They had Natalia: Sasha, too! Why had they waited this long: there wasn’t any logic. Don’t panic, Charlie warned himself. He had to stick to the story they’d rehearsed over and over again: the story to which she’d be clinging to save herself and their daughter. And she was clinging to it: if she weren’t, they wouldn’t be bothering with this charade, waiting for him to make a slip. ‘It was a professional assignment. I beat your man who interrogated me. He was old, past it.’
‘Man?’ seized Guzov, accusingly.
Guzov wouldn’t outwit him, determined Charlie. He was better, quicker, than the Russian, whom he was sure was following someone else’s psychology. He wouldn’t—couldn’t—fail Natalia. Or Sasha. ‘A colonel, according to the uniform epaulettes. I never knew his name, of course, although the debriefing went on for a long time, daily for what must have been more than a month in the very beginning.’
‘That wasn’t how it was at the beginning, was it, Charlie?’ challenged Guzov. ‘Your initial debriefer was a woman, not a man.’
Charlie shook his head, frowning. ‘It’s vague now, so long ago. There was a woman, though. Very briefly, no more than one or two sessions. My impression was that she was very new, probably only just qualified. I assumed that’s why someone more senior took over.’
‘Was that really how it was, Charlie?’
This was goading, not how a professional interrogator would have asked the question. ‘You hold all the records.’ Records that Natalia had assured him she’d so very carefully manufactured to prove that after her opening session his questioning had been transferred to a senior colonel who’d died within a year of their affair beginning.
‘I’ve read all the records,’ said Guzov, his tone thick with doubt. ‘I’ve read everything we could find.’
It had to be the official Hall of Weddings documentation of his marriage to Natalia, when he’d hoped to persuade her to come back with him to England. Charlie was tensed, although not showing it, waiting for the triumphant coup de grace. Admit nothing, offer nothing, he reminded himself. ‘Then you have the advantage over me, after such a long time.’
‘That’s exactly what I’ve got, Charlie—the total advantage over you. That’s what I told you that first day in the hospital, remember?’
‘Your special hospital,’ snatched Charlie, trying to deflect the man from his script.
‘Where there’s still a place permanently available for you.’
This wasn’t right, decided Charlie. Where was the denouement to which Guzov had so carefully, so obediently to his instructions, built up; to the declaration of Natalia and Sasha’s seizure, at which they expected him to collapse! They couldn’t have detained them after all! They’d tried a bluff, which Guzov had enacted quite well, in the hope that he would collapse: her escape to London would have automatically led to her entire KGB and FSB career being scrutinized, and the coincidence of his edited early encounter and his seizure at the same time as her disappearance would be more than sufficient to justify this confrontation. And perhaps, interpreting that last remark, his pulling himself back from his near psychological decline had been detected by the permanently recording cameras and there was a determination to reduce him back into a mentally malleable state of career confession that he’d refused with the photographic recognition. Choosing that for a response, Charlie said, ‘That’s a pointless threat. I’ve told you why I couldn’t identify more of those pictures.’
‘The hospital specialists there tell me they have treatments that can help memory and recollection but I don’t really want to descend to that sort of help,’ said Guzov, grimacing his smile at last.
‘It would be pointless as I’m trying to co-operate as much as I can,’ said Charlie. He walked back to one of the inner door supports he’d established not to be covered by any camera lens to scratch his back, more irritated than concerned by the episode, hoping yet again that the nonsense didn’t go on for much longer.
* * *
Mort Bering’s presence in London disrupted their established routine and it was past ten that night before Elliott got back to his apartment and Jane Ambersom waiting expectantly in bed. ‘Didn’t mean to be so late,’ apologized the American. ‘But the Bureau and Langley are in a mutual state of chaos at the thought of being tricked a second time by Russian intelligence. Everyone, that is, except Mort, who’s switched everything around to make it appear he’s the guy who’s caught out Irena and Radtsic.’
‘Excluding you?’ asked Jane, protectively, briefly pulling her head away from his naked shoulder.
‘Oh no,’ reassured Elliott. ‘I’m very much Robin to his Batman. I know who’s really sorting fact from fiction, don’t I?’
‘The last we heard from Joe Goody was that he’s going to let Irena and Radtsic sweat until tomorrow,’ said Jane, knowing Elliott was anxious to hear what had transpired at meetings to which he and Bering had not been included.
‘Goody suddenly doesn’t seem to be in any great hurry,’ complained the American.
‘He insists this’ll be the quickest way,’ contradicted Jane. ‘Our attorney-general was at this afternoon’s assessment meeting. He wants to confront Moscow right away to get a people exchange under way. After all the shit the Russians have shovelled onto us over the past weeks, it’s turning into a personal advantage contest between him, Bland, or Palmer to establish who can come up with the best total recovery counter-attack.’
‘And all I thought important was upholding the honest reputation of our two countries,’ remarked Elliott.
‘The inscription on that FBI badge of yours?’ prompted Jane, matching the cynicism. ‘Which out of Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity don’t you understand?’
27
Guided by the initial language identification of Britain’s GCHQ, America’s combined intelligence organizations, led by the Maryland–headquartered National Security Agency, massively concentrated their overnight code search between specialized Asian and Middle Eastern lexicologists and cryptologists, enabling Mort Bering to convene a breakfast meeting in the FBI section of the U.S. embassy in Grosvenor Square with three virtually complete but alternative-choice transcriptions waiting on each table setting. Apart from coffee, the offerings were eggs hardening on a warmer, bagels, blueberry muffins, and sweet rolls. Most satisfied themselves with coffee.
‘Our conclusions are substantially the same as your guys’, yesterday,’ opened Bering, generous in the knowledge that the American decryptions were far more comprehensive. ‘In addition to how it’s going and where are you, there’s repeated insistence, mostly in sign, for Radtsic to insist on further meetings.…’ Bering nodded to Rebecca. ‘Which fits with what he said to you the day after the prison encounter. There’s alternative-version inferences to time gaps and interruptions, which we think is for some estimate of how long Radtsic imagines the supposed debriefing will continue. And there’s confirmation that Radtsic’s being asked about others.…’ Bering gestured with his transcription copy. ‘You see it’s the same on all three versions and it’s repeated from more than one member of the Russian delegation. Our interpretation is that it’s important to them, close to being the focus of the meeting.’
‘They surely can’t imagine we’d have Irena, Radtsic, and Elena at the same location?’ said Rebecca. There wasn’t any resentment today. The embassy was neutral territory and she’d decided she couldn’t give a damn about Aubrey Smith virtually ignoring her, particularly after being singled out by Bering.
‘We’re fairly satisfied that Irena and Radtsic are working the same scheme, right?’ suggested Jane. ‘Natalia isn’t. How about the location demand being to find her?’
‘That’s feasible,’ agreed Smith. ‘She’s completely rejected any consular approach. Getting to her another way would continue the success Moscow’s so far achieved everywhere else.’
‘And still imagine they’re achieving,’ reminded Jane. ‘But why should they believe for a moment we’d allow contact between any of them? Th
at would never happen: it’s ridiculous and they’d know it.’
‘We’re overlooking another possibility,’ declared Rebecca, seizing an opening that no-one else appeared to have considered. ‘Why should it be Natalia? Let’s think like the intelligence professionals we’re supposed to be. Moscow came inches close to pulling off their coup of the century with Stepan Lvov. This, somehow we still don’t understand, is a continuation: certainly there’s a connection. Wouldn’t they have established a Control, a conduit between Radtsic, Elena, and Irena, to ensure each was telling the same coherent story so that we’d never suspect any of them? Which we wouldn’t have ever done if the uninvolved Natalia hadn’t picked up on the code.’
‘That’s a reasonable speculation that’s been too long in coming from any of us,’ complimented Jane. ‘But it obviously can’t work. Radtsic and Elena don’t know where Irena is, nor does Irena know their location. There’s no way of their communicating through an unknown outside Control. How could they link up?
‘Through the second known, outside conduit, the Russian delegation who announced in Belmarsh that they were remaining in England,’ identified Rebecca, triumphantly. ‘Look at the number of references to other meetings! Radtsic finds out where he is, to tell them, they press for consular access to Irena to learn where she is and give both to their patiently waiting, already emplaced and unknown link between Radtsic, Elena, and Irena.’
‘To perform or provide what function?’ demanded Barry Elliott.
‘I don’t know,’ openly admitted Rebecca, confident of leading the meeting. ‘I’m speculating upon what we believe we’ve got. What’s your alternative suggestion?’
Joe Goody put aside a half-eaten muffin to cover the impasse. ‘I can’t promise all the answers but from what we’ve now got I’ll be disappointed if I can’t provide most of them. Yesterday all I had was bluff. Now I’ve got sufficient to make each of them think the other’s made full confessions.’
‘And you’ve still got a full day ahead of you,’ encouraged Smith.
‘Do you know what occurred to me back there?’ Aubrey Smith asked Jane, on their way back to Thames House.
‘What?’
‘How much the idea of an intermediate conduit between Radtsic and Irena fits Gerald Monsford’s insistence that there’s a hostile penetration, a mole, in MI6.’
‘I thought we’d proven that to be a deranged invention?’ said Jane.
‘So did I,’ said Smith.
* * *
Irena broke.
She’d been left the longest by Goody, but, upon his instructions, never for a moment been free from the doubled-up security guards. A female officer even accompanied her to the bathroom, the separating lavatory doors kept open, and the moveable, light-identifying cameras were constantly visible to her, tracking her every movement throughout the West Sussex house. She was escorted by three guards, always one female, during outside exercise. Again following Goody’s orders, none of the guards, inside or outside the house, verbally responded to Irena’s increasingly angry demands. Distinguishably different-coloured and insignia-marked helicopters regularly passed overhead: every day since her uncovering at least one landed a security-staff changeover. Floodlights kept the immediately encircling grounds—and therefore, inevitably, the complete exterior and reflected interior of the house—in perpetual daylight illumination. There was persistent noise from ground-patrolling guard dogs.
Goody was intentionally visible as he disembarked from an arriving helicopter and remained in apparently deep, arm-gesturing discussion with assembled guards, in the middle of whom he eventually disappeared inside the house. It was a further thirty minutes before he entered the drawing room in which Irena sat, forcing a relaxed calmness.
‘According to the interrogation manuals, I’m supposed to be gibbering by now, begging to confess to whatever you want, aren’t I?’
Goody ignored that and said, ‘We’ve officially informed the embassy of your detention, ma’am: of the others’, too.’
‘At last, someone with a speaking part!’
‘There’s to be no diplomatic access, not until the investigation’s complete. Which will probably take some time, despite everything that Demin’s telling us,’ said Goody, continuing his monologue.
‘I’m sure your mummers will tire of their silent performance before I do.’ There was the slightest catch in Irena’s voice at the reference to Yuri Demin.
Goody gave no indication of instantly detecting it. ‘It’s required, according to the international conventions, that you’re told of an impending prosecution, ma’am.’
‘They’re really not very good mummers, none of them.’
Goody gestured to the identifiably lighted camera. ‘The fact that I’ve complied with that requirement will have been recorded, audibly and on film.’ Goody fumbled papers and a pen from a document valise. ‘I’d be grateful, ma’am, if you’d sign the official acknowledgement.’
‘Go to hell!’ exploded the woman, abandoning the artless mockery.
‘Of course, ma’am,’ said Goody, as if accepting the instruction. ‘It’s not immediately essential and it’s on camera, as I’ve indicated. Your legal advisor will guide you later upon the formalities. I know you would have been given some idea of the procedure in the event of your capture during your briefing for this assignment. Yuri Georgevich certainly hasn’t adhered to it. You’re going to be moved from here, of course. A London women’s prison will be more convenient, not that we think there’s any need for protracted interviews. Your lawyer will doubtless need a lot of time with you to go through what Yuri Georgevich has alleged against you.’
‘What is he saying?’ asked Irena, thin voiced, appearing oddly to become physically smaller as the resistance seeped from her.
‘I don’t think it would be right, legally acceptable even, for me to tell you in detail. Suffice to say he’s given us a very full account of everything, particularly confirming the importance of your role … not in the actual Lvov concept, I don’t mean … what you’ve done, or rather tried to do, afterwards—’
‘He’s done a deal, hasn’t he!’ broke in Irena. ‘He and the bitch Marina Raina, whose most acclaimed performance is opening her legs, have done a deal.…’
‘We have agreed some concessions, particularly about accommodation, prior to any court hearings,’ conceded Goody. ‘In the women’s prison we’re considering, it would probably be sensible to elect for solitary confinement.’
Irena settled herself positively in her chair, glancing up at the audio-equipped camera that Goody had earlier indicated. ‘Now listen to the proper story.’
Goody settled back, too. ‘Tell me about the finger code.’
* * *
‘I appreciate your coming personally,’ thanked Natalia. ‘And for showing me the relevant footage.’ She’d become increasingly subdued during the transmission.
‘You’re owed our complete honesty, for what you’ve done,’ thanked Jane, in return. ‘As well as all the reassurance we can offer neither you nor Sasha is in any personal danger. There’s absolutely no possibility of your whereabouts being discovered.’
‘I’m the third person—Sasha as well as me, because of me—referred to in the coded exchanges,’ declared Natalia, looking out the window to where Ethel and Sasha were solemnly enacting a tea party for Luda the doll. ‘So thank you, too, for increasing the security.’
‘Increasing the security isn’t a contradiction of the assurance I’ve just given you,’ insisted Jane, urgently. ‘It would be unthinkable in these new circumstances for us not to have done so.’
‘I’m a definite target now, for refusing to meet anyone from the embassy.’
‘They can’t ever, won’t ever, be able to get to you or Sasha,’ persisted Jane.
‘Is what’s happened enough to get Charlie out?’ abruptly demanded Natalia.
‘We’re going to make it enough.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Being rig
ht about getting Charlie out is another absolute guarantee I’m giving you.’
‘There won’t be any more footage for me to assess or analyze, now that we’ve caught them out, will there?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, but there still might be something.’
‘It’ll be good not to be so involved. I’ve been neglecting Sasha: not giving her enough of my time.’
‘I’ll keep you up-to-date about Charlie.’
* * *
‘I’ve just told her we’re going to bargain Charlie’s freedom,’ disclosed Jane, after Natalia swapped places with Ethel at the doll’s tea party. ‘I’d expected a very different response from what I got.’
‘I warned against the television interpretation of a search for a third person,’ reminded Ethel.
‘I also told her that she’s not in any danger of being found.’
‘She’s in the business!’ protested Ethel. ‘She knows you can’t positively guarantee that, just as you and I know it. And if they find her, they find Sasha, who’s the total focus of Natalia’s life. She was starting to relax, occupied by what we were asking her to do. Now that’s over and she’s just been told there’s a search for her, she’s terrified.’
‘There’s no absolute certainty about Natalia being the third person!’ insisted Jane. ‘It could be someone—a group, even—with no connection whatsoever to Natalia. The deciphering could be wrong: there might not even be a third involvement.’
‘I’ll accept each and all of that,’ said Ethel. ‘Natalia won’t acknowledge a single word of it.’
‘You’re telling me I shouldn’t have shown her the deciphering?’
‘You’re my deputy director-general.’
‘As which I’m asking you to answer the question.’
‘No,’ said Ethel. ‘You shouldn’t have shown her.’
Red Star Falling: A Thriller (Charlie Muffin Thrillers) Page 33