Kings of Many Castles

10

From the upper stairway platform on to which he emerged from the lift Charlie had an elevated overview of the abruptly converted U.S. embassy basement and decided that all the stories he’d ever heard of plots of quicksand being turned overnight into fully carpeted, kitchen-gimmicked American estates of barbered lawns, helicopter emplaced matured trees and individual boat docks on canals really were true after all.

He was gazing down into a plasterboarded and sectioned beehive of criminal investigation, complete with its buzzing inhabitants of drones and worker bees. At its very center was the incident room itself, seried by mostly already occupied desks each with their own individual, screen flickering computer, telephone and individually dedicated fascimile terminal. At one end, dominated by a raised dais and a cleared desk larger than the others, were two only miniature electronic viewing screens flanked by four trestle-mounted static boards and at the opposing end a gantried projection camera. Linked by an open corridor was what Charlie recognized to be a mobile forensic laboratory. It was bisected by two long, metal-topped benches-each broken by suction-fitted sinks-upon which were mounted three more computers. There were four obvious although elaborate microscopes, each with two separate but comparison-capable viewing bases and four pieces of mysterious electronic machinery. On its own table, quite alone, was a large, bellow-middled piece of equipment which Charlie guessed to be a camera but wasn’t sure. A third, corridor-connected separation had a inner battlement of gray filing cabinets in the very middle of which was a triptych of corner-to-corner archival computers, their screens already filling with type being entered by hunched operators.

Encircling everything was an appropriate honeycomb of individual outer rooms, each again with its momentarily dead-eyed computer,filing cabinet, telephone and fax machine. Each had access to the inner, communal area through a door.

The entire, unroofed complex was whitely illuminated by a sky of fluorescent tubing and lifted from the basement concrete by an artificial wooden floor-already covered by sound-deadening carpet-beneath which was concealed what Charlie calculated to be literally miles of operating cable and wiring.

Like the wrongly sexed but omnipotent Queen Bee he’d clearly appointed himself to be, John Kayley stood in the main room, expansive buttock perched on the large command desk. Charlie was surprised to see Olga Melnik beside the American; he’d expected her to be at George Bendall’s bedside. In which order would she choose to tell him? They both looked up at Charlie’s entry and Kayley waved, gesturing him down. Charlie was conscious of briefly becoming the focus of everyone in the main room as he descended into it and supposed Olga had been, earlier, even though there were no forgotten shirt-buttons today. There wasn’t, in fact, a shirt: the business suit came right up to her neck, Mao-style. As he got within hearing, Kayley said, “What do you think?”

Charlie said, “I liked it in the movie.”

Kayley allowed himself a tight smile. “This isn’t make-believe.”

“I hope it isn’t,” said Charlie.

Kayley’s smile went.

“Vera Bendall’s dead. The son’s come round.” The words collided almost comically in Olga’s eagerness to get them out.

Charlie allowed the apparent surprise. “Dead? How?”

“Hanged herself, with underwear that was returned to her for your visit.”

It was a poor attempt to spread blame. “Why wasn’t it taken away, afterwards?”

“It was a mistake,” conceded Olga.

Should he hit them this early? The suspicion was justified, particularly in view of the incomplete KGB file and he’d forewarned Natalia, for her to be ready. “Did she hang herself?”

“Her neck didn’t break, if that’s what you mean. She suffocated, choked to death,” said Olga.

“That wasn’t what I meant,” said Charlie. “Under whose administration does Lefortovo come, militia or FSB?”

“Jesus!” said Kayley, understanding.

Olga did, too. “The FSB,” she said, flatly. It was a suggestion she had to pass on as quickly as possible to Leonid Zenin. The crisis committee were meeting that morning.

Charlie said, “She was, officially, accorded embassy recognition. We’d like a copy of the autopsy report. And for that autopsy to be as detailed as possible.”

Olga wasn’t sure a post-mortem was planned. One certainly had to be carried out now. “Of course.”

“I listened to your meeting with her, read it, too,” said Kayley. “She was upset, being kept there.”

“Suicidally so?” demanded Charlie.

The American shrugged. “Who knows?”

Charlie talked looking around the prefabricated installation in apparent admiration, wondering how long it would take him to find what he wanted, if indeed it was here to be found. And then how to proceed. He was still working more from instinct than fact: the Russian forensic photographs were inconclusive and by themselves were insufficient. It was inevitable, he supposed, that the Russians would take offense at the questions that had to be asked. Others were necessary first. Or were they? Was he working-planning to work-for the possible benefit of George Bendall? Or to prove wrong experts who’d dismissed what he’d been so sure of? Wasn’t it paranoia, in fact, to imagine he had to behave like this at all, saying nothing until he was sure in the belief he might prevent the convenient evidence of an open and shut case being tampered with, as the old KGB files in his opinion had clearly been tampered with? The self-doubt surprised Charlie. But it wasn’t just self-doubt. It extended, as always, to Natalia. If his instincts were only half right she risked being caught up in open organizational warfare, even. She hadn’t positively accused him of exaggeration but he knew that’s what she was thinking, having warnings heaped upon her without having them fully explained. It was important, Charlie had determined, for Natalia to reach the conclusions for herself, without prejudging by having his opinions thrust upon her. Which didn’tanswer his immediate uncertainty. Follow the tried and tested instinct, he told himself. “What about Bendall? Can he be interviewed?”

“The recovery’s intermittent,” said Olga. “I’m going back to the hospital this afternoon.”

“You’ve already seen him?”

“He wasn’t aware of me, aware of anything. Didn’t respond to anything I said.”

There was no hurry for them to see the man, Charlie decided. He was aware of Olga moving from foot to foot, as if she was impatient to be somewhere else. He was probably more impatient, for other reasons. He looked around the room again. “So what’s the set-up?”

“Heads up, everybody!” Kayley called. “Meet-the-folks time.” The tour of the installation was conducted with the pride of a man showing off a new house. To most the acknowledgement was smiles and head nods, although the scientist controlling the forensic section and the man in charge of archives were introduced by name. The circuit finished at the side offices surrounding the main room, where two adjoining annexes were specifically set aside for Charlie and Olga.

“And I’m right behind you,” declared the American, indicating the office directly after Charlie’s.

I bet you are, thought Charlie. “Very hugger-mugger.”

“You going to need any help with the computers?” Kayley asked, solicitously.

“If I do, I’ll ask,” said Charlie. All access would be monitored. So would telephone calls. The rooms were glass-sided, too. It was very definitely going to be a goldfish bowl experience. Olga was still shifting from foot to foot. Time to resolve both their impatience, he thought. “Everything already logged?”

“Just finishing off programming the witnesses’ statements,” said Kayley.

“Then we’re totally up to date?” pressed Charlie. “Everything available to be accessed?”

Kayley was immediately attentive. “Unless you’ve got something additional?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Or have something specific in mind?” persisted the American.

“No,” said Charlie. He smiled. “Guess I’d better familiarize myself.”

It was impressive. There was no dust or debris from the hasty construction-rather there was the discernible and pleasant smell of the perfumed polish that had removed any-and in a corner beside his supposedly personal cabinet the operating lights of an air purifier glowed, although there was no noise. The answer to a prayer and Kayley’s cigars, thought Charlie. The desk appeared to be genuine wood, although it probably wasn’t, and the side table upon which the computer was mounted had an angled, padded rest upon which Charlie at once and gratefully eased his never comfortable feet. It was IBM hardware, predictably operating the latest-and same-Microsoft Word program installed on his machine at the British embassy. Charlie checked the drawers for back-up disks but couldn’t find any and was unsurprised that he wasn’t expected-or intended-to download anything to take away. As he took off his jacket-for which a convenient hanger was waiting on the coat pedestal-he saw Olga Melnik talking animatedly into the telephone in her adjoining office.

Mindful of his earlier expectation of any access being monitored, Charlie did not immediately boot up what he was most interested in but instead scrolled through the witnesses’ statements already on disk until he found that of Vladimir Petrovich Sakov, the tattooed cameraman who had wrestled with George Bendall for possession of the sniper’s rifle. It was the Russian transcript produced the previous day by Olga Melnik, with no additions from a second FBI interview, which meant the Bureau either hadn’t bothered-which Charlie didn’t believe-or didn’t intend a meeting of their own, which he thought even more unlikely. The third possibility was that they hadn’t got around to updating it, despite Kayley’s assurances that everything was logged.

He didn’t need the reminder but he pulled up the verbatim record of his own encounter with Vera Bendall, scrolling through the stumbling words. Again there were no additions-nor explanations for the obvious questions-cross-referenced from Russian sources.

Charlie felt an instant stir of excitement-a positive throb in hisleft foot, which was always the most sensitive-at the visual ballistic images of the bullets that shattered the shoulder of the American First Lady and caused the death of Secret Serviceman Ben Jennings. They were mounted against calibrated measuring grids in exactly the same way as the Russian evidence photographs he’d already studied of those extracted from the Russian president and his bodyguard and which Charlie had brought with him.

Charlie looked around through his glass-partitioned cell in feigned casualness. Olga was now engrossed in her own screen. John Kayley’s room behind was empty. No one else appeared to be paying any attention to him whatsoever. He clicked on print, shielding the screen by lifting his briefcase on to his lap to take out what he’d brought from Protocnyj Pereulok. The comparison only took Charlie seconds: he didn’t even bother to take the Russian pictures fully from his briefcase, instead putting into it what he was now convinced to be the confirming printout of the American evidence. He closed the image of the bullets, clearing his screen to call up the ballistics menu. What he wanted-hoped for-wasn’t there, as it hadn’t been in what Olga Melnik had given him.

Charlie pushed his chair back, although not far enough to lose the foot rest. How to do it? So far the interference had been to KGB archives and possibly with papers belonging to both father and son which had, according to Vera Bendall, been removed from the Hutorskaya Ulitza apartment by intelligence and militia officers. The challenge-a positive confrontation-was inevitable. And essentially it had to be in front of witnesses, to prevent anything else going missing. Why didn’t he wait; persuade Natalia to guarantee that the complete Russian ballistic evidence be made available? Because it drew her too closely-too dangerously-into the active operational working of the investigation, which didn’t fit-wasn’t part of her remit and which, from what he’d just studied and compared, definitely was going to become more difficult. Would the actual, physical American evidence still be here, along the corridor? Or already back in Washington? Certainly something to discover.

Slowly, not wanting to attract Olga’s attention, Charlie stood, stretched and made his way out into the main room, smiling back at the few who looked up and smiled at him. He still couldn’t seeKayley. He sauntered past the unoccupied command area into the forensic linking corridor, hands deep in his pockets, a man orientating himself to new and unaccustomed surroundings. The forensic controller-Bill Savage, Charlie remembered easily-saw him approaching and rose to meet him as Charlie emerged from the tunnel.

“How’s it going?” There was no heavy, state-identifiable accent. Baldness-and the greyness in a compensating beard-made the man look older than he was.

“Good finally to be working in something of an organized system.”

“Pretty unusual situation all the way round,” agreed the man.

“How’s it with you?”

“Truth to tell, we’re kinda underemployed,” admitted the scientist.

“Russians haven’t given you the rifle? Or the recovered bullets, then?” anticipated Charlie. Looking beyond the American Charlie saw that two of the other four men in the improvised room were reading magazines and the other two appeared to be testing or tuning equipment.

“John’s asked for it.”

“You the ballistics expert?”

The other man shook his head, indicating one of the magazine readers. “Willie Ying’s our gun man. Why?”

Charlie began moving, taking the controller with him, not responding until he got within the expert’s hearing. When he did, Charlie said, loudly, “It struck me there was something missing from what’s on the computer about the bullets.”

The Chinese face came up abruptly from behind the magazine. It was Soldier, Charlie saw.

Aggressively Ying said, “What’s the problem here!”

Charlie smiled, ingenuously. “Lack of facilities. Britain being the poor relation, as usual.”

Neither American smiled back. Nor spoke.

Charlie said, “You got the bullets here that were taken from the First Lady. And Ben Jennings? Or have they already been shipped back to Washington?”

“Why?” demanded Ying, truculently.

“This is the scene of a crime,” said Savage, in a half-answer.

Maybe-just maybe-there was a God after all! “I must have missed it on the computer. I couldn’t find the grainage. Could you show me where it is?”

“I’m waiting for the Russian exhibits,” said the ballistics expert. “I need everything for a proper comparison.”

“Something I need to know about?”

Fuck, thought Charlie, turning at John Kayley’s voice. The FBI supervisor was coming out of the corridor like an elephant frightened of missing the sugar bun picnic, perhaps, remembering the ancestry, buffalo would have been a better analogy than elephant. He had to force it on, Charlie decided, risk the humiliation of being labelled the cocky Limey smart ass. Dropping the amiability-reckoning there might even be an advantage in antagonism-Charlie said, “Something we all need to know about, as quickly and accurately as possible.”

“What!” demanded Savage, exasperated.

“You do something for me-have something done for me?” asked Charlie, only just according Kayley his authority. “You get Willie to weigh the bullets you’re holding as evidence?”

“What!” demanded Savage, again.

The Chinese ballistics expert didn’t immediately speak. Then he said, “I told you I was waiting. And why.”

“Don’t wait!” urged Charlie. “You’ve seen the photographs.”

Ying look enquiringly to his supervisor who said to Charlie, “You got something?”

“Weigh the bullets,” insisted Charlie.

Ying did so with the impact-distorted metal still encased in its plastic exhibit envelopes, the minuscule weight of which was known and easily subtracted to achieve the reading. He repeated the simple experiment three times before looking up directly at Charlie. The American said, “I won’t offer it as empirical until I’ve tested what the Russians have.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” said Charlie, as satisfied relief flooded through him. “But it’s quite impossible for those two bullets to have been fired from the same rifle, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” conceded the Chinese, quietly.

There had been no prior indication that it would be a smaller gathering but Natalia decided that despite Charlie’s ill-explained insistences she had no positive personal problem and from the previous evening’s rehearsal she was quite confident she was totally prepared for anything that might arise. The only unexpected although quickly understood absence was that of General Lev Lvov, whose function was now to protect acting president Aleksandr Okulov, the other absentee. In the nuance and rumor-fuelled hothouse of Moscow political uncertainty it isolated General Dimitri Spassky as the man responsible for the security debacle, which Spassky had already and very obviously recognized. The ashtray in front of the man was overflowing and the hand with which he lighted the continual replacements was more visibly shaking than usual.

“There is some encouraging news,” announced Yuri Trishin. “The president has recovered consciousness. The latest from the Pirogov doctors is that his condition is stable and that he is out of immediate danger, although still critical.”

“Encouraging indeed, great news!” hurriedly coughed Spassky, anxious to have his name first on record.

The impatience of the presidential chief of staff for Natalia and the fourth member of the group, Militia Commandant Leonid Zenin, dutifully to respond was almost palpable and as soon as they had Trishin said, “So what’s encouraging for me to hear in return?”

Nothing, conceded Natalia, accepting it was a question posed to her. According to the Lefortovo prison authorities, she said, there was nothing to suggest Vera Bendall had been likely to take her own life, although that did not excuse the oversight of not removing articles of clothing with which she could do herself harm. It was hoped to interview George Bendall later that day. The investigation had been centralized at the American embassy. Ruth Anandale continued to improve although the indications were that she had permanently lost the use of her right arm. A decision was being made in the next twenty-four hours whether to amputate the leg of Feliks Vasilevich Ivanov, the Russian security guard injured in the shooting. The likelihood was that it would be necessary.

Natalia hesitated as she came to the end. Everything on yourterms, to your orchestration, Charlie had lectured: don’t let anyone else get their explanations or excuses in ahead of you. Spassky had to be first. “Unless there has been a discovery in the last two or three hours that Dimitri Ivanovich has not shared with me there is the risk of considerable embarrassment. Substantial sections of former intelligence files containing information that could be important to this investigation remain missing ….” She turned to the militia commandant. “I also understand, from taped meetings involving Senior Investigating Colonel Olga Melnik, that the American and British investigators are aware of what’s happened?”

It was Zenin who got in first. “I am not aware of the Americans or British being told. If they have been, I can only assume it emerged in answer to her being asked why the material was incomplete.”

Spassky was quick to follow, surprisingly strong voiced in the chosen denial. “I am not, nor ever was, directly or personally responsible for archives.”

“You are head of counter-intelligence-internal security-within Lubyanka,” challenged Natalia.

“Exactly! We are talking of departmental mismanagement.”

“Are we?” demanded Natalia. “I don’t think we are.”

“Are archives definitely missing?” asked Trishin.

“Yes,” finally admitted the old man.

Natalia didn’t want the impetus taken away from her. “Deliberately taken?”

“I have no evidence of deliberate interference,” insisted Spassky.

“Has a thorough search been made?” pressed Natalia.

“Yes,” said Spassky, again.

“Isn’t it an unfortunate coincidence that Vera Bendall died in custody in a prison administered by the FSB?” leapt in Zenin. “I suggest that the most thorough, independent enquiry be held.”

So Charlie had planted his suspicion in time for some contact between Olga Melnik and Leonid Zenin. Natalia’s realization was fleeting, quickly replaced by near incredulity at what Zenin had just proposed. The militia commandant was actually pressing for the Russian intelligence service to be investigated by an outside organization, which was unthinkable. Even the supposed enquiry into the failed, KGB-supported coup against Mikhail Gorbachov in 1991had been a strictly controlled, internal tribunal. Natalia’s awareness continued, worryingly. Was this what Charlie had anticipated and really been preparing her for, a collision of nuclear proportions between Russian intelligence and presumably Russian civilian police, with herself inevitably-more inextricably than she’d ever fearedcaught up in the middle? And she would be literally trapped in the middle, a former KGB executive now a department director of the Interior Ministry with ultimate authority over the militia.

The same analysis-although not necessarily in the same personal order-had obviously been made by the men in the Kremlin office with her.

Spassky’s reaction was such open-mouthed disbelief that all he could initially utter was, “What?” so weak-voiced that he said it again, in louder outrage. “What!”

Trishin was no less surprised but more controlled. “You’re virtually making an open accusation.”

Surely, thought Natalia, the civilian commandant did not for a moment imagine the militia strong enough-able enough-to confront an intelligence apparatus developed over more than seventy years!

“I believe the gravity of what’s happened demands a thorough enquiry,” insisted Zenin. “I understand, too, that also to be the feeling of the Americans and the British.”

Natalia was immediately, intently, alert. Charlie hadn’t given her any indication of that. But then he hadn’t properly-fully-explained all the guidance he’d given. And Zenin had clearly spoken to Olga Melnik at the American embassy, bringing him more up to date than she was. “What reason do you have for saying that?”

“The impression of my officers in direct contact with their investigators.”

Impressions, isolated Natalia: there was only one officer, Olga Ivanova Melnik. The militia chief was railroading.

“The woman was in militia, not FSB, custody at Lefortova!” said Spassky, inadequately.

“Precisely why I think an enquiry justified,” argued Zenin. “I do not want any innuendo-any innuendo whatsoever-directed at my service.”

Was it as simple as that, not an attack at all but simply a defense, in advance of any accusation? Natalia said, “By whom, or what, do you consider such an investigation should be conducted?”

“What else but a presidential commission?” said Zenin.

A neat sidestep from direct confrontation, Natalia recognized. The unbelievable challenge had been laid but Zenin had separated himself from directly pursuing it.

“I think,” said Trishin, “That this suggestion needs to be considered. Discussed with others.”

Dimitri Ivanovich Spassky’s hand was shaking very badly when he lit his new cigarette.

Like practically everything in Charlie Muffin’s upwardly and on-wardly mobile philosophy, the vindication was relegated to his mental trophy shelf for later burnishing-which none ever were-while he hurried on. Which, practicably, was not immediately possible because the bullets and George Bendall’s rifle had physically-and finally-to be transported from the militia forensic laboratories, in the faraway Moscow outskirts of Chagino. There was coffee and separate reflection in their respective offices while they waited. From his Charlie saw both Olga and Kayley in gesticulating telephone exchanges but decided against calling his own embassy. There was no time difference urgency. Having satisfactorily proved his suspicions from a partial test, he now wanted the complete ballistics analysis before, fittingly, lobbing the bombshell into London’s lap. Which wasn’t, at that precise moment, his most pressing concern. They now had, unquestionably, two gunmen from which a neon-lit, flag-waving conspiracy emerged, which jigsawed with missing KGB archives and the death in custody of a potential witness who’d remembered the official removal of more papers and belongings-including those of the one seized gunman-that had not been mentioned in anything that Colonel Olga Melnik had provided. But far more importantly were not known about by Natalia, whom he’d specifically asked the previous night. Which, as muddied waters went, was thicker than pea soup, a mixed metaphor that Charlie was content with because it was so appropriate. There was something approaching a familiar comfort at being confronted by a situationtotally different from that with which he’d begun: in Charlie’s life, the obvious had never, if ever, turned out to be obvious.

Olga’s sudden activity in the adjoining office alerted him to the arrival of the material evidence, which Kayley escorted her to the embassy reception area officially to receive. It was obvious that virtually everyone in the complex knew of a development, if not precisely what it was, but Kayley limited the audience in the forensic section to its specific staff, himself, Olga and Charlie. The much-filmed rifle as well as the medically-recovered bullets made up the Russian package but Willie Ying’s concentration was again upon the distorted metal. The tests were as straightforward as those earlier, quadruple checked within thirty minutes.

The Chinese straightened, finally, and said, “There isn’t any possible doubt.”

Kayley said, “I need to have this spelled out, nice and easy. I’ve got a lot of curious people to tell.”

Ying looked invitingly at Charlie, who said, “You’re the expert.”

The Chinese scientist said, “Western European and central European bullets are officially weighed in grains. Quite literally the measurement is the average weight of a seed of corn, one seven-thousandth of an avoirdupoidal pound …” He indicated the still unexamined sniper’s rifle. “That’s the Soviet-now Russian-military SVD, the Dragunov. It fires a 7.62mm cartridge, the bullets from which weigh 145 grains. The commercial version of the SVD, known as the Medved, fires a 9mm sporting cartridge that weighs 220 grains. It is technically impossible for the sniper’s rifle recovered from the scene of the crime to fire 9mm bullets.” He turned to the table, picking up two glassine sachets. “These are 7.62mm. According to their exhibit tags, one was taken from the Russian guard, Feliks Ivanov. The other killed our guy, Ben Jennings …” Ying swopped plastic envelopes. “ … All these three-the two that hit the Russian president and the one that injured the First Lady-are 9mm. They were fired from a gun we don’t have …”

“ … By someone we don’t know,” completed Charlie. “Now let’s talk about other things we don’t have, either.”

“We talking Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963!” demanded Walter Anandale, empty-voiced in disbelief.

“There’s unquestionably another gunman, logically a group,” said Kayley. It had only taken five minutes for him to come up from the basement and for Wendall North and James Scamell to be summoned to Cornell Burton’s embassy office. The ambassador sat to one side.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” decided the president. “Get Ruth out of here.”

“I’ll get on to Donnington right away, tell him the situation’s changed,” said North, moving towards the desk phones.

“Wait!” ordered Anandale. “Let’s talk this through. You think this whole godamned thing’s been a set up, right from the beginning?”

“No,” cautioned Scamell. “What I do think is that quite early on, once we started to negotiate, people saw an opportunity-for what, exactly, I don’t know-and began to plan.”

“What people, whose people?” demanded the Texan. “Yudkin’s? Or the communists? Or Okulov? Who, for Christ’s sake!”

The secretary of state shrugged, helplessly, turning to the FBI Rezident. “I can’t help there, sir. Not yet.”

“Nor can I,” said Kayley.

Anandale turned back to his chief of staff. “We don’t make any more public appearances. I don’t personally meet Okulov or anyone connected with Yudkin. We time a spokesman-issued statement about the hope to continue negotiations an hour after we’re airborne, on our way to Washington. Everyone clear on that?”

“Clear,” echoed Wendall North.

Anandale came back to the FBI man. “You did good, John. I’ll remember that, make sure that the director knows it, too.”

“So Charlie was right!” declared Sir Rupert Dean. He spoke looking at his criticizing deputy. Jocelyn Hamilton remained silent.

A copy of Charlie’s Moscow fax lay before each of the control group.

“The bullet that killed the American still came from George Bendall’srifle,” professionally pointed out Jeremy Simpson, the legal advisor.

“And now Bendall’s part of a conspiracy,” said Hamilton, choosing his time. “Our situation’s worse, not better.”

“We don’t know what the situation is,” rejected Patrick Pacey. Irritation at the deputy director’s constant carping deepened the permanent redness of the man’s blood pressured face.

“We know it’s escalated,” insisted Hamilton. “We need to start thinking-planning-proactively.”

“There’s certainly a need to withdraw Muffin for consultation,” conceded Dean, his spectacles working through his hands.

“And for preparing contingency plans, to build up our investigation in Moscow,” insisted Hamilton. “This service-maybe its future-could be decided by the outcome of all this. Since the end of the Cold War and the de-escalation of violence in Northern Ireland it’s been difficult to justify a counter-espionage function apart from becoming even more of an anti-terrorism force. Defining an FBI role is still experimental, it can’t be seen or allowed to fail.”

“Replace Muffin, you mean?” directly accused the heavily moustached Simpson.

“Safeguard the department. And ourselves,” qualified Hamilton.