Red Star Burning

by Brian Freemantle

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” reflected Monsford. “Everything would be gift wrapped.”

  “So we’ll do it?” pressed Straughan, determined against being sacrificed as Jane Ambersom had been. He’d liked the woman, refusing the sniping of others at her sexual uncertainty, and felt guilty that his own asexuality had prevented his doing more to protect her, although knowing that if she’d survived, he would have been the victim instead.

  “Not in precise detail,” qualified Monsford. “Tell Radtsic we’re setting up a failsafe extraction: that he’s got no reason to worry about anything going wrong. And tell him I’m looking forward personally to welcoming him here, in London.” It was a good feeling, knowing everything was perfectly arranged, with no possibility of error.

  * * *

  Charlie held back in the departure lounge, waiting to let the other passengers not just board ahead of him but actually get into their seats, giving him the opportunity to study the faces of those traveling with him, which he prolonged while finding a space in the already stuffed overhead lockers for his minimally packed suit carrier before finally sitting in his personally selected aisle seat just two rows back from the business-class separation.

  Only when Charlie completely settled did Jacobson properly look up from the in-flight shopping brochure. For additional concealment as well as for his assigned purpose, Jacobson had secured a window seat only three rows behind Charlie’s but on the opposite side of the cabin to give him an uninterrupted view of his intended target. Which prompted the immediate reflection of how ideal it would also be to get this close when the moment came to pull the trigger of the already skipped Russian Makarov in his embassy safe. Away from the MI6 building, Jacobson’s concern at having said nothing about Radtsic’s failed meeting had lessened. No one in London or Moscow, apart from Radtsic, had known of the appointment, so he couldn’t be caught out on that omission. Jacobson’s hope was that the Russian wouldn’t appear at the failsafe meeting, sparing him from the assassination order.

  As the flight crew began their acrobatics of emergency flight evacuation, Charlie was mentally evaluating the potential success against the possible failure of what he had to achieve. He was encouraged by the briefing assertion of no expenditure limit. Realistically there was no way he could have got back to Jersey to retrieve what was left of the already committed money, which was why, at the final departure session with Straughan and Passmore, he’d argued up the initially proposed, personally carried working float to ten thousand pounds by quoting the irrefutable statistics that Moscow had become the most expensive city in the world. But potentially he’d need considerably more. The fine line he had to follow was obtaining sufficient additional money without arousing suspicion that he wasn’t going to utilize any more bullshit backup than was minimally necessary, which anyway might be difficult after what he planned so soon to do.

  Charlie halted the instinctive half turn behind him practically as it began at the expectation of there being one if not more puppet-watchers monitoring his every movement, curious if his intended actions would be accepted as proving his professional caution. Which was more than Passmore and Straughan had illustrated with their insistence that he was being allowed operational autonomy. Charlie was glad he’d managed the brief, private conversation with John Passmore before he’d left the MI6 meeting, impressed with the man’s reaction.

  Jacobson had been prepared for Charlie’s backward look, the face-concealing in-flight magazine ready at the first indication, which turned out to be unnecessary when Charlie didn’t continue, easing his seat back as the plane attained its cruising height. He would, Jacobson decided, deserve recognition, positive promotion, after this if Radtsic did turn up at the emergency rendezvous: he’d been disappointed at the Director’s vagueness at the hints he’d risked, every innuendo hedged with a caveat.

  Charlie put his hand to his jacket pocket, feeling the hardness of the Russian cell phone, one of the dozen air-freighted from Moscow to be technically tweaked before being returned for distribution to the backup squad upon their arrival. He’d retain it as an insurance, but always turned off as it was now, and buy himself another when he got to Moscow. What other personal adaptations did he need? He’d covered the passport changes during that brief, private meeting with Passmore, hoping Wilkinson had been properly briefed just as privately afterward. And he was carrying sufficient money for his immediate needs. Too early to think about anything more, he decided, at the copilot’s announcement of the impending en route landing at Amsterdam’s Schipol airport.

  Charlie stood out into the aisle for his window-seated companion to get out, resuming his seat at once for other disembarking passengers behind him to follow, flicking through his own seat pocket sales magazine, his concentration entirely upon the departing line. He timed his move as the last figure disappeared from the plane, standing, stretching, and setting off unhurriedly toward the restrooms, relieved the indicator showed the farthest cubicle to be unoccupied. He started to hurry only when he reached it, partially opening the door but releasing it to continue on to the disembarkation pier, his feet at once protesting as he bustled past those ahead of him.

  Still in his seat, Jacobson had craned around the business-class-curtain separation to see Charlie approach the toilet door just before his view was blocked again by a steward moving to greet arriving Dutch passengers who filled the aisle for several minutes, locating their seats and stowing their baggage. By the time they had finished, Jacobson was standing awkwardly between the seats, looking to the toilets. The occupancy indicator showed the farthest to be the only one in use. Several more minutes passed before the door opened for a woman to emerge.

  At that moment, the aircraft doors thumped closed.

  * * *

  Hampered as they were by not knowing precisely what time of day or night they would be making the journey, Jonathan Miller stretched the reconnaissance-car journeys from Paris to Orly airport over a forty-eight-hour time frame into which he fitted six trips to establish an average, driving himself back to the city on their final run.

  Albert Abrahams, hunched over his clipboard in the passenger seat, said without looking up: “Never exceeding the speed limit to ensure against traffic violations and building in an additional thirty minutes for unanticipated problems, it gives us two and a half hours during the day, two at night.”

  “We’ll include a backup car, against engine breakdown,” decided Miller.

  “When’s Straughan going to give us Andrei’s pickup schedule? From all the guidance we’re getting from London, they’re expecting us to snatch the guy off the street.”

  “Straughan told me we’ll get it all in good time.”

  “Including personal contact with the kid himself? He’ll need to meet us, know us, in advance, won’t he?”

  “I’ve made the point. Straughan says it’s all in hand.”

  “You been involved in an extraction before?”

  “Once, ten years ago in Rome. His cover was third secretary at the Russian embassy. Turned out he was abandoning his wife for his mistress. He backed off confronting embassy diplomats at a consular-access negotiation and went back to his wife without telling us anything whatsoever of value.”

  “Let’s hope this one goes better.”

  “That’s all we can ever do, hope it all works out,” said the MI6 station chief. “You fancy the Brassiere Lipp for lunch?”

  “After two days and nights of sandwiches we deserve nothing less,” agreed Abrahams. “Apart, that is, from a hell of a lot more information.”

  12

  “What!”

  There was close to physical pain as well as disbelief in Gerald Monsford’s voice, and Straughan hoped the Director had been engaged in a difficult athletic performance with Rebecca to cause it. “Charlie slipped Jacobson in Amsterdam. Simply walked off the plane.”

  “That’s not possible!”

  “That’s what happened.”

  “Why didn’t you patch Jacobson th
rough to me from Moscow!”

  “The Moscow embassy is secure but we don’t transfer calls to your home.” Straughan paused, savoring the exchange. “Your specific instructions.”

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” demanded Monsford, the loudness lessening.

  “Charlie was as unpredictable as ever,” began Straughan, stringing out the pleasure although acknowledging there was an endangering hole in his own protection. “Charlie specified a seat, and Jacobson managed to get just a couple of rows behind: from there he had the perfect physical identification. Charlie stowed his suit carrier, and appeared to settle for the flight to Moscow. He didn’t make a move until after the Amsterdam passengers got off and only then appeared to go to the toilet. Jacobson lost sight for just a few seconds, as new passengers got on. The toilet light stayed on. In the confusion of people getting on—and there’s a separating curtain between business and economy—Jacobson missed Charlie leaving the toilet and someone else going in.…”

  “Jacobson stayed in his fucking seat: didn’t get out to walk up and down the aisle, exercising, like everyone does?”

  So far, so good, judged Straughan, hopefully. “Charlie left his luggage in an overhead locker!”

  “And you didn’t have a backstop established in Amsterdam airport precisely to ensure that something like this didn’t happen!”

  “No,” admitted Straughan, the paper-thin defense ready.

  “Why not?”

  “You and Jacobson watched and heard me warn him against doing anything like this, trying to show how clever he is,” struggled the operations director. “That’s all he’s doing, trying to prove his streetwise independence. But he can’t. He’s got to get to Moscow, which means using the cover-name passport we’ve provided. And he’s got to contact the embassy, sooner or later, to get the phoney passports for Natalia and the child. He’s just getting his rocks off, like a schoolboy masturbating for the first time.”

  “Why didn’t the cabin crew realize they were a passenger short?”

  “I don’t know and can’t ask,” said Straughan. “Charlie gambled and won.”

  After the briefest silence Monsford, his voice loud again, said: “You haven’t finished the story!”

  “I don’t follow,” protested Straughan, glad his own voice didn’t waver.

  “What did Jacobson do, when he realized he’d lost Charlie?”

  “There was nothing he could do: the aircraft doors had closed,” tried Straughan, weakly.

  “What about the suit carrier?”

  Now the silence was Straughan’s, as he sought an escape. Not finding one, he said: “Raising an alarm would have compromised Jacobson’s connection with Charlie.”

  “The suit carrier will have been found upon arrival at Moscow, which will alert the airline and the Russian authorities that the plane arrived short of a passenger,” set out Monsford, his voice rising even further. “The obvious backwards check will be at Amsterdam, who’ll cooperate with the Russians because they’ve no reason not to and with whom we can’t intercede. The flight will have had a named-passenger manifest and the boarding pass will have recorded a seat number, from which the Russians will learn the cover name we allocated the stupid motherfucker. Which, additionally, will be publicly disclosed in the inevitable publicity of a disappearing passenger from a Moscow-bound flight.…” Monsford paused, a torturer practicing his art. “You spotted anything I’ve missed out so far?”

  “He’s attracting attention to himself, which is madness!” argued Straughan. “It makes no sense the way you’re analyzing it.”

  “It makes each and every sense,” rejected Monsford. “The FSB are expecting him to come: he’s actually told them, for Christ’s sake, with the telephone calls!”

  “Which he’s supposed to be, a distraction,” broke in Straughan.

  “I hadn’t finished,” threatened Monsford. “By creating his own diversion he’s making it quite clear that he doesn’t trust anything we’ve put in place as backup. At the moment he’s not working against the Russians! He’s working against us!”

  As we’re working against him, thought Straughan, amazed at the other man’s total hypocrisy. “He can’t get his wife and daughter out without us.”

  “And we don’t have our diversion to get Radtsic and his wife out! Tell Jacobson to call me at noon our time tomorrow.”

  “He’s got a meeting with Radtsic at noon tomorrow.”

  “As soon as possible afterwards,” allowed Monsford. “I won’t have this fall apart.”

  * * *

  “Monsford says Charlie’s telling us our planning is crap,” said Aubrey Smith.

  “He caught me by myself after yesterday’s meeting,” said Passmore. “Asked me to prepare Russian passports for Natalia and Sasha, with Russian exit visas as well as British entry documentation covering the next month. He wants them sent covertly to Wilkinson at the embassy, cutting out MI6. I briefed Wilkinson to expect the package.”

  “Charlie doesn’t trust his own shadow.”

  “He tries hard not even to cast one,” guessed Passmore.

  “I’ve read your memo complaining at not being included in the early planning,” said Aubrey Smith.

  “Why wasn’t I?”

  “It’s a stuck-together operation. I opposed our ever going into Moscow, until I couldn’t prevent it becoming exclusively MI6, with Charlie seconded to them.”

  “So you agreed to it being joint?”

  Smith hesitated. “I couldn’t let it go to Monsford, could I?”

  “I’ve never controlled Charlie on an operation,” said Passmore, an objective rather than a responsibility-avoiding remark. “What do you expect him to do?”

  Smith shrugged. “God only knows. He’ll go, of course. But the cover name will be blown to the Russians from the flight information, even if it doesn’t become public through the media.”

  “I’ve already checked the news wires, as well as the Amsterdam and Moscow newspapers,” said Passmore. “It’s not public so far.”

  “It’s too early. There’ll be something by tonight.”

  “So he’s got another passport,” accepted Passmore.

  “Probably connected with the trip to Jersey,” agreed Smith. “The bit he didn’t tell us about.”

  “He was taken straight to the Buckinghamshire lodge the morning he reappeared after Jersey?”

  “Yes.” Smith frowned, questioningly.

  “Was he searched?”

  “As the first safe house in Chelsea was searched,” confirmed Smith, understanding the question. “He didn’t have a passport with him. Nor was there one in Buckinghamshire.…”

  “And direct from Buckinghamshire he was brought here to London for the briefings and after that immediately taken to the Moscow flight.…”

  “Yes,” said Smith.

  “What about luggage?”

  “His suit carrier left on the plane. We brought everything up to the lodge from Chelsea.”

  “He’s got to get back here, to England,” predicted the former SAS man. “And to do that he’ll have to use the cover passport, until he can make the switch to whatever else he’s got. I want to issue a passport watch on the cover name.”

  “Extend it to Jersey,” ordered Smith. “That’s where he could have it.”

  “What do we do when we pick him up?”

  “I’ll decide that when we get him.”

  “And if we don’t?”

  “Then we can’t do anything other than follow his lead.”

  “And the Russian passport he asked for?”

  Smith hesitated. “Prepare it as Charlie wants. I don’t trust Monsford either.”

  * * *

  All Harry Jacobson’s fragile reassurances had gone, compounded by the breach of tradecraft that he hadn’t properly taken into account until now, when he was actually making his way to the failsafe rendezvous with Maxim Radtsic. It was an inviolable rule in defector extractions that no target meetings should ever be at the same p
lace twice and they’d already met once before at the river-cruise terminal: Jacobson had agreed to its emergency use only because, unprofessionally, he’d never expected it to be necessary. Jacobson’s most obvious fear was that he was walking blindly into an FSB entrapment, almost equaled by the apprehension that Radtsic had lost his already overstretched nerve and wouldn’t turn up a second time. Which, added to his infantile airplane loss of Charlie Muffin, would inevitably mean his dismissal from the service.

  Jacobson arrived almost an hour early at the Klenovy Boulevard terminal, scouring every approach as he had at the previous failed meeting place for the slightest indication of an ambush. Having failed to find one, he positioned himself at the highest possible vantage point above the pier, his concentration upon the throng of embarking and disembarking passengers, seeking close-together groups or gatherings of people who did not fit the tourist profile. And failed again to locate anything that triggered his suspicion.

  Jacobson rigidly followed Radtsic’s trail-clearing insistence of boarding fifteen minutes ahead of the Russian, stationing himself at the rail overlooking the gangway to ensure Radtsic wasn’t followed. So tensed was Jacobson that the skin of his arms tingled at the slight pressure of his leaning against the rail and he was overly aware of people close to him, twitching away from the briefest contact.

  Ten minutes until departure, Jacobson saw. Where the hell was Radtsic! He should have been here by now, visible on the pier to ensure there was no surveillance. So why wasn’t he? Because he wasn’t going to show, Jacobson answered himself. He’d panicked or been found out or lost his nerve, all or any of which could mean his arrest or an attack and then God knows …