Red Star Burning

25

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

“We didn’t set a time.” Natalia hadn’t come straight from the Lubyanka, Charlie knew. Her hair was perfectly in place and the black dress didn’t look as if it had been worn throughout a busy day. What little makeup she wore appeared fresh, too.

Natalia hesitated, studying the table, placing it within the restaurant. “Sitting here isn’t a coincidence, is it?”

“I wondered if you’d remember.”

Natalia gave a brief smile. “I remember this table from our first-ever time here and I haven’t forgotten, either, that beneath Charlie the hard man there’s Charlie the romantic.…” The smile went. “And you’ll never know how much I wish things weren’t as they are now.”

What the hell did that mean? “Why don’t we order before we talk?”

“You order for me?” she said, uninterestedly.

Charlie chose fish for her in preference to the boar he’d decided upon while he’d waited and the already selected Georgian wine, unsettled by her mood. “Now let’s talk.”

“How much do you know?”

“Just what I’ve picked up from television, that a Russian mother and her son are being held in France. The diplomatic reference to the two Englishmen is a clear enough espionage identification even without the impounded plane.” Charlie intentionally limited his reply to avoid Natalia’s suspecting he had a secondary source.

Natalia sipped her wine to cover the hesitation Charlie recognized not just to be her positive, no-going-back moment of commitment but the point at which she knowingly crossed their self-erected barrier against their betraying either country’s intelligence. The hesitation continued even when she began talking, naming Radtsic and his wife and son but not knowing how the French seizure had come about. Charlie didn’t interrupt, not wanting to lose something more important for a less essential clarification. Only in the last few moments did she bring her head up, the guilt obvious. “I hated doing that. I … I despise myself.”

The arrival of their meal allowed Charlie a brief reflection. “All our professional lives we’ve kept our oath, adjusted our morality for institutions whose only morality is the expediency of the moment. You’re not betraying anything or anyone. It’s time for our expediency. Not just yours and mine. Sasha’s, too, which is maybe even more important.”

Natalia was looking away again, picking at her fish as he was at his meal, neither properly eating. Abruptly she said: “That’s my problem. Is it best for Sasha to be taken from everything and everyone she knows to what might as well be the moon, where she’ll get a new name and be told to forget her own, never ever to mention it to anyone: learn a new language and accept a near stranger as her father. That’s what it’s going to be, isn’t it? A suspended life-not really a life at all-in a protection program, not able to tell her why we can’t trust anyone, be proper friends with anyone, terrified at an accent or an intonation that could be Russian and mean they’ve found us.”

He couldn’t lie to her, not after his own so recently fossilized existence. “I came out of a program to get you both. It was everything you’ve described it to be. It’s the beginning, the adjustment, that will be bad. But we can adjust: Sasha’s young enough to adjust. We could become happy, eventually.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere you choose. And aren’t we overlooking why I came here: why you made the calls?”

“There’s more to tell you. Nothing’s complete, as nothing’s ever complete in what we do: how we work encapsulated in an incomprehensible whole,” groped Natalia. “There’s total uproar at Lubyanka, more open talk than I’ve ever known, more combined action than I’ve ever experienced. But it doesn’t seem like uproar: panic. It isn’t encapsulated. People are talking, discussing things, speculating, which they’ve never done.…” She put down her fork to raise an apologetic hand. “I know I’m not making sense. I’m trying to explain it as the words come to me.”

Was there another fear adding to that of a protection program? “How’s it affecting you personally?”

Natalia abandoned her meal altogether, nervously revolving the gold band she carefully avoided wearing on her wedding finger. “I’ve been seconded to an inquiry committee, six of us from the analysis division of the First Chief Directorate, which never changed its functions or designation from the old KGB-”

“You’ve been personally selected!” seized Charlie, aware of the significance.

“Me, personally,” confirmed Natalia, with another brief half smile.

“To inquire into what?”

“Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic,” she announced, simply. “Our brief is to go back into everything-every operation, every contact, every department, every officer both here and abroad in either the KGB or the FSB-with whom Radtsic had dealings since the day he enrolled in the KGB. The FSB reasoning is that he wasn’t alone but part of a long-established cell from which he’s trying to distract attention for the rest to go on working against us.”

Us, immediately registered Charlie, believing he was beginning to understand. “You’re no longer under the slightest suspicion. Only a person beyond reproach would be considered and only then after the strictest vetting. Which you underwent and clearly passed even before Radtsic defected.”

“I know.”

Charlie didn’t hurry, not to reflect but to examine their conversation and pick up any inconsistency to avoid the wrong interpretation. Unable to find it, he said: “You’re safe. You and Sasha are safe. You don’t need to run after all.”

“No.”

Charlie searched for the appropriate words, which didn’t come. “You’re giving me your decision, aren’t you?”

“That’s a stupid, self-pitying remark!” Natalia flared, too loudly.

“I’ll be able to get out all right,” Charlie exaggerated, shaking his head to the waiter’s inquiring approach.

“That’s even more stupid. I didn’t say I didn’t want us to come.”

“Then what are you telling me?” demanded Charlie, exasperated.

“I’m trying to say, but saying it badly, that I love you. That I’ve confronted all the mistakes I’ve made and that I do want to get out with Sasha, despite both you and I knowing how difficult that’s going to be-”

“What then!” broke in Charlie, the exasperation growing.

“You’re the only person who could have made it work, got us out. After the mistakes I made happen it would still have been a miracle if you’d managed it.…” Natalia stopped, her voice catching and needing to recover. “After Radtsic, it’ll be totally impossible. We’d never get past all the new checks and surveillance, every passport scrutinized for forgery, eye iris and fingerprint verification, CCTV doubled. We’d be picked up and lose each other and both of us would lose Sasha. We’ve got to lose each other, give up the fantasy of my getting out with Sasha, to ensure we keep Sasha safe.”

Charlie held back from an immediate reply, conscious of the hovering waiter, ordered coffee, with brandy for himself. The waiter gone, Charlie leaned forward urgently and said: “I can do it: we can do it. The added restrictions are too late. I’ll do what they don’t anticipate.”

“I’m frightened, Charlie: too frightened.”

“I expect you to be frightened, but more than frightened I expect you, want you, to be professional. Concentrate on being professional, more than upon who Sasha is and who I am. Put as far back in your mind as you can that this is personal.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

Charlie wasn’t sure she could, either. She was a professional intelligence officer but not trained or inculcated with the field tradecraft as he was. He had to get her past her mental barrier. “Work with me, plan with me. If, at the end, you think the risk of failing is greater than that of succeeding we’ll abort and try something else and something else after that, until you’re satisfied.”

Natalia hunched noncommittal shoulders. “I’m not totally satisfied yet that my committee appointment guarantees that I’m safe.”

“Why not?”

“I told you mine isn’t the only group. God knows what’ll be thrown up by them all. I still don’t know if I got rid of all the questionable links between us.”

“Their absolute, unswerving focus will be upon the background of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic. Your right to be part of the investigation is already decided.”

“I’d like to think you’re right,” said Natalia, uncertainly.

“I am right,” insisted Charlie, dismissing his own uncertainties. “How many more encapsulated committees are there?”

“At least six.”

“Why so many?” queried Charlie, eager to move Natalia on from her introspection.

“To discover the cell, if there is a cell, as quickly as possible: Radtsic’s been part of the Russian intelligence apparatus for almost thirty years. It would take almost as long again for just one group to go through his entire archive.”

“That’s what’s going to be made available, Radtsic’s entire archive?”

“That’s the gossip. I’ve never known it to happen before, certainly not involving someone of such seniority,” said Natalia. “But then, I don’t know of a defection of someone at such a senior level. And being spread between so many separate groups it’ll be impossible to get an overview of all that he’s done.”

Still an incalculable treasure trove, gauged Charlie. How many more nuggets remained to be sieved? “The inference is obvious from the French identification of Britons but has it been definitely confirmed that Radtsic is in England?”

“We haven’t been officially told.”

“What of the wife and son? What’s going to happen to them?”

Natalia’s shoulders rose and fell again. “I don’t know. Nor do I have a way of finding out. Our brief is to look back, not forward. The kidnap claim is obviously an attempted evasion if they’re repatriated here.”

He still hadn’t resolved his nagging uncertainty, realized Charlie. “Is that anonymous reporting system going to remain at Moscow airports?”

Natalia frowned. “Why did you ask me about anonymous disclosure?”

“It was classic Stasi tradecraft, taught to them by the KGB. I was exploring all the possible barriers we might face, not knowing then about Radtsic,” replied Charlie, easily. “Has it been retained, with all the other additions?”

There was another shoulder movement. “It’s been in place for a long time. Why discard it now, of all times?” Her frown remained. “It’s obviously British intelligence with the wife and son. Didn’t you really know Radtsic was going to England?”

“I really didn’t know,” said Charlie.

“The committee convenes tomorrow. I’ll still have my cell phone with me but I won’t be able to take calls as freely as I could in my own office: probably won’t keep it on when we’re in session. I won’t know how we’re going to work until after tomorrow.”

“I’m introducing another precaution,” announced Charlie, lifting from beside the table a bag she hadn’t seen. “Details of your cell phone will be on record at Lubyanka, easily scanned. I’m giving you six new phones, all charge-card operated, so there’s no billing address. I didn’t buy more than one from any shop, choosing new names and addresses at random. Nothing’s traceable to you. Or me. Use one a day, discarding it when you leave Lubyanka at night but taking out the SIM card and battery before you do.”

“Do you think it’s necessary,” Natalia accepted, doubtfully.

“I do,” said Charlie, glad she’d moved on. “I’ll call at noon. If your phone’s off I’ll call at seven and if it’s still off every hour on the hour, after that. If you keep it on mute and still don’t reply I’ll know you’re with people, disconnect, and try again later.”

“I understand.”

“Understand something more,” stressed Charlie. “You’re not under suspicion, but don’t take the slightest chance. In the conditions you’ve described, internal security will be paranoid. Don’t contact me. I’ll call you, always from a different phone. And I’m no longer at the Mira.”

“What’s your new hotel like?”

“A great improvement. I’ve got the bed all to myself.”

“You needn’t be all by yourself, at least not for an hour or so.”

“Thank you both for coming back now. I didn’t want this to extend overnight,” said Aubrey Smith, coming to the end of his account of the Foreign Office encounter. “I want you to sleep on what I’ve told you and have ideas ready first thing tomorrow.”

“You caught me before I’d got home,” said Passmore.

“I’ve put my plans back,” said Jane Ambersom, relieved she’d reached Barry Elliott still at the American embassy. “I told you the sort of man Monsford is, didn’t I?”

“He’s been using the Charlie Muffin business all along,” acknowledged Smith.

“Where did Charlie’s extraction fit in?” questioned Passmore.

“I don’t precisely know and won’t guess,” admitted the Director-General. “The only thing I am sure about is that he didn’t have anything to do with Monsford’s maneuvers. It’s essential, now, that we find Charlie. Monsford’s trying to load the blame onto Charlie for everything that’s gone wrong with Radtsic.”

“If Charlie wasn’t involved, he was ahead of us all, suspecting it wasn’t a straight operation,” Jane pointed out.

“We won’t know that until we get hold of him but it looks that way. I just wish he’d break cover.”

“The last orders to those waiting for him to do just that were to use force if necessary,” reminded Passmore. “I think we should scale that down.”

“Agreed,” said Smith, at once. “Everything has to be reevaluated.”

“I’m surprised Monsford wasn’t challenged more strongly,” said Passmore. “His story still doesn’t explain his total disregard of what he was specifically ordered not to do. He’s built an embarrassing diplomatic foothill into a bloody great mountain.”

“Bland and Palmer are desperate for any way out and if Monsford’s scenario works, they’ve got it,” judged Smith. “I didn’t have anything to oppose him. But there’s a very fine line we’ve got to stay behind. Whatever we do to distance ourselves, we don’t screw up Radtsic’s defection. We do anything and everything to help get the wife and son here. Which means supporting Monsford, who’s right, Radtsic is the prize of the century.”

“You’ve just rounded a circle we can’t break,” complained Passmore.

“That’s why tonight, starting right now, is important,” insisted Smith. “So far we’ve caught all the shit, some of it deserved. I’ll acknowledge the mistakes in what Charlie’s done. But none of those for which we’re not responsible. If Elana and Andrei are allowed to continue on, Monsford will be the golden boy who took a huge risk that worked. We’ll be the incompetents who got everything wrong and don’t deserve to be here any longer. That’s the circle we’ve got to make into a square with enough sharp edges to snag Monsford and we’ve got a little over twelve hours to do it.”

Passmore turned sideways to Jane. “You know how the wheels go around over there.”

When all the brakes were taken off, which she now believed they were, she thought. She was encouraged minutes later when the number she rang from her office was answered and all the more so by the conversation that followed. As usual, Barry Elliott was waiting ahead of her when Jane entered the grill room at the Connought hotel an hour after that.

“I’d like to think you were held up by something involving a certain mother and son I’d guess right now are somewhere close to the Eiffel Tower,” he greeted.

“Things are happening even nearer than that,” said Jane.

Charlie’s reaction had been surprise before excitement at Natalia’s suggestion and probably because of it their lovemaking hadn’t been as good as it usually was. The real satisfaction had come afterward, entwined and tightly holding each other, neither one needing sex or to talk or even to think, just to be there and have the touch and the feel and the comfort of each other.

It was only after Natalia left, carrying her disposable telephones, that Charlie let his thinking run, although at the beginning unfocused, and his once-more-tentative mosaic turned upside down into yet another heap. Natalia was objectively right about the repercussive effects that Radtsic’s defection would have upon his getting her and Sasha safely away, but putting more locks on a stable door from which its horse had bolted was predictable. Unlocking them quickly afterward wasn’t, which just might give him the sufficient advantage of surprise. But there was a long way to go and a lot more to evaluate before they got that far, the major imponderable of which was whether Natalia would be strong enough at that final, nerve-snapping moment of crossing from one existence to another. And because it would remain imponderable it was going to hang over them, undermining their confidence until that precise moment. Which required he do as much as was conceivably possible to instill additional confidence within Natalia. He hoped he’d begun well, insisting the committee appointment was incontrovertible proof that her loyalty was now unquestioned. How was he going to maintain that necessary momentum? The most obvious way was by no longer remaining unconnected and out of touch on the periphery.

It was time to contact the embassy.