Brian Freemantle - Red Star Burning

“What the fuck!” exploded Jacobson, finally thrusting the suitcase away from his shoulder into the rear of the vehicle. He was only vaguely aware of the clatter of loose things, his concentration tensed for the siren scream of arrest.

“Very much what the fuck!” returned the Russian, pushing himself upright.

“What’s happening?… What’s in the case…?”

Radtsic recovered first. “I’m the senior FSB deputy: you actually think I would act as bait, for your seizure!”

Jacobson’s fear was molding into humiliation at his overreaction. “We never talked about a case … about your carrying anything.”

“It’s not a bomb, Harry. And our listening devices are miniaturized, just like yours. The case contains all the personal things that Elana wants to take with her. But with which we’d never get past airport security.”

Jacobson was glad the darkness would cover the redness flaming his face. “You should have warned me.”

“Yes, I should, shouldn’t I?”

“You frightened me,” admitted Jacobson.

“I’m sorry.” The Russian jerked his head back toward the case. “You can ship that out in the diplomatic bag, can’t you?”

“I suppose … yes, of course we can. Will there be anything more?”

“I’d hoped there wouldn’t be the need for many more meetings: that you were going to tell me the final details tonight.”

“It’s close. But not yet.”

“Not too much longer: I can’t wait too much longer. Neither can Elana.”

“You won’t have to,” promised Jacobson, hoping he was right.

“I’ve told my father,” announced Yvette Paruch. She was sitting naked at Andrei’s dressing table, until then methodically counting aloud the brushstrokes to her waist-length, deeply black hair but looking at him in the mirror’s reflection.

“You’re exciting me, sitting like that.” Andrei Maximovich was naked, too, still sprawled across their bed.

“I can see for myself.” Yvette smiled, into the mirror. “I said I’ve told my father I’ve moved in with you.”

“What did he say?”

“That he hoped I was sure. And to be careful not to become pregnant until I was.”

“What did you say?”

“That I was but that I wouldn’t get pregnant.”

“Did you tell him I’m Russian?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You know why not.”

“So I’m not going to meet him?”

“He invited us down for the vacation.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I want him to meet the man I’m in love with.”

“He’ll pick up my accent: know I’m not French.”

“Are you frightened?”

“Having survived the Nazi occupation of Warsaw but seen both his parents killed by Russian soldiers, I think he deserves to be told in advance, not when we get there.”

“One hundred!” she declared, finishing her routine, swiveling on her stool to face him. “What about you? Are you going to tell your parents?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t choose to.”

“Does that mean you don’t love me? That it’s just more convenient to fuck me if I live here instead of staying on in my own apartment?”

“That’s ridiculous and dirty and you know it!”

“Why not then! Because I’m Jewish?”

“You’re being ridiculous: intentionally making an argument. Stop it!”

“You know everything about me. I don’t know anything about you. Let’s not go down to Aix for the vacation. Take me to Moscow instead.”

“I’d rather go to Aix.”

“I’d rather go to Moscow.”

“We’ll think about it.”

“You’re not excited anymore,” she said, giggling.

“No, I’m not, am I?” he agreed.

Charlie slept intermittently, aware of the infrared monitoring, and feigned sleep when he’d been awake, his concentration entirely upon how to reverse some of the impressions he’d conveyed during his original questioning in the desperate hope of gaining some personal involvement in the rescue of Natalia and Sasha. He’d stupidly confronted them, outargued the ridiculously mind-seized deputy director-general, for Christ’s sake! He could probably deceive a woman as obdurate as Jane Ambersom but realistically it wouldn’t be as easy with either Aubrey Smith or Gerald Monsford. And not just them. The recordings would be reexamined and soberly reanalyzed, every pause and nuance tested for the slightest suspicion-prompting, overeager ambiguity. Ambersom had been more than overeager. Desperate: as desperate as Natalia had increasingly sounded during the pleading calls that had been torturously played back to him.

Charlie wished he could listen to those recordings again. The words had registered and he’d known it was Natalia’s voice and not an impersonation, but in that brief, totally startled awareness he hadn’t properly heard them. Not the intonations or hesitations or an emphasis she might have imposed for him to gauge how exposed she and Sasha were. No, he didn’t need to hear the recording, Charlie corrected himself, once more refusing the self-deception. He knew exactly how exposed Natalia and Sasha were, just as he knew the pressure under which she’d been put to make the calls. He couldn’t-wouldn’t-fail her this time. Had she failed him? Charlie frowned at the unthinking jealousy, straining for recall. Igor Karakov, he remembered: a teacher at Sasha’s school. Just as quickly as the doubt came, Charlie rejected it. A friend, Natalia had said when he’d been in Moscow the last time: only a friend. She wouldn’t lie.

As he had earlier, escaping from Chelsea, Charlie fought against the impatience to get up earlier than usual, to be ready. If Smith or Monsford didn’t isolate his eagerness, the visually watching, voiceprinting analysts might. He actually remained in bed longer than normal but, as he had for the Jersey expedition, caught up during his showering and shaving, noting the outside rain.

“You got umbrellas?” he asked the guard, when his breakfast rolls and coffee arrived: if the debriefing was to be before noon, there wouldn’t be morning exercise.

Predictably there was no response. Charlie ate half a roll he didn’t want and crumbled the remainder to disguise how much he’d left and took his customary second cup of coffee, which that morning he didn’t want either. He didn’t try to read beyond the headlines of The Times that had come with his food, but did it twice to prevent the cursoriness being obvious. There was no newspaper connection with the Lvov episode, but to double check-as well as to fill time-Charlie scrolled through the Sky and BBC news channels and drew another blank. Charlie’s hopes rose when there was no exercise escort accompanying the breakfast retrieval and they grew when the exercise delay extended to twenty minutes. It reached a full thirty before the two men arrived. Neither wore a waterproof.

Charlie said: “We’re going to get wet.”

The man in charge said: “The rain will have stopped by this afternoon,” and Charlie’s surprise at getting a response collided with the satisfaction of knowing there was going to be another interrogation.

He had to proceed slower than a snail with hammer-toed flat feet as painful as his own, Charlie reminded himself, entering the familiar animal-murder room.

The three faced him in the same order as before but with the addition today of the replay machine, from which at once Charlie knew there’d been further Moscow contact. It was important for him to hear the new recording before making his intended pitch. The delay would enable him to detect attitude changes among those sitting in judgement upon him: to detect the slightest nuance to help what he wanted to achieve. Gerald Monsford sat Buddha-like with his hands familiarly cupping his expansive stomach, as if it required support. Charlie thought Jane Ambersom’s buttoned-to-the-neck Mao suit the perfect if outdated uniform for an indeterminately sexed torturer and at once stifled his wandering reflections. There had to be only one undivided concentration today and it didn’t include antagonism toward the deputy director-general, of whose personal dislike he’d already had too much evidence. It was Aubrey Smith who opened the session, which momentarily surprised Charlie.