Brian Freemantle - Red Star Burning

“London’s orders are to find out everything we can without going anywhere near him. The possibility is that he’s being babysat by the FSB.”

“If he is, there’s a risk they’ll pick up on our sniffing around,” warned Abrahams.

“That’s why Straughan told me to be careful,” reminded Miller.

“Comforting, isn’t it, to get advice we wouldn’t have thought of ourselves from an operations director safe and warm in London?” mocked Abrahams.

It was two days before Charlie was summoned for further questioning. In that interim he was held in the barred and locked first-floor room of the hunting lodge with only the gazelle heads for company, apart from morning and afternoon exercise periods in the grounds with two male escorts who refused any conversation and during which there were intentionally staged sightings of other guards. None was visibly armed.

The second session was in the same menagerie-festooned room as before but with a smaller inquiry panel, just Smith, Jane Ambersom, and the overpoweringly large man from the initial interrogation. There was no replay machine on the side table, which had been moved away to the corner of the room.

Once again there was no preamble, although it was the woman who opened the questioning. She took photographs from a case file in front of her and said: “Who is this woman?”

Bitch, thought Charlie, at the same time recognizing the disparagement was intentional, to rile him, which he dismissed as stupid as well as clumsy. There was still the stomach jump of recognition when he took the offered photograph. It was a remarkably sharp image. Natalia was wearing the tightly belted light summer coat he remembered from their most recent Moscow reunion in the Botanical Gardens. She was looking sideways, almost over her shoulder, as if something had suddenly caught her attention. “Natalia Fedova, my wife.”

“And this?”

“Our daughter, Alexandra, which shortens to Sasha,” replied Charlie, looking down at the second print. The child was wearing her school uniform and hat, smiling up at someone who had been cropped from the picture. “When were these taken?”

Jane Ambersom moved to speak, but before she could Monsford replied: “The day before yesterday.”

Aubrey Smith formally introduced Monsford for the first time and said: “SIS are cooperating with us.”

The woman was looking tight faced between the two directors, clearly irritated at both responding to questioning.

“They’re still free then?” pressed Charlie, momentarily off-balanced by MI6’s involvement. It was logical, he conceded, that there would have been linked operations in the past, although he’d never actively participated in one. Charlie remembered the name. During his earlier Moscow assignment the gossip in the MI6 rezidentura had tagged Monsford as a reincarnation of Genghis Khan suffering a bad attack of toothache. There’d also been a rumor the man had tried to muscle in to the Lvov affair.

“Let’s get some order back into this debriefing, shall we?” said Jane Ambersom. “There’s a lot more answers we need to get from you.”

“I have not committed any criminal offense!” Charlie said, embarking on one of the several half-formed strategies he’d considered over the preceding forty-eight hours. “Nor have I contravened the Official Secrets Act, to which I am a signatory. My being in the protection program does not require my being held under detention.”

Jane Ambersom’s snort of derision was too obviously forced. “Doesn’t one of the most essential clauses in the Official Secrets Act cover consorting with an enemy!”

“It is an entire section, not a clause,” formally corrected Charlie, both to further her irritation and for the benefit of the bureaucratic recordings. “And that question is both a distortion and a misphrasing of its wording. I have never contravened any section of any act involving, covering, or forbidding the passing of intelligence secrets or information to a foreign power or intelligence service.…” He gestured with the prints he still held. “I provided the specific time and date of my marriage to Natalia Fedova, which I know you will have by now confirmed from Moscow’s Hall of Weddings records. I also know that in the intervening two days since I appeared before you, my operational files will have been scrutinized for the slightest indication of failure being attributed to my…” Charlie paused again, directly addressing the woman: “to use what appears to be a favored phrase, consorting with the enemy. No indication whatsoever of which will have been found, because none exists. I want … if you like, I plead for … help to get my wife and daughter out of a situation in which, if our relationship is positively established by the FSB, they could be physically harmed, as it was believed I would be physically harmed for Russia’s failure of the Lvov affair, to prevent which I have been put under protection … protection, not house arrest.”

Once more Jane Ambersom’s face was on fire, either from her confusion or her expectation that Charlie would continue, but again Monsford spoke ahead of her. The MI6 Director, hands clasped over his expansive stomach, said: “That was a very spirited and well-argued defense of a charge not yet alleged. But do you believe that buried in all the legislation to which you’ve referred-the Official Secrets Act the most obvious-there isn’t a legal accusation that one of our specialized lawyers could formulate against you?”

Charlie didn’t think he’d left any gaping pitfalls: certainly Monsford’s response was encouraging, even if the man’s inclusion was unsettling and needed separate, intense examination. Don’t falter, he told himself. “I’m quite sure there are several charges that could be laid. But I’m even surer that they’d be thrown out of court, although perhaps with an admonishment which I’d expect, after it was proven there has never been any breach of security.”

“Haven’t we wandered too far from the purpose of this meeting!” protested Jane Ambersom, finally reentering the exchanges.

“Just one thing!” said Charlie, hurriedly, pleased at the woman’s exclusion and talking directly to the MI6 chief. “Were both those photographs taken two days ago?”

“Yes,” confirmed Monsford.

“So they were both still free: not under detention?”

“Yes, both still free.”

Charlie looked back at the print of Natalia, closely studying the background for the first time. “And she was outside the apartment I identified?”

“When is this session going to be formalized!” again protested Jane.

“Was there any indication of surveillance?” persisted Charlie, snatching at every opportunity.

“None,” confirmed Monsford. For some must watch, while some must sleep. So runs the world away, he thought: why was it that Shakespeare had a comment for every situation? Hamlet, he remembered. This would have a happier ending, he was sure.

Natalia and Sasha were still safe! But how professional had the MI6 photographer been? agonized Charlie, who’d never trusted dawn to follow night. If the photographer had failed to detect Russian observation but been identified himself, he would have hastened an FSB move.

“I really do think we’ve answered enough of your questions,” said Aubrey Smith. “Now answer more of ours.”

“From the date of your wedding, which we have indeed confirmed, against the date you provided for Sasha’s birth, Natalia Fedova was pregnant before you married?” established Jane Ambersom, taking up the questioning again. Her tone made it sound like an accusation.

No longer “this woman,” Charlie recognized. “Yes.”

“How long had the affair been going on, before the marriage?”