Bomb Grade

chapter 28

N atalia decided against repeating the dirty uniform ploy with Vasili Shelapin. She believed she had more upon which to work an interrogation than with Yatisyna. And the examination of the house in which Shelapin had been arrested with his lover, while fastidiously kept, was insufficiently effeminate to justify demeaning psychology. It might even have had the reverse effect. As she had with all the other arrests, however, she’d isolated Shelapin from the moment of his seizure, particularly from the boy, whose name was Yuri Maksimovich Toom and who was in the chorus of a transvestite stage show in a club close to the Arbat.

Natalia still insisted upon Shelapin wearing prison uniform and watched again through the mirror glass for signs of discomfort. There weren’t any, from Shelapin, but Natalia was caught by the attitude of the two guards. She hadn’t selected or briefed them this time. Both were men and Natalia’s impression was of respect for the gang leader. Shelapin didn’t bother with any chair-lounging performance. He surveyed the room, only once but completely, before propping himself against the table edge to look directly at his escorts. Who were unnerved. Shelapin was, she accepted, very much in control of the room. The attitude was not overtly homosexual: his sexual orientation was neither his boast nor his difficulty, simply his proclivity. She’d been sensible, not attempting the debasing approach: it would have been counter-productive. She had the recording volume turned up and heard perfectly the peremptory demand of someone accustomed always to being obediently answered when he asked who he would be seeing and what their rank would be. There was an irritated frown when the escorts said, apologetically, they didn’t know. Natalia was curious that his interrogator’s rank was important to Shelapin. When he asked how much longer he would have to wait – to which the uneasy men replied they didn’t know that, either – Natalia delayed her entry, to fuel his impatience. He searched the walls for a clock and when he failed to find one glanced briefly behind him, assessing the interview set-up and said he needed a chair. The escorts looked at one another, each for the other to reply: the younger finally said they weren’t responsible for the arrangement. Shelapin told them to find out who was, to get him something to sit upon. The younger one half turned towards the door before stopping to say they didn’t have the authority and would have to wait. Natalia actually leaned forward against the glass for Shelapin’s response, but he said nothing. Instead he leaned forward himself, intently studying the features of both men, each of whom wilted under the memorizing scrutiny. Enough, determined Natalia.

As she entered the room she looked hard at both guards herself before examining the gangster, which she did with the same head-to-toe distaste with which she’d regarded Yatisyna but to noticeably less effect. Shelapin remained propped against the table, examining her just as closely. Facially he was a fleshy man, heavy jowled and with pouched eyes, and she guessed the ageing body would be sagged beneath the shapeless prison issue. The obviously dyed hair was deeply black and very full, in waves.

Natalia’s file this time was thin, just the genuine arrest report. She opened it as she sat and for the benefit of the tape said, ‘You are Vasili Fedorovich Shelapin?’

‘I want a chair.’

‘You will stand.’

‘Am I supposed to be intimidated? Or impressed?’

‘You’re supposed to answer my questions.’ He hadn’t expected to be interrogated by a woman. It was an advantage.

He made a snorting, derisive sound. ‘Who are you?’

‘You are Vasili Fedorovich Shelapin?’

‘I asked who you were.’

‘My identity is no concern of yours.’

‘Frightened?’

Now it was Natalia who made the derisive sound. ‘Frightened! Of you! Why should anyone be frightened of you, Vasili Fedorovich?’

‘A lot of people are.’

‘I’m not one of them.’

‘Yet.’

Natalia thought her ridicule had scored. ‘A number of people were killed in the Pizhma robbery. The principal charge upon which you will be tried is murder, obviously. The nuclear theft also carries the death penalty…’

‘… What are you talking about?’ he broke in, impatiently.

‘You know very well what I am talking about.’

‘I don’t know anything about murders or any nuclear robbery at Pizhma.’

‘In the boot of your car – and that of Yuri Maksimovich Toom, who was with you at the time of your arrest – were found canisters of plutonium 239 stolen on the 9th of this month from a transportation train at Pizhma,’ recounted Natalia, again for the benefit of the recording.

He gave a more genuine, sneering laugh and actually directed it towards the machine. ‘Don’t be absurd! It was planted: maybe you even know by whom.’

Behind him both guards shifted uneasily. So far this recording wasn’t going to earn her any commendations, Natalia accepted. But it might do, from now on. ‘There is evidence, in addition to the canisters,’ she declared. ‘Quite separate and even more incriminating.’

‘What?’

‘Photographs.’

‘What the hell are you talking about now? What photographs?’

‘Photographs of Pizhma,’ insisted Natalia, anticipating his collapse. ‘High-definition pictures taken from a specially directed satellite showing every stage of the robbery. And showing, too, the people involved: people that can be positively identified by using developing and enlargement techniques.’ Kestler had talked of height, weight and dress identification, although not of facial recognition which she was trying to suggest without actually claiming it. If they did try to use the satellite pictures in a court hearing, which it was extremely likely they would, they couldn’t logically exclude the Americans from any future progress meetings. That hadn’t been touched upon at any ministerial or operational session she’d so far attended. She’d have to mention it. She pushed aside the digression, looking up expectantly at the man.

Who laughed at her again, quite genuinely, without any sneer. ‘You’ve got photographs of the people carrying out the robbery?’

His reaction wasn’t right, not right at all! Where was the collapse, at his believing he was trapped? ‘Yes.’

‘Good. Then you can release me right now. And everyone arrested with me. And all the people you picked up at Ulitza Volkhonka. You’ve tried to be too clever and fallen flat on your ass.’

Natalia had experienced a lot of bluff and a lot of bravado, more desperate last-throw attempts than she could remember. What she could very definitely remember, because she was proud of it, was that she’d never made a mistake separating genuine details from bluster. And her gnawing impression here, wrong though it had to be, was that Shelapin wasn’t at all desperate and wasn’t trying to bluff. Working to match his condenscension, she said, ‘Why should I do that?’

‘Because those photographs prove I wasn’t involved. Nor any of my friends.’

‘What about the canisters?’

‘Is it likely, even if I’d organized the robbery, which I didn’t, that I’d leave that stuff lying around in the trunk of my own car? Come on! I know it’s difficult for everyone connected with the Militia to be honest but try, just for once!’

‘They were found on your property, and on the property of people connected with you. Those, and others, will be identified from the satellite pictures. And they’ll talk: they always do in the end. And that will be sufficient to put you in front of a firing squad.’

‘No, it won’t!’ he said. ‘It might have been, by itself, fit-up though it was. But now I know about the photographs. You’ve given me the perfect way to prove your bullshit lies are just that, bullshit and lies. I’ll insist they’re produced! And you won’t be able to identify me on anything they show. Nor anyone linked to me. You stupid, silly bitch. You’ve really fucked up, haven’t you?’

‘Of course you wouldn’t have been at Pizhma yourself. That would have been too dangerous, particularly with what was done to the canisters. I guess you stayed home in bed, with Yuri. Is he your alibi for the 9th?’

He laughed at her yet again. ‘Weak! Very weak! You think you’re going to get under my skin, because I prefer to fuck boys rather than girls! I don’t know if it was Yuri that might. I like variety. It might have even been a party, so I would have had more than one. Whoever it was, they’ll tell you where I was: even what we did, if you’re that interested. Are you interested?’

Toom might have been a weakness if there’d been any genuine affection but it looked as if she’d lost there, too. ‘Your not being in any photograph isn’t going to save you.’

Still he out-manoeuvred her. ‘You’ve got to find someone, just one person, you can link with me, though, haven’t you? If you can’t do that, the photographs are in my favour.’

Abruptly, seeking firmer ground, Natalia changed direction. ‘You’re at war, with the Agayans Family, aren’t you?’

‘Am I? About what?’

‘Crime control at Bykovo. The airport particularly.’

‘You’re talking nonsense. I’m a businessman. Freight: transhipment in and out of the country. That sort of thing. I’ve heard of someone called Agayans. He tries to extort money from genuine businessmen like myself, claims he can give me protection, against criminal gangs. I won’t have anything to do with him.’

‘You knew he’d set up a robbery attempt, at a nuclear installation at Kirs, didn’t you?’

‘I’ve got to get this straight!’ mocked Shelapin. ‘We’ve had a robbery at Pizhma, which was photographed. Now we’ve got another at Kirs. This is exciting! What were the pictures like there?’

Natalia felt the perspiration finding its way down her back and guessed her face would be shining. ‘It didn’t work but it was quite a sophisticated attempt at Kirs: Agayans and a local Family. It was from someone in the Agayans clan that you heard about it, wasn’t it? And about the decommissioning that you used much more cleverly than they did, with the interception at Pizhma: where you got all the canisters that were found. Where are the others you and your people took?’

‘Don’t you have photographs?’ he spluttered. Behind him the escorts came close to laughing.

‘We’ve enough for a death sentence. Which we’ll get.’ Why hadn’t the damned canisters been forensically examined?

‘How much did you think you were going to get? Five thousand? Ten?’

Natalia stared at him, bewildered by what he said but not wanting to admit it. ‘What I want is to know where the rest of the canisters are.’

Shelapin shook his head. ‘You think I can’t recognize a shakedown when I see one? I’ve been hit on by experts and you’re no expert. You’re very far from expert. In fact I’ve never known anything so pitiful! You know what you’re going to get from me? Fuck all! I already told you, I don’t give in to extortion.’

She had to conclude this, stop it degenerating any further. ‘Vasili Fedorovich Shelapin, I am formally charging you with complicity in murder and with complicity in the theft of two hundred and fifty kilos of plutonium 239 at Pizhma on the 9th of this month. Whatever you say will be noted and may, upon the discretion of the Federal Prosecutor, form part of the case against you. Have you anything to say?’

‘Yes,’ said Shelapin. ‘Go fuck yourself.’

Natalia had never had such a disastrous interrogation and she was demoralized. It had been her fault. She’d been over-confident, not properly thinking ahead or anticipating how touchy he might be. So he’d been right. She’d been stupid and she deserved the taped humiliation. What worried her most was that there was no obvious way to recover, not with Shelapin at least. She’d only break Shelapin with incontrovertible evidence – maybe not even then – and the Pizhma photographs certainly weren’t it, not by themselves. It had been an appalling mistake even to mention them, certainly until they’d got more from some of the other arrested Shelapin Family members. The canisters themselves were incontrovertible, despite his contemptuous denial, so a successful prosecution was assured. But recovering the missing material was more important than a trial. And she hadn’t done anything to achieve that.

As she entered the second observation room, on the opposite side of the Lubyanka, Natalia called upon all her training to put aside the Shelapin disaster, forcing herself to think only of Yevgennie Agayans. With whom she couldn’t risk the slightest mistake. It had to be an unqualified success, to balance the debacle she’d just suffered.

Through her unseen window Natalia saw a short, fat man, owlish in round-framed spectacles, dark hair greased directly back from his forehead. He didn’t appear as controlled as Shelapin – walking back and forth in front of the table with what could have been apprehension more than impatience – although the how-much-longer demands, in a surprisingly deep voice, were as peremptory as the other gang leader’s. The escorts, two men again, didn’t appear as uncomfortable.

Natalia’s file was thicker for this interview and she’d had a second although smaller tape machine installed, the prepared tape already set. The escorts came to vague attention when she entered the room and Agayans started to straighten before abruptly stopping, which Natalia saw as an encouraging if quickly corrected deference to authority. Moving to capitalize upon it, she immediately charged the man with complicity in murder and attempted nuclear theft with the failed Kirs robbery. In both charges she named Yatisyna.

By the time Natalia finished Agayans was smirking. ‘Rubbish!’

Surer of her pressure with this accusation, Natalia started the intentionally over-tuned tape. Into the room echoed the selected and edited sections of her interview with the Kirov gangster naming Agayans as the mastermind at Kirs.

‘More rubbish,’ shrugged Agayans. He held his hands loosely in front of him and began picking at his left sleeve cuff.

‘We’ve got six of your people, every one of them arrested at the scene, singing louder than larks.’

‘I don’t have any “people”.’

‘They say they work for you.’

‘What as?’

‘You tell me.’

‘No. You tell me.’

‘Enforcers. Thieves. Killers.’

‘They described themselves as that?’

‘They’re prepared to, to save themselves. Testifying that they were always obeying your orders.’

Agayans stopped picking at his cuff to flick a dismissive hand towards the second tape. ‘Play me their statements.’

‘You’ll hear what they say, in court.’

‘Why not now?’ demanded the man.

‘Because I don’t intend sitting here all day, swapping tapes for your amusement. Yatisyna has signed a statement that you’re the ringleader: the planner of everything. Everyone else is fighting for clemency, to stay alive. They’ll get their deals. But you’ll die.’

For the first time there was the flicker of doubt. ‘You’ve got nothing to bring me into court.’

Natalia knew he’d break, if she irritated the proper nerve; it just needed the right prod in the right place to push him over the edge. There was a way but it was a gamble and she’d already lost one, badly. ‘There’s enough, on the statements of Yatisyna and the six members of your own Family. There’s even the attempted murder of the Militia man when you were arrested.’

‘It was self-defence. We were suddenly trapped in a road block. My bodyguards thought we were being attacked by gangsters.’

The deepness of the bass voice reminded Natalia of the incanting priests at the Kirov cathedral, which was an ill-fitting recollection. ‘You’d recognize gangsters, wouldn’t you?’

‘What’s that mean?’

‘That you’re one yourself. Head of a clan.’

‘I’m a businessman.’

‘Import-export? Joint venture development?’ sneered Natalia.

He smirked at her again. ‘Exactly right!’

Natalia decided to take the risk. She couldn’t be caught out, not like before. ‘That’s not what Shelapin says.’

‘What?’ The change was dramatic. The complacency slipped and Agayans stopped fiddling with his sleeve cuff.

‘Shelapin,’ repeated Natalia. ‘We’ve pulled him in, too, as part of the enquiry. He says you’re an extortionist. He says he’s a businessman, too, and that you’ve tried to terrorize him.’

‘That motherfucker!’ There was a laugh but it was uncertain. ‘He’s head of a Family! You know that!’

‘We don’t have any evidence to prosecute him for anything. Not like we’ve got against you.’

‘You’re setting me up!’

‘I’m just telling you the strength of the case against you.’ There was an irony in that Shelapin probably would give evidence against Agayans: tell any lie they asked him to. Agayans was shaky, so she had to keep up the pressure. From the file Natalia took the sketches of the Arab and the Frenchman described by Yatisyna, sliding them across the table towards the man. ‘Recognize them?’

Agayans glanced briefly at the drawings. ‘No.’

Natalia decided Agayans was still off-balanced by the threat of a rival gang leader testifying against him, which was how she wanted him to be, trying to think of several things at the same time. She’d personally supervised the positioning of the tape segments and restarted the playback at the moment of Yatisyna’s account of his nightclub encounter with both, when he was with Agayans.

The plump man shook his head. ‘I don’t know anyone called Yatisyna. Or a French middleman acting on behalf of an Arab buyer for nuclear components. That’s an illegal trade and I don’t deal in illegal trade. I am a respectable businessman…’

‘… Who travels with men carrying Uzi machine guns…’ Natalia broke in.

‘… Who travels with men carrying Uzi machine guns because there is no such thing as law and order in Moscow and respectable businessmen have to protect themselves,’ he took over from her.

‘That’s not what Shelapin is going to tell the court.’

‘Who’s going to believe that lying bastard?’

‘It’s all part of a convincing case against you. The Federal Prosecutor has done a deal with Yatisyna: no request for the death penalty in return for his testimony against you.’

The man’s head came up, sharply, as if he were physically confronting a challenge. He said, ‘I don’t believe you,’ but he didn’t sound sure.

‘You’ve heard the tape!’ said Natalia. ‘That’s enough for you to get an idea of what’s being put against you.’

‘I’m not going down, not dying, to save others! Or on Shelapin’s lies.’

It wasn’t the collapse she’d wanted but the concession was there. ‘You don’t really have a choice. It’s already been made. Yetisyna is provincial: small time. You’re head of a major Moscow group, part of one of the leading clans. It’s much better for public opinion, here and outside, if the case is brought against you.’

The man smiled, which surprised her. ‘You completely sure about that?’

Natalia didn’t know how to reply. ‘That’s what the prosecutor thinks.’

‘Does he know it was me?’

The question further confused her. ‘Of course he knows.’ Please God don’t let that be the wrong reply!

The smile flicked on and off again. ‘Tell him I shall be extremely annoyed if any charges are brought against me. Tell the Militia people, too: them most of all.’

‘What are you saying?’ demanded Natalia, remembering Yatisyna’s insistence of Agayans’ protective knowledge of corruption. Into her mind, as well, came the Moscow Militia commander’s fatalistic resignation: There is no such thing as law and order in Russia.

‘I’m not saying anything. Not yet. But I will, if this nonsense goes on. You tell people that.’

‘Which people.’

Agayans shook his head. ‘Just people. Those who need to will hear.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘ You don’t need to. I don’t know you.’

It was becoming practically a replay of her interview with Yatisyna. There was certainly nothing to be gained trying to continue the interview. ‘We’ll speak tomorrow.’

‘Maybe,’ said Agayans, as if he were the person in charge, not Natalia.

Natalia nodded for the escorts to take Agayans away, remaining where she was at the table for the tape to rewind. She wanted to listen to it again, like she intended listening to the Shelapin encounter again. Neither had been good, although this had been better than the first, and she needed to be absolutely prepared for the criticism that was inevitable at the later ministerial grouping.

The scream was inhuman, animal-like and very short. For a moment Natalia remained frozen at the desk. Then she burst from the room, going immediately to her right, where she knew the detention cells to be. Several minor corridors led off a main junction. She hesitated, uncertainly, and then saw people running and ran with them, towards an already huddled group, shouting for people to get out of her way.

Yevgennie Arkentevich Agayans lay spreadeagled on his back, one leg tucked beneath the other, gazing sightlessly at the ceiling through the owlish glasses that absurdly had remained perfectly in place. The top must have been broken from the bottle, although she couldn’t see it because the jagged edge that had almost decapitated him was still buried deep in the man’s neck: the bottom half of the bottle was intact and already almost filled with blood from the way it had torn into his carotid artery. As she watched, the pressure became such that the bottle was forced out of Agayans’ throat, splattering them all with blood.

‘You’re making things untenable for me,’ complained Peter Johnson.

‘You’re making things untenable for yourself.’

‘You knew I was going to monitor him,’ insisted Peter Johnson.

‘It went beyond monitoring,’ insisted Dean.

‘I didn’t know the situation at the embassy.’

The Director-General sat for several moments, silently regarding his deputy over his cluttered desk. ‘You knew, even to the wording, of something you thought had been withheld from the ambassador. Bowyer came direct to you, like Fenby came direct to you.’

‘We would have had to mount a defence, if something had been withheld.’

‘You’re saying it was to protect Muffin!’

‘To protect the department.’

There was another accusing silence. ‘You were undermining an operative specifically put into Moscow to justify this department!’

‘Bowyer allowed himself to get caught up in internal embassy politics that I knew nothing about.’

‘I shall formally protest, to the Foreign Office here and to Wilkes, in Moscow, at the blatant deceit of the Head of Chancellery.’

‘That could lead to his dismissal: his withdrawal almost certainly.’

‘What was he trying to achieve, against Muffin?’

‘Bowyer grossly misinterpreted my instructions. But I did order the monitoring.’

‘I know where the responsibility lies. He’ll be disciplined but not withdrawn.’

‘You’re asking for my resignation, aren’t you?’ said Johnson.

‘No,’ said Dean, who an hour earlier had chaired the deferred meeting at which it had been agreed to propose the sting operation to Moscow. ‘I want you personally to go to Washington. And I want Fenby’s full support for this new idea. Just as I want your full support. In future I expect both of you to work with me, not against me.’

‘I’m to give him an ultimatum?’ frowned Johnson.

‘Phrase it how you want,’ said the Director-General. ‘But tell him I don’t want the embarrassment of what his well-connected protege did becoming public. And I’m sure he doesn’t.’

‘I see,’ said Johnson, slowly.

‘That’s what I want both of you to do. See things properly in the future.’

Bastard, thought Johnson and Dean knew it. That’s how he wanted the other man to think of him.

‘The Foreign Office hasn’t raised any objection, so we’re going to propose it,’ the Director-General told Charlie, who hadn’t been invited to that morning’s meeting. ‘There’s absolutely no guarantee that Moscow will even contemplate it, of course. In fact I think it extremely unlikely.’

He’d got away with it! Charlie thought he’d made a reasonable case – but only reasonable – and the postponement the previous evening obviously for a private discussion had worried him. ‘But I can go back right away?’ Charlie had spent a depressing night in London. He’d actually gone back to The Pheasant, which had completely changed in three months: there was a bank of light-cascading fruit machines that had made his eyes ache and a constantly blaring juke box that had made his head ache. Excusing himself to ease past him, a shaven-headed youth with an earring had called him Pops’. And they’d stopped stocking Islay whisky.

‘If the idea is accepted, you’re going to have to be careful going to the embassy.’

‘I always was,’ said Charlie.

‘There won’t be any more misunderstandings,’ assured Dean.

He might as well try to win everything. ‘Was there some misunderstanding with Washington, too?’

The spectacles moved smoothly through the man’s fingers and Charlie wondered if Dean ever used them for their proper purpose. ‘Not any longer.’

‘Do I need to know what they were?’

‘No,’ refused Dean, shortly.

He had been right about the man being like Sir Archibald Willoughby! ‘I’m to continue dealing with you, personally?’

Dean nodded. ‘We’ll only give it a limited run, if they do agree.’

‘I understand that.’

‘How are you finding Moscow, apart from the job?’

‘Pleasant enough,’ said Charlie, non-committal.

At that moment, in Moscow, the final tape of Natalia’s interviews clicked off. For several moments no one in the ministerial or presidential group spoke. Then to Natalia the expressionless Dmitri Fomin said ‘Thank you,’ and led everyone from the room and Natalia knew the recent commendation had become meaningless.