Charlie M by Brian Freemantle

Author:Brian Freemantle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-10-15T11:07:38.132000+00:00

(11)

In other circumstances, decided Charlie, as the coach left Sheremetyevo airport and picked up the Moscow road, he’d have enjoyed the experience. Perhaps he and Edith would be able to take one of the weekend holidays, some time. Then again, perhaps not.

His method of getting to Moscow had been simple and he was confident that neither Cuthbertson nor the C.I.A., who surrounded their activities with mystique and confusion, would realise how it had been done.

He’d simply gone to the Soviet-authorised travel agency in South London, knowing they issued the Intourist coupons for Russian vacations, and bought himself a £56 weekend package tour to the Russian capital.

The visa had taken a week and he’d had a pleasant flight out with a clerk from Maidenhead on his first trip abroad (‘I read in a travel magazine that you need bath plugs; you can borrow mine if you like’) and fifteen members of a ladies’ luncheon club from Chelmsford fervently anxious to experience romance without actual seduction (‘there’s such excitement about forbidden places, don’t you think?’).

By now Cuthbertson would have discovered he’d left England, decided Charlie, gazing out at the Soviet woodland.

The observation in London had been rather obvious and easy to evade. He glanced at his watch: the men outside the Dulwich house, which he’d left under a clearly visible pile of cleaning in the Porsche driven by Edith, would probably still be assuring Cuthbertson he hadn’t left.

Would Cuthbertson approach Edith directly? he wondered. Unlikely, decided Charlie. But if the Director did summon his wife, Charlie was confident Edith would have no difficulty convincing the former soldier that when she had left on her cleaning expedition, Charlie had been inside the house. Edith had always found it easy to lie, he thought, reflectively.

Which was different from Janet, he thought. Her sudden interest in the operation (‘I know what happened to Harrison; isn’t it natural I should worry about you?’) had amused him. Poor Janet, he thought. He wondered what incentive Cuthbertson had offered. Money, probably. She was a greedy girl.

The coach crossed the river and then pulled along the Moskva embankment towards the Rossiya hotel. Charlie disembarked as instructed by the officious Intourist guide and stood patiently for thirty-five minutes to be allocated a room, assuring the Maidenhead clerk when he finally collected his key, that he wouldn’t forget the bath-plug offer.

There was still twenty-four hours before Kalenin was supposed to appear in Neskuchny Sad, so Charlie continued to be the tourist, prompt for the regimented mealtimes, always waiting for the coaches taking them in their pre-paid tours, diligent in his purchases of souvenirs. He’d surprise Janet, he decided, by taking her Beluga caviar.

I should feel nervous, he thought, during the interminable wait for dinner on Saturday night. Almost immediately, he corrected the thought. Not yet. So far there was nothing about which to be apprehensive. But there would be, soon, he knew. Then he would need the control of which he had always been so confident.

He was able to avoid the

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