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Authors: Brian Freemantle

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Olga’s hesitation was so long it was as if the breath had been taken from her. At last she managed. “I most certainly would if it contributed to the further progress of the investigation!”
“Which I thought was being pursued independently now?” goaded Charlie. There’d been a miscalculation, he guessed. Briskly he said to the lawyers, “Let’s go to make those representations as quickly as we can. Hopefully get things back on course. There’s a lot else for us to do, as you know.”
In the car Noskov said, “It’s political.”
Anne said, “But stupid.”
“Or something,” said Charlie. His feet throbbed, to a metronome beat. Espionage had been a fucking sight easier than this.
 
Charlie arrived at the American embassy just before noon, dropped off at Novinskij Bul’var by the two lawyers on their way back to their respective offices to file their respective protests, promising both as he got out of the car that he’d call if he thought there was anything relevant from the now isolated American investigation. The FBI station chief was waiting in the incident room, closely flanked by Donald Morrison. After the younger man’s back-up during his London absence Charlie didn’t have the heart to exclude the man now that he’d returned.
Charlie anticipated some sort of outburst from the crumpled, cigar-perfumed American at the news of the impending court appearance but John Kayley remained reflectively silent. He didn’t initially interrupt, either, when Charlie began outlining the Bendall bullet disparity but then abruptly held up a stopping hand to lead the way through the linking corridor to the improvised laboratory and the American ballistics scientist.
Willie Ying said at once, “We’ve been waiting for your corroboration.”
“Is that why it isn’t computerized yet?” angrily demanded the ignored MI6 man.
“It’s your defense, against a murder charge,” said Kayley, in a smooth defense of his own. “You wouldn’t have wanted the Russians knowing about it in advance if it had only been a temporary walkout, would you?”
The don’t get sore, get even philosophy was American, remembered Charlie: it would be good somehow to give Morrison his personal chance. But not now. And the man was soon going to learn how things were eked out. “Did you get actual test firings, before the rifle was removed?”
The Chinese smiled. “Twenty, fired at measured graduation from in front and from behind the measurable distance from which Bendall shot. Not a score mark on any of them. Not that distance has got anything to do with it. The best guess is that Bendall’s bullets went off somewhere in the park, behind the White House.”
“We’ve actually looked,” said Kayley. “I had guys examine the most obvious trees-anything that might have stopped a bullet—in the line of fire. Came up with nothing.”
There was a shift of increasing anger from Donald Morrison but before the younger man could speak Charlie said, “I need those testfired bullets. From the runaround I got from Olga Melnik this morning I don’t think I’ll get the rifle for my people to test.”
“You got it,” guaranteed Kayley.
“We’ll need testimony as well,” pressed Charlie.
There was a shrugged, head-nodding exchange between the two Americans. Kayley said, “You got that as well. It’ll be good to show the bastards how wrong they were, walking out on us.”
Charlie couldn’t quite adjust the reasoning but it wasn’t something to dispute. He didn’t physically need the rifle and Anne had her dramatic defense to at least one of the charges likely to be brought. One good turn deserves another, Charlie thought. Offering that morning’s tape he’d brought to be copied into the evidence collection, he said, “George Bendall wants to tell us all about it.” He wondered if Morrison imagined he was a team player or whether the man realized the rules were only applied one way: it might mitigate the humiliation of his being ignored by the Americans.
Kayley smiled as he listened. Halfway through he ignited an aromatic cigar. When the replay ended Kayley said, “He does, doesn’t
he?” Then he said, “You take Bendall just a little further down the road and we’re going to have the others.
The
bastard, whoever he is. And the Russian militia will come crawling back.”
The last part was further reasoning that Charlie found difficulty with but he didn’t dispute that, either. “Let’s hope I can take him further.”
Kayley said, “I’ve got to go upstairs. There are people who’ll want to hear this.”
“They’re bastards, too!” said Morrison, vehemently, as he and Charlie returned to the main incident room.
“Don’t take it personally,” soothed Charlie. “They’d have tried to fuck me if I hadn’t come up with it.”
“You sure?” demanded Morrison.
“Positive,” said Charlie, who wasn’t but wanted to help the other man.
“Hope I haven’t disturbed your room too much,” said Morrison, when they reached it.
To Charlie it didn’t appear to have been occupied by anyone else. He settled into his place with its convenient foot rest and logged on to his computer to bring himself up to date, scrolling patiently through the alphabetically assembled files, stopping abruptly at the name Vasili Gregorovich Isakov. It had been compiled by three named FBI agents and ran to twelve pages, although it wasn’t the written material that immediately interested Charlie. Three photographs had been scanned on to the disk.
 
John Kayley was again included with the ambassador and the secretary of state for the satellite link with Washington but only Walter Anandale and his chief of staff were waiting at the White House end. He’d have to wait, Kayley knew, but it was difficult.
“So we’ve got a new game,” opened the president.
“Which we need to play very carefully,” advised James Scamell.
“How?” said Anandale.
“I think you need to come back for Yudkin’s funeral.”
“You serious! There are still guys out there who tried to kill me!”
“As serious as it’s possible to be, Mr. President. Your not attending will be read every which way, all of them bad. One spin
will be that you’re too scared. Another that you’re abandoning Okulov, to be beaten by the communists. Who are, incidentally, demanding an immediate election to confirm an elected president. Then there’s the treaty. There’s growing media speculation that there was a hidden agenda, that we never ever really intended to conclude it and that it was a cosmetic dance to go on until Yudkin got confirmed for a second term.”
Wendall North admired the secretary of state’s diplomacy. Scamell wasn’t talking of Moscow’s media pressure. He would have got from his own people at Foggy Bottom that morning’s
Washington Post
story of a potential paper trail from oil contract firms finally being followed to Anandale’s election funding. The chief of staff said, “I go along with Jamie’s assessment, Mr. President. We’re in a box here, with only one way out.”
“What’s happening with the investigation, John?” avoided Anandale.
Kayley had risked holding back from either the secretary of state or the ambassador the Russian decision to arraign Bendall, wanting to present it ahead of any official announcement as his personal discovery, despite the breakdown with the Moscow militia. He also explained the ballistic evidence as an exclusive detection of the FBI team he headed. He had to concede the British would be the source of any statement from Bendall from which it might be possible to locate the others in the conspiracy, but did so inferring that Britain needed Bureau manpower and scientific expertise to continue the investigation.
“
Find
the people who shot Ruth!” picked out the president, instantly.
“If we get the statement the Brits expect,” backtracked Kayley.
“Now we’re getting there!” enthused Anandale.
“I’m giving it to you as it’s come to me,” said Kayley, stressing the impression of urgency at the same time as shielding himself from questions he couldn’t answer. “There’s a lot I need explained further, pieces to fit together.”
“We’ve got things to talk about when I get there, John,” hinted Anandale. To the secretary of state he said, “Is it going to be a State occasion? World leaders?”
“I’d imagine so,” said Scamell.
“Find out,” ordered the president. “Here’s how we’ll run it. I’ll come early, for meetings with the British premier and the French president. Overnight either in London or Paris, so I can be in and out of Moscow from either city the same day as the funeral.”
“You need to meet with Okulov,” insisted Scamell.
“Not to do so would be worse than not going at all,” said North, in continued support.
“I’m not giving anything away for nothing,” said Anandale. “You make it clear, whichever way it’s necessary, that I won’t meet Okulov if their damned investigators don’t come back to the table.” He hesitated. “Everything else stands. I’m out of there the same day, OK?”
 
“It’s obvious the British are getting through to Bendall,” insisted Olga, taking the Russian copy of the interview tape from the machine on the table between her and Leonid Zenin.
“And we’re getting every word of it,” the militia commander pointed out.
“If we do get a lead to the rest of them, arraigning Bendall will be premature.”
“It’s out of our hands now,” said Zenin. “And it’s not a trial. It’s a public arraignment, for public consumption: the formal laying of the formal charges. The prosecutor can apply for adjournments as long as we ask him.”
“You sure it’s wise, shutting out the British as we’re shutting out the Americans?” pressed Olga. “They’ve obviously got something.”
“Or bluffing.”
Olga shook her head. “I don’t think he was bluffing.”
“We’ll see how their next interview goes,” decided Zenin. “We can easily get back together if it turns out to be really productive.” He was silent for several moments. “In fact it might be an idea if you were actually present, able to see as well as hear for ourselves. We’re going to come out well from this, Olga Ivanova.”
Olga smiled at his automatically talking in the plural, of both of them. “I think we already have.”
 
 
“You got it, Charlie!” agreed Anne, excitedly. “An absolute defense to murder! An expert witness, even.”
“I’d still prefer him to be British,” said Charlie. He was distracted by the Isakov file. Like so many other unresolved impressions—frustrations—there was something in it demanding to be seen. But like all the others, he couldn’t see it!
“I’ve filed the diplomatic protest. So’s Noskov, legally.” Anne was disappointed-curious even—at how subdued Charlie was.
“We’re still short of too much else.” He was glad he’d printed off the Isakov material to bring back to the embassy, to go over it further.
“There could be the breakthrough with Bendall if you continue teasing him along as well as you did today. And that could be as early as tomorrow.”
Her ambition was making her over-confidence—or overexpectant—Charlie decided. “Then all our problems will be over. Or just beginning.”
“Misery guts!”
“Realist,” he corrected.
Anne put into its designated order the material Charlie carried into her office thirty minutes earlier and gestured vaguely in the direction of the embassy’s residential apartment block. “The weary end to a long day. You fancy a Happy Hour drink?”
Charlie couldn’t at that moment imagine anything he would have enjoyed more. “No.”
“OK.” Anne showed no offense, no anger at a rebuff, which Charlie hadn’t intended it to be.
That night Natalia came to him in bed and the lovemaking was as uninhibited and passionate as he could ever remember, even from their first, excited, discovery days. Afterwards Natalia said, “I’m sorry, Charlie: sorry for too long being such a shit.”
“We’ve both been shits,” said Charlie and at last felt the overdue and searing guilt.
Viktor Ivanovich Karelin was the first intelligence chairman Natalia had ever personally met but the apparent diffidence was so alien to the lower hierarchy with whom she was familiar that she was vaguely disconcerted by it. Which, she acknowledged, she was perhaps supposed to be, although she didn’t get the impression there was any affectation about the self-effacing demeanour. Another interpretation could be that Karelin was so sure of himself and the power he represented that he didn’t feel the need to posture and intimidate.
“Thank you for returning to us so quickly,” greeted Natalia. What would the man have managed to achieve in thirty-six hours compared to what their president-endorsed demand to the Defense Ministry had generated in less than twelve, five of those with the previous night intervening? It would be important for her-the tribunal—not to appear to try to trap the man.
“You stressed the urgency,” reminded Karelin.
“We’re indeed anxious to hear what you have to tell us,” said Filitov, stilted in his eagerness to get himself on the ever-kept record.
“There has clearly been considerable, malicious interference—possibly destruction-of a substantial proportion of archival material concerning Peter Bendall and his family,” admitted Karelin, at once. “I have instituted an enquiry, the results of which I will make fully available to this commission when it is completed.”
Honesty or yet further prevarication? She was the trained interrogator, Natalia reminded herself. “This malicious interference? Is it indiscriminate, consistent with the haphazard pilfering by disgruntled former personnel, about which we talked earlier? Or is there a pattern?”
A smile wisped across Karelin’s face. “There is unquestionably a pattern.”
Had the smile been admiration or something else? Having been specific Natalia intentionally generalized. “Help us with that.”
“No material whatsoever remains for what would have been the last five years of Peter Bendall’s life.”
“And the son?”
“Nothing.”
“Which there would-should-have been?”
“Unquestionably.” The woman, with her KGB background, was the only one who might be difficult. The lawyer and the politician were spreading their bets.
“So the interference has been calculated, carried out for a reason?”
“Obviously,” agreed the FSB chairman.
“What reason?” demanded Yuri Trishin.
Karelin frowned. “That’s what I’ve set up an internal enquiry to find out.” The man looked fleetingly across the echoing Kremlin room towards the record-keeping secretariat. “There is clearly an attempt being made to discredit the organization I head by apparently implicating it in the assassination of the president. The FSB was, obviously, in no way involved. Its only culpability is a serious lapse of internal security, which has already been corrected as well as those responsible being punished.”
The fulcrum upon which Natalia’s early employment in the KGB had been balanced was her being able to judge whether the person she was interviewing was lying or being truthful. Karelin had conceded what they already knew. And had established internal enquiries, which was precisely what her outside commission had been created to prevent. Despite which Natalia’s professional assessment was that the FSB chairman was telling the truth. Continuing to call upon her previous association and awareness of Russian intelligence working, Natalia said, “Peter Bendall’s records would not have been concentrated. Archives would have been cross-referenced with Registry. While he was alive, even though his practical use might have become minimal, there would have been a current file maintained upon him?”
The shadowy smile came and went again. “It’s the very fact that
the removal has been from several different centers that
confirms
a pattern.”
“Nothing whatsoever beyond that which has already been made available has survived?” persisted Natalia.
Karelin had his tidbit ready. “I have obtained from Registry the identities of four of Peter Bendall’s Control officers, one of whom might, calculated from the son’s age, have been the man who might have corrected George Bendall in his teens and obtained psychiatric help for him.”
“The KGB would have had a copy of that treatment,” insisted Natalia.
“I’ve checked. There is no copy,” said the man.
There was a shift from the men either side of her but Natalia remained unmoving, curious at how Karelin was providing his information. He was unarguably cooperating but at his own careful pace, which she realized she was making easy for him. The occasional smiles were more likely to be self-satisfaction—just tinged with gratitude-at how he was manipulating her questioning than admiration of her technique. It would be as wrong too obviously to challenge the man as it would not to make him aware, as subtly as possible, that she recognized his skill. “I’d like to think that he particularly was available to help us. But I don’t imagine that any of them are.”
“They’re all dead,” the FSB chairman confirmed. She was
very
good, to have anticipated that: a loss to the service, in fact.
“How?”
Karelin, in his complete self-confidence, decided to test the woman. “The first, who took Peter Bendall over upon his arrival in 1972, died of cancer in 1975. His successor had a stroke, in 1981. The Control most likely to have put George Bendall back in line—briefly at least-was electrocuted by faulty wiring in his apartment and the fourth committed suicide by hanging himself. He was one of the officers made redundant during the restructuring of the old service.”
“A disgruntled officer!” seized Filitov, overanxiously.
“Beyond which we’ve already extended the discussion,” dismissed
Natalia. Karelin hadn’t finished but wanted prompting, she guessed. “You didn’t give dates, for the last two deaths?”
She’d more than passed the test, decided Karelin. “The man most likely to have lectured George Bendall died three months ago. The one who committed suicide did so last month.”
“Both deaths were accepted for what they appeared to be?” came in Filitov, unexpectedly.
Karelin took folders from his briefcase, offering them across the table. “They are the personnel files on all four. The last two are marked. Both their deaths are now being investigated for possible suspicious circumstances. The result of those investigations, like the internal security breaches, will be made available.”
Another intelligence-restricted enquiry, Natalia noted. “But there had to be other Controls after these-at least one-during the last five years of Peter Bendall’s life?” She spoke looking down at the newly presented dossiers, needing the names. None fitted.
“Yes,” agreed Karelin.
“And a case officer—or officers-for the son?”
“That’s the system.” There was no way an outside tribunal like this could breach the protection built up over so long by the succeeding intelligence services but it would be wrong for him to be complacent about this woman.
“We made another request, at our previous meeting,” reminded Natalia. “About FSB presence at Burdenko Hospital?”
“There is no FSB—or long-established KGB—presence at Burdenko Hospital,” asserted Karelin, positively.
It was time, Natalia decided. Despite the awkwardness with which Karelin had tried to ringmaster the encounter she still had to guard against appearing confrontational. “There is-or has been—some sharing between us, the Americans and the British, into the shooting of the presidential group; more particularly, perhaps, with the British who have consular access to Bendall. Their interview recordings are automatically duplicated …”
Karelin sat politely attentive, making no effort to anticipate what Natalia might say but knowing there was something for which he had not been able to prepare.
“At one such interview yesterday Bendall claimed the KGB maneuvred
his admission into the Russian army. And that a Control was infiltrated to monitor whatever function he was expected to perform in the military,” continued Natalia.
“I know nothing of this,” said Karelin. His face was mask-like.
It was predictable but Natalia had still hoped for more. “From the interview it would appear Bendall’s Control was withdrawn or discharged from his specialized unit after Bendall’s persistent refusal to operate as he was instructed.”
“It should be fairly simple to check personnel movement from military records, especially from a specialized unit,” said Karelin, at once. He genuinely didn’t know anything about it but it was quite likely to be the case. And if it was, it took the enquiry outside his—of FSB—containment.
Perfect, decided Natalia. “We realized that. This morning, unfortunately not in time to advise you in advance of your coming here, the Defense Ministry provided us with the names of fifteen men discharged, transferred or reassigned from Bendall’s group during the first six months of the man’s service …” She pushed the Defense file across the desk towards the intelligence chief. “The four Control names you’ve supplied are not among these. We’d like you to have Registry run a check, against the fifteen.”
Karelin hesitated, then picked up the folder. “I cannot confirm the KGB had anything to do with arranging Bendall’s army service.”
Karelin felt himself tricked, despite her effort to prevent his thinking that. “We accept that, Chairman Karelin. It’s not what we’re asking you to confirm. We are asking you to compare the fifteen names through Registry, in an attempt to discover if any KGB personnel accompanied George Bendall into his military service. That should be very easily possible, shouldn’t it? Within hours, even?”
“I would expect so,” agreed the expressionless man.
“If one of them does appear in Registry, let’s hope he’s still alive,” said Natalia.
 
The meeting had been convened solely because of the FSB chairman’s approach to them and Filitov and Trishin appeared surprised that Natalia didn’t move at once to suspend it until the promisedwithin-hours
result of their new request to the man. But Natalia decided that she had sufficient excuse-if not the true reason—to argue against George Bendall’s court arraignment.
There were other more self-protective points she felt necessary to establish, too. Virtually as the door closed behind Viktor Karelin, she said, “What’s your feeling about what we’ve just been told?”
Each man looked to the other to respond first.
“Pavl Ivanovich?” pressed Natalia.
“It’s positive confirmation of the conspiracy being within the FSB,” declared the lawyer.
“Yuri Fedorovich?”
“I was surprised at the chairman’s openness,” said the presidential chief of staff.
“He has, though, taken all the enquiries away from us—kept everything internal-which we were specifically appointed to prevent,” Natalia pointed out.
“He’s undertaken to make them available to us,” said Filitov.
“
Something
will be made available,” qualified Natalia. “We have no independent way or method of knowing whether we are being told the truth. Or how much of any enquiry is being given to us. We’ve been very effectively and very cleverly neutered.”
Trishin shifted, uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Think about it,” demanded Natalia.
The silence lasted several moments before Filitov said, “What do you suggest?”
Natalia tapped Karelin’s naming dossiers. “An independent, professional militia investigation into the two most recent and violent deaths. A presidential insistence upon there being an outside militia presence or monitor on the internal FSB enquiries. And an independent militia trace upon the fifteen names we received this morning from the Defense Ministry.”
“That’s directly challenging Chairman Karelin’s integrity,” protested Filitov.
“Not to do so is directly challenging ours, and by inference that of the acting president,” insisted Natalia, acknowledging the repetition of the same argument as before but at that moment anxious to move on to what she considered the other, more important argument.
“The Defense Ministry names opens the door into the conspiracy.”
“Only if one of them is on the FSB Registry,” insisted Filitov.
“No,” refused Natalia. “We’ve got last known addresses as well as names. And every legal justification for having the militia fully investigate every one, as soon and as quickly as possible. Beginning today, in fact.”
There was a pause from both men.
Filitov said, “Yes, I suppose that, specifically, would be the right course for us to take.”
“I agree,” said Trishin.
“Which surely creates something else to be considered?” suggested Natalia.
“What?” demanded Filitov.
“The court arraignment of George Bendall.”
“What consideration is that of this commission?” demanded Filitov.
“Quite separately from anything with which Chairman Karelin might return, from the Registry check, we are providing the militia with a source which could lead us to others involved in the conspiracy, could greatly affect the charges and prosecution against George Bendall,” said Natalia. Directly addressing Filitov, she said, “Surely the prosecution doesn’t know enough for an arraignment, this early? Aren’t you risking a flawed case, not giving the investigation more time.”
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