Red Star Rising cm-14

by Brian Freemantle

  During the waking moments of a fitful night Charlie had mentally arranged his priorities, paramount among them successfully smuggling Irena out of the country but with other uncertainties still to resolve.

  Paula-Jane Venables was already in her section of the intelligence rezidentura, designer demure in blue, smiling up as if in expectation of his arrival.

  “You certainly like early mornings,” she greeted, gesturing in invitation to the quietly hissing percolator.

  “Coffee would be good,” accepted Charlie. “I needed to speak to London early.”

  “Something come up?” she asked at once.

  “I’m going back to London.”

  “When?”

  “A day or two.”

  “Is it all over?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m closing down the compound apartment: its use is over.” He smiled up as she brought him the coffee.

  “Did anything ever come out of it?”

  “It was worth a try.”

  “What about the postponed Russian press briefing?”

  “I’ve got to speak to the Russians about that. London doesn’t seem to think I need to be here for it, even if they reschedule it.”

  “Doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for you?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry. Sorry that things weren’t easier between us and sorry that it didn’t go better for you. You going to have time for me to reciprocate that lunch?”

  “There’s rarely such a thing as a total success in what we do. And I’m not sure at this moment about the lunch. There might be a few more things to close down.”

  “It would have helped to have got this one right, though, in the current London climate, wouldn’t it?”

  “Would have helped a lot.”

  “You didn’t bring your other stuff, to put in the safe?” said the woman, looking pointedly around Charlie as if she might have missed seeing the folder.

  “Not quite finished with it all yet,” avoided Charlie. “When I was stationed here permanently the diplomatic bag went around four thirty: is that still the departure time?”

  “Four thirty on the button: you can set your watch by it.” Paula-Jane made a vague gesture to the safe in the corner of her office. “What about your briefcase?”

  “I’ll pick it up later,” said Charlie. “I’ll let you know about the lunch.”

  There was an engaged sign displayed in the occupancy slot of Robertson’s inquiry room door so Charlie continued on to the compound apartment. There were only four logged calls, three from Svetlana Modin and one from Mikhail Guzov. Charlie told the two monitoring technicians that he was closing the operation down but hadn’t yet told Robertson.

  “Everything wrapped up then?” suggested one of the men.

  “Something like that,” replied Charlie.

  Charlie chose a public telephone kiosk at random on Deneznyj pereulok, ensuring he had sufficient coin before finally going into the box. The FSB general answered at once, the condescension very evident until Charlie announced he was being recalled to discuss what London considered a combination of anomalies and discrepancies in the Russian material.

  “What anomalies and discrepancies?” demanded Guzov.

  “I don’t know-won’t know-until I get back.”

  “I don’t. .” Guzov started, before correcting himself. “Neither my ministry nor the government expect this to become an unnecessary, possibly embarrassing dispute. As I am sure neither you nor your government wants, either.”

  “I won’t know what my government wants or expects until I return to London,” Charlie parried. “I thought it courteous-part of our continuing cooperation-to advise you. It would be unfortunate, for instance, if any more public statements-certainly a reconvened conference during my absence in London-were prematurely made.”

  “I had hoped you would have understood that there is not going to be a reconvened conference: that everything was going to be left to the court hearing.”

  “I also hope that will not prove to be a premature decision,” matched Charlie.

  “When can we speak again?”

  “When I get back from London.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I’ll call from London, on this number, to tell you.”

  “Do that,” demanded the Russian. “I fear there is a risk of some serious, even politically embarrassing, misunderstandings arising between us. Our forensic medical examiners found some inexplicable anomalies and discrepancies in some of your submitted material.”

  He couldn’t have hoped for a better advantage, Charlie recognized. “Then it’s fortunate that all the assembled evidence, particularly the embassy victim, remains for further examination.”

  Next he called Svetlana Modin, who also responded at once and with similar initial aggression. “We had a deal!”

  “There was nothing for us to talk about.”

  “How did you know? Because I couldn’t reach you we couldn’t broadcast what I wanted.”

  Guzov couldn’t possibly have reached her, to prompt the questions, Charlie knew. “What was it you were going to say?”

  “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Try me.”

  “That the combined murder dossier is complete, without any English input. And that the spy in your embassy has beaten you. What’s your comment on that?”

  “I don’t have one.”

  “That’s what I’m saying tonight!”

  “What about the covert U.S. and British operation?”

  “That it hasn’t yet been stood down.”

  “It sounds like you have other, better, sources than me.”

  “We had a deal, remember?” Svetlana said for the second time.

  “The embassy incident room has been closed down.”

  “Thank you,” said the woman, in the belief that she was getting the confirmation she wanted.

  “I can always reach you at this number?”

  “I want you to.”

  “It might be difficult over the next couple of days. I’ll call when I can.”

  Charlie’s luck held for the third time with Natalia’s immediate reply to his call. “I’m going back to London but only briefly. I want to see you, talk to you, before I go.” Sure now that the car crash had only been a warning, Charlie was equally sure he hadn’t put Natalia in any danger keeping their McDonald’s rendezvous, any more than he would be doing now.

  “I can’t today.”

  She hadn’t refused outright, he thought at once. “Tomorrow, the Botanical Gardens? One o’clock?”

  “Not the Botanical Gardens,” Natalia refused. “I don’t like old memories.”

  Charlie frowned at the rejection. “Where?”

  “The restaurant near the gardens.”

  “How’s Sasha?”

  “She’s made you another picture. It’s a tiger but it doesn’t have any stripes. And it’s blue.”

  “Can I buy her a present?”

  “No!” refused Natalia. Seeming to realize her sharpness, she added more softly, “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

  Irena was already in the apartment when Charlie got there promptly at twelve fifteen, opening the door at once to his knock. “It’s all there,” she said, nodding to the folder he’d left the previous night.

  “I’ll take that, too,” said Charlie, nodding to the shrine. The Russians would never release Ivan’s body but at least he could ensure she had her visible memories.

  “Why?” she asked, frowning.

  “You’ll want it with you in England, won’t you?”

  “Yes, but-”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to try to carry it out, do you?”

  “I hadn’t thought. .” she groped, uncertainly.

  “My way’s guaranteed. We don’t want anything to go wrong, do we?”

  “What could go wrong? I don’t really want to part with it.”

  “Luggage gets X-rayed as an antiterrorist precauti
on. Yours could be opened if the medals showed. Get removed. Trust me, Irena. Nothing will happen to any of it.”

  Charlie got back to the embassy just after three, with ample time to examine the briefcase retrieved from Paula-Jane’s safe, together with what he’d collected from Irena, and pack it into his specifically assigned and wax-sealed and stamped container inside that night’s untouchable diplomatic shipment to London.

  “You’re taking a lot of care,” commented Paula-Jane.

  “I always do, just like your godfather, remember?”

  When he’d examined it earlier in his rabbit-hutch room, the combination numerals on the briefcase were set as he’d arranged them before it had gone into Paula-Jane’s safe but the pages of the Russian murder file were in a different order from how he’d assembled them and two sheets he’d intentionally inserted back to front from their sequential order had been corrected. And the Savoy suite appeared to be untouched from how he’d left it but every intrusion trap he’d set had been disturbed by intruders who had conducted an otherwise very professional search.

  Charlie poured himself the generous Islay single malt he thought he might need and settled himself before his television in good time for Svetlana’s evening broadcast.

  32

  “It won’t work now!”

  “It will work.”

  Irena was teetering on the very edge of hysteria, Charlie recognized. As he’d recognized, in his fury, how Svetlana had spun the broadcast totally to defeat his attempt to discover, from his carefully planted information, who was leaking from the British embassy. Guzov could have been the only source for Svetlana, actually using the words anomalies and inconsistencies in the official British Note to the Russian Interior Ministry, but Svetlana had talked of his being “recalled” to prove her insistence of further deteriorating relations between London and Moscow. She’d also used library film footage of him in a segment, suggesting that Charlie was taking new information back to London.

  Charlie said, “It’s all going to be as I promised.”

  “There’s a permanent FSB watch at the airport. They’ll just increase it: get the manifest naming everyone on board.”

  “I’m the only person they’ll be interested in.”

  “We’ll be associated-too close-when you pass me the passport and the ticket.”

  “The concentration will be inside the terminal,” argued Charlie, the exchange that was necessary between them already formulated in his mind. “I will give you a precise time when I’ll be arriving outside, to within minutes. You get there earlier so that as we go toward the entrance separately we get closer, bunching nearer the door; that’s when I’ll do the drop. You hesitate, as if you’ve forgotten something, so that you’re nowhere near me when we get into the terminal. I’ll do nothing to avoid attention if there is any-attract it, in fact-and you won’t even be noticed: we’ll use the attention, not suffer from it.”

  “None of this was how you promised it would be,” complained Irena, although slightly less anxiously.

  “Listen to the promises you are already guaranteed,” insisted Charlie, taking his time to list the arrangements in place for Irena’s arrival in London.

  “You didn’t say anything about Ivan’s body,” she isolated, the moment Charlie stopped talking.

  “I didn’t mention it because it hasn’t been arranged yet.”

  “I want Ivan with me, in England. I want him buried there, properly; know the place where he’ll be.”

  “He will be buried in England,” stressed Charlie, hoping he sounded sincere.

  “I won’t go, leave here, until I know he’s already there.”

  “It’s got to be this way-you first, then Ivan.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way!”

  “You know it does.” He didn’t need Irena anymore, Charlie thought, brutally. He’d got everything he wanted from her and there was no way the FSB could find her if she stayed in Moscow, so why was he bothering? Because she deserved better than the way in which she existed: because he wanted to. He’d abandoned too many innocent people in the past, but this time he’d do his best to at least get her somewhere better than where-and how-she was now. She’d hate him, he accepted, when she realized Ivan’s body couldn’t be brought to England-which he didn’t think it could-but at least she’d get most of what she wanted. When there was no response from her end Charlie said, “Irena?”

  “I don’t think I can do it,” she declared, sobs snatching at her words.

  “You can. You must,” insisted Charlie, knowing he had to force her. “Do everything I’ve told you. The moment you get to London there’ll be people waiting at the airport, to look after you, as I’ve explained. From that moment you’ll be safe, forever. It’s got to be now, Irena. With me. No one will come back for you if you don’t come now. There’ll be no second chance.”

  “I know,” she mumbled.

  “So be there.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Be there.”

  Charlie was too early for his meeting with Natalia so he filled the time by going nostalgically into the Botanical Gardens that featured so much in their relationship. But wouldn’t any longer. There was little more he could say or do to persuade her, all the promises and assurances used up. Could he quit the service, as he’d told her he could? He believed so, even if Natalia didn’t. And he would resign. As well as keeping the personal vow never to lie to her again.

  There’d be a lot he’d miss but a lot more than he wouldn’t, assignments like this in particular. Not that he could genuinely recall any that were as similarly cluttered by what he now recognized clearly to be meticulously planned chaos, the reason for which he at last knew and now understood. What he still didn’t know was precisely who those planners were and most important of all, what London would do with the sensation with which he’d presented them.

  Charlie was already inside the restaurant, his chosen table so secluded in the corner farthest from the entrance that Natalia didn’t immediately see him when she entered, fifteen minutes late.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” said Charlie, as she sat.

  “I stopped at the gardens, for old times’ sake.”

  “So did I.”

  She shook her head against an aperitif but Charlie held the waitress to get the ordering out of the way. Natalia appeared as disinterested in the food as Charlie, saying she’d have the same as him.

  When the waitress left Natalia took a folded sheet of paper from her handbag and said, “Here’s Sasha’s tiger.”

  “You didn’t tell me it had red ears.” Sasha had strayed over the body outline again.

  “They were an afterthought.”

  “Did you tell her we were meeting today?”

  Natalia shook her head. “She wanted to give it to you herself if we bumped into you again.”

  Charlie held Natalia’s eyes. “Does that mean we’re not going to?”

  “No, it doesn’t mean that.”

  “What then?”

  “A compromise.”

  “What compromise?”

  “It said on television last night that you’re being recalled. The inference was that you were in some kind of trouble.” She raised her hand, a halting gesture, as Charlie moved to speak. “I don’t want any details!”

  The same fear as Irena of danger by association, thought Charlie. “I’m not in trouble. I expect to be back here in a few days.”

  “I’m glad. . that you’re okay.”

  They stopped talking at the arrival of borsch and the red wine.

  Charlie said, “It’s complicated, though.”

  “Things that we do always seem to be.”

  “You still haven’t told me what you mean by compromise.”

  “How long’s it going to be, before everything you’re here for to be wrapped up?”

  “I don’t know. A few weeks, say three. A month at the most.”

  “There’s not the difficulty there used to b
e, moving in and out of Russia,” said Natalia. “I’m due leave and Sasha’s school is breaking up for their summer recess. It would work perfectly if you’d completed everything in a month. Sasha and I could come to London for a vacation.”

  “Only for a vacation?”

  “I’m not going to rush anything, Charlie. I want to see how I feel when I get there and I want to see how Sasha feels. We won’t stay with you but we’ll see you a lot and I want to be absolutely sure that it’ll work before I make the final decision. If you don’t think that’s a good idea. . that I’m not being fair and that it’s not going to give me or you enough time, then I’ll understand.”

  “I think-” tried Charlie, but Natalia cut him off.

  “I’ve always been honest with you, but you haven’t always been honest with me. So here’s my honesty. I do love you, despite all the things that have happened in the past. But we’re not starry-eyed teenagers. Love isn’t enough. I’m thinking mostly about Sasha, the adjustments she’s going to have to make. And we would have to make a lot of adjustments, too, both of us. That’s my compromise: how I want us to go forward. As I hope we can.”

  “That’s how I want us to go forward, too,” accepted Charlie, at once.

  Natalia sipped her wine, at last. “I’m glad that’s over.”

  “So am I,” said Charlie, meaning it.

  “You’re really not in trouble, are you, Charlie? That’s what I’m really worried about: something happening that would ruin it all.” She hesitated. “This is our last chance.”

  “It’s complicated, as I told you.” There wasn’t a complication he couldn’t overcome after this: literally everything was falling into place exactly as he wanted.

  Which it continued to do, with minor exceptions, throughout the rest of the day.

  Charlie was anxious to limit the time he spent that afternoon at the embassy. He sent a courtesy memo to Peter Maidment advising the acting ambassador of his return to London, carefully omitting departure and return dates and was glad that Paula-Jane Venables’s absence from the rezidentura spared her assuming he was leaving the following day from his vagueness about her outstanding luncheon invitation. David Halliday wasn’t in his section, either, but the newspapers were: Svetlana Modin’s broadcast the previous night was yet again the basis for most of the print media coverage. His return to London-all using the word “recall”-confirmed an increasingly deepening disagreement between London and Moscow over the murder investigation. All reported the refusal of the Russian Interior Ministry to make any comment. Charlie didn’t encounter Paul Robertson, either, and didn’t try to locate the man.