Red Star Burning (22 page)

Could he safely interpret the
Pravda
sign that it was safe to go anywhere near Natalia’s Pecatnikov Pereulok apartment, outside of which Monsford’s photographer had pictured her and Sasha just six days ago? Not yet. Not until he was surer the gardens were safe: that it
was
Natalia’s intended indicator. Maybe not even then. It was inconceivable that Natalia’s home was not under the most concentrated surveillance: the FSB would have
wanted
Natalia and Sasha to be photographed, seemingly free, to flavor their snare.

His safer course was to continue with their original, personal tradecraft. And there were other, more immediate self-protections to be established, updated now by an urgent need for medication to ease his red-hot bug bites. The stuttering shower gave some temporary relief until the trouser-chafing walk through the departing congestion of whores and their whoremongers on his way from the hotel. Charlie was abruptly halted on the pavement by the thought of checking the nearby gardens again but decided it was too soon for a visible response to his
Pravda
deposit. Instead, not abandoning the idea altogether, Charlie used a remembered kiosk conveniently close to the Ulitsa Mira Metro in preference to his pay-as-you-go mobile to dial the number he’d copied from the box in which he’d found the particularly folded newspaper, allowing it to ring unanswered for a full minute before hanging up.

He got a seat on the circle-line train, lessening his insect discomfort, which flared only when he switched for the Arbat connection, which he intentionally chose for its concealing swamp of similarly dressed Western tourists in which to sink out of detectable sight. A more fortunate, secondary benefit was a pharmacy from which Charlie bought balm and insect repellent. He dialed the unresponding botanical gardens’ phone twice from different telephone kiosks as he moved through the tourist mecca, buying on his way the previous day’s London
Times
and
Telegraph,
as well as a selection of that day’s Russian and English-language newspapers. Charlie used them to reserve his seat in an enclosed, office workers’ street buffet while he balmed his overnight wounds in its lavatory.

The
Telegraph
reported a Dutch intelligence theory that Malcolm Stoat, whom it described as a man of mystery of whom no official identification records or background existed in England, was a fleeing Russian spy kidnapped by British counterintelligence. That day’s English-language
Moscow News
also printed the legend name and linked, although without explanation, the Amsterdam disappearance with what it referred to as reorganization within the FSB.

Charlie sipped his sludgelike coffee and spread soured cheese on his black bread, conscious of the Malcolm Stoat passport in his inside jacket pocket, next to that day’s itinerary promising a free-time afternoon for the Manchester travel group. How free, wondered Charlie, would it remain, which was a question he needed to answer.

He risked the bar with its panoramic overview of the Rossiya, managing to get a stool and a double measure of properly distilled vodka in a shadowed area between the counter and the rear wall, calculating that his slight loss of outside view was compensated by his being hidden from at least a third of the other customers, closely studying those still visible for professionally telltale attitudes or recognizable London faces. Finding neither, Charlie switched his concentration to the hotel outside, almost at once isolating Neil Preston from the London introductory session, wincing critically at the man occupying the same porch that Patrick Wilkinson had the day before but with even less concealment. There was no one obviously watching from where he’d picked out the man with the straggled mustache.

Charlie realistically accepted the Malcolm Stoat name would have had far wider disclosure than in the two media references he’d found. The name had already been available from the aircraft passenger manifest for more than forty-eight hours now, and from his previous day’s hotel observation, London had definitely discovered the location of the holiday group among which he’d hidden. But they’d had the name—and known of his vanishing act—from the outset. Moscow hadn’t. Neither had it been on the block-visa documentation submitted by Manchester to the Russian embassy in London, only on the hotel registration here and at Sheremetyevo airport. Certainly not available for as long as forty-eight hours then. But he was still surprised the Rossiya wasn’t swarmed by FSB, which it obviously wasn’t, from Neil Preston being patiently, if amateurishly, on duty.

Noon, Charlie saw from the bar clock, as he gestured for another drink. The itinerary scheduled a twelve-forty-five return. He’d wait, he decided. He had no intention of trying to reconnect with the Manchester group but it was important he get some indication of what had happened to them. The FSB knew that he was coming, just not when and how. But they’d have made the connection from his Amsterdam disappearance. What happened—and when—to Muriel Simpson and her band of travelers would trigger the positive start of the FSB’s hunt for him.

He hadn’t tried the marked telephone in the botanical gardens for more than an hour, Charlie reminded himself. Now, midday, might be a good time. There was a phone on the far side of the bar but it was open fronted and the place was noisily crowded with lunchtime customers. He’d have to speak loudly, shout even, if there was a reply and probably have difficulty hearing himself. It was hardly likely Natalia would be there to pick up the receiver, anyway. His best—probably only—chance was to continue the nighttime vigils, as surreptitiously as he was professionally able.

Abruptly he saw the tourist coach.

Charlie was gesturing for a third drink, momentarily looking toward the bartender, and when he looked back to the window Charlie at once recognized the vehicle from the journey from the airport, stopped at that moment by a car emerging through the forecourt-entry gap. The coach impatiently edged forward as the car almost imperceptibly eased out, stopping altogether as it more positively obstructed the skewed coach. At the same time, the car horn blared an obvious signal for three closed, military-style vehicles to tire-scream from both directions down the suddenly emptied, sealed road to form a complete encirclement. At the same time, the scene was flooded by lights, brightly illuminating the arrival of two more slower and bigger military vehicles that disgorged helmeted, body-armored men in camouflage uniforms who at once began herding at jabbing gunpoint the bewildered, stumbling Manchester tourists, four of the women crying hysterically, from their coach into the larger vans. Briefly a white-faced Muriel Simpson appeared to stare directly into the bar at the watching Charlie.

The traffic-clearing military-convoy sirens momentarily overwhelmed the astonished uproar inside the bar, but neither conflicting noises prevented Charlie’s very clearly hearing an English voice say, whisper-close to his ear: “Why aren’t I surprised to find you here, Charlie?”

*   *   *

The MI6 Director stared up from the transcript James Straughan had protectively printed verbatim of his conversation with their Moscow station chief an hour earlier, Monsford’s mouth forming the words but not able to utter them. Finally he managed: “Cairo! Radtsic very definitely identified Cairo!”

“I specifically took Jacobson over that three times. He’s adamant Radtsic stipulated Cairo because the significance of Cairo didn’t mean anything to him: still doesn’t, because I didn’t explain it.”

“And Radtsic has consistently denied knowing anything but the vaguest circumstances of the Lvov case?” echoed Monsford, going back to the transcript.

“Radtsic claims he wasn’t even in the KGB’s Lubyanka headquarters when it began: that he was a serving officer in St. Petersburg,” confirmed Straughan, irritated at the other man’s repeating his point-by-point memorandum.

“It’s not right,” declared Monsford. “Something’s definitely not right.”

“Let’s not overinterpret it,” cautioned Rebecca Street. “According to what we know of Radtsic’s history he
was
in St. Petersburg in 1982. But he
would
have been involved in the inquest after what Charlie did this year: read and heard enough to have picked up Cairo as its starting point.”

“Most of what’s available of Radtsic’s career was provided by Radtsic himself, after he made his approach to us,” reminded Straughan. “We’ve no independent confirmation of anything he’s told us.”

“So what?” dismissed the woman. “He’d still have been involved in the review of the Lvov disaster and learned before then how Cairo figured.”

“Why’s he told Jacobson he knows virtually nothing about it?” persisted Monsford, his mind locked on the inconsistency.

Rebecca shrugged, conscious that Monsford hadn’t activated his personal recording apparatus. “He knows he’s got to sing loud and clear for his supper once he gets here. Jacobson’s the facilitator, not the one he’s got to impress by what he knows. My guess is he let Cairo slip as a taster.”

“I don’t rely on guesses,” rejected Monsford, stiffly.

“Fifty percent of our decisions begin largely from guesswork,” Rebecca argued. “Or intuition, at least. Okay, Radtsic’s provided his own legend. But we know, from our independent identification, that he
is
Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic. And that Maxim Radtsic is
the
executive deputy of the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti who wants to defect to us. What the hell more do we need?”

Instead of answering, Monsford turned to the operations director, fluttering his printout. “Is this everything Jacobson had to say?”

“It’s planned as a front-faced extraction,” set out Straughan, determined to establish his personal safeguards. “We’re providing a genuine Russian passport, with Radtsic’s genuine photograph, describing him as a chemical engineer. The British entry visas are genuine, embassy issued, with all the necessary supporting documentation and accreditations for a trade visit here. It contains all the necessary Russian exit visas. He’ll be accompanied by three of our people I’ve already sent, independently and unknown to each other, to wait in separate Moscow hotels. The Moscow departure of Radtsic’s plane will be signaled to those in place at Heathrow. We’ll disembark him first, holding everyone else onboard, bypass all entry formalities, and take him direct to the safe house for his reunion with his Elana and Andrei.”

Monsford’s frown had deepened during Straughan’s presentation. “Why are you telling me what we’ve already planned?”

“Because I believe there needs to be reexamination and maybe replanning. Currently it’s a failsafe extraction, already set up and rehearsed, except for two exceptions.”

“Which are?” questioned Rebecca, aligning herself with the operations director’s doubts.

“The absence of Radtsic himself from that rehearsal, which nevertheless isn’t the main problem: all the man’s got to do is go through an embarkation procedure. What’s most likely to go wrong is the Charlie Muffin diversion.”

“Your point?” demanded Monsford, angry at being confronted.

“According to Radtsic, Elana’s exit visa will show up in a matter of days. When it does, Radtsic’s extraction isn’t any longer failsafe. It’s too heavily compromised. And we don’t know where the hell Charlie Muffin is, let alone have any idea how to inveigle him. We don’t need the complication.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” rejected Monsford. “I asked what else Jacobson said.”

“I don’t think we should wait, either,” intruded Rebecca, joining the objection. “We couldn’t even guarantee Charlie Muffin reaching Moscow with Jacobson on the same bloody plane! We need Muffin under programmed surveillance, which we don’t have.”

Monsford studiously ignored the woman, focused upon Straughan. Who risked an exasperated sigh at the obduracy of the other man. “Jacobson thinks it’s safer to restrict his contact with Radtsic to cell phone, until we move.”

“I thought Radtsic believed all his telephones to be tapped?” challenged Rebecca.

“Single-use Russian cell phones, discarded directly after one call,” elaborated Straughan. “No way it could be intercepted. Staple tradecraft.”

“I’m not…” started Monsford but stopped at the intrusion of his security-cleared personal telephone. He said: “Yes,” and listened without interruption for no more than seconds. Looking up to the other two, he said: “Moscow’s staged its own theatrical production. They’ve arrested the entire Manchester tour group and televised themselves doing it.”

“But Charlie Muffin wasn’t among them?” anticipated Straughan.

“Of course he wasn’t among them,” snapped Monsford, peevishly.

“As he won’t be around for any diversion,” predicted Rebecca, shaking her head to Straughan in a prearranged signal.

*   *   *

Charlie didn’t respond and David Halliday didn’t say anything further, instead leading their way out through a side exit to avoid the still eye-squinting television strobes and continuing on foot in the opposite direction to distance themselves from the scene, picking their way through horn-protesting traffic jammed by the line of vehicles from the still-militia-sealed Rossiya Hotel.

It was Charlie who called them to a halt, demanded by permanently protesting hammer-toed feet, indicating the cinema and shop complex on Ulitsa Kirova. “There’s a bar, on the first floor.”

“They’ll serve cat’s piss.”

“It’ll be drinkable cat’s piss. My feet hurt.” Charlie’s mind was way ahead of his painful, step-at-a-time ascent to the bar level. The MI6 officer had maintained an arm’s-length acquaintance during the Lvov affair, tiptoeing at the very edge in the hope of personal advancement without endangering involvement, able to quote to the penny the pension he’d receive at the conclusion of a disaster-spared career. Why then, instead of slinking away, had the man risked approaching as he had? And, even more unexpected, discarded that previously avoided association by coming with him into this cigarette-smogged, body-odored shopping-mall bar into which he would not normally have allowed himself to be dragged by the wildest of wild horses?