in a separate although copied-to-everyone note asked the deputy interior minister to allocate emergency funding for the extra hours’ payment. She reminded her deputy there was a planned meeting that afternoon with the returning Colonel Lestov and suggested they finalize the operation then. Her last message, over which she hesitated longer than any other in the batch she enclosed to him, invited Dmitri Nikulin’s suggestion upon anything she might have overlooked.
The speed of the deputy interior minister’s return brought the stomach-dropping realization of how carefully Viskov and Travin had set their imagined trap-even to corresponding through Nikulin-and how close she was to the final confrontation. She wished Charlie would be with her when it came.
It was to the presidential office that Viktor Viskov’s memorandum was sent, marked copied to her as a matter of courtesy, and Natalia accepted at once that Viskov’s denunciation was intended to be all the more effective by its careful understatement. She was referred to throughout by her cumbersome official title: Interior ministry director of militia and internal security liaison. Nowhere was there a direct condemnation. But to crush her as completely as possible by gaining an overwhelming support as well as an audience, duplicates of the memorandum had also gone to the Finance and Foreign Ministries.
Viskov wrote that although the Lubyanka search ordered by the liaison director had already begun, it had not been possible for staff there accurately even to estimate the documentation involved. It was certainly well in excess of a hundred thousand, possibly treble that number. None of it was indexed, properly annotated or in any dated order; the history of some camps occupied half a dozen dossiers, others as many as twenty. Virtually the entire archival staff of the intelligence headquarters had been assigned to the recovery, but it would be at least a month, possibly longer, before it would all be finally transferred to the ministry. Even then there was no guarantee everything would be included. The archivist-Natalia assumed it would have been Fyodor Lyulin-had warned the material would eventually occupy several thousand square meters of space. The archivist had been given no indication or guidance by the liaison director concerning what was being hunted but thought it could takeas long as six months, depending on the number of people allocated, for everything to be read-longer if the search was for a specific individual. The lists of names ran into the millions.
Viskov estimated thirty clerks could be withdrawn from district militia posts to supplement a possible further twenty within the ministry, as suggested by the liaison director. Their working a shift system-even around the clock, as also suggested by the liaison director-for anything up to six months would cost three times the total yearly clerk and secretarial budget of the entire ministry. It would also, of course, mean none of the normal work of those involved could be done, which would require a further period of overtime working, logically a further six months, which would bring the budgetary overspending to four times the salary allocation. A further but very practical problem was that in the ministry building there was insufficient storage space for the files, the first of which had already arrived.
Such a commitment-in terms of cost, manpower, time and space-was unprecedented in the history of the Moscow militia, the intelligence agencies or the Interior Ministry. Nothing Viskov had so far been told by the liaison director supported such an undertaking; indeed, he was still waiting to learn precisely
The deputy interior minister proposed that the already arranged meeting with Colonel Vadim Leonidovich Lestov be expanded to the whole committee for the liaison director personally to justify her actions. Until then, and their confirmation by the full committee, he had suspended the archival transfer.
Natalia read and reread the denunciation, knowing she could not afford to miss a single accusation. It was far more detailed than Charlie had predicted and for some time she felt hollowed-fleetingly, even, angry at Charlie- before gradually forcing the acceptance that Viskov and Travin had fallen into Charlie’s trap, not she into theirs. And that it looked as if this really was the last battle in a sniping war of attrition. She was frightened, which she supposed people werebefore knowingly going into battle. She hoped the very particular rules of engagement devised by herself at Charlie’s direction proved sufficient. They seemed to be, so far, but there was a long way to go.
Her only real concession would be to admit a total inspection was impractical, and that wasn’t planned as an admission. Everything after that was to lure Viskov on, turning the man’s blind determination back upon himself. And he had been blinded. Or rather unable to see properly, over the bullshit mountain. Possibly the politician’s greatest weakness-despite his attempted insistence to the contrary-was having no alternative but to link Dmitri Nikulin in the attack, because of Nikulin’s endorsement of Natalia. More than a weakness, she corrected: it was a very definite tactical error.
Natalia used her private line to dial Charlie’s direct embassy number, anxious for his reassurance, wincing when she finally got his voice mail. She didn’t leave a message.
She was sitting contemplatively at her desk when the announcement came from Nikulin’s office that the afternoon’s meeting was being extended, as requested by the deputy interior minister. Natalia was sure she had sufficient evidence to confront those trying to destroy her, but following Charlie’s dictum, she wished she had more. It wasn’t until Lestov’s arrival that she considered she had it. Still a long way to go, but the route was better lit.
At Miriam Bell’s entrance at least twenty male heads turned at the same time, as if attached to the same wire. Charlie sat facing the door of the Metropole Hotel’s Minsk Restaurant and didn’t have to make the effort but thought he might have, just for the fun of it, if he’d had to. Charlie wasn’t sure if the smile was all for him or had to be shared with her awareness of the effect she knew she was having throughout the room.
He said, “You ever get into any trouble you couldn’t handle?”
“I hope I don’t with you.” She wore a shimmering green silk trouser suit over a white silk blouse and he didn’t think there was a bra. Her hair was bobbed much shorter than in Yakutsk and all the swelling had gone from her face.
“I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
“I still believe what I said on the plane, that you would if it wasnecessary, and I could be sad you don’t think it’s necessary now,” she said, nodding acceptance to the vodka he offered from the carafe already on the table. “But that wasn’t what I meant, which I think you knew. So we really do need to have this lunch, don’t we?”
As they touched glasses, Charlie said, “Who the
Miriam shook her head in matching incredulity. “The old guy’s name was Peters. Don’t know his first name. Never got one at all for the second one. Peters only dealt with the ambassador, who decreed every wish was our- and anybody else’s-command. I guess State Department, God and presidential executive order is a pretty powerful combination.”
“The younger one wasn’t State,” insisted Charlie, positively. “I’ve met people like him before: recognize them as a type.”
“Peter’s bodyguard,” identified Miriam. “Saul says State was taking seriously all the kidnapping and killing that happens here in Moscow.”
Bodyguards got in the way of trouble or caused it, decided Charlie: they didn’t sit in on what might-but hadn’t been-sensitive debriefings. “Peters really that important?”
“You wouldn’t believe how the ambassador and head of chancellery and Freeman were shitting themselves. Practically a hygiene problem.”
“Why the act?”
“The way he is, apparently. Although I don’t know how Saul knows.”
Miriam’s responses were too ingenuous to be prepared, but his warning feet were throbbing to the beat of drums. “Where are they now?”
“Gone.”
“Quite an experience.” Was it over? he wondered.
“Haven’t we got other things to talk about?” demanded Miriam.
“Could be,” encouraged Charlie.
“We’re working against each other, Charlie! Which doesn’t make any sense. You made it very clear in Yakutsk you don’t like company. I didn’t set out to do any deals, either. It’s going to be my tit in the wringer if this goes wrong.
