Red Star Falling: A Thriller

by Brian Freemantle

  Having hurried the man outside, Charlie held back for Guzov to pick the route, falling into uncomfortable parallel step to a path through the trees.

  ‘You appear to have had far longer conversations with Pavel than I’d imagined,’ said Guzov.

  The interrogation hadn’t ended, Charlie acknowledged: Guzov was obviously equipped for the conversation to be recorded as they walked. Charlie was unconcerned at the al fresco resumption, confident his carefully limited lies and misinformation were beyond challenge, despite the constant distraction of believing he was fingertip close finally to realizing his own personal misdirection. ‘A lot can be said in a short time if the conversations were detailed, as ours were.’

  Guzov swatted ineffectually at the inevitable mosquito attack. ‘It all fits, makes sense, but at the same time I feel something is wrong.’

  That had been Natalia’s remark, about the Radtsic dossiers she’d been given to analyze, remembered Charlie, in his split-minded concentration: wrong but easily explained then by the dossier material being freshly copied, not duplicated from old files. ‘Wrong in what way?’

  ‘I can’t pinpoint it,’ admitted Guzov. ‘The dates, maybe. How could that much conversation have been fitted into so little time. That’s what has to be wrong, how much it’s possible to fit in the time you had available.’

  ‘You must believe me it was more than sufficient,’ insisted Charlie, only just managing to finish the easy answer as the long-sought awareness engulfed him. No, Charlie refused. It had to be a mistake, another ridiculous misdirection.

  ‘We’ve reached the road,’ announced Guzov, beside him. ‘Have you come far enough?

  ‘More than far enough,’ said Charlie, for the first time in his life regretting his elephantine mental recall.

  17

  The late-night disclosure of the defection of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, exploded worldwide. In the time-differentiated space of twenty-four hours it not only dominated print, radio, and television media in the West but even more sensationally throughout every former communist-dominated eastern-bloc country and the Soviet republic. In America and England a number of previous Russian intelligence defectors, the majority of whose apostasy had been described as unrivalled coups for the West, emerged unanimously to declare Radtsic’s loss so great that Moscow would have to rebuild totally its intelligence organizations and hugely curtail if not completely abandon its global ongoing operations for fear of exposure. Practically without exception those opinions were confirmed, again unanimously, by a matching number of former American, British, French, and Polish intelligence chiefs encouraged out of retirement for their judgement. Pages of newsprint were occupied by known or suspected intelligence operations during Radtsic’s twenty-plus years of KGB and FSB power and described as a fraction of the inner secrets the man would eventually divulge. Which in turn would require complete intelligence re-evaluation and assessment by intelligence and security organizations worldwide.

  The paucity of biographical information about Radtsic produced exaggeration beyond the imagination of spy writers, the most famous of whom were variously commissioned openly to fictionalize for print media the sort of man Maxim Radtsic might be. That idea was instantly copied by a variety of television organizations which scrambled into instant production fictionalized biopics which they abandoned scheduled programmes to show.

  The title of master spy was universally bestowed. Radtsic’s guessed age ranged between fifty and sixty-five and there was a diversity of invention between his espionage career beginning in the West—accompanied by association with believed Russian espionage successes—to his always having been a shadowy, chess-master genius evolving superlative internationally disruptive espionage plots. No authentic photograph appeared anywhere, and the rare but vague publicly recorded descriptions of Radtsic’s remarkable resemblance to Stalin, some additionally suggesting a facial injury sustained on an espionage assignment, greatly hampered artists’ attempts to re-create an image of the mysterious man. The most fanciful put Stalin’s face on a tuxedoed James Bond body, some further enhanced by scantily clad girls in the background. There was a crop that followed the chess-master-genius fantasy and put a drawing of a scarred Stalin look-alike on a shade-wreathed Buddha-like figure. A lot just drew Stalin from various facial angles.

  The connection between Radtsic and the French seizure of Elena and Andrei was logically made during that first full day, published initially in Le Monde and picked up or syndicated worldwide within hours. It provided sidebars to the main story and filled in a little of the biographical vacuum, although the French did not officially confirm the link or name Elena or Andrei. Nor were any photographs produced in advance of which, however, Elena was correctly described as beautiful and Andrei as darkly handsome.

  There was cross-party parliamentary agreement not to pursue or question the prime minister’s late-afternoon confirmation of Radtsic’s presence in the United Kingdom, along with that of his wife. The emergency committee session had been postponed, pending that statement, until that night to allow practically twenty-four hours to gauge the global reaction to the defection, upon which, predictably, there was no comment from Moscow.

  ‘Well?’ questioned Aubrey Smith, as they crossed Parliament Square on their short walk to the Foreign Office building.

  ‘A complete recovery from all the bad publicity of the past week,’ judged John Passmore, objectively.

  ‘Which also means recovery for Gerald Monsford,’ Jane Ambersom pointed out, bitterly.

  * * *

  The requirement to stand to address the group had been abandoned at the convening session, along with the oath, but Attorney-General Sir Peter Pickering rose to adopt a courtroom lawyer’s stance for his legal presentation. He had personally prepared the response to the Russian request for access to Maxim Radtsic, which had been hand delivered to the embassy that midday, along with the outright refusal of Natalia Fedova. Radtsic’s acceptance demands had been very specifically set out and an extra copy kept if the committee decided it should be given to Radtsic, to prove to the man that his insistences had been fully established. In covering correspondence the requests for diplomatic meetings with all the Britons in Russian custody had been repeated, in the strongest diplomatic language considered possible, for early responses to each with the implication that any encounter with Radtsic depended upon reciprocal return agreements from Moscow: the request for physical contact with Charlie Muffin, with more immediately supplied medical details of his injuries and current condition, had headed the repeated access demands. In the hope of encouraging a Russian reaction, Radtsic’s fingerprint-cleansed letter to his son had been included in the correspondence. Prior to preparing his official reply, Pickering had consulted diplomats and legal staff on the Foreign Office’s Russian desk, whose general consensus was that meeting Radtsic in a British prison would be unacceptable to Moscow. The Home Office had confirmed there would be no difficulty conducting an encounter at Belmarsh prison, which had the facilities for which Radtsic had asked. Pickering had delayed acknowledging the separate Russian request to Irena Novikov, pending the decision of that night’s meeting upon whether it should be raised with Washington through the MI5 conduit or officially by him to the American Justice Department. An unanticipated outcome from the public announcement of Radtsic’s defection had been tentative indications from the French foreign minister that the Britons currently detained in France after Elena’s interception would be freed without any official action against them.

  Monsford was ready for the hiatus at Pickering’s conclusion. ‘I’m glad the long-overdue agreement to disclose Radtsic’s presence here has been so productive. I’m further advising tonight’s meeting that the secretariat have bound copies not only of every telephone conversation possibly intercepted by Straughan’s illegal wiretap but also of conversations within my office over the entire recording-machine period. There are twenty-five copies,
assembled by the internal investigation group. Each is security numbered for the identities of their recipients to be registered.…’ There was a staged hesitation, cueing the denouement: ‘The potential security damage is incalculable.…’ He looked to the joint chairmen. ‘There are sufficient copies for at least three to be made personally available to the prime minister: there are five conversations in which he identifiably features.…’ More directly addressing the Cabinet Secretary, Monsford smiled apologetically. ‘There are sixteen recordings of conversations between you and me, Sir Archibald, all of which would require Eyes Only security classification.’

  The second hiatus lasted longer than the first, finally filled by Bland’s instruction for the transcripts to be distributed around the table, with five held back for Downing Street or the Cabinet Office. Caught by the pronounced sound of each slapping down upon the table, Bland lifted and let drop his copy and said, ‘With the signatory registration assuring its security, I think for this to be properly assimilated it might be necessary to suspend the earlier rule against taking material from the room.’

  John Passmore came up from the MI5 copy and said, ‘Is an audio transcript to be made available as well?’

  ‘Our request to the MI6 internal investigators was for a verbatim transcript, which this surely is,’ frowned Geoffrey Palmer.

  Aubrey Smith and Jane Ambersom were among others around the table looking curiously at the MI5 operational director.

  ‘It certainly appears to be, with no attempt to turn the hesitations and pauses into a consecutive, coherent narrative,’ acknowledged Passmore. ‘But there’s no indication of the lengths of the breaks, which could easily—and technically—not be those of every normal conversational interchange but an actual on-and-off interruption.’

  ‘You’ve obviously overlooked the frontispiece note from the investigation team that there is no evidence of electronic tampering or unexplained intrusions on any of the recovered disks,’ said Monsford, feeling the first flicker of apprehension: he’d very carefully explored the explanatory wording with Matthew Timpson specifically to avoid such a query.

  ‘I’ve read that note very thoroughly, twice,’ contradicted Passmore. ‘It’s very precise but doesn’t cover what I’m talking about.’

  ‘What, exactly, are you referring to?’ persisted Monsford, encouraged by the curiosity still directed at the MI5 operational director.

  ‘What I thought I’d made perfectly clear: how, transcribed like this, there is no indication whether, during a conversation either within your office or on the telephone, that conversation was interrupted by the recording facility briefly being turned off,’ said Passmore, looking steadily across the intervening table at the MI6 Director.

  He had directly to confront the accusation, Monsford knew, aware of the curiosity switching from the other man to him. Allowing the loud-voiced indignation, Monsford said, ‘Turned off by whom?’

  Passmore shrugged, as if nonplussed by the tone of the question. ‘That’s surely a matter for your current internal investigators.’

  The bastard! thought Monsford, too late realizing the trap. ‘With whom I’ll raise it as soon as possible.’

  ‘And audio copies?’ pressed Aubrey Smith, understanding at last.

  ‘We think that would be too much as well as being unnecessary,’ intervened Bland, to his co-chairman’s nodded agreement. ‘We believe this uncertainty can be more conveniently resolved by the investigators carrying out this specific additional test.’

  He’d escaped for the moment, Monsford accepted. But it was supposed to have been his triumphal recovery, not another reversal.

  * * *

  ‘Is there such an audio test?’ asked Smith, as they walked back towards Thames House.

  ‘I’ve no idea if it’s scientifically possible,’ admitted Passmore, smiling between the other two. ‘There’s usually some background sounds, however faint, if there’s a pause or a hesitation in a recorded conversation: breathing at least. If a machine’s turned off, it goes dead. I just punted the question to see if I could tilt Monsford off centre.’

  ‘Which you did,’ judged Jane.

  ‘And which brings us back yet again to Rebecca,’ said Smith. ‘When the hell are you going to talk sense into that woman?’

  ‘Hopefully tomorrow,’ said Jane.

  * * *

  It was not established that they always ate together after Sasha was settled for the night and normally, when it happened, it was at Ethel’s invitation, but that night the suggestion came from Natalia. Ethel always offered wine, and Natalia always refused, as she did now. She’d let Natalia lead, Ethel decided.

  ‘I told Sylvia Elphick it was a bad idea for Sasha to go to the diplomatic school,’ Natalia abruptly announced.

  ‘I know,’ said Ethel, sipping her wine. ‘She told me.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to think I was disregarding your authority, going behind your back.’

  ‘I didn’t think that,’ assured Ethel.

  ‘It was important to me that you knew.’

  Ethel swapped the used plates for clean and returned with the cheese, knowing they hadn’t got to the reason for Natalia’s dinner request. Ethel offered wine again as she refilled her own glass but Natalia once more shook her head, paring from its block slivers of cheese too small properly to eat and at once seemed embarrassed at doing it.

  Abruptly again Natalia said, ‘It isn’t going to work, is it? Charlie, I mean. I knew, from the beginning, but I went along with it but there doesn’t seem any point anymore. You’re using me because I know the Russian espionage system, which I professionally understand and accept, but it’s because I know it so very well that I also know they’ll never let Charlie go.’

  It had taken longer than Ethel had expected but because she’d anticipated that it would eventually happen she was ready, knowing it was important she deal with it honestly. ‘No, I don’t think they’re going to let him go either: he’s damaged them too badly.’

  ‘Thank you for telling me the truth.’

  ‘You’d have known—it would have destroyed our trust—if I hadn’t.’

  ‘Thank you, just the same.’

  ‘What else do you want me to be honest about?’ pressed Ethel, guessing there was still more.

  Natalia made an uncertain gesture, pushing her uneaten cheese parings aside. ‘If it weren’t for Sasha I’d go back. She’s always been the priority for both of us, having done what we did by getting married. The selfishness of it never came to me, not until now.’

  ‘But you can’t go back,’ said Ethel, positively, wanting to halt a descent into self-pity. ‘You’re in a protection programme that’s going to keep you safe. Nothing can ever happen, to Sasha or to you. You’ll eventually be settled, wherever you want to be. You won’t have Charlie, maybe. But you’ll have his daughter, your daughter. That’s how it’s worked out.’

  Natalia reached forward, pouring her own wine. ‘You going to tell me it could have been far worse?’

  ‘No,’ said Ethel. ‘You’ve got to work that out, decide that, for yourself.’

  ‘I have to know!’ Natalia declared, more angry than vehement. ‘It’ll take a lot of me away, hurt me more than I’m hurting now, but I must know what happens to him!’

  Ethel hesitated, undecided whether at last to lie. Then she said, ‘We’ll never know that, Natalia. Whatever we’re officially told, criminal charges, court hearings, things like that, won’t even be the truth.’

  ‘I love him so much!’

  ‘Yes,’ accepted Ethel, glad Natalia was too enclosed in her own emotion to be aware of hers.

  ‘But he won’t know that, will he?’

  ‘He does. I’m sure he does. He came back to get you and Sasha out, knowing full well how badly it could go wrong, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he came back,’ agreed Natalia, distantly. ‘Charlie never ever thought he could lose.’

  * * *

  Which was a belief mixed in among Charlie’s
far more muddled reflections, hunched in his log-cabin prison in the Moscow hills, eighteen hundred miles away. It wasn’t, though, in the forefront of his mind, more a lingering self-accusation constantly pinpricking all his other more-relevant considerations, chief among them—consuming them—that he’d again, stupidly, come close to going in another wrong direction, this one more unimaginably worse than any other. Circumstantially the stomach-hollowing possibility could be made to fit all that had happened, but against every indicator that he could, circumstantially again, produce an unarguably innocent explanation.

  So he still hadn’t found his all-important mistake.

  What then had he positively discovered? That it wasn’t all over but rather that he was part of something, without the slightest idea what that something was, which came down familiarly to his accustomed role as the ass end of the pantomime horse, unable to see what was happening in front of him. Which had to be his focus, the unknown that was in front, not the unfathomable that was behind.

  The one thing of which he believed he could be reasonably sure was that he wasn’t eventually destined for a Siberian gulag. Which was a relief. His feet were always at their worst in the cold.

  18

  Rebecca Street amused herself choosing the Waterside Inn at Bray for their meeting. It was there that Gerald Monsford, determined to impress, had taken her the night they became lovers and she wondered if this encounter would be better: it could scarcely be worse. She even selected the same river-bordering table and was waiting when Jane Ambersom arrived, at once—and unexpectedly—smiling broadly as she crossed the Michelin-bestowed restaurant. The smile stayed as she sat.

  ‘What?’ demanded Rebecca, knowing there was a significance.

  ‘Same place, same table. I said no.’