See Charlie Run by Brian Freemantle Page B

offer?’
    Charlie considered the question and then said, honestly: ‘No.’
    â€˜So it’s kosher?’
    â€˜I didn’t say that,’ contradicted Charlie.
    â€˜For Christ’s sake!’ exploded Fredericks. ‘What does it take to convince you!’
    â€˜Not even Him,’ said Charlie, twisting the American’s exasperation. ‘He should have fingered Judas as a double.’
    â€˜What’s that mean?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ evaded Charlie. ‘Just me smart-assing.’ Why should he keep warning the Americans that things were not always as they seemed? Let them work it out, like he hoped to do.
    Fredericks looked doubtful. Then he said: ‘That’s it. You’ve got it all now.’
    Charlie had distrusted people who told him he had it all from the moment he’d been parted from the tit. What he did have was enough – well, almost enough – for the moment: more, in fact, than he’d expected to get. He wanted just one more thing. In passing, Charlie wondered if Fredericks would ever know how much he’d conceded; and apparently missed. He said: The photographs?’ and recognized at once from the expression on the American’s face that Fredericks had hoped he would not make the request. Silly sod, thought Charlie; as if he’d overlook something as important as photographs.
    â€˜I said …’ started Fredericks but Charlie interrupted him yet again, aware of the advantages he’d finally secured and aware, too, that the time was for apparent impatience. ‘Don’t!’ warned Charlie. ‘Don’t tell me that you sent everything for picture analyses to Washington and nothing is left here. Because I thought we’d agreed to stop being stupid towards one another, and if you told me that I’d say you were stupid to entrust something so important to a diplomatic pouch which might have been destroyed in an air-crash or intercepted and opened during an aeroplane hijack. And if you said it was done by personal air courier, I’d say you were mad to let go of one of the most importance pieces of material you’ve so far managed to obtain, since Kozlov’s approach. And then I’d go on to say that I don’t think you’re that stupid. Any more than I hoped you wouldn’t think I’d be stupid enough to believe it …’ Charlie grinned, accusingly. ‘Do you know what I think? I think that somewhere in a safe not very far away – maybe in this very room – you’ve not only got the negatives of every photograph you took of Kozlov but a whole interesting selection of prints, as well.’
    Fredericks made as if to speak but then shook his head, in self-refusal. Instead he moved slightly to his left and opened what appeared to be a panel where the desk drawers should be. Charlie couldn’t properly see, from where he was sitting, but guessed it was a safe, floor-mounted. Unspeaking, the American offered four photographs to Charlie, who took them and said: ‘Thanks.’ They wouldn’t be all, and they wouldn’t be the best, Charlie knew: but at least he had four. He took his time, examining each. Fredericks’ assessment of the Russian being nondescript was very apt: ten Kozlovs had a place in every bus queue there’d ever been.
    â€˜The right,’ insisted Charlie.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜You said he parted his hair on the left. But you forgot the reversal effect of a photograph. It’s the right.’
    â€˜It’s a deal: I won’t regard you as a fool,’ said Fredericks.
    â€˜It’s a deal: I won’t treat you like one either,’ said Charlie. Which was altogether different from promising not to cheat and lie and do everything else he could to screw the other man, to come out on top. To achieve which it would, in fact, be stupid to consider Fredericks … well … stupid. Suddenly remembering, he added: