Dead Men Living

16

Belying the appearance of a man who always looked as if he’d crawled out from under an ancient hedge, Charlie Muffin was fastidiously clean: the way he dressed was camouflage for him to be overlooked, hopefully not even seen. Necessarily going back to Lesnaya to shower, shave and change-and even then make a telephone call-delayed him, but Charlie wouldn’t anyway have arrived at the gardens ahead of Natalia.

She had never been operational, walking dark streets and even darker alleys; couldn’t instinctively recognize the difference between shadows and shade, which after so long was second nature to Charlie. Not yet knowing her latest concern, he had to protect her, ensure she was alone. It had been Natalia who’d remembered their old rendezvous, so she’d remember the rules: expect him to check fromsomewhere unseen and know that if he didn’t approach after half an hour he wouldn’t make the meeting, not believing it safe.

She had to be wrong, overreacting, he told himself as he emerged from the Botanicheskiy Sad metro, cloaked by the crowd. This sort of thing had been necessary in the old, paranoid past, but one of the few real changes in Russia-Moscow, particularly-had been the ending of the KGB’s spy-upon-spy internal control. In addition to which officially Natalia was no longer attached to an intelligence organization since her liaison transfer to the Interior Ministry.

His going through the charade of a clandestine meeting, behaving in the ways of that old, obsessive past, was important, though, for what it told him. Natalia was becoming paranoid: overpressured and overstrained trying to live as they were. As they had no alternative but to live. Charlie tried unsuccessfully to recall the Shakespeare quotation about a tangled web he’d had to learn at school, unable to remember if it was the same play that had the phrase about protesteth too much that had occurred to him that morning, confronting the supposedly outraged diplomats and offended intelligence officer. School had been a long time ago, like so much else seemed to be.

But not tradecraft.

Sure of the geography, Charlie eased into the park by the side gate, the one that gave him immediate cover from the arch-roofed hothouse and the branch-skirted gymnosperms. He saw Natalia at once. She was sitting on what he’d taught her to be their marker seat, from which he could isolate the people around her, seeking out the seemingly engrossed newspaper reader on adjoining benches or entwined lovers whose eyes never closed in ecstasy or pet owners whose dogs couldn’t pee anymore.

Dutifully Natalia got up after a few minutes, striding forcefully off toward the rear gate, as if leaving: a never-fail trigger to startle a watcher into movement. Two newspaper readers read on. A third continued dozing. The solitary dog walker went on in the opposite direction. It was too early for lovers. Natalia sat as abruptly as she’d risen, on the seat closest to the first hothouse, not more than five meters from where Charlie stood beneath the tree canopy. The gardens remained tranquil, apart from the entry of a noisy school party of giggling girls who were giggling schoolgirls. Charlie still gave itanother five minutes, smiling toward Natalia as he eventually approached.

He said, “That was nostalgic.”

“I didn’t need the memories.”

“You’d better tell me about it.”

Natalia did, at last, in short, tight sentences, finally holding back nothing, looking away from him most of the time.

Charlie didn’t speak for several moments after she’d finished. “It was ridiculous, stupid, not to have told me from the beginning.”

“I know. Now. I didn’t guess how you’d react at there being an overhang from the Popov affair.”

“There was an official inquiry. You were completely exonerated.”

“Viktor Ivanovich was a member of the tribunal,” she reminded Charlie, in turn. “He obviously didn’t accept the finding.”

“There couldn’t be any other reason?”

“Not that I can think of. And I’ve thought about it a very great deal.”

Charlie raised his hands, warding off apology before he spoke. “You couldn’t have misunderstood?”

“Not after yesterday.”

“Which you seem to have won?”

“This time. I need to go on winning.”

“More than that, even. If they’re trying to destroy you, you’ve got to destroy them.”

“I’m so tired of playing games: our games, their game, anyone’s game!”

“We’re not playing games anymore,” insisted Charlie. “We’re going to fight.”

“With what? I was lucky yesterday-the timing was in my favor-but it was a fluke. If I don’t stay ahead on this every step of the way, I’ll be replaced.”

Charlie lapsed into silence again, immersed in thought. He wouldn’t say it-couldn’t say it-because the resolve had been obvious for a very long time and they’d shaken it to death like two dogs holding on to a single bone, but if Natalia were forced to leave the ministry-to become simply but all-importantly his proper legal wife, Sasha’s mother-all their personal working difficulties wouldbe ended, at a finger snap. But Natalia needed her job, as much as he needed his. Until now-uncertain, unsure now-both their personal lives had been a litany of one disaster imploding upon another. They were only confident about their professional ability and success, clinging to it as a blind man tightly holds his stick to get through each day without colliding with unseen obstacles. He said, “If they want a war, we’ll take it to them.”

Natalia said, “I’ve talked to Lestov. He thinks you had a lot you hadn’t shared. According to the American woman, you’re a sneaky son-of-a-bitch. Her words.” That was an exaggeration, but Natalia had no difficulty with it.

So, thought an unoffended Charlie, was Miriam Bell. “You knew that without being told.”

“Have you got something I can fight with?” demanded Natalia, gazing steadily at him.

Decision time, Charlie recognized: shit or get off the pot. Loyalty to the department? Or loyalty to Natalia? The department had cheated him and been disastrously cheated in return; and they’d cheat him again, if it became expedient to do so. Natalia had never cheated him-tried to even any score-despite the times and the ways he’d failed her. Nor, he thought, would she ever. And was the job as important to him as he’d tried to make out, with his elaborate blind man’s analogy? Charlie was surprised he even needed to pose himself the question.

He stood, breathing in deeply, offering his hand to bring her up with him, and began slowly wandering the path toward the hothouses. And as they walked, Charlie told Natalia all he knew or thought he knew: even, toward the end, his director-general’s now-ignored insistence that he offer as little as possible to gain as much as he could, until a reason was established for the English lieutenant being in Yakutsk.

“Miriam Bell’s right. You are a sneaky son-of-a-bitch.”

“Do you still have sufficient authority to try to find the records of Gulag 98?” demanded Charlie.

“It would have been Beria’s time. The NKVD,” Natalia recalled, talking as much to herself as to Charlie. “It’s said that for more than a layered mile beneath the Lubyanka there’s a virtual city beneath a city stretching as far as Red Square and the Kremlin and PloshchadSverdlova, under the Bolshoi: Stalin had his own railway system, to move around it. One entire level is occupied by archives, hundreds of millions of them. Yakutskaya was one of the biggest secrets, so records might have been destroyed, as they were in Yakutsk itself. But we won’t know that until we look.”

“Don’t be specific,” warned Charlie. “A general inquiry about camps is an obvious extension of the inquiry: something you’d be expected to do. Isolating a specific camp at the very beginning wouldn’t be, unless the information came from your own people.”

“Charlie!” she protested, pained.

“If we’re not going to take chances, we’re not going to take chances,” he said, offering Charlie Muffin logic. “Channel everything through you. You’ll know what you’re looking for. Dump the rest on Travin. Drown him. Nikulin is your secret weapon-so secret that he doesn’t know it.”

“You’re going to have to spell this out for me step by step!” protested Natalia.

“You’ll understand every little skirmish,” promised Charlie.

“Recognize something?” she demanded, stopping abruptly where they were.

Charlie gazed around the huge glassed building with its giant, roof-sized fern leaves, realizing for the first time they’d actually gone into one of the houses. “No,” he conceded.

“It’s the same one you walked me to when you admitted your defection was phony and that you’d lied,” identified Natalia. “It was right here you told me you were going to abandon me and go back to London.”

The recollection-and the remorse-was immediate. Charlie said, “I came back. And this time I’m not abandoning you.”

“No,” accepted Natalia. “It’s a good feeling.”

Going personally to the American embassy, leaving the protection of his own territory for the uncertainty of theirs, was as conscious a psychological act as dressing to be despised and therefore underrated, despite Miriam Bell’s suspicion. Charlie didn’t expect an identity for the murdered American to be freely offered if it had already been found, but he’d sense the nuance if there had been progress. There were other considerations, too. The FBI quarters at Ulitza Chaykovskovowere far more extensive and certainly more luxurious than his badger’s hole in which more than three people at any one time risked suffocation, and the American embassy mess extended happy hour to two and on occasions three. There was no drink price concession at all at the British bar. Charlie suspected Gerald Williams.

It had been Miriam’s number he’d called from the Lesnaya apartment before leaving to meet Natalia, and the Americans were waiting for him, easily accommodated in Saul Freeman’s office. It was little more than a passing impression that Miriam had showered and washed her hair and tried makeup on a face showing scarcely any sign of the Yakutsk ravages. His immediate concentration was upon two men already in the room, against a far wall almost as if they were not part of the intended gather. Charlie looked curiously, invitingly, to Freeman, who instead of introductions said, “Coupla guys from State. Just sitting in.”

The elder, white-haired man was clear-skinned and tight-bodied and beak-nosed, which, combined with the length at which he wore his hair, gave him a patrician appearance. It was the second man who held Charlie’s attention. He was slightly built and unobtrusively dressed in muted gray and sat completely unmoving. What registered most was washed-out blue eyes that never blinked. In Charlie’s experience men with no name who didn’t blink either wore six-guns in Western movies or ear protectors on practice ranges, where he’d never been able to stop blinking. And this man didn’t look at all like an actor.

Determinedly Charlie said, “Hi. Charlie Muffin.”

The two men nodded back but didn’t speak.

Freeman said, “Must be good to get back?”

“Great,” said Charlie. And waited.

“Good of you to come,” said Freeman.

“We’re all working together, aren’t we?” Charlie spoke looking at the two silent strangers, able to see Miriam at the same time. She was subdued, unsmiling.

“Like to think so,” agreed the FBI chief.

“So would I,” said Charlie.

“Everything escalated while you were away. It’s been a media circus. The president’s responded with an executive order demanding answers. Plans an Arlington burial.”

“Very impressive.”

Freeman shifted, seemingly uncomfortable. “Thought it might be useful to talk through everything we’ve got.”

Who thought? wondered Charlie. “I’d like to hear that, too.” He took from his pocket a much-edited and sometimes altered version of the account he’d earlier sent to London. “That’s all I’ve got together at the moment.”

Freeman’s forced bonhomie faltered at being outmaneuvered. His eyes flickered to the men against the wall.

Miriam said, “I’m afraid I haven’t worked as fast as you. All we’ve done is talk it through in very general terms.”

Charlie estimated it had been a full five minutes since the blue-eyed man had blinked. He wondered if he could make him now. He said, “Okay, so let’s talk. It was clearly a combined intelligence mission. Records of American military intelligence, G2, are stored at Adelphi, Maryland. With the urgency and authority of an executive order, you’ll have accessed them by now, so I’d appreciate knowing the result of that. It’s too soon, obviously, to have got your own photographs of your body, but you’re quite clearly geared up to run graduation checks at West Point. What sort of time frame are you running on that? You have a Rapid Physiognomy Comparison facility at Bureau headquarters, don’t you? It shouldn’t take long, if you use that. I’d be interested in your theories about the missing articles, against what was left on the bodies. We’ve quite a lot to talk about, in fact, haven’t we?”

The stranger didn’t blink but Freeman did, looking even more obviously at the Washington visitors. He said, “You’ve covered quite a lot of ground there.”

“I thought that’s what we had to do,” said Charlie. “What’s come out of Adelphi?”

“Nothing so far,” said Freeman.

“But you’re checking there, so you’ve already decided it was intelligence,” accepted Charlie, smiling at the unintentional admission. “That’s something, I suppose. Means you’re already wondering, as I am, how two officers could disappear like they obviously did, for so long. So you’ll be organizing a records search of your CIA forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services …?” He gestured to his specially prepared report, lying unread and untouched on Freeman’sdesk. “You’ll see we’re carrying out those sort of inquiries in London. I’d appreciate your letting me have your results as soon as possible, as you’ll see I’ve promised to let you have ours …?”

“Yes, of course,” said Freeman.

“What’s the State Department guidance about possible embarrassment?’ he asked, directly addressing the two unspeaking men.

“That’s the big question,” tried Freeman. “What was our guy-your guy, too-doing there in the first place?”

Which wasn’t even an attempt to answer the question, Charlie acknowledged. An executive order from the president himself was certainly important enough for someone to have traveled all the way from Washington. But it was a very long way to come to sit and say nothing-practically like a performance in a B-movie. Unless they did know and their participation was turning into a damage-limitation exercise better planned than his at Yakutsk.

As if aware of the reflection, Freeman said, “That Nazi business really was a hell of a bluff.”

“Thanks.”

“It was that, wasn’t it? A bluff, I mean, like you told Miriam it was.”

“Absolutely.” Or were they groping more than he believed? If they were, he’d already achieved all there was to achieve, misdirecting sufficiently and disclosing nothing he shouldn’t have disclosed.

“You really can’t take it-anything-any further?”

“Everything I’ve got is there,” said Charlie.

“I’ll get something to you,” promised Miriam.

“With whatever there might be from Washington,” added Freeman.

“That’s about it, then,” accepted Charlie. There wouldn’t be the expected happy hour invitation today.

“We’ll keep in touch,” insisted Freeman.

Freeman had to accompany Charlie to be officially signed past embassy security. As they walked, Charlie said, “You want to tell me about that?”

Freeman said, “I’m sorry. They made the rules.”

“Which were?”

“That’s how they wanted it done.”

“What are their names?”

“I can’t tell you, Charlie.”

“And you expect me to cooperate!”

“How do you think I feel?”

“I don’t know, Saul. How do you feel?”

“Like a prime cunt.”

“That’s about right,” said Charlie. “I’m sorry for you.”

“I’m sorry for myself.” The man straightened as he walked, as if trying physically to cast off the episode. Actually smiling, which he hadn’t done so far, he said, “Dick Cartright tells me a girl I introduced him to is related to the one you’re with. Isn’t that a fantastic coincidence?”

“Fantastic,” agreed Charlie, without a pause. Sometimes gossip and an inferior man’s need to boast was a wonderful thing.

“I’ve never known arrogance like it!” protested Kenton Peters, who hadn’t from anyone who knew who he was. The appalled indignation echoed over the line from the embassy’s secure communications bunker.

“That’s appalling,” sympathized James Boyce. “But you’ve no doubt there is something he’s keeping back, not telling London?”

“None.”

“It can’t be about there being a second officer. I’ve seen what he sent today. It’s there.”

“Our people haven’t. So he hasn’t shared it.”

“So you could be right that he’s got the connection. Is it time to eliminate him?”

There was silence from Moscow. Then Peters said, “I’ll leave everything in place. We’ll take him anytime, when it suits us. Maximum effect.”

“I’m not happy,” complained Boyce.

“Neither am I.”

“Damned nuisance.”

“Yes.”