Red Star Falling

18

Rebecca Street amused herself choosing the Waterside Inn at Bray for their meeting. It was there that Gerald Monsford, determined to impress, had taken her the night they became lovers and she wondered if this encounter would be better: it could scarcely be worse. She even selected the same river-bordering table and was waiting when Jane Ambersom arrived, at once — and unexpectedly — smiling broadly as she crossed the Michelin-bestowed restaurant. The smile stayed as she sat.

‘What?’ demanded Rebecca, knowing there was a significance.

‘Same place, same table. I said no.’

Rebecca laughed outright, glad of the atmosphere breaker. ‘I wish I had.’

‘And now?’ It was far earlier, more direct, than Jane had intended but the opening was unavoidable.

‘Let’s order,’ avoided Rebecca, the initial smile disappearing.

They both accepted that day’s lobster specialty. At once trying to overcome the reservation she’d created, Jane continued their shared reminiscence, asking for Montrachet without consulting the wine list, and Rebecca’s uncertain smile returned. ‘Predictable bastard, isn’t he?’

Taking her time now, Jane tapped the briefcase at her side and said, ‘You’ll have to sign an acceptance-register slip for the Moscow stuff.’

‘Whose idea was it to let Radtsic see it?’

‘Pickering’s. What was Radtsic’s reaction when you told him it was coming?’

‘Snatched at the offer.’

‘You think it’ll change his mind about resuming the debriefing?’

Rebecca shrugged, waiting while their lobster was served. ‘It depends, I suppose, if he likes all the covering material: I’m obviously going to press as hard as I can.’

‘It’s the best argument that could have been made on his behalf.’

‘It’ll be his opinion, not ours,’ reminded Rebecca.

Rebecca was more relaxed now, Jane decided, but she’d still have to be cautious. ‘There’s been an incredible response, worldwide, to the defection disclosure.’

‘I’ve watched a lot of it on television,’ said Rebecca. ‘So have Radtsic and Elena.’

‘It was Monsford’s idea to announce it publicly. He’s treating it as a personal triumph.’

Rebecca was only toying with her food, seemingly more interested in her wine. ‘Like I said, predictable.’

‘But we might have caught him out with the disk transcripts.’

Rebecca’s head came up, warily. ‘How?’

She had to indicate that they knew more than they did, Jane knew, but avoid later being accused of lying. Which brought it down to presentation. ‘I know now what you’ve got: how it was made.’

Rebecca remained slightly forward over the table but said nothing to help Jane better understand.

‘He simply stopped and started the recording, editing out anything incriminating as he went along, didn’t he?’ pressed Jane, primed by Passmore’s exchange with Monsford. ‘But Jamie kept everything in full from his wiretap. That’s what you’ve got, isn’t it, Rebecca: the complete discussion and decision to assassinate Charlie?’

Rebecca still didn’t respond, her face immobile.

Say something, for Christ’s sake! thought Jane. ‘But why, Rebecca? Radtsic was out! You didn’t need a diversion. Why did Charlie have to be killed?’

Rebecca’s head was bent reflectively again, too low for Jane properly to see her face, and Jane imagined the other woman might be crying until she looked up, dry eyed. And finally spoke. ‘He never gave a proper reason, not one that made any sense. He just said it was necessary, as if he had a reason he wasn’t disclosing.’

At last! thought Jane, the satisfaction moving through her; she had to keep the admission going, not give the other woman a reason suddenly to stop. ‘But that’s insane! Jamie — and you — must have argued against it? Asked why? Didn’t Jamie ask why?’

‘It didn’t start out like that, not a positive discussion that led to the decision. I don’t honestly remember Jamie asking why. Or asking myself. It was some time before we realized how Gerald was manipulating the recording. That was when Jamie said we had to protect ourselves: that we didn’t know what Gerald was doing but that he was dangerous. Jamie was very worried, very frightened, about doing what he did. Jamie was actually permanently frightened of Gerald.’

Jane shook her head against the waiter’s intrusion to remove their abandoned plates. ‘Why didn’t you do something when Jamie died! Why did you hold back?’

‘Do what? Approach whom?’ demanded the woman, defensively. ‘I thought of what Jamie had done as protection but it incriminated me, as well: made me complicit.… It was better that I waited, to see what happened if they found Jamie’s copy. And then there was the business with Vasili Okulov in Rome, which didn’t make sense. There was no discussion about that and I didn’t understand — thought there actually might be a mole — and by then it was too late.’

It was all nonsense, Jane thought: nothing in sequence, everything jumbled into excuses for doing nothing. Jane hadn’t formed any personal opinion or feeling about the other woman but now, instantly, she did. Rebecca Street was as vainglorious a self-serving opportunist as Gerald Monsford, differing from the man only in possible mental instability. Each, Jane decided, deserved the other. Which wasn’t a judgement with any bearing upon what she still had to achieve. ‘But now it’s not too late.’

‘How can I produce it this late without being doubly incriminated?’ protested Rebecca.

‘You don’t produce it,’ argued Jane. ‘I do, when you give it to me. Jamie was known to be my friend. I expected from the beginning that he’d leave something for me. The delay’s easily explained away.’

‘I was involved in the discussion: didn’t do anything to oppose or stop it!’ repeated Rebecca. ‘I wouldn’t be allowed to remain where I am. I could face prosecution. Certainly dismissal.’

‘We’ll erase your being on the disk,’ improvised Jane. ‘Monsford will probably claim you were present but there’ll be no proof. It’ll be your word against his and the proof will be against him.’

‘What’s the proof that Gerald stop-started his machine?’ demanded Rebecca, alertly.

Shit! thought Jane. ‘The blanks when the machine was turned off are detectable when it’s played: there’s complete silence. What you’re going to give me will fill in those blanks.’

‘Erasing me would also be detectable. It won’t work!’

‘Of course it will work!’ Jane continued to improvise. ‘Monsford did it himself, manually, didn’t he? What you’ve got won’t be stopped to create moments of silence. The wiping will be forensic, done by our technical people, as it’s running.’

‘Is that technically possible?’

She was almost there, thought Jane. ‘I wouldn’t have told you how it would be done if I hadn’t already gone into it.’

‘I’m putting my total trust in you.’

‘It’s your way out, home free.’

Rebecca remained motionless for a long time, head bent again. Jane had difficulty hearing when Rebecca finally mumbled, ‘I want to do it.’

It would be a mistake to say anything, Jane knew: Rebecca had to think herself into doing it.

‘I’m never going to put myself in a position like this again,’ declared Rebecca, bringing her head up.

‘I wouldn’t agonize over it if I were in your position.’

‘I need to go to the lavatory.’

She’d lost her: lost the chance, thought Jane, allowing the table to be cleared, automatically agreeing to coffee. She shouldn’t have accused Rebecca of agonizing, even though she clearly had been: virtually crumbling into a collapse. It had been a challenging comparison, stirring a recovery. Definitely a recovery, Jane decided, watching the other woman return across the room, makeup repaired, hair freshly combed.

Rebecca sat and, unspeaking, stretched a closed hand across the table, which Jane reached out to meet and accept the tightly wrapped tissue.

Rebecca said, ‘I should have washed it but I thought water might damage it.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ said Jane, guessing its concealment.

‘I’d like a brandy.’

‘We’ll both have brandy,’ determined Jane, gesturing to the waiter. Hers would probably be better used to sterilize what she had wrapped in tissue than to drink, she decided. Raising the glass, she said, ‘You’ve made the right decision: the only decision.’

Rebecca didn’t respond.

‘I wouldn’t touch it if I were you,’ warned Jane, as John Passmore reached out towards the minuscule, unwrapped memory stick. ‘She hid it internally, the centre of her universe.’

‘And Monsford’s, which he’ll regret,’ predicted Aubrey Smith. ‘You did bloody well, getting her to part with it at last.’

‘I’ve promised all evidence of her being on it will be untraceably wiped.’

‘I need to check with the technical guys that it’s possible to do that,’ cautioned Passmore.

‘Too bad if it isn’t,’ dismissed Jane, uncaring. ‘It’s ours now. And have them keep a totally complete copy before any erasing is done. I want evidence of her taking part in whatever discussions there were.’

‘I’d do that anyway,’ assured Passmore. ‘But why do you want an additional copy?’

‘She’s the favourite to become the next MI6 Director, isn’t she?’

‘Make several copies,’ ordered Aubrey Smith.

‘It’s far worse than I expected,’ declared Natalia. ‘It’s worldwide ridicule, in Moscow’s eyes. It could be disastrous for Charlie.’

‘We’ve virtually made it a condition of access to Radtsic that we’re allowed to see everyone held in Moscow and Charlie heads the list,’ hopefully reminded Ethel. She’d officially registered Natalia’s reservation to the Radtsic announcement, after warning Natalia in advance, and was glad she’d followed safe-house regulations by doing so.

‘They invariably confront direct public humiliation, which is how they’ll see it,’ insisted Natalia, who’d sat with Ethel for a long time watching the global television round-up of the media coverage. ‘Charlie’s their obvious retaliation.’

Which he’s always been, thought Ethel, surprised after Natalia’s earlier self-flagellation that she appeared genuinely to retain any hope of Charlie’s freedom. ‘They had to know it was coming: expect it. And we can’t use normal judgements here. We’re talking of Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic! We’ve got the overwhelming bargaining advantage.’

‘You might get your other people back, those who don’t matter, but not Charlie,’ insisted Natalia.

They were on a conversational roundabout, Ethel recognized. And were anyway supposed to be discussing Natalia’s assessment of Irena Novikov’s American debriefing. ‘Moscow haven’t come up with a response yet.’

Natalia’s laugh was condescending. ‘How could you have forgotten what you’ve just said — that Moscow was expecting it. They’ve been ready for it — although probably not the sensationalism — within an hour of discovering Radtsic had gone and been prepared ever since, both with a public reaction and what they’d do in retaliation, although I’d guess they adjusted that after Charlie’s shooting and all the deaths. Vnukovo made everything so very much easier for them. It gave them a choice.’

She had to get rid of this barrier, Ethel knew. It was technically a breach of regulations but the circumstances of Natalia’s presence were as abnormal as those of Radtsic: probably even more so. ‘There was something else that went to Moscow, in our reply to their access request. Radtsic wrote a personal letter to Andrei, begging him to join him and Elena, knowing the FSB would read and analyze every word and implication. One of those implications, more an open threat, was that he’d start telling us everything he knows about the organization he was at the very centre of for more than two decades.’

‘Where’s the threat in that?’ demanded Natalia, unimpressed. ‘That’s what Radtsic’s got to do to remain in a protection programme, isn’t it?’

‘He has to tell us enough to remain in a protection programme,’ qualified Ethel, professionally. ‘No-one’s expecting him to disclose everything. And to stop him doing that, our reasoning is that they’ll make Andrei come here, even though he refused in France.’

‘How’s that benefit Charlie?’ persisted Natalia, still unimpressed.

‘The same heavy implication included Charlie, heading the list of those whose release we expect in exchange,’ risked Ethel.

‘Is that the truth?’ asked Natalia, even-voiced, looking directly at the safe-house supervisor.

‘I thought we’d established honesty as the basis of our relationship,’ said Ethel. Which wasn’t exactly a dishonest answer upon which she could ever be challenged anyway; and she was anxious once again to get to the real purpose of today’s encounter.

‘I thought so, too,’ said Natalia, doubtfully.

‘Is Irena Novikov being honest?’ seized Ethel, hurriedly.

There was a hesitation, a reluctance, to surrender the existing conversation but after several moments Natalia said, ‘I need some background. How long has she been in America?’

‘Five months, getting on for six.’

‘And refused to co-operate in any way until just over a week ago?’

‘She insisted upon a cosmetic operation to repair some burn damage to her face.’

‘Which doesn’t take five months.’

‘There was some bargaining, apparently, at the beginning: the CIA demanding she start giving them stuff first, Irena arguing to get her face fixed first.’

‘And she won?’

Ethel nodded. ‘After the operation she stayed difficult until there was some pressure. I don’t know precisely what that pressure was.’

‘Whatever it was, it burst the dam, providing this?’ queried Natalia, gesturing to the transcript on the coffee table between them. ‘Have you read it?’

‘Skimmed through it.’

‘What’s your professional assessment?’

Ethel hesitated, uncomfortable at the onus being put upon her. ‘She’s co-operating very fully.’

‘After months of positive refusal.’

‘What’s your point?’ pressed Ethel.

‘My career’s been questioning and assessing people, intelligence professionals, a number of whom we’d trapped and from whom we wanted every last thing they could tell us about every operation in which they’d ever been involved. All were trained in interrogation resistance, as Irena Novikov would have been trained. I broke every one — except Charlie — none by physical violence or threats of violence. But none collapsed, as Irena Novikov appears from these transcripts to have collapsed.’

‘Are you suggesting she’s lying, working a disinformation operation?’

‘No!’ refused Natalia, at once. ‘She’s giving names, events, and episodes that can be sufficiently checked from CIA sources. She’d have been caught out by now if she’d been lying.’

‘What then?’ demanded Ethel, curbing the exasperation at the thought of another verbal carousel.

Natalia gave an apologetic half smile. ‘I don’t know. Which is me being totally honest with you, instead of keeping the uncertainty to myself. What she’s disclosing is the verifiable truth and the CIA must think, with every justification, that they’ve got an overflowing source. Which they have.’

Ethel sat unspeaking for several moments. ‘I’m glad this conversation’s been recorded: I wouldn’t like to have paraphrased it.’

‘It might help if I could compare what Radtsic’s saying.’

‘Which is also on the disk.’

‘I’ll go on trying to think it through.’

But think more, forlornly more, about Charlie, Ethel knew.

They’d sat side by side intently to read the London submission, Elena tracing the words with her forefinger, the first occasion Rebecca could remember from all the relayed films of the couple being that close since their arrival. Both eventually came up together, both smiling.

‘Good,’ judged Radtsic. ‘Very good. This, as well as all the publicity, will get the result I want.’

‘We hope so,’ said Rebecca, guardedly, still trying to push from her mind her earlier decision to surrender the full recording of the assassination discussion with Monsford. ‘But we don’t expect it to be immediate.’

‘Just days,’ predicted Radtsic, with customary arrogance.

‘Days during which there’s no reason why we shouldn’t go on talking,’ urged Rebecca. ‘We’ve been totally honest and open with you, Maxim Mikhailovich. I believe the co-operation should be reciprocated from your side, don’t you?’

Radtsic’s smile dimmed, but only slightly, hinting at the apologetic. ‘I over-reacted to that fool, didn’t I?’

What — who — the hell was he talking about? struggled Rebecca. ‘I’ll go along with your judgement to hear why,’ she dodged, tensed for an indication.

‘I never thought he’d get me out of Russia: actually told the twitching idiot that I was thinking of changing my mind to go to the Americans instead.’

Jacobson! identified Rebecca, relieved, although still not properly understanding. ‘I’m glad you didn’t. What about now?’

‘I still think Jacobson’s an idiot, but it would make me the greater idiot if we didn’t go on talking, wouldn’t it?’

Jacobson’s ridiculous intervention, finally concluded Rebecca, relaxing. ‘Yes, it would.’

‘You’re the first person I consider a proper intelligence professional since I’ve come over. We’ve known every MI6 officer you’ve put into Moscow during the past ten years practically before they’ve unpacked their luggage. And maintained that trace everywhere they’ve subsequently been posted, which has led us to even more. It’s been so easy for us.’

Could they claim a similar success rate identifying FSB agents? Rebecca wondered. It was a relayed encounter and would drive Monsford into paroxysms of fury, which was a satisfying thought, one of the few she was now having. ‘Thank you for the compliment.’

‘Have you uncovered your hostile penetration?’

The question startled Rebecca out of any relaxation. There were too many conflicting, compounding facets to encourage a continuation without Radtsic realizing her ignorance, the most obvious of which was the potential escape it would provide Gerald Monsford. Ignorance, Rebecca determined, the word echoing in her mind: her only way forward, only way in any direction, was to let Radtsic play the puppet master. ‘Are you going to help me do that?’

‘So you haven’t found it!’

Shit! thought Rebecca: hers had been a badly phrased question and would be all too obvious on film. ‘You told us you didn’t know anything about a hostile penetration.’

‘Monsford’s another fool, the biggest. How was he ever appointed?’

She was being outmanoeuvred — perhaps as she’d been outmanoeuvred by Jane Ambersom — too clearly reduced to the puppet role she’d assigned herself. ‘We’re talking co-operation, Maxim Mikhailovich. This isn’t co-operation. This is playing games. Have you penetrated us?’

‘Isn’t that a question from a previous era, an automatic assumption that every hostile act has to emanate from Russia, the West’s only adversary. You want me to make you a complete list of alternatives?’

‘I want you to answer my direct question with a direct answer,’ persisted Rebecca. ‘Has MI6 been penetrated, either by the KGB, their FSB successors, or any other intelligence organization that would feature on the list you’ve just offered me?’

‘I told your ineffectual director that I knew nothing whatsoever about any penetration.’ Radtsic smiled.

‘What are you telling me?’

‘That I, personally, know nothing about a penetration of your service. Which I would have done, had there been a KGB or FSB success,’ replied Radtsic, pedantically. ‘But that is not to say there hasn’t been one by another intelligence service. And if there has, I wouldn’t expect your current director to have a chance in hell of uncovering it.’

Edwin Birkitt was the best at what he did because he had a regimented, train-line-straight mind and what he’d been ordered to do now was a derailment he didn’t like. It should have been someone else’s job, a more senior responsibility, which meant it was shit-dodging time and he didn’t know from which direction to duck. Birkitt politely stood, as he always did, at Irena Novikov’s entry, waiting until she was settled before he resumed his seat and said, again part of their ritual, ‘How are you today?’

‘It’s more important you tell me how you and your English brothers are today,’ Irena threw back. ‘You all must be feeling pretty damned pleased with yourselves at the entire world knowing who you’ve bagged. Who ever would have thought the executive chairman of the FSB would cross the great divide? And to such worldwide acclaim!’

He’d been overruled, ordered to allow Irena Novikov unfettered access to television, just as his protests against that day’s instructions had been dismissed, and Birkitt hoped that the later analysis would show both to be bad decisions without associating him with the mistakes. ‘Some of the assessments are that it will wreck your entire organization: that it’ll have to be restructured from top to bottom.’

‘Never underestimate the Russian resilience.’

‘I never have. Nor ever will,’ assured Birkitt.

‘Makes what I’ve offered irrelevant against what he’s likely to disclose.’

‘It doesn’t make you — or what you can tell me — irrelevant at all,’ contradicted Birkitt, immediately alert to the tense in which she’d phrased her remark. ‘And I know that you know it, too.’

Irena shrugged, stretched back in her chair. ‘You’re going to have to beg and plead with the Brits to give you the crumbs, aren’t you? And that’s all they will give you, the stalest of crumbs.’

There was no point in any longer postponing what he had to do, giving her more opportunity for the filmed mockery. ‘There’s been a request from Moscow, for diplomatic access.’

Irena straightened, actually coming forward. ‘Request to whom?’

Bitch! thought Birkitt, disconcerted by her prescience. ‘Passed on to us from England. It’s part of the diplomatic procedure that you have to be advised, which is what I’m now doing. And for you to tell us if you wish that access to be granted.’ He sounded like a message-delivering clerk, he thought, miserably.

‘Whoa!’ smirked the woman. ‘It’s not part of any diplomatic process that I tell you anything. I wasn’t asked whether I wanted to come here to America. I was thrown on a CIA plane by a bunch of assholes that I’d made look stupid and who are probably now stacking shelves in a 7/11. And after that, threatened by you with a lifetime of solitary confinement if I didn’t co-operate. You know what I think? I think when I tell that to people from my embassy here — who I very definitely want to meet, as soon as possible — that they’ll say I was kidnapped and questioned under duress, with which I’ll agree and testify to. And the great U.S. of A. will be looking at a diplomatic incident that’ll risk making public how very, very easy it was for me to make the CIA look a total bunch of amateurs over a very, very long period. How do you think that’ll play in Des Moines, Ed?’

Birkitt hoped the diatribe had given him the time to devise a response. ‘You’re a self-admitted espionage agent and architect of an operation to infiltrate the very heart of the American administration. Under American law we’ve got every right to hold you and subject you to whatever interrogation we consider necessary.’

Irena shrugged again, the smirk still in place. ‘I didn’t admit to you being the architect of anything, Ed. What positive legal justification do you have for holding me as you’re doing? That’s something I’ll need to talk about in very close detail to the embassy lawyers, too. But I don’t think there’s anything more for you and me to talk about, do you? I think we’re through, Ed. All done.’

He’d known it wasn’t going to be easy but he hadn’t imagined it was going to be as bad as this, reflected Birkitt.

Charlie hadn’t been aware of the changeover, which he thought he should have been — there would have been at least one vehicle, coming and going — and was unsettled at not being prepared. His new guard was a squat, swarthy man, Georgian maybe. The housekeeper was equally short and Charlie guessed she was heavier than the man by at least fourteen pounds.

‘Good to see new faces,’ lied Charlie, at the surprise breakfast encounter.

The man looked at him, unsmiling, not bothering to reply as he turned back towards the kitchen.

‘You going to take as good care of me as my last guardian angel?’ persisted Charlie.

The man halted at the door. ‘I wouldn’t have stopped the dogs getting to you. And won’t if you try any more shit like that with me. So don’t.’

The FSB variation on good cop, bad cop, gauged Charlie. ‘What time’s General Guzov getting here today?’

The guard continued on, again not replying. Charlie knew that Guzov’s unexplained absence the day before, like the silent guard changeover, was all part of an intended disorientation process and because he recognized it he shouldn’t have been as affected as he was, which was irritating. Because he’d had time to assess it, he further recognized that being incarcerated in the silent dacha deep in the middle of the silent forest — isolated from any certainty, almost from reality — was another part of the process. The technique was to make him psychologically dependent upon Guzov, anxious for the man’s visits, even more anxious to ingratiate himself by telling the man whatever he wanted to know. They’d believe it was working, from his question a few minutes earlier. He’d have to be careful that it wasn’t.