Brian Freemantle - Red Star Rising

And where it remained hidden, with Irena, because her unknown apartment was still the most secure place until he got her safely hidden away, beyond their reach and vengeance.

Charlie wished he was more confident of doing that. He’d studied her existing Russian passport and was sure that what he had, snug in his inside pocket, was sufficient for what he immediately had to do. His uncertainty was whether Irena could hang on as long as she had to for him to get her safely away from Moscow. His greatest uncertainty was whether he could satisfy everything she wanted, even after that.

The false lovers were still in the lobby when Charlie left the bar after the second vodka. It wasn’t until he got to his suite that Charlie abruptly remembered something else that Irena would insist upon, prompted, he supposed, by their charade. His painfully arduous and increasingly dangerous train hopping wasn’t over after all. The familiar warning throb from his left instep told him that he’d overlooked something. And it was essential that he didn’t overlook anything.

“What made you go back to her?” demanded the Director-General. For the first time ever, Charlie detected a quaver in Aubrey Smith’s voice at what had taken him three hours the following morning to copy to London.

“A hunch,” said Charlie, who wished another one would come as quickly. “It occurred to me when we were speaking yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you mention it then?”

“I could have been wrong about what she’d kept back.”

“Let’s hope you’re not wrong and the deciphering experts confirm your analysis.”

“I am and they will,” predicted Charlie.

“If you are right, there won’t be any more internal problems at this end.”

“What about external? What will we do with it?”

“Not my decision. Our function begins and ends with us advising and protecting the government. Which this certainly does.”

“Irena’s desperate to get out.”

“I’m hardly surprised. You think you’ve got everything?”

“For our immediate needs,” qualified Charlie, deciding not to tell the man why he had to go back to Irena one more time. “A usable passport picture the most difficult. She always stands to hide the burn scars when she’s being photographed. Will there be a problem with the copy of a Russian passport?”

“It won’t be a copy: it’s a genuine, forensically provable document. Which our visa entry and exit stamps will obviously be, as well.”

“No problems there then?”

“You sure you don’t want to copy everything to me electronically rather than use tonight’s diplomatic bag?”

“The bag’s safer in the porous circumstances here inside the embassy. And there might be other things I want to include.”

“That’s how it will come back to you, in the diplomatic bag. You sure she’s capable of going through with it?”

“Her training was a long time ago,” warned Charlie. “And she’s very close to falling apart. The brush contact, to give her the passport, will be the most difficult part.”

“You any idea how much surveillance you’ll be under, leaving the country?”

“A hell of a lot,” accepted Charlie. “And then some. I’ve tried to cover that.”

“What are you going to tell the Russians?”

“That I’m being recalled for consultations. It would help if you could get that officially communicated through their ambassador to their Interior Ministry here.”

“No problem,” promised the Director-General. “Our forensic science people have picked up some discrepancies, particularly in the medical evidence. But I don’t think there’s enough for us to mount a serious objection: certainly not enough to get Oskin’s body back here.”

“I didn’t imagine there would be.”

“Does she suspect that?”

“No,” said Charlie, bluntly.

“You’re not to have any contact with her on the aircraft from Sheremetyevo,” ordered the Director-General. “Or at Heathrow. You’ll probably be under hostile surveillance on the plane and there’ll almost certainly be more from the Russian embassy when you arrive here. We’ll know her from the photograph you’re sending. Warn her she’ll be received by a man and two women, as if they’re relatives or close friends. She’ll be taken at once to a safe house. When it’s judged she’s really safe, she’ll get a house of her own, wherever in England she chooses to live.”

“Make sure that none of the three meeting her has any association, past or present, with anyone here at the embassy. Or with me. I don’t want any recognition to link me with them and by association with Irena.”

“Already ensured.”

“What if Irena asks about money?”

“She’ll have a tax-free income from an index-linked?500,000. Her eventual house or apartment will be paid for, as will all its services and utilities for the rest of her life. Plastic surgery-to alter her appearance, not essentially for the burn scarring, but that can be corrected if it’s medically possible-will be available if she wants it. As well, obviously, as a new, untraceable identity.”

“Apart from not having Ivan and his grave to grieve over, Irena should be happy enough with all that,” acknowledged Charlie.

“You’ve done well, Charlie. Bloody well. And not just there. Here.”

“There’s still a lot-too much-that could go wrong,” cautioned Charlie.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t.”

“Let’s,” agreed Charlie, meaning it.

During the waking moments of a fitful night Charlie had mentally arranged his priorities, paramount among them successfully smuggling Irena out of the country but with other uncertainties still to resolve.

Paula-Jane Venables was already in her section of the intelligence rezidentura, designer demure in blue, smiling up as if in expectation of his arrival.

“You certainly like early mornings,” she greeted, gesturing in invitation to the quietly hissing percolator.

“Coffee would be good,” accepted Charlie. “I needed to speak to London early.”

“Something come up?” she asked at once.

“I’m going back to London.”

“When?”

“A day or two.”

“Is it all over?”

“I’m not sure. I’m closing down the compound apartment: its use is over.” He smiled up as she brought him the coffee.

“Did anything ever come out of it?”

“It was worth a try.”

“What about the postponed Russian press briefing?”

“I’ve got to speak to the Russians about that. London doesn’t seem to think I need to be here for it, even if they reschedule it.”

“Doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for you?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry. Sorry that things weren’t easier between us and sorry that it didn’t go better for you. You going to have time for me to reciprocate that lunch?”

“There’s rarely such a thing as a total success in what we do. And I’m not sure at this moment about the lunch. There might be a few more things to close down.”

“It would have helped to have got this one right, though, in the current London climate, wouldn’t it?”

“Would have helped a lot.”

“You didn’t bring your other stuff, to put in the safe?” said the woman, looking pointedly around Charlie as if she might have missed seeing the folder.

“Not quite finished with it all yet,” avoided Charlie. “When I was stationed here permanently the diplomatic bag went around four thirty: is that still the departure time?”

“Four thirty on the button: you can set your watch by it.” Paula-Jane made a vague gesture to the safe in the corner of her office. “What about your briefcase?”

“I’ll pick it up later,” said Charlie. “I’ll let you know about the lunch.”