Red Star Burning

20

Maxim Radtsic’s insistence upon resuming their meetings to discuss the lead-up arrangements only slightly diminished Harry Jacobson’s satisfaction that the entire ill-conceived, haphazardly planned affair was soon to be over. Jacobson matched Radtsic’s insistence by decreeing the Bolshoi as their venue for the very first of his personal celebrations. Jacobson was a ballet fanatic and Swan Lake his favorite but that night his fear of entrapment superceded his enjoyment of the performance.

Freed as he now was from the absurd assassination diversion as well as safely shepherding Radtsic to London, Jacobson was able to look past the immediate to the promotions so clearly open to him for what he’d done-and been unarguably prepared to do.

It was objectively accepted that despite the facile diplomatic charade of cover embassy titles and descriptions, Russian intelligence knew the identities of most if not all British espionage officers in Moscow, just as MI5 and MI6 knew the identities of most if not all Russian operatives in London. That was how each country was so quickly able to match the other, agent for agent, in tit-for-tat spy expulsions. And why Jacobson knew that within days, hours even, of Radtsic’s defection the FSB would identify him as the MI6 Control who’d flown out on the same plane as their deputy executive chairman.

Which, following that inevitability to its only conclusion, made absolutely impossible his return to Moscow. About which, apart from the ballet, he had no regrets.

There was the slight blip in Jacobson’s reasoning at the brevity of his Moscow posting until he balanced that brevity to be in his favor rather than against a fitting and deserving reward. He doubted there’d ever been, in this or any other hostile country, another MI6 station chief who, after just months, had landed a catch as big as a deputy head of intelligence. And this wasn’t any other hostile country. This was the hostile country, the Russian Federation, led by a man so determined upon a new, even more frigid Cold War that he’d openly threatened a western-facing missile fence across central Europe after crushing the upstart former republic of Georgia as brutally as then-Czechoslovakia and Hungary had been crushed at the height of communism.

Jacobson judged Washington his most logical move, the posting for which this impending coup most qualified him. But Jacobson believed himself a true and natural European and genuinely supported its union of nations. Paris was traditionally viewed as the promotional jewel in the diplomatic crown. And of all his intelligence career ladder-scrambling Jacobson had most enjoyed his earlier tour in the French capital, although its ballet lacked the tingling magic of that approaching its intermission before him.

For which Jacobson was ready, rising as the curtain fell for the encounter ritual of checking Radtsic for unwelcome interest before the Russian assured himself that Jacobson was also clear. Which, by strict tradecraft interpretation, he wasn’t, although there was no possibility of Radtsic’s becoming aware of his three other intended escorts, the only purpose for whose presence was physically to identify the man whose uninterrupted flight they had to guarantee and of whose identity Jacobson himself was unaware: their Bolshoi attendance had been independently arranged by Straughan, after Jacobson’s choice of meeting place.

Jacobson established himself in the shadow of a pillar close to the bar entrance after very intentionally ordering the twice-as-expensive French over Russian champagne in another early celebration of his anticipated career advancement. Radtsic bulldozed his way into the salon with his accustomed autocratic swagger, ignoring the protests of two separate groups in front of which he forced himself to be served. The swagger remained while he moved back into the now-crowded room, although away from where Jacobson watched. Tonight’s safety signal, from the protection of another pillar deeper within the room, was for Radtsic to consult but quickly pocket his program, which he did more quickly than Jacobson had expected. Jacobson didn’t hurry to respond, double-checking his own surroundings, irritated by Radtsic’s open look of expectation before he reached the man.

“Ready at last!” greeted the Russian, sardonically.

“Everything’s fixed, yes.”

“When?”

“The nine A.M. British Airways flight the day after tomorrow.”

“Why not tomorrow!” Radtsic instantly demanded.

Jacobson maneuvered his back to the pillar, as much to mark Radtsic for the three unknown watching escorts, who, according to Straughan, knew his identity from photographs, as for his own protective view of the chandeliered room. “This is the first completely suitable, available flight upon which you can be fully escorted.”

“It’s an unnecessary delay.”

“It ensures your greatest security,” insisted Jacobson.

“How?” persisted Radtsic.

“It’s a direct flight, removing stopover interception. Our people will be onboard.”

“Who?”

“I don’t even know their identities. And go through Sheremetyevo more quietly.”

“What are you talking about!” questioned the other man, coloring.

“The way you walk, your whole attitude, attracts attention.”

Radtsic’s face reddened. “I don’t expect or want to be addressed like this.”

“And I don’t want all that’s been arranged for your benefit to collapse, with your wife and son already out of the country, by your focusing attention on yourself as you’ve done at every meeting we’ve had.” He shouldn’t have given way to the annoyance, Jacobson warned himself: in less than forty-eight hours he’d be rid of the arrogant bastard.

It took Radtsic several moments to compose himself. “What are the arrangements?”

“We have to meet one more time, tomorrow night. I’ll tell you the place and the time by cell phone. At tomorrow’s meeting I’ll give you your ticket-a return, obviously, although you’re not coming back-and your passport. Both are in the name of Ivan Petrovich Umnov. The passport is authentically Russian, so it can’t be challenged. Neither can the exit visa from here nor the entry documentation into Britain, to which will be attached all the British accreditation for an international engineering conference genuinely being held in Birmingham. That’s your cover: you’re an engineer specializing in mineral-drilling machinery. I’ll also give you one hundred pounds in sterling, with the currency-exchange receipts and all the Birmingham contact information, including an apparently confirmed appointment with Yuri Panin, the current deputy trade minister at the Russian embassy in London.” Jacobson drank heavily from his champagne glass, needing it.

Radtsic, the color gone, said: “Your service is very efficient.”

“As yours is,” acknowledged Jacobson. “Is there anything we’ve omitted or that isn’t clear to you?”

“Where is this place, Birmingham?”

“In the middle of the country.”

“What about you?” asked Radtsic. “Are you accompanying me?”

“That hasn’t been positively decided,” lied Jacobson, self-protectively. “My job is to ensure your unhindered passage onto the plane. At Heathrow you’ll be taken from the plane ahead of other passengers. You’ll be taken direct to a waiting car.”

“Tell me about Elana and Andrei.”

“Everything is governed by your departure. That schedule has Elana and Andrei arriving in England ahead of you, because of the time difference between Russia and France. They will be waiting at the safe house already prepared.”

Radtsic smiled. “I would like to tell them tonight how close everything is.”

“No!” ordered Jacobson, in quiet-voiced urgency. “It’ll be madness to attempt contact now!”

The resumption bell echoed throughout the salon. Radtsic said nothing but his face had colored again.

“Give me your solemn undertaking you won’t try to make contact!”

“I won’t make contact,” said the Russian.

“Where have you been: the arrangement was six. It’s almost eight!”

From the subdued noise in the background Charlie guessed David Halliday was in a bar: the underlying jazz was modern, the occasional snatched lyric in English. “Where are you?”

“The Savoy. When you didn’t call I came looking for you here.”

Charlie had lived at the Savoy, close to Red Square, during the embassy-killing investigation. “I’d hardly be likely to stay there, with everyone and his dog looking for me!”

“I told you this morning that I need to know where to find you!”

“And I told you the diplomatic debacle there’d be-as well as the end of your career and pension with it-if the FSB picked up our association by electronically scanning your mobile phone, which they probably do automatically to all embassy personnel. I’m calling you from a public telephone, the number of which you’ll find when you access the last-number display on your phone, which I know you’ll do, just as I know you tried to follow me on the Metro.”

Charlie listened to the background of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Summertime,” which had been the bartender’s favorite CD when he’d stayed there. He had to buy more Russian cell phones, he reminded himself, still refusing to trust the one issued to him in London. It was several moments before the MI6 man said: “I thought we were working together.”

“We are, right now. And if we’ve got anything to talk about I don’t want you doing so from a bar stool where you can be overheard.”

“You think I’m that stupid!”

Yes, if you’re already topping up the lunchtime vodka, thought Charlie. “You’ve got this number on your phone. Call me back on an outside line in five minutes: if I don’t hear by six minutes, I’ll leave this kiosk.”

Charlie’s phone rang in three. Halliday said: “I didn’t want to keep you waiting, shit though you are.”

“That’s considerate of you,” said Charlie, allowing the other man the weak retaliation. “Where are you now?”

“Looking at Lenin’s tomb. There’s no one within fifty meters of me.”

“Did you get into Jacobson’s safe?”

“I couldn’t take the risk. He was around all afternoon. Except that he wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“He spent almost two hours in the communications room. I couldn’t risk going into his office, not knowing when he’d come back. When he did he time-locked the door and left early.”

“What are you reading into that?”

“Something’s about to happen. It’s being finalized. Or already has been finalized.”

Too sweeping an assessment? wondered Charlie. “In an ongoing situation or assignment, officers have to log their whereabouts or provide a contact procedure.”

“Any contact with Jacobson has to be patched through London.”

A better indicator of something imminent, judged Charlie. “How often has he done that, before today?”

“Today’s the first time. And just after he left there was an internal call from the embassy travel officer. They wouldn’t tell me what it was about: leave a message even.”

More leaves swirled by differently blowing winds to go with those already disturbed by my meeting with Natalia, thought Charlie. “Is that all?”

“You’re being judged shit of this or any other year.”

“By who else, apart from you?”

“The team that was sent in.”

“Actually naming me?”

“All they need to name is the Rossiya. They’re sitting around in the embassy bar, complaining their being here is a waste of time now.”

“Are they being recalled?” urgently demanded Charlie.

“I haven’t heard about a recall but I’m being kept on the outside. I can’t ask.”

It was difficult to gauge the furor in London from newspapers and TV here, but cancellation of Natalia’s extraction had to be a danger. Losing the manpower wasn’t his concern: losing Natalia and Sasha’s exit passports were. And he guessed the documentation would be sent back in the diplomatic bag if the extraction team was recalled. “It’s important I know if the order comes from London.”

“You haven’t told me why you didn’t call at six, as we arranged? In fact, you haven’t told me anything: so far it’s a one-way street, everything from me, nothing from you in return.”

“So far,” echoed Charlie, knowing he had to limit his response fractionally short of an outright threat, an explanation easily ready. “You know how so far extends? It extends to just short of eight hours, from the time we met. Within minutes of that meeting, both of us watching the Rossiya, I told you to stop feeling sorry for yourself, which I’m telling you again now. We’re both outside whatever the hell’s going on, which I also told you. Neither of us is going to survive, which I’m determined to do with or without you, sharing out who tells whom what, like children counting chocolate buttons to ensure they’ve all got the same. I’m the one the FSB is looking for, the fall guy, remember? And I did remember: thought back to how we met and how quickly we had to get out, so quickly I didn’t check for CCTV cameras that might have picked us up together as we ran. That’s why I was late calling tonight. I went back to check the possibility of you being at the same risk as me by such a photograph. Which you weren’t, so that precious ass and that precious pension of yours isn’t on any line. There aren’t any cameras that could have caught us.” Which Charlie had known from scouring the area when he’d first discovered the hotel wasn’t under FSB surveillance.

“I’m sorry. And thank you.”

“You going back to the embassy?”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“There’ll be no point in a ten o’clock call tomorrow. I’ll postpone it until later.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

So will I, thought Charlie: his problem was not knowing what he was waiting for.

Jane Ambersom was in that delicious after-sex suspension between scream-aloud exhilaration, which she’d had, and velvet-soft contentment, wanting to drift that way forever, which she couldn’t but intended recapturing as often and as long as she could.

“You okay?”

“Perfect,” she mumbled into Barry Elliott’s shoulder, looping one leg wetly over both of his. “Everything’s wonderful. I don’t want it ever to end.”

“Neither do I.”

That had been a ridiculous thing to say: why had she let herself be lulled like that! “Let’s not talk about it.”

Elliott loosened the arm he’d had around her, holding her to him. “I didn’t start it.”

Stop! She had to stop this. “There might be something else to talk about.”

“What?” he asked, no longer softly, moving farther away.

“Something big.”

“How big?”

“Major.”

“As big as Lvov?”

“It could be bigger.”

“You’ll keep me ahead of the curve, won’t you?”

“You know I will,” she promised, smiling into his shoulder as he pulled her back.

The discreet restaurant, close to the Pont d’Italie, was a rendezvous for illicit assignations. Its cubicle-recessed, candlelit tables did not fully compete with the wall-mirrored, chaise-longue-provided salon particulaire of the Belle Epoch but some had entrance curtains to pull across for assured privacy. Jonathan Miller hadn’t chosen a curtained alcove for the introductory meeting with Elana and Andrei Radtsic but he had made the reservation in person, under the pseudonym Bissette, to ensure it suited their nonsexual seclusion. He and Abrahams arrived an hour early, although separately, and did not enter until both were independently satisfied there was no hostile surveillance. As an additional precaution a third MI6 officer, Paul Painter, remained in Albert Abrahams’s car to maintain protective, alarm-raising observation throughout their meal.

As they were shown to their banquette, Miller said: “From how he greeted us the maitre ’d’s frightened we’re part of a gay gathering.”

“He’d probably prefer that to knowing who we really are and why we’re here.”

“If Elana and Andrei show up,” qualified Miller.

They didn’t. Elana arrived precisely on time but alone and as both men rose to meet her, Miller said: “I wish I hadn’t said that.”

The station chief ordered Chablis for Elana and as the waiter left said: “Why isn’t Andrei with you?”

“He’s coming later,” said Elana. She was the epitome of Parisian chic in a fitted black suit that heightened the blondness of her tightly coiled chignon.

“Is there a problem?” asked Abrahams.

“He said he has a late class and would join us when it finished.”

“So there is a problem?” said Abrahams, instinctively checking his watch, which read 7:35.

Elana sipped her wine, not looking directly at either man. “He doesn’t want to do it. Neither do I.”

“But you’re here, to meet us?” said Miller.

“We don’t have a choice, do we?”

“Is that what Andrei thinks?” pressed Abrahams.

“It’s what I’ve tried to convince him. I’m not sure that I have.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve accepted I have to run, leave everything.”

“Andrei can’t stay,” insisted Miller, shaking his head against the waiter’s approach for their order.

“I know.”

“You can’t have more time to persuade him. Maxim Mikhailovich’s flight has been booked,” urged Miller. “Everything is arranged to a schedule.”

“I know that, too. That’s why I’m here.”

“Will you come with us without Andrei?”

“I don’t want to face that choice.”

“Is it the girl, Yvette?” suggested Abrahams.

Elana shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, although they seem very close. She’s very pretty. I like her.”

“If he doesn’t come tonight we’ll have to meet tomorrow,” said Abrahams.

“I really don’t think you’ll have more success than me trying to persuade him,” cautioned Elana.

“We’ll guarantee him a place at another university in England, reading the same subject,” promised Miller.

“Pretending to be someone he isn’t: reborn at the age of twenty,” said Elana, nodding to more wine.

“It’s preferable to the alternative,” risked Abrahams.

“Is it?” she demanded, pointedly.

They ordered at eight o’clock, Elana dismissively asking for a plain omelet, both men choosing steak just as disinterestedly. At Elana’s hinting look at the diminishing bottle, Miller reluctantly ordered a second Chablis. Andrei arrived as their food was served, refusing to eat but gulping the offered wine. Elana and the two MI6 officers only bothered with token gestures of eating.

“We can understand your uncertainty,” said Miller.

“No, you can’t,” rejected Andrei, sharply.

“We didn’t create this situation,” tried Abrahams. “We’re offering your only way out of it.”

“It’s not the only way out!” refused Andrei, loudly, helping himself to more wine.

“The only safe way out,” accepted Abrahams.

“Is your relationship with Yvette the problem?” risked Miller.

Andrei’s head came up demandingly. “All of it’s a problem.”

“Yvette being one of them?” pressed Miller.

“Of course.”

“All the preparations to get you out are made now,” said Miller. “It’s possible, when you’re settled, that we could bring Yvette for a reunion. There’s no reason why she couldn’t come to England, is there?”

“Could you do that?” seized Andrei, the hostility lessening.

“I could suggest it, when things settle.”

“What are the preparations for our leaving?” intruded Elana.

“It’s to be within the next thirty-six hours,” generalized Miller. “We’ll meet tomorrow, for me to give you specific pickup arrangements: I’ll call tomorrow to say where. It’s really very simple. You’ll be driven directly to an airfield where a private plane will be waiting. You will be flown to London and reunited with Maxim Mikhailovich that same evening.”

“Airfield or airport?” asked Andrei.

“That hasn’t been decided yet,” lied Miller. “It won’t, obviously, be Charles de Gaulle. There’s a lot of facilities available all along the northern coast of France.”

“Did you mean what you said, about Yvette?” asked Andrei.

“Of course.”

“This is the only way for you all to stay together,” insisted Abrahams.

“I need more time,” demanded Andrei.

“You can’t have more time,” refused Abrahams. “It’s got to be now.”

“We’ll be waiting for your call,” said Elana.

The two men remained at their table after the Russians left, each waiting for the other to open the conversation. It was Abrahams who did. “The steak’s too cold now.”

“We’ll order more,” decided Miller. “And get Paul in from the car.”

“What do you think?”

“We could have a problem. That’s why I kept all the planning so vague.”

“Do you think Elana would leave without him?”

“I don’t know.” Miller shrugged.

“London will never agree to the kid being reunited with his girlfriend!”

“Of course they won’t,” agreed Miller. “But if it gets the awkward sod to England, it won’t matter, will it? He’ll be in the bag.”

As he joined them Painter said: “How’d it go?”

“Christ knows,” said Abrahams. “Let’s order some more food. And some decent red wine.”