Red Star Burning

by Brian Freemantle

  “They don’t need to run around in circles,” disputed Rebecca. “They’ve got Natalia and Sasha. They’re the only people the FSB need constantly to watch.”

  “You’re looking in the wrong direction, which is what I intend them to do,” argued the soft-voiced Smith. “Of course they’ve got Natalia and Sasha. But Natalia and Sasha aren’t who they really want, are they? They want Charlie Muffin.”

  “You’re proposing to send him back in!” exclaimed Rebecca, in apparent surprise.

  “No,” denied Smith. “But they’ll think it’ll be Charlie Muffin and from the moment they’re convinced it is, their entire concentration will be upon finding him. It’s Charlie—or their belief that it’s Charlie—who’s going to be the diversion.”

  “How?” demanded Rebecca, knowing the importance of reestablishing their briefly imagined supremacy.

  “Easily,” said Smith, allowing the vaguest of smiles. “Natalia’s calls were from ordinary public telephones—one more specifically than others—because we were expected, naturally, to trace their origin. Just as we, or rather Charlie, was expected to recognize that the calls to his flat were always at precisely the same time, giving him a pattern. But they wouldn’t have been ordinary public kiosks, would they? They’ll appear to be, but they’ll have recording attachments, automatically triggered by an incoming international call signal, in anticipation of Charlie responding to the numbers, not that of Natalia’s flat. So Charlie will respond, at the precise time which she—or rather the FSB—has established.”

  “What if she’s not there at the appointed time?” challenged Monsford. “There hasn’t been any contact from Moscow since the burglary. There wasn’t any response to her calls before then. And from the Russian embassy lawyers who’ve already had legal access to their diplomats in custody here, they’ll know the flat was empty. And we created the legend of his death, so they’ll also know he’s under protection.”

  “We’ve already agreed they won’t accept that legend,” Jane pointed out.

  “Any more than they’ll accept Charlie’s sudden reappearance is anything more than our trying to lure them into a trap they won’t be able to understand, just as they didn’t understand—or anticipate—the burglary snare we set for them,” said Rebecca. “But they won’t risk being burned twice.”

  “Exactly!” agreed Jane, triumphantly. “They won’t accept it and they won’t understand it. But they can’t afford to ignore it. And before this afternoon’s over we need to come up with an even more tantalizing bait.…” Jane paused, caught by the presented analogy. “Our fishing line, Natalia and Sasha’s safety net.”

  “Charlie Muffin is the integral part in this,” declared Monsford, desperate to get off the constantly teetering back foot. “Isn’t it time we included him in this discussion?”

  * * *

  Charlie Muffin had a savant’s instinct for atmospheres within environments and was well into his clairvoyant interpretation by the time he shuffled, unescorted now, from the trophy-room door to the conference table already unevenly hedged by its four stiffly seated occupants. Only the one empty chair retained its neat setting, the others at disjointed angles, separating each from its neighbors. There were coffee cups, similarly disarranged—the discarded coffeepot alone on a side table—supporting the impression of prior discussion, although there wasn’t a single doodle on any of the individual memo pads before them. There was one as-yet-unknown woman closer to Gerald Monsford than to either Aubrey Smith or Jane Ambersom, similarly drawn together, both expressionless faces as stiff as their rigidly held attitudes.

  Charlie went to the empty chair but didn’t sit until Smith’s head jerk of permission, and as he did the MI5 Director announced: “We want to get your wife and child out. It’s obvious you should be included in the discussion.”

  “Thank you,” said Charlie, who hadn’t expected such immediate confirmation but pushing as much genuine sincerity into the two words as possible, finally halting the individually addressed gratitude at the unknown woman, who at once introduced herself.

  Having been offered the opening, Charlie added: “At what stage is the planning?”

  “It’s starting here, right now,” declared Smith, although looking more to Gerald Monsford than to Charlie. “Perhaps you’d sketch out the SIS ideas in broad outline.”

  The MI6 Director attempted to edit out Aubrey Smith’s earlier point-picking but several times lost his way and instead of omitting the passport preparations actually elaborated upon them. Eventually, clearly struggling, Monsford concluded: “This isn’t a proposal even in its broadest sense. It’s a starting point, a basis for the sort of material they’ll need when they make their break.”

  Charlie fought against openly showing his dismay, feeling no satisfaction at being right about the planning vacuum before his inclusion. This echelon was too high: obviously none of them had ever worked in the field, trained in operational practicalities, trusting nothing and no one, winning if you’re lucky—or ruthless enough—dying if you’re not. Carefully, initially rephrasing his words to avoid humiliating them, Charlie said: “We won’t get them out disguised as British tourists wearing British clothes on British passports, no matter how good our forgeries and fake documentation. Russian entry visas are stamped and retained upon arrival, to be numerically matched with their departure counterfoils. There’s no way we could introduce forged entry sections into the bureaucratic system.”

  “Is that your only comment?” quickly pressed Smith, guessing that it wasn’t.

  These posturing four weren’t properly—professionally—working to evolve a rescue operation. Other, better professionals, who knew the smell of shit and what blood tasted like, should have been doing that. These figurehead bureaucrats were playacting to score off one another. But the charade was the best he could hope for at this moment: the only hope he had. “The embassy can be as much a prison as a haven, which links—” he cautiously began once more.

  “Indivisible from the paramount problem of getting Natalia and the child under our safekeeping and away from Russian surveillance,” Jane impatiently intruded, unable to hold back from the discussion any longer, seemingly unperturbed by the annoyed looks from both men.

  Charlie’s intention had been to continue talking about precisely that but the interruption gave him a moment to reconsider. He was, he belatedly recognized, in a far stronger and definitely more influential position than he’d realized, maybe even able to make Natalia and Sasha’s escape his own, although always insinuating his suggestions to appear those of Monsford or Smith. It would all, of course, go through the pragmatic scrutiny, but the rejecting mesh sifting would be far more widely set with the proposals coming down from the gods. “Which you have obviously talked about before I joined you?”

  “You were cut off before you finished what you were saying?” questioned Rebecca, in return.

  After a momentary hesitation, Charlie said: “I was also going to suggest that it wasn’t advisable to issue Natalia and Sasha British passports: to involve our embassy, quite apart from the problem of making contact with Natalia without FSB interception. It’s what they’d expect and be most prepared for.”

  “The documentation we’ve prepared isn’t British, for that obvious reason,” said Aubrey Smith, ahead of the other Director. “What languages, apart from her own Russian and English, does Natalia speak?”

  “German, fluently: she was assigned for a period to East Germany,” replied Charlie, taking his time now, seeking his openings.

  “East Germany!” picked up Rebecca, at once. “Was she there the same time as Vladimir Putin?”

  Charlie came within a whisker of trying further to enhance Natalia’s value by claiming she had been a contemporary of the Russian president turned premier. “I’ve already told you we never discussed our professional lives. But I think there’s a strong possibility she was in Potsdam at the same time.”

  There was a moment’s pause before Smith said: “Just Russi
an, English, and German?”

  “And Polish,” added Charlie. “She has some Polish, although she’s not fluent.”

  “Well enough to communicate in Polish: not draw unnecessary attention?” pressed Smith.

  “Well enough to debrief in the language,” confirmed Charlie, feeling the first spurt of renewed hope. “Sasha obviously only has limited Russian.”

  “We’ve prepared Polish documentation,” disclosed the MI5 Director. “There’s no matching entry to exit visa regulations for rail or road crossings. Once they’re across the Polish border, they’re safe. Actually in the European Union.”

  “Yes,” agreed Charlie. “Once in Poland they’d be safe.”

  “Which brings us back to how to reach Natalia,” said Rebecca, directly addressing Aubrey Smith. “Tell us how your diversions are going to achieve that?”

  “Diversions?” queried Charlie, the feeling of satisfaction growing.

  “The initial phone call can be easily managed,” insisted the MI5 Director-General, his entire concentration upon Charlie. “What we need from you is a way or a method—hopefully both—to make that contact with Natalia: the whole extraction stands or falls by our achieving that. And yours is the detailed knowledge upon which it depends.”

  Exactly as he wanted it, Charlie recognized, the final satisfaction engulfing him. Don’t overplay it, came the balancing warning. “I understand.”

  “But can you provide it?” demanded Rebecca.

  “I’m sure I can,” said Charlie, maintaining the low-key reaction.

  “How soon?” persisted Monsford.

  “I need to think it through. I’ll have enough to discuss by tomorrow.”

  “Sufficient for us to start moving by tomorrow?” picked up Smith.

  “Definitely,” promised Charlie, tightly. “Sufficient to start tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Monsford and Rebecca sat tightly together in the rear of the car returning them to London, the soundproof glass screen fully raised between them and their driver.

  Monsford said: “I didn’t enjoy playing the complete idiot back there.”

  “You played it as it had to be played,” flattered the woman. “The recordings will show Smith forcing the pace, initiating the moves that will go wrong.”

  “You think the woman might really have been in Potsdam with Putin?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “Charlie says it’s possible. Who knows?”

  “If she was—as well as being as high as she’s clearly been in the KGB as well as the FSB—she really would be a hell of a catch, wouldn’t she?” mused the MI6 Director.

  “Maxim Radtsic became the senior deputy to the KGB chairman for the last year of its existence and still has that position today,” reminded Rebecca. “Getting him across, which we know we’re going to do, is the higher prize.”

  “Getting both across would be the biggest coup of all,” said Monsford. “Coming so soon after the Lvov affair, it would reduce Russian intelligence—and Putin’s well-established Cold War determination—to a pile of dust.”

  “If we tried to do both we’d end up with one extraction getting in the way of the other and risk finishing up with neither,” Rebecca warned. “Natalia and the child are our diversion to get Radtsic out. That’s enough.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Monsford sighed, as the car headed up the embankment toward Cheyne Walk. “Do you want to eat in or out?”

  “It’s been a long day and will probably be longer tomorrow,” said Rebecca. “Let’s go straight home. After that lunch, all I feel like eating is you.” And that, she reflected, was an exaggeration.

  * * *

  Jane Ambersom flustered into the Mount Street restaurant, irritated at her second delay that day, searching anxiously around and smiling in relieved recognition at the wave from Barry Elliott, rising to meet her.

  “You got my message that I’d be late?” she said, as the American reached her.

  “Just as I was leaving the office: cleared my decks in the extra hour you gave me,” said her FBI liaison, leading her back to their table. “Something unexpected delay you?”

  Jane nodded to the offered chardonnay. “An out-of-town meeting overran.”

  “Anything of mutual interest?”

  “Mutual to you? Or the CIA?”

  “I don’t understand the question?” The man frowned.

  “I’m supposed to act as MI5 liaison to both. I haven’t heard from the CIA.”

  Elliott smiled, with schoolboy shyness. “I guess they’re nervous of you guys. They got their fingers badly burned the last time.”

  “So it’s just you and I?” said Jane, risking the flirtation.

  “Just you and I,” confirmed the American. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Nothing that’s emerged so far: no really useful chatter,” avoided the woman, although carefully allowing the uncertainty.

  “You don’t sound very sure,” quickly picked up the man, whose youthfulness was heightened by a schoolboy enthusiasm and a flop-forward forelock he constantly tried to sweep back into place, as he did at that moment.

  “You are aware of all the rumors coming out of Moscow about some impending upheaval?” Jane continued to avoid.

  “Nothing beyond the general traffic,” said Elliott. “Your people think it’s got some resonance?”

  “We’ve got it flagged after the Lvov business,” she said, nodding to the waiter that she’d have the same at Elliott, who’d studied the menu more thoroughly.

  “I’m not sure what you’re telling me,” complained the man.

  “There’s nothing to tell. It could be coincidence, so soon after,” refused Jane, content that she had done enough not just to plant but to water a seed she might choose to cultivate further if she suspected she was being offered up as a scapegoat for the second time.

  Which was a similar although not such a self-protective thought that came to James Straughan as he replaced the telephone in his Berkhamsted bedroom, long after he’d given up hope of hearing from the night-duty officer. It wasn’t the alert to which Gerald Monsford had decreed he should be awakened but it was close enough and Straughan was glad he at once called Cheyne Walk, sure from the strain evident in the MI6 Director’s answering voice that he’d fulfilled his fantasy and interrupted the bastard in flagrante.

  * * *

  “I got everything you wanted to England!” protested Maxim Radtsic.

  “You should have told me, before doing it,” said Elana.

  “You’re shouting,” warned Radtsix, looking around him. They’d parked the car and were walking slowly along the riverbank again.

  “So are you!”

  “Why should I have told you?”

  “Because you should!” said Elana, frowning at her own childlike response. She’d known from her first case packing trial—and ensured it further by overpacking it on the trials that followed—that Radtsic would dismiss it as impractical and hoped he would reconsider their fleeing because she believed he was overreacting to coincidence. Now she’d lost every family memento.

  “Why are you being like this!”

  “I don’t believe we have to run.”

  “Elana!” protested Radtsic, anguished at how it was going to be.

  “I’m frightened: too frightened.”

  The arrangement had been for Radtsic to meet Harry Jacobson that night in Gorky Park, close to the Ferris wheel where families with their children would have provided cover. Jacobson waited, increasingly apprehensive, for an hour after their appointed time before abandoning the rendezvous. He intentionally drove in the opposite direction from the embassy, although the registration would have been traceable, the fear not subsiding until he’d zigzagged through several streets. What the hell had gone wrong now? came the mantra pumping through his head.

  * * *

  “Is something wrong!” demanded Andrei.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just felt like calling you,” replied Elana.

 
“I’ve written to Father.”

  “We haven’t had a letter here.”

  “I sent it to his office.”

  “I’m not sure that was a good idea.”

  “He gave me a poste restante number I could use.”

  “Should I tell him to expect the letter?”

  “It’s up to you. It’s nothing serious. Nothing to worry about, I mean.”

  “Have you made many friends?”

  “A lot,” said Andrei, smiling across the apartment at Yvette, curled up catlike in an enveloping chair.

  “We miss you. Do you miss us?”

  “Of course. But I’m kept very busy.”

  “When will you be able to come home?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  “I’d like more letters.”

  “I told you, I’m kept very busy.”

  “Too busy for a single page?” The correspondence was channeled through the Russian embassy in the diplomatic pouch to avoid French intelligence interception of e-mails.

  “I’ll write soon. I promise. Is Father there?”

  “He’s putting the car away. I’ll tell him about the letter. And don’t forget to write.”

  “It was my mother,” said Andrei, to Yvette’s inquiring look.

  “I want you to teach me Russian. I like its sound.”

  ”She wanted to know when I was going to visit. I told her not for some time: that I was going to Aix.”

  She smiled again. “I know my father will like you.”

  10

  “It won’t work any other way,” insisted Charlie, confident he’d kept the scourging overnight doubt from his voice as he set out his rescue proposals.

  “Then it’s stillborn,” refused Aubrey Smith, flatly. “There’s absolutely no question of your becoming personally involved.”

  Despite its vital importance, he’d actually felt embarrassed at the previous night’s close in front of an audience of Smith, Jane Ambersom, and an assortment of earphoned technicians mouthing the carefully prepared words into the unanswered Moscow public telephones from which Natalia had pleaded, I’ve got your messages. I’m coming back: you know I’ll come back. Don’t panic. It’ll all be over soon.