Free Charlie’s Apprentice by Brian Freemantle Page 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