Brian Freemantle - Red Star Rising

It would have been, he later decided, her recognition as the news-breaking leader that finally got Svetlana propelled into the demanding forefront of the media pack, which quietened in expectation of her informed questioning. To do so, she wedged herself directly in front of Charlie, physically cutting him off from the shuffling line. Despite the melee in which he was trapped Charlie conceded-and admired-the expertise with which she adjusted her questions for his “no comment” or “nothing to say” replies virtually to confirm what she was asking. Just as he did by remaining tight-lipped, head shaking, and mute, which was his initial reaction, as well as compounding the landed-fish impression. With which he had to live, Charlie accepted. The sole consideration had been to create a smokescreen into which Irena could safely and completely disappear, and Charlie was sure he’d done that.

His flight was actually being called when Charlie finally reached the check-in desk, breathing in like a drowning man coming up for air at the sudden release from the crush. Two plain-clothesmen stood beside the counter clerk, the elder completely bald, the other bespectacled and clearly subordinate. Both scrutinized Charlie’s ticket and passport before passing each to the clerk. When Charlie lifted his suitcase toward the loading chute, the younger man gestured to a narrow gate beside the desk and said, “Come through here with it, please.”

There would be no problem if he missed the flight, Charlie knew, meekly obeying. By now Irena had to be in the embarkation lounge if not actually aboard the plane, and there were people to receive her at Heathrow. There certainly wasn’t anything to be gained from protesting. There was a burst of light from behind, from television cameras recording the latest episode of his personal soap opera. On the other side of the desk, he again followed the gestures of the younger man into an awkwardly cluttered side office. The main obstruction was a temporary bench, behind which the two men positioned themselves, leaving Charlie on the other side.

“A departure search is usual?” suggested Charlie, feeling that some innocuous question would be expected.

“Security check,” claimed the bald man. “Have you anything to declare?”

“I’m not an Islamic terrorist but I’m glad you’re taking the risk seriously.”

The men were meticulous, individually taking out and examining every item-separating each sock from its partner and handkerchief from its layer-before feeling for anything a seam or trouser turnup or lining might conceal. Each item was placed beside the emptied case for it to be carried to another temporary but smaller bench to be X-rayed, after which the younger man repacked Charlie’s suitcase with the meticulous care with which he’d unpacked it.

“I hope I haven’t missed my plane,” said Charlie.

“You haven’t,” assured the older man.

Which was true. Everyone else was on board when Charlie entered the plane, the door closing immediately behind him. To further separate them on the flight Charlie had booked himself in business class and as he turned toward it, Charlie saw Irena in an aisle seat, halfway along the economy section. Charlie refused any food and limited himself to two whiskies, because it wasn’t Islay single malt and he expected to be taken at once to see the Director-General.

Charlie hadn’t anticipated a repeat of the euphoria at his finally understanding the significance of Oskin’s material but he’d at least hoped for a feeling of satisfaction at getting Irena safely away. So why didn’t he?

“There’s a lot of traffic we’re missing-a lot the Russians clearly failed to intercept-but enough for us to be sure that you got it right,” congratulated the Director-General, the previous day’s irritation gone. “It’s definitely Stepan Grigorevich Lvov. .”

“Who’s going to become the next Russian president,” Charlie broke in.

“Responding to whatever, whenever, and however Washington dictates,” completed an interrupting Aubrey Smith. “It’s the CIA coup of the century.”

When he’d originally been admitted into this rarefied, top-floor sanctuary, the cream and green MI6 headquarters on the opposite side of the Thames at Vauxhall hadn’t even been built, remembered Charlie. That visit had been to receive his first commendation: the one he had been promised today would bring his total up to eleven. “No doubt at all?”

“Absolutely none: Washington’s confirmed it. And from our own archives we discovered that Oskin was in Cairo at the same time as Lvov. That must be how he picked up on the transmission: he would have known the ciphers of their CIA opposition there. There were three KGB officers on station in the Egyptian capital. The station chief was Valeri Voznoy. A Valeri Voznoy, officially listed as an army general, was killed in the same Afghan ambush in which Oskin lost his arm.”

“Bill Bundy, who’s been reassigned to Moscow, served in Cairo,” said Charlie, recalling their Chinese lunch.

“I didn’t know that. But everything fits, doesn’t it?”

“No,” refused Charlie. “Washington is aware that we know what’s going on?”

“The majority decision was that we couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass. It got to prime minister-to-president level. We’ve been cut in on the deal.”

“We’re going to handle Lvov jointly?” asked Charlie, wanting, as always, to know it all.

“That’s the undertaking.”

“The Americans wouldn’t share anything of this magnitude,” insisted Charlie. “They’ll cheat and lie: give us just enough to make us think we’re included and possibly use us for misinformation, to provide Lvov with extra cover.”

“I agree and said so, at every meeting of the Cabinet and the Joint Intelligence Committee,” said Smith. “I told you it was a majority decision. Mine was the minority, dissenting opinion.”

“Who led the majority argument?”

“Jeffrey Smale, no longer the deputy Director-General. In a fortnight his promotion to director will be confirmed, after his return from Washington to sign and seal the deal.”

“What about the embassy murder?” asked Charlie, resigned to the answer but building in time to think.

“We accept the Russian version, and let the frenzy die down and for everything to be forgotten.”

“It’s still an unsolved murder!” protested Charlie.

“He’s a small-time, unimportant KGB clerk, whose mistress is going to live in luxury and safety for the rest of her life,” corrected the soon-to-be former Director-General, unusually harsh.

“There’s still a mole inside the Moscow embassy,” reminded Charlie.

“To find who it is, Robertson will remain in Moscow and keep searching. And while he does, personnel replacement will be accelerated: a year from now those in any sensitive position will have been moved if Robertson fails.”

“This isn’t right,” declared Charlie. “None of this is right.”

“Too many things too often aren’t,” agreed Smith, with no way of properly understanding Charlie’s outburst. Charlie didn’t understand it himself at that moment: it was an involuntary remark to himself-a warning-he had to work out.

He needed a break; time to sift the uncertainties flooding in upon him. He wasn’t uncertain about one thing Smith was telling him, though. “What are you going to do?”

“Grow roses in Sussex,” said the man, smiling wanly. “And you will definitely get the commendation, I promise you. It automatically guarantees your promotion to Grade IV, with an additional?5,000 a year pension entitlement.”

“Thank you,” said Charlie. It was hardly a devastating end, he accepted philosophically. With Natalia and Sasha soon to be here with him, it was, rather, a decision made for him instead of having finally to make it for himself. This way he would leave the organization and finish up?5,000 a year better off. So why didn’t he take the easy way out and let the inconsistencies go? Because it wasn’t right. Believing America would keep its promise wasn’t right and a lot of what had happened in Moscow wasn’t right, and how he’d thought he’d worked everything out wasn’t right, and because he now didn’t understand any of it anymore and he didn’t know what to do to make it right.