Red Star Burning

10

“It won’t work any other way,” insisted Charlie, confident he’d kept the scourging overnight doubt from his voice as he set out his rescue proposals.

“Then it’s stillborn,” refused Aubrey Smith, flatly. “There’s absolutely no question of your becoming personally involved.”

Despite its vital importance, he’d actually felt embarrassed at the previous night’s close in front of an audience of Smith, Jane Ambersom, and an assortment of earphoned technicians mouthing the carefully prepared words into the unanswered Moscow public telephones from which Natalia had pleaded, I’ve got your messages. I’m coming back: you know I’ll come back. Don’t panic. It’ll all be over soon.

“Everything needs a lot more discussion and consideration before there’s talk of abandonment,” quickly came in Monsford.

“Russian response?” queried Charlie, who’d already registered the return of the familiar apparatus and hoped to have learned the reason ahead of Smith’s demand for his rescue ideas.

“Let me,” quickly offered Rebecca Street, ahead of the other woman, briefly smiling as she went to the machine at the recollection of Monsford’s impotent collapse at Straughan’s previous night’s telephone intrusion.

“Hurry, Charlie. I’m sure they’re close,” came Natalia’s voice, and Charlie’s stomach lurched in recognition.

“Within three hours of your call to the Moscow numbers!” declared Monsford, eagerly. “They’ve bitten!”

“They haven’t bitten at anything,” dismissed Smith. “They’re going with the hand they dealt in the first place, to see if it will play out to their advantage. Which it would if Charlie actually went in. And why he isn’t going. I’m prepared to hear ideas that don’t personally include you, Charlie. If there aren’t any, we abort.”

“And lose twenty years of priceless espionage intelligence, as well as possibly even more priceless personal information about Vladimir Putin, who’s going to go on running Russia for years,” challenged Rebecca. “We can’t discard this chance.”

“I’m not dismissing it,” refuted the MI5 Director. “I’m agreeing to an operation to get Natalia Fedova and her child out. But refusing Charlie’s involvement beyond his inside knowledge.”

“Then it is stillborn,” risked Charlie, desperately, talking more to Monsford than to his own reluctant director. “I don’t need a voiceprint to know that was again Natalia. Just as she wouldn’t have needed a voiceprint to know it was me. She won’t do anything, trust any part of a rescue attempt, if the contact is made in a voice other than mine. And that can’t be done remotely with my being eighteen hundred miles away. Her reaction will be that it was an FSB trick, part of how they’re using her. Which she’ll automatically reject.”

“Do you really believe, expect us to believe, that singlehandedly you could beat the entire Russian intelligence apparatus,” sneered Jane Ambersom, pushing herself into the forefront.

“No, I can’t defeat the entire Russian intelligence apparatus,” Charlie replied, echoing the sneer. “But I believe I stand a better chance than a squad going in cold-a squad she’ll anyway reject-just as I defeated not just Natalia herself but a group of then-KGB professionals during the phoney defection. And just as I beat a dedicated group of KGB and FSB professionals a little over four months ago to stop that Russian intelligence apparatus virtually installing itself in the Oval Office of the president of the United States of America.”

“No one is questioning what you did,” retreated Jane.

“Which I’m not boasting about,” qualified Charlie, caught by the unexpected lessening of the woman’s opposition. “Quite apart from Natalia trusting no one but me, it would take months to train an extraction team and they’d still be ill prepared because as determined as I’d obviously be to omit nothing, I’d still forget something. And we haven’t got months. Whatever move they might have been planning against her will have been stopped now, because of my calls last night. But that hold-off won’t last forever.”

“I think Charlie is talking a lot of logical common sense,” hustled Monsford. “I think there should be made available as much and as many backup provisions and resources as we can anticipate but that the actual extraction be headed by Charlie.”

“I agree,” supported Rebecca.

“What if you fail?” challenged Jane again. “What if they pick you up, which they’re ready and waiting to do, and stage a good, old-fashioned show trial? What happens then?”

“Russia-certainly Moscow-isn’t as controlled as it was in the days of Stalin’s show trials, despite what Putin’s done to turn the clock back,” argued Charlie. “The ultimate humiliation would be theirs, not ours. For a show trial to work they’d need an open although orchestrated court. And some sort of apparent confession to whatever crime they falsify. What they couldn’t control or prevent, when I spoke, would be my disclosing how their intelligence operation so abysmally failed and named those already known to have been assassinated by the FSB.”

“Which would humiliate America as much as Russia,” qualified Jane.

“Not at all,” refused Charlie. “I’d tell it as a CIA success in a joint operation with us, not of the CIA being suckered as they were.”

She didn’t at that moment know how or why, reflected Jane, but she could have a lot more about which to talk to Barry Elliott at their next dinner. “Winning all over again, not just for the second time but publicly, is a forceful argument.”

“No, it’s not,” resisted Smith, recognizing opinion settling against him. “They won’t risk a show trial. They want you dead, like all the others in the Lvov affair they’ve already killed. They’d simply kill you.”

“The others who’ve died were Russian,” Charlie pointed out. “I’m English. And we’ve got three of their diplomats in custody.”

“I don’t believe you seriously imagine those diplomats equate as insurance against your being killed!” said Smith, allowing incredulity into his emotionally flat voice.

“It would give the FSB and even the Kremlin pause for thought if they learned through lawyers representing those arrested diplomats that they’d be named and linked if I died violently, even if it were staged as an accident,” said Charlie.

“By then they would have moved against Natalia and Sasha,” countered Smith.

“Yes,” agreed Charlie, reluctantly forcing the acceptance. “By then I would have already lost them. But you’d have your publicly humiliating second coup, wouldn’t you?”

“We’re wasting time going around in circles,” declared Monsford, impatiently. “We’ve got an intelligence opportunity that’s potentially too promising to ignore. I accept Charlie should participate as he’s proposed, to which I will add all the manpower and resources he’s likely to need.…” Monsford hesitated, and said directly to Aubrey Smith: “Make it, in fact, an entirely SIS operation, with Charlie seconded to me, if you want no part of it and if you, Charlie, are willing to operate that way. It will overcome all the objections, won’t it?”

“Perfectly,” supported Rebecca, with predictable timing.

“I’ll accept that,” agreed Charlie. On my terms, he mentally added.

“The prime minister has ordered it to be a joint operation,” reminded the other woman.

“It’ll have to be approved through our government masters,” said Monsford, matching the reminder. “It’s still early enough to fix a meeting with Bland and Palmer today. That okay with you, Aubrey?”

“A meeting with the government group is certainly necessary,” agreed the MI5 Director-General. “But to sanction a joint operation in the terms we’ve discussed this morning, not a separation of authority. Charlie will not be seconded.”

“Camese!” declared Monsford.

“What?” demanded Jane, voicing the bewilderment of them all.

“Camese,” repeated the M16 Director. “The mortal wife of Janus, the Greek god with two faces, able to look in opposite directions. I propose Camese be the code designation for Natalia’s extraction. It’s appropriate.”

“So’s getting to London,” dismissed the MI5 Director-General.

It was Aubrey Smith’s suggestion that he and Monsford share the car to London for the quickly arranged consultation with their government liaison, which protectively guaranteed the journey was in an MI5 vehicle with a security-cleared MI5 driver, who was as usual separated by the fully raised, soundproof glass screen. For the first thirty minutes they traveled through the Buckinghamshire countryside in self-reflective, self-protective silence, Smith determined upon a complete mental rehearsal, although predictably it was the impatient Monsford who eventually spoke.

“I imagine you’ll want equal participation in the support group?”

“Of course,” agreed Smith, content with the direction the other man had chosen.

“I suggested we accept Charlie’s argument about too many cooks spoiling the broth.”

“Absolutely.” This really was going far better than he could have hoped, thought Smith.

“I am thinking of no more than six, three of mine, three of yours. They could also handle finance, materiel, and travel: everything that Charlie might call upon once he establishes contact with Natalia.”

“Only when he calls upon them,” balanced Smith, choosing his moment. “The timing has to be absolutely precise. The major argument against what we’re proposing is the public debacle if we get things wrong by as much, or as little, as a second. We won’t get approval unless we can satisfy them there is no risk of that.”

“A show trial, you mean?”

“I mean totally satisfying them that success is guaranteed, with no risk of Charlie-or the government-being publicly exposed.”

Monsford lapsed into further silence but when Smith didn’t continue, the MI6 Director said: “You were adamantly opposed to a very specific insurance.”

“As I was opposed earlier today to Charlie’s participation, an objection I’ve since dropped.”

There was another although shorter silence before Monsford said: “As you are now conceding the need for an ultimate insurance, if such a move becomes essential?”

“If such a need arose, we would have lost the advantages of bringing Natalia, with all she potentially knows, here to safety. At which stage it would be containment time.”

“I agree,” fenced Monsford, consciously switching the direction of the conversation onto the other man as he recognized them to be entering the north London suburbs with perhaps only fifteen minutes left in the exchange before reaching their destination.

Smith shifted on his seat, discomfited at being outmaneuvered. “We understand what we’re talking about but it’s not an eventuality we can openly introduce into this afternoon’s discussion: the very purpose for…” The man hesitated, searching for the appropriate ambiguity. “For the airlock through which we have to communicate is to provide legally unchallengeable deniability in Parliament in the event of a catastrophe.”

Now it was Monsford who changed position. “Surely we can sufficiently infer such a guarantee without risking any misunderstandings?”

“There are practicalities that we would need completely to clarify to avoid any misunderstandings between ourselves,” insisted Smith, determined to recover the impetus. “Do you have such an asset?”

Monsford stirred again, aware how perfectly everything was slotting into place. “I have a station chief, Harry Jacobson, completely briefed upon the operation: following Eyes Only instructions, he’s supervised all my preliminary preparations.”

“Could he perform the ultimate insurance proposal?”

“He would need to be totally distanced from everything else. And obviously he was going to be one of my three in the combined support team. If he’s assigned the insurance necessity, I’d need another officer to maintain our three-to-three balance, which creates an imbalance, my four to your three.”

“I don’t think we need be that pedantic,” offered Smith, who hadn’t imagined it was going to be so easy.

“You’d be happy with a four-to-three imbalance?” questioned Monsford, who hadn’t imagined it was going to be so easy.

“We’re not actually on opposing sides, are we?” Smith allowed himself. “Being on opposite sides of the Thames is simply a geographical separation.”

“Of course we’re not on opposing sides.” Monsford sniggered, knowing he was expected to appear amused, which he was, although not at what Smith had said. “It’s been easier for us to understand each other without those damn women on our coattails. Hasn’t it?”

“Very much easier,” agreed Smith.

It had taken close to an hour after the other four left for Charlie’s euphoric mist to lift and for him to confront that his initial reaction had been more fogged than misted by his single-minded fixation upon saving Natalia and Sasha. Now, after that near-transcendental hour in the no-longer-locked-or-guarded room in what would soon no longer be his latest safe house, came the hard-assed examination. Summoning yet again that close-to-photographic recall of every incident and conversation since the numbing moment of hearing Natalia’s metallic-voiced pleas, Charlie for the first time set out to create a mosaic from the pieces he could safely assume, reserving-although not positively dismissing-what he judged the more outlandish hypotheses inevitable from the sparse information available.

His starkest, most frightening awareness had to be the relentless dedication with which the FSB were hunting him, their utter determination such that they’d consciously sacrificed three undetected diplomat-concealed spies in the ridiculous burglary of his Vauxhall apartment. It had to mean …

Charlie’s mind abruptly blocked at the first of the insufficiently considered anomalies.

How had the FSB discovered the Vauxhall flat and its telephone number, neither of which was traceable to him either from its shielded lease or its utility records? Nor was such information available through any documentation in the lawyer-supervised Jersey bank account. The remotest and already partially considered possibility-if true, a further confirmation of the Russian revenge obsession-was the FSB establishing a connection from his television exposure during the Lvov affair and his long ago faked defection. But that still wouldn’t have led them to his Vauxhall flat or its telephone number. Yes it could, came the instant contradiction.

After his initial return from Moscow, Charlie had always called Natalia from an untraceably anonymous, bought-for-cash telephone card, disposable when its charge value was exhausted. But she’d very occasionally telephoned from her apartment, ignoring his repeated, sometimes even angry insistence that she always call from an unlisted public kiosk.

There was another jarring halt to Charlie’s speculation. But always to charge the call collect. Under the pressure to which she had undoubtedly been subjected, reciting the words at least monitored if not actually dictated to her, it would have been far more logical-expected, even-for her to telephone from her apartment: more logical, too, for the FSB eavesdropping enforcers. So why hadn’t she? Had Natalia tried to convey something beyond her obvious coercion, something she was desperate for him to recognize by using a public facility?

He might, Charlie at once accepted, be stumbling in the wrong direction, as he had when trying to lull his protective minders in preparation for his unsupervised dash to Jersey. But it was an inconsistency in their arranged understanding, and intentionally introduced inconsistency was an acknowledged danger-alerting tradecraft signal. It was something to flag up, even if at this moment it didn’t contribute to his empty mosaic.

What was there that just might contribute? The FSB wasn’t the only intelligence organization wanting him hanged, drawn and quartered. There’d been a substantial clear-out within the CIA after his exposure but Charlie couldn’t see them making up any part of his unfilled picture. Or could he?

Irena Yakulova Novikov, first the initiating KGB and after their supposed dissolution the continuing FSB architect of the Lvov emplacement, had not so far been factored into the current context. What if, somehow, Irena Novikov was a continuing integral part of the Lvov bloodletting? In a desperate attempt to recuperate her brain child, Irena had staged her own faked defection in an ultimately failed attempt to prevent his uncovering the truth about Stepan Lvov. Now she was incarcerated somewhere in America-or perhaps a torture-permitting rendition country-undergoing the most extreme CIA interrogation to provide far more secrets about Russian intelligence.

Charlie doubted that someone as dedicated as Irena would break under American interrogation, no matter how brutal. But professionally it wasn’t a risk Russia could take: they’d do everything to get her back by following their unbreakable coda of demanding diplomatic access to negotiate her return.

It was far more likely, Charlie conceded, that his London address had been disclosed to Washington by the avenging disciples stable-cleaned along with the disgraced, CIA-pocketed former deputy director of MI5, Jeffrey Smale. And in turn offered to the FSB by the disgruntled CIA.

He was looking at a brick wall, Charlie acknowledged: hypotheses stacked upon hypotheses upon a quicksand of unknowns and uncertainties. He didn’t have enough about anything from which to make a half-intelligent guess, apart from the one unarguable fact of Natalia’s exposure. So why was he trying? Because he didn’t need the familiar foot twinge to warn him that distracted by his consuming, solely focused aim, he’d missed things that would have filled in a lot of his empty picture.

One of which surely had to be that Smith and Monsford’s lack of field experience didn’t by itself justify their comparatively easy agreement to his participation. The continuing foot pangs were sufficient to make him wince and with that discomfort came the further warning doubt. He’d already initiated the Moscow incursion with his hollow-voiced messages to the numbers from which Natalia had made her contact, which broke the inviolable rule that every mission, before commencement, be separately, independently vetted by experienced, field-savvy executives.

He’d had no reason for euphoria because he hadn’t won anything, Charlie accepted. He was caught up in something he didn’t properly understand without, at this precise moment, any hope of finding out.

About which he didn’t give a fuck, as long as it got him to Moscow.

Monsford had called ahead and Rebecca Street got to the Cheyne Walk flat before the MI6 Director flustered in, the demanded glasses and celebratory champagne set out in readiness.

“You won’t believe what happened!” Monsford greeted, exultantly.

“Then I won’t try to guess,” said the woman, who considered the man’s too-quickly-stirred excitability to be immature, like the haste of his lovemaking.

“On our way to the meeting, Smith actually asked me to set up Charlie’s assassination if there were a risk of his being seized by the Russians!”

“Did he actually use the word assassination?”

“Of course not!” said Monsford, irritated at the question. “It was the usual maypole dance of double-speak but it was protective assassination, pure and simple.”

“What about the internal inquiry that’s inevitable after Charlie’s killed? Smith will deny it was ever his suggestion.”

“Not when you corroborate what I’m telling you.”

By her not corroborating it, Monsford’s removal from the MI6 directorship would be automatic, leaving her his logical successor, calculated Rebecca. “Your last uncertainty has been resolved, hasn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” agreed Monsford. “What did you think of my establishing Camese as the code designation for what everyone believes to be Natalia’s extraction?”

Puerile, like most of your classical allusions, thought Rebecca. She said: “Very clever.”

“More than clever. Brilliant,” insisted Monsford. “Janus is going to be the code for Radtsic’s extraction. Everyone looking and thinking in the wrong direction!”

“Brilliant,” agreed Rebecca, dutifully. Asshole, she thought.

“Have you had Andrei’s letter?” asked Elana.

“It arrived today.”

“What’s the problem?”

“There isn’t one. I’d set up a contact system with the embassy that he was finding restrictive, so I’ve scaled it down. Which I was going to have to do anyway.”

“When are you going to tell him what’s happening?”

“When everything’s finalized by the British.”

“When’s that going to be?”

“Very soon.”

“You’re going to be briefed on a special, combined operation,” announced Monsford. “I’m appointing you supervisor of the MI6 contingent.”

“Thank you, sir,” accepted Stephen Briddle. He was an intense, quick-talking man nervous of his first personal encounter with the Director.

“You’ll learn all about the combined assignment at the general briefing. This conversation is strictly between the two of us and must remain that way, no one else. I’ve chosen you because of your special clearance, which might be called upon. I’m sure you won’t let me or the service down.”

“I won’t, sir,” assured Briddle, giving no indication of his immediate unease at the reference to special clearance.

“This meeting is precautionary. I might not need to issue the order so I won’t give you any further details but I will dispatch a weapon ahead of your arrival in Moscow in the diplomatic bag.”

“I understand.”

“Your sole understanding at this point is that this meeting, this conversation, is totally classified.”

“I do understand that.”

“You are going to have a long and assured career in this service.”

“Thank you, sir.”