Kings of Many Castles

by Brian Freemantle

  “Why ‘of course’?”

  “Yesterday you talked of premature reactions,” reminded the lawyer. “This is inappropriately premature until we’ve had the opportunity to judge the compliance.”

  “Do you feel it’s inappropriately premature?” she asked Trishin.

  The chief of staff looked uncertainly towards the recording bank. “I think prior discussion would have been advisable.”

  Now Natalia indicated the silently turning apparatus. “Your dissent has been noted.”

  “I didn’t say I dissented,” Trishin quickly insisted. “If we are to reach a combined opinion, which is in the terms of reference, we’ve got to come to combined decisions upon the conduct of the enquiry.”

  Perfect politico-speak, Natalia recognized. “Combined decisions? Or majority decisions?”

  Their exchanged looks answered Natalia’s question before Filitov did. The lawyer said, “Our primary term of reference is speed. Which requires majority opinions, in my judgment.” The man paused, to establish the mockery. “Dissent can always be noted.”

  After politoco-speak, legal-speak, acknowledged Natalia. And each-rarely-as illuminating as the other. She hadn’t expected to benefit so much-be warned so quickly-from this pre-session encounter. She was glad she’d orchestrated it as precisely as she had. She hoped she could continue the momentum, although again she didn’t foresee the quickness with which that would come about.

  There was still ten minutes to go before the official opening when their registration clerk reentered the chamber and initially bent to Natalia’s ear with his copy of the witness list.

  “We all need to hear,” demanded Filitov.

  “An unscheduled witness whom we’ll hear at once,” announced Natalia. “First Deputy Director Gennardi Nikolaevich Mittel.”

  “I don’t understand,” protested Trishin, his frowned confusion matching the other man’s.

  “It won’t take long,” promised Natalia, at Mittel came confidently into the room. The FSB deputy was a young man with an indented scar grooving the left side of an otherwise unlined face. His deeply black hair was helmeted directly back from his forehead in greased perfection and his civilian, uncreased gray suit was just as immaculate. The smile, as confident as his easy entry, showed sculptured dentistry. He took the fronting chair Natalia indicated and crossed one razor-sharp leg across the other.

  “You are not on the list of witnesses whom this commission has asked to help it, Gennardi Nikolaevich?” invited Natalia. It was predictable, she supposed, but she’d thought there would have been a written protest, not a patronizing emissary.

  “You summoned my chairman,” said Mittel, as if in reminder. He remained smiling.

  “Viktor Ivanovich Karelin is indeed among those whom we wish to question,” agreed Natalia. Beside her she was conscious of Trishin and Filitov shifting, in belated understanding.

  “Whom you will understand is an extremely busy man,” said Mittel. “I am here to represent him. I am sure I shall be able to help you with any questions you might have.”

  Natalia let a silence chill the room. “Viktor Ivanovich fully understands that this is a presidential commission?”

  The smile faltered. “Of course.”

  “As you do?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have discussed it with Viktor Ivanovich?”

  “He personally—officially—appointed me to represent him.”

  “Tell us, for the record, what you and Viktor Ivanovich understand a commission established by the acting president to be?”

  The man was no longer smiling. He unfolded his legs. “It is an enquiry into some irregularities that appear to have arisen in the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, an organization that no longer exists.”

  In her former chief interrogator’s role within Special Service 11 of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, Natalia had invariably found conceit—condescension—the easiest shell to crack. She wondered if the man knew how much of the FSB’s defense he’d given away in that one reply. “That wasn’t an answer to my question. So I’ll make it easier for you. Do you—and your chairman-understand the authority of this commission?”

  “Of course.” Mittel was wary now, his hands forward on tighttogether legs.

  “An authority not lessened by the fact that Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov is at the moment acting president?”

  “It is the authority of the office,” said Mittel.

  “An authority and an office that your chairman is too busy to observe?”

  “I can assure this commission that no disrespect was intended to it or to the acting president.”

  “I think that is important to be established on the record,” said Natalia, indicating the secretariat. “Let’s see what else can be established. You have been deputed as the highest official of the FSB to help this enquiry?”

  “Yes.”

  “So help us.”

  Mittel gazed back at her, blankly. “I’m sorry … I don’t …”

  “Where are the complete files of Peter Bendall, a British physicist who defected to the Soviet Union in 1972, the corollary details that would have been maintained upon his family, after they joined him in Moscow, the information that would have been kept separately upon the son, George Bendall—also known as Georgi Gugin—and everything that was taken from the family apartment at Hutorskaya Ulitza upon Peter Bendall’s death and again upon the seizure of George Bendall, nine days ago?” Natalia wondered how long it would be before Trishin or Filitov came into the exchange. Or were they remaining gratefully quiet, leaving what was clearly an immediate and dangerous confrontation entirely to her?

  Mittel remained unmoving for several moments. There was the faintest hint of the earlier smile, quickly gone. “As I pointed out a few moments ago, the KGB no longer exists as an organization. It has been largely disbanded, its functions, manpower and archives greatly reduced. What remained was absorbed by the FSB, which I represent here today on behave of its chairman. And on behalf of its chairman I have to assure this enquiry that the most rigorous search has been made, among archives that the FSB inherited, to locate the material you’ve asked for. I regret to say-regret to tell this commission-that nothing has been found.”

  “Which is what we are going to be told by everyone else from the FSB whom we have called here today?”

  “I am afraid so.” One leg was crossed easily over the other again.

  The reforms and supposed new democracy were still fragile, the more so in the uncertainty of the rapidly growing communist strength. And the FSB remained a megalith, waiting in the wings to reemerge as an unchallenged government within a government. To protect herself there had to be provable discussion, with the other two on the panel. Even that might not be as protective as she hoped. “Would you retire, Gennardi Nikolaevich? But don’t leave the anteroom. We’ll need to call you back.”

  “The intention is to reduce us—and by inference the acting president—to a laughing stock!” insisted Natalia. “The man’s actually told us what each and every witness we’ve called is going to say!”

  “We need to consult,” said Trishin.

  “We are consulting, right now!”

  “I meant with the president.”

  The president, noted Natalia: not Aleksandr Mikhailevich or acting president. “If we do that, we’re making a laughing stock of ourselves: proving ourselves totally inadequate for the function for which we were appointed.”

  “It’s directly confrontational,” judged Filitov.

  “Apparently,” cautioned Natalia. Could she bring them with her, convince them? Their knowledge that she’d once served in the KGB—a service to which Trishin had already referred-might help. Both men were looking at her, waiting. She didn’t continue.

  Finally Filitov asked, “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s classical textbook, whatever name or acronym or initial letter designation you want to choose. They’re elite: above reproach, question or examination,�
�� said Natalia.

  “I still don’t follow,” protested Trishin.

  “Our reaction is their test of strength: the strength of Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov if he succeeds to the presidency against those who will oppose him.” How much of a two edged sword was it to have maintained the secretariat recording? She was committed now: not a sword carrier, more a solitary standard bearer stranded in the no-man’s-land between opposing forces.

  “That’s your professional judgment, based upon your knowledge of the organization?” demanded Filitov.

  “Yes,” said Natalia, at once.

  “Which makes it essential to consult Aleksandr Mikhailevich before we do react,” declared Trishin, relieved at the decision being taken from them.

  “No,” refused Natalia, quickly again. “That is the test. You, Yuri Fedorovich, are the president’s—the acting president’s—chief of staff, the man who reflects his thinking, speaks for him, acts for him. You, Pavl Yakovlevich, are the judiciary: for the first time in more than seventy years the supposedly independent-of-government law. I—more tentatively although more specifically—represent civilian law enforcement, one of the few functions that has really been lost to the FSB by the cosmetic disbandment of the KGB. In microcosm, who we represent is the new order in Russia.”

  “Aren’t you over-stressing the symbolism?” challenged Filitov.

  “I don’t think so,” said Natalia, as forcefully as she could.

  “Are you inferring FSB complicity in the attack upon the presidents?”

  “You know, from the crisis committee’s discussions that have been made available to you, that complicity hasn’t been excluded, although there’s no proof whatsoever to support an accusation,” reminded Natalia. “At this stage I’m suggesting nothing more than the Lubyanka moving to turn a potentially embarrassing weakness—their loss of records-into a positive strength-testing benefit. We have, now, not just to match but outmatch that strength: or, if you prefer, out-bluff them.”

  “How?” demanded Trishin, forehead creased in his effort to keep up.

  “If we accept the arrogance of First Chief Deputy Gennardi Mittel—and all those who are going to recite the same denials after him—then we destroy ourselves on our first day,” insisted Natalia.

  “I suppose we do,” allowed Trishin, uncertainly.

  Filitov nodded agreement, but didn’t speak.

  “So let’s play the hand,” urged Natalia. “Let’s confront their confrontation now, only harder. Let’s face the arrogance down, at least for today. That allows you, Yuri Fedorovich, all the time you need to consult and discuss with the acting president …” She nodded to the secretariat. “ … with the advantage of every word that’s been exchanged. If we haven’t responded as we should then tomorrow we back down under the bullying of the FSB, which effectively ends any purpose in our being empanelled. The only humiliation will be ours, which it will be anyway if we collapse now under FSB pressure.”

  “Not quite,” contradicted Trishin. “The humiliation will be that of acting President Okulov, as well.”

  “Which it will be if we cave in now.”

  Filitov said, “It’s a convincing argument.”

  “I’d welcome a better one,” admitted Natalia.

  “I don’t have one,” said the federal prosecutor.

  “Neither do I,” said Trishin.

  The spring had gone out of Gennardi Mittel’s step when he was recalled and there was no languid crossing of legs.

  Natalia said, “We do not think you or your chairman fully understand the importance of what this commission is charged and authorized to inquire into. Which is unfortunate. We will not accept your deputizing for Viktor Ivanovich Karelin. You will return to the Lubyanka, with a copy of our terms of reference and with the request from us to chairman Karelin to make himself available, before this commission, tomorrow. We will continue today to examine the other FSB officials in the very sincere hope that they will not repeat the explanation that you seemed to think adequate. But as you indicated that would be their response, we would have you advise chairman Karelin that it is unacceptable and have him bring with him tomorrow people better able to answer our questions. Do you have any questions, First Chief Deputy Mittel?”

  The man’s throat was working, in his astonishment, but no words came at once. When they did, they were strained in disbelief. “I would respectfully ask this commission to reconsider.”

  “This commission does not believe there is anything to reconsider,” said Natalia. “We look forward to seeing chairman Karelin before us at the scheduled time tomorrow.” She’d imposed her will, Natalia accepted. But at what cost or purpose?

  They used the satellite transmission installed for Walter Anandale visually to conduct the Washington cabinet meeting when he’d been in Moscow, although this time the exchange was far more restricted in numbers although not in emotion, which went through the whole gamut from implacable fury to benign unconcern. There were three, in each capital. In the specially adapted embassy room on Novinskij Bul’var James Scamell sat between John Kayley and the ambassador, Cornell Burton. In Washington the president was flanked by Wendall North and the FBI director, Paul Smith. The guilt-apportioning, one-to-one encounters had been conducted behind closed doors before the link-up but the recriminations still simmered, like summer heat off a tarred road. Paul Smith’s humiliating inclusion was a continuing part of the man’s punishment.

  “We were roasted alive,” complained the secretary of state, voice still tight with the memory of their summons to the Russian Foreign Ministry. “Petrin actually used the word ‘arrogance’ and ‘cowboy’. And we didn’t have a position to come back from. How the hell did it happen!”

  “A mistake that shouldn’t have occurred,” said Anandale, still gripped by the anger with which he’d flayed the FBI director, towards whom he intentionally looked sideways as he spoke. “What’s the proper story of this damned injection?”

  “We categorically denied knowing anything about it, which we don’t,” quickly came in Kayley, outwardly grave-faced like the rest of them but inwardly the happiest man involved, knowing that from now on he was absolutely fireproof, double-coated in Teflon. Whatever went wrong could be squarely—irrefutably—blamed on the director’s stupid instructions even more stupidly wrongly directed, for everyone to read. “None of us touched the guy; it’s absurd imagining that we would.”

  “Except for the e-mail,” said Scamell, who two hours earlier, standing in the Russian ministry being treated like a miscreant schoolboy, had finally seen disappear any publicly acknowledged diplomatic credit for almost a year’s commuting between Washington and Moscow. “We can swear on a stack of bibles a mile high that it wasn’t us and they’ll laugh in our face just like Boris Petrin laughed in my face. There’s no purpose in my staying here anymore but for the fact that by coming home I’d be inferring we did do it. We’re screwed here, Mr. President. We couldn’t be in a worse position if we tried to invent one.”

  “What about the practical, on-the-ground operation?” asked Wendall North.

  “There isn’t one,” dismissed Kayley. “The Russians have withdrawn from our combined incident room. Switched the timing of an exhumation that might be important, so I wasn’t able to be there. It’s the autopsy that’s important and I’ve no way now of getting that …” He hesitated, wanting to build his self-protecting barricade as strong as he could. “We were told, at the Foreign Ministry, that we wouldn’t in future be allowed any access whatsoever to Bendall. Effectively, we’ve been closed down.”

  “Jesus!” said Anandale, stretching the word in his exasperation.

  “We didn’t do it …” started Wendall North.

  It was a rhetorical remark but Kayley’s day had begun facing Scamell’s suspicion. The dishevelled man said, “Can we get this straight, the first and last time! We-did-not-drug-the-goddamned-man!”

  “Appreciate you making that so clear to us,” continued the chief of staff. “So
who did?”

  Kayley shook his head, discomfited by his over-reaction. “God only knows!”

  “What about the British?” persisted North.

  Kayley shook his head again. “Too long an interval, from the time they saw him.”

  “Which only leaves the Russians,” isolated Smith, desperate to make some sort of recovery. “How about it being a set-up? Injecting the guy and pointing the finger at us, to break up the cooperation?”

  “What’s the point of their going to all the effort?” demanded Scamell.

  “Resentment, at our leadership,” answered Smith.

  Everyone waited for someone else to make the point. It was Anandale who did. “We made a pretty good job of screwing that up for ourselves.” The president let the repeated criticism settle before he said, “OK, what can we do to restore the situation?”

  “It’ll need a substantial gesture,” advised the secretary of state. “Something like getting the treaty back on track.”

  “I agree,” said the ambassador. “Diplomatically we’re looking pretty bad here. I can’t remember so bad.”

  “I don’t want to go that route,” rejected the president. “OK, we’ve got to play pull-back. But as it wasn’t us and it couldn’t have been the British, the Russians did it themselves and are using it to force us into treaty concessions. I’m not going to do that.”

  “That’s my only idea,” said the secretary of state.

  “What about my talking to Okulov direct?” suggested Anandale.

  “That’s the one thing I don’t think you should do, get directly involved,” warned Scamell. “I think you’ve got to remain above the actual recrimination.”

  “So do I,” said Wendall North, at once.

  “I want to get the damned thing back on course. Find the son-of-a-bitch who did what he did to Ruth,” insisted Anandale.

  “It’s got to be right, first time,” said Scamell. “Thought out, from every which way.”

  “So let’s do just that,” agreed Anandale. “Let’s you and I think about it from every which way over the next hour or two, Jamie. Call me at four, your time. I want a recovery idea by then.”