Red Star Falling: A Thriller

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘It really was a slow process. And I was too slow recognizing another mistake,’ confessed Radtsic.

  ‘What?’ questioned Rebecca, after several silent minutes.

  ‘Lvov and Irena,’ picked up Radtsic, simply. ‘It was obvious, upon reflection, so closely together were they always going to be, but an affair was a complication I didn’t foresee.…’ The Russian held up a forefinger narrowed against his thumb. ‘It came that close to wrecking everything I’d worked so long to achieve. I actually…’

  An opening door to Rebecca’s left halted whatever Radtsic had intended to say. Harry Jacobson said, ‘It’s almost one forty-five. I thought you’d like to break for lunch?’

  ‘A break would be good,’ accepted Radtsic, at once. ‘In fact I think I’ve talked enough for today. I’m tired. I need to think to make sure I’m not forgetting anything.’

  ‘Of course,’ accepted Rebecca, tight with anger at the interruption. ‘That’s quite enough for today.’

  Radtsic poured his first vodka. ‘It’s been nostalgic, talking of the past. How is she?’

  Rebecca came within a hair’s breadth of a stumbled response. ‘Irena’s good. Settling in well.’

  ‘She had nothing to keep her in Moscow, the operation destroyed as Stepan was destroyed by the moronic CIA.’

  ‘I have no personal contact with her,’ said Rebecca, cautiously. The CIA remark needed later analysis.

  ‘Of course you wouldn’t,’ accepted the Russian. ‘Would she know that I was here, in England?’

  Rebecca hesitated. ‘There’s been no official announcement.’

  ‘I’d like her to know that she wasn’t alone: that we both got away from our own people as well as the Americans.’

  Rebecca said nothing.

  ‘But I don’t suppose that’s possible, is it? Letting her know, I mean.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘Pity.’

  * * *

  All the intrusion traps that Rebecca had set in her room remained in place and the white-noise transmitter to defeat telephone monitoring appeared untouched. Rebecca became the immediate focus of the five—three women and two men—still remaining in the security-quarters canteen. She responded to the tentative smiles and nods but chose a separate table at which to eat the Caesar salad she didn’t really want, although she was surprised at how good it was. The burgundy was better than she’d expected, too. She was pouring her second glass when Jacobson entered. He chose a salad, too, but no wine and came directly to her table. ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  Rebecca shook her head, anticipating the intended exchange more than she imagined Jacobson would by the time it finished.

  The man said, ‘There’s no executive dining room. I expected you’d eat with the Radtsics. We could probably set something up.’

  ‘This is okay.’ Rebecca was determined not to let her anger show too early.

  ‘Are the lights in your room okay? There were some odd readings on the control circuits last night.’

  ‘The lights are fine. I did a security sweep when I got back from London.’

  Jacobson stopped with his knife and fork suspended over his plate, and Rebecca wished he’d wipe away a spot of salad dressing on his overflowing moustache. ‘You did what?’

  ‘Electronically swept my room.’ She decided against disclosing the white-noise protection. She intended to repeat the sweeps and intrusion traps every day to guard against his believing she’d imagine herself to be safe after just one security check. It would be a relief to take Straughan’s protective recording from its present concealment for another safe hiding place, she thought in passing.

  ‘You checked for unofficial bugs in an official MI6 safe house!’ Jacobson ignored the waved farewell from one of the five diners as they left.

  The man’s disbelief was genuine, Rebecca judged. ‘Isn’t MI6 under a security investigation?’

  Jacobson pushed his plate aside. ‘This place is tighter than a drum. You don’t need to worry.’

  ‘Don’t I, Harry?’ pressed Rebecca, wanting to direct the conversation. ‘There’s too much uncertainty within MI6 at the moment, wouldn’t you say?’

  Jacobson hesitated. ‘There’s a lot I don’t understand.’

  ‘What do you understand, Harry?’ seized Rebecca.

  ‘Not enough,’ avoided the man, awkwardly.

  ‘You got written confirmation of your Paris posting yet?’

  Jacobson faced her with apparent difficulty. ‘I don’t imagine the director’s got time for that, with everything else that’s going on.’

  ‘It would have come from the personnel director, after Monsford’s authorization. It’s an automatic process.’

  ‘I only had the conversation with him a day or two ago.’

  ‘You spent some time together before you appeared before the committee.’

  ‘Nothing was said,’ admitted the man.

  ‘You tried calling him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about the lip-reading footage you sent for forensic examination?’ Rebecca was intent on keeping him on edge.

  There was another hesitation. ‘I haven’t heard back yet.’

  ‘And you haven’t called to check that, either?’

  ‘They’ve only had it a little over twenty-four hours!’

  Rebecca poured herself more wine, ignoring an empty spare glass on the table close to the man. ‘I’m resuming Radtsic’s debriefing at ten tomorrow. Before then, giving me time to read and assess it all, I want a complete written fact sheet setting out everything that’s been transcribed, even if it’s just isolated, apparently meaningless words. Because it might not be a meaningless word. It might be something absolutely essential to put to Radtsic.’

  Jacobson was avoiding looking directly at her once more. ‘I thought today was very good: a lot more productive than I imagined it would be.’

  It was the best opening she was likely to get, Rebecca supposed. And she’d grown impatient with the man. ‘I think it was going very well and could have got a great deal better if you hadn’t blundered in as you did. Which is the only mistake, if mistake it genuinely was, that I’m going to allow you. Don’t you dare do anything like that again as long as I am here, doing the job I’m trying to do. You step out of line just once more and you’re out of here, which I’m sure the Director would be most unhappy about, but which I have the authority and certainly the official backing to make happen. And that official backing is something for you to keep very much in mind from now on. Do you hear and understand what I’m telling you, Harry?’

  ‘I think I do.’

  ‘I very much hope you do.’

  * * *

  By now both men fully realized—and had actually agreed—that the professional advantages to them both far outweighed the traditional antipathy between their two agencies, and Larry Stern didn’t resent the short drive into Georgetown from the socially impractical woodland surroundings of Langley. Mort Bering was already in the French restaurant on M Street, their table carefully isolated from others. As he lowered himself into his seat the CIA deputy director nodded his acceptance of a martini to match that already before his FBI counterpart and said, ‘From what you told me on the phone, we’ve got reason enough to celebrate.’

  ‘Elliott can’t help much yet with a positive time frame but Radtsic’s debriefing is definitely under way.’ Bering smiled. ‘The big unknown is how much the Brits will keep back for themselves.’

  ‘But there’s definitely going to be an exchange?’ demanded Stern.

  ‘Nothing written down, of course. But Elliott says it’s one hundred percent guaranteed.’

  Stern smiled back at last, touching his arriving martini against the other man’s glass. ‘You know what we’ve got! We’re got a check and cross-reference on what Radtsic says against what Irena tells us. And vice versa.’

  Bering shook his head, in correction. ‘Far more, far better, than that. We’re going to get the account of a defect
ing FSB deputy chairman to put against the story of the case officer of probably the FSB’s almost perfect penetration of our country. This is better than we ever imagined.’

  Stern ordered more drinks and to avoid further interruption they disinterestedly both chose steak and a side salad while the waiter was at their table.

  ‘What about Irena’s claim that the Lvov project was all her idea?’ queried Bering.

  Stern shrugged. ‘We’re going to drain her dry before we start asking who had the key to the executive washroom. You know what it’s like, everyone claiming the credit for initiating the big one. We get enough from the Brits, we’ll be able to judge for ourselves who thought it up in the first place.’

  Bering gestured beneath the table to where he knew the unseen briefcase was tightly held between the other man’s legs. ‘How much have you taken out from what I’m sending to London?’

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Stern. ‘Just the actual names she’s given us. The less we keep back, the less, hopefully, the Brits will hold from us. But this gal is giving us a lot of worries.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She fingered a guy in Yemen, a member of the Arab League we’ve been using and trusting for years, as an FSB plant.’

  ‘Bad?’

  ‘It’s going to take us a long time to be sure but we’ve already isolated one wrong steer the son of a bitch gave us.’

  Their steaks arrived and Bering hesitated for the waiter to leave before he said, ‘You’re right about the potential of what we’ve got, in total. It’s important we keep it that way, tight to ourselves.’

  ‘That’s what I thought we were doing: it’s certainly what I’m doing. I’m not sharing a piece of this pie with anyone.’

  ‘I had breakfast with the Director yesterday. He started talking about a minimal task force.’

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘I told him it wasn’t necessary. That we had it all boxed and wrapped between us.’

  ‘What can you do to block it if it comes up again?’ queried Stern.

  ‘Convince him we’re getting everything possible, as we are, but I’ve warned Elliott against an approach from anyone but me.’

  ‘I’ll monitor it from my side. Nothing’s going to happen without my knowing about it.’

  ‘Something else,’ said Bering, as the thought came to him. ‘If Irena comes up with anything internal, here in the U.S., you won’t forget jurisdiction, will you? We can’t risk giving either director an excuse to move in.’

  Briefly, almost imperceptibly, Stern’s face clouded. ‘We’re doing this straight, okay? Mutual co-operation, mutual benefit, both of us happy.’

  ‘That’s the deal, both of us happy,’ agreed Bering, belatedly aware he’d come close to impugning the other man’s integrity. ‘I’m not likely to forget it.’

  ‘That’s good to hear,’ said Stern, limiting the rebuke. ‘Let’s neither of us forget it.’

  * * *

  ‘I’ve attached a specific note to the internal case files that the decision to exchange debriefings with America is entirely mine, reached without any consultation with either of you,’ announced Aubrey Smith. ‘If there is any subsequent enquiry—if anything backfires—you’re totally uninvolved.’

  ‘That wasn’t necessary. I agree with what we’re doing,’ said Passmore.

  ‘I agree, too,’ said Jane Ambersom, disconcerted at the man’s self-doubt at this late stage. There’d been suggestions when she’d still been at MI6 that Smith wasn’t ruthless enough totally to destroy Monsford.

  ‘It’s technically a decision I’ve the authority to take: I’m ultimately responsible for the American liaison,’ Smith pointed out. ‘I’m exceeding that authority by not telling Bland or Palmer: keeping it from the enquiry committee. There’s no reason for either of you to be part of it.’

  ‘I’ve already alerted Natalia, through Ethel,’ said Jane. ‘The first of Irena’s transcripts is due from Washington in tonight’s diplomatic bag.’

  ‘What about Radtsic’s debriefing?’ queried Passmore. Today’s had been the shortest committee gathering yet, limited to an assessment of Rebecca’s morning encounter with the Russian.

  ‘Let’s establish—have Natalia establish if she can—how much the Americans have edited from Irena’s text,’ said Smith. ‘We’ve got more to offer than they have. I don’t want to give away too much: not give away anything without getting something in return.’ He turned to his deputy. ‘What about Rebecca?’

  ‘Too soon to hear,’ said Jane. ‘Realistically we’ve got to give her a couple of days.’

  She stopped, waiting like Aubrey Smith while Passmore responded to his pager. ‘You’ve got a reason for making it quicker,’ said the operations direction, looking up. ‘Moscow’s just officially requested diplomatic access to Maxim Radtsic—’

  ‘We can bargain for access to Charlie and all the others,’ seized Jane, at once.

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ warned Passmore. ‘They’ve also asked for access to Natalia Fedova and Irena Yakulova Novikov. We know Natalia’s answer already. But what are we going to do about Irena? How the hell are we going to handle that?’

  16

  ‘Is this a loyalty test?’ unexpectedly demanded Natalia, looking down at the helicopter-delivered dossier Ethel Jackson had put on the breakfast-room table between them. Natalia didn’t attempt to pick it up.

  Ethel half smiled, quizzically. ‘A what?’

  ‘All that you’re asking me to do, to assess. Is it all genuine, something on which you need a judgement? Or am I being set a defector test?’

  Ethel’s smile broadened. ‘You arrived here with pretty positive credentials as the wife of Charlie Muffin.’

  ‘That’s not an answer to my question.’

  ‘No, Natalia,’ agreed Ethel, patiently. ‘Nor is this a loyalty test. What I’m asking you to look at is the transcript of an early CIA debriefing of Irena Yakulova Novikov, which we’re asking you to give your professional opinion upon the extent of her co-operation. In what we’re asking you to examine she’s made some claims. We want you to judge those claims, if you can: tell us whether you believe they’re genuine or whether she’s trying to inflate her importance to negotiate a better resettlement deal—’

  ‘With the Americans?’ interrupted Natalia.

  ‘We’re liaising with the CIA.’

  ‘How’s that going to help free Charlie? That’s our understanding: what I’m trying to do is find anything that’ll help get Charlie out of Russia. I’m not here as a defector, needing to prove my worth. I’m here as Charlie’s wife, with his child.’

  ‘Which I already told you is how you’re being treated. But there is something you should know: something I was going to tell you if we hadn’t got into a loyalty discussion. Moscow has officially asked for diplomatic access to Maxim and Elena Radtsic. And to Irena Novikov, whom they believe still to be in this country.’ The woman paused. ‘And access to you.’

  Natalia lapsed into silence, her forgotten coffee mug cupped in both hands. Finally looking up, she said, ‘You know my answer.’

  Ethel shook her head. ‘I have to advise you of the approach.’

  ‘You know my answer,’ Natalia repeated.

  ‘Then Moscow will be told you absolutely refuse,’ said Ethel.

  Gesturing to the blank-eyed television in the corner of the room, Natalia said, ‘I haven’t seen any official Moscow announcement of any defections.’

  ‘There hasn’t been any,’ confirmed Ethel.

  ‘That’s not normal.’

  ‘Neither is the defection of the executive deputy of the FSB. The guess is that they intend using his son to pressure Radtsic to go back.’

  Natalia shook her head. ‘There should have been an official announcement.’

  ‘What’s the decision going to be on the others?’

  ‘The requests were only lodged last night, our time. I doubt they’ve been told: certainly not Irena, with the American time difference.’

 
; Natalia once more looked to the American package on the separating table. ‘Is Radtsic co-operating as she is?’

  ‘I believe he is.’

  ‘Believe?’ queried Natalia. ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ replied Ethel sharply, letting her irritation finally show at the other woman’s attitude. ‘And I’m not seeking your help about Maxim Radtsic, not yet at least. I’m looking for your professional guidance to use to Charlie’s benefit, particularly now there’s likely to be diplomatic contact to learn what’s physically happened to him. Which I thought you were as anxious to learn as a lot of other people who know, respect, and want to do everything they can to help him.’

  Natalia became silent again, staring this time at the diplomatic package. At last, all belligerency gone, she said, ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t right … how I’ve been behaving wasn’t right.’

  Now Ethel remained silent, not giving Natalia an easy escape, needing the pause anyway to recover from her near mistake of talking not of people who knew Charlie but of those who loved him, which Natalia might have misconstrued. Finally she said, ‘Sylvia Elphick, Sasha’s teacher, talked to me last night: wanted to clear something before mentioning it to you.’

  ‘Clear what?’ said Natalia, instantly attentive. Sasha had left with the woman fifteen minutes earlier. Ethel had waited until they’d left before producing the American material.

  ‘She’s seconded here because of her obvious clearance: normally she teaches children of our diplomats about to be posted overseas,’ explained Ethel. ‘None of the children are there for long: everything’s transitory, no binding friendships, no exchange of family details. She’s thought, as we both have, about Sasha being here by herself and wondered if she wouldn’t benefit from going there. She thinks—’

  ‘No!’ rejected Natalia, positively. ‘It’s an obvious place for the Sluzhba to look: find her and trace her back here. Or just take Sasha, by herself, knowing that would be worse than killing me outright.’