Bomb Grade (34 page)

Unprotesting Hillary remained where Charlie had hauled her. As the barriers were briefly moved aside there was the pop of flash bulbs and the sharp whitening of television lights. Obediently pressed against the seat, Hillary said, ‘I just know there's got to be a reason for what you've just done!'

‘Three letters a foot high all over your back,' said Charlie. ‘God knows who the media were back there but it's supposedly free here now. How'd you think they'd interpret an FBI scene-of-crime scientific officer, especially one looking like you do, in an ordinary, downtown Moscow street?'

‘Buried deep down somewhere I'm sure there was a compliment,' grinned Hillary.

‘Buried deep down under a lot of practical common sense, maybe,' half confirmed Charlie. He was surprised to see the bearded Aleksai Popov already at the scene, which was around a sharp curve in the approach road and completely out of sight of the road block. Popov was surrounded by uniformed and plainclothed officials, grouped about ten metres from the neatly parked, side-of-the-road cluster of vehicles. None wore any sort of protective clothing. Charlie counted four men around the lorries. All appeared to be wearing cotton overalls, like Hillary, but with their faces obscured with hamster-pouched air-filtering masks.

‘Doesn't look as if I'll need this,' said the girl, patting the suit-carrier. ‘Maybe an idea for your guys to stay with the others; though.'

‘You speak Russian?' challenged Kestler, simply.

Hillary grimaced. ‘Can't think of everything. Wait until I check for levels.'

Kestler identified Popov as they approached on foot and Charlie was uncritically aware how long it took Natalia's lover to get his eyes up to the American girl's face. Popov greeted her in English and said the Russian technicians were expecting her.

From the way she bent her body away from it, her equipment box was heavy. When she was about five metres from the lorries she put it down and took out what looked like a hand-held mobile phone and a mask quite different from those the Russians were wearing. There were no side filters but it was looped to a back-pack canister she slipped expertly on as she continued towards the vehicles. The Russian scientists stood together as a group, watching her, and there was a flurry of hand language when she reached them. Hillary vaulted lightly into the rear of each truck, disappearing for what seemed a long time in every one. After the interior check she went crab-wise beneath them, her hand-held device raised aloft and afterwards checked each cab and finally the BMW before gesturing back to them. Once more, uninvited, Charlie tagged along. There was no objection from anyone. Popov went with them. By the time they got to the lorries, Hillary had the mask unclipped, hanging loosely at her throat.

‘Clean enough to take the kids to school,' she greeted. To Kestler she said, ‘Ask them what the reading was when they got here.'

Kestler did and a balding technician with a grey, chin-fringed beard said five, offering a much larger instrument for Hillary to look. Charlie attached himself to them as she established, through Kestler, the exact time of their arrival, the scale of dissipation since then and the precise places in each vehicle, including the BMW, that had given off a radiation reading. Hillary ended the scientific exchange with a smiling handshake and Popov said, ‘I'll let you have the written forensic report.'

‘I'd like to see it as soon as possible,' accepted Charlie.

‘I can tell you already there's not a single fingerprint, anywhere,' said Popov. ‘The canvassed lorry was stolen three months ago, in St Petersburg. The other two from a Moscow haulage company, at the same time. The Moscow registration on the BMW is false: it belongs to a Lada owned by an air traffic controller at Sheremet'yevo. The plates on the Ford abandoned on the ring road were stripped off a genuinely imported Ford parked at Kazan railway terminal.' Looking directly at Charlie, Popov said, ‘We are going to take all the vehicles on the check run to and from Pizhma tomorrow.'

Charlie decided Popov enjoyed showing the efficiency in front of Hillary, who looked suitably impressed. The man with the beard fringe offered that they'd already checked the Ford, which had shown no radiation whatsoever, and that the vehicle remained isolated on the ring road solely for their examination. Hillary shook her head as Kestler translated and said: ‘Not unless you guys want to.' Neither did.

Kestler manoeuvred himself next to Hillary in the rear of the Militia car, putting Charlie in the front. He sat turned towards the American, his arm over the seat, so he was instantly able to squeeze the girl's leg in warning when she started; ‘Well, the story so far …'

She stopped, grinning at Charlie. ‘You trying to tell me a secret?'

‘No!' he said, pointedly. ‘Maybe keep one.'

She remained silent until they transferred at the ministry into the embassy car. Because Kestler had to drive it put Charlie in the back with Hillary again. At once she said; ‘Sorry. But everything with the driver was in Russian; I didn't think he could speak English. And anyway, aren't we on the same side now?'

It was Kestler who explained their acceptance on sufferance, which Charlie finished by saying that if he'd arranged their transport, like Popov had for them, he would have ensured the driver was fluent in English. ‘So what would he have heard?'

‘The level of radiation when I got there was virtually nonexistent,' reported Hillary. ‘If the Russians' curie reading is accurate to within a degree, any contamination was entirely residual and from
outside
, from when they smashed the containers. That's why I checked the outside and underside of the lorries and confirmed a reading. The inside of the trucks gave me a lot, though. It's not shown in any of the satellite photographs, but each truck had some sort of hydraulic lifting device, to bring the canisters on board. Near the tailgate of each there's extensive scratching and on the metal floor of one of the covered lorries there are clear circular markings of the sort you get from rubber pads at the end of support legs. The canvas lorry is flatbed and wooden decked: the wood here has been positively depressed for maybe a millimetre. From the satellite shots of the smashed open containers Washington's already made weight calculations from height and thickness measurements. The floor markings on the lorries are consistent with the containers being pretty standard, hard outer casing, two-inch thick lead lining. In my opinion the floor markings prove that the containers were
full
when they were lifted inboard. On our estimate of twenty-two being stolen, that puts the total nuclear graded loss at just under two hundred and forty nine kilos …'

‘… According to this morning's meeting, they only lost nineteen,' interrupted Kestler.

‘We'll have Washington recount,' said the girl, at once. ‘I can't see how our picture analysts were wrong, but on the lesser figure the loss will be two hundred and forty two kilos, forty minimum.'

‘Five kilos makes one bomb,' remembered Charlie. ‘They've got enough to make forty-eight, at least.'

Hillary hesitated. ‘Only with proper laboratories staffed by properly qualified technicians and physicists. But you're right – the bad guys have got enough to rule the world.'

‘Unless they're stopped,' said Kestler.

‘I think the most significant thing is that the housing isn't in the lorries back there any more, either,' said Hillary, answering the question as Charlie was about to ask it.

Instead he said; ‘So it was transferred, to go on supporting the canisters in the trucks into which it was transferred.'

‘Obviously,' agreed the physicist.

‘From the timed satellite sequence we know it took an hour to move the containers from the train into the trucks,' said Charlie.

Hillary took up the calculation. ‘Where the egg box was already prepared. This time the support frames had to be transferred, along with the containers. I'd say two hours, minimum. More likely three. Longer than that if they did it in the dark.'

‘So it wasn't done at the Arbat,' concluded Charlie, positively.

‘Who said it was?' demanded the girl.

‘That was the suggestion at a briefing this morning.'

‘On the street back there!' exclaimed Hillary. ‘Bullshit! No one taking the trouble these guys did would have risked that.'

‘You think there could have been an expert – a physicist even – involved in the robbery?' queried Kestler.

‘Advising, maybe,' she judged. ‘What I am damned sure about is that they didn't intend losing what they got. Or being caught, getting it.'

Natalia called Lesnaya within an hour of Charlie returning from the embassy, listening without interruption to everything he recounted. She said, ‘There must be a connection, between the two! Kirs
had
to be a decoy!'

‘Prove it, from the people you've got in custody,' urged Charlie. ‘You did well, personally involving yourself in the questioning.'

‘I'm pretty sure Yatisyna will break quickly.'

‘Did he give you any indication of what he's got?'

‘If he's telling the truth about Kirs being set up by Agayans, he might know who the intended purchasers were.'

‘That could take us a long way forward,' agreed Charlie.

‘I almost promised it at today's meeting.'

‘Don't promise what you haven't got,' warned Charlie. ‘And don't tell anyone else. If you get it, keep it for a higher authority meeting. And get all the credit yourself.'

‘I didn't know anything about the lorries and the cars being found,' Natalia admitted abruptly.

‘Popov didn't tell you before the meeting?' queried Charlie, recalling the look on her face. He could hear Sasha in the background, singing tunelessly.

‘I didn't get up from the interrogation cell until fifteen minutes before it began. There wasn't time. For me to be told about Oskin, either. I personally promised the protection!'

In the solitude of his apartment Charlie frowned. ‘It's work, Natalia! Don't get personally involved. You couldn't have anticipated what was going to happen.'

‘I should have done.'

‘Stop it!' he insisted, sternly.

After several moments' silence, she said, They're obviously very well organized, particularly here in Moscow.'

Charlie hesitated. ‘I wasn't personally challenging Popov. He was assuming too much.'

‘You don't have to keep apologizing.'

‘I'm not apologizing. I just don't want you to misunderstand.'

Beyond the sound of Sasha's tiny, unformed voice Charlie heard a man's shout. Natalia said quickly, ‘I have to go.'

‘Yes.' Popov must be in the hallway: it was obvious he would have his own key.

Charlie replaced the phone feeling emptied. It was a feeling he was to experience a lot in the coming days, increasingly about events involving Natalia. Which was not Charlie allowing an intrusion because invariably those events were professional. He actually wished they hadn't been.

None of which, however, was his immediate concern. That was – finally – the public disclosure of the robbery.

The metal hooks and shackles had probably been fitted into the basement walls when the dacha was first built, to hang meat or support gardening equipment. The bands around Silin's wrists and ankles were very tight and wide apart, so that he was spreadeagled with his arms and legs widely outstretched. He was trying very hard not to show any fear to Sobelov, who stood directly in front of him.

‘I fixed the Pizhma robbery my way,' said Sobelov. ‘I even started the war between the Chechen and the Ostankino just the way you planned, to send everyone around in circles. So there's only one thing I want …'

Silin shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. He was very frightened, knowing he'd totally lost.

‘I want the Moscow contacts, to the nuclear material.'

‘Go to hell,' managed Silin.

‘That's where you're going. But not until I've had my fun. You're going to tell me what I want, you know. You won't be able to stop yourself.'

He wouldn't, determined Silin. Whatever they did to him he'd beat the bastards over that.

chapter 23

C
harlie was first alerted at Lesnaya by the night duty officer at the British embassy, relaying a message from the London Watch Room. He and Kestier both jammed their phones trying to reach the other until Charlie realized what was happening and left his line free, for the American's call. Charlie said, philosophically, it had been inevitable and that he was surprised it hadn't broken sooner. The more subdued Kestier hoped it wouldn't screw the Russian cooperation and promised to be in touch the following day. Which he was, by nine, already at the embassy.

‘It's incredible,' Kestier insisted. ‘I had a round-up sent overnight. There isn't a newspaper or a media outlet in the West that hasn't made it their major story. The comparison with Chernobyl was inevitable, I suppose. Like the death tolls in Japan in 1945. Washington's going to make some announcement during the day; maybe the President himself.'

Kestier was as quiet-voiced as he had been the previous night, which Charlie supposed was natural if the usually ebullient younger man believed things had reached presidential level. ‘Where did the story origininate
from
?'

‘Reuter. Under a Moscow dateline.'

Which wasn't really the answer to his question but Charlie accepted, philosophical still, it wouldn't ever be answered because the source would be impossible to trace. If the American reaction was anything like Kestier was suggesting, it would be mirrored in London with more soggy cornflakes. Despite the time difference, he should be at the embassy. ‘You tried contacting Popov?'

There was a pause from the other end of the line. ‘Still too early.'