Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

“I’ll remember that,” said North, tightly. “But at the right time. Which isn’t now.” He’d hoped having George Bendall’s identity, which he’d learned at the hospital, would have deflected this obvious attack.

“Don’t you worry about remembering, Wendall. I’ll remind you often enough.”

“There are other things to talk about,” prompted the bespectacled, fair-haired diplomat whose office had been taken over and who had decided Aston had sufficiently established blame.

“Absolutely,” agreed Aston. “Let’s try to make sure we get it right this time.”

“There’s going to be a lot of balls in the air,” warned the CIA’s Burt Jordan. “From what Washington has rounded up so far this guy’s father did a lot of damage to the American nuclear program as well as to the British. Which was bad enough at the time. This is a hell of a lot worse. My guess is they’ll hunker down. Throw George Bendall to the wolves, which the bastard deserves anyway,and say he’s Russia’s problem by adoption, not theirs.”

“There’s some sound political reasoning in that,” said North, relieved the inquest had moved on.

“Not for Moscow,” challenged the locally-based diplomat. “Making them responsible for the man who’s probably killed their president and badly wounding our First Lady throws detente right out the window.”

“That’s a fight between London and Moscow,” challenged North, in return. “A fight we’ve got to stay on the outside of but do everything to make swing in our direction, to our president’s benefit. There’ll be a tide of sympathy now. And our missile shield planning is still in place, whatever happens here.”

There was no reaction to the cynicism.

Kayley said, “So politically we don’t need Russia or the treaty anymore?”

“Not as much as we did,” qualified North. “What we do need is to ride shotgun on the British, particularly with whatever they do here …” He looked directly at Jeff Aston. “And to make damned sure there’s no rebound on us.”

“You mean get into bed with the British …?” Jordan began.

“ … And fuck them every which way,” completed Kayley.

Wendall North winced at the coarseness but said, “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

Charlie padded softly into the darkened bedroom, letting his clothes lie where they fell. He was careful easing himself under the covers to avoid any disturbing contact with Natalia, who lay with her back to him.

Natalia was fully awake but didn’t turn. And remained so long after Charlie had settled into occasionally snuffled sleep.

The naming of traitor’s son George Bendall was to bring a very changed world-some changes predictable, some not-to Charlie’s door and for the first time in a permanently precarious life Charlie could rarely, if ever, remember the uncertainty he felt sitting in his river view office awaiting the first approach.

Natalia’s giving him to within thirty minutes the timing of the official announcement ended, as far as Charlie was concerned, the futile pretense of keeping their professional lives entirely separate. Charlie’s argument that morning had been that this attempted assassination needed their personal cooperation, but Natalia had equally insisted there should always be the mitigating defense of their never having colluded, which no tribunal would or could ever accept.

Charlie’s confusion was not being sure where, if anywhere, it left he and Natalia. They both recognized the answer to the problem. It would, quite simply, be for one of them to quit their conflicting jobs. Which wasn’t in any way simple. To both such a sacrifice was unthinkable. There was nothing else Charlie could do. Wanted to do. Was able to do. And he knew-as Natalia knew-that what was already stretched to near breaking point between them would snap beyond repair within weeks of Charlie becoming a house-husband, in title if not in legal fact.

Which put the onus on Natalia, upon whom the onus had far too often and far too heavily already been imposed in their uneven relationship, a burden Charlie readily recognized, just as he recognized her reservations after so much forgiveness and so many allowances.

She’d accepted as professional his first deceit, convincing her when she’d been assigned his KGB debriefer that his phoney operation-wrecking defection to Moscow was genuine. In those first, getting-to-know each other weeks and months she’d have turned himover to face trial as a spy if he hadn’t managed to do so. Their problem-so much, unfairly, Natalia’s problem-was in the direct aftermath. Although he’d maneuvered to avoid her being arrested for professional negligence, his return to London-essential professionally, wrong personally-had been an abandonment because by then they had been in love. Natalia had proved that love by being prepared, just once, to defect herself during an escort assignment to London. Trusted him more than he’d trusted her, despite loving her. He’d watched Natalia at their arranged meeting point but been unable to believe she wasn’t bait-knowing or unknowing-in a repayment trap for the damage he’d caused Moscow. So he’d held back from the rendezvous and let her go, neither of them knowing then that she was pregnant.

It was a virtual miracle that she’d deigned even to acknowledge him-let alone be persuaded there was a second chance of finally being together-when, with the old, defunct KGB records necessarily self-cleansed to protect herself and their daughter and Natalia’s elevating transfer to the ministry, he’d been officially accepted back by a totally unaware and unsuspecting Russian government too overwhelmed by organized crime to match an American FBI presence in the Russian capital.

There could be no blame-no surprise either-for Natalia insufficiently trusting him. He’d done nothing to deserve it. Little, indeed, to deserve Natalia. Which was a long-realized awareness that did nothing to resolve-help even-their escalating problem. Perhaps nothing could.

Charlie’s irresolute reflections were broken by the first of the predictable announcement-prompted arrivals. MI6 station chief Donald Morrison flustered jacketless through the door, scarlet braces over monogrammed shirt, an unevenly torn-off slip of new agency copy in his hand. Offering it to Charlie, the man said, “Have you seen this!”

“I heard about it last night,” said Charlie. “The ambassador knows. London too.”

Morrison stopped abruptly halfway across the room, as if he’d collided with something solid. “How?”

“Contacts in the militia,” avoided Charlie, easily.

“A call would have been appreciated,” complained Morrison, cautiously. He was an enthusiastic, eager-to-please man at least fifteen years Charlie’s junior whom Charlie guessed to have got the sought-after posting through family influence. His predecessor had been part of an inter-agency determination to get Charlie removed from Moscow, badly misjudged Charlie’s thumb-gouging, eye-for-an-eye survival ability and now occupied a travel movements desk at MI6’s Vauxhall Cross administration department. From the wariness with which Morrison had treated him since his arrival-and the immediate reaction now-Charlie suspected Morrison knew of the episode.

Charlie said, “It’s a criminal investigation, more mine that yours under the redefining.”

“It would still have been useful to know about in advance, if I’d got a query from London.”

“Did you?”

Morrison shrugged, his argument defeated.

“So you haven’t lost any credibility,” Charlie pointed out.

“You intend running it as a one man show?”

Charlie hadn’t yet decided how he was going to run anything, only that by the end of a long day there were probably going to be more people running about and getting in each other’s way than in a whorehouse on pay-day when the fleet’s in. Which Charlie philosophically accepted. Initially welcomed in fact. Despite his director-general’s eagerness to control whatever involvement was achievable it was even possible London’s edict would be for a jointly shared investigation, which would provide a sacrificial diversion if one became necessary. Which wasn’t ultimate cynicism. It was an essential, practical rule of what the inexperienced or ignorant referred to as a game but which was not. Nor ever had been. Charlie actually liked the younger man and didn’t want to cause him any disadvantage or harm. He hoped the need wouldn’t arise if Morrison was accorded any part in what was to follow.