Brian Freemantle: Red Star Rising

Irena: I was getting desperate, because I wasn’t able to take you over. I thought your people would withdraw you if you didn’t actually get killed; put in someone else less awkward. The Venables woman, hopefully .

Charlie: But I stayed and you were running out of options .

Irena: The only one left was for me to get personally involved .

Charlie: With your only weakness, the shrine. Which I brought here because I knew we’d never get Oskin’s body here and wanted to leave you with something.

Irena: My last hope was that you might have packed it in your case. I arranged for it to be searched. If it had been there, the whole operation would still have worked. The shrine would have been seized and I, the grieving woman, couldn’t have lived here in Britain without my memories, could I?

Charlie: But it wasn’t in the case.

Irena: I still had one last fail-safe. You wouldn’t have gotten Ivan’s precious body back, even if you’d tried. I’d made sure of that. All I had to do was get that fucking shrine back, destroy it to stop your discovering it was a fake, and maintain the grieving-woman shit and demand to go back to Moscow to mourn.

Charlie: And from the Lubyanka, through Lvov, you’d have led Washington and London along whatever paths you wanted them to follow. You’d have ruled the world .

Irena: Not the entire world but America and England would have been enough.

Charlie: You’ll get everything we agreed but I’d imagine you’ll have to properly work for both Washington and London a lot more now.

Irena: I think I’d like the plastic surgery to fix the scarring .

Charlie: How were you burned?

Irena: It was Stepan with me in the restaurant that night. We were celebrating hooking Washington and looking forward to how it would all work out. We stayed lovers, all the time, right up to last week. Marina is a front to satisfy the American need for celebrity: all part of the game plan for a game that isn’t ever going to be played.

The recording clicked off. Charlie broke the following silence. “I’d like to go back to London now. I’m sure no one has any objection.”

“You can come with me,” offered the Director-General.

Aubrey Smith appeared far more subdued than he’d been when Charlie left him the previous night after a celebration dinner at the Director-General’s Pall Mall club that had included two bottles of vintage Margaux and four double-measure snifters of fifty-year old-brandy. Charlie knew the other man had been at Thames House by nine while he’d had an additional four hours to recover.

“It’s been a very busy morning,” said the Director-General.

“Everything resolved?”

“I don’t imagine the Americans would describe it as that but at least they haven’t suffered the public humiliation: the good people of Des Moines will still sleep soundly in their beds, believing they are protected by the best intelligence service in the world.”

“What about our good people of Barnsley?”

“I’ve never believed the people of Barnsley have the country’s intelligence services in the forefront of their mind.”

“And Jeffrey Smale?”

“He’s resigned, with immediate effect. His last official duty was to order Paula-Jane Venables’s recall from Moscow. We won’t bother with any Official Secrets Act nonsense with her: it wouldn’t suit any practical purpose. Just the wrong person in the wrong job; should never have been employed in the first place, with her father’s background and with a serving CIA officer as a godfather to boot. She was a Smale protegee, by the way. As were Fish and Robertson. They’ll both be leaving the service, of course.”

“I’ve never been involved in such an operation before but it all seems to have concluded successfully?” Charlie suggested.

“No, it hasn’t,” denied Smith. “You won’t have heard yet, of course. It’s not yet reached any of the wire services.”

“What?’

“Svetlana Modin’s car was shot up from three other vehicles on her way in from Sheremetyevo Airport this morning. She, a cameraman, and their driver all died instantly. Stepan Lvov’s limousine blew up when its ignition was turned outside his hotel in Odessa, about the same time. His wife, campaign manager, and secretary were in the car with him.”

“I gave Svetlana back the embarrassing film of her exposing herself, to thank her,” said Charlie, reflectively.

“You realize the implications?”

“I think I do.”

“Every resource is available to you. Safe house wherever you choose. Everything paid for, of course. And plastic surgery: that will be very necessary, after so much exposure.”

“I’ve never fancied a protection program. I think I’d go mad, trying to be someone else. And whatever precautions there were, I’d still be recognizable from the way I walk with these awkward bloody feet of mine.”

The other man didn’t smile. “You need to think about it. Think hard. You certainly need to go directly to a safe house from here: totally abandon your apartment. We’ll have anything you particularly want brought to you.”

“For a few days,” agreed Charlie.

“For the rest of your life,” insisted the Director-General.

Charlie didn’t expect Natalia to be at her Moscow apartment but she was, her voice lifting the moment she recognized Charlie’s voice. “I’ve already taken leave and told Sasha. She’s very excited; already colored you another picture. I’m going to buy the tickets whenever you tell me.”

“No,” said Charlie. “You can’t come, not now.”

“What’s happened?”

“You’ll realize why, when you hear the news.”

“How long, before we can come?”

Charlie couldn’t immediately reply.

“Charlie?”

“Never,” Charlie finally managed.