“It’s still not possible,” she insisted.
“I’ve heard everything’s possible backed by your authority.”
“And I’ve heard bullshit and how good you are shovelling it.”
But she’d enjoyed it, Charlie decided. “I brought you a souvenir, to thank you in advance.” Charlie took the joke maestroika set from his briefcase doll by doll, identifying each Russian leader depicted in succeeding order of leadership. Whose face would be the next in line, he wondered, reassembling the figures one inside the other.
The smile—finally—broke the professional shell in which she clearly existed within the building, illuminating a surprisingly young face. “Don’t expect two days. But I’ll try to get it done as quickly as I can.”
Still with time to spare before the meeting with Sir Rupert and his advisors, Charlie took his time shuffling along nostalgically familiar corridors to the cafeteria in which he recognized no one and where no one recognized or acknowledged him in return. The coffee was as he remembered, like a long-term alcoholic’s urine sample, and all the riverview tables were occupied. So were those in the middle section. Charlie found an empty, single-seated table near the clattering service entrance. One of its legs were uneven, so the coffee spilled the moment he put it down. Why nostalgia? he demanded. Familiarity perhaps-even to being shunted to the worst table in the room-but there shouldn’t have been the smallest iota of remembered regret. So why was there? Why had he enjoyed the innocent flirtation of being with Anne Abbott in the Liberace-pianoed Dorchester bar the previous night and the cab ride through the flower dazzling Green Park and actually looked at and liked, for the first time, the hump-shouldered statue of Churchill glowering at the parliament buildings? Just remembrance: not nostalgia and certainly not regret. He never thought-reminisced-of any of this in Moscow. It was a freak of deja vu or something he couldn’t find a better phrase to describe. He had enjoyed being with Anne Abbott the previous night. Not in any silly, dangerous way: not even flirtatious. They’d just made each other laugh and in his case he’d been able to say things, make jokes, without balancing every word for hidden, misunderstood or misconstrued meaning before uttering it. Relaxed, he thought, surprised. Despite the impending encounter and whatever it was in which he was professionally involved in Moscow, for this brief returning moment he felt relaxed. At ease. Would Natalia be feeling that, with his not being in Moscow? Unburdened; briefly, gratefully, unendangered?
When Charlie got back to the top, executive-level floor Spence said, “Everything’s gone off and I’ve got calls in to those who can read our minds.”
Charlie wished he had a mind reading facility. He said, “I knew you could make it work for me, Spence.”
“I haven’t, not yet. Everyone’s waiting for you in the conference room.”
It adjoined Sir Rupert Dean’s office and was necessary for a full gathering. They were assembled at a long table, with the director-general in the center, their backs to the Thames. From where Charlie was directed to sit he could see the yellow and green, antenna-haired MI6 building on the other side of the river. It reminded him to call Donald Morrison sometime that day.
It was not Charlie’s first encounter with the control group and Dean didn’t bother with reintroductions. Instead he said, “We’ve kept ahead until now. So well done, so far. But now it’s all changed. The only thing that isn’t changed is our need to stay ahead.”
“Which is why you’ve been withdrawn,” announced Jocelyn Hamilton, brusquely eager. “We need to know the extent of the conspiracy: how much more deeply we might become involved.”
His adversary, Charlie knew, from the past; there always seemed to be one. As he looked directly to the burly deputy director, Charlie caught the sharp, sideways look from Dean and thought, shot yourself in your stupid mouth, asshole. Charlie said: “I know what we need. At the moment I can’t provide it.”
“Then perhaps you need help, supervision even,” seized Hamilton, at once.
“Perhaps what we all need is to hear what Charlie’s got to tell us before we start offering suggestions,” said Patrick Pacey, irritably.
An ally, Charlie recognized. He remained unspeaking, using the silence against his attacker until Dean came in, supporting him too. “Let’s hear that, Charlie. What is there to add to what you’ve already shipped back, which we’ve all seen?”
“I’m having our own ballisic confirmation, obviously, but it’s already come from the Americans,” said Charlie. “There were definitely two gunmen and it was the second one who hit the Russian president and Ruth Anandale. I believe Vera Bendall was murdered, inside Lefortovo. I’m hoping our pathologists will agree with me on that: the Russian autopsy verdict is that the evidence is inconclusive …”
“ … Why would she have been killed?” broke in Jeremy Simpson, the group’s legal advisor. “The statements you’ve given us don’t read as if she knew anything?”
“I don’t have answers for most of the questions you’re going to ask,” admitted Charlie, reluctantly. “Maybe she did know something but didn’t realize it, had to be silenced before it emerged.”
“Maybe she did know, was part of the conspiracy but hadn’t expected to be put in jail. Committed suicide because she couldn’t withstand the interrogation?” said Hamilton.
“Which would be the worst imaginable scenario,” unnecessarily reminded the permanently red-faced political officer. “Assassin son of a British defector is bad enough: assassin son with British defector’s wife as an accomplice is appalling.”
Charlie shook his head. “Vera Bendall was neither clever nor strong enough to have been actively involved or included. What she knew-if anything—she knew accidentally. Or was killed for an entirely different reason.”
“Prove it, any of it!” demanded the deputy director-general.
“I can’t,” said Charlie. This wasn’t how he’d expected it to be. He was appearing to have reached far too many conclusions upon far too little evidence.
“If Vera Bendall was murdered the conspiracy has in some way to involve disaffected factions among highly placed Russians with access to Lefortovo,” said Sir Rupert Dean.
“Which points to the FSB, formerly-or alias, even-the KGB, whose files have disappeared,” completed Charlie. He added, “An intelligence service, irrespective of whatever its name is now, that was in the forefront of the 1991 coup against change.”
“We’re going around and around in unresolved circles!” protested Hamilton.
“Maybe that’s the intention,” suggested Charlie. Another “maybe” he recognized, uncomfortably.
Hamilton sighed. “Off we skip down another yellow brick road! I can’t wait to hear this theory!”
In Charlie’s mind everything made sense: was supported by known, established facts. But as he paraded them-analyzed themin his mind he stumbled over too many maybes. “It’s too clumsy. George Bendall is mentally unstable, possibly alcoholic. If the intention was to kill one—possibly two-presidents, no conspiracy group would trust George Bendall to carry it out. Or only allow him just two bullets to do it. Or put him in a position where it was inevitable that he would be seized … .” Charlie paused for breath, wondering if his parting question to Bendal—how were they going to get you away?—had properly registered with the man. There were various expressions on the faces of the men opposite him, none which Charlie judged receptive. Pressing on determinedly, he said, “It was the second gunman who put two bullets into Lev Yudkin. And hit the American First Lady, most likely in mistake for the American president. They didn’t need George Bendall …”
“Except to be caught?” queried the bald, moustached Simpson, following Charlie’s argument.
“Except to be caught,” agreed Charlie.
“Why!” demanded Hamilton. “What for?”
“I don’t know,” Charlie was forced to admit. “To create a confusion, send everyone the wrong way.”
“They’ve certainly succeeded here, if that was the int
ention!” jeered Hamilton.
Charlie didn’t feel relaxed anymore. He felt exposed—wallowing—and he didn’t like it.
“We’ve all read your hospital interview with the man,” said the director-general, his spectacles moving back and forth between his hands like the preparation for a conjuring trick. “Give us your analysis of that.”
“Again, I’m having it assessed by experts,” assured Charlie, grateful for the escape. “But I think Bendall fits a mold. He comes from a totally dysfunctional family, hates everything and everyone. He’d got a predilection to violence, usually under the influence of drink. The army doesn’t help him; appears—I repeat appears—to make it worse. But there seems to have been a group, a brotherhood to use his word, that admitted him. His first-only-acceptance. They had a song. If you’ve listened yet to the tape I sent, along with the transcript, you heard him humming it. You also heard-and readhim several times use the word ‘special.’ There were a lot of mentally questionable, often drunk, violence-inclined men in beerhalls in Munich from the 1920s onwards who had their own particular song and thought themselves part of a special, select brotherhood … .”
“I don’t believe this …” broke in Hamilton, shaking his head in exaggerated incredulity.
Charlie wasn’t sure that he did anymore. Before he could continue, Simpson said, “Do you think that’s where the conspiracy is, among this so called brotherhood?”
“Yes. And I think I can establish it, in time,” insisted Charlie. “It’s a question I want to put to a psychiatrist or psychologist but I don’t infer that first encounter with Bendall as obstructive, a refusal to talk. He thinks he’s clever: there is often a deceptive cleverness in madness. I believe Bendall imagines he’s playing with me, being cleverer than me, but that he wants to tell me about whoever or whatever it is he was a part of.”
“I’m trying to work it out,” mocked Hamilton. “Are we following the theories of Freud here? Or could it be Jung? Or there again could it be the teachings and crystal ball of Madam Maud, the clairvoyant in a gypsy tent at the bottom of a pier somewhere?”
Jocelyn Hamilton clearly wasn’t aware of the profound Russian belief in clairvoyants and superstition, Charlie decided. Ignoring the ridicule, he said, “I’m hoping to get some sort of psychiatric or psychological report within twenty-four hours.”
“We accept a conspiracy,” conceded the director-general, slowly. “There’s forensic proof, at least, of that. It succeeded in removing the Russian president from the political scene, possibly forever, if it didn’t actually kill him. Hurt-in one instance killed—others. Why should a well organized group in any way involve someone as unstable as Bendall who, if you’re right, will eventually expose them? It doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s my point!” pleaded Charlie, only just avoiding the exasperation being obvious. “Not yet it doesn’t make sense, far too little does. It might when the Russians trace Bendall’s army medical records … find evidence of a special group in the units in which Bendall served. And there’s a proper investigation into the death of the NTV cameraman Vasili Isakov.”
“But then again, it might not,” sneered Hamilton.
Every other face remained blank, unconvinced, and unimpressed. Patrick Pacey, whose function as political officer was to liaise with the Home Office and Downing Street, said, “I want a positive answer. Is there any possibility of another Briton being involved in this?”
“I can’t give a positive answer,” apologized Charlie. “I don’t know.”
“Is there any possibility of the mother being found to be involved?”
“I don’t personally believe she was, but again I can’t give a positive answer.” Charlie couldn’t remember any debriefing being as bad, as humiliating, as this.
There was an echoing silence.
The permanently red-faced political officer said, “There was an overnight Note from Sir Michael Parnell that the Russians are furious at the leak about a second gunman. That makes it an official diplomatic enquiry.”
“I wanted it kept back as much as they did,” said Charlie.
“So it didn’t come from you?” persisted Hamilton.
“Of course it didn’t!” said Charlie, careless of the indignation.
“What about from someone you’re dealing with in Moscow, one of your sources?” asked Dean.
It was more of a strident klaxon than a warning bell that sounded in Charlie’s mind. If there’d been a diplomatic enquiry it was official. And could easily become annexed to the presidential commission into the missing intelligence dossiers. “It would not have come from any of my sources.”
“How good is liaison between you, the Americans and the Russians?” persisted Hamilton.
Would Donald Morrison have told MI6 across the river of being lied to, by the CIA’s Burt Jordan? Charlie said, “Good enough, I think. Everything’s fully computerized in the American incident room.”
“Which means that anything one or the other-or both—doesn’t want put on the computer isn’t logged in the first place,” dismissed Hamilton. “Have you been totally open, with whatever you’ve obtained independently?”
“Those were my instructions, from here,” reminded Charlie.
“Which isn’t the answer to my question,” said Hamilton.
“Yes, I’ve shared everything.” It was more or less true: the qualification came down to timing.
“If the leak didn’t come from you—or any of your contactsand it didn’t come from the Russians, then the Americans must be the source,” said Jeremy Simpson. “What’s their benefit in doing that?”
“There isn’t one, as far as I can see,” said Charlie. When the hell was there going to be a question to which he did have an answer! Addressing Patrick Pacey, he said, “I’m surprised-perhaps even more curious-that so quickly there’s been diplomatic traffic from Moscow about a criminal investigation, certainly about something that happened less than twenty-four hours ago. Aren’t you?”
“Yes,” agreed the political officer, reflectively. “What’s your point?”
“Something along the lines of protesting too much.”
“More convolution,” sighed Hamilton.
“I think it’s a valid observation,” contradicted the director-general. “But the question remains, why? What’s the Russian benefit?”
“There’s going to be an investigation by a presidential commission into the missing KGB files,” reminded Charlie, reminding himself in turn of the possible personal implications. “This could deflect some of the pressure on their successors, the FSB. A lot of whose senior officers—Dimitri Spassky most definitely—are former KGB.”
“There’s a logic there,” agreed Dean.
“A rare commodity!” derided Hamilton.
“We need a lot more to move this discussion on,” said the director-general.
“I could make some calls,” offered Charlie. Donald Morrison would obviously be first-maybe even Brooking—but dare he risk telephoning Natalia?
“I think we’d benefit from a group discussion, too,” said Hamilton, balefully.
Spence was waiting when Charlie emerged into the outer office. “Woolwich Arsenal say it’ll take three days for the ballistic confirmation you want. They’re miffed at being caught out on the acoustical assessment. And three days is the earliest for any psychological profile. The blood tests will be ready by tomorrow.”
“What I can’t take back with me will have to be sent in the diplomatic bag,” said Charlie.
The formidable woman shook a permed head. “The psychologist didn’t want to do it at all; called it working from a distance. He wants to see you to answer whatever questions he might have.”
He wouldn’t be back to take Sasha to the circus, Charlie realized.
“That was appalling!” pounced Jocelyn Hamilton, at once. “Muffin’s clearly out of his depth, unable to handle this.”
“He proved there was a second gunman,” Simpson pointed out.
�
��It would have come out through ballistics,” insisted the deputy director.
“But he suspected it first,” said Simpson, equally insistent. “And he was the first to learn of Bendall’s involvement.”
“If we keep him on the investigation—which I personally don’t think we should—Mufin needs to be supervised,” argued Hamilton. “Somebody else definitely should be put in charge.”
“That would look as if we believed he was the source of the second gunman disclosure,” said Pacey.
“Are you sure he wasn’t?” demanded Hamilton.
Sir Rupert Dean said, “I prefer Muffin’s theory of it being an FSB leak. They’re the only beneficiaries, although not by much.”
“So do I,” said Simpson.
“I propose that Muffin is taken off the case entirely,” said Hamilton. “And that we send in better qualified investigators from here.”
“What do you imagine someone from here could have achieved better than Charlie Muffin in just five days!” demanded Simpson. “We’re not in fantasyland—your yellow brick road—we’re in murderous reality, maybe even more murderous than we yet know.”
“That’s theatrical!” protested Hamilton.
“No!” refused Simpson. “It’s what I called it, murderous reality. Charlie lives there, knows the place. Speaks the language. And as he’s proved, has got useful contacts. Sending someone from here at this stage, cold, would be stupid.”
“Quite apart from the reason I’ve already given, I see no purpose whatsoever in side-tracking Charlie Muffin, supervising him,” agreed Pacey. “There’s nothing to show Muffin isn’t doing everything he should be doing. There’s no reason to replace him.”
“How many times did he say, in answer to anything he was asked, ‘I don’t know’?” demanded Hamilton.
“Probably not as many times as the Russians or the Americans with whom he’s working,” said Simpson.
“Aren’t we losing sight of the fact that with the uncertainty that surrounds this department, we can’t afford to take a chance with Charlie Muffin!” said Hamilton.
Kings of Many Castles Page 18
