Red Star Burning: A Thriller (Charlie Muffin Thrillers)

by Brian Freemantle

“In the intrusive absence of whom, caught up in their emotion, we’ve already got a lead to something Radtsic expected to be the culmination of a thirty-year intelligence career but instead, because of an internal power struggle…” Monsford stopped, his mouth physically distorting to avoid the intended singular boast, “we’ve got the coup.”

  “Let’s not keep credit from where credit is due,” enthused Smith, layering the condescension. “The coup is yours and yours alone. Which was how it was initiated and carried out, without the participation of anyone else. Just you, alone.”

  “We’re becoming increasingly irritated at this perpetual antipathy,” declared Bland. “As well as becoming increasingly concerned that it’s endangering the matter at hand. True, we’ve got our coup. But externally it’s greatly mitigated by a number of unresolved issues. We want—as others more important want—this constant bickering to stop for the concentration to instead be upon tidying up those issues.”

  “I reiterate that to resolve those issues I am offering every assistance asked of me and my service to help the Director-General, whose officer created them,” said Monsford.

  “That offer would best be achieved by the immediate withdrawing from Moscow the three MI6 officers seconded to the original extraction for which I am responsible but for whom there is no further need,” responded Aubrey Smith, at once. “MI6 has succeeded with their extraction and achieved its coup, but upon which there would appear to be a need for much more work.”

  The only sound in the room for several minutes was that of differing seat and chair shifting prompted by differing reasons. The first-to-speak concentration settled upon Bland, the nominal chairman, who avoided the conflict with a matador’s deftness by inviting Monsford’s contribution.

  “Unfortunate and public embarrassments aside, I am not aware of any changes in circumstance—in which, of course, I do not include the reemergence of Charlie Muffin—justifying the Director-General’s astonishing demand.”

  “Are there any changes of circumstances?” Palmer asked Aubrey Smith.

  “I believe there are considerable changes, none of which I intend discussing here,” said the MI5 Director-General. “I shall, of course, discuss them in full and complete detail when the extraction of Natalia Fedova becomes a wholly independent MI5 matter.”

  “Not only is it outrageous to impugn my service, as I believe the Director-General is doing, it is arrogant for him to imagine that the separation of our two services is for him to decide,” said Monsford.

  “It is for the Director to make whatever interpretation he chooses,” dismissed Smith. “In making your decision, which I was in no way taking from you, it’s important I make totally clear that I am not prepared to continue the extraction of Natalia Fedova in partnership with MI6.”

  “And I must make it equally clear, as I have already done, that I am prepared completely to take over the extraction as an MI6 operation,” declared Monsford.

  * * *

  “You took it over the edge,” accused Jane Ambersom, objectively. “You didn’t have a fallback if the ruling had gone against you.”

  “I’d have done what I know Monsford’s going to do, ignore it,” said Aubrey Smith, unoffended at her directness. “The whole intention was to get Monsford and MI6 officially out of our operation. Which is what I’m determined to do: get Monsford out, not just from this extraction but out of Vauxhall Cross. He’s the paranoid megalomaniac to MI6 that J. Edgar Hoover was to the FBI. Monsford’s dangerous: out of control.”

  “After today he’ll be even more determined to destroy you,” cautioned the woman. “And now he’s excluded we’ve no way of second-guessing what he’ll do.”

  “We know what Monsford’s going to do: or try to do,” repeated the MI5 Director. “What we’ve got to do is wrap up Moscow, get everyone safely back here.” He turned to Passmore. “So when’s that going to be?”

  “As of fifteen minutes ago Charlie hadn’t contacted Wilkinson,” said the operations director. “I’ve authorized the money Charlie wants, as well as the Russian passports for Natalia and the child. As soon as we’ve finished, I’ll add the decision officially to cut MI6 adrift and tell Wilkinson to make that clear to Monsford’s people—”

  “Do that,” broke in Smith. “Once Wilkinson’s completed the handover, he and the other two are out, too. Their only function from now on is to take Monsford’s people all over Moscow on wild goose chases. Wilkinson is to tell Charlie we’re sending in independent backup. Who’ll head the new group?”

  “Ian Flood,” responded Passmore, without hesitation. “He’s one of four on standby, all with valid visas,”

  “Charlie likes the Savoy, near Red Square,” remembered Smith. “That’s where he lived during the Lvov investigation. Flood’s to book in there and Charlie’s to be told that’s where his contact is. But don’t tell Wilkinson the hotel name. I don’t want any more mistakes. Charlie will identify it by being told it’s his favorite.” Smith looked between the other two. “What else do we need to do?”

  “Once Charlie’s got his travel money and the passports there’s no reason why he can’t move at once,” picked up Passmore. “I can get our second team in today, with Flood going in first. All we’d need from Charlie is routes and arrival day.”

  “I wasn’t exaggerating Monsford’s paranoia,” said Smith. “I also believe he’s capable of paranoid orders, dressed up with whatever justification. Tell Flood’s team, upon my authority, to confront like with like if necessary.”

  “You’re surely not imagining a gunfight at the O.K. Corral?” asked Passmore.

  “Those are the orders, in my name,” said Smith.

  “I’ve got an idea,” announced Jane. “First I need to know if anything was said this morning about Straughan?”

  Smith shook his head. “It was mentioned. Monsford denied knowing any details, apart from it not being a security problem and that Rebecca was handling it.”

  “Ducking and weaving again,” Jane recognized. “How’d it be if there was an alert that MI6 has been penetrated, particularly after the suicide of its operations director? A security purge might even find Rebecca Street’s copy of what Straughan made.”

  “I think it might cause Monsford a very big problem.” Smith smiled.

  “Not if the internal search is controlled by Monsford,” Passmore pointed out.

  “It can’t be,” insisted Jane. “The regulations are that it would have to be independent of currently serving officers.”

  * * *

  Gerald Monsford’s purple-faced fury, accompanied by seemingly uncontrollable facial twitching, was greater than Rebecca had witnessed before, although the irrational pacing was familiar. For a long time after his stormed entry it was impossible for the man to speak comprehensibly: even attempted words burst out incomplete or slurred.

  “Bastards … fucking bastards … imagine!” Then came what appeared another indecipherable splutter. “Sided with him, with Smith … against me! Me … gave them their fucking coup. All Smith’s fault … all the mistakes. Incredible. Unbelievable…”

  Rebecca remained silent, letting the diatribe burn itself out, beginning to interpret and still listening but giving over most of her concentration to review all that she’d personally done or put into practice since James Straughan’s suicide. She’d left nothing undone or unchecked, nothing that Monsford could pick up and challenge: she was sure she hadn’t. Apart, of course, from the involvement of Jane Ambersom, which was causing the unease to churn through her. She was convinced Straughan had kept his own copy of the incriminating material. There was still a chance, a lot of chances, of its being uncovered and it was to her that each and every discovery had to be handed, unopened, unheard, or unread. But she’d wanted to recover it by now: needed to know she had the protection of the only one in existence.

  Rebecca’s concentration refocused at Monsford’s sighed collapse behind the expansive desk, ignoring the folder in readiness before him. Risking a renewed erupt
ion, she said: “We need to redefine a few things. Are you going to handle Moscow or shall I do what needs to be done there?”

  “Leave it!” snapped Monsford. “I’m handling Moscow personally. What the fuck’s happened with Straughan? How did Smith know?”

  She had to get it out of the way, Rebecca knew. “Jane Ambersom’s name and number was on a call-in-emergency list at Straughan’s house.”

  This time Monsford was rendered completely speechless, and there was a change when he did recover, quiet-voiced fear instead of irrational fury. “They were friends … sometimes ate together in the canteen. What’s he left with her: told her!”

  “Nothing,” insisted Rebecca, hoping her precautions proved her right. “We were also on the list, obviously. According to the police, I was contacted within fifteen minutes of Ambersom. I called her, told her it was an overhang from her time here, and that I was taking over. Which I did. It’s all contained, under our control.”

  “I don’t like it: didn’t like him.”

  “Trust me. It’s all contained.”

  “Tell me how,” demanded Monsford, his voice still hushed.

  “There was no other family, apart from him and his mother,” set out Rebecca. “The Home Office has confirmed to the local chief constable my instructions for no public inquest. I personally supervised the total clearance of the Berkhamsted house: everything movable has already been brought here, to be reexamined. There’s a second, deep-search team taking the house apart: after they’ve done that they’ll excavate the garden. We’re separately going through all the local banks to locate what deposits he had.” She gestured toward the studiously ignored folder. “That contains what’s immediately relevant: his suicide note, all the medication he used to kill his mother and himself—samples have been taken of all of them to confirm our autopsy that’s being conducted now that what killed him came from those sources and every piece of documentation of his and his mother’s existence—”

  “What’s the suicide note say?” Monsford interrupted.

  “It’s there for you to read yourself,” persisted the woman. “Nothing that’s a problem. He considers his work has been undermined by the strain of constantly caring for his mother, he’s made mistakes, none of which he lists.”

  “The bastard wanted to bring me down,” insisted Monsford.

  So do I, thought Rebecca.

  31

  It usually came at the live-or-die part of an assignment, without warning and irrespective of place or time. Charlie Muffin didn’t think of it as fear, although that’s what it was: instead, as he always did, he considered it the essential senses-sharpening adrenaline boost to react faster and think quicker. And win. But this time the fear was different: more hair-triggered, the keep-ahead intensity stronger.

  Charlie knew why. Winning, emerging the victor, had never been enough by itself. To win totally meant surviving, which he’d always done, disregarding the cost to friend or foe alike. But not this time. This time he had far more—everything—to win by getting Natalia and Sasha safely out of Russia but far more still—everything—to lose if he failed. Which made the predictable adrenaline-spurred fear the wrong sort, the dangerously overcompensating, overreactive sort of fear that risked skewing his subjectivity to cause the forbidden, inconceivable failure. The possibility of which, from the moment of his Amsterdam sidestep, had been compounded almost daily by inconsistencies and uncertainties. Which, subjectively again, was par for the course of professional espionage but from which he’d hoped to be spared in this particular instance.

  It was twelve ten, later than he’d intended, when Charlie literally pushed his way into the tourist-packed Arbat, sure he was alone but after the Metro debacle of the day before with no confidence in Patrick Wilkinson’s ability to detect surveillance. Charlie let himself be carried, unresisting, along the stall-cluttered thoroughfare, seeking the remembered centrally placed, brick-built emporium, disappointed from the outside at the limited escape options if Wilkinson once more guided MI6 pursuit to him. After two further top-to-bottom street reconnoiters Charlie failed to locate a better alternative.

  Charlie correctly guessed Wilkinson would arrive at the Arbat Metro, despite the man’s vow never again to use the underground system. Wilkinson emerged, manila package tightly clutched beneath his right arm, precisely ten minutes ahead of their appointed time. Charlie remained in the station-bordering café, his Pravda spread before him but concentrating upon recognizable faces, needing a second vodka to justify his staying where he was during the forty-five minutes it took Wilkinson to get through the tourist crush in both directions. He let Wilkinson get twenty meters ahead on the man’s third promenade before following. He caught up at the emporium and said: “To your left, with the green-painted shutters,” sure the man would visibly jump, which he did.

  Wilkinson moved without turning. Charlie went with him, but didn’t enter, lingering at the outside displays to satisfy himself the man was alone. Wilkinson was in the back of the incense-perfumed arcade, examining icon reproductions, when Charlie finally entered. It took a full meandering five minutes for Charlie to reach him.

  Charlie reached out for Wilkinson’s package, slipping it between the pages of his newspaper before turning to keep the main door in view. “What did London say?”

  “You’ve got new backup,” announced Wilkinson, copying Charlie’s icon interest. “No connection to the embassy, no connection with us. Your contact is an Ian Flood. He’s at your favorite hotel: you’re supposed to understand that. We’re to decoy the others.”

  “Try to get it right this time,” said Charlie, unforgiving.

  “I’m glad to be out of it,” blurted Wilkinson. “All three of us are.”

  “So am I,” said Charlie. “Did you also tell London MI6 did more than just try to get to me: that Briddle was with you and through you was with me right up to Dmitrouskaya? From where he obviously watched us in the park and afterwards rode the train with you: the train upon which he imagined I’d be, a sitting target.”

  “How do you know that?” said Wilkinson, disbelievingly.

  “Because watching you leave I saw him in the carriage behind you.”

  “I … I mean I should…” stumbled the man.

  “Don’t bother,” stopped Charlie. “Is there anything more to tell me?”

  “MI6 have been officially taken off, their guys withdrawn.”

  “Have they gone?”

  “We only got the cable this morning, just before all three of us left the embassy to give us—me—time to lose surveillance. But I told him last night I knew about London’s order: that they were out of it.”

  “What did he say?”

  “To go fuck myself: that he took his orders from London. That’s why the three of us are staying as decoys.”

  Another uncertainty in the lucky dip tub, thought Charlie.

  * * *

  In an afterthought Gerald Monsford stopped to buy roses for Elana. The fumble-fingered florist took almost half an hour to gift wrap them, complete with red ribbon to match the flowers, and he was practically an hour late getting to the Hertfordshire safe house. Radtsic was alone in the conservatory.

  “I’m late because I stopped to get these for Elana,” said Monsford, offering the bouquet as if for approval. “Where is she?” He already knew from his arrival meeting with Harry Jacobson.

  “Resting,” said the Russian, ignoring the flowers. He was in the chair Elana had chosen the day before, preventing Monsford’s sitting close to him.

  “Perhaps she’ll join us later for me to give them to her?”

  “She doesn’t want to see you: be part of anything.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” said Monsford, putting the flowers on a side table.

  “You already knew,” accused Radtsic, looking up to the ceiling joist Elana had identified.

  Monsford instinctively followed the look and wished he hadn’t, uncomfortable that it would have been filmed. “It’ll get better.”
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  “Not without Andrei,” refused the man.

  “You’ve got to be realistic, Maxim Mikhailovitch,” cautioned Monsford. “We’re trying, you know we’re trying, but it’s going to take a lot of time.”

  “Then it’ll have to take a lot of time,” said Radtsic, flatly. “Our deal was that we’d all be together, a complete family. There’s no deal if we’re not a complete family.”

  Not anticipating its weight, Monsford had to struggle to get another chair opposite the Russian and knew the film would show his overweight awkwardness. “What happened in France wasn’t our fault. We don’t yet know how or why it happened. We’ll find a way to get Andrei back. But our deal can’t be put on hold indefinitely.”

  “I can’t accept anything without Andrei being here. Neither can Elana.”

  “Andrei will be here! But during the time it’ll take we’ve got to start work. There are people you’re going to meet: people you’ll regard as friends as you work together.”

  “I know what debriefing is,” snapped Radtsic, in a small spark of his old arrogance. “Just as I know what you want and which you’ll get. But that’s got to be met with what I want. And that’s not empty words and talk of indeterminate time. It’s got to be a balanced exchange: what I have to tell you equated against getting Andrei back.”

  “That’s not a balanced exchange,” protested Monsford, tensed against his anger at the other man’s belief that he had a bargaining position. “It’s tilted entirely in your favor.”

  “Which creates the incentive to get Andrei here.”

  The bastard was playing with him, cat to mouse, realized Monsford, hating his own analogy and hating even more that others would witness Radtsic’s derision. “I won’t be coming down every day. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to the people you’ll be dealing with all the time. And to a liaison officer, a woman, to ensure Elana’s got all she wants.”

  “The only thing Elana wants is Andrei, like me,” repeated Radtsic. “I hope that tomorrow you’ll have something to tell us about that.”