Red Star Falling: A Thriller

by Brian Freemantle

  The professionally filmed outside footage abruptly changed to an unsteady, grainy film immediately explained to have been shot on a concealed camera by one of a Russian humanitarian group finally allowed access to Radtsic after Moscow threats to raise the seizure before the United Nations. The concentration was upon unsmiling prison officers brusquely checking credentials and constantly locked and unlocked doors in unremittingly barred surroundings, the beehive prisoner hum amplified into a raucous babble. The break was jerky, the film resuming as the unseen Russian group entered the Belmarsh interview room in which the first shot of the waiting British delegation was indistinguishably blurred. It was only slightly clearer when it resumed after the break, the reflected daylight glare from the intervening glass making it difficult to identify individual features. Radtsic and Elena were identified by the commentary to be the two circled in the middle. The commentary described the figures on either side of the couple to be their “inquisitors, drug-inducing psychiatrists, and torturers.”

  ‘The incontrovertible proof of which the British never intended to be known,’ declared the commentator.

  The recorded Belmarsh dialogue did not start until the obese Russian’s insistence of being sent from Moscow to secure Radtsic’s release, promising the man full consular and diplomatic support.

  Radtsic’s response was edited to: ‘I want the support of the Russian Federation.’

  The Russian negotiator’s question—‘How badly have you been treated?—again remained untouched, but Radtsic’s reply was now: ‘I have been subjected to torture,’ and Elena’s wailed intervention had been heavily rearranged as well as edited to be: ‘Don’t let us be tortured like this.’

  That was followed by Radtsic saying, ‘Elena is right. This is torture,’ and immediately after by Elena’s final remark, ‘I can’t stand any more of this,’ with Radtsic’s rearranged and edited, ‘The British are torturers’ directly followed by ‘I need treatment.’

  The film broke, to resume with further grained footage of the Russians leaving through the barred jungle, again with an amplified prisoner cacophony. That switched at once to the concluding commentary against a professionally filmed background of a disappearing Belmarsh through the rear window of a departing vehicle and the voice-over insistence that a protest note was that day being presented to the British government.

  Attorney-General Sir Peter Pickering, who was the only one not to have seen the original morning broadcast, looked around the others assembled in the Foreign Office annexe and said, ‘How in the name of God was that allowed to happen?’

  ‘People didn’t plan sufficiently ahead,’ said Geoffrey Palmer, leading the co-chairmen’s immediate search for a scapegoat.

  * * *

  ‘We can refute it: show the Russians to be manipulating liars!’ declared Pickering, smiling in anticipation. ‘We’ve surely got the originals, CCTV and full digital voice recordings. We simply release the true version to show how it’s been twisted.’

  ‘We can’t,’ at once deflated Aubrey Smith, halting the stir that had begun to move among the reduced committee. Nodding to Passmore, positioned in readiness next to the secretariat, Smith went on, ‘I’ve waited until we’re all together to show this. Please pay particular attention to what the Russians do the moment they arrange themselves at the table to confront our people with Radtsic.’

  The film was better than the usual CCTV recording, although still short of professional-photographic clarity, but the accompanying soundtrack was corrupted predominantly into whined, screeching sounds. No verbal segment ran longer than four consecutive words: mostly the rest was a hotchpotch of single utterances, none of it possible to translate into anything comprehensible.

  ‘How the hell—?’ the permanently bewildered attorney-general began another protest.

  ‘I asked you to watch the Russians settling themselves opposite our people at the beginning,’ interrupted Smith, gesturing to Passmore for a replay to impose his own commentary over the Russian compilation. ‘Note that each of them unload things from briefcases onto the table in front of the separating screen … and there, there and there,’ he itemized, ‘you can see what appear to be disk recorders or electronic equipment. I went through it, frame by frame, with our electronic technicians last night. Their judgement is that it was quite easy for the Russians to do what they did: those supposed recorders are something like the white-noise listening protection you can buy over the counter in electronic security shops all over London but in this instance reversed to distort or interrupt microphone reception or transmission—’

  ‘No!’ broke in Pickering, in turn. ‘That won’t work! If that’s how they did it, they couldn’t have got a complete transcript to edit into the lying film we’ve just seen.’

  ‘Watch again,’ urged Smith, nodding for a third repeat, almost at once stopping the transmission to get a freeze-frame of the matronly woman arranging her recording equipment. ‘It’s quite a conjuring trick, occupying everyone’s attention while the others are setting out their stalls. But see how she raises what looks like an aerial next to the microphone directly in front of the fat negotiator next to her, who led the delegation: according to our technicians, she was isolating that particular microphone outlet specifically for their use.’

  ‘Wait! wait!’ pleaded Sir Archibald Bland. ‘Why weren’t they searched: prevented from taking these things in!’

  ‘They couldn’t be,’ answered the Foreign Office observer, ready for the demand. ‘They all produced diplomatic accreditation at the prison security station. Accredited foreign diplomats can’t be subjected to physical search of any sort.’

  Speaking very slowly, spacing his words, Palmer said, ‘Are we being told—and asked to believe—that Russians, some if not all of them spies, entered what is supposedly the most secure penal institution in this country with electronic gadgetry that sabotaged the internal security facilities to enable them to manufacture that anti-British propaganda to which we’ve just been subjected and which is now circulating around the world!’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you. And what happened,’ said Smith. ‘And their being accredited Russian diplomats, with diplomatic immunity, really does mean there was nothing whatsoever we could have done to prevent it.’

  ‘As incredible as it appears, I believe you’re absolutely and legally right,’ conceded Pickering. ‘I certainly can’t see any way of refuting the propaganda without making ourselves appear even more ridiculous than we’ve already been made to look.’

  ‘We haven’t yet agreed access to the Novikov woman and I’m damned if we’re going to now!’ said Palmer.

  ‘They’re holding two MI6 officers and one MI5 operative, in addition to Charlie Muffin, to none of whom they’ve agreed access,’ reminded the Foreign Office spokesman. ‘I wouldn’t advise that course of action.’

  ‘Neither would I,’ agreed Pickering. ‘It would be entirely counter-productive.’

  ‘We’ve got three of their diplomats on a criminal charge,’ persisted Palmer.

  ‘Putting them on trial, entering into the usual tit-for-tat trade-off, isn’t going to better what they’re achieving practically every day,’ dismissed Pickering.

  ‘So all we’re left with is a total denial, with the insistence that it’s a fabrication that we can’t prove?’ said Palmer.

  ‘That’s all,’ agreed the Attorney General.

  ‘Do something!’ implored Bland, directly addressing Aubrey Smith and Jane Ambersom. ‘Somehow, someway, this nonsense has got to be stopped!’

  * * *

  The interrogation break this time had stretched to almost thirty-six hours, which Charlie used to test himself and was reassured by the self-assessment by the time Mikhail Guzov finally arrived at the dacha that afternoon. There’d been no anxiety, no mentally-undermining speculation about the man’s absence, and most satisfying of all, no feeling of dependence upon Guzov at his reappearance. He’d begun slipping into the psychological reliance of a m
an in helpless solitary confinement but realized it sufficiently early to stop himself sinking further, Charlie congratulated himself. And now it was reversed: he’d reversed into the resistant professional he’d always prided himself upon being. It was a good feeling, the best—most encouraging—he’d had for several days. Most important of all, he was sure now that was how he would continue to feel.

  Guzov’s briefcase bulged more obviously than on previous interrogations and the man seemed relieved to dump it beside him, smiling his ugly smile as he arranged himself in his customary chair. ‘You really are doing very well,’ the Russian greeted, enigmatically.

  ‘I think so,’ said Charlie, a remark for his own satisfaction.

  ‘We’ve analyzed everything you’ve told us, from the moment you and I started talking, and haven’t found a single lie.’

  If that were true he was doing far better at another level than he’d imagined, Charlie acknowledged. They hadn’t found a direct lie because he hadn’t been stupid enough to tell one outright. What he had done, according to his meticulous count, was to sow ten misdirecting leads into information the Russians already knew to be accurate and in which he was therefore not disclosing sensitive, unknown information but hopefully causing them wasted months of fruitless follow-up. ‘I thought we’d decided from the beginning I’d achieve very little by outright lying. Just as I hoped you’d understand that I wouldn’t volunteer anything more than the absolute minimum.’ Which again they’d analyze as truthfulness, he knew.

  ‘That’s very sensible. That’s the decision that’s been reached, that you’re behaving very sensibly.’

  He was, Charlie further congratulated himself, clearly a much better deceiver than the Russian. But then that was the expertise of which he was the proudest. ‘London might not agree with you.’

  ‘London’s something and somewhere that doesn’t need to concern you ever again, although we have told them about you.’

  ‘Told them what?’ asked Charlie, keeping everything to a conversational tone but instantly alert for what there might be to learn.

  ‘That you’re not badly hurt: fully recovered, in fact. But that you are going to face prosecution.’

  ‘On what charge?’ challenged Charlie, at once.

  ‘Operating against the Russian Federation as a member of a foreign intelligence organization, illegal entry into the country under a false identity, activities endangering state security…’ Guzov shrugged. ‘It’s a long list: I can’t remember the rest.’

  Was there anything to be gained by arguing the lack of evidence and the danger of his disclosing the Lvov affair in open court? wondered Charlie. The warning came at once: that’s what they’d expect him to do if their eroding psychology was succeeding. ‘I suppose you’ve got to go through the motions of legality.’

  ‘The embassy’s response to our contact about you was an official request for their doctor to examine you. Now I can tell them there’s no medical need, can’t I?’

  A smokescreen too easy to see through, thought Charlie, who didn’t believe there’d been a medical request. ‘You tell them that.’

  There was another slight hesitation before Guzov abruptly reached down for his briefcase. ‘So let’s continue the good work,’ urged the man, taking out a thick wad of stiff photographic paper, needing both hands to offer it across the narrow space between them.

  Ironically, the weight hurt Charlie’s wounded shoulder when he took the bundle, needing both hands, realizing as he did so that each sheet held an average of twelve facial images of men and woman, none of them showing any awareness of their pictures being taken. ‘What are these?’ asked Charlie, going along with the charade.

  ‘That’s what we want you to tell us,’ smiled Guzov, the condescension restored. ‘They’re from British embassies all over the world: itemizing which isn’t important. What we want you to do is work your way through them, isolating which are your espionage officers among the genuine diplomats.’

  ‘You know I won’t be able to do that!’ said Charlie, forcing the indication. ‘Officers are kept apart, aren’t exposed to each other, precisely to prevent their being identifiable to each other and risk exposure.’

  ‘I know that’s how the system is supposed to work.’ Guzov grimaced. ‘Just as I know there’s a lot of mingling camaraderie between people doing the same job and that if you look very hard there’s a lot you’ll be able to pick out.’

  ‘They might mingle in the FSB but not in the British system,’ persisted Charlie, knowing it was expected of him.

  ‘There appears to be a lot but really there’s not that many: it won’t take you longer than five or ten minutes to go through each sheet, properly studying the faces.’

  ‘I’ll be wasting my time. And yours.’

  ‘That’s what we’ve both got, Charlie, as much time as anything is going to take. But none of it to waste.’

  * * *

  ‘It seemed obvious to come on over here after Sir Archibald’s summons: I could hardly have been closer,’ smiled Rebecca Street. It was going to be difficult disguising her total elation after the finally agreed meeting with Sir Archibald Bland.

  ‘Of course it was,’ agreed Jane Ambersom, cautiously. ‘What’s happening with Radtsic and Elena while you’re away?’

  ‘Your new security supervisor is in place but they’re getting the rest the doctors are insisting upon,’ disclosed Rebecca. ‘I really thought Radtsic was going to collapse after what happened at the prison yesterday. He was incandescent with rage, demanding we go into debrief the moment we got back to Hertfordshire and simply wouldn’t stop. It was past ten last night before he finally called a halt, close to total exhaustion. He got up fine this morning, demanding to start again, but then they saw what’s come out of Moscow. They’ve both been given sedatives.’

  Rebecca should have relayed all this earlier and certainly not left them, even if Jacobson’s replacement was there, thought Jane. ‘How serious is it?’ She’d had only an hour’s warning of Rebecca’s arrival—not knowing until then that the woman was even in London—and had very consciously organized the encounter in the other woman’s normal office instead of using the one she was temporarily occupying.

  ‘Physically, not too bad: they should be fine by tomorrow. The more serious danger, according to the medical team, is going to be their final realization that they’re never going to see their son again.’

  ‘It was a sensible decision to keep the medical team there,’ praised Jane, curious at the total change in the other woman from their last conversation.

  ‘It hardly needed a psychiatric degree to anticipate the strain they were going to be under confronting the Russian delegation. What I didn’t anticipate was how it was going to be manipulated.’

  ‘None of us did.’

  ‘I could have gone through all this with you on the telephone,’ Rebecca suddenly declared, timing the moment. ‘But I’m glad Radtsic’s collapse has given me the chance to apologize in person.’

  The abruptness disconcerted Jane, who was unsure how to respond without appearing condescending. ‘Today’s a new day.’

  ‘It’s yesterday I want to clear up. I was completely out of order, reacting as I did, and I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m glad Bland made everything clear to you.’

  It was difficult not to collapse into hysterical laugher! ‘He didn’t, not properly. All he wanted to hear was what Radtsic told me last night and whether it provided anything to get us all out of the immediate problem. The best he managed was to say as I was getting this much out of Radtsic it might be a long time before I got back here. Yours is the assurance I’m talking about.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s out of the way,’ said Jane. Her relief was entirely professional, glad something she dismissed as trivial didn’t become a minimal intrusion into what they were trying to achieve.

  Dream on, thought Rebecca. ‘So am I.’

  ‘How much did Radtsic give us last night?’ asked Jane, anxious to mov
e on.

  Rebecca shrugged. ‘It’ll take the analysts a while to sift it down to the gold nuggets but it wasn’t confined to Britain. He named assets and sources in Germany—he claims there’s still a virtual substrata surviving from the Stasi days even now—and France. But the concentration remains America. I stopped at about thirty keeping a mental count of penetrations he claims the CIA don’t know to exist. There’s at least a dozen names within the CIA itself. And for the first time that I can remember, he’s fingered two FBI officers.’

  ‘What about here?’

  ‘Two MPs, a source within the Treasury, and a senior civil servant in the secretariat of the Chiefs of Staff.’

  Jane was literally dumbfounded for several moments. ‘This is incredible!’

  ‘That’s what Bland said.’ Rebecca smiled. As well as guaranteeing her the MI6 directorship along with a damehood to go with the promotion, with an eventual retirement elevation to the House of Lords with the injunction not to disclose the undertakings to anyone, which suited Rebecca perfectly.

  ‘I would have thought this justified the recall of our group,’ said Jane, keeping the criticism to its absolute minimum.

  ‘So did I,’ easily lied Rebecca, everything scripted. ‘That’s why I called Sir Archibald first thing this morning, expecting him to convene it. Instead he told me he wanted to hear it personally from me.’