See Charlie Run by Brian Freemantle Read Free Book Online

‘Frightened the silly man to death.’
    â€˜They are trying to trick us!’ she insisted.
    Kozlov shook his head again. ‘I was expecting it,’ he said. ‘It was something they had to attempt.’
    â€˜Why didn’t they take you seriously, from the beginning!’
    â€˜They do now,’ insisted Kozlov. ‘It’s good they only put one man in each place, to protect Fredericks. I was nervous of a commando squad.’
    â€˜There’s been no warning, from Hayashi at the airport.’
    â€˜They could have arrived by commercial airline, not necessarily military.’
    â€˜You’ve briefed Hayashi?’
    â€˜Of course,’ he said. ‘Anything military, British or American.’
    â€˜We always chose public places, to avoid a snatch,’ she reminded him.
    â€˜Did the man Dale take any photographs?’
    â€˜No,’ said Irena. ‘Pure surveillance. Not particularly good, either.’
    â€˜He couldn’t have identified you?’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous!’ she said, annoyed at the suggestion. ‘I tagged on to a party of Americans, as if I needed the translation. Dale actually spoke to two men, within a few feet of me.’
    â€˜No one followed me out,’ said Kozlov. The statement was faintly questioning, because he had been alert.
    â€˜He left with me, while you were in the souvenir shop!’
    Kozlov shook his head in disbelief and then, reminded, said: ‘I bought you a present. There’ll be something better, later.’
    Irena took the key-ring, smiling down at her husband for the first time. ‘There’s a lot I want, when we get to the West.’
    â€˜There won’t be any more stupidity, like today,’ promised Kozlov. ‘Fredericks was really frightened.’
    â€˜I wonder if the British will be more professional?’ said the woman.
    At that moment Charlie Muffin approached the bar in the departure lounge of London airport, £800 of travellers’ cheques comfortably fat in his wallet and £200 in cash even more comfortably bulging his trouser pocket. There wasn’t any Islay Malt so he chose Glenlivet, peeling off the first of the notes that Harkness had failed to stop him getting and knowing the drink would taste all the better because of it. And not just because of the £1000. Aware of how the clerks gossiped—despite the supposed restriction of the Official Secrets Act – Charlie had allowed exactly twelve hours for the word to circulate before demanding a First Class ticket. And got it because the permanent mandarins had been too shit-scared to query the authority.
    â€˜Going far, sir?’ asked the barman, the perpetually polite question.
    â€˜As far as I can go,’ said Charlie.

Chapter Three
    Adapting the When in Rome principle, Charlie took a Suntory whisky from the room bar and carried it to the window, gazing out over Tokyo. He was high in the tower block of the New Otani and he decided it was a pretty good pub: a vast, sprawling place with a concealing people-packed shopping complex and more entrances and exits than he’d so far had time to work out. Which he would, of course. First of the Charlie Muffin Survival Rules was always secure an escape route, before discovering what it was necessary to escape from. The early evening lights were coming on and ironically using as a landmark the Tokyo Tower beneath which the Kozlovs had earlier met, Charlie worked out the positioning of the port and then, closer, the embassy section of the Japanese capital. Minimal use, Charlie remembered. OK, so if it were important to protect the embassy, it was important to protect himself. Doubly so. The CIA would have moved a bloody army in by now, tanks, rocket boosters and all. Naive then to expect him to operate without someone watching his back. On a suspect list for charging for non-existent informants! Charlie snorted, in loud derision. Harry Lu was a