Red Star Rising (6 page)

“Here, all the time?”

Stout gave another of his now familiar hesitations. “Apart from the times I went with the other Russian to check the CCTV screens, to confirm that they were operating normally again.”

“Leaving the other man working on the terminals here all by himself?”

“I couldn’t split myself in half to be in two places at the same time, could I?”

“No, I don’t suppose you could,” agreed Charlie.

Charlie’s escape from his scourging frustration at the embassy security debacle was to immerse himself and his every thought on Natalia and Sasha. And the more he did, the more his confidence grew that his return to Moscow presented him with an opportunity to salvage a relationship he’d never imagined possible to save. And that there was no reason why he shouldn’t make every attempt and effort to do just that. Their relationship hadn’t collapsed. At its worse assessment, it had been interrupted. They certainly weren’t enemies. If anything, on his part at least, his feelings for Natalia had grown from their being apart. They corresponded regularly, sometimes more than once a month. Natalia kept up a steady supply of photographs of their daughter, and when he’d eventually, although reluctantly, accepted that Natalia wouldn’t join him in London, he’d put all the necessary bank arrangements in place to provide monthly maintenance, never missing a payment although occasionally leaving himself strapped for money. At the beginning of their odd separation there had been telephone calls, but they had gradually lessened; the last had to be four months earlier and on that occasion Charlie had imagined—and hoped it had only been imagination—that there was a coolness from Natalia. Never, in any of the letters or any of the telephone conversations, had there been any mention of divorce.

He had to plan the approach very carefully, though: warn her
he was here, in Moscow, and leave any actual meeting to be on her terms and at her convenience. A phone call would be too abrupt and unexpected, even though Natalia would understand the short notice with which he’d been dispatched, despite their never discussing their respective intelligence work.

A brief letter then, dismissing the reason for his being here as business, giving the hotel as his contact address. He’d leave it to Natalia to decide if Sasha should be included in the initial meeting: paramount in both their thinking had always been to minimize as much as possible any disruptive effect upon Sasha by their living apart. Charlie hoped the stories he had heard about some Russian stores and shops bringing themselves up to European quality and choice were true, although he didn’t have the remotest idea what a child of eight would appreciate as a fitting present from a suddenly appearing father. He should buy a gift for Natalia, as well. Something else that wouldn’t be easy. Natalia always protested he was too extravagant in his present-buying for both of them.

His decision made, Charlie missed breakfast to write his note on hotel letter-head paper, scrapping two attempts before he was satisfied, in no hurry to get to Smolenskaya Naberezhaya, unsure whether to go to the embassy at all until after contact was established with Sergei Pavel and pathologist Vladimir Ivanov. The decision was made for him when there was no response from Pavel’s Petrovka phone.

Halliday was at the embassy when Charlie arrived. Paula-Jane wasn’t. Nodding to her office, Charlie said, “She seems a very busy girl.”

Halliday grinned. “And a very popular one, particularly with our American cousins. I’ve got the most recent newspapers, including the British. The speculation about your murder ranges from the Russian preference for the man being the victim of a gangland contract killing, through to the elimination by pursuing Russian police or intelligence agents of an intended traitor at his moment of defection, finally to the man being an Islamic suicide bomber shot by British security officers seconds before detonating
his explosives. Three London newspapers appeared to have flown reporters specifically to Moscow to cover the story.”

“Thanks for keeping them. I’ll read them later.”

“And the world media have finally discovered the about-to-be new First Lady,” continued Halliday. “The beautiful Marina Lvov is all over the newspapers.”

“I’ll stick with the murder coverage.”

“On the subject of which, you going to fill me in now or wait for P-J?”

“What?” Charlie frowned.

“The press conference.” Halliday frowned back. “I didn’t know there was going to be one until I bumped into Dawkins first thing this morning.”

“And I still don’t know anything about it,” said Charlie.

“You’re not involved?”

“No,” said Charlie.

“And here comes P-J,” said Halliday, looking farther down the corridor along which the woman was hurrying toward them, raising her hand in greeting as she got close to Halliday’s open office door.

“When I couldn’t reach you by telephone, I went to the Savoy to find you; messages never get through,” she announced, breathlessly. “You all set?”

“I think I’m close to being set
up
,” qualified Charlie. “Who asked you to find me . . . bring me here?”

“Dawkins,” replied Paula-Jane. “The embassy’s being overwhelmed by media approaches. The ambassador has decided upon a press conference, so you’ve got to be there. It’s scheduled for eleven.”

It was ten forty, Charlie saw. “There’s obviously an internal e-mail direct to the ambassador, from the communications room?”

Paula-Jane gave an uncertain laugh. “What’s happening here?”

“Nonsense is what’s happening here,” replied Charlie. “If Dawkins gets in touch with you again, tell him the press conference is canceled, and that I want to see him one hour from now.”

It was the same communications officer in charge as the
previous day, so there was no identification delay. Charlie began his e-mail to the ambassador, insisting a press conference would further sensationalize an already oversensationalized media situation. For it to have been held would unquestionably destroy any possibility of a successful investigation and, for that reason, he was advising the third secretary that it should be canceled. He, certainly, had no intention of taking part. There had already been procedural difficulties upon which London had adjudicated, putting him in charge of the murder investigation and he took full responsibility for the cancellation. It was inevitable that it would inflame the media, which was unfortunate and would not have occurred if there had been proper consultation, which there should have been from the third secretary, knowing of the previous day’s London ruling.

Charlie copied the message to Dawkins, Stout, and the two resident intelligence officers to coincide with his sending it to the ambassador, and chose the commissary office to confirm his Islay single malt order in which to lose himself for fifteen minutes beyond the time the press conference had been scheduled to begin.

Paula-Jane was waiting for him when Charlie returned to the
rezidentura
level. She said: “All hell’s broken loose.”

“I’d have been disappointed if it hadn’t,” said Charlie.

The moment he entered the ambassador’s suite, Charlie recognized Sir Thomas Sotley as the quintessential career diplomat, from the top of his gray-tinged head, past the old Etonian tie, the Savile Row suit, and the family-crested signet ring, to the tip of his hand-tooled Lobb shoes. Jeremy Dawkins, a younger clone apart from the tumbling-forward blond hair and already fury-flushed face, was to the right of the ambassador’s antique, green leather inset desk. Behind them was almost an aerial view of the Moskva River.

“What’s the meaning of this?” immediately demanded the ambassador, waving the printout of Charlie’s e-mail like a penalty flag. There was no invitation for Charlie to sit.

“I’d hoped it was self-explanatory,” said Charlie.

“It is self-serving, unforgivable impertinence for which I demand an explanation,” spluttered the outraged man.

“There was no intended impertinence.”

“The third secretary is responsible for the general administration of this embassy and got the approval of the deputy Director-General for the conference, to discount some of the most preposterous media fantasies. By refusing to appear, causing the conference to be canceled, you’ve assured those fantasies will be exacerbated.”

Doubly trapped before he’d virtually started, Charlie recognized he was making an immediate enemy of the ambassador. “You were aware of my being seconded here?”

The ambassador frowned again. “Of course I am aware of your being seconded here! Mr. Dawkins has kept me fully informed.”

“Seconded for what specific purpose?”

There was a hesitation before the diplomat said: “Do you imagine that you can interrogate
me
!”

“No, Your Excellency,” said Charlie, belatedly deciding that he should show the expected respect. “I am trying to prevent any further misunderstandings. Are you also aware of yesterday’s exchanges between this embassy and London concerning my role here?”

Instead of answering, Sotley looked inquiringly at Dawkins. The flush-faced man said, “There were some working arrangements that needed to be clarified. I decided—”

“Excellency,” broke in Charlie, talking directly to the ambassador. “I would respectfully suggest that this meeting is suspended to give you the opportunity to read for yourself the exchanges being referred to here, and perhaps discuss them more fully and in private with Mr. Dawkins. I will, of course, be available if you decide there is any reason to discuss the situation further.”

As he made his way back to the
rezidentura,
Charlie guessed that Dawkins probably wouldn’t have shown him the same mercy, but there was nothing to be gained impaling Dawkins’s head on a
spike. Far more important—and worrying—was the revelation that Jeffrey Smale was involving himself in such a hands-on way and that embassy officers were unquestioningly accepting the deputy director’s authority. Maybe, Charlie thought, he was going soft in his advancing years. Then again, perhaps he wasn’t—just impatient with all the interruptions and anxious to get on with the job. Which looked like being further delayed by another wasted day. Then he saw Reg Stout talking animatedly with three men in the corridor along which he was walking, directly in front of the open-doored control box containing the faulty CCTV terminals. All three had cameras around their necks and open work boxes packed with electronic equipment. One of the three was a man named Harry Fish, an MI5 electronics sweeper who’d been in the counterespionage business almost as long as Charlie. The recognition between them was immediate. Fish raised his eyes to heaven at the same time as shaking his head, which Charlie knew wasn’t in denial at God living up there but at the shambles down here on the ground.

Charlie hadn’t expected to be back in the ambassador’s presence so quickly, although on this occasion he was not in the man’s office but in a larger, adjoining conference room. Assembled around the table with Charlie and the three sweepers was the ambassador, Dawkins, Stout, and both the MI5 and MI6 officers. The object of everyone’s attention, in the very center of the table and laid on a white handkerchief to make them more visible, were four black objects the size of pinheads.

“State of the art,” declared Fish, the team leader. “Any electronic or verbal communication conducted through the four terminals in which we found them would have been received with crystal clarity by the FSB or the external directorate, the
Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki
in their Lubyanka headquarters. I am going to have to bring a much larger team from London to sweep this embassy from top to bottom . . .” The balding man looked between Stout and the two intelligence officers before continuing
on to the two diplomats. “There will obviously be a complete and extremely full internal inquiry, which I would expect London to send independent people to conduct. In preparation for that it will be necessary for all of you to go back to every communication that was sent on equipment through these terminals—equipment which my team and I will identify—from the date the Russian electricians were allowed on to the premises supposedly to repair the faulty CCTV cameras. Their being allowed within the embassy is a breach of every security guidance and instruction with which every British embassy, particularly this one, is issued. The inquiry will need to see all the documentation, between whomever was involved and consulted, authorizing the Russian entry—”