It wouldn’t make any easier her humiliating embassy reentry, thought Olga. She said, “The militia will be directly and identifiably investigating the FSB, what we agreed would be dangerous.”
Zenin’s smile faltered. “Not our decision. Provably ordered, by the presidential enquiry.”
“We’re still being sucked in too close,” warned Olga.
She was waiting directly outside George Bendall’s ward when Charlie arrived, with the two lawyers. Five chairs were set out in readiness in the room already emptied of guards who hovered further along the corridor. Beyond the woman Charlie saw Bendall was in a chair, too. Charlie was sure the bandaging on the man’s leg as well as the swathe around his shoulder and arm was less than the previous day.
Handing Charlie the list Olga said, “Names you might want to put to him, they’re the men moved out of Bendall’s unit in the first six months of his army service.”
“You haven’t put them to him already?” demanded Charlie, at once. They had to have been. Perhaps they had but she wanted Bendall’s failure or refusal to respond to be on his recording, not on their no longer shared duplicate.
“I’ve only just got them,” Olga replied, honestly. “Only just arrived here myself.”
Would she risk the lie being exposed by Bendall protesting he’d already been asked? It wasn’t important, Charlie dismissed. He had them, to put to the man. He nodded further into Bendall’s room. “Have you interviewed him today?”
Olga shook her head, speaking more to Arkadi Noskov. “Professor Agayan and two colleagues conducted their psychiatric assessment this morning-I’ll see you get them, of course. But I haven’t taken my questioning any further.”
Charlie saw Anne’s eyebrows lift at the name familiarity but didn’t give any reaction himself. He wouldn’t have imagined the previous day’s British protests would have brought about such a totalreversal. Another reflection that wasn’t important. He ushered the two women into the room ahead of him and set up his tape. Noskov overflowed beside him.
“You’re looking better, Georgi.” The schedule was again for Charlie to lead the questioning, although for the lawyers to come in at once if there was something they wanted to pick up upon.
The man’s eyes went to each of them in turn but he didn’t respond. Assessing his audience for the latest performance, Charlie decided. “You feeling OK?”
Bendall shrugged.
“Can’t imagine someone like you found this morning’s meeting too difficult?”
“Didn’t know what they were talking about: rubbish, most of it.”
“That’s what I told you before, you’re cleverer than any of us. But we do need to understand more ourselves, to make it easier for others to get the complete picture of what it’s all about.”
“They’ll find out.”
“It’s the complete picture that’s important,” joined in Noskov. “We mustn’t leave anything out.”
“I don’t intend to.”
It had been a useful interruption, judged Charlie. “It just could happen. Your not being able to remember the name of the man the KGB put into the army with you, for instance. People might not believe that if you can’t recall a name, think you were making it up.” Bendall’s face darkened and his mouth opened for the shout but before he could Charlie said, “We don’t think that, of course. That’s why we’ve done what we can to help you.”
Bendall’s mouth closed but the expression remained suspicious. He needed to be aware of every expression, Charlie realized. Which he couldn’t do and read out the fifteen names at the same time. Without looking at Anne he passed the list across the bed to her, at the same time saying, “We’ve got some names that might jog your memory. People who were in the army with you.”
Anne’s take-over was seamless. “Kirril Semenovich Kashva?” she began.
Bendall remained blank faced, blank eyed.
“Yevgenni Iosifovich Ibrimacimov?”
No reaction whatsoever.
“Sergei Leonidovich Golovkin?”
“Lost his nerve,” broke in Bendall. “Was good at first, had a good eye. But then he developed a shake. Can’t be accurate if you shake.”
“Not like you,” flattered Charlie, wanting to break the recitation.
“No, not like me,” smiled Bendall.
“Ilya Aleksandrovich Dolya?” resumed Anne.
Bendall shook his head, swirling the lank hair. There was no grimace of discomfort from the injury.
“Boris Sergeevich Davidov?”
There was a recognition! Almost imperceptible, a fraction of a second, but Charlie was sure he’d seen the movement in Bendall’s eyes, the vaguest tightening around the man’s mouth.
“Igor Mikhailevich Amosov?” continued Anne, her concentration entirely on the list.
“Had a breakdown, like Sergei Leonidovich. Weak,” sneered Bendall.
“Yakov Ivanovich Lomakin,” persisted Anne, to Bendall’s further head shake. After the following two identities the man stopped bothering even with that rejection, listening but giving no response. The only exception was with the last of the fifteen-Vladimir Grigorevich Pigorov-whom Bendall once more dismissed as weak, unable physically to endure the training.
“So the man the KGB put in with you isn’t one of these?” pressed Charlie.
“Not that I recognized.”
Charlie was sure that both Olga and Anne stirred, at the qualification. He said, “You would have recognized it, if he had been among them, wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you want us to go through the list again?” offered Anne.
“Not so soon.”
Wrong to push him, remembered Charlie. “Would you like a copy of the list, to look through on your own?”
“Yes,” accepted Bendall at once. “Let me have a copy to take my time over.”
“There’s something that we can’t understand, need you to help us with,” said Noskov. “You only had two bullets and we know that five were fired. So there had to be someone else. Did you know there was to be someone else?”
Charlie tensed for the outburst, remembering the hysteria of the American interview, but instead of answering Bendall softly began the dirge, his eyes fixed somewhere above their heads. Hurriedly Charlie said, “Tell us about February 18, Georgi. The Thursday night Vasili Gregorovich died. You were with him that night, weren’t you?”
The humming stopped. “All of us.”
“The brotherhood?” prompted Charlie.
“Drinking. Singing.”
“Where were you drinking?” Don’t anyone interrupt, try to take over, thought Charlie.
“It was a good night. All there.”
“All six of you?” chanced Charlie.
“Felt good,” avoided Bendall.
“Everyone drunk?”
“Everyone drunk,” agreed Bendall. “Anatoli Nikolaevich’s birthday.”
Charlie wished the others in the room would stop shifting, not wanting Bendall’s reverie broken by the slightest distraction. Keeping his own voice an even, dull monotone, wanting only to stroke the strings, Charlie said, “A lot of toasts?”
“Smashed the glasses, the first time. Traditionally.”
“Vasili Gregorovich was all right to drive, though? Knew how to drink?”
“Best drinker among us.”
“Why didn’t you go home to Timiryazev with Vasili? You often did, didn’t you.”
“Don’t remember. I was drunk. Someone did.”
“Who! Give us his name,” abruptly demanded Olga Melnik, strident-voiced.
Bendall physically jumped and blinked, several times, as if being awakened and the fury surged through Charlie. Anne groaned, audibly,and that annoyed Charlie too. Bendall looked carefully, alertly, from one to the other, smiling, and Charlie’s anger went as soon as it had come.
It was Noskov who tried to retrieve the mood, the thunderous voice soothing, encouraging. “You’re doing well, Georgi. We’re getting somewhe
re. Tell us about the funeral. You all went to that, didn’t you?”
“How do you know?” Bendall was still smiling.
“I don’t,” said the lawyer. “I want you to tell me about it.”
“Not the time.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world, I told you that,” misunderstood Noskov.
“Not the place,” corrected Bendall.
“Of course you’ll be able to tell everyone in court,” accepted Noskov, quickly recovering. “That’s what I want you to do. Tell me and then we’ll tell everyone again, in court. Make sure everyone understands.”
“No,” refused the man. “I decide.”
“I know you do,” said Noskov. “Everything’s your decision. Will you see me tomorrow?”
Bendall appeared to consider the request. “All right.”
Outside in the corridor Olga said at once, “I’m sorry. It was …”
“It’s all right,” stopped Charlie. “We didn’t lose anything.”
Both lawyers looked at him in surprise. Anne said, “We were going like a steam train in there!”
“Bendall was driving,” said Charlie.
Olga’s request to come back to the incident room with him precluded the Noskov-crowded embassy car. Charlie hailed a taxi and rode to Novinskij Bul’var without asking about the apparently renewed cooperation and Olga didn’t offer an explanation. The attention at their entry wasn’t as obvious as Olga had feared and Kayley greeted the Russian as if there had been no interruption in her being there.
Charlie held up the tape like a prize and said, “It’s the best yet.”
Olga matched Charlie’s gesture with what she carried and said,“We’ve got a list of names that possibly includes Bendall’s KGB minder, in the military. We’ve assigned individual teams to trace each one.”
“Let’s hope to Christ that this is lift-off at last,” said Kayley.
That night Zenin took Olga to bed early and was more demanding than he’d been before and afterwards she lay exhausted beside him, wondering how much longer it could possibly last, unsure for the very first time how well-or badly-she would be able to cope when it ended. Whenever it did-again for the very first time-it wouldn’t be by her choice.
“It’s not proof,” he said, picking up the earlier dinner table conversation. “You’re reacting to instinct.”
“I know,” admitted Olga. “But I’m right! I can feel it. The lead we want is among those fifteen names.”
“If he’s there, we’ll find him.”
“We should allow ourselves more time, not worry so much about media timing,” persisted Olga.
“You know the answer to that.”
“Will we share?”
Zenin was quiet for several moments. “After we’ve got him: got everything.”
“What if he’s still serving in the FSB? It’s more than possible.”
“But we’ve got the authority of the presidential commission.”
“Will we invoke it?”
“If we have to.”
“Be careful, darling. Personally careful, I mean.”
“How was it for you, going back today?”
“Better than I thought it would be.”
“You think the Americans, with all their manpower, will try to trace all the fifteen?”
“Without a doubt.”
“That could be our protection,” suggested Zenin. “Maybe we will share. Give the Americans the name, if we think we’ve discovered it, let them take on the FSB.”
Olga turned, moving her hand over his hair-matted chest. “Do that! It’ll be safer.”
“The FSB’s wrecked. And Karelin with it.”
“All the more reason-every reason-for not being associated with its destruction. Russian intelligence changes its face but not its memory.”
“I’ll look after you,” said Zenin.
“For how long?” asked Olga, wishing she could have bitten the words back as she uttered them, stiffening beside him. She lay with her eyes closed, as if by not seeing she shut out the embarrassment. She felt him turn towards her.
“It’s something for us to talk about-think about-isn’t it?”
“Is it?” she said, breath tight in her chest.
“How would you feel about having me as a husband as well as a lover?”
“I’d feel very happy. How would you feel having me as a wife?”
“Very happy. And very proud.”
It wasn’t going to end! It was going to go on, forever and Olga couldn’t imagine anything she wanted more. “Now we’ve got even more reason to be careful. I don’t want to lose this, to risk anything.”
“You think you would have got more?” asked Natalia.
Charlie shook his head. “Bendall wasn’t lost in memories. It was an act, feeding us a bit at a time and making us dance to his tune …” he smiled at the unintentional pun. “And it’s a bloody awful tune, too.”
“You achieved a hell of a lot, though.”
“As much as Bendall wanted to give.” He hadn’t told Natalia-discussed with anyone-what he believed to have been Bendall’s recognition of the Davidov name. Totally unoffended by Charlie’s disbelief and anxious to earn the offered fifty dollars, the concierge of the dilapidated block on Fadeeva Ulitza had two hours earlier let Charlie into Davidov’s listed apartment address to prove the man was no longer there, unprotestingly watching Charlie explore the few pieces of furniture that allowed the place to be described as furnished. Davidov had lived alone and hadn’t been friendly, complained the man. Davidov had been about thirty-five years old and looked fit, as if he trained, running or swimming or something like that. On the few occasions the concierge even remembered seeinghim, Davidov had worn a suit, with a collar and tie, so the caretaker assumed he worked in an office. Three militiamen and some Americans who’d said they were detectives had already been there so he guessed Davidov had done something pretty serious. Charlie agreed it might have been and left with the promise of another fifty dollars if the man called his embassy number to tell him Davidov had reappeared, hoping he’d outbid the Americans to whom, along with the militia, he decided to leave the legwork involved in trying to trace Davidov further, at least until the following day.
“How long do you think it will take?”
“I’ve put to him the idea of the court being his stage. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept a lot back until he appears in public.”
“You might not have to wait long,” said Natalia. “I ran into a brick wall arguing the court hearing should be postponed. Then this afternoon Okulov’s ordered the arraignment should be the same day as the funeral.”
“That’s in two days!” said Charlie.
“Can you imagine the media coverage?”
“Not when we enter a plea of not guilty, after everyone’s seen the television film,” said Charlie.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The Justice Ministry have decided there’s insufficient evidence of foul play for a militia investigation into Vera Bendall’s death.”
“Where’s the fix from, the Justice Ministry or the FSB?”
“Lefortovo is ultimately under FSB control,” reminded Natalia.
20
Natalia accepted she had been outmaneuvred with almost child-like ease but bruised pride was the least of her several concerns. Her need was to adjust Charlie’s don’t-get-sore-get-even philosophy, the only guide she had from all the half-remembered conversations andanecdotes to reverse the ambush Filitov and Trishin had trapped her into, just thirty minutes before Viktor Karelin’s arrival. She was on her own and in those first suspended minutes she couldn’t see a way to do it.
There were no smiles, wisped or otherwise, from Karelin. The face of the FSB chairman was as fixed as the way he sat, facing them, the only movement the slight tremor in the hand in which he held her initiated recommendation for militia involvement in the FSB internal investigations.
“We felt you s
hould be advised in advance, as a matter of courtesy,” improvised Natalia. It had been Filitov’s insistence, backed by the chief of staff, that there should be a vote upon advising Karelin before forwarding the suggestion to the Kremlin, ridiculous though the pretense had been with the two men so determinedly against her. The point, as always, had been to establish a provable, safety net record. From which the most glaring, and worrying, inference was that the federal prosecutor-but more importantly Yuri Trishin-seriously doubted Aleksandr Okulov’s formal election chances and were taking out insurance against the overthrow of the new regime, with the inevitable resurgence of the omnipotent intelligence service of which the man himself had once been such an integral part.
“By a majority decision,” hurriedly added Filitov, in unnecessary confirmation of Natalia’s reasoning.
“I believe the problems that have been uncovered within my organization can be very adequately dealt with internally,” said Karelin. “One, in fact, already has been. Your recommendation there has been overtaken by events.”
She could come back to that later, gauged Natalia. A vague idea was formulating but she didn’t know how to carry it through to the end. “We’re not questioning the adequacy of your organization. The intention …” She paused, unsure at the risk but then recalling Filitov’s blatant entrapment “is to protect it.” They had to commit themselves-from their own mouths-if she was going to turn their maneuvre back upon them. She needed a response-any response-she could use.
“Protect it!” demanded Karelin. He always had an escape, to keephis service inviolable, but he was intrigued by their even imagining such an intrusion was possible. Not “their” imagining, he corrected, the woman who’d once been in the service. It was as difficult to understand as Okulov appointing an investigating commission in the first place, with her as its chairman.
Good enough; very good, in fact. Natalia was conscious of Filitov and Trishin twisting sideways towards her, matching Karelin’s bewilderment, and just as obviously turned herself to the chief of staff. “You would agree, wouldn’t you Yuri Fedorovich, that one of the essential remits of this Commission is to ensure external transparency, particularly as far as the United States of America is concerned?”
Kings of Many Castles cm-13 Page 29