Red Star Rising

17

Charlie Muffin was engulfed by a feeling of deja vu on the threshold of the spy-catchers’ inquiry room. Paul Robertson occupied the chief inquisitor’s position from which he’d conducted Charlie’s interrogation, flanked by the same male and female team. The two polygraph technicians were at their momentarily quiet equipment, but looking far happier than during Charlie’s session and Charlie recognized on either side of the door the two heavy-handed guards who’d stood threateningly over him before he’d ridiculed his polygraph examination. Harry Fish was to the left of the judgemental bench; in front of him, the familiar white handkerchief upon which lay three pinhead bugs. As Charlie came fully into the room, Reg Stout, in the same chair upon which Charlie had sat, was saying vehemently, “I have only ever seen devices like these once before in my life, when the original six were discovered in the telephone relay box.”

“And I’ve already told this inquiry I found them in your compound flat, taped to the underside of a chest drawer,” insisted Fish. “And shown you the Polaroid photographs, prior to those we also digitally took later as part of official evidence.”

“What’s your explanation for the bugs being where they were?” demanded the unnamed man who had orchestrated Charlie’s confrontation.

“I’m being set up!” protested Stout, his voice rising. “You won’t find my fingerprints on any of it.”

“The surface of the devices is too small to register fingerprints: they have to be handled with tweezers,” dismissed Fish. “There’s enough surface, though, on tweezers we did find in your apartment. There’s only one set of prints-yours.”

“What about the logs?” demanded Stout, desperately.

“Your fingerprints are on the spirals and the log cover,” said Fish.

“I want a lawyer,” demanded Stout, his voice wavering almost beyond control. “You’re framing me, with an illegal search. Planted stuff. You need a warrant.”

“You will be appointed a lawyer when you arrive back to London, under arrest,” came in Robertson. “And to help you when you meet with your lawyer, it was not an illegal search. We have a warrant to search wherever and however we want in this embassy, including all staff accommodation.”

Abruptly, in Russian, Charlie said, “It’ll go easier for you, Reg, if you make a full confession.”

Attracted by Charlie’s voice, Stout turned to the side of the room where Charlie stood and said: “I should have guessed you’d be part of it, too.”

“What did you say?” Robertson asked Charlie.

“You tell them what I said, Reg,” hopefully suggested Charlie, in English.

“How the hell can I?” protested the man. “You know I don’t speak the fucking language!”

“I know you’ve told me you don’t.”

“And I don’t! I’ll go to the papers about this-expose you all.”

“You’re a signatory to the Official Secrets Act, which precludes you or your representatives speaking about anything official to any media outlet or organization,” said the woman panelist, whom Charlie presumed to be a government lawyer.

“You will remain overnight, under guard, in your apartment, from which the telephone will be disconnected preventing your contacting anyone outside this embassy,” officially recited Robertson. “You’ll be repatriated, still under guard, on the first direct London flight tomorrow. In London, you will be formally arrested and will appear, in camera, before a magistrate. A lawyer will be present to represent you at this and any subsequent hearings.”

“I’m being set up,” repeated the ex-army major, in a near hysterical babble. “I’ve served my country, loyally, all my life. . got medals. . decorations. . this isn’t right.”

“Take him back to his quarters,” ordered Robertson, gesturing to the two waiting guards.

Stout twisted, his face contorted, to the advancing men. He stood, obediently, at the gesture from the larger of his two custodians and was led, unprotesting, from the room.

“What did you say to him in Russian?” Robertson again demanded of Charlie.

“I told him it would be better for him if he made a full confession.”

“Why did you tell him that?” asked the woman.

“He’s always insisted he can’t speak Russian,” reminded Charlie. “He was distressed. . disorientated. I thought there was a chance he might have slipped up and answered me in Russian. It would have undermined his denials, don’t you think?”

The three at the table frowned between themselves. Dismissively Robertson said, “Not particularly. But thanks for your effort.”

“Why’d you go back to Stout after clearing him the first time?” asked Charlie.

Robertson hesitated. “We didn’t clear him absolutely: his original polygraph was better than Dawkins’s or Sotley’s and that’s all we had, contradictions and inconsistencies in their separate statements. No supporting evidence. London’s decided that was because of their arrogance: that they were affronted having to undergo the polygraph at all. They performed much better under more formal investigation in England. They’re both being prematurely retired, of course, because of their obvious incompetence but there were some inconsistencies between what Stout told us the first time and what Dawkins said, under reexamination. .”

“. . so we decided to go back to Stout,” picked up Fish. “As small as they are, these bugs have miniscule transformers, to connect with their outside receivers. And they generate a pulse, which we picked up when we swept Stout’s apartment. We found them within an hour of your press conference getting underway.”

“Confronted with the positive evidence, Stout came close to collapsing, although he recovered by the time you came in,” resumed Robertson. “He was all over the place on his second polygraph.”

“He certainly wasn’t admitting anything from what I heard,” challenged Charlie.

“He doesn’t have to,” insisted Fish. “We’ve got the evidence.”

“Which isn’t enough, by itself, is it?” challenged Charlie, again. “You’ve got to sweep the entire embassy all over again, to ensure Stout hasn’t replaced the first lot of bugs you found.”

Robertson gave Charlie a condescending look. “What, exactly, do you imagine Harry’s people are doing right now?”

“It’s good to know everyone’s staying on top of their job,” said Charlie, unabashed. “And when that’s done, I guess you’re all looking forward to going home?”

Robertson slowly shook his head. “You think that all by yourself you can monitor three contact appeal phones and what might come in on them-sift the cranks from what could be your breakthrough call-as well as liaise with whatever your Russian militia friend might get from his end? The Director-General himself thinks you need help.”

“He hasn’t told me that,” said Charlie. Was this another act of desperation by the losing Aubrey Smith?

“He will when you speak to him; he’s expecting your call. I’ve arranged five o’clock, his time.”

Looking toward the electronics expert, Charlie said: “You staying on to hold my hand, too, Harry?”

“Obeying orders, as we all have to do,” replied the man.

Ignoring the inquiry panel, Charlie walked the length of their table to look down at the still displayed listening devices. To Fish, he said: “You got a glass?”

Fish paused, frowning, before handing Charlie the magnifying glass. Squinting down through it, Charlie said, “They’re not the same as those you found in my hotel, with the spur to their left. These are the same as the others that were found here the first time.”

“Of course they’re the same,” echoed Robertson, impatiently. “What else did you expect?”

“You’re right, of course,” agreed Charlie. “What else could I have expected?” More professionalism, he thought, answering his own question.

“I’m relieved that Robertson and Fish have solved their problem,” announced the Director-General.

“Have they?” questioned Charlie, from his suspended telephone booth.

Aubrey Smith hesitated. “They will have when the new sweep is completed and if we locate some fresh bugs that will give us even more evidence.”

“I would have appreciated being told directly that they’d been seconded to my investigation.”

There was another pause from the London end. “Let’s not get petulant. Robertson called to tell me what had been found in Stout’s rooms and how Stout being kept at the press conference helped. There was a natural progression to the conversation that followed. You can’t be expected to handle everything by yourself. I thought Paula-Jane could be brought in, too. Her speaking Russian would help, wouldn’t it? Maybe Halliday, too. MI6 have offered their help.”

“I don’t want any permanent embassy staff included,” argued Charlie.

“Why not?”

“There’s been very little so far to give me any confidence or faith in existing staff here. I want to maintain the separation.”

“Robertson and Fish are sure Stout’s their spy.”

“I’m not,” disputed Charlie.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“This was-and still is-an appallingly mismanaged embassy,” reminded Charlie. “My investigation should remain entirely independent from anyone here. Unquestionably the people with Robertson and Fish are sufficiently security cleared, but I need a system under which I personally examine and assess all recorded messages without my authority being questioned, apart from by you.” Charlie’s irritation was growing. “I know a secondary recording system has been installed ensuring calls will be taped to provide you with immediate access to every contact. I would like your guarantee that you will not instigate any action whatsover, as a result of what I have begun today, without prior discussion with me-”

“That is impudent insubordination!” interrupted the Director-General.

“That is a very necessary operational request, expressed as directly as it was to prevent the slightest misunderstanding between us,” persisted Charlie, glad that as always the exchange was being automatically recorded in London. “You have gone with me-trusted me-so far in risks that I have accepted to be entirely my responsibility. If I fail, I want that failure to be of my own mistakes and making, not through the interference of others following their insufficiently prepared initiatives or an agenda of which neither you nor I have prior knowledge.”

“I’ve read your file, know your history: Charlie Muffin, the maverick loner bucking all authority and opinions other than his own,” warned Smith. “And I’ve backed you all the way. Sometimes I’ve got to defer to collegiate pressure here.”

The internal counterintelligence department in which Robertson and Fish operated was under Jeffrey Smale’s direct control, Charlie remembered, many unexplained irritations abruptly becoming clearer.

The Director-General continued, “I think, upon reflection, that misunderstandings have occurred. Robertson can come back with his other two adjudicators, leaving his support staff with Fish and his people to provide your backup.”

Was Smith according him the battle honors? Or allowing Paul Robsertson a tactical retreat? “I’ll let Robertson know you want to talk to him again.” If he hadn’t won the battle he’d at least come out best in the skirmishes, Charlie decided.

“Don’t, for a single moment, forget anything I’ve told you,” pressed the man.

“Not for a single moment.”

Hunched on his bar corner stool at the Savoy Hotel, Charlie resisted the sink into self-pity, surprised at the feeling: self-pity wasn’t an emotion he very often, if ever, allowed himself. Of all his feelings after such an overfilled day-Natalia still firmly compartmented-the hovering depression was the easiest to identify. When he’d finally left the embassy, less than an hour ago, there had only been six calls to his dedicated telephone numbers: four of them, predictably, had been from journalists, seeking the earlier-refused personal interviews or follow-up information. The other two, predictable again, had been from cranks, a woman complaining that she was being sexually motivated by the FSB with a mind-controlling laser beam, and a man who interspersed his insistence upon a return to communist rule with a slurred rendition of one of the former Soviet Union’s marching anthems. Charlie had tried Pavel’s personal line as well as the two publicly supplied Petrovka numbers and got the answering service on all of them.

Working to retain his momentarily lost objectivity, Charlie acknowledged that it had been ridiculous to expect a worthwhile response so soon after the press conference. As yet, the appeal with its all-important contact numbers was virtually confined to television coverage and the late editions of two evening newspapers, and so far the TV coverage would not have been seen by anyone working normal office or factory hours. Charlie was encouraged by the one early evening TV repeat he had already seen in his suite by the station’s assurances of two additional and longer segments later that night, and the promise of an extended, although edited, version being carried the following day. He wasn’t, though, encouraged by his own hesitant stumbling and very visible perspiration during the press conference questioning. By his own judgement he’d appeared amateurish, suspiciously ill at ease, and haphazardly disheveled alongside the other three men. Briefly allowing a thought of Natalia to emerge from the locked part of his mind, Charlie hoped she would not have watched the full live coverage.

“The victor, savoring his triumph,” said the easily recognizable voice, behind him.

“You staying with fake scotch?” Charlie asked Halliday, not needing to turn to identify the man.

“It’s an acquired taste,” accepted the MI6 man, settling on the adjoining stool.

“What’s the triumph?” asked Charlie, ordering from the attentive bartender.

“Been watching satellite TV,” said Halliday. “CNN got hold of the viewing figures for your event to compare with those of Stepan Lvov’s keynote speech to his party’s annual assembly. You got 76 percent against Lvov’s 24. His people are going to be pissed off with that.”

“The success or otherwise of Stepan Lvov’s election isn’t in the forefront of my mind,” dismissed Charlie.

“It’s picking up elsewhere,” remarked Halliday. “Time magazine made him and that gorgeous Marina their cover story this week-THE MAN TO REVOLUTIONIZE RUSSIA FOR THE SECOND TIME. Thought you would have seen it.”

“I’ve had a few others things on my mind,” said Charlie, sourly.

“And now you’re going to get a hell of a lot more,” predicted Halliday. “Really thought Paula-Jane and I would be seconded to help with the workload.”

There was a throb in Charlie’s left instep, along with the thought that he’d be running out of come-join-me tickets if he’d turned it all into a commercial venture. “You know the problem involving embassy personnel in high-profile situations like this.”

“Paula-Jane’s really upset; thinks it’s personal.”

“Do you and Paula-Jane get included in everything that London decides here?”

“I’m sure I do: it’s a question of courtesy.”

“What about Paula-Jane?” questioned Charlie.

“I get the impression she does, too,” said Halliday. “What do you think about Reg Stout?”

“What about Reg Stout?”

Halliday actually turned for a more direct confrontation, glass suspended before him. “Charlie! I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt-just-for keeping Paula-Jane out. But I know that you know about Reg: it’s the only thing anyone’s talking about at the embassy! You ask me, Robertson and his band of merry men were pretty fucking inefficient, taking so long to expose the obvious. At least now the embassy is finally secure.”

“Is it?” asked Charlie, doubtfully.

He had his question answered when, back in his suite, he tuned into the late evening ORT station’s news which, quoting “informed sources,” led with the disclosure of Reg Stout’s arrest and the suggestion that the embassy security man was involved in the murder investigation as well as the spy hunt.