Brian Freemantle - Red Star Burning

“Ian Flood,” responded Passmore, without hesitation. “He’s one of four on standby, all with valid visas,”

“Charlie likes the Savoy, near Red Square,” remembered Smith. “That’s where he lived during the Lvov investigation. Flood’s to book in there and Charlie’s to be told that’s where his contact is. But don’t tell Wilkinson the hotel name. I don’t want any more mistakes. Charlie will identify it by being told it’s his favorite.” Smith looked between the other two. “What else do we need to do?”

“Once Charlie’s got his travel money and the passports there’s no reason why he can’t move at once,” picked up Passmore. “I can get our second team in today, with Flood going in first. All we’d need from Charlie is routes and arrival day.”

“I wasn’t exaggerating Monsford’s paranoia,” said Smith. “I also believe he’s capable of paranoid orders, dressed up with whatever justification. Tell Flood’s team, upon my authority, to confront like with like if necessary.”

“You’re surely not imagining a gunfight at the O.K. Corral?” asked Passmore.

“Those are the orders, in my name,” said Smith.

“I’ve got an idea,” announced Jane. “First I need to know if anything was said this morning about Straughan?”

Smith shook his head. “It was mentioned. Monsford denied knowing any details, apart from it not being a security problem and that Rebecca was handling it.”

“Ducking and weaving again,” Jane recognized. “How’d it be if there was an alert that MI6 has been penetrated, particularly after the suicide of its operations director? A security purge might even find Rebecca Street’s copy of what Straughan made.”

“I think it might cause Monsford a very big problem.” Smith smiled.

“Not if the internal search is controlled by Monsford,” Passmore pointed out.

“It can’t be,” insisted Jane. “The regulations are that it would have to be independent of currently serving officers.”

Gerald Monsford’s purple-faced fury, accompanied by seemingly uncontrollable facial twitching, was greater than Rebecca had witnessed before, although the irrational pacing was familiar. For a long time after his stormed entry it was impossible for the man to speak comprehensibly: even attempted words burst out incomplete or slurred.

“Bastards … fucking bastards … imagine!” Then came what appeared another indecipherable splutter. “Sided with him, with Smith … against me! Me … gave them their fucking coup. All Smith’s fault … all the mistakes. Incredible. Unbelievable…”

Rebecca remained silent, letting the diatribe burn itself out, beginning to interpret and still listening but giving over most of her concentration to review all that she’d personally done or put into practice since James Straughan’s suicide. She’d left nothing undone or unchecked, nothing that Monsford could pick up and challenge: she was sure she hadn’t. Apart, of course, from the involvement of Jane Ambersom, which was causing the unease to churn through her. She was convinced Straughan had kept his own copy of the incriminating material. There was still a chance, a lot of chances, of its being uncovered and it was to her that each and every discovery had to be handed, unopened, unheard, or unread. But she’d wanted to recover it by now: needed to know she had the protection of the only one in existence.

Rebecca’s concentration refocused at Monsford’s sighed collapse behind the expansive desk, ignoring the folder in readiness before him. Risking a renewed eruption, she said: “We need to redefine a few things. Are you going to handle Moscow or shall I do what needs to be done there?”

“Leave it!” snapped Monsford. “I’m handling Moscow personally. What the fuck’s happened with Straughan? How did Smith know?”

She had to get it out of the way, Rebecca knew. “Jane Ambersom’s name and number was on a call-in-emergency list at Straughan’s house.”

This time Monsford was rendered completely speechless, and there was a change when he did recover, quiet-voiced fear instead of irrational fury. “They were friends … sometimes ate together in the canteen. What’s he left with her: told her!”

“Nothing,” insisted Rebecca, hoping her precautions proved her right. “We were also on the list, obviously. According to the police, I was contacted within fifteen minutes of Ambersom. I called her, told her it was an overhang from her time here, and that I was taking over. Which I did. It’s all contained, under our control.”

“I don’t like it: didn’t like him.”

“Trust me. It’s all contained.”

“Tell me how,” demanded Monsford, his voice still hushed.

“There was no other family, apart from him and his mother,” set out Rebecca. “The Home Office has confirmed to the local chief constable my instructions for no public inquest. I personally supervised the total clearance of the Berkhamsted house: everything movable has already been brought here, to be reexamined. There’s a second, deep-search team taking the house apart: after they’ve done that they’ll excavate the garden. We’re separately going through all the local banks to locate what deposits he had.” She gestured toward the studiously ignored folder. “That contains what’s immediately relevant: his suicide note, all the medication he used to kill his mother and himself-samples have been taken of all of them to confirm our autopsy that’s being conducted now that what killed him came from those sources and every piece of documentation of his and his mother’s existence-”

“What’s the suicide note say?” Monsford interrupted.

“It’s there for you to read yourself,” persisted the woman. “Nothing that’s a problem. He considers his work has been undermined by the strain of constantly caring for his mother, he’s made mistakes, none of which he lists.”

“The bastard wanted to bring me down,” insisted Monsford.

So do I, thought Rebecca.

It usually came at the live-or-die part of an assignment, without warning and irrespective of place or time. Charlie Muffin didn’t think of it as fear, although that’s what it was: instead, as he always did, he considered it the essential senses-sharpening adrenaline boost to react faster and think quicker. And win. But this time the fear was different: more hair-triggered, the keep-ahead intensity stronger.

Charlie knew why. Winning, emerging the victor, had never been enough by itself. To win totally meant surviving, which he’d always done, disregarding the cost to friend or foe alike. But not this time. This time he had far more-everything-to win by getting Natalia and Sasha safely out of Russia but far more still-everything-to lose if he failed. Which made the predictable adrenaline-spurred fear the wrong sort, the dangerously overcompensating, overreactive sort of fear that risked skewing his subjectivity to cause the forbidden, inconceivable failure. The possibility of which, from the moment of his Amsterdam sidestep, had been compounded almost daily by inconsistencies and uncertainties. Which, subjectively again, was par for the course of professional espionage but from which he’d hoped to be spared in this particular instance.

It was twelve ten, later than he’d intended, when Charlie literally pushed his way into the tourist-packed Arbat, sure he was alone but after the Metro debacle of the day before with no confidence in Patrick Wilkinson’s ability to detect surveillance. Charlie let himself be carried, unresisting, along the stall-cluttered thoroughfare, seeking the remembered centrally placed, brick-built emporium, disappointed from the outside at the limited escape options if Wilkinson once more guided MI6 pursuit to him. After two further top-to-bottom street reconnoiters Charlie failed to locate a better alternative.