Bomb Grade

by Brian Freemantle

  Johnson felt the warmth rise through him, sweat actually pricking out on his back, and hoped it hadn’t reached his face. He shrugged, trying the dismissive laugh. ‘Of course I’ve spoken to Fenby! This is virtually a joint operation, isn’t it? I can only assume you weren’t available when he called.’

  ‘The times arc logged,’ reminded Dean. ‘I was available on every occasion.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid I can’t explain it.’

  ‘We are supposed to be on the same side,’ said Dean. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were talking to Fenby?’

  Johnson blew his nose, using the gesture to mop the sweat gathering on his upper lip. ‘I don’t remember anything of consequence that made it necessary.’

  ‘University lecturers do need to remember,’ said Dean, intentionally mocking the other man’s earlier remarks. ‘I can remember, for instance, your telling the first full committee meeting after Muffin arrived in Moscow that the Americans had expressed gratitude …’ He paused. ‘Not to me they hadn’t. And then there was the intentional breaching of the containers at Pizhma. You announced that to the committee, before I’d had the chance.’

  Johnson made an ineffectual waving motion with his hands. ‘I had a lot of dealings with Fenby, when we used the American special relationship to achieve the appointment to Moscow. They’ve simply continued …’ He tried the laugh again, ‘You make it all sound sinister.’

  ‘I am not the one who’s allowed things to appear sinister.’

  Johnson’s hands fluttered again. ‘I don’t think I can respond to that.’

  ‘I don’t want you to. What I want you to do instead is make a decision, about your future. I will not tolerate resentment or ridiculous back-alley manoeuvrings. What we’re dealing with now is far too important for digressions like that. I will have a loyal team. If I don’t get it, I will create another one. Have I made myself clear?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Johnson. He knew his face was burning and there was nothing he could do about it. He did feel like a schoolboy found cheating at exams.

  ‘Then let me know your decision very soon.’ The magnitude of the Russian situation was far too great for the disruption of an enforced resignation, which in turn would have required a replacement, but Dean hoped he hadn’t made a mistake in not demanding the man’s departure. And demanding, too, to know what Johnson and Fenby were discussing during their telephone calls.

  This time Natalia did check the back-up connection to the observation room, prepared if necessary to turn off the table-mounted recording system to entice Yatisyna into the promised revelations. Through the glass she saw Yatisyna had done his best with the prison issue. He’d rolled the trouser and sleeve cuffs up and left the fly open to tie the two ends into a supporting knot at his waist. The superfluous material actually formed a penis-like protrusion and as he sat down Yatisyna feigned masturbation with it and asked the big-busted wardress what she would like to do with it. The rehearsed girl jeered that she’d probably catch something groping through the fetid uniform even before she was infected by what he had between his legs. The sound was perfect. Yetisyna still looked foolish but with the adjustments to the overall was better able than before to play the mafiosi braggart. She attached particular significance to his not losing his temper at the wardress’ clumsy derision. She guessed he’d decided to cooperate and believed that what he had to tell would be sufficient to negotiate a prison sentence from which he could either escape or bribe his way to freedom.

  Natalia listened and assessed everything with part of her mind still upon the meeting from which Charlie had been excluded. The American wasn’t sufficiently adept by himself. With Charlie at his side Kestler hadn’t appeared overawed by his surroundings but alone he’d hardly said anything, certainly not making sufficient contribution to justify his continued inclusion. She wasn’t sure how to read this new development. She still had their private link – more relieved now than ever that she’d established it – but she’d welcomed his presence at the open sessions, although not what had become the almost inevitable clashes with Aleksai. She was increasingly concluding, and wishing that she weren’t, that the fault was Aleksai’s. Determinedly she put aside what had already happened that day, thrusting her way along the connecting corridor to where Yatisyna waited.

  He was in her chair again and actually grinned up when she entered. She made the impatient shooing away hand gesture without bothering to speak and the expression faltered. He got up as slowly as he had the previous day. As she sat she started the visibly placed recorder and said peremptorily, ‘Your message said you had something to say. So say it.’

  ‘There’s a lot to talk about first. You speak to the Federal Prosecutor?’

  ‘No,’ said Natalia, at once. ‘And you knew I wasn’t going to, until there was something to be discussed.’

  He said, ‘That wasn’t very sensible,’ but Natalia thought the braggadocio flaked away, just slightly, at her rejection.

  She gazed up at him from the table, unspeaking. His smell had become noticeably worse.

  ‘I don’t like being recorded.’

  ‘I don’t like being kept waiting.’

  ‘I want it off.’

  It would be making a concession, which wasn’t good psychology, but she’d anticipated it. Natalia was surprised he didn’t suspect a back-up system. She reached out, snapping the machine off. ‘You’ve got two minutes.’

  ‘And them,’ said the man, jerking his head to the prison escorts.

  Another concession, although she was prepared for that as well. ‘Leave us but stay directly outside.’

  ‘I’d like to sit down.’

  ‘You’ve wasted thirty seconds.’

  ‘I want a guarantee!’

  ‘You’re not getting one.’ It was time to regain superiority.

  ‘I want to trade!’

  ‘Forty-five seconds.’

  ‘Take what I give you to the prosecutor! Tell him there’s more! A lot more. But he won’t get it unless I get an understanding.’

  There’d have to be something among the bluff. ‘All right.’

  ‘You got Agayans?’

  ‘There’s a warrant.’

  ‘But you haven’t got him yet?’

  ‘No.’ There was no danger in that admission.

  ‘He did set it up, all of it. He needed us because it was our territory; the Militia were ours.’

  ‘So you thought’

  Yatisyna grimaced, accepting the correction. ‘That’s something else I’ll give you. All the names.’

  Important but not the most important. ‘So Agayans approached you?’

  ‘Six months ago. Said he had buyers for nuclear stuff and that he knew there were three installations around Kirov where it was available. Which we already knew. We already had people inside Kirs. What we didn’t have were buyers. So it was the perfect partnership.’

  ‘Agayans had buyers?’ isolated Natalia.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not just one? Several?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Natalia fought against the excitement, knowing if she gave the slightest indication Yatisyna would believe he’d provided enough. ‘How many?’

  ‘Three. Maybe four.’

  Too vague: he was lying. ‘Names?’

  ‘I never knew any names.’

  ‘What was the deal, between you and Agayans?’ With his sleeves rolled back Natalia could see Yatisyna had a bird tattooed on the forefinger of his left hand; she’d heard some Russian Mafia Families affected skin decoration as a mark of recognition.

  ‘Twenty million dollars, minimum. And affiliation with the Ostankino.’

  ‘You were going to get twenty million dollars and join one of the six leading Mafia Families in Russia but they didn’t trust you enough to meet one single buyer!’

  ‘I did meet a buyer. Three months ago. Here in Moscow, in a club.’

  ‘What nationality?’

  ‘Arab.’

  ‘Which country?’r />
  ‘I don’t know. He had a European with him: French, I think, who could speak Russian.’

  ‘Did Agayans know the name?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘How did everyone refer to each other, when they talked?’

  ‘They just talked, without using names.’

  ‘Could you identify the Arab again?’ Natalia decided to bypass the operational group and go direct to the ministers: warn them in advance for Dmitri Fomin to attend, from the President’s secretariat.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘And the Frenchman?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Could you describe them, for an artist to make an impression?’ He’d had twenty-four hours to invent this story. There was no guarantee of any of it being true, until they could confront Agayans, but a lot of it sounded convincing enough.

  ‘I could try.’

  Arab, reflected Natalia: with a French intermediary. How would that balance against Aleksai’s insistence of the material still being in Moscow. She was immediately annoyed with herself. With Yatisyna she was discussing a robbery that hadn’t succeeded. And Aleksai had never argued against the West or the Middle East being the final destination, just that it hadn’t moved in that direction yet. ‘I’ll arrange it tomorrow.’

  ‘And see the Federal Prosecutor?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dmitri Fomin had already made the decision but there was everything to be gained by stringing the man along.

  ‘That’s a nice dress,’ said the gang leader. ‘Nice watch, too. You like nice things?’

  ‘Very much,’ said Natalia. If he wanted to go on she certainly wasn’t going to stop him. ‘You know a lot of Militia people in Kirov who like nice things?’

  ‘Not just in Kirov,’ said Yatisyna, pointedly.

  ‘Moscow, too,’ she anticipated.

  ‘Agayans is very proud of his special friends. He’s introduced me to a lot of them.’

  ‘Who?’

  Yatisyna smiled. ‘After you’ve talked to the prosecutor.’

  chapter 24

  Even before he left the American embassy Charlie worked out the priorities to achieve the maximum advantage, the most important of which was getting his side of every story to London first. So he was relieved that Sir William Wilkes’s Rolls wasn’t in the forecourt when he got to Morisa Toreza. He avoided Bowyer’s office and his own cubby-hole, skirting directly to the cipher room. He was connected instantly to the impatiently waiting Director-General, who said at once the Foreign Office briefing had escalated to Downing Street and the Prime Minister’s chairmanship. Charlie promised, page by page, information he insisted was essential before any parliamentary statement was made. Aware that all telephone communications with Moscow were recorded and would later be available for examination, Charlie accepted that if he’d misinterpreted by a jot his balls would within twenty-four hours be fluttering in the wind like the British pennant from the ambassadorial Rolls, which still hadn’t reappeared outside.

  ‘You made any protest?’ demanded Dean, sharply, when Charlie announced his exclusion.

  ‘Nothing to object to,’ reminded Charlie. ‘We were always accepted on sufferance.’

  ‘But the Americans are still in?’

  ‘They don’t think they will be, for much longer. While they are, we’re covered.’ There was, of course, no question of his ever telling London of the arrangement with Natalia.

  ‘Full cooperation locally.’

  ‘It’s working well.’

  It was time he brought Fenby down to earth, Dean decided. ‘We’ll discuss it more fully later.’

  Charlie remained in the cipher-room hideaway, handing his written account a promised page at a time for simultaneous encryption and transmission, careless of mistyping in his eagerness to get his views and opinions in London before any others. He’d finished most of it before Bowyer appeared, flushed, at the door. ‘Where the hell have you been? The ambassador’s going mad, trying to find you! Everyone is!’

  ‘Working,’ said Charlie, not looking up.

  ‘Stop what you’re doing and come with me!’

  ‘I’m going to finish this.’

  ‘I told you to come with me!’

  ‘Call the Director-General and ask if he wants me to stop.’ Charlie held back, just, from referring to Dean as the DG: there was the specific London instruction about Bowyer’s seniority down the drain, he reflected. But there was a purpose in his doing it, like there was in every move he was making now.

  ‘Are you …!’ started the outraged station chief.

  ‘… Fifteen minutes,’ stopped Charlie. ‘Call London.’ He went on writing while Bowyer stood for several minutes at the doorway before turning abruptly to stomp back into the main embassy building. Charlie refused to meet the conspiratorial attention upon him from the clerks. It actually took him twenty minutes to finish and a further ten to retrieve his full, un-encrypted report, which was a leaving-the-room afterthought. Charlie found Thomas Bowyer sitting rigidly in the official rezidentura. Charlie was sure Bowyer would have sought London adjudication and that the stuffed-animal demeanour was the result but didn’t press it. He said, ‘Sorry to have kept you,’ wishing the cliché hadn’t sounded so mocking.

  ‘The ambassador’s waiting,’ said Bowyer, moving jerkily out into the corridor. They went in total silence to the ambassador’s suite.

  Wilkes waved away Bowyer’s hurried apologies for lateness but Nigei Saxon sat tensed forward in a chair bordering Wilkes’s desk, impatient to strike. ‘You’ve been in contact with London before consulting us!’ accused the Chancellery head. ‘That’s directly against the instructions you were given. You were told to report to senior authority at all times.’

  ‘The ambassador was not available,’ said Charlie. ‘It was a matter of urgency.’

  ‘It was the ambassador’s responsibility to respond to this!’

  ‘Which is being delayed by this conversation,’ pointed out Charlie. It sound stronger than he intended. Saxon pulled his lips into a tight line.

  ‘I do think it’s important to get on,’ prompted Wilkes. ‘It seems the Russians have pulled off quite a coup.’

  Whatever he’d lost here at the embassy he’d made up for by getting his views to London first, Charlie decided. ‘I’d advise caution with that assessment.’

  Wilkes’s frown was to Bowyer. ‘According to the briefing I’ve just had at the Foreign Ministry, they’ve recovered a lot of material. And expect to recover a lot more.’

  ‘They actually said that?’

  ‘They inferred it.’

  ‘I don’t believe there are any grounds whatsoever to think that,’ said Charlie. ‘They’re trumpeting a success to cover a failure: there’s still an enormous amount missing …’ He stood, putting his dispatch on the ambassador’s desk. ‘This is my opinion.’

  ‘Reached upon what grounds?’ demanded Saxon.

  ‘The facts, as we so far know them. And common sense,’ retorted Charlie. ‘The Russians are mounting a containment exercise, blowing up as much smoke as possible. Which I don’t blame them for: any government would do the same, in the circumstances in which Moscow finds itself. I just think we should see through the smoke.’

  ‘Which you can do!’ said Saxon.

  Charlie looked directly at the man for several moments without speaking, making the disdain clear. ‘Which everyone should be able to do, looking at the situation objectively.’

  Wilkes came up frowning from Charlie’s report. ‘You certainly disagree with the guidance I got, that there was little risk of anything reaching the West: that it was still in Moscow.’

  ‘Total rubbish,’ insisted Charlie. ‘The majority remains missing and are on their way to the West.’

  ‘Where’s your proof?’ insisted Saxon. ‘Are you seriously suggesting the ambassador ignores what he’s just been told? That the Russians are lying?’

  Sometimes, thought Charlie, Alice Through the Looking Glass seemed like a treatise in ir
refutable logic. ‘The Russians are doing exactly what every government does when there’s a potential disaster: mislead to fool the people they rule and as many outsiders as possible that they can handle it. In this case they’re trying to fool other governments, too.’ And from Wilkes’s attitude, Charlie guessed they’d succeeded.

  A discernible shift ran through the room at the cynicism. ‘I think that’s an extreme opinion,’ volunteered Bowyer, entering the discussion. ‘And one not necessarily shared by everyone.’

  Charlie looked sideways at the other man, the irritation surging through him. He’d need something positive, some evidence, upon which to complain to London, but he didn’t think it would be too hard to achieve. And when he did he’d openly confront this situation. At first it hadn’t worried him – he’d even thought it potentially useful – but now he found it a downright bloody nuisance.

  ‘I asked you for proof, upon which you base your opinions,’ repeated Saxon.

  If I had it I wouldn’t offer it to you, thought Charlie. ‘And I gave you my answer.’

  ‘Then I think we should rely upon official sources rather than base a reaction upon the opinion of someone with little knowledge or awareness of diplomacy.’

  ‘Why don’t you do just that?’ suggested Charlie.

  The ambassador came up from Charlie’s account a second time, the affability gone. ‘You seem to make a practice of expressing yourself very strongly.’

  Charlie supposed that was a diplomatic slap on the back of his legs. He looked pointedly at his watch. ‘In a few hours from now an official statement is going to be made in the House of Commons. If it’s wrong or misguided, within a very short time – days even – it could prove to be extremely embarrassing. Most embarrassing of all for the people upon whose guidance that statement was made.’

  ‘As it could if it is based upon your guidance and your opinion is wrong,’ challenged Saxon, immediately.