Red Star Falling: A Thriller

by Brian Freemantle

  * * *

  It was difficult for Charlie not to sink back. If they had Natalia and Sasha, there was only one conceivable psychological move: to goad him, as Guzov had goaded, but to have ended with the destroying disclosure, maybe even with a forlorn, weeping photograph or even a pleading film of Natalia begging him truthfully to co-operate. But maybe…? Maybe what? He didn’t believe Guzov had the psychological awareness to realize how low he’d sunk, nor how he’d pulled back, but the films would have been analyzed by professionals who would have recognized his recovery and wanted to push him down again until his resistance was completely crushed. Known, too, that Natalia and Sasha were his weakness with which to do it. Would a weeping, pleading film or photograph do it during the next confrontation with the grimacing man? It was a question Charlie couldn’t answer: didn’t want to answer because he feared what that answer would be, despite and against all the training and all the self-belief.

  * * *

  From the security control room in Hertfordshire, Joe Goody told Aubrey Smith, ‘I’ve got it all, from both of them. All on film, of course; every word recorded.’

  ‘You too tired for a meeting tonight?’ asked Smith.

  ‘Absolutely not. I like travelling by helicopter,’ said the interrogator.

  For once the man hadn’t called him sir, Smith realized.

  28

  As there had been so many times before, there was silence at the conclusion of Joe Goody’s presentation, but for the first time the atmosphere in the small Foreign Office conference room was of palpable, gradually smiling satisfaction. The only immediate movement was Goody heavily drinking two glasses of water in quick succession after guiding everyone through his filmed confessions of the three known as Maxim and Elena Radtsic and Irena Novikov.

  ‘The Lvov concept was brilliant but this, as a total disinformation follow-up to create the maximum chaos in America and here with invented accounts of penetrations and deeply embedded agents, was almost in the same league,’ declared Sir Archibald Bland, in begrudging admiration.

  ‘And devised in less than six weeks, from the time the Lvov emplacement began to go wrong,’ supported Geoffrey Palmer. ‘That’s a theatrical tour de force.’

  ‘That’s what those serving in the KGB and FSB’s disinformation bureau are and always have been, consummate actors,’ reminded Aubrey Smith, less effusive. ‘That’s the very reason for their induction into the Russian service, to play whatever role they’re called upon to perform.’ He gesture to the now-black screens. ‘And don’t forget what the phoney Radtsic said—he’s been the real Radtsic’s stand-in at a lot of official events in Russia: he not only looks like the man, apart from the facial disfigurement, he knows how to behave like him: he’s had a long rehearsal time.’

  ‘Learning all they had to learn in such a short period is still a remarkable feat of memory,’ insisted Bland.

  ‘I’m surprised all three collapsed so quickly, even faced with Joe’s threats of indefinite imprisonment while cases were prepared against them,’ said John Passmore, who’d been included in that night’s assessment, along with Attorney-General Sir Peter Pickering.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Rebecca, anticipating the approaching conclusion to the entire affair that would clear the way for her promised promotion. ‘They’re actors, pure and simple. They didn’t go through field training, weren’t taught how to resist interrogation. Their schooling was in deceit and pretence and, in the case of both the women, in seduction. On the film you’ve just seen both Irena and Elena admitted working as swallows, sexually entrapping selected foreigners for blackmail. But all three would always, until now, have worked within Russia, never outside. They don’t know how to withstand the tricks of interrogation.…’ She smiled towards Goody, on his third glass of water.

  ‘What about their accommodation from now on?’ asked Jane, as always wanting to look forward. ‘At the moment they’re in minor stately homes taking up a hell of a lot of manpower. I’m not suggesting we actually do put them in jail, but shouldn’t we scale the luxury down a little?’

  ‘Doesn’t that depend on how satisfied we are that we’ve got everything, which is, I suppose, a question for you, Joe,’ questioned Passmore. ‘It certainly looks as if we’ve got enough to face the Russians down and get our guys back, but do you think you’ve got it all?’

  ‘I probably haven’t,’ conceded Goody, at once. ‘As you’ve seen and heard, for a majority of the interviews I let their admissions run without intruding too many qualifying questions. My concentration was upon getting what you needed to bargain our people’s release. To go deeper I’d need to analyze each previous interrogation to isolate specific disclosures—which means all the American film and audio recordings of Irena’s questioning—and go through each individual claim and revelation item by item.’

  ‘Irena talked for a total of maybe sixteen hours,’ said Mort Bering, looking at Rebecca. ‘How long did Radtsic take?’

  ‘Twenty, at least.’

  ‘To tooth-comb that lot would take weeks,’ gauged Barry Elliott, anxious to make a contribution in front of his deputy director.

  ‘More like months, maybe as many as three to four, to do it thoroughly,’ corrected Goody. ‘That’s the least amount of time I’d like to set aside.’

  ‘We know it’s all disinformation to misdirect and confuse us that can now be ignored,’ said Bland, impatient for a successful conclusion that would end the implied doubt about his cabinet-office role. ‘There are two absolute essentials here: publicly exposing the whole Russian business for what it was to restore our credibility completely, and getting our people back.’

  ‘I wouldn’t agree with that order of things,’ immediately challenged Smith. ‘I believe the threat of exposure is the weapon to repatriate Charlie and the others.’

  ‘Pedantic,’ dismissed Palmer, as anxious as his co-chairman for a quick conclusion.

  ‘I’m inclined to agree on a time limit,’ said Bering. ‘I think the bastards have made us run around in circles for far too long. I think it’s payback time.’

  ‘And I want to get the repatriation moving right away,’ said Sir Peter Pickering. ‘Nothing’s going to happen immediately. There must be particular claims that appear more important than others. Why don’t we concentrate the re-examination upon those while the bargaining runs its course?’

  ‘That sounds an excellent compromise,’ declared Bland, to Palmer’s nodded agreement.

  ‘Which brings us back to my question,’ reminded Jane. ‘Do we let them go on living where they are or move them to somewhere more realistic … prison, even, if it would create the pressure to help Joe with his restricted schedule?’

  ‘I’m still opposed to actual imprisonment,’ cautioned Pickering. ‘It’s different with the three Russians who burgled Charlie’s flat, even though they are diplomats. Burglary is a criminal offence. I can—and will—set out charges against Radtsic and the two women. We can move them somewhere less salubrious, but don’t put them behind bars.’

  ‘We might as well leave them where they are,’ bustled Bland. ‘Politically we need this to be over as soon as possible: moving them from a five- to one-star safe house won’t achieve anything apart from unnecessary upheaval.’

  * * *

  ‘I’ll be glad when I can get my man back at a proper time at night,’ said Jane, in mock complaint as Barry Elliott came into the bedroom.

  ‘Tonight was Mort’s celebration time,’ announced the American, a slur in his voice.

  ‘Celebrating what?’ asked Jane, pushing herself farther up in the bed.

  The man began to undress, which needed concentration. ‘I was speaking to guys in D.C. earlier today. The word is there’s going to be a big reshuffle back there: Mort gets the top job for what he’s done here.’

  ‘Which was sitting and listening to other people’s successes,’ judged Jane, cynically.

  Elliott gave a lopsided grin, needing very positively to sit down to remove his trouse
rs. ‘We spent the early part of tonight talking about disinformation, remember? What you know to have happened here and how it’s been relayed back to Pennsylvania Avenue are two very different stories. I told you already, Mort is Batman under deep cover.’

  ‘What you told me was that you were Robin to his Batman,’ reminded Jane, seriously.

  ‘Reword that,’ suggested Elliott, matching the seriousness. ‘While he’s been here, I’ve been the gofer for the big man upon whose goodwill my future career depends. And I thought I detected quite a bit of career jockeying going on around that Foreign Office conference table earlier tonight. You want a nightcap?’

  ‘Haven’t you had enough?’

  ‘You’re not going to turn into a shrew, reminding me of that play we saw at Stratford, are you?’

  ‘Small ones.’ Jane sat even more fully up against the bed head while he fetched the drinks, curious at his reference to the very beginning of their affair. Accepting the brandy from him, she said, ‘Is that how you define all that eagerness to wrap everything up, as career protection?’

  ‘As far as Mort was concerned it was job promotion but I thought your two civil-service guys were in a hell of a hurry.’ He touched his glass to Jane’s.

  ‘I thought there was too much hurry, too,’ admitted Jane. ‘So does Aubrey. Against which, we’re in a hurry ourselves to get our people out, particularly Charlie Muffin. We still don’t have a proper idea of how badly he’s hurt.’

  ‘What about Rebecca, who was being conned so rotten by Radtsic?’

  ‘That’s not strictly fair: we were all being conned rotten until Natalia identified the coded exchanges,’ defended Jane.

  ‘You want to be careful about that Christian fairness crap. Where we exist, it’s regarded as a failing.’

  ‘But let’s go on with it between ourselves,’ urged Jane, putting her unwanted brandy aside. ‘Are you going to be staying here in London? Or are you likely to get a career change too?’

  The man put his drink aside as well, turning more fully to Jane. ‘I don’t know. Nothing’s been said.’

  ‘But?’ she pressed, detecting the uncertainty in his voice.

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Would you consider leaving your service to be with me?’

  ‘Is that a clumsy proposal of marriage?’

  ‘I suppose it is. So what’s your answer?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘That isn’t an answer and doesn’t help.’

  ‘I wish it did; that I had an answer,’ said Jane.

  * * *

  When it finally came, the too-long-overdue British rebuttal of Moscow’s propaganda blitz was all-encompassing. The close-to-dawn, intentionally ambiguous government release of an important forthcoming statement on arrested Russian spies, calculated against the time difference between London and Moscow, gained its intended coverage on every early-morning radio and television news channel as well as in daytime print publications. The announcement also alerted global news media, additionally guaranteeing coverage and publication in countries with similar time zones.

  There was a further announcement, an hour later, to ensure its unstated connection to the first, that the British government was calling in the Russian ambassador to be given the strongest possible protest note concerning his country’s totally unacceptable intelligence activities. That was quickly supplemented by strictly unattributable briefings to British and foreign London-based journalists that a particularly specialized and newly arrived group of spies, whose identities were known to the counter-intelligence agencies, were inside the Kensington embassy. The tightest, twenty-four-hour surveillance had been imposed and arrests were intended if any of them emerged from what was technically Russian territory.

  In the afternoon, Prime Minister’s Questions were delayed for ten minutes for the British foreign secretary to make a personal statement to the House of Commons, adding his public protest to that already officially notified to Moscow through its London ambassador. Few details could at that stage be disclosed beyond making it as clear as possible that the Russian activities were totally unacceptable. Whether it would be possible to go further into the complained details depended upon Moscow’s response to each and every accusation directly levelled against it.

  The sensation of the eventual statement was not its content but the simultaneous issue of photographs of Maxim and Elena Radtsic and Irena Novikov. All were captioned under their assumed names, with what they claimed to be their genuine identities listed in the accompanying text. The kidnap allegation was a total fantasy, along with every other claim and allegation made by the Russian Federation in recent weeks. Those allegations had been an attempt to conceal a potentially devastating international intelligence operation that had been defeated by British counter-intelligence. The full details of that operation would possibly emerge during the intended trials of every Russian involved in the conspiracy, including those now hiding inside the Russian embassy.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Ethel Jackson, turning away from the BBC broadcast that had taken almost twenty minutes to complete.

  ‘They’ll consider it aggressive. And the real Radtsic will see himself to be humiliated.’

  ‘Natalia!’ exclaimed the security supervisor, bewildered at the other woman’s muted response. ‘The genuine Radtsic would have known what was happening: initiated it, even. What’s he expect when he’s caught out? He brought about his own humiliation.’

  ‘It might have been better to have begun with a softer approach.’

  ‘What are you frightened of, Natalia?’ Ethel asked, directly.

  ‘Not getting Charlie out. What he might be like if we do get him out.’

  ‘This is the beginning, not the end of what we can do,’ said Ethel, encouragingly.

  ‘Moscow has kept ahead all the time. They might still have something we haven’t anticipated.’

  ‘On the other hand they might not,’ balanced Ethel, reluctant to concede that the Russian might be right.

  * * *

  Charlie Muffin became conscious of vehicle noise before he was properly awake and was already out of bed when that week’s guard, the originally assigned Georgian who’d saved him from the spetsnaz dogs, hurried into the room.

  ‘You’re going,’ announced the man.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Get dressed. You’ve no time to wash, shave.’

  ‘What’s the hurry? Where am I being taken?’

  ‘They’re waiting.’

  The most likely destination was the psychiatric hospital, Charlie supposed, struggling into the only clothes he had. But why? The only purpose for his being taken there would be to reduce him medically to a malleable puppet, and there was no benefit for them in doing that because they wouldn’t be able to trust his deranged ramblings any more than they had been able to accept what he’d already told Guzov. A different but still harsher regime, their having lost patience at learning nothing from the Guzov charade? That was a possibility. Which still left the question: where? The Lubyanka topped the list. But there was also Moscow’s Lefortovo jail, legendary for crushing defiance from political prisoners.

  ‘Let’s go!’ demanded the house guard, from the door.

  Charlie was relieved that the three waiting soldiers were not wearing spetsnaz insignia. There were two men in civilian clothes and another in a blue unidentified type of uniform similar to what Charlie remembered from the psychiatric institute. The woman housekeeper was at the kitchen door, looking apprehensively at the soldiers. Charlie didn’t catch the full exchange between the waiting group and the house guard but thought he detected “specific orders.”

  The man turned to him and said, ‘You’re to go with them. Goodbye.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Charlie again.

  ‘Just go.’ shrugged the man.

  A long, small-windowed prison-type van was pulled up directly outside the dacha, its rear doors already open. One of the soldiers pushed Charlie
in first, leaving him to choose his own seat on one of the side-mounted benches. The Russian escort filed in behind him. A soldier heavily settled on either side of him.

  ‘Where am I being taken?’ demanded Charlie.

  ‘Back to the city,’ said the blue-suited man.

  ‘What for? Where to?’

  ‘Moscow,’ repeated the man, dully.

  Charlie was tensed for the uneven track but there was still sharp, jabbing pain in his shoulder as the van jarred and bumped over the ruts. Conscious of the concentration of the two civilians, Charlie didn’t give any indication of discomfort.

  As the van reached the smoother blacktop, the one in blue said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie, turning the question. ‘I don’t know where we’re going. Or what for.’

  ‘It won’t be long,’ avoided the man.

  It wasn’t. Charlie guessed it took only twenty minutes before the van was slowed by Moscow traffic, the sounds of which became increasingly loud. From the briefness with which they obviously travelled upon the ring road, Charlie guessed the destination was neither the Lubyanka nor the Lefortovo, which was confirmed when the rear doors opened in the yard of the psychiatric institute. Charlie hesitated at the point of getting out of the vehicle, gazing up at the window-barred building. Would he leave it sane, he wondered: if he left at all.

  The blue-uniform man led Charlie into the institute, the two unspeaking civilians escorting from behind. The soldiers remained by the van. They went past the reception desk without stopping for the waiting elevator but went up only two floors. The bearded surgeon was waiting, smiling, in an office large enough to accommodate at least six of his usual entourage.

  ‘This time you come to me,’ announced the man, whom Charlie had last seen with Guzov at the dacha in the hills.

  * * *

  Again all Charlie’s questions were ignored. He was escorted, by medical staff now, to a radiology department where his shoulder was X-rayed from both front and back and then to an adjoining operating theatre where he remained stripped to the waist but was allowed to sit, not lie, on the table for the surgeon to examine the healed wound. An assistant took his blood pressure and a blood test, the result of which the surgeon brought with him when he entered the office in which Charlie, dressed now, had been told to wait.