See Charlie Run Read Free Page B

‘I quite understand about embassy embarrassment but I know someone in Asia on contract …’
    â€˜Not Harry Lu,’ refused Harkness, at once. ‘He’s on the suspect list.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Auditors found he was charging for informants in the communist Chinese office in Hong Kong who didn’t exist,’ said Harkness.
    Bloody accountant, Charlie thought again. He said: ‘Everyone does that.’
    Harkness winced at the admission. The deputy director said: ‘It makes him someone who has the potential for being bought. This operation has got to remain absolutely secure.’
    What about his security? wondered Charlie. He’d have to make his own arrangements. He said: ‘We’ve got the positive guarantee of cooperation from the Americans?’
    Wilson looked briefly down at the papers in front of him. ‘The promise came from the CIA headquarters at Langley; the Director himself. Your liaison at the US embassy in Tokyo is Art Fredericks.’
    Not a name Charlie knew. But then it had been a long time. He said: ‘Do they know it’s going to be me?’
    â€˜I cabled them last night,’ said Wilson.
    So all the enquiries about the progress of the Jeremy Knott defection were so much bullshit: nothing changed. Ever. He said: ‘No reaction?’
    â€˜Getting the Kozlovs out, where they’re ours, is the only consideration,’ said the Director. ‘What happened a long time ago is just that – history.’
    If Wilson believed that then he believed in Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy and that the cheque was always in the post, decided Charlie. He said: ‘You’ll want me to go right away?’
    â€˜There’s a direct flight tomorrow night. That gives you a day to hand over the other thing,’ said Harkness.
    Remembering, Charlie said: ‘Jeremy Knott was at Cambridge: read history at King’s. Another undergraduate was Herbert Bell, who’s now an Under Secretary here at the Foreign Office. They were both friends, at Cambridge; members of the debating society. I found a photograph of them, together. Bell was in Brussels, at the same time as Knott. And there was a six-months overlap in Rome.’
    â€˜So?’ asked Wilson.
    â€˜In the assessment survey afterwards I found a statement from Bell that Jeremy Knott was only a casual acquaintance: that they had not met or had contact after Cambridge,’ said Charlie. ‘Foreign Office background reports record them occupying the same house at Cambridge and Bell’s father actually provided Knott with a character reference, for his Foreign Office entry.’
    â€˜I can understand a permanent government official wanting to avoid the public embarrassment of known association with a traitor,’ said Harkness, reasonably.
    â€˜Bell had access to most of the NATO stuff that Knott was convicted of passing over,’ said Charlie. ‘I checked. It smells wrong.’
    â€˜You mean that Knott was just the conduit, who happened to get caught?’ demanded Wilson. ‘And then kept quiet, to allow Bell to stay in place?’
    Maybe the man didn’t believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy, after all. Charlie said: ‘I mean I think it would be a good idea to put some surveillance on Bell; maybe channel something through him and keep a watch to see if it surfaces somewhere.’
    Wilson nodded the instruction to his deputy and said to Charlie: ‘Pass the files over to Witherspoon, to continue the assessment …’ He hesitated, briefly. ‘But don’t tell him about the Knott and Bell connection. Let’s see if he comes up with it.’
    The sort of thing he’d that morning suspected Witherspoon was doing to him, recalled Charlie. The snotty little prick deserved it. He said: ‘I’ll do that …’ Charlie allowed just the right degree of pause and then went on: ‘I’m afraid there