“All right,” accepted the police chief, uncomfortably.
“You realize how fortunate we are, having the media contacts we have in Canada?”
“Not really,” Ryabov frowned.
“You will,” promised Polyakov.
Alexei Popov’s replacement as Natalia’s deputy was a taciturn, sleek-mannered, sleek-featured Georgian. The deputy interior minister had outmaneuvered an unsuspecting Natalia to get Petr Pavlovich Travin appointed, making it obvious that after the Popov debacle the Interior Ministry felt it necessary to have their own watchdog as close to the top of her department as possible, which was in no way a guarantee of Travin’s honesty or integrity: an enshrined legacy of communism, maybe even inherited by them from the tsars, was that poachers made the best gamekeepers.
Travin listened, wordless and expressionless, while Natalia talked and still didn’t immediately speak when she’d finished and Natalia, who’d first met Charlie as his KGB debriefer when Charlie had staged a false defection, identified the familiar trick of extended silence to lure more from someone being interrogated. With that awareness came curiosity that Travin might already consider himself entitled to interrogate her. Finally the man said, “I expected to be involved from the
very
beginning: selecting the Russian team with you. I might have had some suggestions.”
The burly, mustached man
did
consider himself her equal—if not more—Natalia recognized. Stressing the demand in her voice, Natalia said, “You will be in charge, from here, of overall liaison, between us and the British and Americans. We expect—in fact it’s been politically decided we
want—
them to go to Yakutsk.”
“What is the chain of command?” demanded Travin, virtually in open challenge.
“Mine is to Dmitri Borisovich Nikulin, the president’s chief of staff. Yours is to me. It’s imperative from the outset that there are no misunderstandings between us. I hope there won’t be.”
“So do I,” said Travin, insolently.
How many times had she already said and thought those words? wondered Natalia. And how many times was she going to repeat them in the immediate future? She said, “The most important thing for you to understand is that whatever the outcome, no blame or error should attach to our people.”
“I’ve understood that already,” assured Travin.
“That’s good.”
It was only when Natalia was redrafting for the third time her bureaucratically necessary memorandum to Dmitri Nikulin—with copies to everyone else in the planning group—that she accepted the first version had been quite adequate and that she was stupidly delaying her return to Lesnaya and Charlie.
“I’m on my way,” she said into the telephone.
“There’s a lot to talk about,” said Charlie.
“I know.”
“It’s an opportunity!” insisted Vitali Novikov.
“How? Why?” asked his wife.
“There’ll be foreigners: American and English.”
“What good will they be?” demanded Marina.
“I don’t know, not yet. But I’ll find a way.”
“Vitali Maksimovich! You’ve tried so hard for so long. Nothing works!”
“You want Georgi and Arseni to live like we’ve had to live?”
“You know I don’t. But there is no other way. No way out.”
“My father was a clever man. A meticulous man.”
“And you’re clever, too, my darling. But I can’t see how Americans or British can help us.”
“I’ll find a way,” repeated the medical examiner, stubbornly. “Even if I have to cheat and lie.”
Gerald Williams examined his idea from as many aspects as he could think of before telephoning his fellow finance director across the river at Vauxhall Cross. His second call was to Richard Cartright in Moscow.
“I thought I should introduce myself, now that our two departments are going to be working together,” said Williams.
The phrase that came to Charlie’s mind was
phony war
, although it didn’t fit because he wasn’t going to allow a war between himself and Natalia, phony or otherwise. They were moving around the apartment, overly attentive upon Sasha, overly polite toward each other, with long periods of silence, as if each were expecting the other to fire the first shot.
It was, however, Natalia who proposed the armistice. “Angry?”
“No.” Charlie was on his second Islay malt of the evening, Sasha already asleep.
“What, then?”
“Disappointed.”
“It had to be this way: from our Foreign Ministry to yours, in London.” She shook her head to the wine he held up.
“I know that. You might just have mentioned something.” Charlie was, in fact, very angry, although not at Natalia. He’d timed the telephone lecture from Sir Rupert Dean at forty minutes, immediately followed by the promised memorandum, and after that there had been the personal visit from Richard Cartright with the insistence that he was sure they were all going to work together perfectly. To
which Charlie had thought bollocks and said he was just as sure.
“I’ve got so much to mention I doubt I’ll remember it all,” said Natalia, turning his expression.
Charlie looked at her curiously. “Go on.”
“I’m not sure I can do it,” blurted Natalia. “That we can do it: keep secret what we have to. I’ve almost gone mad!” And she still didn’t intend to tell him everything.
“It might have helped to talk.” He was glad he hadn’t told her of Irena’s apparently brief affair with Saul Freeman. Glad, too, that there’d been no personal contact from the woman after that one night, which she’d hinted at when he’d walked her to the street-level door.
“Perhaps. I just wanted to do it this way. Try some separation, so that we couldn’t be professionally accused of anything.”
Charlie smiled at her sadly. “I know I was a shit before. But I’ll make you a solemn promise. I will never, ever, cheat you or use you or expose you to any risk I can possibly avoid. Or put Sasha at any risk.”
Natalia stayed silent for several minutes, changing her mind and pouring her own wine. “I believe you, about us.”
She didn’t, Charlie decided. She
wanted
to—maybe would come to, in time—but at the moment there was too much to forget. He took Sir Rupert Dean’s fax from his pocket and slid it across the table toward her. “Now it’s official, I suppose we can talk about it.”
She smiled, relieved it had been this easy, reading it slowly, not looking up for several minutes. “Those are all the facts there are?”
“Seems like it.”
“How do you feel about working with the SIS?” she asked, anticipating the answer.
“I don’t like working in groups. Cartright won’t be the only person.”
“It’s an order, Charlie,” said Natalia, at once worried.
“They won’t know that, will they? They might even have their uses.” He sipped his whiskey. “Read up on what I could about Yakutskaya, from the embassy library. Seems a hell of a place. There was an embassy assessment from here, in Stalin’s time, just at the
suggestion
of the gulags that was marked doubtful because the descriptions weren’t considered humanly possible.”
“Even though Stalin’s been denounced and disgraced, public records stay sanitized,” said Natalia.
“I won’t take a paperback and sun oil.”
Natalia refused the anxious flippancy. “Be careful.”
Charlie waited. When Natalia didn’t continue he said, “Everyone and his dog out to screw me?”
“I won’t let you be exposed to any risk I can possibly anticipate and prevent,” said Natalia, matching his earlier promise.
At once, urgently, Charlie shook his head. “Don’t anticipate for me! Let me anticipate for myself.”
“So
you
don’t trust
me
!”
“We’re not talking
us
!” insisted Charlie, “We’re talking gutter survival. I’ve been there: lived my life there. You haven’t, not operationally. Leave me to watch my own back, until I ask for help. That way there’s no confusion.”
In his opinion she couldn’t do without his help, but he could do without hers, judged Natalia. “There isn’t a score to even, Charlie.”
“I’m not balancing scores,” persisted Charlie, unhappy at her response. “This hasn’t anything to do with your not talking to me before now … .” He waved the London fax still lying between them. “You think the Americans got the same?”
“Positive.”
“So,” Charlie said patiently, although still with some urgency. “We’ve got fifty-year-old unreported, totally unknown murders of apparent English and American officers. We’ve got a hostile, probably obstructive local authority. We’ve got a resented Moscow intrusion. Without doubt someone involved from America. And in effect, I’m working under monitor … .” He paused, trying to imagine anything he’d left out. Unable to, he went on, “Each and every one of whom—with the possible exception of whoever America sends—will be trying to discredit each and everyone else. There’s no way, from a distance of three thousand miles, you could or can anticipate what will be going on. Not in a way to help me … .” He gulped at his whiskey, needing the pause. Who the fuck was going to help him, then? It was the worst possible scenario, a bunch—a committee—of disorganized, fractious, warring people. And committees-working with them, for them, being part of them—ranked on Charlie’s hate list equal to tight shoes, ice in single malt and the need constantly
to justify his expenses. Maybe, even, a little higher than all three.
“I wasn’t thinking of three thousand miles away,” said Natalia, quietly. “I was thinking about back here, in Moscow.”
Charlie drank some more whiskey, matching her seriousness. “I’d be grateful. And need it.”
Maybe she needed it more than him, thought Natalia. “I’m frightened, Charlie. Nothing’s working out as it should.”
“It hasn’t
started
yet!”
“I’m worried how it’s going to finish.”
Charlie responded before Natalia when Sasha cried out. He was back within minutes from the child’s bedroom, after resettling her. “She had a bad dream.”
“I’m having them, too,” said Natalia. “And they don’t go away when I’m awake.”
It was Charlie’s idea for he and Natalia to test their intuition one against the other by refusing any prior opinion of the Russian group with whom he would be going to Yakutskaya, not even to be told their names. It meant his going to the Interior Ministry totally unprepared, because there hadn’t been the prior contact he’d half expected from the American embassy and Charlie hadn’t called Saul Freeman: there was no benefit—not yet at least—and he certainly didn’t intend conveying even an impression of a joint operation, despite Sir Rupert Dean’s assurance that London and Washington had agreed on complete cooperation.
Charlie’s initial surprise on entering Petr Travin’s office was that it was Miriam Bell, the FBI chief’s deputy, and not Saul Freeman himself who was already there. She had a yellow legal pad on a primly crossed leg, the skirt of her severe business suit covering her knee. The blond hair was in a tightly coiled chignon. She gave the barest response to Charlie’s greeting. So, too, did the Russian pathologist and the forensic scientist at Travin’s introduction, but Vadim Lestov stood, smiled and insisted in experimental English that he was delighted to meet Charlie. Seemingly reminded, Travin said there was an interpreter available if necessary. Miriam said it wasn’t, ahead of Charlie.
“That, at least, might make things easier,” commented Travin. “At the moment very little else does.”
“I’d appreciate knowing what else there is, beyond what was sent to my State Department,” said Miriam.
The Ice Maiden Meets the Ice Mummies, thought Charlie, sitting back contentedly. Except that was hardly Miriam Bell’s reputation. According to Freeman, who enjoyed not only kissing but telling, she swore like the devil and was more than willing to use the body of an angel to each and every advantage. Although she did have a figure made for underwear commercials, it was in other ways he needed to know a lot more about her, decided Charlie. He wondered, idly, if Miriam had been as disappointed in Freeman’s fuck-by-numbers technique as Irena.
To the side of the huge room there were two stenographers and an operator at a recording machine. International crime-fighting cooperation, like justice, had to be seen to be done, Charlie supposed. During Alexei Popov’s unsuspected tenure of an office very similar to this there’d been vodka as well as tea from a traditional samovar for such encounters. But then Popov had hidden deceit behind friendliness.
“There were some belongings on the bodies but nothing that could identify them,” offered Travin.
“What?” demanded Charlie, bluntly, for the benefit of the record. When it was necessary Charlie was capable of Oscar award performances.
“Personal items: we don’t know what,” admitted the Russian, tightly.
“They’re not here?” persisted Charlie.
“No,” conceded the man, tighter still.
The first publicly recorded indication of difficulties to come, judged Charlie. Making his own intentionally awkward contribution, Charlie looked between Travin and Lev Denebin and said, “So you’re quite confident of the forensic facilities in Yakutsk?”
Denebin actually looked toward the note-takers before saying, “I don’t think I can say that at all! I don’t know … I mean I need to see … what’s there … .”
Charlie was conscious of Travin looking very intently at him. Charlie said, “I would have thought your facilities were better here in Moscow?” Until Denebin’s startled reaction, the three chosen Russians had been sitting relaxed, too obviously observers. So there’d
been a separate, earlier blame-apportioning session. They should have been better rehearsed to prevent the preparation being so obvious.
Travin said, “The Yakut authorities appear to think it’s better for what was recovered to remain there.”
“So you did ask for it?” pounced Charlie.
“The inquiry is at a very early stage,” floundered Travin, trapped. “The concentration has been upon assembling an investigation team … advising your respective governments … .”
It was sufficient, decided Charlie, allowing the pause which Miriam Bell hurriedly filled. “Have the files been checked here for any records of an American or a British officer being in that region, which I understand to have been a closed part of the old Soviet Union?”
“Yes,” said Travin, grateful to escape. “Both Foreign and Interior Ministries. There is nothing officially recorded.”
“What about photographs of the bodies?” said Miriam.
Travin shifted uncomfortably. “Yakutsk have said there are some, with the other material.”
Colonel Lestov should have been asking questions, thought Charlie. More bad rehearsal. “What about prison records? Virtually all of Yakutskaya was a prison colony, wasn’t it?”
Travin’s face began to color. “It was. But the records are very inadequate. What do exist are being examined, naturally. There can be no question of British and American nationals being sentenced to this or any other region … .” His face began to clear, in realization of escape. “And as our advice to both your governments made clear, these officers were dressed in their military uniforms and carried some personal items, which would not have been allowed had they been prisoners … .” Too forcefully in his eagerness, the man finished, “So a search of records would be pointless.”
“But you are still looking?” insisted Charlie. “That’s what you said … ?”
“What I’m trying to make clear is my government’s total commitment to investigate these murders.”
That very definitely was rehearsed, recognized Charlie.
Just as rehearsed, Miriam said, “I’ve been authorized to offer every facility on behalf of my government.”
Might as well go for broke with those busy little pens and recording
tapes scratching away, decided Charlie. “I appreciate, as I’m sure my American colleague does, the cooperation you’re offering. I, for my part, want it to be understood that I see my role as an observer—although prepared at all times to contribute in any way that I am asked—to a Russian investigation … .” He allowed a long pause. Come on! Come on! he thought, although not looking at Miriam.
“Yes,” came in the American, as if on cue. “That’s certainly how I see it, too.”
Travin nodded, to disguise the heavy swallow. “I see you all acting together as a team,” he tried. “We respect your ability. Don’t expect you to hold back to be invited to give an opinion. This is, in fact, going to be a unique investigation.”
The precise words Alexei Popov had used in this very same room about a year earlier, remembered Charlie. Popov had been a far more adept bastard than his successor. Still wrong to be too confident, too soon. Looking obviously at the note-takers, Charlie said, “I am impressed by the obvious efficiency with which this has all begun. I will, of course, make available copies of all my reports to London, for your murder dossiers. And would like copies of yours—including that of this meeting—to create my full file … .” He smiled sideways at Miriam. “That’s the sort of arrangement to which you’d agree, wouldn’t you?”