Dead Men Living

drive. He listened leaning forward from his encompassing chair, looking into the glass cupped between both hands but not drinking. The silence unsettled Natalia, who’d expected-wanted-as much excitement, as much enthusiasm, as she felt.

Charlie didn’t immediately speak, even when Natalia had obviously finished. Natalia waited, becoming more unsettled. Finally Charlie said, “The adjournment was limited to just you, Viskov and Travin? And Nikulin?”

Natalia nodded. “Lestov was called back at the end, when Nikulin announced he was to take over operational control.”

“But he wasn’t officially appointed by title as your deputy?” pressed Charlie.

“Nikulin talked about there having to be changes, but there was nothing official, no. Letting them sweat, I suppose.”

“Which of them do you think Nikulin was talking about?” demanded Charlie.

Natalia allowed another pause. “Travin, primarily. Reducing his responsibility to the Lubyanka documentation was total humiliation. For him and Viskov, after the way they dismissed it and tried to use it.”

Charlie had hoped for more: a dismissal, even. “Are there any arrangements for you to see Nikulin again? By yourself?”

Natalia shook her head once more.

“Ask for a meeting,” urged Charlie. “It might have been too muchto hope that by itself it would have been enough to get Viskov moved, as well as Travin. But you’ve definitely got to get rid of Travin. Totally. He and Viskov have been humiliated, as well as caught out. They’re a threat as long as they’re still together in the same building, able to plot. Maybe more so than before, after what happened today. They’re fighting for their very existence now.”

The final vestiges of Natalia’s excitement seeped away. Charlie’s killer instinct, she remembered. “So I haven’t won?”

“Not yet.” Seeing her need, Charlie said, “But you will. That’s what we decided, didn’t we?”

“How?” she asked, despondently unsure.

“Using what we’ve got,” he said, inadequately. “Now tell me about the button from the Western uniform.”

“It’s not like those on the uniforms the dead men were wearing-not the same metal. And it’s definitely not from a Russian uniform.”

“Were there any special markings on it?” asked Charlie, urgently. There was another possibility that actually fit the way the English lieutenants had been dressed. There were two uniforms, dress and battle dress.

“I haven’t seen it yet. I will, of course.”

“I need a photograph,” insisted Charlie. He fell silent. Then he said, “I made a bad mistake-a stupid mistake- leaving the grave too early. Don’t like fucking up like that.”

“You’d decided there was someone else,” reminded Natalia, trying to help.

He had, acknowledged Charlie-from the.38 bullet as well as another person’s military knowledge of the waistband label. Charlie said, “It was a possibility that had to be considered. This is proof.” He straightened positively, dismissing the self-recrimination, at the same time topping up both their glasses. The immediate future was more important than the immediate past. Natalia’s survival was still the priority. “What was decided to do about a second English officer?”

Natalia made an uncertain gesture. “I used it as an accusation, as part of the argument: turned it against Travin that he hadn’t approached you or the American to get your findings. Your idea, remember?”

“What about disclosing it? I challenged Denebin in Yakutsk about everything else I saw him recover.”

“They know you went off before Denebin found the buttons-that you don’t know. That the American doesn’t know, either.”

“So?”

“It comes down to what you-and she-officially offer,” said Natalia. “Maybe not even then. It’s a hell of an advantage for us: the worst imaginable, as far as you’re concerned-” She hurriedly stopped. “The worst imaginable for Britain. I didn’t mean you personally.”

Was there a differentiation? wondered Charlie. There shouldn’t be, logically. But logic had very little to do with getting out from under when the toilet was flushed, and Charlie had a longtime aversion to getting covered in little brown bits. His was the name on everything: even on television, the identified person at the bottom of the toilet bowl. Charlie said, “But I know! And by knowing I can avoid a mistake.” He paused. “Any more mistakes,” he added, refusing himself an escape.

“I hope,” said Natalia, at once wishing that she hadn’t.

Charlie didn’t pick up on the remark. He said, “Lestov, with whom I always had to liaise anyway, is effectively your deputy?”

“He was the obvious choice,” Natalia pointed out. “Suddenly to have introduced anyone else as an operational controller-apart from his need to be totally rebriefed-would have shown our internal problem. Lestov getting the job can be explained, even if there’s a need to explain, as a promotion. Which he rightly deserved.”

“And which he must get, by title,” insisted Charlie. He hadn’t done enough to reassure her, he decided. He really wasn’t used to worrying about people and protecting people other than himself. It meant a further delay in talking to Natalia about Novikov, too: her involvement in that was the last thing that could be risked with Viskov and Travin still in place and working against her.

“Which you still haven’t told me how we’re going to achieve?” prompted Natalia.

“You are still going to get the camp archives before Travin?”

“I insisted upon it,” confirmed Natalia. “Said I wanted personally to be sure that a search neither Travin nor Viskov judged important was carried out properly.”

“Excellent,” exaggerated Charlie. It would have heaped further humiliation, increasing their determination to hit back.

“I’m waiting!” protested Natalia.

“I already think Colonel Vadim Leonidovich Lestov is a good policeman,” said Charlie. “We’re going to make him better ….” He paused again, remembering Miriam’s lunchtime phrase. “Superman, in fact. And when the great discovery comes from Gulag 98, Petr Pavlovich Travin is going to miss it.”

“What if there isn’t anything to discover about Camp 98?” argued Natalia, raising at last one of her nagging doubts. “We don’t even know that the records of every camp have survived.”

The reason to get Novikov and whatever the man had to Moscow as soon as possible, thought Charlie. “We do know there was a Gulag 98 for special prisoners?”

“Yes?” agreed Natalia, doubtfully.

“None of whom, after fifty-four years, will still be alive today?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Natalia further agreed.

“All we need is a name. I can invent an importance supposedly from an English source,” said Charlie, simply.

“What if there isn’t a surviving file?” pressed Natalia, relentlessly.

“The three bodies were where a special camp once existed, weren’t they?” coaxed Charlie. “The information from England-from me-will still be that it was vital to trace a prisoner there. The failure to locate the file will be Travin’s, won’t it?”

Natalia shook her head. “Sometimes you lose me, Charlie.”

“That’s something I’m never going to do,” he said, using her remark.

She started, at the strident sound of the street-level bell. So did Charlie. Shit! he thought. “I forgot to tell you,” he apologized. “I invited Irena to supper.”

“Why, Charlie?” demanded Natalia, seriously.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ll tell you if I find out,” he answered, obscurely. “Maybe it’s nothing.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“Trust me.”

Natalia wished Charlie wouldn’t keep asking her to do that.