Red Star Falling

24

It was a further six hours of concentrated activity before the government’s GCHQ code breakers at Cheltenham gave qualified support to Natalia’s conviction, which Jane decided was sufficient to bring in Aubrey Smith and Joe Goody. Having been with Natalia throughout that time, Jane accepted that before involving others she had to settle the Russian woman’s obvious uncertainty.

‘Aubrey Smith is our Director-General. Joe Goody is our senior debriefer, the best we have. And he’s formed the same impression as you, that there’s something wrong with Irena Novikov. But like you — until now, that is — he couldn’t decide what it was.’

‘I’m basing it on the Russian transmission, which wasn’t good. Let’s wait until we get your better original CCTV.’

‘Our technical experts think you’re right. Their hesitation is about the deciphering, that’s all.’

‘Maxim Mikhailovich and Elena were indistinct in the Russian film. We might be able to see more, be surer, when we see the prison versions.’

‘By the time my Director-General gets here, we’ll have the better-quality material,’ said Jane, conscious of Ethel Jackson’s unease at Natalia being pressured.

‘Your headquarters are under constant surveillance. Your Director-General will be known to those watching.’

Natalia’s real fear, identified Jane. ‘He won’t be coming from London and he’ll be travelling by helicopter, as I did earlier. Joe will come direct from Irena’s safe house. There’s no way either can guide anyone here.’

‘Sasha will be unsettled by a lot of strangers,’ persisted Natalia, who’d sat saying little after hesitantly illustrating her belief after Jane’s arrival.

‘Sasha will be at her lessons. And it will only be two extra people.’

‘It would be better if we waited until your specialists give a positive confirmation.’

‘Natalia!’ pleaded Jane. ‘You and Sasha are completely safe: no-one can get to you to cause you any harm. No-one ever will be able to get to you. We’re totally trusting you, as Charlie Muffin’s wife. Now you’ve got to trust us.’

‘I do trust you,’ said Natalia, unconvincingly. ‘Everything’s happened very quickly.’

‘It could be very important in helping Charlie. You mustn’t forget that.’

‘I’m never likely to.’

‘Then you know why I must bring in these people.’

‘Yes.’ The uncertainty remained.

Aubrey Smith was obviously woken by Jane’s call but the alertness was immediate. There was no theatrical reaction. ‘GCHQ confirm it?’

‘Their reservation is that they can’t read it.’

‘That’s good enough for now,’ Smith agreed. ‘What about including Rebecca? She’s going to be key.’

‘Let’s wait until we do get the better CCTV prints from the prison as well as our own copies. Natalia’s very nervous about bringing in you and Joe. I don’t want to crowd her any further.’

‘You want me to tell Joe?’

‘It would help if you could actually bring him in with you. One of Natalia’s several terrors is that the FSB will be led here.’

‘We’ll be there by nine.’

‘So will all the other film I’m having brought in.’

Ethel Jackson had generously filled snifters while Jane spoke. They didn’t speak until they’d touched glasses. Sipping her brandy, Ethel said, ‘Here’s to it being right.’

‘GCHQ wouldn’t have gone as far as they have if they weren’t more than fifty percent sure.’

‘It could turn everything totally upside down.’

‘I haven’t yet worked out just how totally.’

‘It’s going to take a hell of a lot of analysis.’

‘Not so much if GCHQ come good.’

‘Their expertise is predominantly in signals intelligence,’ cautioned Ethel. ‘For this we need the equivalent of Bletchley Park in 1943.’

‘It’s been a long night. I’m too tired even to contemplate who or what we need,’ said Jane, finishing her brandy.

‘You were right in what you told Natalia.’

Jane stirred at the tone of the other woman’s voice. ‘Told her what?’

‘That we’re unquestionably trusting her,’ said Ethel.

‘How can you still have doubts about Natalia, after this?’

‘I don’t have doubts. What I can’t completely reconcile myself to is the amount of reliance we’re putting in someone who until a month ago was a member of the FSB.’

‘And Charlie’s wife,’ heavily qualified Jane.

‘Which is another dichotomy I can’t reconcile,’ admitted Ethel.

Professional or personal problems? wondered Jane, remembering Ethel’s admission about herself and Charlie. ‘Let’s hope it’s not another mistake to add to all the others we’ve made so far.’

‘Yes,’ agreed the other woman, pointedly. ‘Let’s hope.’

By the time Aubrey Smith’s helicopter put down, the earlier-arriving technicians had cleared the communal dining room of the security building for the CCTV transmission. Jane was the last into the breakfast room at the nearby safe house. Neither Ethel nor Natalia was eating and Natalia looked as if she’d slept badly. Sasha didn’t show the nervousness at the prospect of strangers Natalia had predicted, trying several groping English sentences in anticipation with surprisingly little need to fall back upon Russian. Jane’s praise sent the child smiling to her morning’s lessons. Jane bothered only with coffee, like the two other women, and got to the security wing with Ethel and Natalia just as the technicians completed their test runs of all the CCTV from Belmarsh Prison. The elder of the two told Jane the facial-recognition difficulty caused by the natural light reflection remained from the frontally positioned camera, although not as badly as the same-position shots the Russians had filmed from their concealed apparatus, but the clarity was greatly improved on the side and rear CCTV. He’d set up to show the frontal recording first. The copied Russian film, enhanced as much as was technically possible, could be shown in parallel if required. They were, of course, separately recording everything that transpired that morning in the communal dining room. Smiling apologetically, the man concluded that whoever was to commentate would need to operate separately the freeze-frame remote control and the laser-beam marker light.

‘You all right with that?’ Jane asked Natalia.

‘I am to be filmed, conducting the session?’ questioned Natalia, at once.

‘A record has to be made to help GCHQ. Only you can individually point out what you suspect on the Russian film, as you did last night.’

‘You know what they are. You can point them up.’

‘You know I couldn’t: that it’s got to be you.’

The hesitation lasted several moments before Natalia eventually nodded, tight lipped. ‘I can operate both.’

Only Jane went out to meet Aubrey Smith and Joe Goody. At once Smith said, ‘How is she?’

‘Shaky,’ said Jane. ‘Shakier than she was when she first arrived, which I can’t understand.’

‘Do you doubt what she’s saying?’ asked Joe Goody.

‘I might have started to if it hadn’t been for GCHQ’s reaction.’

‘Which hasn’t been positively confirmed,’ reminded Smith. ‘You think Natalia’s having second thoughts herself?’

‘Come and decide for yourself,’ invited Jane, uncomfortably, leading the way back to the security block.

Natalia was being guided through the two separate remote controls when they entered, her nervousness seeming slightly less during the introductions, even frowning curiously at Goody when the man addressed her as ma’am. During Jane’s absence the technicians had finished rearranging the room with seats in front of a wide-screen television. With Natalia beside him, the technician leader repeated the problem of the light reflection on the frontal CCTV and explained that all the digital film had been enhanced to the same degree as the Russian version. All the films were mute, the gibberish left by the Russian sabotage eradicated.

‘When you’re ready,’ prompted the man, leaving Natalia to the left of the screen.

‘I believe…’ started Natalia, faint voiced. She stopped, coughed, and more confidently started again. ‘I believe that throughout the encounter in the prison Maxim Mikhailovich and the man who headed the Russian delegation — and Elena, although less so — were communicating in a code, irrespective of the conversation they appeared to be having.…’ She paused, expecting a reaction. None came from the two forewarned men. She nodded to the waiting technician to start the film.

The enhanced film started with the back-view appearance of the Russian group entering the Belmarsh interview room from beneath the CCTV lens and the hesitation of the rest while the obese man settled in his chosen seat.

‘There!’ declared Natalia, stopping the transmission and fixing the marker beam upon Radtsic. ‘Look at Radtsic’s hands — he’s just placed them on the table in front of him. The forefinger of his right hand cupped over the back of his left, the other four folded away.’ She resumed the film but almost at once stopped it again. ‘Now look at the negotiator, who’s sat down now. His left forefinger is briefly across the back of his right hand, in response. That’s what I believe the code consists of, mostly hand and finger signals, but sometimes there are repeated arm movements. It’s a variation of deaf-and-dumb sign language. I’ll replay this film more than once, showing those repetitions which I think are too regular to be natural, unmeaning movements. I’ll also point out signals from the woman beside the negotiator, which Elena appears to acknowledge.’

It took almost forty-five minutes to go through the entire film from the first CCTV. A positive count maintained on the replay isolated fifty-two possible hand gestures and eighteen specific arm movements, Elena’s repeated arm-crossing the most obvious. The hand-shifting count increased to sixty-five and arm gestures to twenty-one on the film shot from the rear CCTV cameras. The separate count from the Russian side was one hundred twenty hand signals and thirty-five different but repeated arm positionings from the assembled Russians.

Aubrey Smith decreed the coffee break after the front and back replays, and as Natalia came to the table where it was laid out he said, ‘It’s circumstantial but it’s very convincing.’

‘And you’ve picked out a lot more than you spotted from the Russian film,’ said Jane, recalling the other woman’s earlier reluctance to conduct the presentation.

‘I’m not sure I would have identified it,’ admitted Joe Goody.

‘It’s an FSB tradecraft technique for hostile situations like hostage-taking,’ finally disclosed Natalia. ‘It is literally based on sign language and was devised from actual hostage episodes: people crossing their fingers or making some other covert indication that they’re being forced to say or write something praising their captors’ ideology or political statements. I’ve never been trained in it, don’t know what ciphers or keys they use, but it’s common knowledge in Lubyanka. I didn’t set out looking for it. It only registered after I’d seen the Russian version three or four times.’

‘Radtsic would know about it, of course, although I don’t understand how Elena would have the knowledge,’ said Jane.

‘But why would Radtsic use it?’ demanded Smith.

‘The man who led the Russian delegation was obviously FSB,’ said Ethel. ‘Could Radtsic have been threatening what he was going to disclose to use if they didn’t let Andrei go?’

Jane shook her head, doubtfully. ‘How more impassioned could he have been than in what he actually said during the prison confrontation?’

‘We must let the Russians have access to Irena as soon as possible to see if it happens with her,’ said Joe Goody.

‘We won’t have cameras there,’ deflated Jane.

‘The only function of this signalling is covert, in hostile situations?’ questioned Smith.

‘Yes,’ confirmed Natalia.

‘But the hostile situation Radtsic’s in is with his own people, not with us,’ Smith pointed out, reflectively.

‘Unless he really had been kidnapped and is being held hostage,’ picked up Jane.

‘Which he isn’t,’ continued Ethel.

‘Not according to our understanding,’ completed Smith.

‘I’m not a cryptologist but I don’t imagine this finger-and-thumb code will be easy to decipher without its Rosetta key,’ said Goody.

‘Do you want to see the remainder of the CCTV?’ queried the head technician.

‘We’re totally reliant upon GCHQ, so we need to give them everything we can: there might be something more,’ accepted Smith.

The benefit of side camera CCTV was that it showed both Belmarsh contingents in profile, making it possible simultaneously to co-ordinate hand and arm movements between the sides, which Natalia immediately started to do as she stop-started her way through the first, from the right. She’d itemized three matched exchanges before holding a freeze-frame without indicating any significant movement. For several moments she remained unmoving, finally going within inches of the screen before asking the technician to enlarge the frozen frame. She put herself even closer to the screen for several more minutes before turning back into the room but not immediately speaking.

‘What the hell is it now?’ demanded Jane.

‘It’s not Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic,’ Natalia declared.

There was none of Radtsic’s usual strutting bombast, Elena actually with her husband’s arm cupped supportively as they came in through the french windows from their morning walk. That had been shorter than usual and Rebecca, watching unseen from inside the house beside the duty lip-reading cameraman, had been aware of the Russian’s unsteadiness.

Radtsic slumped gratefully into his chair, smiling wanly at Rebecca, ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’

The politeness surprised Rebecca almost more than the frailty. ‘Of course not. How are you?’

‘Tired. And angry, still very angry. I want to teach them a lesson.’

‘How?’ Rebecca frowned.

‘They will be laughing at me: at how they tricked me.’

‘Yes?’ encouraged Rebecca, doubtfully.

‘During the genuine conversation the fat one said he was remaining at the embassy here. I want to meet them again, as we did before.’

Rebecca needed the hesitation. ‘Of course I will suggest it, if it’s your wish, but I can’t imagine we’ll agree after what happened the last time. Neither can I imagine your people would agree, either.’

‘They won’t.’ Radtsic smiled more strongly. ‘Which is the trick! I want you to film me making the verbal as well as the written approach to the embassy. And when they refuse you will have your rebuttal to what they broadcast. And then, in a continuation of the film, I can refute what was broadcast from Moscow: label it for what it was, a concocted lie.’

Rebecca allowed the second pause. ‘There is a lot to consider in what you’ve said: in what you’ve suggested. I’ll propose it, of course, but I think there will be a lot of practical difficulties.’

‘I don’t intend just to refute the lies they broadcast to the world. They tricked me — tricked you, too, at the same time. Now I want totally to humiliate them in return. On the same broadcast I want to set out how deeply the FSB manipulated the 2008 global economic collapse that’s going financially to undermine the West for years to come.’

‘You’re surely not suggesting that Russia masterminded that!’ challenged Rebecca.

‘Of course I’m not! We didn’t have to. The financial greed of Wall Street and your City and Frankfurt and the Bourse and every other stock exchange was sufficient to do that for us. What we did, very early on, was to recognize what was happening. And you know what! We actually made a profit buying and selling and all the time stoking up the heat in the world markets. And then pulled out to watch the bubble burst. The Lvov plot didn’t begin as part of our financial coup, of course. But we were going to link it at the end. Can you imagine the destruction we would have caused, with Lvov orchestrating the American White House! Ten years from now the world would have been speaking Russian!’

There was no longer any barrier between Rebecca’s telephone calls to Sir Archibald Bland, who said when she’d finished talking, ‘I am so very glad you’re going to be the new MI6 Director.’