Red Star Rising

by Brian Freemantle

  “I advised you to expect that,” reminded Charlie.

  “And I warned London,” said Maidment, looking more toward the note taker than Charlie. “No one suspected of any involvement with any Russian security service will be allowed within the embassy precincts. Which is the purpose of the accreditation confirmation.”

  Charlie decided against bothering to remind the other man that it was he who had talked earlier of excluding Guzov. “What’s the official response going to be to Moscow’s representation?”

  “An acknowledgement of their Note.”

  Which was fence sitting, not a response, Charlie recognized. Could he risk including Sergei Pavel, without actually mentioning it? He could by the strictest interpretation of Maidment’s caveats. “I’ll announce the conference for Wednesday.”

  “It’s important that you understand that everything about this is your responsibility,” insisted Maidment.

  What, wondered Charlie, was the collective noun for a group of shit-scared diplomats: a cower of diplomats was all that came to mind. “I totally accept that.”

  “And I am declining any further involvement,” added the frightened man. “From now on everything goes direct to your Director-General, who in turn will deal with the Foreign Office.”

  “Of course,” said Charlie, snatching a benefit he hadn’t imagined possible.

  Unsure from which direction the next problem might come—simply resigned to the inevitability that one would—Charlie did his best to cover his back with his own account to London of the encounter with Maidment before moving on to his dedicated apartment and telephone requirements, sparing himself the playground petulance by e-mailing his demands to Harold Barrett. He posed his telephone interception queries to Harry Fish the same way as well, copying London’s authorizing approval to both men. Charlie completed his computer correspondence by announcing the press conference on the TASS, RIA Novosti, and Izvestia online news agencies and duplicated the information to the Associated Press wires for the Western media, although knowing that they would pick up the constantly read Russian news services. In every e-mail, he identified Paul Robertson as the man to whom all necessary accreditation information should be addressed. He also set out the admission and exit restrictions and stipulated that the conference would be strictly limited to the murder investigation. Finally, he duplicated everything to London. And then he sat back to wait, wondering who would be the first through his door.

  It was Paula-Jane Venables. She burst into the room, without knocking, the slip from the TASS service still in her hand and said: “Hey! We got a breakthrough here?”

  “We’ve got enough hopefully to unlock some doors.”

  “Like what?”

  “I want to keep that until Wednesday.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Charlie!” she protested.

  “No one officially accredited to the embassy can be involved, for obvious reasons.”

  “What’s official got to do with it!”

  “How it’s got to be.”

  Her face hardened. “And I was prepared to forgive and forget!”

  “Forgive and forget?”

  “I know.”

  “Know what?” Charlie frowned, genuinely confused.

  “How you tried to stitch me up a second time, with Robertson.”

  “I didn’t try to stitch you up,” denied Charlie. “You did wrong and in these very particular circumstances, it was right to do what I did.”

  “Which was to prove you’re a bastard.”

  “Which was to behave professionally, which you hadn’t been doing. And we’re not achieving anything debating it.”

  “Fuck you!” She was red faced now, her hands trembling as if with the effort of holding back from hitting him.

  “Quite a few people seem to be trying to do that, one way and another,” remarked Charlie, mildly.

  Paula-Jane remained where she was, shaking and with no words left but reluctant to retreat the loser. The impasse was broken by Robertson’s entry, again unannounced. The man looked between Paula-Jane and Charlie before saying: “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something important?”

  “Not at all,” said Charlie. “Paula-Jane’s just leaving, aren’t you?”

  She took the offered escape but paused at the door and said, “Bastard! Sneaking fucking bastard!” before slamming it closed behind her.

  Charlie said, “Did you tell her I’d suggested she be recalled?”

  Robertson’s face opened, in understanding. “Not personally. I did recall her, though. It came out during her reexamination. Which she passed the second time, to everyone’s satisfaction. She’s not our inside source.”

  “You found out who is?”

  Robertson shook his head. “The concentration’s now on Dawkins, back in London. I hope there aren’t any bad feelings about that polygraph business.”

  “I hope there aren’t at the way it ended,” responded Charlie, who didn’t care a wet fart about Robertson’s feelings but was intrigued at the man’s surprisingly changed attitude.

  “This conference is going to be very much your show,” said Robertson. “You’d better tell me what you want me and my guys to do.”

  His performance wasn’t just going to be monitored by film and audio recordings, Charlie decided. Like Sinbad the Sailor, he was going to have Robertson on his back just as Sinbad had the clinging old man of the sea.

  Harry Fish was added to the mix within fifteen minutes to answer Charlie’s queries in person. It took another ten to go through the no-hard-feelings bullshit before Fish insisted that he could defeat any Russian scanner interception with white noise equipment, which would at the same time detect Russian eavesdropping attempts. Additionally, he could attach to Charlie’s phones recording apparatus sensitive enough to pick up extraneous and, hopefully, identifying background sounds—to establish whether the incoming calls were from a pay phone from a street kiosk, a cell phone, or a landline—that would normally be inaudible to the human ear. In certain circumstances, landline calls would be traceable.

  The e-mail from the facilities and housing officer allocating Charlie his two requested telephone lines and numbers, both within the available compound apartment, arrived in the middle of the discussion with Fish.

  “My people will install both connections and everything else you’ll need to block any intrusion,” guaranteed the electronics sweeper.

  And install his own duplicate eavesdropping equipment, Charlie accepted, unconcerned. “It’s good to be part of a team: none of this will work without your help,” lied Charlie, to make them believe he didn’t suspect the bullshit they were shoveling.

  “It’s still got to work,” cautioned Robertson.

  “It will,” insisted Charlie, feeling as claustrophobically enclosed as he had in the communications compartment in the embassy basement. But not, Charlie was determined, in the way that these two men planned for him to be.

  14

  Charlie got his preferred corner stool in the hotel bar, with its fuller view of anyone who might approach from behind reflected in the glass-fronted bar mirror. He was as expectant of an approach as he had earlier been for the first entry into his office, although as equally unsure now as he had been then as to who might come. He knew only that it most certainly wouldn’t be Paula-Jane Venables. Which was a comfort.

  Charlie still wished he’d known about her second clearance, not from any mistaken interference on his part but rather for its reassurance. What he didn’t find reassuring—or even believable—was that Jeremy Dawkins could possibly be the spider in the middle of any embassy web.

  He was more than content for Robertson and Fish to be co-opted although, unsuspected by them, on his terms, not theirs. He needed people to sift the hoped-for kernels from the chaff, for which Robertson’s investigators were preeminently suited. Charlie was reasonably confident he could manage the essential secondary sieving to separate those leads he intended personally to pursue from the cranks he’d leave to Ro
bertson’s team. The further, even surprising, benefits from their embassy planning session had been Robertson’s apparent expectation, before it being suggested, that he should appear on the conference podium and Fish’s insistence that he could generate during the conference sufficient white noise to defeat any mobile or landline spying interception of all communication.

  Charlie nodded his acceptance of another vodka from the attentive bartender, finally confronting the reflection he’d consciously refused to consider all day, trying to convince himself that he hadn’t expected contact from Natalia. For him to have done so would have been like budgeting to win a lottery. The approach had to come from him and with the press conference not scheduled until Wednesday, there was no reason why he shouldn’t initiate it, apart from fear of rejection.

  Drink in hand, on the point of finishing it before making the call, Charlie turned more fully into the gradually filling bar, curious about which of the supposed relaxing drinkers was the watcher assigned to him, professionally sure that there would be one: possibly even one of the assembling working girls, grouped conveniently for an easy exit close to the door in the hope of early evening trade. Charlie raised his glass to drain it but abruptly stopped, halted by the most unexpected approach of all.

  “I’m glad I found you,” said Mikhail Guzov.

  From their obvious reaction to Guzov’s appearance, Charlie decided his surveillance was a dual operation between a bearded man and a full-breasted blond girl who’d ruined the charade by snatching her hand from her pretend lover, as if embarrassed at being caught out by her FSB superior.

  Charlie began to doubt his expectations when, instead of choosing mineral water at his drink invitation, Guzov asked for vodka, suggested a toast—to friendship—and settled comfortably on the adjoining stool without following up on his opening remark.

  To fill the gap, Charlie said: “You’ve got all my numbers.”

  Without looking away from his drink, Guzov said: “And you’ve got all mine. And didn’t call any of them about the press conference.”

  “You knew I was organizing it.”

  “And you knew we wanted participation.”

  “I also told you of the problem with that. Which I can’t do anything to reverse.”

  “You know none of our intelligence agencies had anything to do with planting those devices.”

  “I know you continue to tell me that: to tell the same to the embassy here and the Foreign Office in London.” This was going beyond—far beyond—the normal diplomatic denials, almost into the realms of farce, thought Charlie.

  “It’s true.”

  Charlie spread his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of helplessness. “It’s an impossible situation. And one I can’t do anything about.”

  “You could authorize our attendance.”

  “Our?” queried Charlie, pedantically.

  “Myself and Sergei Romanovich. This is supposed to be a joint investigation. If we are not publicly there, it amounts to a positive accusation and will be interpreted as such.”

  The man was genuinely concerned at the personal, professional damage of his being excluded, Charlie suddenly decided, warmed by the further, unnecessary recognition that everyone at their level lived at the receiving end of the shit sluice. With that reflection came another, far more important awareness. This encounter wouldn’t be taking place if the Russians had subjected his phony forensic material to DNA testing. Charlie said, “Surely it won’t be a personal accusation against you and Sergei Romanovich?”

  “There needs to be a Russian presence,” insisted Guzov, giving Charlie the cosmetically salvaging cooperation opening he’d never anticipated getting.

  “I’m not handling the attendance applications,” said Charlie. “But the conference is sure to be covered in its entirety by Russian television. A full tape—not an edited transmission version—will provide you with every question and every answer. I also undertake to make available the embassy film and audio recordings.”

  It was Guzov who gestured for more drinks before sourly looking sideways. “The purpose of press conferences is to generate public response. What’s your undertaking about that?”

  “Responses will be made available, along with everything else,” replied Charlie, expecting the demand. For you to chase the chaff behind Robertson’s crew, Charlie thought.

  Guzov looked back into his drink. “I was forbidden from making this sort of approach.”

  “Why did you?” asked Charlie, astonished that Guzov was shoveling the special relationship, professional-to-professional crap.

  “It was a mistake to try,” admitted the Russian.

  “I’ve given you every possible undertaking that I can. There isn’t any more.” Charlie had turned more fully into the bar for the conversation with the Russian and got an impression—which was all it was, the barest flicker of a face, of a person—at the entrance to the bar, which he imagined to be Natalia.

  “Things aren’t as they seem,” declared the Russian.

  “I don’t understand,” said Charlie, dismissing the distraction.

  “And I can’t explain.”

  “That’s even more difficult to understand.”

  “I know.”

  Charlie gestured for more drinks but Guzov covered his glass with his hand. “Can we meet, officially, tomorrow?”

  “Of course,” agreed Charlie.

  “Petrovka, at noon?”

  “I’ll be there.” For what? wondered Charlie, deciding not to ask, his mind still held by the split-second image of Natalia, knowing that was all—the only thing—it could have been, a mental trick.

  It was an additional ten minutes, the time it took him to finish his drink and get to his suite floor, before Charlie learned, after the briefest of alarms, that it was nothing of the sort.

  It was not a shifting sound or the faintest breathing but instinct alone and Charlie stopped his hand short of the light switch, knowing at once there was someone already in the room. And when the single sidelight clicked on it was not he who caused it but the momentarily still unseen intruder who said, “Close the door,” and Charlie finally knew who it was.

  “You frightened me,” he said.

  “Guzov frightened me.” Natalia moved from the shadows, for Charlie to see her at last. She was wearing a hat that hid her hair and a dark, tightly belted raincoat.

  “You know him?”

  “He was once my section leader.”

  “I only just saw you; convinced myself it was a mirage. Guzov didn’t see you. But there were others in the bar who must have alerted him I was there. And who might have seen you.”

  “There was no one else who could have recognized me.”

  There was no guarantee of that, Charlie knew. “You shouldn’t have taken this risk.”

  “I wasn’t getting any reply at your embassy number and couldn’t leave a message someone else might have accessed. I didn’t want to leave things as they are.”

  “Do you want more lights?” asked Charlie, giving himself time to analyze what she’d said.

  “No,” Natalia refused, shortly. “It shouldn’t have happened, in the park. I didn’t know . . . didn’t mean . . .”

  Charlie at last moved farther into the room, standing directly opposite Natalia. “Who is he?”

  “His name is Karakov. Igor Anatolivich Karakov.”

  “How long?”

  Natalia shrugged. “Six months, maybe seven.”

  “Are you together?”

  Natalia frowned. “Not living together, no. It would confuse Sasha.”

  “What have you told him about her?”

  “He knows I am married but separated. But nothing about you, obviously.”

  “It is serious?”

  “I think so.”

  “What do you want me to do?” The usual ordinary, inadequate words.

  “I don’t know. I never thought you’d come back; didn’t expect ever to see you again. I was going to write, try to explain. I act
ually tried to write but nothing sounded as I wanted it to.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want . . . I mean—”

  “I told you I don’t know what I want,” she stopped him.

  “It’s important that you know . . . for me to tell you.”

  “What were you going to do . . . about the park, I mean?”

  “Call you. Ask to meet, to talk like this. I was going to do it tonight but Guzov arrived.”

  “I’m sorry . . . very sorry . . . that it happened as it did,” she said.

  “You explained.”

  “He’s a teacher, at Sasha’s school. That’s how we met. He was one of the escorts on her trip.”

  “She seemed fond of him. Comfortable.”

  “He’s very kind.”

  “Is he married?”

  “No.”

  Why should he simply give up? Charlie abruptly asked himself. “Do you love him?”

  “I don’t . . .” started Natalia, but she stopped, appearing to change her mind. “It would be easy to.”

  He’d lost her, Charlie decided, but then he’d already come to that conclusion. “It seems to make everything pretty clear.”

  “I’m not sure that it does,” said Natalia. “You haven’t told me how you feel.”

  Charlie curbed the instant reply, not wanting it to degenerate into an argument. “I thought I had. I understand what has happened: it was almost inevitable that it would happen, because of how we are . . . how we’ve been . . . but—”

  “What about you?” Natalia broke in. “Have you got anyone?”

  “No. But I don’t think that comes into it . . . not into what you’ve got to decide. Which I guess you’ve already decided.”

  “I haven’t decided anything yet!” said Natalia, her voice angry for the first time. “I’m going around in circles, which I have been ever since you came back.”

  “I don’t see . . . can’t think . . . that there’s anything else I can do to help . . . to say . . .”