Bomb Grade (27 page)

Always expect the worst from people and you won't be disappointed, thought Charlie: paramount personal survival rule. ‘I'll be careful.'

‘Make sure you are. Get back to me as soon as you can. And to
me
, personally. I'm taking over direct control.'

‘Understood,' accepted Charlie, happily. He was so deeply asleep, slumped precariously in his upright office chair, that it took several rings to awaken him and he actually dropped the handset in his delayed anxiety to pick the telephone up.

‘I think space technology is a wonderful thing, don't you?' greeted Kestler.

‘I'm looking forward to being convinced,' said Charlie. He was glad he was awake when Saxon appeared at the door.

‘What the hell are you playing at?' demanded the Chancellery head.

The crèche arrangement had only been for one night so Natalia used the break in the continuous emergency meetings from Viktor Viskov's chairmanship to that of the Interior Minister himself to extend Sasha's care indefinitely. Radomir Badim took personal control around 8 a.m. after which it was always he or his deputy in direct radio communication with Kirov, denying Natalia any chance of speaking to Popov. With every exchange being automatically recorded, it could only have been an officially restricted conversation but Natalia, mind-fogged by lack of both sleep and any proper understanding of how the disaster could have occurred, was desperate just for the sound of his voice. A mid-morning crisis cabinet convened by the President gave Natalia the brief chance to sleep, which she did in Popov's cot. It was more exhausted collapse than sleep and her last conscious thought was that when she woke up Aleksai would be back in Moscow: Badim's last instruction had been to suspend the on-the-spot interrogation and return to the capital, with the prisoners, for a full debriefing that afternoon.

She awoke after only three hours, gritty eyed and aching, grateful there was a bathroom and shower adjoining her suite. She alternated the shower between hot and cold and got rid of some of the cramp but not all. The most important improvement was to feel absolutely clear-headed. She'd come the previous day with a change of clothes, expecting to be up most of the night although not for it to be as long as this, so she was able to change into fresh underwear and an uncreased, muted check suit. She critically surveyed her appearance in the full-length bathroom mirror not for her own satisfaction but for that of Aleskai, when he arrived. Bringing a change of clothes had been the best precaution, the shower completed the freshness and her face didn't show the weariness of someone who had been up all night.

Charlie Muffin was very much an afterthought and nowhere in any reflection was how she might physically impress or appeal to him. Natalia didn't want any more personal meetings with Charlie Muffin but she personally believed there was every reason to listen to the man professionally. She'd already experienced enough that morning to know what the agenda would be in the afternoon: it would be an inquest and inquests were always into the causes of a disaster, rarely to find a resolve for one. Only Aleksai had any practical, investigative experience, the knowledge and the expertise to know how to look forward, not backwards. Badim and Viskov and Vasilyev and Panin were bureaucratic politicians and the
spetznaz
officers were specialized soldiers and she was a former intelligence officer whose life had been spent trying to get inside people's minds. Charlie Muffin was also a former intelligence officer but one whose life had been as far removed from hers as it was possible to be or to imagine. He'd
always
been operational, in the field: always expecting to be cheated, always prepared for the worst, always ready for the first prick of the knife in his back, literally or otherwise. In many ways, Charlie was more able than Aleksai, although she would never have admitted that opinion to either and was even embarrassed to think it herself.

Aleksai had always been governed by legal regulations, widely interpretive though they may have been. Charlie never had. In the name of his country – and therefore justifiably – he'd worked with only one remit. Get done whatever was required in whatever way was necessary and don't get caught doing it. Charlie
thought
bad, never good. Which was how he'd think now because he didn't know any other way to think. She'd recognized snatches of that instinctive rationale during that panicked discussion in the middle of the night. Which was why she'd successfully argued with the deputy Interior Minister for Charlie to be included. But that had been in the first minutes and the first hours of non-thinking panic and in the middle of the night. Now it was bright, clearer-thinking daylight. And there was a pass-the-parcel session – the parcel marked ‘responsibility' – being conducted by the President himself. And shortly there would be arriving military commanders who'd been dumbfounded to find themselves not just facing Western civilians at a Russian military debriefing but Westerners with the impudence to question tactics and about whom Natalia was sure by now there would have been official complaints to the Defence Ministry. Whose minister would have been at the current cabinet gathering.

So middle-of-the-night promises could very easily be reversed, by the weight and prejudice of higher authority. What would she do, if that happened? She'd have no power to overturn a higher decision. There was only one thing she could do. And she wouldn't be able to explain it objectively or rationally to Aleksai: it was hardly rational – although there was some objectivity – to herself. But Aleksai wouldn't accept any argument or persuasion about Charlie's criminal think-alike professionalism: he'd only see it as a direct slur upon his ability and resent it – and her – more than anyone else. But could she do nothing? Her argument inside last night's room, to gain the admission of himself and the American, had been Charlie's argument outside. There was far too little chance of recovering anything
with
Western help: without it there was no chance whatever. And if two hundred and fifty kilos of bomb-making material was lost, she was lost with it. There couldn't be the remotest possibility of her remaining head of her division if it wasn't retrieved and she didn't need to think about the personal implications of being removed because she'd thought through each and every one from each and every angle and approach.

Natalia's afterthought had become her most predominant thought, focusing her mind upon survival. Charlie's creed, she remembered:
always find the back door and leave it open, just in case
. Natalia didn't think she had a back door: she didn't think she had doors at all to flee through.

In temporary limbo, Natalia arranged the larger conference room that would be necessary for that afternoon and ensured a simultaneous transcript was available of all the preceding twenty-four-hour radio communication.

The Interior Ministry delegation swept back into the building like a whirlwind, Badim and Viskov encircled by a swirl of aides and advisors: Viskov and his executive assistant, Mikhail Vasilyev, denied the chance of any rest by the cabinet meeting, were dough-faced with exhaustion and stress, their blinking a frequently more drawn-out squeezing together of their eyes in apparent bewilderment at the chaos around them. Natalia didn't understand Viskov's headshake towards her as she joined the group flustering into the conference. She tried to sidetrack the deputy's assistant to get some idea of what had emerged in cabinet, but got more helpless shoulder shrugging from Vasilyev than information, although he did blurt that officials from the Foreign Ministry and the President's secretariat would be attending and that another cabinet session was planned directly after the personal accounts of Aleksai Popov and the
spetznaz
commanders. The warning enabled Natalia to answer Badim's impatiently snapped demand that the Kirov group had already arrived at Vnukovo and were expected at the ministry within thirty minutes.

In the event the journey only took twenty minutes. Popov and the special force officers actually arrived ahead of the outside observers – the drained Yuri Panin, from the Foreign Ministry and an austere listening but untalking man from the President's office – thrusting into the room with controlled urgency. None of them showed the slightest effect of sleeplessness or of what they'd gone through in the previous twenty-four hours: his beard saved Popov even appearing unshaven. Natalia smiled towards the man. Popov simply nodded back, but looked at her long enough for Natalia to know he'd seen and liked her crisp composure.

Natalia had only arranged seating on the dais for Badim, Viskov and Vasilyev, unprepared for Panin and the President's man, but both appeared content to be in the body of the room with everyone else.

Popov at once adopted the role of spokesman. His opening – ‘The operation I personally coordinated, the interception at Plant 69 and the seizures in Kirov, was one hundred percent successful' – showed the man's anticipation of the responsibility-ducking situation to which he had returned in Moscow. No nuclear components of any sort had escaped from the plant. They had lost six men, with four more seriously wounded, two only slightly. In the plant itself there had been twelve civilian deaths, with nine more during the Kirov round-up. At this disclosure, Popov hesitated, looking briefly to Natalia. One of the deaths at Kirs had been that of Valeri Lvov, their initial and pivotal informant. A protective unit had been assigned to the man's family but had not expected gang members to be present inside the apartment in advance of the attempted entry: by the time they'd forced entry Lvov's wife had been murdered. She had been raped first. So had both of their surviving daughters, who were now under medical care.

Popov snatched another look at Natalia, who remembered a twitching man in a stinking fishermen's hut and her promise of protection and felt a surge of sadness. She thought of Sasha and wondered how old Lvov's girls were. She'd ensure they had every medical care: psychiatric counselling, too, if necessary. If there was no other family to which they could go, she'd make orphanage or care provisions, here in Moscow.

Popov continued that of those arrested eighteen were, from their criminal records, members of the Yatisyna Family. There were six other men whose identity documents gave Moscow addresses. It was not known to which criminal organization they were attached but their fingerprints and photographs were being compared with Moscow criminal records. No proper interrogation had been possible but none so far questioned had said anything apart from denying any knowledge or involvement in the separate Pizhma robbery.

‘Which is far more serious than we imagined,' declared Popov, dramatically. ‘It was obvious for us to put down there on our way back from Kirov, for an on-the-spot examination. Which was impossible. As a preliminary measure we have left the majority of the special forces group in the area, to seal it …'

‘Seal it?' demanded Badim, impatience surfacing again. ‘Why couldn't you make an investigation?'

‘Several protective containers have been breached. The entire area, at the moment over a radius of two to three kilometres, is contaminated. At the moment Pizhma itself isn't affected but it could be if the wind changes. 2,000 people live in Pizhma. I have ordered experts into the area, initially from Kirs and Kotelnich …'

Badim looked accusingly at Natalia, then back to Popov. ‘Why weren't we told of this before? The radio …'

‘The area is sealed, every possible precaution taken,' repeated Popov. ‘I considered it too sensitive even for a restricted channel. The delay in your knowing is literally less than three hours: everything necessary to be done is – or has already – been put into place.'

Natalia turned at the scrape of a chair and saw the presidential aide gesture Badim as he hurried from the room. Virtually every other face was frozen in an expression of horrified disbelief. Natalia was stretched virtually beyond any comprehensive thought, punch-drunk from the unfolding catalogue of disasters.

‘This certainly should not become public knowledge,' declared Yuri Panin, from the floor. ‘Most definitely not public knowledge abroad. Chernobyl is still too recent in Western memories.'

‘Too much of what was happening in Kirov and Kirs became public knowledge abroad,' picked up Popov. ‘I believe the Pizhma robbery was possible as the result of those foreign leaks.'

Badim said; ‘A conclusion of this morning's cabinet was that it was a mistake to have allowed the Englishman and the American to remain, after what happened at Pizhma. And particularly to have included them in any discussion …'

It had been her persuasion, acknowledged Natalia. The four men who had agreed would have sacrificed her to defend themselves. It was the only thing they could have done. She would be destroyed, Natalia thought, desperately. And Sasha would be destroyed with her.

‘… The decision was also reached this morning to cancel the Western cooperation and in future to exclude any but authorized Russian officials in nuclear matters …' The minister paused. ‘In view of what we have just learned about the radioactive contamination I would expect that ban to be confirmed by presidential decree.'

‘I gave an undertaking,' reminded Viskov, his voice cracked by fatigue and despairing inability to avoid responsibility.

‘Which has been rescinded,' pointed out Badim, in a reminder of his own.

‘Who will tell them?' asked the deputy.

‘I am officially their liaison,' offered Popov. ‘It should be me.'

‘Then do it!' ordered Badim. ‘Let's do
something
to start recovering an initiative! Make it clear everything is suspended. They can get the positive cancellation through the Foreign Ministry.'

She
had
been right – Charlie had been right – in arguing their need for Western help but there was not the slightest point in protesting. The decision was irrevocable, like her dismissal would be irrevocable.