Red Star Burning

by Brian Freemantle

  “The psychological assessment wasn’t that he was mentally ill,” corrected the Director-General. “It was that Charlie Muffin would recognize more quickly than anyone else the limitations of a new life in a protection program—which indicated the highest analytical intelligence that Cowley had known—as a result of which Charlie was suffering an understandable depression but which he doubted would ever become suicidal. The suicide watch was a shock warning to Charlie, not a necessary precaution.”

  “I don’t believe there can be a single opposing argument against our getting Natalia and the child out of Moscow,” declared Monsford, who’d gone through the charade of calling MI6’s Vauxhall Cross building—on his cell phone from Charlie’s exercise patch—before returning for the review.

  “Which has to mean there’s an update from your call?” sardonically questioned the fidgeting deputy director.

  “There’s already open speculation on Izvestia and in Pravda of retaliatory rebuttals to our arrests.”

  “Why should I be surprised about that?” challenged the woman.

  “Moscow News is going further,” continued Monsford, who’d added to what he considered his success in getting the address of Charlie’s London flat leaked to the Russians by swallowing his antipathy to David Halliday and authorizing the suggestion being offered by Halliday to the man’s contact in the English-language publication. “They’re hardening the rumor into a reciprocal intelligence sensation. It’s being picked up and repeated on Western wire services.”

  “There’s not the slightest indication that what’s going on in Moscow has any connection whatsoever with what we’re discussing here, beyond some obviously enforced telephone contact from a woman stupid enough to trust Charlie Muffin,” rejected Jane. “Our stupidly responding to it is the intended reciprocal intelligence sensation.”

  “If Natalia’s got as much as half of what Charlie sketched out, it’s a gold lode we could mine for years,” judged Aubrey Smith, reflectively. “There’s no obvious connection, but it would be on a par with the Lvov business. We could tie in knots not just Russian intelligence but every other service of any importance, up to and including the CIA, who’ve double-crossed and used us, both of us, for the past two decades.”

  “There can’t be an argument against getting her and the child out,” repeated Monsford, anxious to stoke the other man’s belief.

  “Except the obvious one that it’s a trap, a match—maybe even more than a match—for what the Russians fell into by burgling Charlie’s flat,” Jane persisted.

  “I’d like us to continue our cooperation by actively considering a joint rescue operation,” declared Monsford, dismissing the woman’s opposition.

  “Why joint?” demanded Jane, instantly seeing the possibility of personal revenge. “You want her and the child, why don’t you get them out by yourself.”

  “Willingly, despite their being the wife and daughter of one of your officers,” accepted Monsford, confronting the expected question. “You couldn’t, of course, expect us to share whatever she told us of all those famous defectors you didn’t know were spying against this country until they gave their press conferences in Moscow.”

  He had no alternative but to go along with Monsford, decided Aubrey Smith, although not for the reasons the MI6 Director was advocating. He’d only too recently survived an internecine war: he wasn’t going to risk walking away from this one until he knew far more than was immediately obvious. “Let’s start the planning tomorrow.”

  “I want put on written record my total opposition to any of this,” insisted Jane Ambersom.

  There was an echoing silence, each man hoping the other would respond to give him a follow-up advantage. Monsford, believing himself to have the most to gain, broke first. “I’m confused. First you demand to be included in whatever we do. Now you demand your complete opposition placed on provable record. Have I missed something in what we’ve been discussing?”

  “My matching confusion also,” quickly came in Aubrey Smith, denying the SIS director whatever he’d set out to achieve.

  Surprisingly, there was no renewed flush from the woman at this new confrontation. She said: “I don’t see any dichotomy. You intend a reaction that risks both our organizations being exposed to international ridicule and derision. While opposing whatever you do—and wanting that opposition recognized—I believe my continued involvement as devil’s advocate to be absolutely essential to maintain a balancing voice.”

  The immediate impression of Aubrey Smith, who was fundamentally as honest and subjective as possible in the professional position he occupied, was that his recently imposed deputy had established a necessarily important safeguard. Gerald Monsford’s equally quick thought was that Jane Ambersom had put herself forward as a further—and an additional—sacrificial offering if his real objective went wrong, which even the best laid espionage plans so frequently did.

  Responding first, the MI6 Director said: “You bring to mind Tennyson’s line of Janus-faces looking diverse ways.”

  “I defer to your superior knowledge not just of classics but the art of the two-faced,” Jane shot back. “Didn’t Tennyson also remark that men may come and men may go but others lasting longer?”

  “Has anyone got anything further to offer?” demanded Aubrey Smith, impatiently.

  “I suspect Jane believes herself outnumbered,” Monsford said, flushed. “Why don’t we achieve a better balance by adding Rebecca to our panel.”

  It would give her the opportunity to oppose the whore, Jane Ambersom realized. “I think that’s an excellent suggestion.”

  It would probably put him at a three-to-one disadvantage, but at any disaster inquest Monsford’s manipulative hand would be more obvious, rationalized Smith. “If it’s the decision of the prime minister for this to be a joint operation, it establishes complete equality,” he appeared to concede.

  “I look forward to tomorrow,” said Monsford, believing himself the victor.

  “So do I,” said the woman, believing the same for herself.

  Which was the more murderous place to be, Moscow or here in London? wondered Aubrey Smith. He’d have to be very careful that having survived once, none of his own blood was spilled, either literally or figuratively.

  An hour later the London Evening Standard broke the story of the Russian burglary of Charlie Muffin’s flat.

  * * *

  An essential attribute for an intelligence officer is the ability to become a wallpaper person, someone able to merge indistinguishably into any background or surrounding. Harry Jacobson practiced the art more assiduously than most, as he was practicing it now, doubly invisible deep within the shadows of a buttressed, prerevolutionary wall opposite Natalia Fedova’s Moscow apartment on Pecatnikov Pereulok. The determination to perfect a chameleon camouflage developed early in his MI6 career, spurred by the fear that his noticeably cleft lip, a birth defect, would preclude his becoming a field operative, to overcome which he’d consciously adopted the appearance of a shoe-polished, department-store-suited bank clerk, complete with wire-framed spectacles and closely cropped hair. To conceal the harelip he cultivated an unclipped, walrus-style mustache that matched his hair’s natural blondeness, the disguise now so accustomed that it was not until this reflective moment that the facial similarity between himself and Radtsic’s heavy Stalin-like growth occurred to him. It could, decided Jacobson, be his escape from this additional surveillance assignment upon Natalia Fedova, which he resented as an extra and unnecessary burden. It was very definitely an objection to be put to James Straughan, maybe even as early as tonight.

  Natalia Fedova arrived, on foot, at precisely the same time as she had the previous two evenings, wearing the same light summer coat and carrying the same briefcase, as always in her left hand with the entry key in her right. And, again as worrying as the previous two evenings, unaccompanied by the child who had until now always been with her.

  London weren’t going to like the absence, Jacobson dec
ided: they weren’t going to like or understand it at all.

  9

  They didn’t.

  “We could be too late,” suggested James Straughan, keeping any satisfaction from his voice at the possibility of Monsford’s having miscalculated.

  “It could mean a lot of other things, too,” argued Rebecca Street, loyally. As usual, she was giving the Director the full benefit of a plunging décolletage.

  “Being too late is the most obvious,” insisted Straughan, who’d intentionally held back from announcing Sasha’s apparent disappearance during the mutual-congratulation orgy between the MI6 Director and his deputy at Monsford’s maneuvering Rebecca onto the planning group, savoring the moment of deflation. Although well aware she wouldn’t comprehend a single word, Straughan intended telling his mother about it that evening: he had a fading hope that his nightly monologues might get through to her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier that we hadn’t seen the child for so long?” suspiciously demanded Monsford, who hadn’t activated his personal recording facility.

  “I didn’t want to be premature. After three days I decided it should be flagged up.” Sometimes, thought Straughan, he feared this devious man would send him mad.

  “What else?” said Rebecca.

  “I don’t think we should use Jacobson to monitor Natalia’s apartment,” cautioned Straughan. “If the child has been taken from her, the place will be under permanent surveillance. Jacobson could be isolated.”

  “It’s a possibility,” conceded Monsford, who’d led the other two through an hour’s review of Radtsic’s extraction before Straughan’s revelation. “I don’t like the uncertainty this introduces.”

  “It needn’t materially change what we’ve agreed,” encouraged the woman. “We’re intending a diversion with Natalia, not a genuine extraction.”

  “It’s an uncertainty we’ve no way of controlling,” repeated Monsford.

  “How does it impact upon what we’ve discussed?” pressed Straughan, who’d considered Jane Ambersom a friend and wished he’d been less cowardly and confronted Monsford’s apportion onto her of all his own misconceptions over Lvov. Now Straughan was enjoying Monsford’s evident stress in front of a woman he wanted to impress.

  “All Natalia’s got to do is make another bloody telephone call: Smith’s keeping Charlie’s apartment line open,” Monsford pointed out.

  “I thought we’d decided she’s reciting what the FSB tells her to say?”

  “What if she somehow gets an unmonitored call out?” demanded Monsford. “Don’t forget Shakespeare’s warning of pernicious women.”

  “We’ll confuse ourselves going around in hypothetical circles,” risked Rebecca.

  “She’d have said more if she’d been able,” persisted Straughan, ignoring the warning.

  “We’re gaining nothing by speculating,” insisted the woman. “The kid’s missing and that’s that. It’s not our complication.”

  “We won’t allow it to become one,” said Monsford, decisive at last. “We don’t tell Smith or Ambersom. Tell Jacobson to take any cable traffic referring to it off the general file.”

  “There’s no cable traffic about Radtsic—or Muffin or Natalia’s inclusion in his extraction—on the general file,” scored Straughan, pleased at the small victory. “You ordered it a dedicated, Eyes Only file restricted to us three, remember? I haven’t even told Jacobson why we’re maintaining surveillance on Natalia Fedova.”

  “Of course I remember what I ordered,” snapped Monsford, testily. “And don’t wait another three days before briefing me on anything relevant to what we’re doing.”

  “I’ll instruct the cipher room and the duty officer to alert me at once, irrespective of time: you’ll know within minutes of my knowing,” assured Straughan, fantasizing himself interrupting Monsford in the final seconds of his nightly pony ride with Rebecca.

  “That fucking man is insufferable!” declared the woman, minutes after Straughan left, knowing that was what Monsford wanted her to say.

  “His card’s marked: he’s just too stupid to suspect he’s going to fall upon what Shelley called the thorns of life,” said Monsford, furious at the lack of respect from both Straughan and the woman.

  She smiled, despite the implication that she’d overstepped the familiarity, gesturing toward the window and the sluggishly meandering Thames. “Another transfer across the river?”

  “Maybe.” Monsford smiled back, emptily. He feared that Straughan had a meticulously kept graveyard map of where far too many skeletons—literally and figuratively—were buried for any serious move against the man.

  * * *

  Aubrey Smith had never intended he and his deputy would be the first at the hunting lodge, but neither to be in the psychologically disadvantaged position of having to apologize for their lateness caused by a road-closing accident on their way. Having to do so relegated them to the secondary role in which Smith had hoped to place the MI6 duo, the initial setback furthered, despite briefing her in advance, by Jane Ambersom’s below-zero frigidity at Rebecca Street’s inclusion in the top executive group. The debacle was very intentionally exacerbated by the warmness of Rebecca’s near-suffocating response to their apologies, assuring them the two-hour postponement had not been at all inconvenient (“the duck confit at lunch was wonderful and the 1962 burgundy exceptional”) and the tour of the lodge magnificent, prompting Gerald—pointedly not Director Monsford—and her to wish they had such safe houses at their disposal.

  “But these are particularly unusual circumstances, aren’t they?” Rebecca concluded. For once the Chanel business suit was severely practical, although the inherent sexual frisson still sharply contrasted with its absence from the trouser-suited Jane.

  “Have you spoken with Charlie?” Smith hurried on, anxious to get beyond the late-arrival discomfort.

  “You’re in charge…” Monsford continued to patronize. He gestured toward a small conference table, with a five-chair setting replacing the earlier tribunal formality. “We’ve waited for your seating arrangements.”

  Without replying, Smith put Jane beside him, nodding to the others to choose their places.

  “What about Charlie Muffin?” asked the MI6 deputy.

  “Not until we’ve talked things through,” refused Smith, recovering slightly. “I want us to be absolutely clear about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it, without the slightest possibility of misunderstandings.”

  “It’s surely all remarkably simple,” Monsford bustled in, impatient to assume the other Director’s authority. “We’ve got the photographs my people took of Natalia and Sasha. We can put prints into genuine British passports, although obviously under false, English names. In the passports there’ll be Russian tourist visas: my technical division have provable Russian inks and Cyrillic type fonts for entry and exit stamps. The photographs are good enough for my technical experts again to gauge with sufficient accuracy both the height, weight, and physique of Natalia and the child, for a complete selection of English-manufactured and -labeled clothes, sufficiently worn for them not to appear obviously new. Everything will be shipped to the embassy in the diplomatic bag. My rezidentura there will put together a choice of Russian souvenirs a mother and her daughter would be expected to bring back to England. We make contact with Natalia and arrange a pickup—that’s going to need a lot more detailed consideration, if they’re under tight surveillance—to get them to the embassy, where everything I’ve set out will be waiting, including their confirmed reservations on a direct British Airways flight to London.…”

  The pause was as prepared as the recitation for Rebecca to come in on cue: “Taking the urgency into account, our technicians have already started work on the passports and the clothing.”

  “You might like to hold on that,” stopped the other woman. “We’ve already prepared a complete documentation selection.”

  Smith enjoyed the stretched silence, reluctant to snap it. “You seem to
have started a little prematurely.”

  “As you have,” challenged Monsford.

  “‘You’re in charge,’” quoted Smith, verbatim. “Isn’t that what you said?”

  “This isn’t a competition.” stated Rebecca, her overeffusiveness gone.

  “Absolutely not,” mocked Jane.

  “The problem isn’t one of technical resources or facilities: we can forge or manufacture whatever we need,” stressed Smith, content that the balance had been restored. “The problem is physically getting under our protection—and in a way that can’t diplomatically or publicly rebound—a woman and child presumably under FSB surveillance. How do you suggest we do that?”

  “That’s what Gerald meant about detailed consideration,” said Rebecca.

  “The entire purpose of this meeting,” reminded Jane, as conscious as Aubrey Smith of their recovery. “What’s your proposal?”

  “She and the child have to come to the embassy by themselves,” improvised Monsford, looking to his mistress for support.

  “Once they’re in the building, technically British territory…” tried Rebecca, loyally.

  “That territorial protection would cease the moment Natalia and Sasha took one step outside the embassy.” Smith sighed. “But we’re assuming they’re under tight surveillance. How do you get a message to Natalia to go to the embassy without it being intercepted by those watching her? And—assuming that somehow you do—can you prevent their being seized long before they get into the embassy in the first place?”

  “At this moment I haven’t the slightest idea,” conceded the SIS Director, although not as an admission of defeat. “This is a planning session, for each of us to give the most constructive input. What’s your contact proposal?”

  “Diversions,” declared the MI5 Director-General, enigmatically. “By letting the Russians imagine we’ve taken their bait and that we’re coming for mother and daughter. But then introduce diversion after diversion to send them around in circles until they don’t know which is the genuine extraction and which isn’t.”