Bomb Grade

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘It could take for ever,’ warned Schumann, after their first unsuccessful telephone attempt the day they returned from Wiesbaden.

  ‘That’s what worries me,’ said Charlie, working to a time-table no one else was following.

  But it didn’t take for ever.

  He got the white car offer the following day and spent a further three wandering, on protesting feet, around the once-familiar streets of East Berlin and lunching at the restaurant he’d always enjoyed in the past and did again. Charlie detected his pursuers each day because they weren’t very good, but for once he wanted to be followed. On the fourth day he was stopped entering the U-bahn by an olive-skinned man who ordered Charlie, in bad Russian, into a clattering, bone-jarring Trabant for what Charlie recognized to be a surveillance-checking tour around the eastern part of Berlin – actually going as far as Marzahn – before rejoining the FriedrichStrasse as far as Unter den Linden, where they turned in and stopped.

  ‘What now?’ demanded Charlie.

  ‘Wait,’ said the man, responding for the first time to Charlie’s several efforts at conversation.

  The man could, Charlie judged, have been from one of half a dozen Middle East countries. Or from anywhere else along or around the Mediterranean. The driver was already getting from the vehicle before Charlie was aware of the Mercedes drawing up behind. The man opened the rear door for Charlie to get out but then blocked his exit, patting him down so thoroughly that any wired device would have been detected, as well as a weapon.

  There were three men in the Mercedes, all dark skinned. The man in the rear, into which Charlie was gestured, was diminutive, almost child-like in stature, apart from the features of a grown man. The size of the two in front accentuated the physical comparison. The Mercedes drove off at once, skirting the Brandenburg Gate, and Charlie realized they were going in the direction of the Wannsee forest and the lake on which another con man had been found with his testicles in his mouth.

  In keeping with Charlie’s thoughts, the man beside him said, ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t have you killed.’ The voice was small, like the rest of him.

  ‘Tell me why you should.’ If he had such power, it had to be Turkel.

  ‘To prevent being trapped.’

  ‘What you’d prevent is yourself getting at least eighty kilos of plutonium 239. And if you’d thought it was a trap you wouldn’t have kept the meeting.’

  ‘Where were you told how to arrange things like this?’

  ‘Moscow.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘The boss of bosses of the Dolgoprudnaya.’

  ‘Stanislav Silin?’

  Trick question or ignorance? He should have checked with Schumann if Silin’s killing had been widely reported in German newspapers. But it had been in Moscow and people as careful as these would monitor the Russian media: there was even an embassy to do it. Trick question then. ‘Silin’s dead.’

  The man at the front turned and Charlie fully realized how big he was, bull-necked and bull-shouldered and with a ham-like hand clenched along the seat back as if in readiness. What would life be like without bodyguards, wondered Charlie: at that moment he would have very much liked the reassurance of his spetznaz protection.

  The man beside him nodded. ‘So there have been changes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was the arrest of Raina and the others part of that?’

  Charlie hesitated, unsure how to reply. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who has replaced Silin?

  ‘Sergei Sobelov.’ Charlie saw they were beginning to enter the forest. The red cabbage he’d eaten with the pork at the Ganymed began to repeat from a knotted-up stomach.

  ‘You are not Russian.’

  Another uncertainty. Russia was so large, with so many dialect and even language variations that he could easily lie, although it would be more convenient not to: of everything so far this challenge surprised him most because the other man’s delivery was obviously accented. ‘English. But I operate in Moscow.’ Charlie tried a smile. ‘Import-export.’

  ‘Why should the Dolgoprudnaya risk trusting a foreigner?’

  His Wiesbaden argument thrown back at him, Charlie recognized. Returning it a third way, he said, ‘To avoid risking one of their own people. I’m disposable, if anything goes wrong. And where’s their risk? I was given the system – and a name – to reach you and a quantity to offer if the system worked. If you’re interested I have to go back to Moscow and tell them. All I’m doing at the moment is carrying messages.’

  ‘What name?’

  ‘Ari Turkel.’

  The man in the front seat shifted again as Turkel gave a brief but humourless smile of acknowledgment. ‘You are well informed. As you would be if Raina has talked under interrogation.’

  Dangerous ground, Charlie recognized. But Turkel didn’t know the completeness of their evidence. ‘To make things worse for himself? What have the Germans got? Some Russians with some nuclear material. That’s all. There’ve been arrests like that before. What do the sentences average? Five years. Eight at the most. If Raina or any of them talked of networks and previous shipments and who the customers have been, they’d be talking themselves into twenty years. It wouldn’t make sense.’

  ‘Unless they were offered a deal.’

  All he had was bluff, Charlie decided. He’d make a mistake – probably a fatal one – trying to improvise any more. Through the trees he saw the dull greyness of the lake. ‘What risk are you running now? Today?’

  ‘None. I made sure of that.’

  Charlie gave a shrug, of finality. ‘So we’ve driven into the countryside: wasted half a day. I delivered my message and you’re not interested. I’m sorry. I could probably get transport back into the city if you dropped me near some of the public buildings by the lake, although I’d appreciate being taken back …’ He offered his hand across the car. ‘We don’t want to deal with anyone who’s uncertain, any more than you do. But there’s no hard feelings. I’m sure you’ll find other suppliers in the future.’

  The attentive front seat passenger frowned at the dismissal and Turkel’s face stiffened. ‘I didn’t say I wasn’t interested.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Charlie, ‘I said I wasn’t interested any longer …’ He pointed to a group of buildings at the lakeside. ‘There! I’ll be able to get a car there.’

  Turkel snapped something in a language Charlie didn’t recognize. The driver continued on. ‘What’s your offer?’

  ‘Eight sealed containers – eighty kilos – for $30,000,000.’

  ‘Too much.’

  ‘That’s the price.’

  ‘Twenty.’

  ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘Twenty-two.’

  ‘I can offer it,’ agreed Charlie. There wasn’t any satisfaction, not yet.

  ‘You’re in touch with other people?’ demanded Turkel.

  ‘You don’t expect me to answer that, any more than you would expect me to talk about you to anyone else.’

  There was another approving nod. ‘There will be no payment, of any money, until everything has been checked and guaranteed genuine.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here, in Berlin.’

  Turkel was inventing new rules for a new situation, imagining he was protecting himself from any entrapment in Moscow. Which couldn’t be better! ‘Where in Berlin?’ pressed Charlie.

  ‘You’ll be told.’

  ‘There’ll be no examination of anything until we’re sure of the money,’ stipulated Charlie, making the demand that would be expected.

  ‘The money will be available. Your commission comes from the purchase price, not from us.’

  ‘Agreed,’ accepted Charlie.

  ‘What is your commission?’

  Hopefully more than you could ever guess, thought Charlie. ‘You’re not paying it. So it’s my business.’

  Turkel permitted a thin smile. ‘We’ll use the same contact procedure.’

  ‘It’s time-consuming,’ protested Ch
arlie.

  There was another mouth-stretching smile. ‘But safe.’

  Not the next time, thought Charlie.

  Charlie and Schumann continued playing safe, too, not attempting any contact after Charlie’s one alerting telephone call from the Kempinski’s public booth until they were seated by Bundeskrimina-lamt connivance beside each other on the returning Moscow aircraft. It took Charlie practically the entire journey to recount the Wannsee episode. As the seat belt signs came on for the Sheremet’yevo landing Schumann said, ‘We can do more next time but we still won’t be able to cover you properly!’

  ‘I know,’ accepted Charlie.

  ‘What’s London say?’

  ‘I haven’t told them all of it yet.’

  He still didn’t from the soundproofed booth in the British embassy communications basement to which he went direct from the airport, although he did set out the Militia complicity he could prove as the reason for not officially informing the Russians.

  ‘That’s directly contrary to what was agreed,’ insisted Rupert Dean.

  ‘When those arrangements were made we didn’t know the extent or the level of Militia corruption!’

  ‘I’m not sure we do now.’

  ‘There’s no danger of losing the cylinders,’ repeated Charlie.

  ‘There’s an enormous danger of losing Moscow’s agreement to our being there. Which is vitally important for the future of this department.’

  ‘Which would be cemented in concrete if I am right.’

  ‘And buried in concrete if you aren’t.’

  ‘We can make it into a Militia success in the end.’ That was ultimately essential, for what Charlie wanted to achieve.

  ‘I agree it looks convincing,’ wavered Dean.

  ‘And we’ll lose it if I tell them now. I’ll never get another chance. So my being here will become pointless, a department disadvantage not a department justification.’

  ‘You sure you need the American woman?’

  Charlie felt the blanket-like warmth of satisfaction at the growing concession. ‘She’s necessary to ensure nothing goes technically wrong.’ He could explain the lie away later.

  ‘You’ll never know how important it is for you to be right!’ said Dean.

  ‘I think I will,’ said Charlie.

  The weakest link in the ensnaring chain Charlie was trying to forge was the awareness of the unquestionably spying Ludmilla Ustenkov of the extorting Militia lieutenant. The gamble was that’s all she and Popov and Gusev believed the man to be, a bribe-accepting opportunist he himself had reported to Gusev and not the channel to the new Dolgoprudnaya boss of bosses. Charlie took what precautions he could, refusing Nikolai Ranov any details of the Berlin visit and insisting that, having shown his good faith at their first meeting, his second with Sobelov had to be just between the two of them. Charlie, the arch-deceiver with the unshakeable belief he could divine it in others through a thick fog on a dark night, was encouraged by Ranov’s easy, unarguing acceptance. And even more relieved when Ranov relayed Sobelov’s agreement the next day.

  It was the same room at the Metropole, which Charlie guessed the pretentious Russian kept permanently. Charlie approached the hotel with the same meandering caution as before, which he acknowledged would be a waste of time if he was wrong about Ranov. The man was in the lobby bar, with Sobelov’s customary bodyguards. They let Charlie pass without any recognition.

  The drinks were set out on the separating table and again the beetle-browed Sobelov poured but there was none of the earlier condescension. He predictably disputed the price to which Charlie argued he was lucky even to have got that with everyone in the business either having gone underground or quit the city altogether after the arrest of the Raina group. It was a take-it-or-leave-it situation: there was no guarantee of improving the offer even if he could locate another client, which he doubted. As soon as Sobelov accepted, Charlie negotiated his own commission, which Sobelov would have expected, comfortably haggling his way through the first scotch to get three per cent. On the second drink Sobelov announced he would go personally to Berlin to be paid, which Charlie mentally ticked off as another part of the entrapment slotted into place, with the reflection that Sobelov wasn’t good enough to be a boss of bosses.

  ‘Except for me, the person who has to bring you both together.’

  ‘That’s what you’re getting paid for.’

  ‘It’ll have to be a simultaneous exchange, their handing over the money when they’re satisfied what they’re buying is genuine. Which I want to be satisfied about, too. I don’t deal in fakes.’

  ‘You know where it came from.’

  ‘I’m the man in the middle. Literally. I’m not being caught in the middle. I want to see it and have it tested.’

  Sobelov shrugged. ‘I don’t see a problem.’

  ‘And I’m not transporting it. I’m not a delivery boy. I’ll need to know all the details to coordinate everything but you fix it being taken into Germany. I need to be there way ahead of you.’

  ‘I don’t see a problem with that, either.’

  But you will, Charlie promised himself: you and a lot of others. Continuing to cut Ranov out, Charlie set up during the hotel meeting the inspection of the plutonium canisters, allowing himself three days for Dean’s assured Washington agreement about Hillary.

  Charlie used one of the intervening days for a final, pre-Berlin session at the Interior Ministry with Popov and Gusev, alert for the slightest hint they regarded Ranov as anything more important than a bribe-grabbing policeman. Charlie let the Russians do most of the talking, which they were happy to do, Popov more eagerly than Gusev going through what became a review of the evidence each would present. They pressed him on his most recent German visit, which Charlie described as the sort of evidence rehearsal they were having now. He was reasonably sure the Germans had shared everything with him, although he couldn’t be positive: certainly he didn’t think they had withheld any major evidence. Charlie added that a number of foreign observers were attending to introduce his question about Dmitri Fomin. Popov said at once that the presidential aide would be there. Yuri Panin was going too, officially to represent the Russian Foreign Ministry.

  ‘There’ll be a lot to celebrate when it’s all over,’ predicted Popov.

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ said Charlie.

  *

  Charlie had planned the container inspection during the day to provide the embassy visit excuse to dispense with their spetznaz guard. But the evasion – more important that day than any since the attempted entrapment began – was more difficult because it was alien to Hillary, who additionally was nervous and hampered by even the limited equipment they had to carry and didn’t react or move as quickly as Charlie wanted. It took a long time before he considered they were by themselves and even then he wasn’t completely satisfied. His feet ached like hell by the time they entered the warehouse between what had been built as the Komsomol theatre and the outer ring road.

  Sobelov made no attempt to hide his astonishment. ‘I thought she’d only be expert in one thing.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘I’d like to be,’ leered the Russian.

  ‘We here to work or talk dirty?’ demanded Hillary, not needing a translation.

  Apart from Sobelov there were six men, two of whom were his normal escorts, and a further three were visible in a raised office area at the head of a metal stairway. The Dubrovskaya extortionists weren’t among them. The warehouse was divided into numerous storage sections beyond the open space directly inside the main door. There was a lorry and four cars neatly parked to one side. At Sobelov’s gesture Charlie and Hillary followed to the first, part-walled sector to the right. The eight green-painted containers were laid out side by side, their markings uppermost, each held in place on either side with wooden wedges. They reminded Charlie of heavy gun shells, 155mm or heavier. The tops tapered slightly and on either side were gauges, their needles still. Also at the top
were unusual half-handles which Charlie first imagined to be for lifting but then realized were the fixtures Hillary had already described to him to unscrew the containers.

  Low voiced Hillary said, ‘They’re the Kirs consignment markings from the Pizhma train.’ She ran her Geiger counter over each cylinder, double-checking on three, and hunched for several minutes over each of the unmoving gauge dials and their attached valves. The specialized thermometer looked like a stethoscope, although it had more leads, to each of which manually adjustable dials were attached. Hillary carefully adhered the suction pads in several places – particularly around the tops of each canister – and finger twisted the dial controls, before smiling up at Charlie. ‘As clean and as cold as a Polar bear’s ass.’

  ‘Which they would be if there was nothing in them,’ reminded Charlie. He told her of the four empty cylinders in Germany.

  ‘The gauges registered but if you want to be sure, we know the unladen weight.’

  ‘I want to be sure.’

  It took less than five minutes from Charlie’s translation for a cumbersome set of industrial scales to be wheeled in by two men whom Charlie told to wait, to lift each cylinder into place. As they gently replaced the eighth canister on to its wooden supports Hillary said, ‘I’d have preferred my own equipment but this is good enough. They’re full.’

  Charlie stayed for several minutes imprinting the details of the containers on his mind before finally turning back to Sobelov. ‘OK,’ he said.