Softly, for only Anne to hear, Charlie said, “Oh fuck, what did I tell you!” Louder Charlie said, “If there’d been that sort of security five days ago, people wouldn’t be dead and maimed and we wouldn’t be here.”
More quietly Anne said, “It’s still not diplomatically permissible.”
The awareness seemed to be registering at the checkpoint. Therewas a huddled conversation and Brooking was ushered through, untouched. There was no attempt to body search either Charlie or Anne, although all their documentation-as well as their photographs-was compared and their briefcase contents examined. There was an insistence upon testing the tape recorder to confirm that’s what it was. To get further into the hospital they had to pass through an airport-style electronic, metal-detecting frame.
When they caught up with him Brooking said, “That was outrageous! I’ll file a protest!”
“What’s the point?” pleaded Charlie. “They’re doing their job!”
“Authority is the point.”
“It might well be,” acknowledged Charlie, with a meaning Brooking didn’t comprehend. “There are times usefully to invoke it and there are times when you are going to fuck everything up, like now …”
“I don’t think …” broke in Brooking, in fresh outrage, only to be interrupted in turn by Anne Abbott.
“I do, Richard! If this all degenerates any worse and I’m asked why, I’m going to have to say you weren’t any help at all. In fact, that you got in the way. And we’re having a row within the hearing of Russians one, if not more of whom, I am sure speaks very good English. I’d also expect there to be CCTV cameras, with sound, and for every moment of this totally unnecessary nonsense to be recorded. Which I deeply regret, as I’m sure Charlie regrets. I thought we’d talked about this, on the way here.”
Brooking’s face burst crimson. “I …” he started, then abruptly stopped, his eyes searching the vestibule and the corridors leading from it for the threatening cameras.
“My name is Badim,” said a voice, behind Charlie. “Nicholai Iliach Badim. I am the surgeon-administrator. I can escort you, if you’re ready?” He spoke English.
“And I am Guerguen Semonovich Agayan, psychiatrist-incharge,” said a second man. He spoke English, too.
“We’re ready,” said Charlie. Fucked up before we start, he thought. Then he thought, no I’m not. It was unsettling to realize he’d begun to think of himself as part of a team, although while he was in England it had obviously been necessary to designate theeagerly accepting Donald Morrison as the local British contact with the now supposedly centralized investigation and to duplicate all the Russian witness interviews. Perhaps, for once, there needed to be a team.
The photo-comparison and briefcase check was repeated outside the guard-blocked ward but there was no attempt at body searching.
“Strictly half an hour,” said Badim. “We’ll stay with you.”
Brooking nodded in smiling agreement. Charlie thought how fortunate his earlier visit to the American embassy had been and said, “This is officially a British embassy interview, without the presence of any foreign nationals. We respect, of course, your medical restrictions. Which we’ll observe. But you cannot remain with us. Everything that is said is being recorded and will be made available to your authorities.”
Brooking made no move to speak.
Anne said, “That’s international law, once you’ve agreed he’s medically and mentally capable of being interviewed. Which you have.”
Badim said, “I’ll register a protest, as I did yesterday.”
“So will I,” threatened Agayan. “We’ll be directly outside, from where we can see the patient.”
“And we’ll abide to your time stipulation,” undertook Anne. Charlie wished she hadn’t, standing back for Anne and Brooking to go into the cramped room ahead of him. There were again four men inside, all of whom looked expressionlessly at them but made no move to leave. The gray-bandaged George Bendall lay gray faced on his gray bed, eyes closed.
Charlie said, “We’ll be half an hour.”
A surprisingly slight, bespectacled man said, “Our instructions are to remain at all times in the room with the prisoner.”
Charlie saw the record light was rhythmically throbbing on the heavy, antiquated Russian equipment beside the bed. “We want you to go.”
“We have our orders.”
Charlie moved to the dirt-fissured window to get a better signal on his cell phone and dialled the direct line into the American embassyincident room. Olga was very quickly on the line. Charlie said, “I’ll put you on to your people,” and passed the telephone to the clerk-like man, who listened without responding until the very end, when he said, “I understand.” He handed the telephone back to Charlie as he stood and still not speaking led the other Russians from the room.
Charlie was careful to place their recorder on a table on the opposite side of the bed to the still operating Russian machine, to avoid conflicting disturbance, gesturing Anne to the solitary chair vacated by the Russian recordist. There were two other chairs waiting at the door by the time he went to fetch them. Both Badim and Agayan lurked in the corridor. Charlie accorded Brooking the seat closest to the eyes-tight man, depressed the start button of their machine and nodded for the diplomat to open the encounter.
It was several moments before Brooking did so, not initially anticipating the invitation. He stumbled, several times calling Bendall by name in the hope of waking him. He looked sideways in confusion when the bandaged man remained with his eyes closed. Charlie made rotating movements with his hands for Brooking to continue, which the diplomat awkwardly did although limiting his contribution to setting out the consular representation. By the time he’d finished Brooking was visibly sweating and his starched, cut-away collar had garrotted an unbroken red line around his nervous throat.
“Do you understand everything I’ve said, Mr. Bendall?” concluded Brooking.
The feigned sleep continued. Brooking looked helplessly at Charlie and Anne.
Charlie said, “Vladimir Petrovich Sakov calls you a fucking idiot. Useless with it.” Although Charlie was concentrating intently upon the man in the tunnelled bed he was aware of Brooking’s wince. Bendall’s eyes remained steadfastly closed. Thirty minutes, remembered Charlie. “Vasili Gregorevich wouldn’t have said that, would he?”
There was a lid flicker, a stirring.
“You think Vasili Gregorevich died in an accident? I don’t. I think he was killed, probably by the same people who murdered your mother.” Olga Melnick should easily be able to recover all thedetails of the Timiryazev railways crossing crash by the afternoon. Hopefully with all the other officially tracable queries he’d raised earlier that morning. Charlie was aware of Anne’s uncertain frown across the raised bed covering.
Bendall’s eyes opened. At once Charlie said for the benefit of the tape, “George Bendall-Georgi Gugin-appears to have recovered consciousness,” and nudged Brooking into a repetition of the consular guarantee. Brooking reacted as if he were waking up too, but echoed virtually verbatim what he’d earlier registered on tape. Anne Abbott picked up the moment he finished, identifying herself as a lawyer there to formulate a defense, which would have to be presented in court by a Russian attorney.
“I don’t want any help from the British embassy. From the United Kingdom,” announced Bendall. His voice wasn’t as weak as it had been on the previous day’s tape to which Charlie had listened.
“Why are you going down for everyone else?” demanded Charlie, ignoring Anne’s fresh look of concern at what amounted to their dismissal by the man.
“No one else.”
“When did you get together?” asked Charlie. “It was the army, wasn’t it?”
Bendall began to hum, very softly, a tuneless wailing dirge that reminded Charlie of Middle Eastern music. Or Afghan, he reminded himself. “That where you met Vasili Gregorevich, in Afghanistan? Was he in the army with you?”
Bendall said somethin
g Charlie didn’t hear, his head turned, but Anne did. “Brother?” she queried.
There were no brothers! thought Charlie.
It was Anne who carried it on, understanding. “Is that where you formed the brotherhood? Joined it in Afghanistan?”
There was a moment’s more humming, then “Never knew.”
“You must have laughed at the officers, their not knowing?” said Charlie, taking Anne’s lead. The army record was one of drunken loutishness. It didn’t fit.
Bendall didn’t reply but he sniggered.
“You sure they didn’t know?” pressed Charlie. “You got punished a lot.”
“Didn’t understand.”
“What didn’t they understand, Georgi?” He didn’t like his English name, Charlie remembered.
“Didn’t understand.”
“Were you tricking them in the army … pretending …?” suggested Anne.
“Didn’t know.”
“That was clever,” said Anne, persuasively. “Good to stay together afterwards, too, when you left the army.”
“Meeting old friends … old comrades … every Tuesday and Thursday?” added Charlie. He was conscious of Brooking frowning in bewilderment between himself and Anne.
“Comrades,” said Bendall.
“Not at first, though,” prompted Charlie, recalling Vera Bendall’s account. “You didn’t meet up with them at first when you left the army, did you?”
The wailing hum rose and fell.
“Was that your song, what you sang when you were all together?” asked Anne.
It stopped, abruptly.
“Tell us the words, Georgi? It does have words, doesn’t it?” Fifteen minutes left, Charlie saw. He checked that their recorder was revolving smoothly.
“No one knows.”
No one knows what? thought Charlie, desperately. “Secret, like the brotherhood?” he guessed.
Bendall smiled. “Special.”
“You were, weren’t you Georgi?” said Anne. “A special person in a special group … special, secret group that noone knew about.”
“Shan’t tell you.”
“Did you swear an oath, Georgi?” asked Charlie. “Promise to be loyal to each other … protect each other?”
Bendall smiled but didn’t speak.
He said that it was right. That he had to, remembered Charlie. Bendall’s words when he was struggling for possession of the gun, according to Vladimir Sakov. “Was that what you were doing when you shot at the president, protecting the brotherhood?”
Bendall’s face clouded. “Had to.”
“Why did you have to?” pressed Anne. “What was the president going to do to hurt you and your friends?”
“I knew.”
“Tell us what you knew,” urged Anne.
“Right to do it.”
Even the same words, isolated Charlie. “Who told you that?”
“Someone who helped.”
“Who helped you?”
“Friend.”
“How many shots did you fire?” Another of Charlie’s reasons for going first to the U.S. embassy had been to discover how many cartridges had remained in the rifle’s ten-round magazine when it had been recovered, an obvious questions he was irritated at himself for not finding out earlier that it had been empty when it had been picked up after the fall.
“All of them.” The man’s eyes were becoming heavy.
“How many’s that?”
“Two.”
“Only two?”
“Special bullets. All they had.”
“Who’s ‘they’ Georgi?” came in Anne.
“Special,” said the man again.
He wasn’t referring to the cartridges, Charlie decided. “They’ll be very proud of you.”
“Yes.”
“Are you proud of them, to be one of the brotherhood?” asked Anne.
The smile was of a satisfied, proud man. He didn’t speak. Brooking was sitting back in his chair, legs extended full length in front of him, mind obviously elsewhere. Probably up his ass, thought Charlie.
“It’s good to belong to something: a proper-special-family, isn’t it?” coaxed Charlie.
The eyes closed, didn’t open.
“Georgi!” said Charlie, sharply. “Who are we? Why are we here?”
The eyes flickered open, although slowly. “Not going to tell you anything.”
“If I’m going to help defend you, you’ve got to tell me things I have to know,” said Anne, urgently.
“Too tired.”
“There’s a lot more time, as much time as you need,” said Anne. “All we need. We’ll come back again. For as long as it takes.”
Charlie didn’t totally believe Bendall was too tired to go on, but there was no way-no time because he was already aware of the doctors at the door-it could be challenged. Nor should it be. Over a life-time which seemed to begin when people had dinosaurs for pets Charlie believed he’d perfected an untrained ability to outpsychologize most psychologists. And the amateur Freudian diagnosis-even with the essential Freudian sexuality-encompassed wombs, although not physical ones, family dysfunction and surrogates, with generous outlets for mentally disturbed violence and an already beer-hall tested philosophy of foot-stamping marching songs and a lot of alcohol. Bendall had performed as much as he intended. And had unquestionably given away more than he wanted or imagined he had. It was important to leave Bendall thinking he’d controlled the encounter but with an eroding worm of doubt. “After you did it, how were they going to get you away, get you back safely among them?”
There was no obvious physical reaction but Charlie was sure Bendall wasn’t asleep and had heard him.
“Thank you, for being properly considerate,” said the waiting Badim, when they emerged. “I don’t after all think there’s anything officially to complain about.”
“This is probably the first of several sessions,” said Charlie. “One visit obviously isn’t enough.”
“I suppose not,” said Agayan, walking with them back through the cluttered corridors.
“You typed his blood when he was admitted, of course?”
“Of course,” confirmed Badim. “He needed transfusions. It’s AB.”
“Were there any other tests?”
Badim’s head came around sharply. “The only concern was to find the right blood group, for a safe transfusion.”
“You’ve still got some of the sample?”
“Yes?”
“Could we have some, now?”
Badim stopped. “Why?”
“We want to test for alcohol.” That was sufficient for the man to know, thought Charlie.
“It could be tested here.”
“And I’d appreciate a copy of those tests, just as I’m sure you’d like to know the result of our analysis. Which I’ll guarantee, for comparison.”
“I’m not sure I’m authorized.”
“It’s a medical request. I understood you to be the surgeon-administrator, the responsible authority?”
“I am!” said the easily offended man.
“A sample wouldn’t need any specific control. We could wait,” said Charlie, wanting to stop short of the heavily guarded vestibule. “And you know our authority is from the Kremlin.”
For several moments the man hovered, uncertainly. Then he gestured them into a room about two meters further along the corridor which they were never to know was from where Olga Melnik had the previous day gazed down upon the approach of her new lover. Agayan walked away with the other Russian.
Immediately inside Brooking said, “This has all been absurd, a total waste of time. The man is obviously mentally unwell. That will have to be the plea!”
“Obviously,” agreed Charlie. There was no way it could have been anticipated they’d be in this room so it wouldn’t be wired or cameraed but he still looked intently around.
Ignoring the diplomat, Anne said, “I told you we were a good team, didn’t I?”
“And I agreed,” r
eminded Charlie.
“What do you mean?” demanded Brooking.
“Just technical stuff,” said Charlie.
“I want a copy of that tape, to take with us to London,” said thelawyer. “It probably won’t be admissable in court but I want a psychiatric assessment.”
“So do I,” said Charlie.
“It’s much less of an embarrassment to the government if he’s certifiably insane, someone not mentally responsible for his actions,” offered Brooking. “That and the fact that he has lived here for twenty-six years.”
Charlie had to force himself to talk to the man. “Luck all the way along the line.”
Mikhail Badim reentered the room alone carrying a phial in his outstretched hand. “We’re testing for alcohol, too.”
“A comparison is essential, for an empirical result,” accepted Charlie. He was contributing more towards a mitigating defense than to the continuing investigation, but then that was the primary purpose of today’s interview.
In the car on the way back to the embassy Anne said to the diplomat, “Do you feel there’s any reason for you to come with us, for the next meeting?”
“Not at all,” said Brooking, hurriedly. “I think I fulfilled everything I had to do in today’s visit. I thought it all went very well, despite the unfortunate fellow’s obvious madness.”
“Very well indeed,” echoed Charlie.
Walter Anandale ended the urging of both Wendall North and the secretary of state for a diplomatic compromise by rejecting their suggestions in preference to his own, which didn’t include acting Russian president Aleksandr Okulov, and just as curtly ordered them to fix it.
Jeff Aston, the now unquestionably-obeyed head of presidential security, insisted they needed a highway-cleared, intersection-controlled route from the embassy to the hospital but gave the embassy as the return destination in the demand to the GIA traffic police. The Secret Service chief also insisted upon being in total media charge, once more restricting the still picture and television coverage of Anandale’s meeting with the Russian leader to American White House cameramen. It also guaranteed his being in total controlof their release, which was to be timed to give the impression that the American leader, his wife and entourage were still in Moscow when the intention was for them to be already high over the Atlantic, on their way to Washington.
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