“The number of people that I had to deal with has given me a problem there,” admitted Boyce. “I’m just going to let them thrash around until they themselves have to admit defeat. Might be necessary to initiate an internal inquiry, to apportion responsibility for failure. It’s the sort of thing that would be expected.”
They stopped talking while the drinks were served.
As the butler left, Peters said, “That mean you’re not entirely sure your archives are clean?”
Boyce smiled. “It means I don’t like losing control. And that everything is going to appear to have been done properly and fully.”
Now the American laughed. “Losing control is a sin we neither of us will ever be accused of.” He sipped the new drink and said, “You spoken to your man?”
“Day before I flew here.”
“And?”
“He’s fine. Quite remarkable, for his age.”
“No risk of his giving way?”
“Why should he? That’s the last thing he’d allow.”
“Of course,” accepted the American. “Media have been more of a nuisance than I expected. Still are, in fact. You thought what to do about that?”
“Not really,” conceded the other man. “Future role of Dean’s department is a bit uncertain, so they’re convenient if public scapegoats are necessary. Muffin’s the obvious choice. He was on television from Yakutsk, remember: he’s identifible. Useful, really, that we didn’t go ahead with the other idea.”
“Always good to get the maximum benefit,” agreed the American.
“When’s your Arlington ceremony?”
“Next Friday. It’ll stoke the media pressure, I guess, but it can’t be helped.”
“You won’t be there, of course?”
“Of course not!” said Peters, actually surprised at being asked if he’d ever appear at any public, media-recorded event.
“You know,” said Boyce. “While all this has been going on, I’ve thought several times how much I’d like to have met Clarence Mitchell, the man who set the whole thing up on our side.”
“Peabody did it from here,” supplied Peters. “Samuel H. Peabody. Hell of a brain, both of them, for devising it.”
“And keeping it going for so long,” said Boyce. “That was the true brilliance.”
“Genius,” agreed Peters.
“And it can’t be said we’ve failed them,” said Boyce, self-congratulatory. “It could have gone very badly wrong if we hadn’t acted as quickly and so effectively as we did.”
“True,” agreed Peters. “Very true indeed. I wouldn’t want it any other way, but sometimes I wish people knew what we did to keep them safe in their beds.”
Boyce gestured expansively, encompassing the house and grounds. “It has its rewards.”
“My own money, not a penny from the taxpayer,” reminded Peters. “We’re eating pheasant tonight. Shot them myself. Been hanging just long enough.”
“Wonderful,” said Boyce.
“Why?” demanded the presidential aide, as he already had several times. “There’s no logic; no rationale.”
He was pacing the room, sometimes driving his fist into the palm of his other hand. It was the first time Natalia had witnessed Nikulin display any sort of emotion and she wondered if she’d get any clue why the man had ended the inquiry. “It was obviously something she knew Vadim Leonidovich would report back. To which we would have to react.”
“Too clumsy,” argued Nikulin.
“I believe there’s a personal relationship.”
Nikulin stopped pacing. “Why did he-” he began, outraged.
“For benefits beyond sex, I’d guess,” said Natalia. It was something that had to be taken into their consideration, which was why she’d met Nikulin alone.
“Might not she be doing it for the same reason?”
“That’s why I mentioned it.” It wasn’t the primary reason. She wanted time, the opportunity to talk it through with Charlie before the release of the art recovery, staged though it was intended to be.
“I’m glad you did. It’s very confusing, though.”
“As it is my not knowing the reason for our decision,” said Natalia, openly.
“It was one of the greatest-and most secret-of coups,” confided Nikulin. “And it must always remain secret, even from someone like you.”
Natalia nodded, resigned. It wasn’t something she’d tell Charlie, she decided. “The American would have known he’d have to act upon it,” Natalia repeated.
“So it’s intentional, to confuse us?”
“Shouldn’t we consider delaying the announcement about what was recovered from Belous?”
“It has no significance,” dismissed the presidential aide.
“Can we be sure of that, not knowing what this is about?”
“Where is Belous?”
“In custody. I’ve ordered he stay there, until we decide otherwise.”
Nikulin finally sat down. “Whatever the Americans are up to has no affect whatsoever upon our decision. Which stands. We go ahead with the release.”
Gerald Williams realized how totally he was committing himself and he was nervous about doing so. He wished he belonged to the sortof club to which Jocelyn Hamilton had taken him, which seemed the proper venue for such discussions, instead of a public restaurant, even one close enough to Westminster to be the favorite of MPs and cabinet minsters. Williams had spotted three and a minister within minutes of his arrival. He filled the time waiting for the deputy director-general’s arrival studying the menu, horrified at the prices. Hamilton was greeted as a regular by the restaurant manager who had initially regarded Williams as an unwelcomed intruder, and on his way to the table Hamilton stopped to talk to the cabinet minister and after that to an MP frequently quoted in newspapers as an espionage expert.
Hamilton finally arrived with flurried apologies for being late and as he was seated told the manager to ensure there’d be that day’s special available. From his study of the menu Williams knew that was lamb chops and ordered the same. He chose Margaux, too, remembering it was what Hamilton had selected entertaining him at the Reform Club.
“What’s all the mystery about?” demanded the department deputy, the moment they were alone.
“Not mystery,” said Williams. “Concern.”
Although Williams had spent a long time sanitizing his account, Hamilton said the moment he’d finished, “You’ve been talking like this to the people across the river!”
“I spoke to my counterpart, Horlick, once: to assure him the expenditure was coming off our budget, not his. Which I consider it should because we’re heading the investigation. With his agreement I talked direct to Cartright in Moscow: didn’t want anyone imagining unlimited expenses. And have done a few times since, to make sure costs remain under control. What I’ve told you has come up in general conversation.”
“It doesn’t sound like general conversation to me,” refused Hamilton. “To me it sounds pretty specific-improper, in fact.”
“I’m prepared to make allowance for that,” said Williams. “I’m far more worried at the greater danger which we’ve talked about too many times to need repeating. This man is openly talking in Moscow of treating us like fools. You saw for yourself what it was like, just days ago. Something’s got to be done!”
“Why are you telling me, like this? Why not officially, to Sir Rupert?”
“Because it is only gossip. And, all right, improper gossip at that. Any case against Muffin has got to be backed by a proper inquiry, supported by fact. Witnesses.”
“So?” persisted the other man.
“I’ve become involved in this by accident. I’m the financial director. I’ve done my bit auditing accounts that virtually prove the money dealing, which amounts to a criminal act. You’re operational. I’m suggesting for the sake of the department-for us all-you ask Cartright’s people to authorize his providing an official account. Factually checking what the hell Muffin’s up to.”
Hamilton sat with the lamb halfway to his mouth, regarding Williams across the table in disbelief. “Are you serious?”
“Deadly serious.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I like less the thought of what will happen if we don’t move.”
“I need to think about it very seriously indeed,” said Hamilton.
“The time for thinking is over,” insisted Williams. “Now we’ve got to do something positive.”
Charlie was kept at the embassy cabling the full text of the Russian release to London and afterward answering the queries that came back, which distilled down into contributing nothing new, and Natalia was at Lesnaya when he got home, Sasha already asleep.
There was still the reservation of the previous night-the uncertainty there’d been at the beginning-although not quite so awkward. Charlie told her about the encounter with Vitali Novikov and then showed her the log. While she read it, he made drinks.
When he returned to the main room she said, “This isn’t anything. Just confirmation of what we already believed.”
“I know. I’ve read it a hundred times, trying to find something.” He decided against telling her the nagging feeling that kept pricking at him. There were enough mysteries without the need to invent more.
Natalia said, “What did you tell Novikov?”
“That it won’t affect their residency.”
Natalia looked at her watch. “Let’s see the result of the Russian contribution.”
The Russian announcement was the lead item on all the English-language satellite news programs through which Charlie flicked. Photographs of the recovered art had been issued with the release claiming them as further proof of Raisa Belous’s heroic wartime work keeping Russia’s heritage-particularly actual treasure from the Amber Room-out of Nazi hands. Fyodor Belous was included in the eulogy for returning the safeguarded articles the moment he’d discovered the truth about his mother. CNN and the BBC also carried footage outside Belous’s empty apartment, with reporters quoting official sources suggesting the man was helping the authorities search further for things still hidden. Inevitably every program carried library pictures of the treasures of the Catherine Palace and the other royal residences at Tsarskoe Selo, as well as film of the devastation after the Nazi occupation of the park. Just as inevitably there was speculation that the further lost art that Belous was helping locate was the missing Amber Room itself.
“I tried to get it delayed,” disclosed Natalia.
“Why?” Charlie frowned.
The expression remained as she talked, although more in guilt at his disbelieving her-and at setting the test she was at that moment passing-than at anything else. Charlie was glad Natalia would never know he’d doubted her. He said, “Nikulin was right. Whatever brought about the American decision won’t be influenced by the art announcement: that was only bait in the first place. All that’s going to happen is America refusing to bite and a lot of renewed publicity.”
Natalia offered the log back to Charlie. “You were relying on that, weren’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“What now?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie forced himself to admit. And then, in a rush and without warning, he thought he did. He had sufficient about the mystery English officer, at least, and most of it allowed the pieces to fit.
“What?” demanded Natalia, seeing the expression on Charlie’s face.
Instead of immediately answering, Charlie flicked the televisionback to the permanently running CNN, leaning forward intently to study the pictures of what had been recovered from Belous. And then he told Natalia.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He looked down at the log of Novikov’s father and said, “And it was here, all the time!”
35
Charlie’s satisfaction ebbed by the following day. Sitting in his shoebox office, surrounded by a squadron of reflectively folded paper airplanes, Charlie acknowledged reluctantly that Natalia was right. His conclusion-even more positively confirmed by examining in detail the Tsarskoe Selo treasure catalogue of Catherine the Great’s palace-didn’t explain America and Russia quite independently closing the investigation down.
And there was only one way to try to prove what he now did know. With no guarantee that he’d succeed and, after Henry Packer, possibly physically dangerous. If he made the attempt and it went wrong by just one millimeter-even excluding the Packer-type risk-he’d be dismissed and withdrawn from Moscow. On top of which he couldn’t discuss it with the director-general, who couldn’t possibly condone it, even if the man’s personal support hadn’t been wavering as much as Charlie knew it was. So he’d be totally disregarding-defying! — the department and going off station without authority, which was very definitely a firing offense.
But what choice did he have? It was the only way forward, it did fit sufficiently for him to be sure of at least part and there was Kenton Peters on tape describing him as a fall guy, if one was necessary. So he was damned if he went solo and damned if he didn’t. He refused to think about being dead.
Charlie forced his mind from the negative to the positive. It was physically possible to fly to England and back in one day, leaving on the first morning plane and returning on the last at night. So he’donly be away for twelve hours at the most and it wouldn’t be difficult to give London an excuse in advance for his absence from the embassy. The newspaper coverage of the art recovery-particularly the speculation that Fyodor Belous was guiding the authorities to more treasure, possibly even the Amber Room-had been enormous, but Charlie already knew from Natalia there wasn’t going to be anything more London might panic about, so that wasn’t a bar to his going. What else? An ally, he decided, now that he and Miriam had resolved their personal war. She’d been described as a fall guy, too. It would require slight adjustment to his dislike of being dependent on someone else, but Charlie Muffin’s rules of engagement were always adjustable to suit his needs and at that moment he judged his need to be quite extreme.
The positive fell far short of outweighing the negative, but there was a balance of sorts. And he took as an omen the fact that when he inquired there was availability on both the outgoing and incoming British Airways flights the following day. He made reservations and then set about establishing the cover for his absence. Which would be easy. He could use the art recovery. Charlie was later to remember the startled look with which Richard Cartright greeted him when he entered the MI6 man’s office.
“I don’t like this,” objected the military attache at once, looking to Raymond McDowell for support.
“Neither do I,” agreed the head of chancellery.
“Do you think I do?” demanded Richard Cartright. “They’re my instructions, from London!”
“Why?” asked Gallaway. They were in the military attache’s office and theatrically the man got up and locked the door.
Cartright’s relief, at being told officially by his own department to assess Charlie Muffin’s investigation, was limited: it had briefly been shattered by the scruffy man’s arrival in his office an hour earlier, which Cartright had at first thought, frightened, to be a confrontation. Since then he’d tried to rationalize what there was to work from and realized how limited that was, too. Apart from the contempt with which Charlie Muffin had dismissed his superiors on his return from London, everything else remained totally unsupported, mostly bedroomtittle-tattle. But what increased Cartright’s unease was being asked, in the authorizing message from his operational officer that morning, if the man had boasted of making misleading telephone calls during his London recall or had ever referred to someone named Lionel Burbage. A confused Cartright was still awaiting clarification on that.
His explanation prepared for the inevitable question from one or the other of them, Cartright said, “I didn’t like his attitude, when he came back: behaving as if what we’re all supposed to be doing wasn’t important. I asked London if anything had happened there to
sort the whole business out. When they asked me why, I told them.” Seeing the look on the faces of the other two men, Cartright added, “I don’t consider that disloyal. I see it as self-protection, for us all.” He looked pointedly at McDowell. “You forgotten what happened to your predecessor?”
“Muffin certainly hasn’t tried very hard to be a team player,” conceded the diplomat.
“And from what I gather, he caused Jackson some embarrassment in Berlin. Me, too, for that matter,” joined in Gallaway. “I had the ministry on, demanding to know why I wasn’t aware of his going there. Looked a bit of a bloody fool having to admit he hadn’t told me, after I’d already assured them we were working well together.”
“Which is another joke, this time on us,” insisted Cartright. “He came to see me this morning. Said he thought there might be something in this Russian statement and, when I asked him what, said he couldn’t tell me until he’d looked into it properly.”
“You think we should tell London?” asked Gallaway, at once.
“I’m certainly going to cover myself,” said Cartright. “Nothing specific because I can’t be. Just an advisory, that there might be something. That’s what he said he was doing.”
“Probably a good idea for us all to do the same,” said McDowell. He paused. “I suppose it’s true to say he’s treated us all a bit shabbily. But I’m still not sure it justifies an official inquiry.”
“Not by itself, perhaps,” Cartright admitted. “But I think there are things going on in London we don’t know about, which, let’s face it, has been our problem all along, not properly knowing what’s going on. I think what I’ve been asked is part of a far deeper inquiryinto how the investigation has been conducted from the start. As far as we know it’s got nowhere. I, for one, don’t intend having any responsibility for failure off-loaded on me.”
The other two men shifted uncomfortably. Gallaway said, “I understand your point of view.”
McDowell said, “Yes, quite.”
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