Red Star Rising (26 page)

“Let’s start the questioning,” invited Charlie.

There was an immediate burst of inaudible shouted questions, which Charlie had to again subdue by shouting louder and standing to gesture the noise down. Shielding his own microphone, Robertson said, “This is a farce, a waste of time.”

Needing his amplification, Charlie still had to yell. “This is going to be canceled right now if everyone doesn’t start behaving sensibly!”

A woman in the third row gestured for a handheld microphone, identified herself from
The New York Times,
and said, “Are you treating this as an assassination?”

Charlie deferred to Robertson, who appeared startled. Leaning hesitantly forward he said, “It is certainly one avenue of inquiry.”

“So the man could have been an informer—a Russian spy—pursued into the embassy by Russian security officers?” seized the woman, refusing to surrender the microphone.

To Charlie’s gesture, Pavel said, “We have been officially assured there is absolutely no involvement of any State security organization, so that is untrue.”

“You would be, wouldn’t you?” said the persistent woman, to isolated sniggers at the mockery.

“There is also no involvement of any British intelligence organization,” came in Charlie, to help Pavel.

“We’d be told that, too, wouldn’t we;
have
been told that already,” said a man in heavily accented English—an Italian, Charlie guessed—who reached across from his seat directly behind the woman to take the microphone.

“Nothing can be ruled in or out of the investigation until we get the victim’s identity,” said Charlie.

“So it is a possibility—a strong possibility—that it is an intelligence assassination?” persisted an NBC reporter from the middle of the hall.

“Nothing has been ruled in or out,” repeated Charlie, identifying Bundy next to the questioner, relieved at the comparative
order that had finally settled. There’d be a publicity benefit from the inevitable concentration upon an intelligence-organized assassination.

As the thought came to Charlie another woman, this time from the
London Times,
demanded, “Which British intelligence organization do you, Mr. Robertson, and Mr. Stout represent?”

“That is not a question that will be addressed,” refused Robertson, without any prompting from Charlie.

“Why not?” pressed the woman.

“Next question,” insisted Robertson.

“MI6 or MI5?” came a shouted question, not needing amplification.

“Next question,” repeated Robertson.

Charlie had to listen intently to his own earpiece for the translation from German of the question. “What other lines of inquiry are you pursuing, apart from it being a State-approved killing of which, comparatively recently, there is evidence of the Russian authorities being prepared to sanction?”

After a momentary hiatus, Pavel said, “Regrettably, there is a great deal of organized crime in Russia, particularly in Moscow. Assassination of this sort is a very common method of settling gangland feud and disputes.”

“How many others have there been in the grounds of the British embassy?” immediately demanded the German, to more mocking laughter.

“None,” quieted Charlie. “But it would be a very effective way of misdirecting an investigation along the espionage lines that appears to be the media preference.”

“What’s your preference?” asked the determined German.

“I have none,” responded Charlie. “With my colleagues I am conducting this investigation with an open mind, with no preconceived impressions or theories.”

There was more disbelieving laughter, which brought a heavy sigh and a pointed sideways look from Robertson. Charlie was happy for the next question to move away from the espionage fixation, a demand for more evidence of the murder having been
committed within the embassy grounds, which enabled him to expand upon the supposed discovery of part of a 9mm Makarov bullet and the score mark on the outside wall of the hall in which they now sat, which inevitably brought the question of how the killers and their victim got into the embassy grounds unseen.

“The killers weren’t unseen,” snatched Charlie, seeing the first opportunity to stage manage the event as he wanted. “Despite a partial malfunction of the entrance security cameras, the actual moment of the murder, by a number of men, was indistinctly recorded. The images are being scientifically enhanced and the hope is that such enhancement will be sufficient to identify the killers, although from the position in which the victim is shown, on his knees, no recovery of his features will be possible.”

The hall erupted into a far noisier outburst than any previously and it took Charlie a full five minutes to once more subdue the babble sufficiently to continue. The most obvious and frequent demand was for the CCTV and stills from it to be released for publication, which Charlie refused with the easy escape that as the film was in the process of being sharpened, hopefully to form the core evidence in a prosecution, any release was legally impossible. He refused, too, any verbal description of those featured on the loop, apart from saying that all appeared to be male. He—as well as Robertson and Pavel—were able to avoid any demands that didn’t serve their purpose by refusing to let the questioning go beyond the actual murder, despite determined and repeated attempts to get a response to the bugging. Charlie was, however, selective in his refusals, alert to whatever maximized his chances of getting that one essential, victim-identifying response.

When no opportunity presented itself after almost another hour, during which the predictable insistences expanded into the recurring possibility of the victim being a Russian intelligence officer killed at the point of an intended defection, Charlie decided to bait his own manufactured hook.

To a question that had been phrased in varying forms at least three times before—how endangered were relations between the
United Kingdom and the Russian Federation—Charlie replied, “The successful conclusion of this investigation, toward which we are moving, ensures there is no risk whatsoever to that relationship.”

“What successful conclusion?” insisted the original questioner from
The New York Times.
“You’re asking for help: that doesn’t convince me you’re anywhere close to solving this!”

“I have already told you why we cannot release the surviving images on the CCTV film,” said Charlie. “You will surely understand and accept that there is other evidence we cannot make publicly available. We might be able to come some way towards providing more—making arrests even—once we have named the victim.”

The fresh outburst was less strident than those that preceded it. “You’ve already got enough for an arrest!” demanded the woman.

“The answer to that will have to wait for the next conference,” evaded Charlie, rising to bring the other three men up with him, to yet another protesting uproar.

“That was a disaster!” insisted Robertson, back in the anteroom.

“It did everything and more to achieve what I wanted,” rejected Charlie.

“What if you don’t get a name from it?” persisted Robertson.

“Today will bring something out of the woodwork.”

Robertson appeared, oddly, to become aware of Stout listening to the exchange. “Let’s hope so.”

“I’ll walk you to the gate,” Charlie told Pavel. As they went across the forecourt, Charlie spoke to the other man of his rejection of Robertson’s assessment, which he translated.

Pavel said: “He’s got every reason to be doubtful. To be honest, so am I.”

“We laid out enough bait,” insisted Charlie, wishing he sounded more confident.

“We need to establish undetected personal communication,” said Pavel. “What about individual cell phones?”

“We might as well stick tracking devices up our asses,” dismissed Charlie. “In England, we foiled dozens of Islamic terrorist plots before they had been mounted and captured the perpetrators of a lot more that we missed the first time through mobile phones. Once detected by scanners, they can be listened to and the users traced to within fifty yards by the electronic signals they emit. We’d be more discreet standing on street-corner boxes, with megaphones.”

Pavel lifted his shoulders in an awkward shrug. “Stay with phones at street kiosks then?”

“By far the safest.”

When they stopped, just before the gatehouse, the Russian suggested the already used café as another unmonitored meeting place, allowing an intervening gap of two days for incoming calls to begin on the publicly announced numbers. “During that time we can make our choice of telephone kiosks; get some numbers to exchange. From now on, Guzov’s people are going to permanently be just one step behind both of us, probably literally.”

“Which will make the Varvarka café an important test,” acknowledged Charlie, confident of his own trail-clearing ability but wondering about Pavel’s.

One of the designated telephones was ringing when Charlie entered his assigned embassy apartment and, for the briefest moment, he hesitated before snatching it up.

From the unexpected internal line Robertson said, “Something’s come out of the woodwork.”

Charlie Muffin was engulfed by a feeling of déjà vu on the threshold of the spy-catchers’ inquiry room. Paul Robertson occupied the chief inquisitor’s position from which he’d conducted Charlie’s interrogation, flanked by the same male and female team. The two polygraph technicians were at their momentarily quiet equipment, but looking far happier than during Charlie’s session and Charlie recognized on either side of the door the two heavy-handed guards who’d stood threateningly over him before he’d ridiculed his polygraph examination. Harry Fish was to the left of the judgemental bench; in front of him, the familiar white handkerchief upon which lay three pinhead bugs. As Charlie came fully into the room, Reg Stout, in the same chair upon which Charlie had sat, was saying vehemently, “I have only ever seen devices like these once before in my life, when the original six were discovered in the telephone relay box.”

“And I’ve already told this inquiry I found them in your compound flat, taped to the underside of a chest drawer,” insisted Fish. “And shown you the Polaroid photographs, prior to those we also digitally took later as part of official evidence.”

“What’s your explanation for the bugs being where they were?” demanded the unnamed man who had orchestrated Charlie’s confrontation.

“I’m being set up!” protested Stout, his voice rising. “You won’t find my fingerprints on any of it.”

“The surface of the devices is too small to register fingerprints: they have to be handled with tweezers,” dismissed Fish. “There’s enough surface, though, on tweezers we did find in your apartment. There’s only one set of prints—yours.”

“What about the logs?” demanded Stout, desperately.

“Your fingerprints are on the spirals and the log cover,” said Fish.

“I want a lawyer,” demanded Stout, his voice wavering almost beyond control. “You’re framing me, with an illegal search. Planted stuff. You need a warrant.”

“You will be appointed a lawyer when you arrive back to London, under arrest,” came in Robertson. “And to help you when you meet with your lawyer, it was not an illegal search. We have a warrant to search wherever and however we want in this embassy, including all staff accommodation.”

Abruptly, in Russian, Charlie said, “It’ll go easier for you, Reg, if you make a full confession.”

Attracted by Charlie’s voice, Stout turned to the side of the room where Charlie stood and said: “I should have guessed you’d be part of it, too.”

“What did you say?” Robertson asked Charlie.

“You tell them what I said, Reg,” hopefully suggested Charlie, in English.

“How the hell can I?” protested the man. “You know I don’t speak the fucking language!”

“I know you’ve told me you don’t.”

“And I don’t! I’ll go to the papers about this—expose you all.”

“You’re a signatory to the Official Secrets Act, which precludes you or your representatives speaking about anything official to any media outlet or organization,” said the woman panelist, whom Charlie presumed to be a government lawyer.

“You will remain overnight, under guard, in your apartment, from which the telephone will be disconnected preventing your contacting anyone outside this embassy,” officially recited
Robertson. “You’ll be repatriated, still under guard, on the first direct London flight tomorrow. In London, you will be formally arrested and will appear, in camera, before a magistrate. A lawyer will be present to represent you at this and any subsequent hearings.”

“I’m being set up,” repeated the ex-army major, in a near hysterical babble. “I’ve served my country, loyally, all my life . . . got medals . . . decorations . . . this isn’t right.”

“Take him back to his quarters,” ordered Robertson, gesturing to the two waiting guards.

Stout twisted, his face contorted, to the advancing men. He stood, obediently, at the gesture from the larger of his two custodians and was led, unprotesting, from the room.

“What did you say to him in Russian?” Robertson again demanded of Charlie.

“I told him it would be better for him if he made a full confession.”