“It certainly took the focus-and any threat-off you,” remarked Halliday.
For how long? wondered Charlie.
25
Charlie began his day tensed against the immediate setback of Mikhail Guzov personally responding to his Petrovka phone when he called from the bug-monitored Savoy suite, relieved there was no reply. He told the duty officer who answered that Guzov could reach him at the embassy about the rearranged conference, and quit the suite at once. He used the stairs instead of the elevator and took the side corridor to the baroque dining room and its conveniently separate entrance and exit without needing to go through the central lobby and its main door. As he knew from his previous three days’ reconnaissance, there were no cars in the outside slip road and only a few disinterested people. He got a taxi at the corner and gave the driver a destination that took them through side streets until the Precistenka turn to go south in the opposite direction from the Arbat, to follow the gradual loop north again. Charlie divided his attention between his deadline and the following vehicles: upon such a crowded, multilaned highway it was impossible ever to be absolutely certain but Charlie remained reasonably confident there was no pursuit. He waited until they climbed as far as the Kurskaya Okalovskaja Metro sign. At the last moment, double fare ready and the door ajar, he ordered the stop for his hurried dash to the Metro escalator. He was fortunate with an Arbat-bound train coming into the platform as he reached it, but traveled only one stop on the fifth line to switch south as far as Kitay-Gorod, where he disembarked to return northwest on the sixth line as far as Tverskaya Puskinskaya for the final line change and the Arbat. It was exactly five minutes to ten.
Charlie had preferred the Arbat as the flea market it had been when he’d first known it, not the hybrid now of doubtful antique galleries, Western designer shops, Russian bric-a-brac and icon stalls, artist-attended-and eagerly selling-exhibitions and tourist-trap outlets. And most definitely not the soccer-crowd volume of people from which to stage the perfect assassination. As he stepped out into the throng his apprehension began to tighten like a spring, his skin reacting into something like an itch at the jostling, inevitable physical contact, the irritation so immediate and intense he had to feel out, to scratch his arms and shoulders.
He moved as instructed, the wandering pick-up-and-put-down loiterer, unsure after so much and so many public interferences-and not one single confirming telephone approach since the rendezvous was arranged-if his was not an entirely pointless performance to a nonexistent audience. He guessed the crowd at this particular midpoint was as dense as that at Lvov’s demonstration and even more difficult to be part of: the previous day, those demonstrators had all moved in one direction but now there was a constant ebb and flow of people struggling every which way. To get himself out of the crush Charlie frequently detached himself from the main, outside stream and went off the stall-cluttered road into some of the more established and permanent shops and boutiques, constantly checking the time either from his own watch or available clocks.
At 10:35, he finally allowed himself the thought of his other rendezvous. Natalia had said it would take her an hour to get from her flat to McDonald’s. Which only gave him thirty-five minutes to be at one of the two public telephones he’d already isolated to warn her of his inability to keep their meeting if there hadn’t been a personal approach from the hoarse-voiced woman. But Natalia had told him she’d be going to the fast-food restaurant anyway. And it would only take him thirty minutes, less even, to get there from the Arbat.
He was being stupid, unprofessional, Charlie accused himself. What if the woman in whom he’d put every hope of survival did make contact? He had no way of judging what she had to say or would want to do: whether she’d be a crank. Or a would-be killer. If she were neither and he for a moment believed she were genuine it could-inevitably would-take hours, days, to gain her confidence and trust.
Natalia and Sasha had to be a secondary consideration. No! Charlie refused at once. Not relegated to second place: put in their rightful place, that of being of absolute personal importance to him but separate from what was professionally essential. Separate, too, from the potential danger at that moment burning through him.
Their meeting had to be postponed. Maybe only put off for a day: freed from the noon deadline he could remain in the Arbat for the rest of the day and if there was no approach he’d know the episode had been a hoax or a crank or that the woman had been frightened away.
He reached the closer of his two chosen telephone phone booths at 10:45, to find it occupied by a woman with a notepad and a heap of replenishing coin on the ledge in front of her and an increasingly fidgeting man waiting ahead of him. The milling crowd in which he’d so recently immersed himself for its concealing protection now became an obstructive, delaying interference.
When it came it wasn’t the tight-together pressure of people jamming him between them for a quick, agonizing knife thrust or the hard jab of a silenced pistol. It was a tug, a dip into his jacket pocket. He started to snatch toward whatever had been planted and he only just managed to turn it into the jerk of someone colliding into him, the hoarse-voiced telephone warning-don’t look or act surprised-echoing in his head as if he were hearing it at that moment. He didn’t stare about him, either, but forced himself on, leaking perspiration but not touching his pocket until just before he reached the intended telephone. The interior of Charlie’s pockets invariably resembled a schoolboy’s treasure pouch, which like so much else about the man was intentionally misleading. He was aware of everything in every space and immediately detected the folded piece of paper, taking it out as if it were a reminder, which it could easily have been, a telephone number which Charlie instantly recognized to be another street kiosk, that day’s date and a time: 1700. The numerals were written in a Russian hand.
It was five minutes before eleven, Charlie saw. He could get with time to spare to where he knew Natalia and Sasha would be. He needed time to calm himself, as well as a drink, to help. Probably two, to help even more.
And because he had that much time, Charlie chose again to fill it line-hopping across the Metro’s central-city spider’s web, the tradecraft dance subconsciously prompted by what he’d recognized during the preceding hour and now wanted more reassurance, fully confronting what he was contemplating. He’d lied to Natalia-again-and was about to lie further after promising he never would again: that, instead, he would always put her safety and Sasha’s safety before anything or anyone else. It was ridiculous for him never to accept the possibility of failure or to delude himself into thinking the car crash might have been a coincidence. Ridiculous, too, to believe he’d always be able to lose a surveillance tail and the possibility of another assassination attempt, an assassination attempt in which Natalia and Sasha might all too easily be caught up, and even die, with him. So why was he going on as he was, thinking more of himself-only of himself-and what he wanted instead of how he should be thinking, of what he should do if he loved them both as much as he insisted that he did? He didn’t have an answer. Not one that came even half close to justifying anything.
There was one thing he did know, from the Arbat experience. The hoarse-voiced woman’s apparent nervousness during the arranging telephone conversation might have been genuine but her claim not to be sure of a rendezvous definitely hadn’t been. She’d planned the Arbat as she’d planned everything else-the concealing crowd on the busiest day of the week, the protective watch for which she would have been in place long before ten to ensure she wasn’t risking a snatch squad, and the brush contact drop within a yard or two of the escaping Arbat Metro.
She was, Charlie recognized, a professional intelligence operative with the knowledge and ability of operational field-level tradecraft. And could so easily have been a killer, he reminded himself, refusing to push aside the self-accusation of cheating Natalia and their child. Everything was planned, he further reminded himself. He knew he was clean, that he wouldn’t be endangering them today
. Just this one more time then, maybe the last-his only chance-to be with Sasha. He’d see them today, judge how the encounter went and then find the answer eluding him.
He scuffed on aching feet up the slightly inclined Kreschatik Square upon which he saw the line stretched at least twenty-five yards from the entrance of the McDonald’s, out into the square, and which didn’t appear to be moving. And then he saw Natalia close to its front, Sasha’s hand obediently in hers. He knew Natalia’d seen him virtually at the same moment, although she gave no indication of doing so. Neither did he, happy that the delay would give her all the time she needed to satisfy herself he had not been followed. If he had been, he would have been hit by now.
Natalia had secured a corner table, her large briefcase-sized valise securing a third seat, which would put Sasha between them. She’d already finished whatever she’d eaten and had her coffee cup before her. Sasha was still eating a hamburger, but her attention was upon one of the restaurant-supplied coloring books. Natalia gave him the briefest welcoming smile, moving her valise from the third chair, and said something to Sasha. At the counter he ordered the obvious. His McMuffin was soggy and the coffee was a gray color.
When Charlie reached the table Natalia said, “I told Sasha we might be meeting a friend.”
“Hello,” said the child. “I’m Sasha. What’s your name?”
Charlie looked inquiringly at Natalia, who shook her head. Charlie couldn’t think of an appropriate Russian transliteration and said, “Ivan,” sure it wasn’t a pseudonym he’d forget after the morning’s still hopeful expedition.
Natalia’s forehead creased as she raised her eyebrows at the name, smiling down at his choice of meal. “I guessed that’s what you’d order.”
“What else could it have been?” Charlie smiled back.
Sasha made an attention-gaining slurp, sucking at the straw in her cherry milkshake, and said, “Would you like me to color you a picture?”
“I’d like that very much,” said Charlie. How could it be like this? Small talk, easy words that ordinary people said in ordinary situations: he didn’t have to sift and scrape every word for a second or third or fourth meaning.
“You choose,” Sasha insisted. “An elephant or a giraffe or a lion? It will have to be one of those because they’re all I’ve got.”
“A giraffe, please,” said Charlie.
“You wouldn’t like a lion, instead?”
“All right, a lion.”
Sasha smiled. “The giraffe is for Mama and the elephant is for Igor. He’s my teacher at school and our friend.”
“I. .” started Charlie, stopping himself from saying he knew. “. . He’ll like that,” he finished. He’d seen Natalia’s wincing frown.
“How are things?” she asked, as Sasha began scribbling with her crayons.
“Confused.”
“You look terrible. Drained. Are you all right?”
“There’s a lot happening.” He was glad there was a wall behind him.
Natalia frowned again. “From what I’ve read and seen on television I believed it to be all over: I thought you’d be going back very soon?”
“Not yet.” Innocuous though the words sounded, they marked a change from neither ever discussing work with the other.
“It seems bad, for you?”
“It could be. I could be recalled.” Not instantly forgotten small talk after all. But she would have surely mentioned the embankment ambush if she’d known about it: rejected his even approaching them. Now he was lying by omission, he recognized.
“How would you feel about that?”
Natalia didn’t want small talk, either, Charlie accepted. “It could make a lot of things easier.”
“Could it? Really, I mean?”
“I think so. And I have thought about it, very seriously thought about it.” He’d done the right thing by keeping the meeting, despite all the deceit and soul-searching.
“So have I. Although not to the extent of your quitting.”
“It might not even be an option of my choosing.”
“You wouldn’t like that.”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t,” Charlie agreed. “The circumstances, I mean. Not the result.”
“What are you talking about?” unexpectedly demanded the child.
“Something a long way away,” said Natalia.
“Not here, you mean? Not in Moscow?”
“No, not in Moscow,” said Charlie.
“Don’t you live here?”
“No,” said Charlie. “I live somewhere else.”
“My papa lives somewhere else, a long way away. I don’t see him but Mama says she might take me there one day.”
Charlie was conscious of Natalia flushing, very slightly. To his daughter Charlie said, “Would you like that?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sasha, with the serious-faced sagacity of a child, returning to her coloring.
“I wish that hadn’t been said.”
“I don’t have a problem with it,” said Charlie. “The opposite, in fact.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. . that I’ve decided anything. Now I’m even more unsure.”
“Don’t be,” urged Charlie. “It really could be so much easier now.”
“You couldn’t live without the job. You know you couldn’t and I know you couldn’t.”
“I could,” insisted Charlie. “And will. By choice or otherwise.”
“Finished!” announced Sasha, triumphantly, offering Charlie the crayoned image. The lion’s mane and feet were colored green, its body yellow. She’d strayed over most of the guiding outlines in her eagerness to complete it.
“It’s the best picture of a lion I’ve ever seen,” enthused Charlie. “May I keep it?”
“I want you to,” insisted the child. “Are we going to see you again?”
“I hope so,” said Charlie.
“So do I. Next time you can have the giraffe and Igor can have the lion.”
“We have to go,” abruptly declared Natalia, the flush returning as she collected up her valise.
“We haven’t properly talked,” protested Charlie. This could be the last opportunity it would be safe for them to meet, for him to persuade her!
“You knew we couldn’t, not today. That wasn’t what today was about.”
“I’ll call again, when things get clearer. But don’t forget what I said. And that I meant all of it.”
“You’ve told me you meant what you said a lot of times before, Charlie. And haven’t meant them.”
“This time I do. I really do.”
“I’ve got a call to make” insisted Natalia, ushering Sasha before her.
So had he, thought Charlie. And a hell of a lot depended on it.
26
“Hello!” a man’s voice, slightly slurred.
Charlie said, “I have this number to call?”
“This is a public phone.”
“Who are you?” Surely not a hoax! It couldn’t be!
“Get off the line. I want to use the phone.” The voice was slurred, the belligerence rising.
“Did you answer because it was ringing?”
“Get off the fucking line!”
“I will when you answer the question. Otherwise I’ll keep it open: blocked.”
“It was ringing as I got into the kiosk. Now get off the fucking line!”
Charlie did, stepping away from the telephone for a woman who was waiting with a tugging child on reins but stayed close enough to hear her voice when she spoke in case the contact was planned differently from how he expected. It was high pitched, a complaint about a gas installation, not at all the tone he wanted to hear. There could be a simple, easy explanation. The belligerent man could have got to the telephone seconds before the woman, no thought of politely deferring to her using it first. Probably wouldn’t have wanted him to, hanging around to hear everything she said. Made every sense for her to be the one to hold back. She would have heard the ringing: know he’d understood and
was trying to reach her. All he had to do was wait. But not too long. The woman for whom he’d stepped aside appeared to be having an argument with whomever she was talking; the tugging child was pulling away, distracting her. Charlie walked to and fro in her eye line, to remind her he was waiting. Pointedly she turned her back on him. It was six minutes past five. His feet throbbed. The child became entangled in its reins and fell, pulling the woman off balance. He began screaming and she finally slammed the phone down, dragging him away.
Charlie wedged himself into the kiosk, determined against abandoning it again, and dialed out the number from the paper slipped into his pocket. The line was engaged. He had to redial continuously four times before he got a ringing tone, counting each separate sound. He got to six before the receiver at the other end was lifted. No one spoke.
Charlie said: “Hello?”
There was no response.
“I have this number to call.”
“You’re late.”
The relief surged through Charlie at the recognizable hoarseness. “A man answered when I called before, right on time.”
“I saw him.”
“Then you know I kept my word.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“Do you now trust me?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s a decision you’ve got to make.”
“Yes.”
“I promised to be alone at the Arbat. And I was. And I’m alone now: no one with me.”
“I know.”
“How can you know?” demanded Charlie.
“I can see you.”
Again Charlie avoided any startled reaction. Confident that he’d lost any pursuit, he hadn’t bothered to check out the streets directly around Hlebnyj pereulok, the street from which he was speaking. “Then you must know you’re safe.”
“It’s not true what they’re saying: about gangs and drug running and whores. They haven’t even got the name right!”
He had to put pressure on her, Charlie decided: imperceptibly, to prevent her panicking but sufficient to get out of this conversational cul-de-sac. “We have to meet; start talking differently from this. You know you’re not in any danger.”
Red Star Rising cm-14 Page 27