Red Star Rising

2

Charlie Muffin had taken his time, as he always did, checking the intruder trap in his hotel room-ensuring that the drawers he’d left slightly protruding hadn’t been pushed closed after a search and that their specially arranged contents were as he’d left them and that flaps pushed into pockets hadn’t been correctly replaced outside-satisfied after almost an hour that no one had entered. Now he sat hunched at the corner stool of the bar, his back instinctively protected by its abutting wall, wishing that the vodka glass into which he was gazing was a crystal ball to tell him the last time an assignment had begun as badly as this one. He certainly couldn’t remember. Which made it a wise move to have concluded the encounter with Paula-Jane with so many initial questions unanswered and leave the embassy, needing to clear his head and to calculate just how many mistakes had already been made. Or had been allowed to be made. He really had forgotten the head-in-the-sand mentality of embassy life.

Had too much already been avoided or ignored for him to pick up all the dropped pieces? Charlie wondered. He couldn’t allow there to be, came the immediate determination. The poor faceless, one-armed bastard hadn’t survived but Charlie had to, as he’d always survived. But this time could be difficult. He’d never known the department so positively divided as it had been by Aubrey Smith’s promotion over Jeffrey Smale, nor for that division to be so marked by Smith’s consistent operational failures against the litany of successes controlled by his deputy. What Charlie did know was that on this assignment he was very definitely between two warring men, with Aubrey Smith seeing it as his positive last chance and Jeffrey Smale regarding it as the potential coup de grace in the fight to the promotional death. Which was why, with bizarre irony, both men had for the first time ever been in perfect accord that he got the Moscow assignment. Which, even more bizarrely, Charlie welcomed despite its close-to-overwhelming risks. Now that he didn’t have Natalia or Sasha any longer, the job was all he had left and to keep it, he’d do anything just short of dipping someone else’s fingers into any available acid bath.

How did that crush-anyone-in-any-way determination square with the placid acceptance that he didn’t have Natalia and Sasha anymore? Charlie asked himself. They weren’t together anymore, as a family anymore, because he hadn’t sufficiently persuaded Natalia. And hadn’t been in Moscow to be able to. But now he was in Moscow. Could he contemplate that distraction from a job so professionally vital and try to convince Natalia that they could still have a life together? Of course he could. It would be ridiculous, his being in the same city as her and their daughter, for him not to make contact and for him to try, yet again, to convince her how perfect everything could be if only she’d come to live in London.

The simple way to do it was to prioritize, Charlie reasoned. The job first then. Which meant going back to the mortuary and pathologist Vladimir Ivanov, to resolve the uncertainties that had occurred to him since this morning. And to the embassy, to finish the conversation with Paula-Jane Venables and get from Jeremy Dawkins his comparable account of the murder scene. Reg Stout’s, too, to find out the problem with the embassy gates’ CCTV, as well as the identity of-and hopefully to interview-the so-far unnamed Russian groundsman who’d discovered the body. Which Charlie supposed would now have to be in the restrictive presence of the diplomatically required Russian Foreign Ministry official. And then there was Sergei Romanovich Pavel. It wasn’t going to be easy to establish a working relationship with the organized crime detective who’d worn the resentment of Charlie’s involvement like a lapel badge. He had to do his best to build bridges there, because Pavel represented either the pathway or the barrier between him and any official forensic findings. Which left Mikhail Guzov, the watchful FSB observer, about whom Charlie had the greatest uncertainty.

A lot of people, none of whom appeared either friendly or helpful. He’d left off his priorities list the most important participant of all so far, Charlie abruptly reminded himself: a faceless, one-armed man. How difficult was it going to be to learn the story he wasn’t able to tell?

“I’d hoped I’d find you here,” said a voice, in English.

David Halliday was an overweight, soft-bodied man whose gray-flecked hair was greased so tightly to his head it appeared to have been painted on rather than combed. The tie was vaguely regimental and didn’t really go with the sort of single-breasted blue suit mass-produced for door-to-door salesmen the world over. He even carried an order-taking pen in his breast pocket. Charlie admired the determined anonymity, and wondered what else the man might do to establish his professionalism.

“You want a drink?” invited Charlie, to illustrate his own professionalism, by knowing at once who the man was from the photographs of embassy personnel, although it officially listed Halliday as a financial officer, not the MI6 resident.

“Better stay with what I’m already on,” accepted the man, nodding unnecessarily behind the bar to the whiskey that Charlie had already detected upon the man’s breath. “It isn’t really Famous Grouse but it’s not a bad fake.” The head movement turned to one of approval at Charlie’s bar command that got his vodka replenished at the same time as the counterfeit scotch was poured. Halliday said: “Thought you were a whiskey man, too?”

“Only when it’s real.” The mental arm wrestling was beginning.

“Islay single malt, isn’t it?”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“It’s still logged as a special order in the embassy’s commissary book from the time of your permanent posting here.”

That really was professional, Charlie acknowledged, knowing the man would have trawled London records, too. “I dropped by today, but you weren’t there.”

“What do you think of our P-J?”

“What?” asked Charlie, frowning.

“Paula-Jane. That’s how she’s known at the embassy. She told me you’d tried to make contact. Feisty little thing, isn’t she?”

“Why does she insist on that double-barreled name?” said Charlie, avoiding a personality discussion this early, but content for the other man to gossip about whatever or whoever he wanted, eager for all the inside help he could get about the embassy.

“Father was American; met her mother when he worked in the same trade at the U.S. embassy in London.”

An offering of sorts, accepted Charlie. “FBI or CIA?”

“CIA.”

“What’s Paula-Jane doing working for us if she’s American?”

“She isn’t,” corrected Halliday. “Had the choice between American or British nationality when she reached eighteen. Took her mother’s side in the divorce to be British but compensated by taking Dad’s profession. Ambitious as hell. Wants to follow the already established precedents and put that cute little ass in the Director-General’s chair at Thames House.”

The opening lit up like a beacon. “Didn’t get the impression she did so well with my one-armed man.”

Halliday gestured hopefully to the bartender, grateful at the response that kept him level with Charlie. “Difficult one for her. If you want to climb the slippery pole, you go by the book and don’t get involved in anything attracting the publicity that this episode is getting.”

“What book do you go by?” asked Charlie.

“Self-preservation,” replied the other man, at once. “I’ve got ten years to go and certainly don’t intend fucking up an unblemished, pension-assured record by getting caught up in the sort of shit you’ve got to wade through. You’re welcome, old boy, with my deepest sympathy.”

“Did you see the body?”

“For as long as it took me to decide I didn’t want to know what was happening. I suddenly remembered an important meeting with a contact that took precedence.”

Seizing the opportunity, Charlie encapsulated Paula-Jane’s recollections, which Halliday considered before saying, “That’s about it.”

Marking Halliday as a useful insider to cultivate while not forgetting the man was in turn doing his best to cultivate him, Charlie said, “What’s the problem with the gate security?”

“Reg Stout’s the problem. All mouth and trousers, and Dawkins let’s himself be bullied. The CCTV has been playing up for days, weeks even, and hasn’t been fixed properly.”

His priorities for the following day began to arrange themselves in Charlie’s mind. “I won’t involve you, of course, but I’d appreciate a sounding board to bounce things off, as they come up.”

“I know a few quiet bars,” accepted Halliday.

“It’s quite a while since I was here,” further enticed Charlie. “I’d also appreciate a steer if you think I might be going in the wrong direction.”

“Guaranteed,” assured the other man. “And that’s official. You heard of our director, Gerald Monsford?”

“Not a lot.”

“Wants to rule the world, which is fine if you’re one of his soldiers. He’s told me to offer you all the help you might need. If your dead man hadn’t been found inside the embassy grounds, British territory, it would be an MI6 case.”

“I’ll remember that,” promised Charlie, politely. “At the moment it’ll stay MI5.”

Unexpectedly, Halliday said, “Aha! Here’s your first steer!” and gestured toward the mute television picture in the corner behind the bar.

The sequence, which Charlie guessed to be the lead item on the main evening news, showed a smiling, immaculately dressed man of about forty-five. A stunningly attractive, couture-clad woman was at his side, both arms aloft in acceptance of an obviously rapturous reception from a rally audience.

“Stepan Grigorevich Lvov, with his totem wife, Marina,” identified Halliday. “The next president of Russia, the only subject of conversation at the embassy before your body was found. And one they’re anxious to get back to as soon as possible.”

“Already getting newspaper space back in England,” recognized Charlie. “With a woman like that beside him I’m surprised there haven’t been pictures as well.”

“There’ll be a lot when he gets elected,” predicted Halliday. “Interesting similarities between him and Vladimir Putin, but without the baggage Putin’s accumulated. Former KGB, like Putin, until he quit, once attached to the same divisional headquarters as Putin in St. Petersburg.”

“Caused you some work, I guess?” anticipated Charlie, happy for the conversation to drift after gaining as much as he had.

“Haven’t managed much of a file, for all the obvious reasons,” admitted Halliday. “But there’s a contrast between the two. Putin’s taking Russia back into the dark ages, with KGB-style assassinations and using the gas and oil supply as a weapon against Europe. Lvov’s promising to free everything up again, which makes him flavor-of-the-month in the EU as well as in the U.S. of A.”

“There was also a lot of speculation that Putin got the presidency with dirty money and heavy criminal, as well as ex-KGB personnel, support. How’s that match with Lvov?”

Halliday shook his head. “The word is that our new boy is squeaky clean. . ” He smiled. “Or as squeaky clean as a politician can be.”

Reg Stout’s office overlooked the river and was about three times the size of the temporary accommodation allocated to Charlie. Stout wasn’t wearing the ribbon-bedecked uniform that Charlie had half expected but the tie was that of the Royal Engineers; the office was virtually wallpapered with military photographs of parades and regimental dinners and reunions-all of which prominently featured Stout, usually in the front befitting his rank of major. He was a loud-voiced, florid-faced, burly man who frowned in dismay at Charlie’s haystack dishevelment. It was obviously difficult for the man, whose pinstriped suit was razor creased, to address Charlie as “sir,” but he did.

“I’m looking to you for a lot of help,” opened Charlie. Which so far he very definitely wasn’t getting and about which he was thoroughly pissed off. The rabbit hutch that had been allocated to him that morning was obviously the housing officer’s idea of revenge, compounded by the waiting message from Jeremy Dawkins on the card-table desk to make contact before attempting any meetings with embassy staff.

“Sir!” barked the man.

“I’d like, firstly, the full report you’ll have obviously prepared.”

“It’s with Mr. Dawkins, sir.”

“You don’t have a copy?” Charlie sighed.

“It’s my understanding it has to come through Mr. Dawkins, sir.”

“Reg,” set out Charlie. “I’ve been sent, specially, all the way from London to investigate a murder that is probably the biggest security situation you’re ever going to become involved in. I know embassies are governed by rules and that you’ve got to conform to them. But I just told you I need your help, and I’m sure you don’t want my having to complain to the third secretary or to London that I’m being obstructed in what I’ve come here to sort out. So here’s what we’ll do. I’ll tell you what I want, and you decide whether we’re going to communicate like adults or whether you’ve got to communicate all the time through Dawkins. I want your report. I want to see the photographs I’m confident you took, before the Russians arrived. I want to know why you summoned the Russians as quickly as you did. I want you to tell me why you let your people trample all over the scene, probably destroying forensic evidence, and why you let whoever did it fill in the hole that was left after the Russians apparently dug out all the earth into which the blood and facial debris soaked, from where the body lay. I want to talk to you in the minutest possible detail, irrespective of whatever’s in your report, about everything that you did before the arrival of the Russian investigators. I want to know the name of the Russian groundsman who found the body and, in the most specific detail, hear everything-and I really mean everything-that he told you, before I talk to him myself. I want to know what went so consistently wrong with the CCTV security cameras-and why it continued going wrong-up to and including the night the body got where it was found. And why and how a man, with his intended killers, got into embassy grounds that you and your staff are supposed to keep clear of any unauthorized intrusion. And when I’ve got all that, I’ll probably want to do it all over again because the first time I won’t get half, even a quarter, of what I want. And in passing, it’s not necessary for you to call me sir. Charlie’s fine. You keeping up with me so far, Reg. .”

There was no immediate reply and Charlie thought he could almost see reflected in the transfixed eyes the slow-moving cogs in the man’s brain. Finally Stout managed, “I thought Mr. Dawkins was handling it all?”

“He isn’t,” corrected Charlie. “I am.”

“I think I should talk to Mr. Dawkins.”

“We’ll both talk to Mr. Dawkins,” insisted the exasperated Charlie. And it was still only just after ten thirty.