Brian Freemantle - Red Star Rising

Irena Novikov’s passport arrived as promised in the diplomatic bag but separately from the preliminary forensic report Charlie had asked to be conducted on the briefcase and the Russian murder dossier it had contained. On both the dossier and the briefcase there were five different and fresh sets of fingerprints. There was also sufficient surviving residual finger sweat hopefully to provide DNA traces. One of the five sets was identified as Charlie’s, from their being recorded on his personnel records. The other provable prints were Paula-Jane’s.

On his way back to the Savoy, Charlie weighed the potential advantages against disadvantages of making contact with Svetlana Modin, and decided not to bother. There wasn’t anything, either half true or totally invented, that might benefit him and he was determined not to risk anything that might further disorientate or unsettle Irena Novikov.

Would it take a month to conclude it all, as he’d told Natalia? Not everything, he accepted. To conclude everything, he’d have to identify Ivan Oskin’s killers and he’d already acknowledged he’d never be able to do that. So it could even be as little as two weeks. He’d take leave directly afterward. He wanted to be free of any distraction or intrusion when Natalia and Sasha were in London. He’d have to get the right hotel: a suite, not a room, but not overwhelm them, as Natalia so often complained he did. Maybe not an hotel at all. Perhaps she’d prefer a short-term sublet apartment in which they could live more as they did in Moscow, and Natalia could get a better experience of what living in London would be like. They didn’t necessarily have to live in London, not if Natalia didn’t want to. That was another possible idea! Rent a car and drive around England, showing them the countryside and the beaches as well as the London tourist sites. They most certainly would never see the graffiti-daubed Vauxhall council isolation flat in which he lived during assignments.

David Halliday was already in the bar when Charlie entered, on the stool next to Charlie’s accustomed corner seat, turning in greeting when he saw Charlie approaching in the bar’s back-plate mirror.

“I was going to give you another ten minutes before calling up,” said the MI6 officer, nodding to the waiting vodka. “Ordered for you when they told me at reception that you were here.”

“Appreciate the forethought,” thanked Charlie, as he sat.

“Thought I’d come to say good-bye. We didn’t actually get together very much, did we? Pity. Moscow really has changed a lot since the last time you were here.”

“There hasn’t actually been much time for socializing,” said Charlie. “Maybe when I get back.”

“When will that be?”

“Nothing’s fixed.”

“I might not be here, which is why I came tonight,” said Halliday. “Lvov’s off on a triumphal tour before the inevitable: St. Petersburg, Odessa, south as far as the Black Sea. London’s told me to tag along.”

“Isn’t that getting a little too close?” Charlie frowned.

“That’s what I thought-and said-when I got the brief. Theory is that the media entourage will be so large we’ll all be lost in the crowd. There’s a rumor that the FSB have tried to bug the Lvov campaign headquarters after the conference hijack and that funeral business, and that they might try to derail the tour with staged agitators everywhere Lvov goes.”

“We’ll?” questioned Charlie.

“P-J’s coming along as well and for the same reason. I’m to tell you good-bye and sorry about the lunch: maybe some other time and place.”

“How’d she know I called by? I didn’t go into her outer office to get picked up on her CCTV.”

Halliday shrugged, unknowing. “You sure you’re coming back?”

“That’s the intention. Why shouldn’t I be coming back?”

“You must have something a damned sight better than anomalies and discrepancies to face down Guzov!” insisted Halliday.

“We’ll see,” evaded Charlie.

“I’d hate to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said the MI6 officer.

“Are you asking me something?” queried Charlie.

“Just a nod in the right direction,” suggested Halliday. “Russia’s a hell of a big place: takes days to get from one part to another. You think there’s any reason for me to stay in Moscow instead of traipsing all over the country on a political ego trip?”

“No reason whatsoever,” said Charlie.

“I appreciate the guidance,” said Halliday. “And here’s my offering, in return. I’m grateful for what you did but Gerald Monsford’s as mad as hell you guys kept us out. He’s making little wax effigies of you: you ever end up in the same room together, get out as fast as you can. He’s a bastard.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Halliday checked his watch. “I need to go; got a six A.M. start tomorrow. If we do overlap when we get back I’ll definitely say thank you in a more tangible way. And Charlie. .”

“What?”

“I’m sure as hell glad the embankment business was a coincidence, although I’m obviously sorry about Jack Hopkins.”

“Thanks.”

Svetlana made no mention whatsoever of the embassy murder on that night’s program, which was entirely devoted to the possibility of staged FSB disruptions to the countrywide tour of the Federation by Stepan Lvov, indicating the present government’s panic at Lvov’s inevitable election.

The following morning Charlie walked the short distance from the hotel to use the telephone kiosk in Red Square.

“Ten o’clock,” he told Irena, when she answered.

“I’ll be there. I’m all right.”

Charlie didn’t think she was, from the tone of her voice.

But she was there.

Charlie saw Irena the moment his taxi joined the last ten vehicles in the final stop-start line to the departure terminal, and was as relieved as he was encouraged. Irena wasn’t standing too obviously expectant or searching but fumbling with a baggage trolley, arranging and repositioning her single scuffed, camel-skin suitcase. Her handbag, which he’d examined and agreed perfect for their brush contact drop when he’d picked up the shrine objects, was exactly where he’d rehearsed her to put it, too, on the right of the trolley handle but at that moment with the top-opening zip only half undone.

Charlie abruptly ordered his cab to stop about five yards from where she had put herself, the sudden braking getting the horn blast he wanted. To give her further time to locate him, Charlie twice queried the charge, knowing that she had seen him and was walking in his direction when he turned toward the terminal with his single case in his right hand, his left hand inside his raincoat pocket, clutching the passport and her ticket in readiness for what he had to transfer to her. He let Irena pass and followed to within ten yards of the terminal entrance before closing the gap between them, able to see that she’d fully unzipped the handbag to gape open as he got level, shouldering into the bottlenecked crush directly outside the door. She showed no reaction to the slight tug she would have felt as he put the passport and ticket he’d bought the previous day into the bag, and in the brief seconds the drop took, he was physically aware there was no nervous shaking. Charlie continued straight on, hoping she’d remember to hold back the moment he entered to a possible ambush.

Which was exactly what he did.

The media frenzy was far more concentrated than he’d feared, a mob surging toward and around him, squawking an incomprehensible babble of questions. He recognized Svetlana Modin moments before the strobe and camera lights burst blindingly into his face, distinguishing her voice through the hubbub, although not what she was saying. Charlie forced his way on toward the check-in desk, shaking his head and repeating “nothing to say” and “no comment” before being brought up short by the check-in line he had to join. Blinking in the whitening lights, his lips opening and closing with his nothing-to-say mantra, Charlie guessed he’d look like a rare fish species landed from the deepest depths.