Kings of Many Castles

19

Viktor Ivanovich Karelin was the first intelligence chairman Natalia had ever personally met but the apparent diffidence was so alien to the lower hierarchy with whom she was familiar that she was vaguely disconcerted by it. Which, she acknowledged, she was perhaps supposed to be, although she didn’t get the impression there was any affectation about the self-effacing demeanour. Another interpretation could be that Karelin was so sure of himself and the power he represented that he didn’t feel the need to posture and intimidate.

“Thank you for returning to us so quickly,” greeted Natalia. What would the man have managed to achieve in thirty-six hours compared to what their president-endorsed demand to the Defense Ministry had generated in less than twelve, five of those with the previous night intervening? It would be important for her-the tribunal-not to appear to try to trap the man.

“You stressed the urgency,” reminded Karelin.

“We’re indeed anxious to hear what you have to tell us,” said Filitov, stilted in his eagerness to get himself on the ever-kept record.

“There has clearly been considerable, malicious interference-possibly destruction-of a substantial proportion of archival material concerning Peter Bendall and his family,” admitted Karelin, at once. “I have instituted an enquiry, the results of which I will make fully available to this commission when it is completed.”

Honesty or yet further prevarication? She was the trained interrogator, Natalia reminded herself. “This malicious interference? Is it indiscriminate, consistent with the haphazard pilfering by disgruntled former personnel, about which we talked earlier? Or is there a pattern?”

A smile wisped across Karelin’s face. “There is unquestionably a pattern.”

Had the smile been admiration or something else? Having been specific Natalia intentionally generalized. “Help us with that.”

“No material whatsoever remains for what would have been the last five years of Peter Bendall’s life.”

“And the son?”

“Nothing.”

“Which there would-should-have been?”

“Unquestionably.” The woman, with her KGB background, was the only one who might be difficult. The lawyer and the politician were spreading their bets.

“So the interference has been calculated, carried out for a reason?”

“Obviously,” agreed the FSB chairman.

“What reason?” demanded Yuri Trishin.

Karelin frowned. “That’s what I’ve set up an internal enquiry to find out.” The man looked fleetingly across the echoing Kremlin room towards the record-keeping secretariat. “There is clearly an attempt being made to discredit the organization I head by apparently implicating it in the assassination of the president. The FSB was, obviously, in no way involved. Its only culpability is a serious lapse of internal security, which has already been corrected as well as those responsible being punished.”

The fulcrum upon which Natalia’s early employment in the KGB had been balanced was her being able to judge whether the person she was interviewing was lying or being truthful. Karelin had conceded what they already knew. And had established internal enquiries, which was precisely what her outside commission had been created to prevent. Despite which Natalia’s professional assessment was that the FSB chairman was telling the truth. Continuing to call upon her previous association and awareness of Russian intelligence working, Natalia said, “Peter Bendall’s records would not have been concentrated. Archives would have been cross-referenced with Registry. While he was alive, even though his practical use might have become minimal, there would have been a current file maintained upon him?”

The shadowy smile came and went again. “It’s the very fact thatthe removal has been from several different centers that confirms a pattern.”

“Nothing whatsoever beyond that which has already been made available has survived?” persisted Natalia.

Karelin had his tidbit ready. “I have obtained from Registry the identities of four of Peter Bendall’s Control officers, one of whom might, calculated from the son’s age, have been the man who might have corrected George Bendall in his teens and obtained psychiatric help for him.”

“The KGB would have had a copy of that treatment,” insisted Natalia.

“I’ve checked. There is no copy,” said the man.

There was a shift from the men either side of her but Natalia remained unmoving, curious at how Karelin was providing his information. He was unarguably cooperating but at his own careful pace, which she realized she was making easy for him. The occasional smiles were more likely to be self-satisfaction-just tinged with gratitude-at how he was manipulating her questioning than admiration of her technique. It would be as wrong too obviously to challenge the man as it would not to make him aware, as subtly as possible, that she recognized his skill. “I’d like to think that he particularly was available to help us. But I don’t imagine that any of them are.”

“They’re all dead,” the FSB chairman confirmed. She was very good, to have anticipated that: a loss to the service, in fact.

“How?”

Karelin, in his complete self-confidence, decided to test the woman. “The first, who took Peter Bendall over upon his arrival in 1972, died of cancer in 1975. His successor had a stroke, in 1981. The Control most likely to have put George Bendall back in line-briefly at least-was electrocuted by faulty wiring in his apartment and the fourth committed suicide by hanging himself. He was one of the officers made redundant during the restructuring of the old service.”

“A disgruntled officer!” seized Filitov, overanxiously.

“Beyond which we’ve already extended the discussion,” dismissedNatalia. Karelin hadn’t finished but wanted prompting, she guessed. “You didn’t give dates, for the last two deaths?”

She’d more than passed the test, decided Karelin. “The man most likely to have lectured George Bendall died three months ago. The one who committed suicide did so last month.”

“Both deaths were accepted for what they appeared to be?” came in Filitov, unexpectedly.

Karelin took folders from his briefcase, offering them across the table. “They are the personnel files on all four. The last two are marked. Both their deaths are now being investigated for possible suspicious circumstances. The result of those investigations, like the internal security breaches, will be made available.”

Another intelligence-restricted enquiry, Natalia noted. “But there had to be other Controls after these-at least one-during the last five years of Peter Bendall’s life?” She spoke looking down at the newly presented dossiers, needing the names. None fitted.

“Yes,” agreed Karelin.

“And a case officer-or officers-for the son?”

“That’s the system.” There was no way an outside tribunal like this could breach the protection built up over so long by the succeeding intelligence services but it would be wrong for him to be complacent about this woman.

“We made another request, at our previous meeting,” reminded Natalia. “About FSB presence at Burdenko Hospital?”

“There is no FSB-or long-established KGB-presence at Burdenko Hospital,” asserted Karelin, positively.

It was time, Natalia decided. Despite the awkwardness with which Karelin had tried to ringmaster the encounter she still had to guard against appearing confrontational. “There is-or has been-some sharing between us, the Americans and the British, into the shooting of the presidential group; more particularly, perhaps, with the British who have consular access to Bendall. Their interview recordings are automatically duplicated …”

Karelin sat politely attentive, making no effort to anticipate what Natalia might say but knowing there was something for which he had not been able to prepare.

“At one such interview yesterday Bendall claimed the KGB maneuvredhis admission into the Russian army. And that a Control was infiltrated to monitor whatever function he was expected to perform in the military,” continued Natalia.

“I know nothing of this,” said Karelin. His face was mask-like.

It was predictable but Natalia had still hoped for more. “From the interview it would appear Bendall’s Control was withdrawn or discharged from his specialized unit after Bendall’s persistent refusal to operate as he was instructed.”

“It should be fairly simple to check personnel movement from military records, especially from a specialized unit,” said Karelin, at once. He genuinely didn’t know anything about it but it was quite likely to be the case. And if it was, it took the enquiry outside his-of FSB-containment.

Perfect, decided Natalia. “We realized that. This morning, unfortunately not in time to advise you in advance of your coming here, the Defense Ministry provided us with the names of fifteen men discharged, transferred or reassigned from Bendall’s group during the first six months of the man’s service …” She pushed the Defense file across the desk towards the intelligence chief. “The four Control names you’ve supplied are not among these. We’d like you to have Registry run a check, against the fifteen.”

Karelin hesitated, then picked up the folder. “I cannot confirm the KGB had anything to do with arranging Bendall’s army service.”

Karelin felt himself tricked, despite her effort to prevent his thinking that. “We accept that, Chairman Karelin. It’s not what we’re asking you to confirm. We are asking you to compare the fifteen names through Registry, in an attempt to discover if any KGB personnel accompanied George Bendall into his military service. That should be very easily possible, shouldn’t it? Within hours, even?”

“I would expect so,” agreed the expressionless man.

“If one of them does appear in Registry, let’s hope he’s still alive,” said Natalia.

The meeting had been convened solely because of the FSB chairman’s approach to them and Filitov and Trishin appeared surprised that Natalia didn’t move at once to suspend it until the promisedwithin-hoursresult of their new request to the man. But Natalia decided that she had sufficient excuse-if not the true reason-to argue against George Bendall’s court arraignment.

There were other more self-protective points she felt necessary to establish, too. Virtually as the door closed behind Viktor Karelin, she said, “What’s your feeling about what we’ve just been told?”

Each man looked to the other to respond first.

“Pavl Ivanovich?” pressed Natalia.

“It’s positive confirmation of the conspiracy being within the FSB,” declared the lawyer.

“Yuri Fedorovich?”

“I was surprised at the chairman’s openness,” said the presidential chief of staff.

“He has, though, taken all the enquiries away from us-kept everything internal-which we were specifically appointed to prevent,” Natalia pointed out.

“He’s undertaken to make them available to us,” said Filitov.

“Something will be made available,” qualified Natalia. “We have no independent way or method of knowing whether we are being told the truth. Or how much of any enquiry is being given to us. We’ve been very effectively and very cleverly neutered.”

Trishin shifted, uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Think about it,” demanded Natalia.

The silence lasted several moments before Filitov said, “What do you suggest?”

Natalia tapped Karelin’s naming dossiers. “An independent, professional militia investigation into the two most recent and violent deaths. A presidential insistence upon there being an outside militia presence or monitor on the internal FSB enquiries. And an independent militia trace upon the fifteen names we received this morning from the Defense Ministry.”

“That’s directly challenging Chairman Karelin’s integrity,” protested Filitov.

“Not to do so is directly challenging ours, and by inference that of the acting president,” insisted Natalia, acknowledging the repetition of the same argument as before but at that moment anxious to move on to what she considered the other, more important argument.“The Defense Ministry names opens the door into the conspiracy.”

“Only if one of them is on the FSB Registry,” insisted Filitov.

“No,” refused Natalia. “We’ve got last known addresses as well as names. And every legal justification for having the militia fully investigate every one, as soon and as quickly as possible. Beginning today, in fact.”

There was a pause from both men.

Filitov said, “Yes, I suppose that, specifically, would be the right course for us to take.”

“I agree,” said Trishin.

“Which surely creates something else to be considered?” suggested Natalia.

“What?” demanded Filitov.

“The court arraignment of George Bendall.”

“What consideration is that of this commission?” demanded Filitov.

“Quite separately from anything with which Chairman Karelin might return, from the Registry check, we are providing the militia with a source which could lead us to others involved in the conspiracy, could greatly affect the charges and prosecution against George Bendall,” said Natalia. Directly addressing Filitov, she said, “Surely the prosecution doesn’t know enough for an arraignment, this early? Aren’t you risking a flawed case, not giving the investigation more time.”

“The arraignment isn’t the trial,” rejected Filitov. “That’s weeks away, time enough for all the conspirators to be identified and arrested and co-joined in a prosecution upon whatever additional charges need to be proffered.”

“World attention will be upon us, for the funeral of President Yudkin,” said Trishin. “Politically it is necessary for there to be a publicly witnessed court appearance …” He hesitated. “ … And there has been some overnight communication from the Americans that make that even more essential.”

She was wasting her time, Natalia acknowledged: she didn’t have either logic or law on her side, quite apart from political necessity which more often than not wasn’t affected or influenced by either.“The order is from the Kremlin, from Okulov’s office itself!” said Zenin. He was red-faced, pacing his crumbling office, needing movement to exorcise his fury.

“Why?” asked Olga. She pushed the indignation into her own voice but was secretly glad at the instruction to resume cooperation. What little progress had been made-far too little though it was-had been through association, particularly with the Englishman. There was more professionally-by which she meant career enhancing-to be gained than sacrificed by linking up again.

“No reason was given.” Zenin slumped in his seat. “It’s a personal rebuke, to me.”

Olga had momentarily forgotten the withdrawal had been Zenin’s decision. “No it’s not. If it had been considered a mistake it would have been overruled immediately; you were actually supported. Something’s happened, to change things.”

Zenin’s smile was as brief as it was reluctant. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

She was the person who had to crawl back, Olga abruptly realized, her own anger surfacing. “Am I expected just to walk into the incident room, as if it was all a big misunderstanding!”

“I’m sorry,” said Zenin, unhelpfully.

“So am I!” It wouldn’t be as difficult with the Englishman, despite the previous day’s argument at the hospital. Her personal difficulty would be openly descending into the American embassy basement with everyone’s eyes upon her.

“Today’s hospital meeting …” Zenin started to remind but stopped at the tentative entry of his personal assistant, a uniformed major.

The man extended the package he carried and said, “It’s been couriered from the Kremlin. For immediate and personal delivery.”

Olga saw the smile, no longer reluctant, settle on Zenin’s face as he read. It remained when he looked up. “We’ve got names of people from Bendall’s unit who could have been his KGB case officer. The commission wants us to trace every one. It’s your entry back. I’ll assign the investigators, you provide the list as part of the combinedinvestigation. And we’d already decided you should be at the British interview this afternoon.”

It wouldn’t make any easier her humiliating embassy reentry, thought Olga. She said, “The militia will be directly and identifiably investigating the FSB, what we agreed would be dangerous.”

Zenin’s smile faltered. “Not our decision. Provably ordered, by the presidential enquiry.”

“We’re still being sucked in too close,” warned Olga.

She was waiting directly outside George Bendall’s ward when Charlie arrived, with the two lawyers. Five chairs were set out in readiness in the room already emptied of guards who hovered further along the corridor. Beyond the woman Charlie saw Bendall was in a chair, too. Charlie was sure the bandaging on the man’s leg as well as the swathe around his shoulder and arm was less than the previous day.

Handing Charlie the list Olga said, “Names you might want to put to him, they’re the men moved out of Bendall’s unit in the first six months of his army service.”

“You haven’t put them to him already?” demanded Charlie, at once. They had to have been. Perhaps they had but she wanted Bendall’s failure or refusal to respond to be on his recording, not on their no longer shared duplicate.

“I’ve only just got them,” Olga replied, honestly. “Only just arrived here myself.”

Would she risk the lie being exposed by Bendall protesting he’d already been asked? It wasn’t important, Charlie dismissed. He had them, to put to the man. He nodded further into Bendall’s room. “Have you interviewed him today?”

Olga shook her head, speaking more to Arkadi Noskov. “Professor Agayan and two colleagues conducted their psychiatric assessment this morning-I’ll see you get them, of course. But I haven’t taken my questioning any further.”

Charlie saw Anne’s eyebrows lift at the name familiarity but didn’t give any reaction himself. He wouldn’t have imagined the previous day’s British protests would have brought about such a totalreversal. Another reflection that wasn’t important. He ushered the two women into the room ahead of him and set up his tape. Noskov overflowed beside him.

“You’re looking better, Georgi.” The schedule was again for Charlie to lead the questioning, although for the lawyers to come in at once if there was something they wanted to pick up upon.

The man’s eyes went to each of them in turn but he didn’t respond. Assessing his audience for the latest performance, Charlie decided. “You feeling OK?”

Bendall shrugged.

“Can’t imagine someone like you found this morning’s meeting too difficult?”

“Didn’t know what they were talking about: rubbish, most of it.”

“That’s what I told you before, you’re cleverer than any of us. But we do need to understand more ourselves, to make it easier for others to get the complete picture of what it’s all about.”

“They’ll find out.”

“It’s the complete picture that’s important,” joined in Noskov. “We mustn’t leave anything out.”

“I don’t intend to.”

It had been a useful interruption, judged Charlie. “It just could happen. Your not being able to remember the name of the man the KGB put into the army with you, for instance. People might not believe that if you can’t recall a name, think you were making it up.” Bendall’s face darkened and his mouth opened for the shout but before he could Charlie said, “We don’t think that, of course. That’s why we’ve done what we can to help you.”

Bendall’s mouth closed but the expression remained suspicious. He needed to be aware of every expression, Charlie realized. Which he couldn’t do and read out the fifteen names at the same time. Without looking at Anne he passed the list across the bed to her, at the same time saying, “We’ve got some names that might jog your memory. People who were in the army with you.”

Anne’s take-over was seamless. “Kirril Semenovich Kashva?” she began.

Bendall remained blank faced, blank eyed.

“Yevgenni Iosifovich Ibrimacimov?”

No reaction whatsoever.

“Sergei Leonidovich Golovkin?”

“Lost his nerve,” broke in Bendall. “Was good at first, had a good eye. But then he developed a shake. Can’t be accurate if you shake.”

“Not like you,” flattered Charlie, wanting to break the recitation.

“No, not like me,” smiled Bendall.

“Ilya Aleksandrovich Dolya?” resumed Anne.

Bendall shook his head, swirling the lank hair. There was no grimace of discomfort from the injury.

“Boris Sergeevich Davidov?”

There was a recognition! Almost imperceptible, a fraction of a second, but Charlie was sure he’d seen the movement in Bendall’s eyes, the vaguest tightening around the man’s mouth.

“Igor Mikhailevich Amosov?” continued Anne, her concentration entirely on the list.

“Had a breakdown, like Sergei Leonidovich. Weak,” sneered Bendall.

“Yakov Ivanovich Lomakin,” persisted Anne, to Bendall’s further head shake. After the following two identities the man stopped bothering even with that rejection, listening but giving no response. The only exception was with the last of the fifteen-Vladimir Grigorevich Pigorov-whom Bendall once more dismissed as weak, unable physically to endure the training.

“So the man the KGB put in with you isn’t one of these?” pressed Charlie.

“Not that I recognized.”

Charlie was sure that both Olga and Anne stirred, at the qualification. He said, “You would have recognized it, if he had been among them, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you want us to go through the list again?” offered Anne.

“Not so soon.”

Wrong to push him, remembered Charlie. “Would you like a copy of the list, to look through on your own?”

“Yes,” accepted Bendall at once. “Let me have a copy to take my time over.”

“There’s something that we can’t understand, need you to help us with,” said Noskov. “You only had two bullets and we know that five were fired. So there had to be someone else. Did you know there was to be someone else?”

Charlie tensed for the outburst, remembering the hysteria of the American interview, but instead of answering Bendall softly began the dirge, his eyes fixed somewhere above their heads. Hurriedly Charlie said, “Tell us about February 18, Georgi. The Thursday night Vasili Gregorovich died. You were with him that night, weren’t you?”

The humming stopped. “All of us.”

“The brotherhood?” prompted Charlie.

“Drinking. Singing.”

“Where were you drinking?” Don’t anyone interrupt, try to take over, thought Charlie.

“It was a good night. All there.”

“All six of you?” chanced Charlie.

“Felt good,” avoided Bendall.

“Everyone drunk?”

“Everyone drunk,” agreed Bendall. “Anatoli Nikolaevich’s birthday.”

Charlie wished the others in the room would stop shifting, not wanting Bendall’s reverie broken by the slightest distraction. Keeping his own voice an even, dull monotone, wanting only to stroke the strings, Charlie said, “A lot of toasts?”

“Smashed the glasses, the first time. Traditionally.”

“Vasili Gregorovich was all right to drive, though? Knew how to drink?”

“Best drinker among us.”

“Why didn’t you go home to Timiryazev with Vasili? You often did, didn’t you.”

“Don’t remember. I was drunk. Someone did.”

“Who! Give us his name,” abruptly demanded Olga Melnik, strident-voiced.

Bendall physically jumped and blinked, several times, as if being awakened and the fury surged through Charlie. Anne groaned, audibly,and that annoyed Charlie too. Bendall looked carefully, alertly, from one to the other, smiling, and Charlie’s anger went as soon as it had come.

It was Noskov who tried to retrieve the mood, the thunderous voice soothing, encouraging. “You’re doing well, Georgi. We’re getting somewhere. Tell us about the funeral. You all went to that, didn’t you?”

“How do you know?” Bendall was still smiling.

“I don’t,” said the lawyer. “I want you to tell me about it.”

“Not the time.”

“We’ve got all the time in the world, I told you that,” misunderstood Noskov.

“Not the place,” corrected Bendall.

“Of course you’ll be able to tell everyone in court,” accepted Noskov, quickly recovering. “That’s what I want you to do. Tell me and then we’ll tell everyone again, in court. Make sure everyone understands.”

“No,” refused the man. “I decide.”

“I know you do,” said Noskov. “Everything’s your decision. Will you see me tomorrow?”

Bendall appeared to consider the request. “All right.”

Outside in the corridor Olga said at once, “I’m sorry. It was …”

“It’s all right,” stopped Charlie. “We didn’t lose anything.”

Both lawyers looked at him in surprise. Anne said, “We were going like a steam train in there!”

“Bendall was driving,” said Charlie.

Olga’s request to come back to the incident room with him precluded the Noskov-crowded embassy car. Charlie hailed a taxi and rode to Novinskij Bul’var without asking about the apparently renewed cooperation and Olga didn’t offer an explanation. The attention at their entry wasn’t as obvious as Olga had feared and Kayley greeted the Russian as if there had been no interruption in her being there.

Charlie held up the tape like a prize and said, “It’s the best yet.”

Olga matched Charlie’s gesture with what she carried and said,“We’ve got a list of names that possibly includes Bendall’s KGB minder, in the military. We’ve assigned individual teams to trace each one.”

“Let’s hope to Christ that this is lift-off at last,” said Kayley.

That night Zenin took Olga to bed early and was more demanding than he’d been before and afterwards she lay exhausted beside him, wondering how much longer it could possibly last, unsure for the very first time how well-or badly-she would be able to cope when it ended. Whenever it did-again for the very first time-it wouldn’t be by her choice.

“It’s not proof,” he said, picking up the earlier dinner table conversation. “You’re reacting to instinct.”

“I know,” admitted Olga. “But I’m right! I can feel it. The lead we want is among those fifteen names.”

“If he’s there, we’ll find him.”

“We should allow ourselves more time, not worry so much about media timing,” persisted Olga.

“You know the answer to that.”

“Will we share?”

Zenin was quiet for several moments. “After we’ve got him: got everything.”

“What if he’s still serving in the FSB? It’s more than possible.”

“But we’ve got the authority of the presidential commission.”

“Will we invoke it?”

“If we have to.”

“Be careful, darling. Personally careful, I mean.”

“How was it for you, going back today?”

“Better than I thought it would be.”

“You think the Americans, with all their manpower, will try to trace all the fifteen?”

“Without a doubt.”

“That could be our protection,” suggested Zenin. “Maybe we will share. Give the Americans the name, if we think we’ve discovered it, let them take on the FSB.”

Olga turned, moving her hand over his hair-matted chest. “Do that! It’ll be safer.”

“The FSB’s wrecked. And Karelin with it.”

“All the more reason-every reason-for not being associated with its destruction. Russian intelligence changes its face but not its memory.”

“I’ll look after you,” said Zenin.

“For how long?” asked Olga, wishing she could have bitten the words back as she uttered them, stiffening beside him. She lay with her eyes closed, as if by not seeing she shut out the embarrassment. She felt him turn towards her.

“It’s something for us to talk about-think about-isn’t it?”

“Is it?” she said, breath tight in her chest.

“How would you feel about having me as a husband as well as a lover?”

“I’d feel very happy. How would you feel having me as a wife?”

“Very happy. And very proud.”

It wasn’t going to end! It was going to go on, forever and Olga couldn’t imagine anything she wanted more. “Now we’ve got even more reason to be careful. I don’t want to lose this, to risk anything.”

“You think you would have got more?” asked Natalia.

Charlie shook his head. “Bendall wasn’t lost in memories. It was an act, feeding us a bit at a time and making us dance to his tune …” he smiled at the unintentional pun. “And it’s a bloody awful tune, too.”

“You achieved a hell of a lot, though.”

“As much as Bendall wanted to give.” He hadn’t told Natalia-discussed with anyone-what he believed to have been Bendall’s recognition of the Davidov name. Totally unoffended by Charlie’s disbelief and anxious to earn the offered fifty dollars, the concierge of the dilapidated block on Fadeeva Ulitza had two hours earlier let Charlie into Davidov’s listed apartment address to prove the man was no longer there, unprotestingly watching Charlie explore the few pieces of furniture that allowed the place to be described as furnished. Davidov had lived alone and hadn’t been friendly, complained the man. Davidov had been about thirty-five years old and looked fit, as if he trained, running or swimming or something like that. On the few occasions the concierge even remembered seeinghim, Davidov had worn a suit, with a collar and tie, so the caretaker assumed he worked in an office. Three militiamen and some Americans who’d said they were detectives had already been there so he guessed Davidov had done something pretty serious. Charlie agreed it might have been and left with the promise of another fifty dollars if the man called his embassy number to tell him Davidov had reappeared, hoping he’d outbid the Americans to whom, along with the militia, he decided to leave the legwork involved in trying to trace Davidov further, at least until the following day.

“How long do you think it will take?”

“I’ve put to him the idea of the court being his stage. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept a lot back until he appears in public.”

“You might not have to wait long,” said Natalia. “I ran into a brick wall arguing the court hearing should be postponed. Then this afternoon Okulov’s ordered the arraignment should be the same day as the funeral.”

“That’s in two days!” said Charlie.

“Can you imagine the media coverage?”

“Not when we enter a plea of not guilty, after everyone’s seen the television film,” said Charlie.

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“The Justice Ministry have decided there’s insufficient evidence of foul play for a militia investigation into Vera Bendall’s death.”

“Where’s the fix from, the Justice Ministry or the FSB?”

“Lefortovo is ultimately under FSB control,” reminded Natalia.