Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

“What sort of treatment?”

“Re-connecting the nerves.”

“The bullet smashed them?”

“Yes.”

“What happens if they can’t be re-connected?”

“We’re going to the best people in the world to ensure that they can be.”

“What if they can’t,” demanded Ruth Anandale, with the persistence of the criminal lawyer she’d been before their marriage.

Anandale hesitated, swallowing. “Then it will be permanent.”

“No feeling at all?”

“No.”

“No use then?”

“No.”

Ruth Anandale didn’t cry. Her face creased, once, as if there had been a spurt of pain but then she lay expressionless although not looking at him. “I broke my leg skating when I was a kid. About twelve, I guess. Even then all I could think about in the hospital was that it would be stiff when it got fixed, so that I’d have to limp-drag it maybe-for the rest of my life.”

“I promise it’ll be fixed.”

“You’ll have to help me, Walt. Help me a lot. I don’t want a body that doesn’t work right … look right …”

“We won’t give up, until we get it fixed.”

“No,” agreed Ruth. “We won’t.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry is within walking distance of the American embassy, which was how Wendall North and the U.S. secretary of state finally completed their journey because Smolenkaja Sennaja Ploscad was gridlocked. The two Russians were waiting in Boris Petrin’s office actually overlooking the traffic-clogged highway.

When North began to apologize for their lateness the foreign minister said, “We saw you, from the window. It’s a perpetual problem.” The floor to ceiling windows were double glazed, smotheringany outside noise, but Petrin still led them deeper into the cavernous room, to where easy chairs and couches were arranged around a dead fireplace. There was an oasis of bottled mineral water and glasses in the middle of a low, glass-topped table. The Americans took the seats toward which the minister gestured and sat, waiting.

Trishin said, “We want formally to express our condolences about your dead security man.” Local television had been dominated by footage of the coffin being loaded aboard the plane at Sheremet’yevo.

North nodded but didn’t speak. Neither did James Scamell.

Petrin said, “I am glad you agreed there was no need for advisers or a secretariat.”

The two Americans remained silent.

“Politically we’ve got to move forward now,” said the Russian chief of staff. “I’m sure you agree with us on that, too?”

“I’m not clear what positive movement there can be in the circumstances,” said Scamell, at last.

“The treaty was ready to be finalized,” insisted Petrin.

“It had reached the final discussion stage,” qualified the secretary of state.

“Easily resolvable points,” argued Petrin.

“That’s not our interpretation,” said North. “Your elected president is alive but incapacitated …”

“ … And Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov is the legally acting president, empowered to make and take all presidential decisions under the conventions of the Russian constitution,” interrupted Trishin, formally.

“Pending elections also required under your constitution in the event of that incapacity becoming permanent or the death of the legally incumbent president,” finished the equally well-rehearsed North, just as formally.

“The pending elections are not specially convened,” fought Trishin. “They were already scheduled.”

“A circumstance of convenience,” dismissed Scamall, briefed by the American embassy’s constitutional lawyer. “Our advice is that it would be legally unsafe-as well as unfittingly hasty on the part of both sides-to consider any formal signing in advance of that election.”

There was a visible stiffening from the two Russians.

“What do you consider appropriate?” demanded Trishin, tightly.

“A joint statement regretting what’s happened, with the hope that those still surviving make a full recovery. And an assurance that the incident in no way endangers the treaty negotiations, which will continue,” recited Scamell.

“To defeat the Kommunisticheskaja Partiya Rossiiskoi Federalsii there has to be a signed treaty,” insisted Petrin. “That’s been our understanding-our agreement-from the beginning.”

“I can continue coming here during the lead up to the elections,” offered Scamell. “There will only be one obvious inference.”

“That the treaty will be agreed with us but not with the communists?” completed Trishin.

The scenario was North’s and as he sat listening to it being spelled out he congratulated himself upon how well it suited both sides, although to a greater advantage to America than to Russia.

“We are disappointed,” understated Petrin.

“Nothing is being withdrawn,” insisted North. “Things are merely being postponed, which they should be.”

“What about the joint statement?” queried Trishin.

“Which must be a joint statement,” North said heavily and at once. “Strictly agreed between us, with no premature, unexpected announcements. I am giving you the American undertaking here and now that there will not be anything independent from us.”

Petrin and the Russian chief of staff looked pointedly between each other. Trishin said, “I believe we see the point.”

“If it is to be a joint statement, carrying the authority of both leaders, it should be made personally, not issued through spokesmen,” demanded Petrin. “We’d consider that essential.”

“There’s the question of security …” North tried but Petrin overrode him.

“There is no question of security!” The man looked around the huge office, empty but for them, as a reminder that it was an unattributable meeting. Completing the unspoken threat he said, “A personal statement, by your president and Aleksandr Mikhailevich, would totally guarantee no premature, ill-judged comments, don’t you agree?”

John Kayley was already waiting in the small conference room adjoining Olga Melnik’s suite when Charlie arrived at Militia headquarters. For once the American wasn’t fumigating the place with his cigar smoke, which was a welcomed relief.

As he passed over the transcripts of that morning’s meeting with Vera Bendall Charlie said, “I’ve included copy tapes, as well.”

There was a stone-faced, head-nod of acceptance from the American, which Charlie interpreted to be continued annoyance at his refusal to let the man in on the interview and thought, fuck you too.

“How did it go?” asked Olga, who’d already listened to her own eavesdropped recording and seen on film Charlie’s warning head shake to the woman who’d gone with him to Lefortovo.

“One or two interesting points,” suggested Charlie.

“Time to start work then!” she said, briskly.

“Exactly,” seized Kayley. “And this isn’t the place or the way.”

Charlie looked at the other man in open surprise. Surely yesterday’s rancor couldn’t have remained as strong as this? Olga just as quickly discerned the American’s irritation, hoping she’d succeeded in making the Englishman its focus.

Charlie said, “You’ve obviously got a point to make?”

“An obvious one,” declared the American. “Maybe the three of us can get on well enough together … maybe not. None of us know yet. But passing around packages like this is ridiculous. We need a centralized operation: an incident room, with trained officers indexing and correlating everything. Computers. Telephones. Access to forensic facilities. Somewhere from which we can all work together, be together. Yesterday all those facilities were flown in from America. And have already been set up in a basement at the U.S. embassy. It’s from there that I am going to head up the American side of the investigation, an American side which will be fully exchanged with both of you. But what I’m suggesting-inviting-is for both of you to join me there, have all your stuff filed there. It’ll happen anyway, under the sharing agreement. But it’ll be in three different locations, with no necessary centralization. This shooting is almost forty-eight hours old and we haven’t got a damned thing properly off the ground yet …” He looked at Olga, smiling at last. “That’s not acriticism, of anything you’ve done. But look …” He swept his hand towards the pile of dossiers in front of Charlie. “He hasn’t had the opportunity to look at any of that yet …” He had to bulldoze them, be even more insistent if necessary. Paul Smith had made it a clear ultimatum when he’d spoken to the FBI director that morning. He had twenty-four hours to get everything on American terms under American control or he caught the direct Washington flight home the following night.