Red Star Burning

by Brian Freemantle

  It was eight fifty before Charlie made the first recognition, relieved it was Neil Preston, a fellow MI5 officer. The fair-haired, overweight man was close to the top of the farthest downward escalator, tightly clutching the hand support to prevent himself being forced down the stairs by the crush behind, anxiously scanning the crowded platform below from his diminishing elevation. Preston hesitated at platform level, pulling himself out of the current of people. Briefly, for no more than seconds, Preston appeared to look directly at Charlie, who tensed, ready to retreat. But then the man looked away and moved in the opposite direction and positioned his back to another of the major support pillars. From the inside pocket of his unbuttoned raincoat Preston took an unidentifiable newspaper already cleverly folded smaller than its tabloid size for commuter-crowded reading, which he gave the impression of doing without obscuring his platform view.

  Robert Denning appeared at the top of the escalator exactly four minutes later but pulled himself into a small recess at its top to stare down at the human sea below. Charlie knew he was totally concealed from above from the tall, balding MI6 officer, who also wore a raincoat, although unlike Preston tightly buttoned and belted. Charlie was also sure that from his vantage point Denning wouldn’t be able to locate Preston, whom he’d presumably followed. Denning’s head moved from side to side as he scanned the platform, straining forward at the arrival and departure of trains. After at least ten minutes Denning took from his pocket what Charlie at once recognized to be one of the special Vauxhall-issued Russian cell phones. It was a brief conversation, after which Denning turned back against the crowd, disappearing toward street level.

  Charlie kept his concentration on the upper level, at the same time keeping Preston in sight. Preston, in turn, maintained his constant vigil from behind his newspaper screen. Preston had obviously been followed by Denning, whose telephone alert had most likely been to Briddle or Beckindale, but not both: he’d appeared to dial only once and the conversation hadn’t been long enough to involve more than one person. Why hadn’t Denning come down to platform level? To avoid his descent being visible to Preston, Charlie guessed. He hoped it indicated that London had accepted his message to exclude M16.

  Nine forty-five, Charlie saw, from the platform clock. Where was Wilkinson? If Wilkinson was going to keep to the timetable, the man should have been here by now. But only if he was joining the merry-go-round from Smolenskaya, Charlie qualified. It would have been wiser, more professional, for Wilkinson to evade pursuit by boarding at a different station, using Preston and Warren to lay false trails. But they hadn’t, came another qualification. Preston had led Denning to the underground system and Denning had doubtless alerted the other M16 men. So even if Warren and Wilkinson were using different stations, the intended encounter was compromised.

  Which it definitely was, Charlie accepted, as Patrick Wilkinson appeared at the top of the escalator. By now the rush hour had thinned and as he descended Wilkinson expectantly swept the platform below, seeking Preston, whose head jerk of recognition was even more obvious. Preston left his pillar as Wilkinson reached the platform and for a moment Charlie thought the two were actually going to link up. They didn’t, but Preston stopped close enough for both to enter the same carriage. Charlie’s distraction from the escalator was only seconds but when he looked back Denning was halfway down, using a group of uniformed soldiers for cover, and as the man reached the bottom, Beckindale got on at the top and descended with even less concealment behind a fur-hatted, fur-coated woman. Neither Wilkinson nor Preston looked behind him to check his trail.

  Charlie replaced the battery in his adapted cell phone before Beckindale got to the bottom, his attention wholly upon the two MI6 officers hurrying to board the second and third carriage of the incoming train behind that of Wilkinson and Preston. With the carriage doors still open, Charlie texted Denning: WOMAN IN FUR HAT AND COAT, TWO SEATS IN FRONT, IS FSB, and saw Denning’s grab at his pocket as he went back to the mobile phone. Charlie texted Wilkinson: GET RID OF PRESTON. STAY WHERE YOU ARE. DENNING AND BECKINDALE IN CARRIAGES BEHIND. The train pulling away from the station prevented Charlie’s catching the second reaction.

  Charlie waited ten minutes to guard against Warren or Briddle arriving late before using the underpass to the opposite platform for counterclockwise trains, knowing from his previous day’s reconnaissance that he would be at Paveletsky long before Wilkinson’s train, the numbered designation of which was 986. It hadn’t started well, Charlie acknowledged, objectively.

  * * *

  “You know where he is!” interrupted Gerald Monsford, hunched forward over the telephone in his empty office.

  “I said there’s positive movement,” refused Briddle. “Wilkinson’s told me they’ve been ordered to break from us. I’m guessing there’s a link-up with Charlie—”

  “When!” broke in Monsford again.

  Briddle sighed, audibly. “After the Wilkinson confrontation we started monitoring. This morning Denning followed Preston to Smolenskakaya Metro. Preston established observation. Just short of an hour later, Beckindale followed Wilkinson to the same station. Wilkinson and Preston got on the same train, but not together. Our guys are with them, although not together, on the same train as the other two—”

  “It’s a meeting!”

  “Please let me finish!” protested Briddle, whose only professional contact with the Director had been during his private assassination briefing. “Before their train pulled out, Denning got a text from Charlie, telling him that a woman in front of him was FSB.” Briddle stopped expectantly, but for the first time Monsford didn’t break in. “Denning got off at the next station. The woman didn’t follow.”

  “She wouldn’t have been alone: there would have been a switch,” said the M16 Director, filling in the exchange while he composed his intended story to the other man.

  “Or it was a trick to screw our surveillance,” suggested Briddle. “Whatever, it means that Charlie was watching everything: my guess is that he was on the train.”

  “Is Beckindale searching for him?”

  “Of course he is. But he can only risk the carriages behind his own. If he goes forward he’ll be seen by Wilkinson or Preston. I’ve told him to do his best to get some view into Wilkinson’s carriage, to establish if Charlie’s there. If the meeting’s there, he’s to follow Charlie when he gets off.”

  “You haven’t forgotten our private meeting, have you?” said Monsford, everything clear in his mind.

  “Of course not.”

  “What have you been told by Straughan?”

  “Little more than that the French business is our operation.”

  “It’s the wife and son of Maxim Radtsic, the executive deputy of the FSB.”

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Briddle.

  “And we’ve got Radtsic, safely here in England. I’m working to extract the family here, too: expect to initiate it today. That’s background information, for you to understand the echelon at which we’re working: the three of you won’t have any active involvement in that. Your undivided concentration is to be on Charlie Muffin, whose message to Denning definitely wasn’t a trick: the trick was all that crap about his having to get his wife and daughter out of Russia. Radtsic’s confirmed Charlie Muffin is a double, but M15 won’t accept it: that’s why they’ve ordered their people to block you out. And I’m giving you the same order. There’s to be no further liaison with MI5. I want them watched until Charlie Muffin is located. But you are not to tell Denning or Beckindale why I want him found.”

  “Work against our own people!” questioned Briddle, uneasily.

  “Charlie Muffin isn’t our people: Radtsic insists he was turned years ago in the old KGB days and that he’s been responsible for the deaths of at least eight loyal officers, four of them ours.”

  “If he’s gone over he’s here, safe,” said Briddle. “If he’s got away, why’s he apparently got into contact with Wilkinson and the others?”

  “Three and
eight make eleven,” said Monsford. “And if he identifies you three, that eleven could come up to fourteen. I’m not going to let him have that final count as his swan song.”

  Briddle lapsed into silence and this time Monsford didn’t prompt, content to wait. Eventually Briddle said: “There’s no way the three of us can detain him, get him out of the country, even if the others lead us to him.”

  “I know,” said Monsford, shortly.

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “You to do,” qualified Monsford. “We established at our private session that you hold the clearance authority, in extreme circumstances. Which I judge these to be.”

  “Are you authorizing me with the direct and specific order?”

  “Yes. There will be no paper trail. That direct order, under a classified seal, will be logged with your personnel file. Which you know, from your clearance categorization.”

  “What do I tell Denning and Beckindale?”

  “Nothing. Use them as trackers, nothing more,” insisted Monsford. “And the restriction I’m imposing also includes the operations director and the deputy director. Is that properly understood?”

  “Yes,” said Briddle. “I understand.”

  * * *

  Two preceding trains gave Charlie the time to reposition himself for the Paveletsky arrival of service 986, but its decreasing speed was still too fast to satisfy Charlie that the unwanted three hadn’t remained unobtrusively on the train. None was in the same carriage as Wilkinson, who’d acquired a newspaper prop but was ignoring it, only once risking a quick sideways glance out toward the platform before turning back to look fixedly ahead. Nor, now the train was stationary, were any of those he sought in the carriages directly in front or behind.

  From every rehearsal the day before Charlie had been sure this initial precaution would have worked but still refused the twinge of frustration that it hadn’t. By using his suspected tracker telephone MI6 would know he was in Moscow’s Metro system, despite his having once more removed the battery. Disappointed as he was by the so-far-evidenced lack of professionalism, it should become obvious from his next text transmission how he was monitoring them. There was little if anything they could do to trace his exact location, but further to confuse them—and possibly cause the disembarkation of those still possibly riding the carousel—Charlie waited until the train moved off before reinserting the battery to text Wilkinson: STAY ONBOARD AFTER DOBRYNINSKAYA. GET OFF KOMSOMOLSKAYA. WAIT. Dobryninskaya was the next station along the line, into which the train should be pulling as Wilkinson read the message. Charlie used the 3a, Filevskaya subline, changed at the midring hub, and arrived at Komsomolskaya within twenty minutes. It was one of the stations he’d personally surveyed the day before to choose his observation hide. Charlie was glad his feet weren’t so far aching as badly as he’d feared.

  * * *

  “He didn’t tell you anything?” demanded James Straughan.

  Rebecca Street shook her head. “Nothing about the Moscow call. Just that he was getting a decision on the Radtsic linkup and that he expected to go directly from the Foreign Office to Hertfordshire. What did he say to Briddle?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know!” demanded the woman.

  “He had Briddle’s call patched directly through from the communications room to his extension. There’s no way I could attach a tie-line: both circuits are alarmed.”

  “Didn’t you ask Briddle?”

  “Briddle told me it was officially restricted to himself and the Director: that the exclusion applied to you and me.”

  “He can’t do that!” protested the woman. “That undermines the position and authority of both of us!”

  “Monsford’s done it, cut us completely out.”

  “We’ve got enough,” declared Rebecca.

  “Cut out, we don’t know what he’s saying, putting in our names, or making us appear responsible,” warned Straughan. “We can’t afford to overlook how much of what he did to get into the Lvov affair was dumped onto Jane Ambersom the moment it all went wrong.”

  “She didn’t have what we’ve got.”

  “He does know everything the three of us have discussed up to now, even if he’s been selectively recording it all,” reminded Straughan, unconvinced.

  “You keep running around in fear circles, you’re going to disappear up your own ass,” derided Rebecca.

  “It would be safer there than where I believe myself to be now,” said Straughan, self-pityingly.

  * * *

  On this occasion Gerald Monsford got to the Foreign Office ahead of the other three, his quick irritation at being relegated to an anteroom to wait for the government liaison compounded by Aubrey Smith’s arriving next. The M15 Director-General nodded curtly but didn’t speak. Monsford didn’t bother with any response. Sir Archibald Bland and Palmer were fifteen minutes late. Neither one apologized or explained their delay. As they sat, Bland said: “The French have agreed to a visual conference exchange between Radtsic and his family but they’re insisting upon conditions, as we are.…” He looked directly at Monsford. “How much time will you need to set it up?”

  “No time at all,” responded the MI6 Director. “My security-cleared engineers are already in Hertfordshire, waiting. Being a permanent safe house, all the technology is already there, too. They’ll only want the French technical information to make the two-way communication connection.”

  “Did you prepare it all ahead of the diplomatic agreement?” queried Palmer.

  “I thought I’d made it clear that I’m working proactively. It didn’t require a great deal of preparation.”

  “How involved are the Russians?” questioned Aubrey Smith.

  “One of the French insistences is that Russia has full access, through their Paris embassy,” said Bland.

  “You mean a simultaneous, live tie-in to everything that’s said?” pressed Smith.

  “Yes,” confirmed the cabinet secretary.

  “Radtsic’s in a safe house,” Smith pointed out. “Isn’t there an obvious danger of the Russians technically pinpointing his whereabouts to mount a recovery operation?”

  “I’ve anticipated that possibility with my technicians.” Monsford smiled: he’d hoped for an intervention he could mock. “It will be a satellite transmission which, for the recipient, begins and ends at the satellite. But as an added safeguard against the Russians’ having the scientific capability to overcome that cutout, the connection will not be direct from Hertfordshire. It will be routed through a booster station just outside Ashford, in Kent. That cutout totally precludes anything being traced back to where Radtsic is.”

  “Admirable forethought,” congratulated Bland. “We’re interpreting Russian constraints in some of the French conditions. Their major insistence is that there should be no pressure or threatening accusations: that it is all conducted unemotionally.”

  “What about pressure or threats that the Russian diplomats will have already made upon Elana and the boy?” asked Smith, professionalism overcoming his personal antipathy toward the M16 Director.

  “There’s no way we can discover the extent of that, nor counter it,” said Palmer. “We’re actually surprised, astonished almost, that they’ve agreed at all.”

  “Weren’t our strengths made clear?” demanded Monsford, belligerently.

  “I have no knowledge of the actual negotiations,” avoided Palmer, unconvincingly.

  “Radtsic’s strong-minded, to the point of arrogance: I’ve already told you that, several times,” said Monsford. “I’ll spell it out again but there can’t be any guarantee.”

  “Spell out something even more clearly,” urged Bland. “The moment it degenerates into a shouting match the French will disconnect from their end and it’ll all be over.”

  “The Russians are orchestrating it,” judged Smith, quickly. “Their simultaneous access enables them to make a complete transcript. It’s a preposterous insistence that it won’t
be emotional. They’ll let the exchange between the family continue for as long as serves their purpose but at some stage, whether or not Radtsic loses control, they’ll cut the link and have a recording they can edit to whatever benefit they choose.…”

  “That’s a wild hypothesis prompted by nothing more than the despair of a counterespionage service that’s proved itself incapable of performing its function or controlling its officers,” accused Monsford.

  Aubrey Smith ignored the outburst as well as the man, continuing to address the cabinet secretary. “The entire encounter will obviously be in Russian, won’t it?”

  “With simultaneous English and French translation,” confirmed Bland.

  “In what other language would a conversation be conducted between a Russian family?” demanded the M16 Director.

  Once more Smith ignored the other director. “It will somehow be manipulated into a Russian propaganda coup, most definitely within the country itself: my guess is that it’ll be turned into apparent proof that we’ve kidnapped Radtsic and are holding him here against his will.”

  “So what, if it’s only for internal consumption!” demanded Monsford.

  “What spin do you imagine the French will put upon it?” asked Smith, speaking at last to his counterpart. “Certainly not that they’re under Russian duress. And their version—remember, they hold the European presidency—will get a strong play throughout the Union.…” He went back to the other two men. “And our problem has been counteracting Russian publicity and public perception, hasn’t it?”

  “Has everyone forgotten my suggestion how to counteract that?” dismissed Monsford.

  Aubrey Smith waited, hopefully.

  “Aren’t there several points there?” questioned Bland, in cautious agreement.