Red Star Falling

2

It was a dedicated conference room, entered from the corridor overlooking the multi-tiered, floor-to-ceiling atrium of what is technically the Commonwealth section of the Foreign Office. Either end was dominated by large double doors which could be opened to extend the capacity. Today both sets were closed. There were, unusually, no oil portraits of bewigged former statesmen looking down in judgement from the walls upon entirely functional furniture, a long, central table against which were arranged chairs, twelve on either side. In front of each chair were individual leather-encased blotter settings, with notepad, pencil selection, water carafe, and tumbler. Not all places were name designated, although every unnamed section had a generic identification: MI5 and MI6 had both and confronted each other like courtroom lawyers. Behind the anonymous sectors were smaller tables and chairs, for support staff and aides. The secretarial provision of three stenographers, two women and a man, was directly in front of one set of double doors. The complementing recording facilities, one master set with the insurance of a secondary backup, were on an individual but almost-linked table, operated by two men, one of whom wore earphones to adjust his monitoring dials and sound levels. Suspended from the ceiling directly above the conference table and extending its entire length were four relay microphones.

Sir Archibald Bland, the Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet and, as such, head of the civil service, occupied the chairperson’s position at the middle of the table, flanked on his left by his equally ranked counterpart, Geoffrey Palmer, the Foreign Office liaison to the Joint Intelligence and Security Committee. Their normally shared responsibility was that of conduit between both intelligence agencies and the government, an arrangement providing Downing Street with plausible deniability of direct knowledge or involvement in any espionage activity, certainly any that became publicly embarrassing, as it had now. On Bland’s right was Sir Peter Pickering, the attorney-general, who was recognizable to everyone but had no nameplate. Neither did the two men accompanying him. Behind them sat two aides, both women, just visible over a wall of legal books that had needed a trolley to bring them into the chamber.

‘We’ll start,’ announced Bland, brusquely. The microphones were over-amplified, deepening his normally weak voice. ‘And I’ll do so with the reminder that all of us here are signatories to the Official Secrets Act. Today’s situation has the highest security designation of that act. This meeting will, officially, remain in permanent session.’

Those on both sides of the table had properly arranged themselves during the preamble, making their spaces their own. The quickest to settle were the confrontationally positioned MI5 and MI6, director opposite director, deputy facing deputy. Inexplicably, there was a named place for James Straughan, leaving John Passmore facing an empty chair. Aubrey Smith was surprised, and therefore unsettled, at Gerald Monsford’s composure, which Monsford was, in fact, only just managing to maintain, disconcerted by the provision for Straughan, convinced it had been manipulated by Smith with the support of Bland and Palmer to achieve the effect it was having. He’d been aware, too, of Rebecca Street almost imperceptibly easing away from him. From the brief smile he’d caught, Monsford was irritably sure Jane Ambersom had detected the minimal distancing, too.

‘Which brings me to the next point,’ continued the cherubic, pink-faced Bland. ‘At all times this will be a totally open as well as a permanently convened committee. I expect full and immediate participation from everyone. We’re confronting an unparalleled political emergency that has to be resolved as quickly and as completely as possible.’ Bland stopped, drinking heavily from his water glass. ‘It’s essential the seriousness is defined from the outset, for which I defer to my co-chairman.’

Geoffrey Palmer, a grey-haired, patrician-mannered man completing a casting director’s image of a professional civil servant with his black-jacketed, striped-trousered uniform, had his water glass already filled, sipping from it as he sorted through already prepared papers. ‘The most effective way to achieve necessary clarity is to establish some chronology. Eight months ago the body of a one-armed Russian man was found in the grounds of the British embassy in Moscow. Before being brutally murdered he had been tortured. Shot as he was in the back of the head, his entire face and any teeth from which dental-record identification might have been possible were destroyed. The fingertips of his remaining hand, from which prints could have been obtained, had been burned away by acid.’

The majority around the table, with the exception of both intelligence groups, were making notes. The headphoned technician at the recording apparatus had adjusted his sound levels, reducing intrusive resonance.

‘Under international diplomatic agreement, the embassy grounds, as well as the building itself, is British territory,’ continued Palmer. ‘A widely experienced MI5 officer, Charles Muffin, was sent to Moscow to investigate the crime. He did that with great success, very little of which was made public—’

‘Is it to be made public to us?’ interrupted a bespectacled, fair-haired man from GCHQ, the British government’s Gloucestershire-based radio, electronic monitoring, and communications facility.

‘Of course,’ confirmed Palmer. ‘Running in parallel with Muffin’s investigation was a Russian presidential election. The predicted victor was Stepan Lvov, a former KGB officer turned politician, as is Vladimir Putin…’

‘Lvov was killed, weeks before the election,’ came in a iron-corseted woman from the Foreign Office. ‘It was a Russian mafia execution: Lvov was threatening to crack down on Russian organized-crime gangs, particularly those operating in Moscow.’

‘It was an execution, certainly,’ agreed Palmer. ‘But not by Russian mafia. Lvov hadn’t quit the Russian intelligence organisation for politics. And he most definitely hadn’t ceased being what America’s CIA judged potentially to be the greatest intelligence coup in its history, having as a spy the president of the Russian Federation. It took over eighteen years for Russia to set up that coup, orchestrating Lvov’s approach to the Americans, and over that period feeding through him to Washington genuine sacrificial material to convince the CIA of the spectacular asset they’d have when he became President of Russia, which he undoubtedly would have become because the FSB were ensuring the election result, ironically financed by payments to Lvov from a gullible CIA.’

There were shifts around the table, people momentarily looking up from their notes, taking in the growing realization of what they were being told.

Before the man could continue, Stanley Brown, the GCHQ director, said, ‘The FSB would have been able to manipulate American foreign policy in whichever direction they chose with what Lvov supplied to the CIA. Why did the FSB kill him?’

‘To silence him, as they silenced others involved, in the hope of keeping the operation secret, once it had been destroyed,’ said Palmer. ‘Muffin broke the plot by discovering the embassy-murder victim had been a KGB colleague of Lvov who tried to sell what he knew to the CIA! At the very last moment, to prevent Charlie making that discovery, the FSB colonel who’d supervised Lvov from the start, a woman named Irena Novikov, came forward claiming to have been the murdered man’s lover: she even risked travelling to London with Muffin to destroy the proof of the Lvov operation she’d had to provide to convince Muffin she was genuine. Charlie unravelled it first. She’s now in an American protection programme, undergoing interrogation likely to last for years. Muffin was put into a protection programme here in England.…’

‘I hope Muffin got a medal,’ said a woman from the GCHQ group.

‘There’s still a lot for you to hear,’ cautioned the civil servant. ‘Muffin abrogated the conditions of his programme, actually disappearing from his safe house to demonstrate he could guarantee his own safety. Within hours of his reappearance, the apartment in which he’d lived prior to going into protection was burgled by three FSB agents until then operating undetected from the Russian embassy here in London. Most if not all of you will be aware from the resulting publicity of their arrest: they remain in custody…’ Palmer hesitated again, draining his glass and refilling it, needing the break. ‘So far, I’ve sustained my chronology in a relatively logical sequence … now we come to the surreal.…’

There were further shifts around the table, note-taking suspended again.

‘Surreal is the apposite word,’ intervened Sir Archibald Bland, supportively.

‘The Russians’ arrests resulted from MI5 monitoring Muffin’s apartment, as part of his protection. That included converting his apparently disconnected telephone into a detection device, in effect a burglar alarm. It also recorded, without any indication of it doing so, incoming calls,’ recounted Palmer. ‘During a period of little over a week there were five separate messages from a woman we subsequently learned to be Natalia Fedova. All the calls were from Moscow street kiosks. She holds the rank of lieutenant colonel in the FSB, in which she was then a senior analyst and interrogator. It has been confirmed that she is also the legal wife, under Russian law, of Charles Muffin, by whom she has a daughter. Those five calls were all pleas for Muffin’s help to get her to England, which had apparently been arranged between them during his time in Moscow on the embassy-murder investigation—’

‘I think this is the appropriate moment for a coffee break so that we properly digest what’s been outlined,’ interrupted Bland. ‘This isn’t by any means the end of the surrealism: it’s little more than its beginning.’

There were coffee and tea urns on a long side table already set up in the overflow annexe beyond the unobstructed double doors, smaller tables and chairs arranged through the rest of the room. Neither Bland nor Palmer followed the rest, all of whom remained within their individual groups, the majority standing. Gerald Monsford took Rebecca Street to the farthest end, leaving MI5 just inside the connecting doors.

From her position there Jane Ambersom said, ‘For someone facing professional disgrace and potential imprisonment, Monsford looks remarkably sanguine.’

‘Rebecca doesn’t,’ countered Aubrey Smith.

‘The rumour is that their relationship extends intimately beyond the professional.’

‘Probably why she’s looking so uncomfortable, accommodating someone of his size can’t be easy,’ remarked Smith. who was a short-statured, thin man upon whom clothes carelessly hung rather than fitted. By contrast, the MI6 Director was tall, well over six feet, his size accentuated by a bull-shouldered, indulgence-bulged body that defeated the best of Savile Row’s tailoring expertise to flatter.

‘It’s what they mean about making your own bed and lying in it,’ said Jane, unsympathetically. Like the other deputy, Jane wore a business suit, but hers was an outdated Mao style that contributed to her androgyny, as did the shortly cropped hair and almost complete avoidance of makeup.

‘A fate you avoided by crossing to my side of the river,’ smiled Smith. He’d initially resisted Jane’s appointment, misconstruing the transfer as a Monsford connivance to undermine his position as Director-General to install at MI5 his own chosen nominee through whom to control both intelligence agencies, which Smith suspected to have been the intention of a previous attempted overthrow.

‘It wasn’t difficult to resist: the only association I mourn from over there, now quite literally, is with Jamie Straughan,’ said the woman, who’d retained the link with the MI6 operations director and knew from their last, pre-suicide meeting that Straughan had collated proof of Monsford’s abuse of power. She still hoped Straughan had somehow bequeathed that evidence to her. So far there’d been no indication of its whereabouts.

They both turned at John Passmore’s late arrival. At once the man said, ‘Nothing new from Moscow. There’s still no sighting of the other MI6 guys who were with Briddle, either. And our own Moscow rezidentura confirm they haven’t returned to the embassy.’

‘They’re coming back overland,’ guessed Jane.

‘That’s the most obvious,’ accepted Smith.

‘What the hell are they talking about?’ demanded Monsford, from the other end of the room. ‘Where’s Passmore been?’

‘Probably in the toilet, like a lot of other people,’ dismissed Rebecca.

‘Why did you move away from me when we first sat down?’ demanded Monsford.

‘For Christ’s sake, Gerald! I moved to give myself more room, that’s all!’

‘When Palmer finishes I want you to open the discussion: throw it onto MI5 to get their opening contribution first.’

‘You’re the Director. They’ll expect any responses to be from you.’ Having got up her skirt, the bastard was now trying to hide behind it. After today and whatever emerged from it she needed to think very seriously about when — and how — to explode the stratospheric bomb that Straughan had primed under Monsford’s fat ass. Her dilemma, Rebecca feared, was that she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.

‘I’ll choose my moment of responsibility.’

Or choose to avoid it, thought Rebecca, too accustomed to the man’s manipulation to be surprised at what he was asking her to do. ‘Won’t it…?’ she began but was stopped by the reassembly summons.

‘I will take over the background briefing,’ resumed Sir Archibald Bland. ‘Before I do, you should know that Tass has just announced from Moscow that another Russian and a Lebanese caught up in yesterday’s shooting have died.’

Beside her, Rebecca was conscious of Monsford leaning forward, expecting more, seeing too that the Cabinet Secretary had turned towards them as if directly addressing them. Drawn by Bland’s look, several other people were also staring, including the opposing MI5 hierarchy.

‘But let’s return to the chronology and the surreal,’ hurried on Bland, turning back into the room. ‘We were persuaded that extracting someone of such seniority and experience within Russian intelligence as Natalia Fedova was a professional advantage that had to be taken. We were also persuaded, after varying disagreements, that Muffin should lead the operation, supported by a six-man team made up equally from MI6 and MI5 officers. Muffin appeared publicly, although unidentified, during the embassy-murder enquiry. To avoid the Fedova extraction being compromised he was to work independent of the British embassy as well as from his support group, all of whom were housed within the embassy’s residential compound. Muffin was to make the extraction arrangements with his wife and only call in help in the final stages of bringing her and their child out. A further identification precaution was for Muffin to travel separately to Moscow.…’ There was a preparing pause. ‘Muffin chose personally to avoid the risk of further identification by abandoning his Moscow flight at Amsterdam. He is known to have made his way back to England but then to have flown from Manchester to Moscow the following day using the cover of a tourist group. That entry was discovered by the FSB but Muffin had left the group by the time they were arrested by Russian militia. Since that arrest, one of the tourists, a man suffering a heart condition, has died. Most of you will remember the publicity that followed Muffin’s disappearance and the seizure of the tourists, who remain in custody.…’

Bland hesitated again, for more water. Rebecca saw there was far less note-taking now but more head-together exchanges within the individual groups. It was particularly obvious among MI5. As well as whispered exchanges, Passmore was one of the few also writing, pushing slips of paper sideways to Aubrey Smith: twice, as Rebecca watched, the Director-General wrote a reply on the offered paper. She became aware of Gerald Monsford scribbling beside her, too, but was too far away to decipher the scrawl and Monsford didn’t offer it to her.

‘Muffin did not contact his support for over a week…’ Bland was saying. ‘When he did, it was to refuse any dealings or association with its MI6 contingent. We do not know the reason for that refusal, nor anything of what Muffin was doing in Moscow during that period. There was disagreement between the agency directors here, as well as between MI6 and MI5 in Moscow. As a result, a second MI5 squad was sent to bring Natalia Fedova and the child out. That extraction was arranged for yesterday, Muffin joining it at the airport.…’

During Bland’s second throat-easing break, Monsford finally passed Rebecca a single-line note that read, The opening is weighted in our favour, followed by three exclamation marks. Rebecca slid it back without comment. Her impression was that while appearing impartial, the civil-service-liaison duo were very adroitly sewing a self-incriminating minefield for both MI6 and MI5 to negotiate. And if she obeyed Monsford’s instructions, she’d be taking the first exploratory step.

Bland coughed. ‘On their way to the airport the new MI5 team leader suspected they were being followed. He warned Muffin, who decided upon a different flight to decoy the then unknown pursuers.…’ He allowed another preparing pause. ‘We have limited information of what followed. According to the MI5 team leader, the three MI6 support groups separated upon entering the airport terminal. One, Stephan Briddle, made directly for Muffin, who turned at a shout from David Halliday, an MI6 officer resident in Moscow. The MI5 witness heard shots before identifying the gunman, but he is definite he saw Briddle with a Russian-manufactured Makarov pistol in his hand. Briddle and Halliday were among the four initially killed, to which we now have to add the two who died subsequently. We know Muffin was injured, but not how badly.…’

Bland emptied his glass. ‘We’ve kept this narrative consecutive as well as chronological. Throughout most of what we’ve outlined, however, there runs a further sequence. Simultaneously — but independently, with no foreknowledge of either MI5 or ourselves, the government liaison — MI6 was organizing an extraction of the deputy chairman of the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti. They succeeded in doing that but the man’s wife, who’d gone to Paris to persuade their son to defect with them, was seized with the young man by French authorities as they were being brought here. So were MI6 officers and an aircrew. The wife was allowed to continue. The son refused. All our officers are still in French custody. We believe there is some relevance in linking these two events.’

The Cabinet Secretary looked invitingly to Palmer, who surveyed the room and said, ‘That, in outline, is the emergency we confront and have to resolve.…’ Palmer’s survey stopped at Gerald Monsford. ‘And I think, Director, that you should be the first contributor.’

Rebecca was aware of Monsford’s attention but refused to meet the demanding look, saying nothing.

‘Let’s finish unpacking your things.’

‘I don’t want to unpack my things. I want to go home. I don’t like it here.’ Sasha was still wearing her pyjama suit, sitting on the side of her bed. Her curl-bubbled hair, naturally blond like her mother’s, was dishevelled from her restless night following their arrival.

‘You’re going to meet your new teacher today,’ promised Natalia, bent over the child’s case.

‘I’m going to school?’

‘Just meeting her today, to say hello. You’re going to learn a new language. We’re in England.’

‘I don’t want to be in England! Go to a new school.’

‘It won’t be a new school exactly. It’ll be just you and your new teacher.’

‘What’s happening, Mama? I don’t understand what’s happening.’

‘We’ve come to live here for a while.’

‘Why?’ wailed the child.

‘We came to be with someone but he’s not here.’

‘Can’t we go home then?’

‘Not yet. We have to wait.’

‘It feels tight,’ complained Irena Yakulova Novikov.

‘It will,’ accepted the cosmetic specialist, holding the mirror for the Russian to study the result of the corrective surgery. ‘What do you think?’

Irena intently examined the left side of her face, for years burn-mottled not by a restaurant accident with Stepan Lvov, which she’d told Charlie, but in a Moscow car accident. She was attractive again, Irena decided: beautiful even. ‘There’s no discoloration at all.’

‘We’re very good at what we do.’

As she was good at what she did, Irena thought, facing the prospect of finally having to do what she’d so far managed to postpone since her transfer from Britain to Washington. ‘Will it ever come back?’

‘Not if you’re careful. We’ll prescribe some medication: creams, emollients, stuff like that. But your sunbathing days are over.’

‘Thank you very much. I’m grateful.’ It was going to be a long time before she said anything else even vaguely honest, reflected Irena. She’d expected to work in London — somewhere in England — not here. It made everything twice as difficult. She was frightened, Irena admitted to herself.