Red Star Falling

19

To prevent his presence in Downing Street being photographed by the permanent media posse, Aubrey Smith reached Sir Archibald Bland’s Cabinet Office in its rear annexe along the smallest of subterranean corridors from the Foreign Office. There was an instant impression of déjà vu as he entered the suite at the unexpected disorder of Bland’s desk, overflowed bookshelves all around it and an aged and scuffed leather desk chair in which the shirtsleeved, collar-loosened man sat. Geoffrey Palmer, also in shirtsleeves, was in a matching ancient armchair that threatened to engulf him, completing Smith’s nostalgic recollection of the rarefied gentility of his former university existence abandoned for the opposite extreme of government-sanctioned criminality up to and including assassination.

‘I’m still concerned this contravenes the remit under which the committee was convened,’ at once protested Bland. ‘We hope whatever it is you’re going to tell us is as sensitive as you indicated on the telephone.’

Deniable responsibility for any mistaken decision, Smith recognized: it was a credo with which he had to replace appreciation of after-dinner port at High Table and esoteric disagreements about the wisdom of Plato and Pliny. ‘If you’re unsatisfied that it is, I’ll repeat it all before the full committee later,’ replied Smith. There’d be no recording devices here, he was sure.

‘Which we’ve postponed, as you requested,’ said Palmer, struggling forward from the depths in which he was submerged.

Smith took his time extracting the disk player from his overfilled briefcase, glad he’d anticipated Palmer’s presence and brought sufficiently marked copies of the Monsford transcripts. He didn’t hurry, either, handing them to both civil-servant mandarins or, after that, locating a power source, remaining by it as he turned back to the two men.

‘What you’ve got in front of you are specifically marked extracts from what Gerald Monsford claims to be accurate and complete copies from the recording apparatus installed in his office by James Straughan. Those facilities automatically register the time and date of every conversation. At today’s full-committee session will be produced the audio examination of those office disks. That examination will identify gaps where the manually operated system was stopped and restarted exactly where I’ve indicated on what you’re now looking at.…’

Both men were bent forward now, their concentration divided between what Smith was saying and the documentation in front of them.

Gesturing to the disk player, Smith went on, ‘What I’m going to play to you fills in those gaps. They irrefutably show that Gerald Monsford ordered the assassination of Charlie Muffin after the successful Moscow extraction of Maxim Radtsic. That murder, fortunately, failed. But the attempt brought about the carnage at Vnukovo Airport and the international catastrophe we’re now trying to minimize. It also indicates the supposed hostile infiltration of MI6 to be a fabrication made easy by the deaths of their two officers in Moscow and that of James Straughan here in England to conceal Gerald Monsford’s culpability in attempted murder. Gerald Monsford is dangerously, mentally unstable, someone who should be restrained as a risk to national security. Legal but closed court provisions for such restraint exist under the provisions of the Official Secrets Act.’

Both mandarins sat momentarily speechless, Palmer actually with his mouth slightly open, at the equivalent of a megaton charge imploding in the middle of their bombproof lives. Before either recovered sufficiently for words, Smith activated the machine beside him and said, ‘We start with the marked blank on the first of your pages. It’s timed and dated three days before Radtsic’s successful extraction. Monsford is responding to Straughan’s warning from Harry Jacobson in Moscow that Radtsic is arrogant and talking of telephoning Elena, in Paris, about his intended defection.’

Smith paused the disk. ‘The next marked section, on your second selected page, comes at the point when Monsford is insisting that there had to have been a leak to enable the French to intercept Elena and Andrei on their way here from Paris. You’ll note it’s timed and dated the day Radtsic arrived in London.’

‘Your third marked section follows Charlie Muffin’s contact with the British embassy in Moscow with the refusal to deal with the three MI6 officers — the dead Stephan Briddle, and Robert Denning and Jeremy Beckindale, both currently in custody,’ guided Smith, pressing the Restart button.

‘I’m pausing the disk intentionally here, although it’s a continuing narrative,’ said Smith. ‘I want you to take particular note of it because of remarks I’m going to make later.’

‘These are the relevant sections I consider most important today,’ concluded the Director-General. ‘There is a much wider selection of conversations and discussion between both men on these and other disks. We’ve subjected all these deleted extracts to extensive voice-print tests. The two speakers are unquestionably James Straughan and Gerald Monsford.’

He’d crossed the Rubicon from which he had for too long held back, accepted Smith, until now acknowledging the lies and deceits of others but wrongly, stupidly, clinging to what he’d considered some personal integrity by not lying and deceiving and cheating himself. And by so doing come so very close to being destroyed first by his overly ambitious deputy Jeffrey Smale and this time by a mentally deranged Gerald Monsford. Disappointingly, still hoping some integrity remained, Smith didn’t feel any guilt: there was no satisfaction, either.

Geoffrey Palmer finally recovered, pulling himself fully out of the armchair for a more upright seat closer to Bland’s desk, seemingly discomfited at finding himself without a jacket. Prompting a response from his partner, Palmer said, ‘We need Sir Peter Pickering’s legal advice.’

‘And further, independent proof, damning though this is,’ obliged Bland.

‘We’ll have to suspend the committee until it’s resolved,’ proposed Palmer.

‘Unquestionably, but we won’t make it official, not yet,’ agreed the Cabinet Secretary.

Tweedledum and Tweedledee, undecided what to do about the Mad Hatter, thought Smith, bemused by the two men who appeared to have forgotten his presence in their back-protecting double act. ‘I’d like to pick up my earlier remark about believing there’s some importance in the last section I played to you, which might, in fact, go some way towards finding further, independent evidence of what I believe to be Monsford’s guilt. Throughout the whole selection, Harry Jacobson features heavily. He certainly knew about the planned assassination of Charlie Muffin, which he denied before the committee. I believe the final extract to which I drew attention indicates that Stephan Briddle, with whom Monsford insisted upon dealing personally, had been ordered to take over the killing of Charlie Muffin from Harry Jacobson, which would explain Briddle’s inexplicable Vnukovo attack.’

‘He should certainly be re-examined,’ said Bland, blinking as he brought his attention back to the MI5 Director-General.

‘Without warning,’ cautioned Smith. ‘He’d inevitably query a recall with Monsford.’

‘There’s surely no grounds yet for arresting him?’ questioned Palmer.

‘Timpson’s investigators have the authority to bring him back to London,’ said Smith, glad of the midnight preparations after the copy of James Straughan’s bugging had been analyzed and all trace of Rebecca Street erased. ‘It doesn’t officially constitute arrest but Jacobson won’t know that: it might encourage the man into telling the truth. And there’s something else he could help us with. He was MI6 station chief in Moscow. According to my deputy, who as you know was recently transferred from there, MI6 do not hold Russian weapons in their Moscow rezidentura. Which begs the question of where Stephan Briddle got the Makarov pistol clearly visible in his hand in the Russian CCTV footage. Again according to my deputy, any weapon shipped in a diplomatic bag needs the counter-signed authority of the director. It’s not accepted for shipment without it. There isn’t, apparently, a back-up register upon which proof of authority would be listed.’

‘But a shipment log is maintained at the Foreign Office,’ insisted Palmer, making the first positive contribution.

‘Which would constitute further independent evidence if there was such an authorization in Monsford’s name, wouldn’t it,’ suggested Smith.

‘There’s something you haven’t told us,’ suddenly challenged Bland, quizzically. ‘How did you come to be in possession of this material?’

His most vulnerable point, Smith conceded. ‘Straughan became a friend as well as a colleague of my deputy, Jane Ambersom, during her tenure at MI6. She lives in a mansion block which has in its lobby individual letter boxes for each occupant. She found the memory thumb, holding everything you’ve heard — obviously copied from the original disk recording — in her box yesterday. It had been hand delivered, not posted. We’ve forensically examined the packaging, of course. There are no fingerprints or evidence of source. The address was composed of letters cut from the previous day’s copy of The Times.’

Both men stared steadily at him for several moments. Aubrey Smith stared steadily back, believing neither would question further for fear of an answer making them complicit, unable to deny their knowledge of the unknowable, the function for which they’d been appointed by their contentedly innocent political superiors.

Finally, Bland said, ‘We’ll expect you on standby throughout today. And your deputy, as well.’

‘Of course.’

‘And we thank you for bringing this to our attention,’ said Palmer.

Officially, that other essential mantra — the meeting had never happened — Smith accepted, making his way back along the underground corridor. He didn’t believe the feeling he was finally experiencing to be either guilt or satisfaction: it had, he supposed, at last to be apprehension, which was better than nothing.

‘Does it mean I’ll confront the bastard in court?’ demanded Jane Ambersom immediately after Aubrey Smith finished his account of the Downing Street encounter.

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Smith, discomfited at the prospect of questioning from a qualified lawyer even in a closed court. ‘There should be some indication sometime today.’

‘I’d like a court hearing,’ savoured Jane.

‘I’d imagine it would require evidence being given under oath, whatever the security restrictions,’ said Passmore.

‘I’ll have no problem with that,’ said the woman at once, looking towards the Director-General.

‘We’ll hear more later today,’ avoided Smith.

‘We’ve got another potential difficulty,’ declared Passmore. ‘There’s been an overnight decision from the American Justice Department about diplomatic access to Irena Novikov.’

‘Legally, under their asylum and witnesses’-protection legislation, Irena can justifiably claim kidnap,’ came in Jane. ‘She wasn’t offered and therefore didn’t sign a formal protection application.’

‘That’s bullshit,’ dismissed Smith. ‘After what she admitted — boasted — of doing, they can surely hold her on criminal charges.’

‘Admitted and boasted to us — to Charlie — which is inadmissible in an American court because it wasn’t made under their protective self-incriminating Miranda legislation,’ rejected Passmore.

‘What about us?’ queried Smith, head to one side. ‘Didn’t she formally, properly, ask us for defector protection?’

‘Which is Washington’s argument,’ confirmed Passmore. ‘They’re terrified they’ll get burned again as they were by the Lvov business, only this time publicly. They want to ship her back here, to where the kidnap accusation won’t stick and to which the access application was officially made.’

‘Abandoning her completely?’ questioned Smith, doubtfully.

‘With their people discreetly in the background of the access meeting as well as during any further interrogations.’

‘What’s our guaranteed return going to be?’ demanded Smith, pragmatically.

‘Ours to demand,’ said Passmore.

‘We should certainly insist on getting all the film and audio of Irena’s U.S. interrogation up to now,’ said Jane. ‘Natalia’s unsure about the transcripts, without being able to pinpoint the reason, and thinks seeing and hearing might help.’

‘I want a CIA commitment beyond that,’ insisted Aubrey Smith.

‘So we take Irena back?’ pressed Passmore.

‘And use her,’ agreed Smith. ‘We’ll play her and Radtsic off against each other, see what that produces.’

Hopefully no more uncertainty and confusion, thought Jane, curious at the decisiveness she detected in Aubrey Smith.

Charlie tried to subdue the feeling, recognizing it as unneeded confirmation of his reliance upon the other man, but couldn’t fully prevent the relief at Mikhail Guzov’s reappearance.

‘Missed me?’ greeted the Russian, carefully straightening the trouser crease of his grey flannel suit as he seated himself.

‘Desperately,’ Charlie mocked back. ‘No letters, no flowers, no chocolates.’

‘But you had the peace and tranquillity of your surroundings,’ Guzov came back.

The man was operating with some psychological guidance, Charlie accepted. ‘Just the sort of convalescence I needed.’

‘With the guarantee of so much more to come.’

That wasn’t true, Charlie knew. So why had he let himself mentally sink as low as he had? The refused conclusion about the mistakes he’d made? No reason to give up, to allow the self-erosion as he had. The quickness and comparative ease with which he’d been manipulated was worrying. No it wasn’t, refused Charlie at once, with his usual self-honesty. It would be worrying if it were his professionalism at fault, which it had been but only minimally. What he was really suffering was hurt pride at allowing it to happen at all, so confident — perhaps arrogant was a better word — had he always been that he could resist capture and incarceration for months, years even.

‘There’s a lot happening in the world of which you’re no longer a part,’ continued Guzov.

The man was hurrying whatever psychological guidance he’d been getting, judged Charlie. ‘Which I’m sure you want to tell me.’

‘Your people are making fools of themselves again, publicly boasting about defections, which we don’t believe are legal.’

‘That’s what Irena Yakulova did,’ insisted Charlie, curious where the lead would take them. ‘I actually witnessed her request for protection: watched as she signed it.’

‘To what sort of duress was she subjected?’

‘There was no duress. I’ve told you that already, several times.’

‘And expected us to believe it!’

Us, isolated Charlie: this was a conversation for a much wider audience. But for what purpose? ‘You’d be making a mistake not to believe it. It’s you who’d look foolish if London produced Irena Yakulova’s signed application, together with the film of her making it. My recollection is of her laughing and joking, which certainly isn’t the behaviour of someone under pressure or threat.’

‘We’ll see what she’s got to say about that,’ said Guzov.

Diplomatic access, Charlie realized: and he was helping them prepare for it! Or was he? A more logical interpretation was that Guzov had been trying out the duress accusation, which he’d denied them by disclosing that Irena Yakulova had been filmed smiling and relaxed as she signed the officially required documentation. And if he had succeeded in doing that, the Russians would have to evolve a new strategy. Testing in return, Charlie said, ‘Ask whoever gets to see Irena to give her my love, will you?’ and knew from the quick stiffening of Guzov’s face that he’d scored.

‘You’re never again going to be in a position to send your love to anyone,’ said Guzov, petulantly, and Charlie decided he’d won the entire exchange, as well. It was a better feeling than the others that had been eroding his reasoning over the past few days.