Kings of Many Castles

by Brian Freemantle

  In Moscow the American embassy incident room quieted at John Kayley’s entry. Kayley said, “The president has accepted the resignation of Paul Smith as Bureau Director.”

  “Will it be enough?” queried someone in the room.

  “As far as I know there isn’t anything else.”

  17

  Sir Rupert Dean said, “Are you telling us George Bendall didn’t shoot anybody!”

  It was the first interruption since Charlie had started to speak fifteen minutes earlier in the riverview conference room at Millbank and he was enjoying the unqualified attention. Even Jocelyn Hamilton hadn’t found anything to attack. Charlie said: “In the opinion of one ballistics expert, with fifteen years of specific forensic experience matching bullets with guns, it is highly unlikely from the photographs he’s seen that the two bullets thought to have come from Bendall’s rifle were in fact fired from it. He’s now submitted what he examined to two other specialists, for their independent assessment. He also wants to examine the physical evidence: all the recovered bullets and Bendall’s rifle. Until he’s able to do that, he says he can’t be categorical.”

  “Will the Russians release them?” demanded Hamilton, at last.

  “I won’t know that until I get back,” said Charlie. “At the moment they’re in the incident room at the American embassy. It could be that their ballistics people have come to the same opinion and carried out the tests our man wants to conduct. Reached a definitive conclusion, in fact.”

  “You had this overnight, known about it for fifteen hours!” protested Hamilton. “What’s wrong with the telephone!”

  “All sorts of things if the call’s made to the wrong place and number,” said Charlie, savoring being able to puncture the man’s attempts so easily. “I spoke to Morrison at our embassy, on a secure line, first thing this morning. Got him to check what’s been made generally available by the Americans on the incident room computers, which are supposed to hold all the evidence we have. It’s convenient our two embassies are so close. It didn’t take him long to come back to me, again on our own secure line. There was nothing about this, as of an hour ago. So if the American have picked it up, they’re not sharing it.”

  “How do you read that?” asked Jeremy Simpson.

  “I don’t,” said Charlie. “They might not have found it yet. If they have, they might be holding it back to be some sort of bargaining counter, to recover with the Russians. Or they think it’s something only they’ve discovered and don’t intend sharing it at all. If they haven’t got George Bendall they haven’t got anyone who really matters.”

  “Neither have the Russians,” Simpson pointed out.

  “Let’s talk about that!” demanded Patrick Pacey, more to the lawyer than anyone else. “How clear are we, if what the director said is provable: that Bendall didn’t shoot anyone?”

  They were aware of Anne Abbott, Charlie reminded himself. And there seemed no longer any reason why he shouldn’t refer to her. Charlie said, “A lawyer from the embassy’s legal department came back from Moscow with me. She’s postponed her return, because of this, to discuss it and possibly get different instructions.”

  “Those instructions will have the advantage of Russian law, which I don’t know in sufficient detail,” said Simpson. “We accept there’s a conspiracy, which Bendall has in some way to be part. He was at the scene, he had a gun and he fired it, even if he didn’t hit anybody. If the bullets aren’t his I think it helps greatly with a mitigation plea, like the fact that he was drunk and that there’s a mental problem. If we get the real conspirators in the dock we could possibly show Bendall to be the totally manipulated dupe.”

  “And if we don’t get the real conspirators in court?” persisted the political officer.

  “We’ve got a defendable not guilty plea to murder, a guilty pleawith the mitigation I’ve talked about-to conspiracy to murder,” assessed Simpson. “But let’s not lose sight of the fact that under English law conspiracy to murder—premeditatedly planning a killing rather than committing the act in a moment of anger or passion—is held to be worse than the actual crime itself.”

  “So we’re not a great deal further forward?” said Hamilton.

  “I’m not qualified to offer a legal opinion,” said Patrick Pacey. “What I can assess is our ability to offer a political and diplomatic defense and I think that’s gone up tremendously.”

  “And in so doing continues to justify this department,” agreed the director-general, looking pointedly at his deputy.

  And his continued posting in Moscow, Charlie recognized. He wondered how Natalia would feel about that when he told her. If he told her. He probably wouldn’t. He hadn’t talked to her in any detail about the initial criticism in London which was now virtually immaterial anyway. It had been a more conscious decision to withhold the uncorroborated ballistic findings even before she’d told him of the FSB confrontation during the previous evening’s call. Despite getting the unintended admissions and concessions from the insufficiently programmed secondary witnesses, she’d gone farther than he would have liked or suggested in summoning the chairman of the FSB, particularly with the presidential uncertainty and it surprised him. He was even more anxious now to get back to Moscow and talk to her about it. What else was there for the two of them to talk about? Nothing, Charlie decided at once; no commitment, no recriminations therefore no guilt.

  Jocelyn Hamilton said, “Are we in any way affected by the dismissal of the FBI director?”

  “I don’t see why we should be,” said Pacey. “It’s obviously a political gesture, a pretty dramatic attempt to recover by the Americans; desperate, almost.”

  “Might that not indicate that they haven’t got the ballistic analyses yet?” queried Dean.

  “I don’t think so,” Charlie came in quickly, always aware that Sir Rupert was an academic, not a sewer soulmate. “You want to burst a dam, you set a heavy enough charge to ensure everything’s engulfed. The entire responsibility for the breakdown between America and Russia has been dumped upon their director, who’s blown away; charged, convicted and sentenced if not to death then to career oblivion. Washington’s adopting Russian precedent-purging-is easier for Russian to understand. And, hopefully, to be enticed back into the sharing, communal fold.”

  “We do need to be part of a sharing, communal fold, don’t we?” suggested Sir Rupert Dean.

  Charlie was way ahead of the older man’s reasoning-why, in fact, irrespective of today’s discussion, he’d never intended sharing the Woolwich Arsenal doubts until he got back to Moscow-but showing the deferential diplomatic awareness that would have surprised everyone in the room, he said, “I think so, sir, for all the reasons we’ve already discussed.”

  “So we’ve got the way to achieve it, haven’t we?” said Dean.

  Charlie smiled, as if in initial understanding. “Yes we have, haven’t we?”

  Viktor Ivanovich Karelin was someone who strove—and succeeded—to be the sort of man crowds were made of, inconspicuous, unrecognized and unknown. He actually cultivated the amorphic grayness—gray face, gray hair, gray suit-traditional for an intelligence head but which was all the more necessary in the current leadership flux. He was a KGB-era bureaucrat, politically—and willingly—promoted by the president as a hopeful bridge across which the old would cross to the new in attitude and allegiance. Which some, although not all, attitudes and allegiances had and which added to what the pliably adaptable Karelin viewed as a major personal problem, his now being stranded in the middle of the bridge without knowing which side visibly to head for. Sending Gennardi Mittel in his place had put him on the traditional side of the divide. He had never, in a million years, expected the unthinkably direct—humiliating—challenge. Which had to mean that the intelligence he had so far had analysed on the likely succession-and Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov’s strength-was questionable. In which case there had potentially been a very bad miscalculation—a mistake for which professional analysts would b
e called to explain—and from which he had to recover. Or at least put himself back in the middle of the bridge. The problem was getting back there, without losing any further face. The truth—or what he believed to be the truth—would actually add to the humiliation.

  There was none of the arrogant strut of his previous day’s emissary when Karelin entered the Kremlin room, although there was a self-enclosed confidence about the man when he sat, folded his hands in his lap and waited to be addressed. I’ve come this farreluctantly—now you come to me. Only Yuri Trishin knew what the FSB chairman looked like, so completely did Karelin preserve his anonymity and that recognition came from an unpublished photograph on presidential record, not from any personal meeting. The photograph had been badly lit, to be intentionally misleading. Natalia’s immediate impression was of a self-assured professional. She hoped she was right. It would mean—should mean, if she were right—that he wouldn’t be taking this personally. It would have been worrisome that he looked intently and undividedly at all three of them—herself last and most intently of all-as if identifying them had she not earlier that morning received the acting president’s signed congratulations for her previous day’s handling of the FSB opposition.

  The moment for their meet-in-the-middle diplomacy, decided Natalia. “Thank you, Chairman Viktor Ivanovich, for coming today.”

  “I’m afraid there was a misunderstanding,” said Karelin. There was a slight sibilant speech impediment.

  “Which is what we believed it to have been,” said Natalia. Hands extended, hands touched: no embarrassment.

  “I would like to help the commission, if I could.”

  “We hope you can,” said Natalia, more positively. Nudge him off the prepared path, she thought. “Was the FSB actively involved in the attempted assassination of the Russian and American presidents?”

  Karelin gave no facial or physical reaction whatsoever. Neither did he artificially hesitate, as if surprised or offended by the question. “No.”

  Not a hard enough push, Natalia decided, remembering the telephone call from Leonid Zenin. “Has the FSB any assets within the Burdenko Hospital?”

  “I don’t understand that question,” said Karelin, again without hesitation. He’d demanded briefings on every possible question but the hospital hadn’t been mentioned.

  “It’s a very simple one,” said Natalia. “Is there someone on the medical staff of the Burdenko Hospital who is an informant or operative of the FSB?” There would have been, when the organization was the KGB. There hadn’t been a government body, civilian institution or supposed independent organization that hadn’t been infiltrated.

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “You are the chairman, Viktor Ivanovich. Such awareness would be far below your personal knowledge, wouldn’t it?”

  Karelin’s concentration was absolute, the two men either side of Natalia non existent. “Yes.”

  “This is a presidential commission. We have the highest security clearance.”

  Karelin was churning inwardly, bewildered by the questioning. “I acknowledge that.”

  “The FSB has taken over the responsibilities of the KGB?” Beside her Natalia was conscious of Pavl Filitov shifting, noisily, and decided the Federal Prosecutor was communicating with Karelin in sympathetic body language. It was going to be a surprise for him and Trishin when she stopped allowing both to hide behind her skirts. Knowing as they did of Okulov’s congratulatory letter, both men were noticeably deferential.

  “In a greatly reduced and publicly accountable way.”

  Natalia could not have anticipated that response and for a moment she needed to recompose herself—adjust her mind—to the maximum benefit. “Does the Fifth Chief Directorate still exist?”

  “I had forgotten you were once a KGB officer,” said Karelin.

  A weak response—weak threat—Natalia decided. “Does the Fifth Chief Directorate still exist?”

  “With greatly reduced functions. And no longer under that designation.”

  She had to be careful not to demean the man. “Will you undertake to have the former Fifth Chief Directorate, whose responsibility was to emplace KGB agents and informants in all public services, checked to see if your succeeding organization has an asset within Burdenko Hospital?

  “Not without knowing the reason for such an enquiry.” Karelin listened expressionlessly, still physically unmoving, to Natalia’s explanation and didn’t speak for several moments after she’d finished. When he did he said, “I will have that search made.”

  “We appreciate your cooperation,” smiled Natalia. She gave herself pause, to anticipate the moment. Then she said, “I’ll now hand the inquiry over to my colleagues.”

  There was a deafening silence, more disconcerting for both Filitov and Trishin by the way the FSB chairman visibly moved his head between them, in expectation. It was the federal prosecutor who finally verbally stumbled into the exchange and almost at once Natalia was conscious of Karelin relaxing, settling more obviously—comfortably—into his chair. Filitov—and occasionally Trishin—recited their questions never once pressing the man. Nor did they pick up from the concessions that had been prised out of the previous day’s witnesses after their dismissal of Gennardi Mittel. Karelin was clearly a professional, so he would be reading the encounter—particularly Trishin’s part in it-as she was. The presidential chief of staff was nervous, deferring to the other man. So he was uncertain of the current political situation, according the organization Karelin represented—and Karelin himself-the respect of fear Russia’s intelligence apparatus had always commanded. There was another, more personal—and disconcerting—conclusion to be drawn. She hadn’t properly succeeded in including either Trishin or Filitov in the difficult questioning so she was very obviously isolated. It would be wrong for her to show the unease of the men sitting on either side of her.

  Natalia chose a hesitant gap from Filitov and said, “We yesterday took evidence from four officials of the Registry and Achives department, which appears to have remained unchanged in the reorganization?”

  “That is so.”

  “It was agreed that the records of Peter Bendall—and those upon his family-would have been specially assigned to be retained, not disposed of.”

  “That is so,” repeated Karelin.

  “None of the witnesses we questioned yesterday could account for their disappearance. Can you help us about what might have happened to them?”

  “There was clearly an unauthorized removal.”

  “Stolen, you mean?” pressed Natalia.

  “Yes,” confirmed Karelin. “The reorganization since the early nineties has been substantial: something in the region of 22,500 personnel have been released. Ill feeling was inevitable. The Bendall dossier is not the only instance of interference and tampering, of sabotage. Is it the wish of this commission that I have investigated every one of the 22,500 people who have been dismissed?”

  Condescension invited by the deference of Filitov and Trishin, recognized Natalia. “I’m sure we can bring that down to manageable proportions. Registry would have the names of every Control under whom Peter Bendall operated after his arrival here, people who would know the existence of everything involving the family. They’d also know which, if any, officer associated with the Bendalls is among those discharged from the service and likely to be disaffected …”

  “That’s a very constructive suggestion,” said Karelin.

  “It would help all of us involved now to be able to talk to the officer described by the mother as having spoken specifically to George Bendall when he was being disruptive at home,” pressed Natalia.

  “It’s noted.”

  “It was suggested by the mother that during that disruptive period the KGB arranged psychiatric counselling for George Bendall. Registry would have the identity of that psychiatrist?”

  “Wasn’t that put to Registry personnel yesterday?” queried the man.

  “They said they were not aware of the tre
atment. We’d like the question reemphasized, with your authority.”

  “It will be.”

  “And I think we can even more tightly confine the search for officers who removed material from your archives,” said Natalia. “It was only positively decided in the last four months that the American president was actually coming here for the summit, so it was only in the last four months that the conspirators would have had any need for the Bendall files. No one to whom we talked yesterday from Registry and Archives was seemingly able to help but if called upon by you, personally, I would have hoped they could have even remembered people showing an interest in the material, wouldn’t you?”

  Karelin’s smile could only have been of admiration, for her laserlike paring of possibilities, but it was still glacial. “I would have hopes so, too.”

  “I think we might have made considerable progress today, chairman Karelin.”

  “I trust that we have.”

  “We can look forward to hearing from you very soon then?”

  “You will hear from me,” promised Karelin. The smile was glacial again.

  Guerguen Agayan limited the attempt to fifteen minutes but Bendall’s response to every question either Zenin or Olga put to him was to hum the wailing tune and Zenin gave up after only ten. They withdrew to the cluttered office of Nicholai Badim.

  Zenin said, “So he’s worse?”

  “I don’t think there’s an actual deterioration,” said the psychiatrist. “I think that was today’s game.”

  “Has he spoken coherently to you?” asked Olga. There hadn’t been a chance to listen to the permanently maintained recording.

  “Barely. But he understands what I’m asking him.”

  “What’s he say about the injection?”

  “He can’t remember it being done. Whether or not it was the Americans.”

  “I’m surprised he’s out of bed?” said Zenin, turning to Badim.

  The surgeon said, “Physically he’s healing remarkably well. I didn’t want any lung congestion from his being kept in bed.”