There was a further, gulping break. “I stood there, waiting to be
shot, but nothing happened. There was a lot of confusion. Dunne just stood there; I don’t know if he’d been made to fire or not. Everyone was concentrating upon burying the bodies. I got back to the truck. I remember being sick. Then running. I just ran, anywhere. I don’t know where. It had got very dark again. And cold. Dear God, it was so very cold. I couldn’t find any road. Kept falling over, and in the end I couldn’t get up anymore, so I lay there, knowing I was going to die. I didn’t hear men, only dogs that were brought from the camp. That’s what I remember next, being in the camp. Being wrapped in blankets and looked at, by a doctor … .” The hand went up to his ear again. “Being operated upon. We were flown out that night, back to Berlin.”
The gaze, totally upon Charlie, was defiant. “They had the photographs of us by the graveside but not of Russians. They’d been painted out … . They planned to blackmail us, as killers of our fellow officers.”
“Enough!” stopped Boyce, at last. “There’ll be no more! Sir Peter is not on trial, has nothing whatsoever to answer for. All that’s necessary for each of you to know further is that Sir Peter has performed for this country—
his
country—one of the bravest and most successful services in its postwar history. At any time in history. For a full twenty years, until his retirement, Sir Peter—with Harry Dunne, who provided what appeared to be confirmation from the State Department in Washington—fed Moscow with whatever we wanted them to believe. While all the time they understood they were receiving information from a priceless source, for fifteen of those years from the permanent secretary to the Foreign Office himself! In effect, for twenty years, we and the Americans ran Russia’s foreign policy, as and how we wished. Not just in espionage terms but politically as well, we conducted the coup of this or any other century. Because the discovery of the bodies was made publicly known, an investigation had to be publicly staged. As of this moment it is officially closed, as I can tell you it has been by America … .”
He looked at Charlie. “Except for you. You learned far too much. I want your sources.”
“And I want a total and complete apology,” demanded Sir Peter Mason. He looked pointedly across the room to Sir Rupert Dean. “And other assurances to go with it.”
“One at a time,” said Charlie, to the director-general’s undisguised wince. “The source first. There is nothing that cannot be bought or bribed in Moscow, for the right price. Apart from what I deduced for myself, in Yakutsk and what little—far too little to matter—was shared by the FBI, everything came from Russian intelligence archives. Sir Peter was not named, but there were details of his frostbite injuries to his ears and hand, which I recognized when we met.”
“Did you understand from the archives you read that the Russians still believe everything they were told was genuine?” demanded the permanent secretary.
“Yes,” said Charlie.
“How much of it do the Americans know?”
“The cooperation wasn’t good. I’m not sure.”
“It doesn’t matter. Everything has concluded very satisfactorily,” declared Boyce.
“Except for an apology,” reminded Mason.
“There’s just one or two things that aren’t clear,” said Charlie, ignoring the demand. “There are photographs, of the bodies as they were found in the grave. Which show that Raisa Belous was shot
first.
Was at the very bottom, not the top. In fact, when the grave was first uncovered the local investigators only thought there were two bodies, not three. That confuse you like it confuses me, Sir Peter?”
“It happened as I’ve said it did,” insisted the man.
“Something else,” pressed Charlie. “You sure there wasn’t a
third
British officer at Yakutsk? As far as I can see there would have had to be, from what you’ve told us. According to you they immediately started filling in the grave after shooting Raisa. Who do you think told them where to find the duplicate tailor’s label in the trouser waistband that enabled me to trace Simon Norrington? And stripped the body to provide the identification in Berlin … ?”
“You will stop this!” said Boyce.
“I’m confused about the start,” Charlie bulldozed on. “You—and Harry Dunne—reported what had happened to military intelligence the moment you got back to the western sector of Berlin in late May?”
“Of course!” said Mason, flushed again. “It was before I left Berlin
that the planning began to deceive the Russians, which we did for so long.”
Easily recalling the dates from his Who’s Who reading, Charlie said, “Planning that wasn’t put into operation until five—or was it ten?—years later, not until you became part of the Foreign Office secretariat?”
“I won’t be subjected to interrogation!” said Mason.
“And I’ve told you to stop!” shouted Boyce.
“This is important, now that we know everything has to remain the secret it’s always been,” ignored Charlie, again. “We know, because he’s just told us, that Sir Peter didn’t know Raisa Belous before meeting her in May in the Russian-controlled eastern section of Berlin. But you’ve seen the Russian photographs released a couple of days ago, of some art objects that Raisa Belous saved from Catherine the Great’s palace. One of the prints was a Dürer which is the next in sequence to the one I saw this morning—and on my first visit, although I didn’t connect it then—in Sir Peter’s house in East Dereham. And there’s a small pastoral scene—I think it’s a Watteau—just at the beginning of the hallway corridor which makes a pair with the one also in the photograph … .” Charlie felt the chill begin to settle in the room again. “And it might not be a good idea to offer for sale on the open market the small canvas of Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst hanging just inside your study door, Sir Peter. That was Catherine the Great’s maiden title before her marriage and is listed in the palace catalogue as one of the masterpieces still missing.”
“This meeting is ended,” announced Boyce.
Not until you supercilious bastards know just how firmly I’ve got you by the balls, Charlie decided. To Boyce he said, “I take it you’ll explain everything to Sir Matthew Norrington? I wouldn’t want to tell him anything he shouldn’t know.”
“You’ve gained us a lot of enemies, yourself more than anyone,” said Sir Rupert Dean.
Before Charlie could respond, Patrick Pacey said, “But guaranteed the continuance of the department, in my opinion.”
“Don’t you ever again as much as think of going AWOL as you did,” threatened the director-general. “I’ll accept no excuse, no apology.
It wouldn’t be politically acceptable for me to fire you after today. If I could, I would. And still might find a reason for doing so. Don’t think of your survival as anything other than a temporary postponement.”
He never had, thought Charlie. They’d walked back from the Foreign Office and his feet were on fire. “I understand. At no time did I intend any disrespect to you personally. Or to the department.”
“I said I didn’t want to hear any of that. You’re not going back to Moscow. There’s another problem to deal with first.”
First,
seized Charlie. So his return was only a postponement, too. “Can I ask what?”
“Richard Cartright was arrested by the Russians: some nonsense about currency-dealing. Diplomatic immunity was invoked to get the bloody fool out, but he’s implicating one of us.”
“Who?” asked Charlie, just for the pleasure of hearing the name.
“Gerald Williams,” said the political officer.
“Incidently,” said Dean, “how much did you pay to get to the intelligence archives?”
“It wasn’t a lump-sum payment,” said Charlie, anticipating what was to come. “I’m keeping the man on a permanent retainer. It’s expensive but proved invaluable in this instance alone.”
On the telephone Natalia sounded as subdued, as desultory, even, as she had that morning. She accepted his remaining in London without asking why and told him not to bother when he asked what she thought he should bring back for Sasha. Natalia added that she didn’t want anything for herself, either. When he said everything had turned out perfectly and that he loved her, she said good but didn’t say she loved him in return.
It took several moments for Charlie to pick through the obscenities when he spoke to Miriam Bell, not immediately understanding what she was telling him.
“Stop off in London,” Charlie said. “And tell your people you’d like to meet Peters in person, to talk about Harry Dunne and Sir Peter Mason.”
“They going to save my life?”
“They just saved mine. What’s the story with Cartright?”
“He kept on that night we met about how I imagined you really got the money to afford the apartment, so I suggested the name of the man at the Arbat. And then anonymously telephoned the local militia post.”
“I’ll buy dinner when you get here,” promised Charlie.
It was scheduled as a tribunal hearing into the civilian arrest of Richard Cartright, but within the first hour of the first day Gerald Williams virtually became a coaccused, with Jocelyn Hamilton and SIS case officer Malcolm Covington only just avoiding an indictment.
Desperately Cartright insisted his Arbat approach—which had not been to a money dealer named Arkadi Orgnev but a posing militia currency investigator—had been part of an investigation into the activities of Charlie Muffin officially authorized by SIS case officer Malcolm Covington, and that he had the Moscow cable to prove it. The dollars he had shown the Russian had not been to trade but to pay for the identification, from a photograph he’d been carrying, of Muffin as a client. He had not known his woman companion, an Aeroflot stewardess, was carrying $430 she’d admitted to the militia she’d intended to sell. Cartright produced a diary of every conversation—and what was discussed—with Gerald Williams and called as a witness his department’s financial director to confirm his having checked Williams’s London conversation with the man about expenses claims, from which he’d assumed he was at liberty to talk to Williams on a combined agency investigation.
Miriam Bell arrived in London that afternoon, took a room on the floor below Charlie’s at the Dorchester and was waiting in the foyer when Charlie got back.
She said, “I’m pissed off. Been here half an hour and haven’t got propositioned once.” And smiled.
“This is London, not Moscow.”
“It shouldn’t make any difference!”
Charlie took her to the Rib Room because he thought she’d like the steaks, which she did. She agreed that Cartright sounded like a prick but didn’t deserve to be dismissed but Williams did. Charlie said that if he’d had any pity, which he didn’t, it would have been pitiful to listen to. Her steak covered half her plate, as his did, and she’d eaten it by the time he finished filling in all the details of the Yakutsk murders.
She said, “Jesus H. Christ! That was an operation and a half! Who d’you think got caught and turned first, Peter Mason or Harry Dunne?”
“I don’t know. Whoever it was immediately shopped the other.”
“Great idea, turning them and maintaining them for so long,” she said, admiringly.
“I wonder if it balanced out the damage they did before they got caught.”
“How am I supposed to know about this?”
“I told them we didn’t cooperate—that I didn’t know what you had. No reason why you shouldn’t have found out about Timpson like I did. Or that there’s a grave in Holland. No reason, either, why you can’t have established a paid source at Lubyanka Square.”
“I’d have had to share a source like that with Saul: he’s the Bureau chief. You’ve got a hell of an inside track there.”
“One I’m going to guard with my life.”
“I’d do the same, if I was that lucky.”
“What feedback did you get from Washington?”
“Panic. Demands for a full explanation.”
“What did you say?”
“That I’d give it in person, when I saw Peters. I’m not sure this’ll save me, but it’s going to be better than any lay I’ve ever had to make Kenton Peters kiss my ass. Never thought I’d be able to keep the promise to myself. So thanks a whole lot.”
“You think you’ll come back to Moscow if you survive?”
Miriam shook her head. “I don’t want to. If it goes good, I’m going to ask for a reassignment. Somewhere warm and nice: Australia or Spain, maybe.”
Because it was Miriam’s first time in London and she wanted to, Charlie actually compromised to window-shop past Harvey Nichols
and Harrods—deciding to look in both before going back to Moscow, despite Natalia telling him not to buy presents—but they hailed a taxi after about half an hour. They had a nightcap—two, in fact—at the Dorchester Bar, and during the second Miriam said, “You know something?”
“What?”
“I’ve just decided it would spoil things if you and I went to bed together.”
“Yes,” agreed Charlie. “It would.”
“You want to know something else?”
“What?”
“I’ve never felt like that about a guy before. Not sure if it makes you special or what. Special, I think.”
The tribunal lasted a further two days, extended by the determination of everyone involved completely to exonerate themselves. The Foreign Office cited the expense for refusing to recall Raymond McDowell and Colonel John Gallaway from Moscow to recount Charlie’s disparaging conversation, insisting instead upon signed af-fadavits, and Williams produced his carefully amassed examples of unsupported expense claims, which Charlie said he’d already talked about with the director-general, who at once insisted the explanation was totally satisfactory upon his personal authority and forbade any further discussion. Calling Charlie was nothing more than a token gesture to procedure. He said he couldn’t remember the actual disparagement—which the diligent Cartright had produced verbatim, alongside McDowell’s written recollection—but didn’t deny saying any of it. There had been intentionally introduced operational difficulties—to which the investigation of one department upon another had contributed—and he felt his remarks were as justified now as they had been at the time. He was apprehensive that Malcolm Covington might produce a voiceprint of his Waterloo runaround telephone call—sure it was Covington he’d spoken to—but it didn’t happen.
The hearing was impatiently concluded by the middle of the second day. Richard Cartright was assigned to the travel and communications desk at the Vauxball Cross headquarters. Gerald Williams accepted the invitation for early retirement, with his index-linked
pension adjusted to what it would have been had he not left until he was sixty-five. Jocelyn Hamilton and Malcolm Covington had severe reprimands attached to their personnel files.
“All that was ridiculous,” dismissed Sir Rupert. He’d insisted Charlie accompany him from the hearing to his office.
“Totally,” agreed Charlie.
“One has nothing to do—has no effect whatsoever—with the other,” warned the director-general. “I will not, ever again, tolerate your affectation to be the lone vigilante. And don’t patronize me by meekly agreeing. Understand that I mean it.”
“I do,” said Charlie.
“It’s right that I thank you, for what Pacey tells me you’ve achieved for the department. I do so, but reluctantly.”
“Thank you, anyway.”
“Now bugger off back to Moscow.”
It was the first time Miriam Bell had been in the presence of the FBI director, Judge Colin (pronounced
Cohlin
) Hibbert, who was avuncularly fat and prematurely bald and disappointed at being both. He was also disappointed at the confrontation that had just ended—he hoped—between someone as awesomely influential as Kenton Peters and a woman young enough to be not just his daughter but possibly his granddaughter. He knew from Nathaniel Brindsley that Miriam Bell had told Peters to kiss her ass and from ten years’ previous experience on the bench his verdict was that she’d effectively if not physically made him do just that.
“You were told your participation was over,” Peters continued to argue.
“I had initiated inquiries before I was recalled to be told that,” said Miriam. “They obviously had to be concluded. Not to have done so would have aroused suspicion with the Russians and the British.”
“Concluded very successfully,” contributed Brindsley, who’d enjoyed the spectacle.
“Have you anything else to say?” demanded Peters.
“I consider I have been wrongfully dismissed.”
“I wasn’t aware that you had,” said the State Department man to whom no responsibility ever attached.
“That’s my understanding.”
“A mistake, a misunderstanding, I’m sure,” said Peters, talking to the director.
“I’ll look into it,” promised Hibbert.
“Good!” said Peters. “And I’d like personally to congratulate you, for a brilliant investigation. I think that’s it, isn’t it?”
My bended knees, kiss-ass time, not yours, determined Miriam. “And I’d like to be reassigned.”
“Where?” asked Hibbert.
“Spain, perhaps?” She’d decided that Europe was better than Australia.
“You have it,” promised the director.
“Thank you.” Miriam smiled. “That’s definitely it.” She’d send Charlie a card: make him feel jealous.