you. Because that’s what they are: nothing more than tricks.’
‘Why?’ questioned Yamada.
‘So we’ll underestimate him,’ judged Fredericks. ‘And that would be a mistake. We all know what he did once. He’s a tricky son-of-a-bitch.’
Chapter Six
Charlie opened the first Suntory, closed the curtains against the intrusive glitter of the night-time awakening of Tokyo and sat at the desk facing the blank wall, paper and pen before him. As he set out the preparations, Charlie guessed Witherspoon would go apeshit at his writing down in insecure surroundings the conclusions of a secure briefing. It transgressed every regulation codified in the British intelligence system since Walsingham founded it after Queen Elizabeth I agreed it was a good idea if it singled out the bad guys in the black hats from the good guys, wearing the white ones, although not quite in those words. At least after four hundred years the principle remained the same. It was a pity, he reflected further, that the assholes who sat in panelled offices with the very pictures of Lord Walsingham and Queen Elizabeth I on the walls got their colours and images blurred and relied too much upon those old school ties when it came to judging Blunt and Cairngorm and Philby and Burgess and Maclean, and all the others who’d made the service a bad joke as well as an object of suspicion among other intelligence organizations. Was he one of the others, minus that all-important school tie? Charlie asked himself. Certainly Fredericks thought so; which showed clearly enough the thinking within the American agency. Rubbish, of course: absolute rubbish. He’d never been a traitor — just vindictive — and proved his right to re-entry in a Moscow operation that would have worked if Wilson had at the time trusted him completely. Not just a professional loss, either: personal, as well. Darling, wonderful Natalia who had refused to come back with him …
Consciously, as he had before, Charlie closed his mind to the distraction, concentrating upon what he’d got from the meeting with Fredericks. Which had been a hell of a lot. Charlie wrote ‘Leningrad 1940’ as a reminder for the major calculation he had to make, qualifying it at once by noting that he would be working from the birth dates which Kozlov provided, which might for any number of reasons be inaccurate. Against it he put 1983, which appeared to be a positive date because Fredericks insisted he’d checked Kozlov’s arrival with the Japanese Foreign Ministry records. Forty-three years then from the time of the man’s birth and his posting to Tokyo. In between which he’d worked in London and Bonn. And killed. Kozlov would not have been chosen for KGB training until high school or early university entry. Eighteen was the average, for initial entry. From his unsuccessful Moscow infiltration, Charlie knew there were two years of aptitude testing and training before specialized selection in the Soviet service. Full instruction took two years. And in the case of Department V, from which men emerged assassins, there was a further year of psychological evaluation, to guard against breakdown and the sort of revulsion from which Kozlov appeared to be suffering. Charlie added up a total from his jottings, did a quick subtraction from the forty-three and came out with a figure of twenty. There would not have been an immediate posting. Charlie reckoned he could afford to build in an extra year — maybe two — before Kozlov would have been judged safe for overseas service. Which gave him the date of 1963. Where? During the interview Fredericks had said London first, then Bonn. Was that the way Kozlov itemized the tours? Or the way Fredericks had translated them, because he was talking to an Englishman and London would have come more obviously to his mind? No way of knowing. Certainly not of checking with the American because it might show him the way. Thank God for computers, thought Charlie. He circled 1963 as the date from which London would have to start checking any suspicious political, trade union or expatriate dissident deaths and then considered the way the search could be narrowed. Fredericks had been insistent, more than once, that Kozlov’s name appeared on no diplomatic register or list in England or West Germany. But Russians serving at Highgate or with international commercial organizations like the Wheat Council were not accredited diplomats and therefore did not appear on any such lists. Any more than they did in Germany. It was an unlikely oversight, but Charlie was well aware how rigidly requests relayed through headquarters from one overseas intelligence Residency to another overseas intelligence Residency were frequently interpreted; asked to check diplomatic lists they only checked diplomatic lists, without spreading the enquiry further. Charlie wrote the unanswered questions on the page in front of him, listing identity first. Fredericks had twisted and turned and tried to avoid giving anything away. So had he been lying, in insisting they hadn’t found a trace of the man, anywhere? Or had they covered the trade outlets after all and maybe come up with some sort of cover posting in the United States, despite Fredericks’ denial? Maybe even knew someone he’d killed there? To his English and German checklist of trade missions Charlie added those in America and then made a further addition not just of the US diplomatic list but that of the United Nations in New York.
Charlie sat back, examining his graph of positive results from his meeting with Fredericks, beyond those which had been obvious to him at the time. With the bonus of the photographs, which he could wire to London from the embassy, it was pretty good: pretty damned good, in fact.
What about the not-so-positive intangibles? From the few indications that emerged from Fredericks, Kozlov did appear to operate in a way that Charlie would have expected a professional intelligence agent to conduct himself. Naming Fredericks’ two guardians at the first meeting was professional, and confidently identifying Fredericks himself was further professionalism. And more again with the Russian, according to Fredericks, picking out the surveilling CIA men on the subsequent meetings and actually warning Fredericks not to be accompanied any more. Which Fredericks had ignored. Knowing the sort of training to which Kozlov had been subjected — and how comparatively easy it had been, once he’d started being professional himself, to isolate his own tail on the subway — Charlie decided it was inconceivable that Kozlov would not have picked out the Americans the last time. Yet the man maintained a further meeting, without apparent protest. Which didn’t make sense. Anxious disregard? A possibility: Charlie knew from experience that nearing the moment of crossing, a defector’s nerves were invariably piano-wire tight. But against that was another contradiction: Kozlov’s calmness. Strangely calm, were Fredericks’ actual words. A calm man — let alone a strangely calm, well-trained professional — did not behave with anxious disregard. Charlie annotated several question marks after that query.
Irena Kozlov shouldn’t be ignored, either: not at all, in fact. Charlie’s immediate impression of her importance, at the American’s disclosure, hadn’t been an exaggeration. Providing there was nothing he’d missed — and Charlie needed a lot more yet — the couple were the prize that Fredericks determined them to be. So why was she remaining the mystery woman? Professional caution? Or something else he didn’t yet understand?
Charlie sat back, sighing. Why weren’t things always easy to understand, like the plots in those spy books with hammer and sickle motifs and Kalashnikov guns on the front cover?
Charlie ran the encounter with Fredericks once more through his mind, determined against any omission, wondering if the American would ever realize the mistakes he’d made. Charlie remained attentive going through the rambling lobby area, interested to see if Fredericks would ignore that afternoon’s undertaking about surveillance, like he’d ignored it with Kozlov. When he passed the piano bar the girl of the previous night was entering; she smiled in recognition and Charlie smiled back. His greater duty was to Queen and country, Charlie decided. Sadly. There was the minimal delay for the cab to come up the ramp and Charlie was glad of it, openly studying those who followed him from the hotel. No one seemed at all interested in him, but that didn’t mean much. There were lots of well polished shoes. Charlie abandoned the exercise, as he entered the car: tonight it didn’t really matter.