Charlie poured more vodka for both of them and said, “Let’sorder, after a speech like that.” When they had- Miriam with hurried disinterest-he said, “Wrong like failing to solve it or wrong like Peters would judge to be wrong?”
Her smile this time was ruefully admiring, at Charlie’s perception. “We got a knee-jerk president, with ratings in free fall. Without talking to anyone except his own reflection in the mirror, to get the wet eyes right, he declares an unknown, wrong-place lieutenant to be a national hero whose death will be avenged. And then has to be told the reason for his very own Superman being where he was could be a monumental, fucked-up embarrassment, even after all these years. And that he’s tied the rock around his own neck and could be dragged down by it faster than he was already dropping.”
Charlie exhausted the vodka with the arrival of their caviar and ordered another carafe. “So if the reason for your guy being in Yakutsk doesn’t qualify for the Arlington Cemetery burial, it’ll be interred with him to remain the great unsolved mystery?”
“It
“Did Peters stop in England on his way here?” asked Charlie. It looked as if London and Washington were thinking with a single mind, London with perhaps more reason, if he was right about a second Briton being involved. He’d never liked being part of diplomatic house-tidying: the dirt always had a habit of bulging the carpet under which it was swept.
“According to Saul, he wanted to get as much as he could here first,” said Miriam. “He’s doing it on his way back.”
“Seems like it’s all being settled at a much higher level than us.”
Miriam shook her head. “According to Saul, who’s busy digging himself out from under, Peters didn’t like your meeting. Doesn’t think you told the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And sometimes-too many times-what gets fixed at the top fucks up on its way down because no one has the full game plan. Won’t want to play it, even. Especially someone who doesn’t like working in tandem in the first place.”
“This approach your idea or Peters, via Saul?”
“Mine.” She waited for her trout to be served. Not looking at him-squirting lemon onto her fish-she said, “You think that scrap left in the trouser band label is enough to identify your guy?”
Charlie laughed outright. “Why didn’t you call me a sneaky bastard?”
“I just have. I wanted to choose my time to trade.”
“What’ve you got?”
“A photograph. Or rather a piece of a photograph, like it’s been cut in half because he didn’t want the other piece. He’s in uniform, in front of a building that could be a bank or a college: it’s very big. He’s with a girl. She’s maybe thirty. Blond. There’s nothing written on it to say who she is or where it was taken.”
“You make a copy before it went to Washington?”
“I back up everything,” negotiated Miriam. “I have your word about the trouser label?”
“My word,” promised Charlie.
Miriam took the copy from her purse and slid it across the table to him, with the supposed duplicate of her Yakutsk report to Washington. Charlie pocketed the envelope but studied the picture for several moments before putting that away.
“You think there’s enough of the background for your people to identify?”
“They hope so.”
“I watched you pretty carefully when you went through the clothes,” said Charlie, curiously.
“Like I watched you,” reminded Miriam. She put her hand to her waist. “There was a small pocket, just here. For tickets or small change, I guess. The picture must have been important to him. It was all by itself in a little plastic wallet.”
“Anything else?”
“You were right about the spectacles, which you can see he’s wearing in the photograph. According to our laboratory guys in Washington, he suffered severe astigmatism: particularly bad unequal cornea curvature. Whatever he did or knew, he was in uniform for a very special reason.”
“What about the tweezers and the magnifying glass?”
“Tweezers are medical. There’s no maker’s mark, which is a bastard, but our forensic guys think the magnifying glass was custom-made by optical specialists.”
They both finished eating at the same time and for several momentslooked steadily at each other across the table.
Miriam said, “You want to call it a draw?”
Charlie didn’t want to admit but had to. “Okay.”
“We got a deal?”
“That won’t be enough, will it?”
“How so?”
“What about Lestov and the Russians? And Yakutsk, for that matter. It was Polyakov who made the finding of the bodies public in the first place, through Canada.”
“And got badly burned doing it,” said Miriam. “For Russia to be a problem, it’ll have to be something forensic. Lestov got nothing from the woman’s body that we didn’t see.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” She smiled.
“He could have been lying.”
“He wasn’t.”
And if he had been it wouldn’t matter, acknowledged Charlie. Because Natalia would tell him. He was edging toward his favorite position, right in the middle of the spider’s web, with everything coming in his direction. Richard Cartright’s interest in Natalia’s sister still had the irritation of an untrapped fly, though.
Throughout the lunch, to which Henry Packer had followed Miriam undetected from the embassy, the man had sat at the bar watching them, drinking mineral water. And had seen the woman pass an envelope and what looked like a piece of a photograph to the man he had to kill. Which was all he had to do, Packer reminded himself. It wasn’t his business what they were exchanging. They were supposed to be cooperating, according to the meeting he’d sat in on. Peters was an asshole, imagining there could be any problems from that shambling hayrick, whatever the man’s file said. There was only one professional between himself and Charlie Muffin, and Packer knew he was it. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait long to prove it.
Colonel Vadim Leonidovich Lestov hid his apprehension well and had it not been for her earlier training and debriefing expertise it might have taken Natalia longer to recognize it. But he’d arrived nervously fifteen minutes early-giving Natalia the advantage she hadn’t expected-and phrased everything he initially said defensively.It took several minutes for the stutter to subside. Natalia used every psychological trick she could remember to calm the man, intent upon getting whatever she could for what was to follow. And when it came-knowing that Charlie didn’t have it but realizing at once how it could be used-she felt a warm spread of satisfaction. At once she realized that it would destroy what Charlie was trying to achieve, but that was inevitable now. At least she would be able to tell him.
“You’re sure?” she insisted.
“Absolutely,” said the man. “Both uniforms were still at the mortuary when Lev Fyodorovich carried out his preliminary forensic examination in what passed there as a laboratory. I counted, specifically. They were both complete.”
“That’s very important.” Charlie had talked about wandering away from the grave before the forensic search had finished, looking for traces of Gulag 98. He’d be annoyed with himself; more than annoyed. He was always furious at personal mistakes.
“It was a forensic discovery. I don’t consider I did as well as was expected,” apologized the fresh-faced man. He was wearing the same shined-by-use suit of their first meeting.
Natalia said, “You did brilliantly. Far better than could have been expected, under the circumstances. You recovered completely from what was intended as a huge embarrassment ….” She hesitated, caught by an idea. “In fact, this afternoon’s meeting has been expanded, for what you did to be properly recognized.” Could it be that she was becoming as devious as Charlie?
