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work with the British?’ said Yamada, introducing into the conversation what everyone had been avoiding.
    â€˜We’ve still to get the word from Langley,’ said Fredericks, cautiously. ‘But that’s how it looks.’
    â€˜But him !’ protested Elliott, gesturing to the file that had been airfreighted overnight from Washington and lay on Fredericks’ desk, a picture of Charlie Muffin uppermost.
    â€˜Him,’ confirmed Fredericks. ‘He’s the person London nominated.’
    â€˜Do you know what the son of a bitch did!’ demanded Elliott.
    â€˜I know the stories, like everyone else,’ said Fredericks.
    â€˜He’s a fucking Commie traitor!’
    â€˜There’s an argument against that, sufficient for the British.’
    â€˜I don’t give a damn about what’s sufficient for the British,’ argued Elliott, feeling on safe ground now and trying to recover from the previous mistake. This thing is uncertain enough as it is, without his involvement.’
    â€˜Could be useful, precisely because of that uncertainty,’ said Fredericks, evenly.
    The tone of the supervisor’s voice halted Elliott’s outburst. He hesitated and then said, smiling: ‘We’re going to use him?’
    â€˜We’re still feeling out in the dark about Kozlov,’ reminded Fredericks. ‘More things can still go wrong than we can even guess at. The participation of someone like Charlie Muffin – a man who proveably screwed the British and American services and got both directors arrested by the Soviets in doing it –gives us a hell of an insurance policy, don’t you think?’
    Smiles from the other men in the room matched that of Elliott, but it was the disgruntled man who spoke. ‘I like that,’ said Elliott. ‘I like that very much indeed.’
    â€˜Only if something goes wrong with Kozlov?’ pressed Levine, who knew as well the American side of the history.
    â€˜Let’s get Kozlov in the bag,’ said Fredericks. ‘Once we’ve achieved that and got the woman as well, we can think of settling things with Charlie Muffin.’
    â€˜The British aren’t going to keep the woman? queried Dale, embarrassed the moment he spoke at showing his inexperience.
    Elliott actually laughed, glad that finally the ridicule had shifted from him.
    More kindly, Fredericks said: ‘Come on, Jim, what do you think! Do you really imagine we’re going to let the Limeys – and more particularly a Limey who made one of our directors prick of the month – get their hands in the cookie jar? Kozlov wants his particular cross-over deal, and after this morning he’ll get it. He’ll get the British baby-sitting his wife and he’ll get us, promising the keys to Fort Knox. And when we hit them the British – but more importantly Charlie Muffin – will think World War III has started in their own backyard.’
    â€˜Which will serve the bastards right,’ said Yamada. ‘Can you believe the incredible arrogance, putting the man forward at all!’
    â€˜We’d have screwed them whoever their man was,’ reminded Fredericks. ‘Charlie Muffin just makes it that much sweeter.’
    â€˜Me!’ demanded Elliott, with sudden urgency. ‘When it happens, I want to be the one who fixes the son of a bitch: who teaches him a lesson!’
    Fredericks recognized that Elliott was a worrying weakness, someone whose objective balance could not be trusted in a moment of absolute crisis. ‘We’ll see,’ he said, avoiding any sort of commitment. ‘There’s so much that’s more important, initially, before we start concerning ourselves with side issues.’
    â€˜I don’t regard settling things with Charlie Muffin as a side issue,’ disputed Elliott, who saw retribution as the surest way to impress those grey-suited, anonymous men at Langley upon whom