Red Star Rising

by Brian Freemantle

  “It’s a hoax,” declared Harry Fish. “You’re going to be made to look a fool again. Or be killed.”

  The bastard was probably right, conceded Charlie, before the other thought registered. “I didn’t think you could speak Russian?” he said to the man.

  23

  During the initial seconds that followed Charlie regretted his challenge. His intuition was that the hoarse-voiced woman had something to offer. But objectively he had to recognize that Harry Fish could be right and that it could all be an elaborate hoax or, he had to accept, another attempt on his life.

  Charlie contemptuously refused Fish’s near incoherent insistence that what he had intended to convey was not so much a denial of the language but a qualification that his superficial restaurant-Russian was insufficient for him properly to discuss and assess the shaded nuances of any exchange. In an insistence of his own, Charlie demanded the names of both monitoring operators to be witnesses at any future inquiry that might be convened by London after the documented protest he intended to make to the Director-General.

  Which he did.

  Consciously invoking more clichés, Charlie wrote of climates of suspicion, vindictiveness, unjustified internal spying and distrust, exacerbated by a still undetected internal informant, positively obstructing every investigatory move he attempted and further endangering any continuing, already fragile cooperation with the Russian authorities. It was not until his second complaining page that Charlie mentioned the contact from the hoarse-voiced woman, inferring London’s awareness of everything he did having been under constant observation by warning that if the woman suspected for a moment that he was not entirely alone for their arranged encounter, as he’d promised, any chance of maintaining that contact would be lost. For that reason, he intended employing even more evasion to keep the hoped-for appointment than he would normally have done to defeat any Russian surveillance, which he had to anticipate, the more so since the most recent publicity about the American approach. Since that publicity, he had not been able personally to reach his replaced Russian liaison, indicating further exclusion as the result of the debacle.

  Charlie concluded the unaccustomed officialese by formally requesting that his protest—to which he added the addendum that it was being copied as a matter of courtesy to both Harry Fish and Paul Robertson—be attached to his personnel file, for production at any future inquiry into the manner and outcome of the investigation.

  So protectively cocooned was the communications room against any outside electronic intrusion that it was not until Charlie got into the corridor outside that his pager showed two calls from Mikhail Guzov, the second within fifteen minutes of the first. Harry Fish was no longer in the set-aside apartment when Charlie reached it. The earlier operatives had been replaced by two men, both of whom regarded him sullenly. Without speaking, one offered a log of eight new incoming calls, all from journalists, in addition to the two from Guzov.

  The FSB general personally answered the Petrovka phone, immediately breaking into Charlie’s greeting. “We know who your dead man is. Everything’s wrapped up.”

  The man was in the former office of Sergei Romanovich Pavel when Charlie arrived at the headquarters of the Organized Crime Bureau. There was another plainclothes man introduced as Leonid Toplov, from the Interior Ministry, and two in militia uniform. Nikolai Yaskov wore the epauletes of a colonel, Viktor Malin those of a major. Slightly behind the four stood the pathologist, Vladimir Ivanov, whom Charlie at first failed to recognize out of his stained autopsy scrubs. An extremely attractive blond stenographer was at a side table Charlie could not remember being there before, notebook open in readiness, which Charlie thought an unnecessary prop. On Guzov’s commandeered desk was an already diminishing bottle of vodka, its cap discarded Russian-fashion: once opened, a bottle’s contents had always to be drunk. All five men held glasses and as soon as he saw Charlie, Guzov filled a waiting glass and said, “Join the celebration!”

  Charlie accepted the drink, touched invitingly offered glasses from the other men and cautiously said, “Everything seems to have happened very quickly?”

  “And proven us right from the beginning,” insisted Guzov.

  “Who was he?”

  “Maxim Semenovich Poliakov,” announced the uniformed colonel. “Professional criminal, major activities include pimping prostitutes and trafficking heroin from Afghanistan. Ran with a Chechen gang that we finally broke up entirely three days ago. We wouldn’t have been able to do so, without Poliakov. We got him a month ago coming into Moscow with two kilos of heroin and did a deal, information in return for no prosecution.”

  “But missed out protection?” observed Charlie.

  “He thought he could look after himself,” said Guzov.

  “You got an admission of the murder from other members of the gang?” asked Charlie, intentionally ingenuous.

  Guzov gave a derisory laugh. “These guys are too professional to confess to anything. They’re actually claiming not to know anyone named Maxim Poliakov. But they’ve given away enough for us to realize they’d discovered Poliakov was our original source. We’re sure three of them were involved in planning the Beslan school massacre, too.”

  “It all seems to have been resolved remarkably quickly. And completely,” encouraged Charlie. He was reminded of a theatrical production in which everyone knew their scripts but recited rather than performed them.

  “It almost seems”—Guzov searched for the expression—“an anticlimax, after all that’s happened over the last few weeks.”

  “Any theories why they killed him in the British embassy? Have they said?”

  “Something we’ll probably never know,” dismissed the colonel, Nikolai Yaskov, shaking his head.

  “Maybe to cause all the distractions by making it an international incident, bringing your country into the investigation,” suggested Guzov. “They certainly succeeded in doing that, didn’t they?”

  The absurd suggestion was undisguised mockery, Charlie accepted. They were baiting him.

  “These people believe they’re above any law,” offered the colonel. “They like making grandiose gestures, aping the gangster movies they try so hard to model themselves on.”

  “Isn’t murdering senior militia detectives more than grandiose?” asked Charlie. “I’m assuming, of course, that you believe they also killed Sergei Pavel?”

  Guzov nodded. “Sergei Romanovich was the investigator who personally arrested Poliakov: persuaded him to turn informant. Killing Sergei, as well as Poliakov, was their settling every score. And of showing their derision of us.”

  “That’s how we got them,” came in the colonel. “Going back through all Pavel’s cases. There it was, someone who perfectly matched the description of your dead man. Everything fell into place.”

  It was a lie, a setup, from start to whatever finish they intended, Charlie realized. Pavel would have at once remembered personally arresting a one-armed man; he would have recognized the body even without a face that very first day in the mortuary. And then Charlie remembered Pavel’s assurance that he’d found no similarities in the complete archival search he had personally carried out. But why? Why the hell were Guzov and his team of amateur actors putting on this performance? Playing the part in which they’d clearly cast him, Charlie said, “What proof is there that the gang killed Sergei Romanovich Pavel?”

  Guzov, who was going around the group adding to their glasses, snorted another laugh. “We’re hardly likely to get a confession, are we? Even without charges, no one in the court is going to be left in any doubt who killed both men. But we’re going to get the proper, fitting punishment even if we can’t proffer the actual charges of murder: heroin trafficking on this scale carries the death penalty. And we’ve got enough proof of that against every single one we’ve arrested. It’s going to be a show trial!”

  Stalin was good at show trials, reflected Charlie, on even less manufactured evidence than this. He still couldn’t understand wh
y they were doing it! “I should congratulate you on such a successful investigation. I’m sorry—embarrassed perhaps—not to have been able to contribute.” He hoped the attractive note-taker behind him hadn’t missed the denial of any part in the farce.

  “You’ve had a lot of side issues to distract you,” emptily sympathized Guzov.

  Was that a reference to the embankment incident? Hardly, decided Charlie. In fact, the belief that it had been a Russian initiative didn’t square with the bullshit they were shoveling now. If they were setting out to smother the two murders this way, there would have been no point or purpose in mounting the embankment crash. From the almost imperceptible lisp, Charlie guessed the Russian was getting slightly drunk. “I’d appreciate a complete dossier. I’ll obviously have to submit a full report, despite being able to contribute so very little.”

  “We anticipated that you would,” said Yaskov. “Everything’s being duplicated.”

  “I’d also like a full copy of Poliakov’s criminal record.”

  There was a hesitation from the uniformed colonel. “I’m not sure . . .”

  “Of course you can have it,” came in Guzov. “And we can also provide you with a more complete medical report—more complete, even, than that which your medical examiners in London gave us—can’t we, Dr. Ivanov?”

  The chill began to envelop Charlie.

  “Yes, we can,” said the rehearsed pathologist, the nervousness making his voice almost as hoarse as the unknown woman on the phone.

  “Dr. Ivanov realized there was no DNA recorded, on either his initial report or that from your people,” expanded Guzov. “He and other specialists carried out tests on hair follicles and skin tissue, as well as the blood, which in your case was heavily contaminated. Now you’ll have everything to take back to London.”

  They knew what he’d done! How he’d faked everything to stay involved in the case, Charlie accepted. And they’d neutered him against any possible challenge because by making one, arguing against anything they intended to say or do, he would expose himself and his own attempted deceit! And not just himself: London and the department, as well. Forcing himself to go on, Charlie said, “You’re making an official announcement, I suppose?”

  Guzov looked theatrically at his watch. “In an hour’s time.” He came back to Charlie. “And tomorrow we’re holding a full press conference, although I don’t imagine it will be as extensive as yours at the embassy. I’m presuming you’ll want to attend with me?”

  They weren’t just boxing him in, Charlie acknowledged: by appearing on the same platform, he’d be confirming that every claim the Russians were making to be the truth and that the investigation was over. “That’s very generous of you, considering it’s come down to a successful Russian investigation with virtually no input from me.”

  “Our agreement was full cooperation,” mocked Guzov. “And there’s something else. The conference is at eleven. Sergei Romanovich’s funeral is in the afternoon.”

  Not just boxed in, thought Charlie: the lid was being firmly hammered down as Pavel’s coffin would be! “I would, of course, like to attend that, as well.”

  “I expected that you would,” said Guzov. “You have already been included on the list of those officially attending.”

  “Has London been informed of these developments?”

  “They will be, before the formal announcement,” said the Interior Ministry official, Leonid Toplov. He smiled as he added, “As a matter of courtesy.”

  “Continuing that courtesy,” picked up Guzov, “I’ll ensure you receive all the official reports at the embassy before the end of the day. We wouldn’t expect you to appear before the world media without being fully briefed.”

  “Thank you,” said Charlie, with little else left to say. “Publicly, at least, it will appear to have been a very successful and well coordinated joint operation between our two countries.”

  “I presume you’ll be returning to yours very shortly?”

  The first possible crack in Guzov’s confidence, picked out Charlie. Why did the man need to know how quickly he would be leaving Moscow? “There’s no hurry, now that the murder investigation has been resolved, is there? There might be a few things I still need to tidy up.”

  As he spoke, Charlie recognized it to be a pitiful attempt to have the last word and wished he hadn’t bothered.

  “They’ve beaten you,” judged Aubrey Smith. “Wiped you off the board. And me and the department with you!”

  “It looks like it, at this moment.” The admission came out of his mouth like a bad taste.

  “This and every moment that’s going to follow,” insisted the Director-General. “You can’t recover from this!”

  “I haven’t received all their promised documentation yet.”

  “You think they’re likely to have left you an opening there? They’ve done it all perfectly. What if there is something that doesn’t make sense or add up? You can’t challenge them without destroying yourself and all the rest of us. They’ve been brilliantly clever!”

  “Which a lot of other people here seem to have been trying to be.”

  There was a silence from London. Then Smith said, “There have been some contrary instructions to Moscow of which I have been unaware, until now. The situation, as far as you are concerned, has been corrected. Or had been. It hardly matters anymore.”

  “I’d like you to explain that,” said Charlie, who believed he understood completely but wanted confirmation.

  “You’ve been caught up more than I suspected in internecine maneuverings here in London. I regret that.”

  The first open reference to the power struggle between Aubrey Smith and the disgruntled Jeffrey Smale, Charlie recognized. It would account for his being the choice for the Moscow assignment in the first place.

  “Has whatever’s been happening in London been blocked?”

  “I’d hoped it had been, until this conversation,” said the other man. “Now it’s academic.”

  “I’m still going to keep the appointment with the woman.”

  “Do you genuinely imagine that she’s going to keep any appointment after the publicity there’s going to be over the next few days?” demanded Smith. “She could even be part of all the Russians have done to trap you.”

  “I need a way out,” said Charlie.

  “Maybe your return is that way out.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Hopkins has been interviewed as far as the doctors had judged it safe to do so,” said the other man. “He’s adamant that the other car drove into him intentionally to force him over the edge: that they, whoever they are, believed you were in the car, too. It was a deliberate assassination attempt.”

  “How is he?”

  “He’ll live but he’ll never walk again.”

  “Is he going to be looked after?” demanded Charlie, refusing the dismissal. “Medically and financially, I mean?”

  “I know what you mean, and of course he is,” said the other man, impatiently. “And now I want you out.”

  “Let me see this through,” pleaded Charlie.

  “I’ll not be responsible.”

  “I’m not asking you to be. This is being recorded: there’s no responsibility on the department.”

  “No!”

  “We both need my resolving this. And I can do it.”

  There was a pause. “Day to day. I’ll judge it day by day.”

  “No one could have anticipated this!” opened Svetlana Modin.

  “No one did,” agreed Charlie, accepting the desperation of his making the contact they’d agreed. Could he use the broadcaster: find an escape or at least a stay of execution through her? He had been quite prepared to resign if that was what it would have taken to get Natalia and Sasha with him in London, but he’d wanted the decision to be his, at his timing and on his terms, not ignominiously thrust upon him with accusations of gullible incompetence and failed professionalism. And unfair to Natalia and their daughter t
hough it was, it was still what he wanted.

  “How much were you involved?”

  Charlie shifted in the telephone box, alert to everything outside. “There has to be no indication that we’ve spoken.”

  “I want to go with what I’ve got tonight, which you’re not going to like. It is that you’ve been intentionally humiliated, because of what happened—or rather didn’t happen—with America.”

  The wrong reasoning but she was certainly right about humiliation, conceded Charlie. But she had kept her part of the deal making no mention of the embankment collision. And there could conceivably be some physical safety in that being promoted. “I certainly had no input in whatever the official communiqué says: my first and only awareness of the murders being solved was when I was summoned to Petrovka today to be told, an hour before the official announcement. But I haven’t yet seen any evidence to support the claims.”

  “Are you suggesting the investigation isn’t over?”

  He hadn’t been but an idea began to wisp in his mind. “I’ll answer that after I’ve seen the evidence.”

  “Do you believe you were excluded because of the proposed inclusion of America’s CIA?”

  Could he maneuver her in the direction he wanted, his idea settling. It was important to put the CIA more firmly in her mind. “If that were the reason, it was misguided or perhaps misunderstood. The approach came from Washington, as far as I am aware: it wasn’t considered in any depth by London.”

  “You’re going to be at tomorrow’s press conference. And also be at Sergei Romanovich’s funeral. Why exclude you one moment and include you the next?”

  Neither of which had been mentioned in the official communiqué, Charlie at once isolated, his disappointment that she hadn’t picked up the lead-in as he’d intended, tempered by the suspicion that she’d come close to confirming an arrangement with Mikhail Guzov.

  “That’s a question for Moscow to answer, not me.”

  “I don’t think they believe London has genuinely rejected the American approach: that London still hoped to work with Washington in the background. But that they’ve beaten you—not you personally, your people—by solving everything first.”