Red Star Burning: A Thriller (Charlie Muffin Thrillers)

by Brian Freemantle

Straughan gave his account of the previous night’s Paris encounter with Elana and Andrei in as much detail as he’d recounted Jacobson’s Moscow meeting and again at the end put a written report in front of the Director.

  “I can’t believe this!” said Monsford, incredulously. “Doesn’t the kid know what’ll happen to him if he stays!”

  “We’re meeting with them both again today.”

  Monsford leaned forward over his desk. “Tell Miller to frighten the shit out of the kid. And if he still fucks about, to leave him. Tell Miller to assemble a snatch squad, to hold him long enough to get Elana airborne and then let him go. By tomorrow he’ll be in a Siberian gulag with a lifetime to reflect his stupidity.”

  “Miller hopes Elana will persuade him.”

  “You just told me she’s reluctant, too.”

  “Reluctant but accepting reality.”

  “You’re the director of operations, the man responsible for making this work,” threatened Monsford. “Don’t for a moment forget that.”

  “I’m never given the opportunity to forget,” said Straughan.

  * * *

  “The whole damn business has escalated out of any control,” announced Geoffrey Palmer. “The Russians didn’t just reject our Note. They refused to accept the ambassador, sent him packing cap in hand after ensuring their media circus was assembled to see and photograph the entire humiliation. And then kept them there to do it all over again when the ambassador responded—as he diplomatically had to respond—to their summons to deliver the rejected Note. They’re refusing us consular access to those they’ve arrested, as well as the two heart attack victims, one of whose condition is reported to be giving cause for concern. I can’t ever remember this degree of orchestrated diplomatic contempt.”

  “Incredible,” sympathized Sir Archibald Bland. “Incredible and completely unsatisfactory. As well as being totally unacceptable. The cabinet decided this morning to summon the Russian ambassador in return, for an official protest Note. We’re also refusing their lawyers access to their arrested diplomats here, which technically breaches the agreed consular code. We’ll have eventually to concede, causing us further humiliation when we do, but we’ll string it out as long as we can in the hope of getting in to see our tourist group.”

  “I don’t think they’ll blink first,” cautioned Palmer.

  “Neither does the cabinet,” admitted Bland, the double-act confrontation clearly rehearsed. “So, tell us you’ve got the bloody man who’s caused all this.”

  “We haven’t yet,” admitted Aubrey Smith. “And until he makes contact, which he’s got to do at some stage, we don’t know where to look. Which the Russians are clearly expecting us to do, to lead them to Muffin. My people are convinced there’s a higher than customary degree of surveillance on the embassy and everyone going in and out.”

  “Are you getting the same indication?” Bland asked Monsford.

  The MI6 Director shifted, more concerned at the potential danger to the Radtsic extraction than at not having heard, until that moment, about a heightened embassy observation. “Tighter than usual, certainly,” he lied. “What we surely need is something more embarrassing with which to confront the Russians?”

  “The purpose of this meeting is to explore practicalities, not daydreams,” criticized Bland. “I don’t want us even to consider anything that might blow up in our faces to compound a disaster into a total catastrophe. I want that, the government wants that, completely understood by both of you. So, do you completely understand what I’ve just told you?”

  “I most definitely understand,” replied Smith.

  “I was trying to explore logic more than daydreams,” Monsford defensively tried to recover, disappointed at the brusque dismissal of what he’d hoped would prepare them for Radtsic.

  “It’s inevitably going to dominate the House again today, as well as tomorrow morning’s headlines,” predicted Bland. “Are you both telling me there’s absolutely nothing to add from yesterday?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” conceded Smith, his normally soft voice little more than a mumble. “You’ll know the minute I do that we’ve got Muffin under wraps. Which won’t provide any counterpublicity, will it?”

  “If there is any news of Muffin it will obviously come from my colleague’s service,” said Monsford, determined to distance himself and MI6. Equally determined upon what would later be recognized as proactive thinking, he added: “And I’ll alert you at once to anything else that could be relevant.”

  * * *

  “And Palmer and Bland were a blink away from tears of gratitude at the hope of a balancing embarrassment for the Russians,” boasted Monsford, ending his account of the Foreign Office encounter.

  “You didn’t take the hint about Radtsic any further than that?” asked Straughan. Once more he ignored the woman as Monsford activated the recording equipment, glad he’d postponed their intended conversation after the earlier morning session.

  “Only the merest wisp of hope,” said Monsford, smiling: he’d omitted Bland’s edict against counterbalancing the Russian maneuvering. “They’ll recognize what I was talking about by this time tomorrow: that we weren’t just sitting around on our hands. Aubrey Smith was practically whimpering, like an abandoned dog.”

  “Isn’t there a risk of our being criticized for keeping it to ourselves?” suggested Rebecca.

  “Palmer and Bland are sitting on their hands as well, shit scared of anything else going wrong,” dismissed Monsford. “I wasn’t going to risk a last-minute abandonment.”

  Working through Monsford’s mixed metaphor was like wading through mud, thought Rebecca. “You don’t sound very impressed by any of them?”

  “Unlike Janus, they’re only looking in one direction: over their shoulders to protect their backs.” Monsford sneered, juggling his responses. “You made it clear to Jacobson he’s got to rein in Radtsic?”

  Straughan nodded. “I didn’t just reinforce it to Jacobson. I personally spoke to Halliday. There can’t be the slightest misunderstanding.”

  “How did Halliday take it?” asked Rebecca.

  “He complained at being sidelined: not being treated as a senior operative.”

  “Did he now!” mocked Monsford. “What did you tell him?”

  “That being a senior officer he knew the golden espionage rule that operational security dictates that agents are only told what it’s individually essential for them to know for their part of an assignment.”

  “Did he accept that?” questioned Rebecca.

  “What he accepted was that he didn’t have an alternative,” qualified Straughan. “What he did say was that he should have been given more responsibility.”

  “I definitely shouldn’t have left him in Moscow after the last clear-out,” said Monsford. “Bring him out the moment this is all over.”

  “Which brings us to a connected situation,” seized Straughan. “Jacobson pointed out that he’ll obviously be identified by the FSB as Radtsic’s escape Control. There’s no way he can return to Moscow.”

  Monsford shrugged, frowning. “What’s the relevance of that, right now?”

  “Bringing Radtsic in is going to be a hell of a coup not just for the service but for Jacobson, personally. And give the government the recovery it needs. Jacobson is staking his claim early for a fitting recognition.”

  Monsford sniggered, derisively. “He’s doing what!”

  “Putting himself forward to be station chief in Washington, D.C., or Paris. His preference is Paris.”

  Monsford sniggered again. “If we weren’t as close as we are I’d consider abandoning the extraction, seriously concerned that Harry Jacobson had suffered a mental problem. I’d diagnose inflated grandeur. Harry Jacobson’s future is one of the furthest thoughts from my mind and will probably stay that way for a long time to come. If he mentions it again, tell him there’s absolutely no reason for him to take a French-language course or learn the words of the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”
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  “I’ll let you tell him when he gets here,” said Straughan, sighing.

  “When’s he handing over the passport and tickets to Radtsic?” Monsford pressed on, unaware of the other man’s contempt.

  “Now,” replied Straughan, ready for the demand.

  “We’ll reconvene this afternoon,” decided Monsford.

  As they walked together from the Director’s office, Rebecca said: “It’s turning out to be a crowded day?”

  “Productive, though,” agreed Straughan.

  The deputy director waited until they were in the outside corridor before saying: “Shall we wait until after the final meeting?”

  “Probably best,” Straughan agreed once more. “Could you see?”

  “Yes,” said Rebecca. “We’re doing the right thing.”

  “I hope so,” said the man.

  “Trust me,” said Rebecca.

  That was his problem, acknowledged Straughan. He didn’t trust her any more than he trusted Gerald Monsfod, in whom he had no trust whatsoever.

  * * *

  He’d been overconfident, Charlie Muffin admitted to himself. He’d swung from overcaution to overconfidence instilled by overanalyzing the overly suspicious to end up where he was now, overwhelmed by discrepancies. By far the worst had been his mistakenly imagining Natalia’s fear-prompted telephone calls connected to the provable FSB burglary and staged the Amsterdam deception to evade an imagined entrapment. And by so doing provided the Russians with the propaganda field day they were utilizing to their fullest advantage. But from what Halliday told him Charlie was sure he’d correctly judged that the rescue extraction for Natalia and Sasha had all along been a sacrificial diversion for something entirely separate. Would he have compromised, destroyed even, that separate operation as he’d now so badly endangered his chances of getting Natalia and Sasha out? It would be a fitting retribution if he had, inadvertent though it would have been.

  But that wasn’t his major concentration. More immediate was covering his self-dug pitfalls safely. His hopes of doing that had soared after establishing contact with David Halliday and then so quickly afterward with Natalia. Both had leaked away during the near-sleepless, self-analyzing night and flattened even more with the first of his arranged contacts with Natalia.

  While acknowledging it to be understandable, Charlie was still disappointed that Natalia’s previous-day deflation hadn’t lifted. His overnight thinking had concluded that while his mistakes made Natalia and Sasha’s rescue hugely more difficult, it was possible as long as he remained undetected. Natalia, in total contrast, appeared to have sunk into acceptance of inevitable disaster. She’d dismissed the misconceptions as being his, not her, fault and heaped further remorse on herself for not having anything to offer from the Lubyanka. Trying to break her mood, Charlie actually accused her of self-defeat and self-pity and now, entering another kiosk for his second arranged call of the day, was unsure if he hadn’t been too severe on her.

  “Can you talk?” Charlie opened, without identifying himself when Halliday answered.

  “I’m not sure, not anymore.”

  Charlie’e stomach dipped. “Why not?”

  “I’m back on board, which I know you’re not. It’s different now.”

  If Halliday completely believed he’d been reintegrated, he’d have put down the telephone the moment he’d recognized his voice. “I believed in London that I was on board too, remember?”

  “That’s your problem to sort out.”

  “I did, by realizing in time that I was the chosen fall guy,” hurried Charlie, sure he was keeping the anxiety from his voice. “Remember that, too? You really believe you’re fully back in the loop? That’s what you’ve got to be absolutely convinced of: that and something equally important. That you’re absolutely safe. That’s the magic word, safety. You got the absolute guarantee of that, David? Or aren’t you suspicious that having been excluded from everything until now, you’ve been picked out as the sacrificial fall guy now they don’t have me for the job?” Bite, you squirming bastard, Charlie thought: swallow the fucking hook!

  “I can look after myself.”

  He was unsure! “That wasn’t the impression I got yesterday.”

  “Nothing can go wrong inside an embassy.”

  Halliday was the point man, seized Charlie. And didn’t know enough of his last Moscow assignment to identify a manipulation. “Of course nothing can go wrong inside an embassy! You know what? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that wasn’t the thinking of that poor sod for whose murder I was last here. You know, the one killed in the embassy grounds?”

  “It’s not the same,” protested Halliday, weakly.

  “He certainly wasn’t the same when they finished with him,” pressured Charlie. “Did you hear how he was tortured? He only had one arm and they used acid to take off the fingertips of the one hand he still had, to stop his being identified. They took his eyes out, too. And his tongue. All while he was alive…” Charlie could hear uneven, gulped breathing from the other man. “Our being able to talk like this means you’re in the rezidentura by yourself. Where’s everyone else? Do you know how you fit into the complete picture?”

  “It was you who reminded me how operations are compartmented!” blurted Halliday.

  “Which I shouldn’t have needed to tell you,” coaxed Charlie, sure he had the other man well and truly on his line. “It’s the first lesson, hammered home. But I never accepted it: it was such an obvious one-way ticket to the cliff edge. I kept the golden rule always in the forefront of my mind, as I was told to, and on every assignment I worked my ass off, breaking it to find out as much as I could about what I wasn’t supposed to know. Which wasn’t disobedience or disloyalty or any contravention of any Official Secrets Act. It was to keep myself alive in an environment in which we’re also taught we’re indispensable until that rule’s changed for a greater indispensable need. And why I’m still alive and you’re all by yourself in an empty rezidentura without a fucking clue what you’re doing and won’t be told if you ask. The only thing you can be sure about is that you don’t know whether you’re going to get a pat on the back or a knife stuck into it.”

  The breathing was heavier and more uneven, although Charlie didn’t believe Halliday was actually breaking down. There was, eventually, a word that Charlie didn’t catch but then it came again and Charlie heard: “Bastards.”

  “Why are they bastards?” Charlie asked at once, not wanting to lose the momentum he’d created.

  “Keeping me out: treating me like this.”

  He’d made another mistake with Halliday, Charlie acknowledged, although not as great as MI6 by inducting Halliday. He didn’t any longer think Halliday’s constant sideways shuffle from difficulty was his pension concern. It was an abject terror of a job he’d got but never wanted once he’d discovered what it entailed and from which he’d always been running. “I’m here to help you help yourself, David. I can get you safely through this if you trust me.”

  “It is the extraction I thought it was.”

  He still had to be careful Halliday didn’t spit the hook out. “Who?”

  “Janus. The code name’s Janes. I told you that.”

  More self-justification, Charlie recognized. Now the all-important question. “What’s the genuine identity?”

  “All I know is Janus. That’s the name I’ve got to use calling Straughan.”

  “You haven’t managed to get back into Jacobson’s safe?”

  “I can’t break the combination, either into his office or the safe itself.”

  It had to be a major extraction for the MI6 operations director to be personally involved. “Tell me about Janus.”

  “It’s the launch code.”

  “It’ll be specific,” demanded Charlie, professionally.

  “Janus has gone.”

  “That’s the green code, Janus has gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the red?”

  “Janus is
stopped.”

  “Is it today?”

  There was the first hesitation. “I’m on twenty-four-hour standby.”

  “At the embassy?”

  Another pause. “I already told you I’m working from inside.”

  “Who actually briefed you?

  “Straughan.”

  Confirmation that it was a major extraction, decided Charlie, positively. “Who’s your relay, here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s Jacobson’s function?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He’d started to row back. “They’re really keeping you out, aren’t they?”

  “You’re doing the same. You’re not telling me what you’re going to do.”

  And I don’t intend to, thought Charlie, a decision half formed. “Keep out of the way, until your thing’s over.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I believe I was intended to be the disposable part in the Janus extraction.”

  “None of the special team is involved in Janus,” challenged Halliday.

  “How do you know that?”

  “I asked Straughan: said I assumed they were on the same assignment. That was when I got the compartmentalization argument. He said they were nothing to do with it and that I should keep myself apart from them.”

  And why it had been easy persuading the paranoid Halliday that he wasn’t safe, realized Charlie. “They haven’t been withdrawn?”

  “You think I should watch myself?” demanded Halliday, anxiously.

  “I don’t think you should explore dark alleys with them,” goaded Charlie. “They still ostracizing you in the commissary?”

  “Maybe not as much as in the beginning. I had a couple of drinks with Pat Wilkinson last night. I didn’t get anything specific, certainly not what they’re here for. But one of the others, Denning I think it was, said something about being pissed off hanging around, not knowing what was happening.”

  Getting indicators from Halliday was like pulling teeth with eyebrow tweezers, thought Charlie. “Nothing about me by name?”

  “Not that I heard.”

  “Keep in mind what I told you: watch your back,” encouraged Charlie. “Why not bring the Rossiya into the conversation, see what their reaction is?”