“Makes some sort of sense, I suppose,” said Boyce.
“Larisa got to Dunne’s looting investigation squad in Poland,” continued Peters. “Ironic that’s where Raisa’s husband died. Wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t involved in some way, although the question wasn’t put to Dunne. Belous and Larisa would have known each other from Tsarskoe Selo, after all. Larisa really did put herself in the way of Dunne’s first bullet, incidentally: they’d had an affair going since Poland. In his statement Dunne seemed more upset by that than being forced to shoot Timpson.”
Boyce shrugged. “Dunne and Mason were real bastards, weren’t they? But useful, in the long run.”
“Wonder where Larisa’s buried,” said Peters.
“God knows; we never will,” said Boyce. “Damned clever of the Russians to have used their Trophy Squads like they did. Already to be looking that far ahead, well beyond the ending of the war. And putting Larisa in Gulag 98, trying to trick Hitler’s bunker squad into disclosing all they knew. It was probably down to Larisa that the Russians still have Hitler’s will today.”
“To get our hands on that really would be a treasure,” said Peters. “But I’m not surprised how far ahead Stalin and Beria were thinking. That’s what Stalin was doing at Yalta and Potsdam, carving up Europe for himself.”
“All very clever,” mused Boyce.
“Muffin really did turn out to be a nuisance,” said Peters. “It was a bad mistake not eliminating him.”
“Not only chopped Mason up into little pieces but coated himself and his department in Teflon. Can’t do anything to any of them now. Too many people know after that damned confrontation.”
“Who’s going to be your scapegoat?”
“Not sure we need one at the moment. The MI6 man in Moscow made a fool of himself, so he’s available. I’ll wait to see which way the media hysteria goes.”
“Muffin back in Moscow?”
Boyce nodded. “Your woman?”
“Spain. It’s only a temporary respite. We’ll transfer her from the foreign division after the normal two-year tour there. Bury her in a home station somewhere like Montana or North Dakota.”
“Bit of a waste, for someone so clever.”
“That’s not the point,” reminded the American. “She was impertinent.”
“Of course not,” apologized Boyce.
“There we are, then!” said Peters, in finality. “All’s well that ends well, as long as the bumps in between don’t derail anything.”
“The club special today is steak and kidney pudding.”
“Tradition!” said Peters. “Excellent.”
Charlie and Natalia sat side by side, watching George Timpson being buried as an unknown hero in Arlington. There was a rifle volley over the grave and the poignant Last Post and the president talked of America’s great and good, and of the hostilities of the past becoming the hope for the future. At one stage he choked to a halt and wiped what appeared to be a tear from his left eye. His rating was to climb five points by the end of the week.
Charlie sighed and said, “That’s it. All over.”
“Until the next time.”
“There’ll never be another one like this.”
“I couldn’t stand it if there were.”
He reached out for her hand and Natalia let him take it. “My internal problems are over, your internal problems are over. Like Sasha’s storybook says, we can live together happily ever after.”
“There were some changes in the Duma while you were in England,” announced Natalia.
He looked at her, unspeaking.
“Viktor Romanovich Viskov got elected deputy of the Communist faction. I think I should still keep the Leninskaya apartment.”
ALSO BY BRIAN FREEMANTLE
Little Grey Mice
Comrade Charlie
Button Man
Charlie’s Apprentice
No Time for Heroes
Bomb Grade
Mind Reader
DEAD MEN LIVING. Copyright © 2000 by Brian Freemantle. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y 10010.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
www.stmartins.com
Design by Nancy Resnick
eISBN 9781466803626
First eBook Edition : October 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Freemantle, Brian.
Dead men living / Brian Freemantte.—1st ed. p. cm.
1. Muffin, Charlie (Fictitious character)—Fiction.
2. British—Travel—Russia—Siberia—Fiction. 3. Intelligence service—Great Britain—Fiction. 4. Siberia (Russia)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6056.R43 D43 2000
823’.914—dc21
99-462044
First Edition: June 2000
Dead Men Living Page 41
