Bomb Grade (20 page)

‘I still think this is a mistake; one we'll regret,' insisted Popov.

‘It's the decision of two ministries, one of which imposed both men upon us.'

‘Proposed by you.'

‘It can always be rescinded.' She hesitated. Then she said, ‘I'm not doing anything this evening.'

Popov stayed for several moments looking steadily at her, as if making up his mind. ‘Neither am I.'

‘I could make dinner,' suggested Natalia, allowing the final concession.

‘All right.'

Natalia wished the acceptance hadn't been so begrudging.

‘I thought one thing was odd,' said Popov, reverting to the meeting. ‘His offering the contact number like he did, when he knew I already had it.'

‘An easy thing to forget.'

‘He didn't strike me as the sort of man who forgot things.'

Charlie wasn't, Natalia knew. Any more than she was, although she'd write down the telephone number she'd memorized from the piece of paper, before screwing it up in perhaps her most positive and almost too extreme act of disinterest. She had no real reason to keep it, of course. But then there was no real reason why she shouldn't have it, either.

chapter 14

T
he reaction from London and Washington was even more frenzied than Charlie expected. Charlie's assessment of the meeting was longer than the actual transcript itself and took the rest of the day and most of the evening to transmit: even before he'd finished the Director-General telephoned to withdraw him immediately for a personal briefing. Charlie successfully argued that there could be as little as an hour's notice of the next summons, which had as much to do with his hope of a personal approach from Natalia as it did for a professional one from Popov. There was no good reason for his being recalled: being taken back to London verbally to tell people what they'd already been told in print was a classic bureaucratic knee-jerk. Rupert Dean ended by thanking Charlie for doubting the assessment of the scientific mission.

Charlie's summons from the ambassador came early the following morning.

Sir William Wilkes, who was accompanied by the stone-faced Nigel Saxon, used phrases like ‘amazing information' and ‘catastrophic potential' like the ones that had confettied his London briefing and Charlie recognized the familiar routine of everyone wanting from the safety of the sideline to get involved in the best career act in town. Which Charlie willingly provided to be part of the same career act himself. He didn't expect any favours from the disgruntled Saxon, but it didn't hurt for the ambassador to refer to him by his Christian name.

It was, unsurprisingly, Saxon who introduced the rebuke the moment Charlie finished the briefing. ‘You should have advised the ambassador before London!'

‘I did not consider a robbery that hasn't happened as urgent enough to approach Sir William. I would naturally have provided an account.'

‘You were wrong! Let's not have any mistakes in the future,' said the Head of Chancellery.

‘Considering the potential of what we're discussing we can hardly afford mistakes, can we?' retorted Charlie, refusing to be bullied. Heavily he added, ‘Like the recent scientific mission appears to have misjudged things.'

‘In future we want to know ahead of London,' insisted Saxon. ‘And don't forget it.'

‘No,' said Charlie. Bollocks, he thought; my rules, not yours.

Dean's subsequent reply to Charlie's specific query was not as good as Charlie had hoped. There were, responded the Director-General, three possible nuclear installations in Kirov's administration area, at Kirs, Kotelnich and Murashi. Kirs and Kotelnich were believed to have manufacturing capabilities, but Murashi was classified as a storage facility. Charlie decided against sharing the inadequate information with Kestler: the American was potty trained, old enough to vote and a supposedly trained investigator who should be able to work out the cross-check for himself. And if Kestler did, it would be a test of the promised cooperation if he offered what he got back from Washington. Charlie was totally untroubled by his own hypocrisy: another cardinal Charlie Muffin rule was that rules by which he expected others to abide never applied to him.

Charlie accepted Balg's luncheon invitation when he telephoned the German to say the Interior Ministry meeting had been about the supposed Ukraine activity, wanting to maintain the link because Germany was the major route along which nuclear components were channelled. Balg was a thick-bodied, blond-haired man given to heavy jewellery – a chunky identity bracelet and ornately marked ring – and wore the sort of calibrated astronaut's watch that told the time on Mars. The man chose a Georgian restaurant on Novodevichy Proyezd, overlooking the Moskva.

‘So it was a wasted meeting?' said the German, immediately after they'd ordered.

‘Not at all,' frowned Charlie, gauging a challenge. ‘It maintained our contact with Popov. And proved the Russians intend to work with me.'

‘Just Popov?'

Charlie sipped the heavy Georgian wine, needing thinking time. Balg didn't believe him. Charlie wouldn't have believed Balg, if the circumstances were reversed, but he would have disguised the disbelief better. Cautiously, he said, ‘Not just Popov. His director, a woman general. Natalia Fedova.'

‘No one else?' pressed the German intelligence officer.

Charlie used the wine delay again. ‘There were ministry officials. We never got their names.'

Now it was Balg who let silence into the conversation. Eventually the man said, ‘The head and deputy head of a division – and ministry officials – convening a conference to discuss so little!'

‘I'd been calling them. Kestler, too. Both of us said we had something important, without setting out
what
it was. It was logical for them to think we had more than they did.'

‘They must have been disappointed.'

‘It was confirmation of what they had.'

‘But nothing more?'

Why didn't Balg come right out and call him a lying bastard! ‘They said the working relationship with Kiev is excellent.'

‘If they didn't know in advance from either you or Kestler, it must have been from Kiev that they got their information.'

A suspicion of his own flickered in Charlie's mind, firing the first burn of anger. ‘Obviously.' He lay down his fork, pushing the
satsivi
away only half-eaten.

‘So how was it left?'

‘That we'd keep in the closest touch, passing on whatever we got to build up a fuller picture.' Jesus, it even sounded like the lie it was!

‘And what have you been able to pass on since?'

That was a karate kick straight in the balls, assessed Charlie, a reminder where the Ukraine information had first come from with the clearly implied threat it could be withheld in the future. ‘Nothing,' Charlie conceded.

‘So unfortunate when a useful source dries up, don't you think?'

Charlie was quite prepared to acknowledge the German had good enough cause for the scarcely veiled hostility. But he was buggered if he'd let Balg trample all over him. Pointedly, he said, ‘Unfortunate for everyone.'

‘It depends upon the number and veracity of the sources.'

You weren't looking where you were going and just stepped in the dog's shit, Jurgen my son, thought Charlie. He'd expected the German to be cleverer than that: too anxious to launch a blitzkrieg instead of firing a sniper's shot. ‘It does indeed depend on just that! Which is why I'm glad you and I have reached the understanding we have.'

Charlie's chirpiness confounded the other man. Unable to rise to it, Balg instead continued ponderously, ‘Which is why I protect and respect my sources.'

‘Most of us do,' agreed Charlie, still brightly. He'd had enough. He was convinced he knew what his problem was and was glad now that he'd delayed protesting it sufficiently; if push came to shove he could play dirtier than Balg. Which the man was a bloody fool if he didn't realize. Like he'd be a bloody fool if he didn't recognize which professional to stay with. ‘I grade my sources, not just on the level of what they tell me but on their long-term value. Don't you do that?'

Balg remained confused. Hesitantly he said, ‘Yes. That's what I do … try to do.'

Umberto Fiore was adamant the short notice wasn't an obstacle to dinner that night and was waiting in the bar when Charlie got to the Savoy. The Italian worked from practically the same script as Balg. The disbelief was far more subtle although just as swift and Charlie accepted that since midday Balg would have rehearsed Fiore. Better prepared himself now, Charlie introduced the flippancy much earlier to cut off Fiore's attempted warnings about continued cooperation. Charlie ended the evening quite convinced he was right and glad he'd arranged the visit to the American embassy the following day.

Charlie refused to join the much-repeated insistences about how good everything was turning out, unresponsively waiting to see if Kestler would reveal that he'd run a nuclear check in the Kirov region. Which Kestler did, as soon as he'd stopped anticipating their soon-to-occur career benefits.

‘So we're going to shift a satellite into geo-stationary orbit right over the goddamned place: cover all three sites to see what's going on.'

‘You already told Balg that? And Fiore? Like you told them everything that happened at the Interior Ministry!'

Kestler blinked at the sudden accusation mid-stride through a lap of the FBI office. From behind his desk Lyneham elbowed his bulk into a more upright position.

‘What?' tried Kestler.

‘You heard what I said.'

‘What's going on here?' demanded Lyneham, apprehensively.

‘A fuck-up's what's going on here,' said Charlie. ‘And it risks the deal we've got with the Russians …' He paused, looking directly at Kestler. ‘… And all because you want to be every body's best friend. Instead of which you're a total, utter prick!'

Charlie had no proof, although he was sure he was right, and if he'd kept his nerve Kestler could have called the bluff. But he panicked, speaking ahead of thinking, as he had to Popov. ‘I just … I mean I didn't … there's no harm …'

‘What the fuck's the idiot done?' demanded Lyneham.

Lyneham came fully upright as Charlie told him, elbows on the desk with his face cupped in his hands. When Charlie stopped, Lyneham looked across at the other American and said, ‘Jesus H. Christ!'

‘I didn't tell them everything!' protested Kestler.

‘What, precisely, did you say?' pressed Charlie, the quietness of his voice belying the anger.

Kestler paused and Charlie wondered if it was for recall or to prepare an acceptable excuse. ‘That it wasn't the Ukraine business,' stumbled the man. ‘I said the Russians thought something might be going on, within Russia itself. And that they'd asked us in to see if we'd heard anything to connect outside.'

‘And you told them as well who the Russians were at the meeting!' pressed Charlie.

‘That, too,' admitted the man.

‘That all you told them?' demanded Lyneham.

‘On my life!'

‘I don't give a fuck about your life: it's mine I'm worried about,' admitted Lyneham, openly for the first time.

‘
Why
?' moaned Charlie. ‘If you weren't going to tell them everything, why tell them
anything
?'

‘Germany's important,' argued the man, desperately. ‘Itaiy, too. We can't afford to piss them off.'

‘So now they know half a story of which we only know half to start with,' said Lyneham, wearily. ‘So they've cabled Bonn and Rome and they'll have investigators all over their goddamned countries beating down the doors of every snitch, informer and grass there is and knocking shit out of them. And every snitch, informer and grass is going to go running straight to the bad guys to tell them why the heat's on. And by the end of the week there won't be a yak herder in Outer Mongolia who won't know about it. You
any
idea what you've done, you asshole?'

‘They said it wouldn't be like that!' protested Kestler, weakly.

‘What control have either of them got over
how
it's going to be?' pointed out Charlie. ‘They're just lighting the touch paper.'

Ignoring the younger man, Lyneham said to Charlie, ‘You think you should warn Popov? And the woman?'

Charlie was uncomfortable at Natalia being referred to as ‘the woman'. He said, ‘I think I should. But I'm not going to. It would be closing the door on myself.' The separation of himself from Kestler was intentional.

Continuing as if Kestler wasn't in the room, Lyneham said, ‘I know it doesn't count for a row of beans, but I'm sorry, Charlie. Truly sorry.'

‘Yeah,' said Charlie, not wanting to be rude but not wanting to acknowledge an empty apology, either: like Lyneham said, it didn't count for a row of beans.

‘I'd like to say …' started Kestler but Charlie stopped him. ‘Don't! I don't want to hear anything you say. I'm pissed off with everything and anything you say.'

Back at the embassy Charlie spent more than three hours formulating the protest to London, reminding the Director-General of the concern about Kestler in the summary that he'd sent with the official transcript of the Russian meeting and going into itemizing detail of what the American had done since. He concluded by advising London of Kestler's family connections.

In London Peter Johnson silently read each sheet Dean handed him, looking up stone-faced when he'd finished. ‘This is terrible!'

‘That's a conservative judgement.'

‘What are we going to do about it?'

‘Nothing,' said Dean, mildly.

‘Nothing!'

‘Nothing premature and ill-considered.'