Dead Men Living

23

“You won!” said Charlie.

“We won,” said Natalia.

Charlie waved dismissively, curious at how subdued she was. His news rather than hers, he supposed. “More than won,” he said, topping her qualification. “Travin exiled to the Chertanovo militia station, not even the colonel-in-charge, so far removed it might as well be to Yakutsk itself rather than a Moscow suburb! And Viskov dismissed! You’re safe!”

“Viskov is still a member of the Duma: in parliament.”

“Where he’ll stay, powerless. It’s you who’s got the ear of Nikulin. And more. It would have been the president who sacked Viskov.”

Natalia smiled faintly. “It’s going to take time adjusting to it.” Yet again, she thought. She finally sipped the champagne Charlie had insisted on opening when she’d told him of Nikulin’s late afternoon announcement. Charlie had allowed Sasha a thimble measure before she’d been put to bed demanding to know if she’d get a party for being clever like her mother, which had been Charlie’s explanation for the celebration. He’d said maybe. Natalia’s smile quickly faded now. “How long will you be away?”

“No longer than absolutely necessary,” Charlie promised. He was as satisfied with his afternoon as he was with Natalia’s. The director-general’s announcement of the exhumation of the supposed grave of Simon Norrington had given Charlie a valid reason for going to Berlin, which after a lot more embassy library reading he’d decided was more important, initially, than anywhere else.

“I don’t like doing business this way,” Dean had protested.

“It’s the way everyone else is doing theirs. It was you who warned me at the beginning that this could destroy the department-might even be intended for that purpose.”

“Certainly things haven’t been done properly, but I can’t believe that!”

“I can.”

“You don’t want anyone to know where you’re going?” qualified Dean.

“Not even within our own department.”

“I’ll overlook the impertinence of that, but only just.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t consider it necessary.”

“The military attache is going to be the official representative, maybe with others from the embassy.”

“I’ll fix everything myself from here. Which will make it my personal responsibility.”

“If you get it wrong, it’ll be mine as well.”

So obvious was Natalia’s continued uncertainty about surviving her own internal war that Charlie decided against telling her his suspicion of being a chosen victim in another. Neither would he ever admit to her his impatience to pursue the investigation outside Russia. From her reaction already to his going, he knew she could never have been convinced his eagerness was entirely professional, a determination to at last become the hunter, not the hunted, which didn’t quite fit but was good enough in his own mind. Perhaps a better analogy would be getting off a stage upon which everyone else had been watching his blindfolded performance without taking part themselves.

“I shall miss you,” Natalia said. “So will Sasha.”

“You don’t need me to tell you the same.”

“I do,” Natalia said, urgently.

“My life’s perfect here. And this is where my life is, from now on. With you and Sasha.”

“Don’t put it in danger, then,” Natalia urged.

“How?” Charlie frowned.

“Go with the system, darling, not against it. Even if you do find out everything, go along with the cover-up if that’s what’s demanded. The three of us are more important than anything else.”

“I will,” said Charlie. The problem was having to take every conceivable risk to find out the truth. Only then would he have any protection from unblinking men like Henry Packer.

Miriam handed the champagne to Lestov, lifting her own glass in a toast. “Congratulations.”

The Russian said, “I still can’t believe it.” There seemed, in fact, a lot of personal benefits he still had problems believing, the most pleasant of all being in Miriam Bell’s apartment, drinking Miriam Bell’s wine and knowing that eventually that night he would share Miriam Bell’s always welcoming bed. He hoped, too, to share other things, which meant he would not even be neglecting his professional duties.

Miriam was having her difficulty understanding the dismissals that had accompanied Lestov’s promotion, but needed to because of the obvious connection with the investigation. “It happened, just like that?” she questioned, snapping her fingers.

“There was a previous episode I was only partially involved in and don’t know enough about: something to do with the deputy minister opposing the prison camp search.”

“And didn’t that turn out to be a good idea!” flattered Miriam. She grinned. “I’ll show you later just how grateful I am getting the outcome of that.” She picked her glass up to take to the kitchen. “Come and talk to me while I cook.” Her persistence wouldn’t seem so blatant there, preparing dinner.

Lestov followed dutifully, happy for Miriam to consider herself the leader. He leaned casually against the food bar dividing the kitchen in two, watching her and anticipating the prospect of that familiar body under the concealingly loose caftan. If only he fully understood that morning’s White House meeting, he’d be a very happy and contented man. “I’m not sure I shouldn’t tell Charlie. He seems to have been pretty open with us … you, at least, which amounts to the same thing.”

“Only as much as it suits him,” objected Miriam.

And you, thought Lestov, curious how much there was she hadn’t told him. “You think there are things he’s kept back?”

“I’m sure of it.” She’d expected something from the OSS archives by now. She hoped the bastards in Washington weren’t working the well-known need-to-know shell game to sideline her. She still didn’t fully understand the business with Henry Packer. Charlie insisted he didn’t understand it, either, although there was the suggestion of a separate CIA operation, which the Agency people at the embassy denied, which of course they would if it had or if it hadn’t been.

“He might offer something back.” Was she sleeping with Charlie Muffin, as well?

“Let’s wait, see what you get from following up the Larisa Krotkov lead,” suggested Miriam. “Always best to negotiate from a position of strength.”

Miriam lived outside the embassy compound and from the kitchen of the apartment there was, paradoxically, a superb nighttime view of Moscow’s Catherine Palace. Nodding through the window, Lestov said, “I had that checked, hoping someone there might have known Raisa Belous or Larisa Krotkov.” He shook his head. “No one did, although some of the stuff rescued from St. Petersburg was stored there until the end of the war.”

“And there was definitely nothing in Fyodor Belous’s apartment when you went there?” pressed Miriam.

“Not that we found. I think he would have been expecting us, hidden things away. I might wait awhile and jump him again.”

Lestov topped up her glass, leaning immediately forward to kiss her, and Miriam kissed him back, enjoying it, like she enjoyed the man himself. As well as being sure Charlie was still keeping something to himself-despite chest-clutching denials-she was equally sure she was ahead of everyone, largely as a result of sharing her favorite hobby with this militia colonel. Who was better than a lot in the past with whom it had been necessary to sleep in the call of duty and Miriam Jane Bell’s personal advancement. Vadim Lestov hadn’t so far failed to make the chimes ring in bed and was more interesting than most on the embassy fuck circuit, including Richard Cartright, who hadn’t offered anything worthwhile outside the sheets, either. “What, objectively, are the chances of finding Larisa Krotkov’s trial records?”

Lestov shrugged, with his back to her. “Doubtful.”

“You honestly think there might be something in them to account for Raisa being in Yakutsk?” questioned Miriam, going back to a suggestion Lestov had offered when he’d told her of the Gulag 98 discovery.

“Anything else would be too much of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?” He was disappointed that the totally logical speculation hadn’t encouraged a more forthcoming response from her: it was always questions, never answers.

“So where do the two lieutenants come in?” Miriam hadn’t given Lestov the Englishman’s name. Or told him of the OSS possibility. She served the steak and handed Lestov the Napa Valley chardonnay to open.

“If I knew that, it would be the end of the mystery,” exaggerated Lestov. He really had hoped to get more-or the hint of more-from her. He hesitated a little longer from making the commitment that had occurred to him on the way to Miriam’s apartment. He hadn’t wanted to disclose the German names, but he’d exhausted all possible Russian sources. But the FBI would have access to more. So the sacrifice was necessary. He said, “Fifteen Germans were sent to Gulag 98 in April 1945.”

She looked fixedly at him across the table. “You got the names?”

“For yours and my information only.”

“Absolutely,” agreed Miriam, at once. All this and a good fuck, too.

“Vitali Maksimovich Novikov,” identified Charlie. “He’s got a wife and two boys.” Natalia had relaxed during dinner, laughing more readily and genuinely than Charlie could remember for a long time. The last few weeks had been a greater strain upon her than he’d fully realized.

“The Yakutsk doctor?” she remembered, at once.

“He claims to have more. The exchange is to get him and his family out.”

“You promised him?”

“I said I’d do what I could. Without him I wouldn’t have known about Gulag 98, which we used to destroy Viskov and Travin. It was one of the camps Novikov’s father looked after. Was originally sentenced to. I’ve got to know what it is he’s got.”

“We both have,” she agreed.

Charlie’s telephone call to Vitali Novikov was the last of several he made from his embassy office the next morning before leaving for the airport. Miriam Bell was not among them.

Novikov said, “I was beginning to think I wouldn’t hear from you again.”

“Just make the application. It’s being supported through the embassy,” lied Charlie. “Don’t mention that, of course.”

“How can I thank you?”

“You know,” reminded Charlie.