Charlie’s Apprentice (8 page)

Could he make John Gower – could he make
anyone
– his alter ego? Charlie felt the challenge stir, the self-pity receding further. He didn’t know: couldn’t know, until he tried. But he determined
to
try: to accept the function he’d been given, maybe still hoping in the far back reaches of his mind that it was only temporary and that he might one day go back on to the active roster. In the meantime he’d give everything he had to turning Gower and whoever else might follow into the best intelligence officers possible.

Having made the positive decision Charlie felt … felt what? Illogically the emotion seemed to be relief, which didn’t make any sense but was the closest description he could find. Even more illogical, it seemed that only now, on a Hampshire river bank in the early spring sunshine, picking his way through a perfect fish, had he properly realized what he’d been ordered to do. Not properly realized: properly
accepted
, professionally putting all his pride and resentment aside to start thinking like the teacher he had become. He would genuinely try to teach John Gower everything he’d ever learned in a bruised and battered life in the very specialized art of saving his ass. Or at least not getting his ass too badly burned.

Charlie had intentionally introduced a day’s gap before his next contact with Gower, hoping for something to emerge from his initial encounter with the man. There was nothing official from the ninth floor when he got into his office the following day, and Charlie was disappointed, although he supposed it was too much to expect it to have happened the first time. He still wished it had.

It was not until late into the afternoon, gone four, that the summons came from Patricia Elder. It was a different suit today, blue, but still severely businesslike. The greying hair seemed neater than the last time, and Charlie guessed she’d had it cut again. He still thought it was a mistake. The new shortness made even more pronounced the already strong features that didn’t need accentuating. There were still the two flower arrangements, although the blooms had been changed: they looked fresh. There were no folders on this occasion.

‘You seemed to find a lot to write about, after just one meeting with Gower,’ she said at once.

‘It’s a new job: I’m not sure what’s expected of me.’

‘The best you can do.’ The black eyes bored into him.

Bitch, thought Charlie. ‘I considered it a security lapse, instructors at training facilities disclosing their names. Don’t you?’

The woman lowered her head, in unspeaking concession. ‘I have already issued a memorandum, correcting it in future.’

‘How long has it been allowed? How long has it gone on?’

There was another head movement. ‘I’ve begun an inquiry into that, too.’

‘There’ll be a lot of lying. You’ll never get an accurate figure. If I were you I’d try to find out the other way around: enquire from officers who have passed out in …’ Charlie hesitated, seeking a sensible period. ‘… maybe the last four or five years.’

Patricia Elder sighed. ‘I’ve gone back six years.’

‘Good,’ said Charlie, feeling satisfied.

‘I am impressed, if that’s what you want to hear.’

‘It’s not,’ said Charlie, which wasn’t completely true: he
was
trying to impress this woman who for the moment had power over him. ‘What about Personnel bandying your name all over the place?’

‘Reprimands have been issued. It won’t happen again.’

‘You having every single memorandum checked, since you took up your appointment?’

‘
I’m
not the person you’re supposed to be training!’

Charlie noted, pleased, that there was no outrage in the protest. ‘I sent a third memorandum.’

‘I read it.’

‘And?’ Charlie prompted.

‘According to the security log, your meeting with John Gower ended at 3.39 pm. I received that afternoon a memorandum from John Gower timed at 4.20 pm, warning me that you had advised him, in the event of hostile interrogation, to disclose the names of every one of the instructors who had allowed him to know their identity, my own identity, and the location of this building.’

Charlie smiled, broadly, in increasing satisfaction. ‘That’s excellent! Did he make any recommendation? Suggest I was a security risk?’

Patricia Elder frowned, coming slightly forward over her desk. ‘Was that what it was? A test you set up, to see if he would respond?’

‘Of course it was a test!’ said Charlie. ‘And he passed it.’

‘What if he hadn’t reported you?’

‘It would have put a doubt in my mind of his ever completely becoming the sort of officer he should.’

‘Would you have disclosed the information, under forced interrogation?’

‘Every one.’

‘You
really
mean that?’

‘Of course I mean it. If instructors are stupid enough to let their names be known, it’s their fault if they get a hostile file created on them. If security here is so lax your name is openly used on memoranda, then your identity deserves to become public knowledge as well. And what I told him about this place is true: this address is probably on lavatory walls in outer Mongolia. Why should anyone with their balls in a vice suffer more than they have to, because there aren’t professionals back here training them?’

‘The old Cold War warrior!’ mocked the woman. ‘And I’m not sure people get their balls put in a vice during interrogation any more.’

Charlie wasn’t offended by the sarcasm. ‘They will, if the interrogators think there’s something important enough to find out. And you agree with me about poor security: if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have ordered the tightening up you’ve already told me about.’ Charlie wasn’t sure but he thought she was colouring slightly, as if she were embarrassed at being so easily caught out.

‘So it’s begun well!’ she said, briskly, wanting to move the conversation on.

‘Well enough.’

‘Any idea how long it’s going to take?’

‘Not yet,’ frowned Charlie. ‘There’s no hurry, is there?’

‘None whatsoever,’ smiled the woman.

In one of those illogicalities of Chinese life to which Jeremy Snow had long ago become accustomed there was no
luxingshe
tourist bureau on Zhengzhou station, even though it was a large terminus. The first station official claimed not to know where the Jasmine Hotel was: from the direction from a second, it seemed too far to walk. Snow took a pedicab, instantly immersed in a shoal of bicycles weaving and darting all around him: just like the fish of which they reminded him, they always appeared on the point of disastrous collision but never quite hit each other. He saw that several riders were wearing pollution masks and wondered if he would soon have to use his.

Li Dong Ming was sitting patiently in the hotel foyer when Snow arrived, hurrying forward the moment the priest identified himself to the receptionist. There was no smile of greeting from the official escort, just the vaguest of bows. The spectacles added to the expression of seriousness: the man’s ears stuck out as prominently as they had appeared in the photograph provided in Beijing. He was extremely short, hardly more than 5’ tall, creating an almost ludicrous comparison between their respective heights.

The dormitory that had been allocated was small, fitted with only two beds.

‘I have the other one,’ said Li. ‘It seemed best, don’t you think?’ He had to strain to talk to the priest.

‘Yes,’ said Snow, not quite sure to what he was agreeing.

Nine

The next session began well. Everything Gower wore was subdued. The shirt was plain white, with no monogram, the tie a bland blue and the chain-store suit nondescript. He’d left off the signet ring. He continued to call Charlie ‘sir’. Charlie supposed the man had to address him in some way.

Charlie carefully chose the centre at Berkshire where he knew Gower had
not
been instructed: he didn’t want identification by association from instructors careless of security.

Charlie selected the motorway route. After half a mile he demanded the number of vehicles Gower had overtaken since they’d joined and which cars that had been behind from the beginning were still close.

‘Someone’s following! It’s a test!’ exclaimed Gower, snatching a series of hurried looks into the rear-view mirror.

‘Soon it isn’t going to be training. When you’re operational and it’s got to be an automatic reflex to check. And check and check again. You’ve
always
got to know what’s happening around you.’

‘Even when I’m not on assignment.’

‘
Always,’
insisted Charlie. He wasn’t happy with the slight head movement of disbelief from the other man.

‘Are we being followed?’

‘You tell me.’

Gower was silent for several moments. Then he admitted: ‘I don’t know how to identify pursuit in this sort of circumstance.’

Charlie was glad Gower’s admission hadn’t taken longer: the turn-off was already indicated. ‘Slow, into the inside lane. Mark the cars behind. And those ahead, too. In a moving vehicle it’s as easy to watch a target from the front as from the back; all you need to do is maintain speed.’

Gower did as he was instructed, nervously checking both directions. ‘I take the turn-off?’

‘Don’t indicate until the very last moment: without a warning you can lose anyone in front. Take the turn. See who’s behind you …’ There was a protesting blare of a horn from the rear at the lateness of the indication. ‘Fuck him,’ dismissed Charlie. ‘Get on to the roundabout underneath the motorway: here’s your learning point. Everywhere in the world major highway slip-roads go into roundabouts from which there’s always another slip-road to rejoin as well as leave. Go completely around … watch your back. Anyone?’

‘A red Ford … no, he’s turned off.’

‘Now go up the connecting link to get back on to the motorway in the same direction we were originally going.’

‘What about a real operational situation? What should I do if a recognizable car stays with me?’

‘Abort,’ declared Charlie. ‘But sensibly. Don’t panic and go dashing back to where you started: panic is proof of guilt. If it had been operational, we’d have taken the next turn-off to whatever reasonably sized town was signposted. That would have been an explanation for the first suspicious manoeuvre: we’d made a mistake and came off too early. Every town has something historical it’s proud of. We’d have been tourists, looking at the sites. After which we would have made our way back leisurely.’

‘And then?’

‘I told you. Abort.’

‘Abandon an assignment?’ Gower seemed surprised.

Charlie frowned across the car at the other man. ‘What’s the alternative? Leading whoever is watching you to whatever that assignment is?’

‘That seems …’ began Gower slowly, searching how to explain himself. Charlie talked across him. ‘What was the final thing I said to you at the last meeting?’

‘Something …’ Gower stopped abruptly, suspecting another test and remembering the instruction to recall everything, word for word. ‘I asked if what we were doing had a title. You said “It’s called survival.’”

Charlie smiled, pleased. ‘If you as much as think an operation is blown get out: save yourself and maybe the operation. Let someone else come in after you to take it over …’ Charlie saw the other man prepare to speak. ‘That’s not failing: giving up. That’s being professional.’

‘It’s not been explained to me like that before.’

‘For Christ’s sake lose your public school pretension. You haven’t joined a club your father put you down for at birth. Road-sweepers and refuse-collectors go around the streets, picking up the shit and muck that people cause. Our job is picking up the shit and muck that governments and countries cause.’ He remembered virtually the same exchange with Patricia Elder: she hadn’t appeared to accept it.

Gower took the proper turning off the motorway, heading into Berkshire.

‘Isn’t there some inverted snobbery there somewhere?’

‘Complete objectivity,’ insisted Charlie. Not completely true, he conceded. Always a problem: always a self-admitted fault. He was uncomfortable the inherent attitude had shown through.

At the creeper-clad Georgian mansion they had to sign in at a reception desk to one side of the huge entrance hall. The straight-backed man who recorded their arrival would have medals at home, guessed Charlie, recalling Patricia Elder’s threat: being a teacher was definitely better than being part of the security staff at a safe house. Charlie chose a preparation time of fifteen minutes, ignoring Gower’s questioning look, leading the way into a small but immaculately maintained drawing-room.

There was a bowl of roses on a piano set in the larger of two window areas, with a low table and two easy chairs to the right. There was an arrangement of magazines on the table. Near the door was an open-fronted display case, showing a series of miniature porcelain figurines set out on the shelves. There was a spray of dried flowers filling the cold fireplace. At either end of an elaborately carved marble mantelpiece there were porcelain statues of red-coated Georgian military figures. Between the figures there was a porcelain-cased clock, the bottom half-glassed to show the wheeled movement. A large couch fronted the fireplace, with matching chairs either side. A padded leather fender sealed off the fireplace, with a magazine lodged on one corner. There were two bookcases, one open, one glass-doored and closed, to the left. The open bookcase had a protruding reading ledge. There were books on it, one lying open. A telephone stood on an adjacent glass-topped table. The curtains in the second window annex were draped almost to meet at the top of the rail, looping down practically to the floor. They were held back by plaited crimson cords.

‘Room intrusion!’ recognized Gower.

‘Standard rules,’ acknowledged Charlie. ‘It’s a room you’ve been allocated, possible in unfriendly surroundings. You occupy it briefly, then leave. You’ve got to itemize the indications of it having been searched.’

Gower walked carefully around the room just once before announcing that everything was registered in his mind and that he was ready. They left the room for the ex-army duty officer to go through the pretence of a search. When the man recalled them, Gower repeated the examination he’d made to imprint everything in his mind but this time turned back on himself, retracing the route to return to the centre, by the couch. He missed ten items that had been rearranged by the duty officer.