Brian Freemantle - Kings of Many Castles

Karelin lifted and let drop the no longer agitated hand that still held the proposal for militia involvement. “And I appreciate the courtesy. And the consideration.” There was even, finally, a fleeting smile.

“You have no problem with the idea?”

“I need to consider it further. Which I will do keeping your arguments very much in mind, Natalia Fedova.”

“You said one of the uncovered problems has already been dealt with?” prompted Natalia.

“Colonel Spassky was held responsible for the internal security breach,” disclosed Karelin. “He has been dismissed and a new directorate chairman appointed to instigate an entirely redesigned system. It is conceivable that during that reorganization there might emerge some further information on the interference itself.”

Natalia acknowledged that Spassky had to be the most likely and available scapegoat. That had been the ineffectual man’s role from the very beginning. “You left yesterday to carry out a Registry search for us?”

“None of the names from the Ministry of Defense with which I was supplied appear on any Registry or Archive documents of the current FSB or the KGB which preceded it,” said Karelin, formally.

“That would seem to bring to an end any further assistance you might be able to give us?” said Trishin.

“Does it?” came in Natalia, sharply. “The identity of any who might be involved could be among material intentionally removed as part of the conspiracy, couldn’t it?”

“Most certainly, if any of them were part of it,” agreed Karelin.

Everything had to end on her personal terms, decided Natalia, or perhaps more essentially to her personal benefit. “We’ve no other witnesses, unless you can suggest anyone else.”

“There’s no one,” confirmed Karelin, at once.

“At the moment the FSB is inextricably-and inescapably-linked with a very carefully planned treason because of which it can only be discredited,” Natalia spelled out.

“Until we prove otherwise,” said Karelin.

There it was, the top-to-bottom investigations Karelin hadn’t d closed and into which he wouldn’t for a moment admit outside in vestigators! “Such very careful planning wouldn’t have been possible by disaffected personnel abruptly dismissed your service?”

“I don’t think so,” agreed Karelin.

“Could there be factions still within the FSB that might want to discredit you personally and the organization as a whole?”

“If there are, they will be discovered,” insisted Karelin, in further confirmation of the undisclosed purge.

“Can you suggest to us who-or what-else might be responsible?” asked Trishin, anxious to restore himself.

“Not at this moment,” said Karelin. “I’m discounting a foreign intelligence service. One could not have infiltrated to this degree.”

“I’ve used the word discredit,” reminded Natalia. “If this conspiracy isn’t totally explained and the conspirators- all the conspirators-brought to justice, couldn’t we be talking about the destruction of the FSB? Certainly about the need for yet another but more complete restructuring?”

“All of these difficulties have been realized and are being acted upon,” assured Karelin.

The unbreachable confidence was wavering, thought Natalia. “They are also difficulties that we will necessarily have to recognize, in our report to the acting president.”

“Are you warning me you believe the FSB is actively connected with this outrage!” demanded Karelin.

“I’m certainly not!” said Filitov.

“I am advising you of the evidence-and the observations-with which we have to work,” said Natalia. “With the hope of further contact and cooperation between us.”

Charlie judged it so far to be a day more confusing than most-too many of which had already been confusing enough-couldn’t see how it was going to get any better and wished now he hadn’t responded to instinct by returning to Fadeeva Ulitza instead of going back to Burdenko Hospital with the lawyers, defense psychiatrists and Donald Morrison. The initial uncertainty was the concierge’sdisclosure of the arrival at Boris Davidov’s abandoned apartment, within an hour of his having been there the previous night, of an FSB squad. According to the caretaker they’d asked similar questions to everyone else and appeared to be trying to locate the man, which they wouldn’t have had to do if he was still a serving officer but certainly would if he’d served in the past and needed to be removed from awkward questioning. Another perhaps far more feasible thought-countered only by Charlie’s impression of Bendall’s reaction-was that the FSB had joined the game of musical chairs and were chasing each of the fifteen names, in the footsteps of the FBI and the militia.

To test that possibility Charlie went directly from Fadeeva Ulitza to the American embassy and was further frustrated. Nowhere, in any of the FBI reports, was there a reference to their overlapping with either the intelligence or police service. Of the fifteen, eight-including Davidov-were logged as being not immediately traceable but with enquiries continuing. Two were serving prison sentences and another had died four years earlier, shot by the militia in an attempted armed robbery in an Arbat jewellery store. Three were working for security firms offering protection to Western businessmen in Moscow from organized mafia and the last was an instructor in the gymnasium at the Balchug Kempinski hotel. None of the security men nor the gym instructor remembered Georgi Gugin as serving with them in the army, despite the television and newspaper pictures. Nothing of the militia efforts to trace the fifteen was yet logged on the centralized system.

John Kayley came down into the incident room from the upstairs embassy as Charlie finished his fruitless computer scroll. The American was in shirtsleeves dark with sweat across his shoulders and beneath his arms.

Kayley said, “You want to guess how many Secret Servicemen we got coming here with the president?”

“No,” refused Charlie.

“Seventy-five! They hear a sound louder than a sparrow’s fart they’ll open fire and there’ll be another massacre.”

“You part of it?”

Kayley shook his head. “I got a court hearing to attend and exsoldiers to find.”

“How’s it going?”

Kayley gestured to Charlie’s blank computer screen. “What you see is what we got. Which so far is fuck all. You all set for tomorrow?”

“Short of just about everything I’d like,” said Charlie, honestly.

“You think we’re ever going to get it?” asked Kayley, kindling one of his cigars into a perfumed cloud.

Charlie considered for several minutes before he replied. “No,” he said, confronting the doubt properly for the first time. “I don’t think from the way it’s going at the moment that we stand a chance in hell.”

Charlie’s seriousness appeared to concentrate Kayley’s mind. “And I believe you’re probably right. I don’t think we are, either.” Thank Christ, he thought, for the Teflon protection of Paul Smith’s over-reactive e-mail.

Charlie seized upon Anne Abbott’s unexpected, car phone requests for a preparing, pre-hearing review-eager for a sounding board after the brief exchange with Kayley-without waiting for Morrison’s return to the incident room. Arkadi Noskov was already tightly wedged into the largest available chair-which would have enveloped anyone else-in Anne’s embassy office, vodka glass contentedly resting on his tablecloth of a beard. Charlie accepted the offered scotch, even though it was a mix. Anne wasn’t drinking.

“So how’d it go?” Charlie asked.

“It would have been better if you’d been there,” said Anne.