Bomb Grade

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Can you be sure?’

  ‘Permanently pulled out from something as big as this? You’ve got to be joking!’

  ‘There aren’t any jokes here, Charlie.’

  And didn’t he know it! Risking that she’d been sufficiently deflected, he said, ‘I’ve got to leave tomorrow. So I need to know about the recovery now!’

  It came disjointedly, a hurried, second-hand account of the Agayans and Shelapin Family purges to get to the interrogations in which she was personally involving herself. But Charlie refused to be hurried, breaking in to bring Natalia specifically back to everything she knew about what had happened at Ulitza Volkhonka. Which wasn’t much. It had been one of several addresses checked of known members of the Shelapin Family. It was a rabbit warren of apartment complexes, so a surprise approach had been impossible. By the time the Militia and Special Forces had closed around the identified address, it was barred against them: the demand that the door be opened had been answered by a scatter of Kaleshnikov fire that injured two Militia officers. The door had been blown in by a grenade. The first Militia man across the threshold had been killed instantly and it was in the resulting fire-fight three gang members had died. It was only later, after all the arrests, that the canisters were found in the basement garage of one of the dead men, who had been named as Anatoli Dudin, an acknowledged Shelapin gang member who had a criminal record stretching back almost twenty years. The canisters had been intact and concealed only by a tarpaulin thrown over them. Every arrested Shelapin man denied any knowledge of the canisters or of the Pizhma robbery: their lawyers were already demanding their release.

  ‘You still haven’t got Agayans or Shelapin themselves?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Agayans is important, after what you got from Yatisyna.’

  ‘Charlie!’

  ‘Sorry,’ he apologized. ‘What about forensic, at Volkhona?’ It had been a mistake not trying to speak to Hillary Jamieson. ‘Have the canisters been checked for Dudin’s fingerprints? Anyone’s fingerprints?’

  ‘It’s hardly relevant, is it? The man’s dead. And they were on his property. Petr Tukhonovich didn’t say anything about forensic examination.’

  ‘Petr Tukhonovich?’ queried Charlie.

  ‘Gusev,’ completed Natalia and Charlie remembered the Moscow Militia commander who’d announced the finding of the lorries in the Arbat.

  Charlie was disappointed Natalia didn’t see the point of a forensic examination. ‘Provable fingerprints, even of a dead man, would show that the Shelapin people were lying, wouldn’t it? Like any prints could have led you to people with records for whom you haven’t issued warrants yet.’

  ‘My mistake,’ admitted Natalia.

  ‘Not your mistake. The mistake of the investigating scene-of-crime officer.’

  ‘I think the containers have been moved to Murom.’

  Handled by everyone and his dog by now, guessed Charlie. ‘Nothing that can be done about it. Who’s convinced everything else is still in Moscow?’

  There was a pause. ‘It just seems to be the general consensus,’ offered Natalia, at last.

  ‘Aleksai led the chorus the other day?’

  ‘He’s one of them,’ she agreed. ‘Gusev, too. Fomin and Badim seem to have accepted it, as well. Yatisyna’s information was about Kirs, not Pizhma.’

  ‘I believe some of it, maybe all of it, is being shipped through Warsaw. Probably even gone through Warsaw,’ announced Charlie, flatly.

  Charlie waited patiently for Natalia to recover and when she did she matched the professionalism of Balg, earlier, in not demanding proof or sources. ‘It’s already being acted upon?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You sure of an arrest? A recovery?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Nothing, practically,’ cautioned Charlie. ‘But use it, carefully. Go on as you did today, with people like Fomin and Badim. At that level – but not the operational group – argue as strongly as you can that Russia can’t operate in isolation; that you need Western involvement and cooperation.’ What he was hoping to achieve would need more than Natalia’s lone voice, although she would have impressed people who mattered by what appeared to be the result of her interrogation of the Kirov gang leader.

  There was another brief pause. ‘That excludes Aleksai.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Charlie, reluctantly. ‘Of course I expect you to talk about it to him.’

  ‘He’ll oppose it, privately as well as publicly. You particularly. He thinks you’ve picked arguments at the meetings.’

  For once Charlie was uncomfortable with pillow talk because of whose pillow the talk came from. ‘You know that’s not true.’

  ‘I do,’ Natalia accepted, pointedly. Then she said, ‘I feel I should do more, something practical! I just can’t leave it, like that!’

  ‘You haven’t got a choice,’ said Charlie, objectively.

  ‘I don’t feel I’m doing enough!’ Natalia protested.

  He hadn’t felt that about himself, until the last two days: maybe even less. And he still had a lot to prove to himself, before he even considered trying to convince others. ‘That’s ridiculous! If half of what you got from Yatisyna is true you’ve taken the investigation a long way forward, with further to go when you get Agayans. You’re being brought to the attention of the President, for Christ’s sake!’

  She didn’t appear convinced. ‘I’m not comfortable with this.’

  ‘You could find the key to everything!’ he insisted.

  ‘I didn’t mean the questioning. I meant this: you and I. Doing this … I feel I’m deceiving Aleksai. Which I am.’

  A flurry of responses came to Charlie’s mind. He didn’t want to lose her: lose this link. And it wasn’t just personal, not any more. He needed this back channel. Without it, now that official cooperation was denied him, he couldn’t gauge the moves to make. ‘We’re not deceiving Aleksai: not in any proper meaning of the word. We’re protecting you. And Sasha. And doing everything we can – more than anyone else with whom you’re working – to solve a robbery that could cause a catastrophe. Where’s the deceit, real deceit, in that?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘You know I’m right. Think about it.’

  ‘Any idea how long you’ll be away?’

  ‘Just a few days.’ There was an intake of breath from the other end of the line and he expected her to say something. When she didn’t he added; ‘I’ll have to call you, when I get back. It won’t be difficult for you to let me know if it’s inconvenient.’

  ‘All right,’ she agreed.

  ‘We haven’t talked about Sasha.’

  ‘No.’

  She was still uncertain, Charlie recognized. ‘She all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Learning numbers,’ Natalia volunteered, at last. ‘Not very well,’ she added.

  ‘She’s only …’

  ‘… I know how old she is, Charlie.’

  ‘I …’ he started and then stopped abruptly, before saying he’d like to see her again. Natalia had to trust him a lot more before that would be an easy request. Instead he said, ‘When I get back maybe we should meet: not rely always on telephoning like this?’

  ‘Why?’

  He didn’t like the immediate sharpness. ‘I’d like to.’ Not like: want to. He should have said something better; far better.

  ‘This is professional.’

  ‘I know that’

  ‘So this way is good enough.’

  Was it that she was frightened of meeting him alone, not trusting herself? Careful, he told himself. ‘So Sasha’s all right?’

  ‘I already told you.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong in talking about her, is there?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I …’

  ‘… This is getting confused,’ he stopped, although he didn’t want to cut her off. ‘I’ll call you when I get back from L
ondon.’ And persuade her somehow, some way to meet him again. But not with Sasha. By themselves. He had to take away her apprehension about the baby. He could lie, about London: invent something that sounded professional to get her to agree. He’d cheated her far worse in the past and this wasn’t cheating. Was there any point, he asked himself. He didn’t need to reationalize it, not yet, not now. Just not give up.

  ‘Do that,’ said Natalia and was the first to hang up.

  Charlie was pouring the second scotch, no longer in quite the celebratory mood as before, when the telephone rang again. Hillary Jamieson said, ‘What’s a gal do for fun around here!’

  ‘Go up and down,’ said Charlie.

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘It’s the name of the best club in town.’ And if everything worked out in the coming weeks, one in which he hoped to spend a lot of time. So tonight was as good a time to start as any. But what was this call about from Hillary Jamieson? More confusion to add to that he already felt.

  Hillary Jamieson entered the bar looking sensational in a mid-thigh sheath dress that didn’t waste a single silk thread and a contrasting blue matador jacket, completed by just a single strand gold choker: several glasses stalled between table and lip as she eased towards him. Charlie couldn’t remember seeing anyone move like her and didn’t want the distraction of trying. Eased didn’t describe it: poured was better but still lacking. He was at the bar because all the tables had been occupied when he arrived and poured still fitted the way she got on to the stool. She asked for vodka and said, ‘When in Rome,’ clinked glasses and then said, ‘Here’s to a new day,’ and Charlie decided it was certainly going to be very different from a lot he’d known for a long time.

  ‘What’s left of this one’s looking good enough.’ Charlie was totally bemused and happy to be so. He still needed to know about Ulitza Volkhonka so he even had the excuse that this was work, not pleasure. There weren’t, he told himself, any limits to which he wouldn’t go for the job.

  ‘Let’s hope,’ she smiled.

  ‘So how are you scoring Moscow, out of ten?’

  ‘Embassy compound accommodation nil. Socially, three and only then when the sun shines. Workwise, ten.’

  He hadn’t tried to rush anything, but it was all right with him if she wanted to get work out of the way. ‘The canisters were OK?’

  ‘Perfectly safe.’ Then, at once, ‘But I was right.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘About their being held in racks, in the lorries. The outside of every one was scored at exactly the same height, where they’d shifted slightly during the drive from Pizhma.’

  ‘So how was Volkhonka itself?’

  ‘Charlie, you wouldn’t believe it!’

  He thought he probably would. ‘Try me.’

  ‘Even though I’m classified a scientist I’ve gone through the courses at Quantico, right? Done the basics. This wasn’t even Keystone Kops. By the time I got to the garage there were at least eight guys, all standing around looking at each other doing fuck all but hoping to get into the television pictures that were being set up; their scientific guys – the same ones that were at the Arbat, I think although I’m not sure – had come and gone. It might have been them who’d put one of the canisters on its side but I’m not sure about that, either. There was a Militia man actually sitting on it, smoking a cigarette: if there’d been a leak he’d have been frying the balls he was trying to prove he had!’ She needed a breath, after the outrage. ‘And don’t worry. I left before the cameras started shooting and I wasn’t wearing FBI cover-alls anyway.’

  Although he already had the lead from Natalia he still wanted to hear it from Hillary. ‘What about forensic?’

  She snorted a laugh. ‘Nothing. And I mean just that: nothing. No dusting, no fibre checks, no positional diagrams, no ground casts, no scene-of-crime measurements, no nothing. Is there such a word as evidence in the Russian language?’

  Charlie wished he had been at Ulitza Volkhonka, to have overheard the conversations among the posing policemen: he was surprised a Russian-speaking old timer like Lyneham hadn’t hung around with Hillary. There was a crowd building around them, with Hillary the attraction, so Charlie pushed their way through the linking corridor to the Savoy restaurant, confident he wouldn’t lose the momentum. The more he thought about it, and he was thinking about nothing else now, the more he realized how important Hillary Jamieson was and could be to him. Charlie didn’t hurry with the comparison he wanted with what he’d been told on his first day at the British embassy. He went along with the predictable enthusiasm for the baroque decor and translated the menu and agreed it would be interesting to have the beluga before the sturgeon and took care over the imported Montrachet. Only then did he say, intentionally obtuse, ‘I’m not really sure what we’re up against here.’

  Hillary looked at him blankly. ‘You want to help me with that?’

  ‘I don’t mean the chaos and the inefficiency. What’s plutonium and all the rest of it do? Where’s the danger?’

  Hillary smiled, nodding her head in a gesture Charlie didn’t immediately understand. ‘It’s what makes the atom go bang: what splits it. By itself it emits rays you can’t see – the radiation like X-rays – which burn and cause several kinds of cancer. It destroys bones literally within the body. And mutates unborn foetuses.’

  ‘I wouldn’t sit on it,’ agreed Charlie.

  ‘It’s best not to.’

  ‘How many weapons could be made from what’s missing?’

  She smiled again. ‘Everybody’s question: it was one of the first that Fenby wanted answering. I can’t give one, specifically. Depends what sort of tactical weapon you want. If you’re talking Hiroshima, Nagasaki size and we’ve still got more than 200 kilos missing, then a minimum of forty.’

  ‘Minimum! You mean there could be more?’ queried Charlie, who’d thought the lower figure was inconceivable.

  ‘Nuclear technology has come a long way in half a century, Charlie!’

  ‘How endangered are the men who breached the canisters at Pizhma? And the soldiers who cordoned it off, later?’

  ‘The thieves, hardly at all. I’ve gone through our picture sequences: their exposure was very brief, less than ten minutes and that wasn’t concentrated. The soldiers would have been stationary for a much longer time, just standing around being subjected to the contamination. They’ll need a lot of monitoring: it could already be in their thyroids. They’ll all be on iodine treatment. Or should be.’

  This could all be academic, acknowledged Charlie. But if he succeeded in what he intended to propose the following day, it could literally be the difference between life and death: maybe his life and death. ‘Could the Russians have hosed the contamination away from where the train was stopped? And the train itself, like they said they had?’

  ‘They should have been able to, although I hope to Christ their nuclear people are better at what they do than their police are.’

  ‘How long’s the danger last if they aren’t?’

  She made her curious head-nodding movement again. ‘We’re talking plutonium 239 here, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So here’s your question, for the kewpie doll on the back row. What’s the life span of plutonium 239? You get one clue: give it your longest shot.’

  ‘A hundred years,’ guessed Charlie.

  She laughed at him over the iced vodka he’d ordered with the caviare. ‘Two hundred and forty thousand years. Not even Methuselah would have been safe; he only made it to 969.’

  ‘You saying that’s how long Chernobyl’s going to be dangerous!’

  ‘And a lot of that time lethal. Some nuclear scientists reckon the final death toll is going to be 500,000. But let’s not stop at Chernobyl. After exploding their first atom bomb in 1949 the Russians concentrated a lot of their nuclear research around Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk. And used the Techa river as their radioactive disposal sewer. The current casualty figure is 100,000 …�
� She gave a resigned shrug. ‘But it’s not only Russia that deserves the finger. There’s been more fuck-ups, cover-ups and outright murderous criminality in every country in the world developing nuclear technology than any other supposed science. In America we contaminated hundreds of people and hundreds of acres around Hanford, in Washington State; babies were bom deformed. In Oregon Penitentiary American doctors paid lifers five bucks a month to let them do what that stupid bastard could have been risking at Volkhonka this afternoon, subjecting their testicles to radiation exposure to see what happened. Your people did fuck all to clear the aborigines out of your Australian test sites …’

  ‘Whoa!’ stopped Charlie, abruptly aware of the growing vehemence. ‘Are we getting a statement here?’

  She flushed, which surprised him. ‘There are mistakes with every new discovery: they can’t be helped. We developed nuclear fission fifty years ago. The mistakes should have stopped by now. And the nuclear power lobby shouldn’t have been allowed to grow so strong or remain unchallenged, like they’re too strong to be challenged now.’

  ‘That why you’re not part of it?’

  She flushed again. ‘Shouldn’t I have a bright light shining into my face, with you hitting me with a rubber truncheon?’

  ‘That isn’t an answer.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she finally conceded. ‘Now my question for you.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Have I passed?’

  It took Charlie a moment to reply. ‘You think I was testing you?’

  ‘Weren’t you?’

  ‘No!’ At last he understood the head nodding.

  She regarded him doubtfully. ‘I thought you thought I was a dumb-assed bimbo.’

  ‘I don’t think the FBI would include a dumb-assed bimbo in an investigation into a nuclear robbery of this size.’

  ‘Sometimes people get the wrong impression.’ It was an observation, not a defence.

  ‘I haven’t formed one yet.’ Which wasn’t true. Charlie had already decided she was anything but dumb-assed and wanted her to be very much part of what he had in mind, although he hadn’t worked out how or what. In addition to which, he was enjoying the closeness of a woman, which was something he hadn’t known for a long time. The continued envy of the other men in the restaurant, like that of others in the bar, wasn’t hurting his ego, either.