Red Star Falling: A Thriller

by Brian Freemantle

  Rebecca said, ‘We were very glad to get your reply.’

  ‘You gave us an undertaking we’re expecting you to honour, unlike other assurances we’ve been given,’ said Radtsic.

  ‘I will honour every undertaking I gave, which I expect you to match with the co-operation we discussed,’ persisted Rebecca, putting herself opposite the man. ‘Each is dependent upon the other, which is not my issuing an ultimatum. Moscow has to be convinced of the agreement we’ve reached if they’re to agree some communication between you and Andrei.’

  Radtsic hesitated, as if he were about to reply, but instead he reached into the side of his chair and brought out two folded sheets of paper, rising at last to offer both. ‘You have sufficient Russian?’

  ‘Yes,’ assured Rebecca, scanning both sheets before actually reading the script. Radtsic’s Cyrillic was in an open, almost childish hand, Elena’s postscript by comparison in the hurried, academic scrawl, more difficult to read. Conscious of the concentration from both Russians as she read the letter, Rebecca held herself rigidly against its surprise that she was sure Radtsic expected. Rebecca said, ‘We never understood that episode in Moscow when you told Jacobson, without being asked, that you knew nothing about the Lvov scheme.’

  ‘At that time I hadn’t fully decided who to go to, you or the Americans,’ replied Radtsic. ‘I was very uncertain who would be best: the safest. America would have had the most to offer but the CIA had exposed themselves too much to us, which they hadn’t realized but would have done if I told them everything: I felt there was danger, physical danger, in approaching them. But that day with Jacobson I wasn’t satisfied with how things were going. Jacobson was frightened—too frightened. I thought he was a weakness. I was actually thinking of how to approach America when I said what I did, spoke aloud what was going on in my head, which was stupid.’

  Rebecca fluttered the paper. ‘But here’s your admission.’

  Radtsic allowed a smile. ‘That’s what I want the Lubyanka to know I’m prepared to talk about unless they let me have my son.’

  Rebecca held up a warning hand. ‘Let’s take this a step at a time, Maxim Mikhailovich. What do you know about Lvov?’

  Radtsic’s disbelieving frown came with a snort of derision. ‘How can you ask me that!’

  ‘I can ask you because so far I don’t understand this conversation or what you’ve written in this letter. So, a step at a time. What do you know about Stepan Lvov and the long-established plan to install him as president of the Russian Federation, from which he was to manipulate a CIA who believed him to be their committed spy?’

  ‘I was the executive director, the overseer and ultimate controller of operations of the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. I was the man who approved the Lvov infiltration at its inception! What other reason is there for my being purged, as I was about to be purged? Within the FSB, I was the Lvov operation. Your blundering Gerald Monsford was surely able to work that out without being told!’

  ‘There has to be a proper, sensible understanding between us, Maxim Mikhailovich,’ stressed Rebecca, forward in her seat, her concentration and her intention entirely professional, nothing any longer personal. ‘You’ve crossed to us: sought our protection, which we’ve provided and will continue to provide. But the arrangement isn’t going to work on assumptions or surmises or working things out. You have to tell us, very clearly and in the closest possible detail. Are you following what I’m saying?’

  ‘Of course I understand what you’re saying!’ said Radtsic, angrily. ‘Don’t patronize me!’

  ‘Let you and me reach a personal agreement, here today, Maxim Mikhailovich. Let you and me undertake not to patronize or in any other way talk down or be discourteous to each other,’ demanded Rebecca. ‘Let’s be—and behave—as we’re trained to be, professionals.’

  Radtsic stared steadily across at her for several moments. ‘You are accusing me of being arrogant!’

  ‘I am proposing that we behave towards each other in a way and in a manner that achieves, properly and amicably, what we’re both working towards.’

  For the first time Radtsic looked towards his wife, who’d come farther into the room. He said, ‘I’ve been rebuked! Told to mend my manners and behave myself!’

  Elena said nothing.

  Turning back to Rebecca, Radtsic said, ‘I think it would be a good working relationship to establish between the two of us.’

  ‘I think so, too.’ Rebecca smiled. Allowing the shortest of pauses, she demanded, ‘You were in charge of the Lvov operation from its inception?’

  ‘I chaired the internal operational planning committee. Irena Yakulova was a member: I brought her down with me from St Petersburg. She’d established herself as equally capable at forward planning and active field work. The actual concept, of convincing the CIA they had the eventual Russian president as an asset, was that of Irena Yakulova: I ensured she received the highest commendation, even for the idea. There was a lot of opposition. There were arguments against the amount of time it would take, the very impracticality of the whole idea, and then at the time, with the ascent of Gorbachev to power, the KGB itself—which we then still were—came under scrutiny. There were even preliminary discussions of greatly reducing its size, particularly with the dissolution of the Soviet Union into its republics.’

  ‘You had the overview control, from the Lubyanka,’ set out Rebecca, determined upon absolute detail from the outset. ‘And Irena Yakulova—’

  ‘Was the field Control,’ completed Radtsic. ‘I hope she knows I’ve come across to you, too.’ There was a smile. ‘I expect she’s settled in more quickly than I have.’

  * * *

  ‘Jesus!’ exclaimed Jane Ambersom, turning away from the concluding relay from Hertfordshire. ‘How’s all that going to fit in to the scheme of things! There are times, and this is one of them, when I’m not sure that I any longer know what the scheme of things is!’

  ‘In our favour,’ assessed Aubrey Smith, who’d been chairing the MI5 assessment of the committee session before the Hertfordshire interruption. ‘Radtsic’s Monsford’s prize, certainly. But Radtsic’s taken against him and says so, at each and every opportunity. And of which there’s going to be a reminder at every debriefing session.’

  ‘And at every session further alienate Monsford from Rebecca,’ reflected Jane.

  ‘Hopefully to push Rebecca more and more towards us,’ agreed Smith.

  ‘Monsford won’t let it go on,’ predicted Passmore. ‘He’ll try to get these simultaneous relays stopped: I would, if I were he. He only accepted the committee ruling in the first place to showcase his coup to as big an internal audience as possible. Now that it’s soured, he’ll try to block it.’

  ‘We’d accepted, before this, that he’d done well confronting our witnesses,’ reminded Smith. ‘This will have wiped out any gain he might have achieved.’

  ‘I am seeing a scheme of things,’ Jane contradicted herself, still reflective. ‘Radtsic and Irena together provide the very pinnacle of the Lvov hierarchy. We’ve got access—once removed, I agree, with Irena being in America, but still access—to both. We can overlay one account with the other and sift out all the half-truths and exaggerations. These are dream defections: double-dream defections.’

  ‘Dreams from which there’s going to be rude awakenings,’ Passmore continued to caution. ‘Monsford will try everything in the book to close off the CCTV link. And go ape-shit if he knows he’s being sidelined from Irena Novikov’s American debriefings, from which we’ve at least got some access. And Rebecca was right about the danger of assumptions. Let’s not assume Radtsic’s going to lay everything out on a silver salver.’ The man smiled at Jane. ‘Radtsic’s working to his scheme of things, not ours—futile though it is for him to imagine it’s going to get his son here.’

  ‘You’re right: let’s not assume,’ accepted Smith, realistically. ‘Let’s itemize and evaluate what we got today.’

  ‘The most and very o
bvious has to be Radtsic identifying himself as the operational director at the Lubyanka and as such direct head of the Lvov plan of which Irena Novikov was the field Control,’ set out Passmore. ‘That’s the one operation we believe ourselves familiar with but it would be a big mistake to let ourselves be blinded.’ The ex-soldier paused for emphasis, looking between the two others. ‘Operational director at the Lubyanka! Over twenty years! That’s twenty years of total control and ultimate supervision of every major activity mounted against the West by the KGB and after them by the FSB. If that’s true, if that’s what we’ve potentially got access to, it’s impossible even to conceive the value. It really, genuinely, is invaluable. He’ll die of old age before he’s able to tell us half there is to tell.’

  For several minutes all three remained silent, considering the evaluation. Eventually Jane said, very quietly, ‘Yes, that is the enormity of it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Which others, as well as us, will have already realized by now,’ warned Passmore. ‘And Gerald Monsford will have been one of them: probably the first.’

  ‘We can’t, under any circumstance, be cut out of this,’ insisted Aubrey Smith. ‘Nothing else really matters, not this internal war with Monsford or whatever happens with the CIA or to our people in Moscow, as well as the diplomatic fallout—all of it is inconsequential, irrelevant even. This has to be handled, judged, properly, above all professionally: everything else we’ve been doing properly until now becomes peripheral, needing our attention when it’s appropriate, relegated for later consideration when it’s not.’

  ‘That’s the philosophical argument,’ acknowledged Passmore, pragmatic as always. ‘What’s the practical one?’

  ‘My being the first to confront Palmer and Bland honestly to set out the incredible potential, if this is handled as it has to be,’ said Smith, soberly. ‘And the total, disastrous loss it will be if it isn’t.’

  ‘What happens if you fail?’ asked Passmore.

  ‘I can’t fail.’

  * * *

  On the drive through the New Forest it had seemed a calm day but Ethel needed three windbreaks to create a protective camp against the windblown sand when they reached the beach at Mudeford. The sea was also too cold for Sasha, but she was contented now, proclaiming her doll had become Princess Luda for the castle she was building. Sasha was in a bathing costume but the only concession Ethel and Natalia made was to be barefooted. Two of the protection group, also dressed apart from their shoes, were slightly behind, sheltering under their own windbreaks. The rest were using the elevation of the concrete promenade to maintain their wider protective surveillance.

  ‘Not such a good idea after all,’ apologized Ethel.

  ‘You couldn’t anticipate how strong the wind would be,’ said Natalia.

  ‘I wanted to bring my daughter, for Sasha to have someone to play with: Beatrice is twelve,’ said Ethel. ‘They wouldn’t approve it, which I didn’t expect they would, but I thought it was worth a try. It would be good for Sasha to have another child to be with, occasionally.’

  ‘She does need other children,’ agreed Natalia. ‘But she’s settling down much better.’

  ‘I’m pleased the bedwetting’s stopped.’

  ‘So am I. It worried me.’

  ‘It was Jane I spoke to, about Beatrice.’

  Natalia looked across at the other woman, knowing there was more.

  ‘Irena Yakulova is co-operating with the Americans. Making some pretty extraordinary disclosures, apparently.’

  ‘I haven’t changed my mind about what passed between Charlie and her: none of it.’

  ‘I’ve told Jane.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That she appreciated the analysis. The Americans want to compare what Irena told Charlie with what she’s telling them: not just the ultimate confession, about Lvov, but everything he reported about their earlier meetings in Moscow. Their profilers think it might help assess her reliability.’

  ‘I doubt it.’ Natalia frowned. ‘What’s Jane want?’

  Ethel smiled at the professional anticipation. ‘Washington is offering to exchange something of what Irena’s telling them. Jane wants your analysis of that, too.’

  ‘How’s my doing that going to help Charlie?’ demanded Natalia, a reminder of her narrow, personal concentration.

  ‘How will we know that until you do it?’ Ethel shrugged.

  ‘Something of what Irena’s telling them?’ echoed Natalia, questioningly.

  ‘Those are the words as I heard them,’ said Ethel.

  ‘No,’ accepted Natalia, as if in conversation with herself. ‘The CIA will only release the minimum, to give the impression of an exchange. It’ll make accuracy very difficult.’

  ‘But you will look at what they do let us see?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘And we’re obviously going to balance what we release against what they let us have.’

  ‘Obviously,’ acknowledged Natalia. ‘What about Charlie, officially I mean?’

  ‘We’re still waiting for a response to the access request. The latest thinking is that the release of the Manchester group is a good sign.’

  Natalia shook her head. ‘They’re not going to grant access to Charlie. They want him too much for what he did to them: what he wrecked.’

  ‘What you’re doing could change that,’ encouraged Ethel. ‘You’re the one who’ll see things from a Russian-intelligence perspective that none of our other analysts will.’

  ‘I’ve already told you something about Irena Yakulova’s admission to Charlie. Don’t let it be forgotten.’

  ‘I won’t,’ assured Ethel, looking across to the child. ‘Sasha’s getting cold.’

  ‘Charlie promised to show us the English seaside,’ remembered Natalia.

  ‘Let’s hope it’ll be a better day when he does.’

  ‘If he ever does,’ qualified Natalia.

  * * *

  Charlie dismissed the first sound as an animal call but not the quick answering response. Charlie’s fear was immediate and very real. He remained quite still, straining for more sounds, for some idea what it was, staring into the permanently dark twilight of the enclosed forest, seeing nothing, hearing nothing now. Mosquitoes gorged off his neck and face and hands, anywhere that was exposed. Were they in front or behind? He needed another noise to be sure—several more sudden noises, different from the first, to be really sure. They couldn’t be behind, Charlie reasoned. Behind was more deeply into the forest, with no obvious path but the narrow, single person track that began at the dacha and which he’d found after sneaking from the rear of the building, where he’d calculated the CCTV to be the most ineffectively placed. No squad—and he was sure it would be a squad—could move unheard along what was less than a footpath, scarcely a passage at all.

  The next supposed animal call was definitely human, at once confused by what very clearly was a genuine animal, a deep, guttural growl: something large, maybe a bear unexpectedly disturbed. Very positively from behind. It couldn’t be a bear: something as wild and as dangerous as a bear wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the special people who had their special country houses comparatively close. Almost at once came the low-throated answer, but just as positively this time from the front.

  He’d made a mistake, Charlie acknowledged, the fear spreading through him: a very stupid mistake for which he was already being mocked by the intentionally recognizable human animal sounds. Shouldn’t move, he told himself. Or should he? The forest was so thick, the undergrowth and floor-covering tree brush and branches so dense that he’d be invisible just a metre off the track. But that would be hiding, attempting to escape, not simply exercising, which was his excuse: his justification. If he was right about the initial animal calls, pleading exercise against escaping would be irrelevant. Still better to stay where he was. Try to explain: to plead. What real animals made noises like those interspersing the mockery? What sort of men handled them?

  Sweat w
as leaking from Charlie, the rivulets that coursed down his face irritating as much as the feeding insects, his shirt and the kulak smock glued to his body but he was cold: it wasn’t the coldness, though, that was making him shake as he was shaking, tremors vibrating through him.

  He heard the growl seconds before he identified its source, and despite the numbing shock Charlie was amazed that the animal and its handlers, and those that followed, could have got so close without his being aware of them. From the opposite direction there was a matching grunt and Charlie saw the pincering squad was in front and behind him. On an unheard cue and even more frightening, those who’d obviously been moving parallel with him on either side of the path abruptly rose into view, visibly hardly human, aliens emerging from a dark sea, from what Charlie had imagined impenetrably closed—and audibly betraying—undergrowth and tree brush.

  Lights burst on, further startling Charlie, angled not to blind but perfectly to illuminate the ambush. Initially there was total silence, even from the shaggy-coated, tightly muzzled hunting dogs, a breed Charlie had never before seen or known to exist. They were huge, scarcely recognizable as dogs at all, each needing two handlers, one on either side with individual leashes. Each of the handlers was well over six feet tall but the animals stood higher than the men’s waists.

  Charlie guessed there were twenty in the squad, all in tightly patterned camouflage assault suits and aerial-fitted, head-enclosing helmets. The camouflage continued to their faces, streaked by black-and-green tiger stripes. Those in front and behind him on the path had strapped across their front short-barrelled, silencer-mounted automatic weapons of a type Charlie couldn’t identify, holstered pistols and short-sword knives at their waists. Each had separate grenade webbing. Those still partially submerged in the forest undergrowth would be similarity armed, Charlie guessed.