Red Star Falling: A Thriller

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Was it a good idea to do it all in one go?’ asked Ethel.

  ‘It was exactly what I needed to do,’ said Natalia.

  ‘And?’

  ‘It confirmed what I thought from the flat transcripts. It’s wrong.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That’s what I can’t work out.’

  22

  Jane Ambersom did not fully appreciate that although it was only a temporary secondment she was now officially responsible for Maxim Radtsic. And that without Straughan, whose function it would have been, that responsibility extended beyond the already organized medical examination to the half-prepared Russian-embassy encounter in Belmarsh Prison. She summoned the formal Foreign Office contingent and while she waited for their arrival went through the travel arrangements with the logistics director, whose authority she formally extended to cover what would have been Straughan’s function. She repeated the rehearsal when the diplomats arrived, omitting the complete details of the television and audio monitoring that would operate throughout and the total surveillance to be placed upon the Russian group. Finally she introduced, under their covert operational names, the two MI6 officers who were to make up the British presence.

  It was only then that Jane Ambersom called Rebecca Street in Hertfordshire.

  ‘How’d the medical go?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Routine,’ replied the other woman, dismissively. ‘His blood pressure was about five above what they’d like for a man of Radtsic’s age but the feeling is that’s most likely caused by the understandable stress he’s under. All the other immediate checks are fine. We’ll get the cholesterol and all the other blood-test results in two or three days. The Russian reference to poor health was obviously a lie.’

  ‘So he’s ready for this afternoon?’

  ‘Has been for the last hour, refusing lunch and demanding to know when the transport’s arriving.’

  ‘The helicopter is leaving Northolt at noon, ETA with you 1320, arrival at the helipad at 1420. The Foreign Office group, with our two officers, will already be there. They’ll get to the prison, with Radtsic and Elena, using the underground access. You’re not involved, obviously: we’re guessing the FSB with the Russian group will have miniaturized cameras. Radtsic will be brought out the same way. The helicopter will wait, to take you back to Hertfordshire. I’ll copy all—’

  ‘How do you know the safe house is in Hertfordshire?’ broke in Rebecca.

  ‘You know I’m operating out of Vauxhall Cross,’ said Jane.

  ‘No, I don’t know,’ said Rebecca, flatly.

  Shit! thought Jane, awareness settling. ‘You’re totally committed with Radtsic. Monsford’s gone. There needed to be someone at the top here. My being that person is temporary. I refused to accept the secondment without that being completely understood and accepted by Bland and Palmer. You should have been told yesterday by one or the other of them.’

  There was no response from the other end.

  ‘Rebecca?’

  ‘I wasn’t told.’

  ‘They gave Aubrey Smith and myself separate undertakings that they’d explain everything to you: Bland told us you’d already spoken to him.’

  ‘It must have been quite an extensive conversation in my absence.’

  Jane ground her teeth in exasperation. ‘Harry Jacobson is being dismissed, under restrictions, so you’ll need a supervisor replacement up there.’

  ‘Immediately.’

  ‘I’ll organize it today.’

  ‘Try not to forget, like Bland and Palmer.’

  ‘Rebecca, I’m genuinely sorry you weren’t told, as it was arranged that you should have been. But I don’t want your job, which you obviously consider automatically to be yours. It will automatically be if you drain Radtsic of everything he’s got to tell us. So let’s get professional, shall we?’

  ‘You’ll copy me on everything that comes out of the Belmarsh meeting, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’ She was right not to like this woman, Jane decided. ‘We’ll speak when you get back from Belmarsh.’

  ‘Perhaps by then you’ll be able to tell me who Jacobson’s replacement will be.’

  Jane put down the telephone without responding.

  * * *

  The military helicopter took a circuitous route, touching down at Mildenhall air base to justify the filed flight plan before going farther east out over the North Sea to approach London from that direction, finally to land precisely at 1420. Throughout, Radtsic and Elena were linked to the communal voice channel but neither spoke. Nor did Rebecca, churning with impotent, wordless fury at how amateurishly easy she had been out-manoeuvred. It was now so blatantly obvious that the bitch had all along worked not just to get back to Vauxhall Cross but into the Director’s chair. Rebecca had only just regained her composure when they landed, thinking rationally, objectively, and totally without any self-confusing anger. So resolved was she, in fact, that Rebecca was actually smiling when she followed the two Russians from the droop-rotored machine.

  The British party were already waiting, as Jane had promised. There were no named introductions. At the indication to move off through the underground labyrinth designed to protect the anonymity and safety of those entering and leaving Britain’s s highest-security prison, Radtsic turned to the unmoving Rebecca and said, ‘You are not coming?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting here when you come out.’

  ‘Of course. Stupid of me.’

  The corridor was sufficiently wide for four people easily to move abreast, although Radtsic and his wife were an isolated two within the group, walking hand in hand. The bright lighting reflected harshly off the white-tiled floor and walls, forcing them to squint. Telephones were spaced at six-metre intervals. Monitoring cameras tracked their entire journey, warning the waiting uniformed security officers of their approach to a barred control room to which they were admitted only after the head of the Foreign Office delegation produced photographic identification of everyone as well as signed authority for their entry. Two of the security officers led them through more unexpectedly quiet, white-tiled corridors to a lift large enough for them all. It rose two floors to ground level and a distantly noisy area of undesignated, metal-door rooms and barred external windows. There were bars on all the windows in the comparatively small room into which they were finally taken. It was bisected, wall to wall, by a wide, light-coloured wooden-leg table, which in turn was divided up to the ceiling by a thickened glass screen into which, at intervals, microphones were inset. CCTV was installed on all four walls, at the same intervals as along the corridor. A precise number of chairs were set out for the British group. Showing their familiarity with such encounters, the Foreign Office officials put Radtsic and his wife in the very centre, arranging themselves and the two MI6 men at either side. Beneath the bench, the two Russians remained hand in hand.

  An abruptly lit red light above the large central door on the opposite side of the glass shield signalled the arrival of the Russian contingent, which included one greying, matronly woman, and for all of whom an exact number of chairs were arranged. The delegation deferred to a squat, obese man tightly corseted in a waistcoated suit, no-one else attempting to sit until he’d settled himself with some chair-shifting difficulty. The woman at once followed, sitting directly alongside and assembling a complicated digital recorder in front of the nearest microphone outlet, towards which she closely erected an aerial. As soon as she settled, the rest of the group arranged themselves at either side and from briefcases unpacked more recorders, notebooks, and folders. One opened a small computer. Two Russians least attentive to the seating process betrayed the likelihood of their being FSB by the intensity with which they studied the wall-mounted CCTV.

  ‘I register an immediate protest,’ announced the Russian head. ‘According to the understood arrangements, there should be no British presence.’ He had the hoarse voice of a persistently heavy smoker. There was a sheen of perspiration on his upper lip and he shifted constantly in h
is unease.

  ‘The insistence of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic upon a British presence, as well as the location of this meeting, was made quite clear and agreed to in the diplomatic exchanges between our two countries,’ responded the Foreign Office head, who’d put himself to Radtsic’s right. In contrast to the Russian, the diplomat was a tall, thin, impeccably dressed man who remained calm and unmoving.

  ‘I demanded that they be here, as witnesses,’ declared Radtsic, authoritatively loud-voiced. He and Elena were no longer hand in hand. She was matching her husband’s defiance in the way she sat, arms folded. He had both irritably twitching hands outstretched upon the wide ledge in front of him.

  ‘And I demand that my protest be officially noted,’ said the fat man.

  ‘It is noted,’ dutifully accepted the British diplomat.

  Directly addressing Radtsic, the corpulent Russian said, ‘I have come specially from Moscow for this meeting and will remain here in London until this matter is satisfactorily resolved by your being freed. You have the full consular and diplomatic support of the Russian Federation.’ The declaration concluded with a gesture of finality, not at Radtsic but at those on either side of the man.

  ‘I do not want the support of the Russian Federation,’ rejected Radtsic, his voice clearly controlled. ‘I want my son.’

  ‘You were forced, pressured, to come to Britain against your will, weren’t you?’ insisted the Russian.

  ‘The pressure under which we are being put is by our being deprived of our son,’ replied Radtsic. ‘I want access to him: a reply to my letter. I want to know that he is being treated properly: that he’s not in jail.’

  ‘Your son was rescued before he could be blackmailed by your being held here in England.’

  ‘He was intercepted and prevented from joining me here.’

  ‘How badly have you been treated?’

  ‘I have not been treated badly: subjected to torture.’

  ‘What about your health?’ The Russian spokesman twitched, looking inexplicably in both directions to his companions.

  ‘Today I underwent the strictest of medical examinations. As far as I know I do not need any medical treatment. Neither does my wife.’

  ‘This encounter is to make it clear to you that we are making every effort to secure your freedom and your return to Russia, where you will be welcomed as a hero. Once back in Moscow you will undergo medical treatment to recover from whatever drugs are being administered to confuse you.’

  ‘This is all nonsense! I want to speak to my son.’

  ‘You will see your son when you get back to Moscow.’

  ‘This is improper and totally unacceptable,’ finally interrupted the head of the British delegation, visibly flushed. ‘I shall recommend an official complaint be lodged at your embassy. Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic was not kidnapped. He is not being ill treated in any way. No drugs are being administered to enforce his presence here. He is in this country at his own request and volition, having strongly expressed the wish to remain here permanently.’

  ‘Let us see our son, talk to him!’ Elena’s wailed intervention was so unexpected that the Russian negotiator visibly jumped. She’d come forward over the bench, hands out imploringly over it. Radtsic reached out, gripping her arm, but Elena shook him off. ‘Don’t torture us like this!’

  ‘We will do everything to help you return to Moscow,’ said the obese man.

  ‘Let him talk to us on television, a linkup. Or let him reply to my letter. I meant what I said, in my letter. I will tell the British everything I know unless I am allowed to speak to my son. Elena is right. This is torture.’

  ‘We are trying to help your colleagues: see them as we are seeing you. Are you allowed to see them?’

  ‘I’m not interested in seeing anyone but Andrei.’

  Elena was back in her chair now, a clenched hand to her face, her other hand still on the table.

  The Russian head of mission said, ‘Write again. I guarantee a letter will get to him.’

  ‘I can’t stand any more of this,’ protested Elena.

  ‘Nor can I,’ said Radtsic. ‘You are the torturers, not the British.’

  * * *

  The warning of the impending return from the prison, where Elena and Radtsic were briefly recovering from the confrontation, came far sooner than Rebecca Street had expected and would have created a problem if Sir Archibald Bland had taken her call. But he hadn’t, strengthening Rebecca’s conviction that she was being sidelined by those who could have halted Jane Ambersom’s manoeuvring. Bland’s unnamed executive aide had rejected her request for an immediate meeting with the Cabinet Secretary without bothering to consult the man. With the same peremptory refusal he’d told her that Geoffrey Palmer was also unavailable, both involved in a prior commitment that could not be interrupted. Rebecca didn’t completely believe the aide’s promise to advise both men of her approach.

  And there was no-one else to whom she could directly appeal, Rebecca realized, the returning frustrating impotence tight, like a physically contracting band, around her chest. She’d gain her meeting, eventually, but with a much different approach than she’d intended in the heat of her anger. As her approach to Jane Ambersom would be totally different: her immediate reaction at learning the lesbian cow had taken over Vauxhall Cross had been quite wrong, a mistake from which she had to recover. She’d let Jane Ambersom imagine she’d won, show no irritation or animosity and concentrate upon her one advantage, Maxim Radtsic. And dutifully obey—or appear to obey—exactly what the other woman had ordered, drain everything possible from the Russian and in doing so establish a reputation that would make her indispensable, someone whom those in authority couldn’t ignore but automatically thought of instead of Jane Ambersom. And from the very moment she got back to Vauxhall Cross after achieving that, become the cuckoo in Jane Ambersom’s nest. All the mistakes and miscalculations—and there were always mistakes and miscalculations in what they attempted to do—would be those of Jane Ambersom, never Rebecca Street, the acknowledged legend who set Russian intelligence back an entire generation.

  There was a stir at the arrival of the Russians and their British diplomatic delegation and Rebecca moved quickly to separate the elder of the two MI6 officers.

  ‘How’d it go?’

  ‘Total waste of time,’ said the man. ‘I’ve been with two previous access delegations but never seen anything like this. The Russian negotiator was a total nut. Radtsic held his temper but practically collapsed afterwards.’

  ‘I want a complete CCTV printout at the safe house by the time I get back.’

  The man nodded towards his partner. ‘We’re sure we isolated two FSB. Didn’t recognize either from our known embassy list, so at least that’s a result.’

  Rebecca caught the gesture from the delegation head, moving at once across to the two Russians. ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t better.’

  Radtsic shook his head, visibly bowed. ‘Let’s get back to the house. There’s a lot we’ve got to talk about.’

  * * *

  ‘Why didn’t Bland or Palmer tell Rebecca, as they promised!’ demanded Jane Ambersom, swivelling her new chair to look out over the river towards Thames House and Aubrey Smith’s unseen but familiar suite. She’d initiated the first of their end-of-day updating contacts, wishing she could have been there in person instead of talking by telephone.

  ‘We confronted them into making a positive decision: senior civil servants like Bland and Palmer don’t like exposing themselves to a responsibility that can be directly attributed to them,’ said Smith. ‘I should have thought more about it.’

  ‘Are you seriously telling me it was intentional, not an oversight?’

  ‘That’s what I’m seriously suggesting, which of course they’d strenuously deny,’ said Smith. ‘Do you think you mollified Rebecca?’

  ‘I tried, without prostrating myself. We’ve had enough competing nonsense, haven’t we?’ On balance the office she was now occupying was f
ar superior to Smith’s, she decided, swinging her chair back into the room. But she couldn’t imagine sleeping in the king-size apartment bed, despite Matthew Timpson’s sterile eradication of any trace of Gerald Monsford. ‘I haven’t heard anything from her yet about Radtsic’s meeting with the Russian delegation but one of our escorts described it as a complete disaster.’

  ‘It was predictable, I suppose, remembering what happened during the French linkup,’ remarked Smith. ‘I heard from Bland about France just before you called. Everyone’s been repatriated, which leaves us just with those still held in Russia.’

  ‘I’m copying you Natalia’s full analysis. She’s unhappy with what she’s seen as well as heard of Irena Novikov’s American interrogation. But can’t say why. And she’s picked up on something else. She says it’s wrong that Moscow agreed with Radtsic’s meeting being in a prison. She can’t understand their agreeing.’

  ‘The uncertainty about Irena chimes with Joe Goody. He says there’s something wrong, too: that she’s not uncertain or frightened in the way she should be but he can’t put his finger on it.’ He laughed, in advance. ‘And your boyfriend and his boss think Joe’s something from another planet who should be preserved in formaldehyde.’

  Jane laughed in return. ‘I can’t wait to hear Barry’s version.’

  ‘I can’t wait to see the Belmarsh CCTV footage,’ said Smith, serious again. ‘I’d like to know why Natalia’s uncertain about Radtsic’s prison meeting.’

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  23

  Russia brilliantly utilized the British time of 7:00 A.M. to maximize the worldwide media pickup that was to follow throughout the next two days. The claimed television exposé was preceded an hour earlier, Moscow time, by an alerting trailer proclaiming the kidnapping of a Russian hero, which was the emblazoned title across a wide-angle, professionally filmed shot of Belmarsh Prison. That was correctly described as Britain’s highest security institution and superimposed over it was a clip-by-clip display of the most infamous international terrorists—with the concentration upon Al Qaeda, child-murdering paedophiles, and killers who had been held there. The photographs were pulled together into a composite montage but with one square empty, apart from a question mark against the changed background of prison vans arriving and leaving, for the actual programme’s opening sequence. That began with a voice-over repetition of Moscow’s accusation that Maxim Radtsic had been kidnapped and his wife tricked into joining him by British intelligence.