“Yes, I did,” immediately admitted Monsford, at once encouraged by the frowned break in Smith’s composure.
“Why?” demanded Geoffrey Palmer.
“Precisely because the extraction of Natalia and her daughter was a joint operation,” declared Monsford, embarking upon what he’d concluded his best and least challengeable rebuttal. “That our two organizations were brought together was, according to my recollection, acknowledged to be an extremely rare and unusual decision. There’s been no precedent during my tenure as Director of MI6, nor, as far as I’m aware, during that of at least two of my predecessors. MI6 and MI5 are in every normal circumstance entirely separate and autonomous. It was my decision that the extraction of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic, the FSB’s executive deputy, was completely within the customary autonomy of my organization and did not conflict or impinge in any way with that of the woman and her child. To have conjoined the two would have created confusion and endangered both, the first of which has been destroyed anyway by the antics of the MI5 operative Charlie Muffin.…”
“You were categorically ordered against anything that could potentially exacerbate the difficulties already existing between us and the Russian Federation,” persisted Palmer. “Orders you just as categorically ignored. What you-”
“Indeed I was,” interrupted Monsford, his earlier uncertainty diminishing. “Close examination of the transcript of the meeting at which those orders were given will show my intimating the possibility of our nullifying Moscow’s actions by confronting the Russian Federation with a far greater embarrassment, which it’s my contention we’ve achieved by facilitating the defection of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic.”
“At the cost of at least six of your operatives, an executive jet, and Radtsic’s wife and son, who to my understanding are accusing us of attempted kidnap,” qualified Aubrey Smith. “It’s inconceivable you expect us to accept you’ve put us ahead in any tit-for-tat exchange, which was something else absolutely forbidden.”
“Nonsense,” rejected Monsford, welcoming the challenge. “We’ve still got their diplomats to exchange for the Manchester travel group, a swap Moscow will fall over themselves to agree when we make Radtsic’s defection public. And following that announcement, our having established Radtsic’s presence in England, it will be little more than a formality negotiating the French release of my officers, along with that of Elana and Andrei to continue their journey here.”
“The indications so far are that it will be anything but a simple formality,” contradicted Palmer. “The French are furious at our mounting an intelligence operation on their soil without prior consultation and agreement with their Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre Espionnage.”
“Of course they’re furious,” dismissed Monsford, almost contemptuous in his now totally restored confidence. “We’d be just as furious if they did something similar here. There’ll be a lot of backroom sniping and threats of broken understandings, which don’t matter a damn. What matters is that we’ve got Radtsic, who’s been at the pinnacle of Russian intelligence and espionage activities for almost three decades. Wrecking Russia’s Lvov operation was a coup without much practical benefit to us. Getting Radtsic in the bag is the espionage prize of the century.”
“As you’ve presented it, and if the French difficulty with the wife and son can be resolved, it would appear to be so,” conceded Bland.
“Then all that’s necessary,” seized Monsford, “are some discreet diplomatic negotiations with Paris-along, perhaps, with an equally discreet apology to the SDECE, which I am quite ready personally to make-for this to be recognized exactly as I’ve described it.”
Having destroyed his cell phone, Monsford had to use a pay kiosk within the Foreign Office to reach Rebecca. “‘Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man,’” he quoted the moment Rebecca lifted her receiver. “Which is what I made them do, eat out of my hand, like the well-trained pets they are. Book Scott’s for dinner: we’re going to celebrate.”
“Shall I tell Straughan you don’t want him to wait here?”
“I don’t want Straughan much more for anything. Tell him what you like.”
Which is what Rebecca did, verbally repeating to the operations director Monsford’s every word. In London it was 5:15 P.M., in Paris it was 7:15 P.M.; and in Moscow it was 8:15 P.M. when Charlie rose at Natalia’s entry to the restaurant.
25
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“We didn’t set a time.” Natalia hadn’t come straight from the Lubyanka, Charlie knew. Her hair was perfectly in place and the black dress didn’t look as if it had been worn throughout a busy day. What little makeup she wore appeared fresh, too.
Natalia hesitated, studying the table, placing it within the restaurant. “Sitting here isn’t a coincidence, is it?”
“I wondered if you’d remember.”
Natalia gave a brief smile. “I remember this table from our first-ever time here and I haven’t forgotten, either, that beneath Charlie the hard man there’s Charlie the romantic.…” The smile went. “And you’ll never know how much I wish things weren’t as they are now.”
What the hell did that mean? “Why don’t we order before we talk?”
“You order for me?” she said, uninterestedly.
Charlie chose fish for her in preference to the boar he’d decided upon while he’d waited and the already selected Georgian wine, unsettled by her mood. “Now let’s talk.”
“How much do you know?”
“Just what I’ve picked up from television, that a Russian mother and her son are being held in France. The diplomatic reference to the two Englishmen is a clear enough espionage identification even without the impounded plane.” Charlie intentionally limited his reply to avoid Natalia’s suspecting he had a secondary source.
Natalia sipped her wine to cover the hesitation Charlie recognized not just to be her positive, no-going-back moment of commitment but the point at which she knowingly crossed their self-erected barrier against their betraying either country’s intelligence. The hesitation continued even when she began talking, naming Radtsic and his wife and son but not knowing how the French seizure had come about. Charlie didn’t interrupt, not wanting to lose something more important for a less essential clarification. Only in the last few moments did she bring her head up, the guilt obvious. “I hated doing that. I … I despise myself.”
The arrival of their meal allowed Charlie a brief reflection. “All our professional lives we’ve kept our oath, adjusted our morality for institutions whose only morality is the expediency of the moment. You’re not betraying anything or anyone. It’s time for our expediency. Not just yours and mine. Sasha’s, too, which is maybe even more important.”
Natalia was looking away again, picking at her fish as he was at his meal, neither properly eating. Abruptly she said: “That’s my problem. Is it best for Sasha to be taken from everything and everyone she knows to what might as well be the moon, where she’ll get a new name and be told to forget her own, never ever to mention it to anyone: learn a new language and accept a near stranger as her father. That’s what it’s going to be, isn’t it? A suspended life-not really a life at all-in a protection program, not able to tell her why we can’t trust anyone, be proper friends with anyone, terrified at an accent or an intonation that could be Russian and mean they’ve found us.”
He couldn’t lie to her, not after his own so recently fossilized existence. “I came out of a program to get you both. It was everything you’ve described it to be. It’s the beginning, the adjustment, that will be bad. But we can adjust: Sasha’s young enough to adjust. We could become happy, eventually.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere you choose. And aren’t we overlooking why I came here: why you made the calls?”
“There’s more to tell you. Nothing’s complete, as nothing’s ever complete in what we do: how we work encapsulated in an incomprehensible whole,” groped Natalia. “There’s total uproar at Lu
byanka, more open talk than I’ve ever known, more combined action than I’ve ever experienced. But it doesn’t seem like uproar: panic. It isn’t encapsulated. People are talking, discussing things, speculating, which they’ve never done.…” She put down her fork to raise an apologetic hand. “I know I’m not making sense. I’m trying to explain it as the words come to me.”
Was there another fear adding to that of a protection program? “How’s it affecting you personally?”
Natalia abandoned her meal altogether, nervously revolving the gold band she carefully avoided wearing on her wedding finger. “I’ve been seconded to an inquiry committee, six of us from the analysis division of the First Chief Directorate, which never changed its functions or designation from the old KGB-”
“You’ve been personally selected!” seized Charlie, aware of the significance.
“Me, personally,” confirmed Natalia, with another brief half smile.
“To inquire into what?”
“Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic,” she announced, simply. “Our brief is to go back into everything-every operation, every contact, every department, every officer both here and abroad in either the KGB or the FSB-with whom Radtsic had dealings since the day he enrolled in the KGB. The FSB reasoning is that he wasn’t alone but part of a long-established cell from which he’s trying to distract attention for the rest to go on working against us.”
Us, immediately registered Charlie, believing he was beginning to understand. “You’re no longer under the slightest suspicion. Only a person beyond reproach would be considered and only then after the strictest vetting. Which you underwent and clearly passed even before Radtsic defected.”
“I know.”
Charlie didn’t hurry, not to reflect but to examine their conversation and pick up any inconsistency to avoid the wrong interpretation. Unable to find it, he said: “You’re safe. You and Sasha are safe. You don’t need to run after all.”
“No.”
Charlie searched for the appropriate words, which didn’t come. “You’re giving me your decision, aren’t you?”
“That’s a stupid, self-pitying remark!” Natalia flared, too loudly.
“I’ll be able to get out all right,” Charlie exaggerated, shaking his head to the waiter’s inquiring approach.
“That’s even more stupid. I didn’t say I didn’t want us to come.”
“Then what are you telling me?” demanded Charlie, exasperated.
“I’m trying to say, but saying it badly, that I love you. That I’ve confronted all the mistakes I’ve made and that I do want to get out with Sasha, despite both you and I knowing how difficult that’s going to be-”
“What then!” broke in Charlie, the exasperation growing.
“You’re the only person who could have made it work, got us out. After the mistakes I made happen it would still have been a miracle if you’d managed it.…” Natalia stopped, her voice catching and needing to recover. “After Radtsic, it’ll be totally impossible. We’d never get past all the new checks and surveillance, every passport scrutinized for forgery, eye iris and fingerprint verification, CCTV doubled. We’d be picked up and lose each other and both of us would lose Sasha. We’ve got to lose each other, give up the fantasy of my getting out with Sasha, to ensure we keep Sasha safe.”
Charlie held back from an immediate reply, conscious of the hovering waiter, ordered coffee, with brandy for himself. The waiter gone, Charlie leaned forward urgently and said: “I can do it: we can do it. The added restrictions are too late. I’ll do what they don’t anticipate.”
“I’m frightened, Charlie: too frightened.”
“I expect you to be frightened, but more than frightened I expect you, want you, to be professional. Concentrate on being professional, more than upon who Sasha is and who I am. Put as far back in your mind as you can that this is personal.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
Charlie wasn’t sure she could, either. She was a professional intelligence officer but not trained or inculcated with the field tradecraft as he was. He had to get her past her mental barrier. “Work with me, plan with me. If, at the end, you think the risk of failing is greater than that of succeeding we’ll abort and try something else and something else after that, until you’re satisfied.”
Natalia hunched noncommittal shoulders. “I’m not totally satisfied yet that my committee appointment guarantees that I’m safe.”
“Why not?”
“I told you mine isn’t the only group. God knows what’ll be thrown up by them all. I still don’t know if I got rid of all the questionable links between us.”
“Their absolute, unswerving focus will be upon the background of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic. Your right to be part of the investigation is already decided.”
“I’d like to think you’re right,” said Natalia, uncertainly.
“I am right,” insisted Charlie, dismissing his own uncertainties. “How many more encapsulated committees are there?”
“At least six.”
“Why so many?” queried Charlie, eager to move Natalia on from her introspection.
“To discover the cell, if there is a cell, as quickly as possible: Radtsic’s been part of the Russian intelligence apparatus for almost thirty years. It would take almost as long again for just one group to go through his entire archive.”
“That’s what’s going to be made available, Radtsic’s entire archive?”
“That’s the gossip. I’ve never known it to happen before, certainly not involving someone of such seniority,” said Natalia. “But then, I don’t know of a defection of someone at such a senior level. And being spread between so many separate groups it’ll be impossible to get an overview of all that he’s done.”
Still an incalculable treasure trove, gauged Charlie. How many more nuggets remained to be sieved? “The inference is obvious from the French identification of Britons but has it been definitely confirmed that Radtsic is in England?”
“We haven’t been officially told.”
“What of the wife and son? What’s going to happen to them?”
Natalia’s shoulders rose and fell again. “I don’t know. Nor do I have a way of finding out. Our brief is to look back, not forward. The kidnap claim is obviously an attempted evasion if they’re repatriated here.”
He still hadn’t resolved his nagging uncertainty, realized Charlie. “Is that anonymous reporting system going to remain at Moscow airports?”
Natalia frowned. “Why did you ask me about anonymous disclosure?”
“It was classic Stasi tradecraft, taught to them by the KGB. I was exploring all the possible barriers we might face, not knowing then about Radtsic,” replied Charlie, easily. “Has it been retained, with all the other additions?”
There was another shoulder movement. “It’s been in place for a long time. Why discard it now, of all times?” Her frown remained. “It’s obviously British intelligence with the wife and son. Didn’t you really know Radtsic was going to England?”
“I really didn’t know,” said Charlie.
“The committee convenes tomorrow. I’ll still have my cell phone with me but I won’t be able to take calls as freely as I could in my own office: probably won’t keep it on when we’re in session. I won’t know how we’re going to work until after tomorrow.”
“I’m introducing another precaution,” announced Charlie, lifting from beside the table a bag she hadn’t seen. “Details of your cell phone will be on record at Lubyanka, easily scanned. I’m giving you six new phones, all charge-card operated, so there’s no billing address. I didn’t buy more than one from any shop, choosing new names and addresses at random. Nothing’s traceable to you. Or me. Use one a day, discarding it when you leave Lubyanka at night but taking out the SIM card and battery before you do.”
“Do you think it’s necessary,” Natalia accepted, doubtfully.
“I do,” said Charlie, glad she’d moved on. “I’ll call at noon. If your phone’s off I
’ll call at seven and if it’s still off every hour on the hour, after that. If you keep it on mute and still don’t reply I’ll know you’re with people, disconnect, and try again later.”
“I understand.”
“Understand something more,” stressed Charlie. “You’re not under suspicion, but don’t take the slightest chance. In the conditions you’ve described, internal security will be paranoid. Don’t contact me. I’ll call you, always from a different phone. And I’m no longer at the Mira.”
“What’s your new hotel like?”
“A great improvement. I’ve got the bed all to myself.”
“You needn’t be all by yourself, at least not for an hour or so.”
“Thank you both for coming back now. I didn’t want this to extend overnight,” said Aubrey Smith, coming to the end of his account of the Foreign Office encounter. “I want you to sleep on what I’ve told you and have ideas ready first thing tomorrow.”
“You caught me before I’d got home,” said Passmore.
“I’ve put my plans back,” said Jane Ambersom, relieved she’d reached Barry Elliott still at the American embassy. “I told you the sort of man Monsford is, didn’t I?”
“He’s been using the Charlie Muffin business all along,” acknowledged Smith.
“Where did Charlie’s extraction fit in?” questioned Passmore.
“I don’t precisely know and won’t guess,” admitted the Director-General. “The only thing I am sure about is that he didn’t have anything to do with Monsford’s maneuvers. It’s essential, now, that we find Charlie. Monsford’s trying to load the blame onto Charlie for everything that’s gone wrong with Radtsic.”
“If Charlie wasn’t involved, he was ahead of us all, suspecting it wasn’t a straight operation,” Jane pointed out.
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