Dead Men Living

“To get to the Germans would have been incredible!”

“That was only part of it,” said Charlie. “There has to be more, otherwise none of it makes sense.”

They ate-both duck-but were unaware of what they were eating and neither properly tasted the wine, either, each engrossed in private thoughts, hands and mouths working automatically.

Charlie felt instinctively that he was close, maybe close enough to reach out and touch, but there were still too many bits missing. His mind-his hope-was on Vitali Novikov, who according to Natalia was arriving the following day. All or nothing throbbed through Charlie’s head, like a drumbeat. It wouldn’t- couldn’t-be absolutely nothing, he reassured himself. No matter how desperate, the man wouldn’t have risked a total and outright lie-not someone as aware, as Novikov was, of the return expected for his freedom from theinherited exile of an innocent father. A bargain, in fact, that the doctor himself had volunteered.

Miriam was more confused now than when she’d arrived. Nothing that seemed to make sense to Charlie was even vaguely comprehensible-guessable, even-to her. So he was still out of sight and she couldn’t see a way to catch up. Richard Cartright suddenly came into her mind: Richard Cartright, with the too-ready questions inexplicable then and even more inexplicable now, if London was operating with the sort of harmony Charlie was inferring. Tentatively she said, “How’d you find the attitude in London?”

“Attitude?” queried Charlie.

When the fuck was she going to get a half-useful answer instead of another wrong-position question? “Thought maybe you might have heard something about Peters’s visit, on his way back from here?”

No, she didn’t, Charlie recognized at once, concentrating fully. “It was a pretty big meeting, I gather. There’s a lot of different interests, in London-too many, in my opinion. I didn’t hear in any specific detail how it went with your guy. What playback did you get?”

A way at last to avoid the question! “I didn’t, as such. But I kinda got the impression there was …”-the apparent search for the word wasn’t necessary-“some rivalry in England?”

“How?” Charlie’s demand was as unhelpful as she’d tried to make hers in the beginning.

“I will keep to our agreement,” said Miriam. “And for me I guess it’s easier. It’s been left entirely to me-okay, so my head’s on the block-but at least I don’t have the irritation of someone riding shotgun on me. That’s how mistakes happen.” Cartright had tried to use her as she’d been happy to use him, before realizing that he knew nothing. This was just getting a repayment for what he’d gotten in another way.

Could he risk the guess? No. A guess, even though he was sure of the answer, would change the balance, weighing the scales to her advantage. Not another blitzkrieg. A softening-up salvo, to continue her belief in his superior firepower. There was only one thing she could be missing, apart from the full answer which she clearly hadn’t gotten. He said, “I’ve got both American names and I know wherethe grave is of the one who was really buried in Yakutsk.” And waited.

Miriam said, “Cartright.”

“Personal?”

“Very much so. Carried out badly, too.”

“Your lieutenant was George Timpson. Buried in the American cemetery at Margraten, in Holland. The second American was a Harry Dunne. He survived the war, as far as I know. I’ve no idea if he’s still alive.” Charlie was glad the encounter with Miriam was the first of a busy day and that he’d fought off the embassy ambush earlier that day.

“This come to your people from Washington?”

She shouldn’t need to ask that! “No.”

“Have they been told?”

If they had, she, in turn, would-or should-have been told. So her question manifestly showed that she hadn’t been. No need even to guess now. “Have you been cut out entirely? Or sidelined?”

Abruptly-frighteningly-Miriam felt the emotion flood through her, her eyes briefly blurring. Her recovery was as quick as the near-collapse. He knew too much-was too intuitive-to go on with the charade anymore and in any case she was too tired and dispirited and pissed off and pissed over to try anymore. “Entirely.” Bitterly she added, “You know what that motherfucker Peters told me? He said I was the fall guy. That you were, too. Both of us at the bottom of the heap, to take the shit if it came down. Denies it, of course. But I taped the son-of-a-bitch!” Miriam’s emotions switchbacked again. This time she was suffused by an enormous feeling of relief. “That’s it, Charlie! All of it. I don’t have anything more to tell you. Nothing held back.”

“He use my name? Or was it by inference?”

Miriam considered the question. “By inference, I guess. But you were the only person he could have been referring to.”

“That what you meant about watching my back?”

Miriam looked steadily at Charlie for several moments. “I think Packer was a hit man.”

“I’m sure Packer was a hit man.”

“Who?”

“It wouldn’t have been you,” Charlie said.

“Which only leaves you.”

Charlie decided he didn’t want to go any further. “I still think it was a separate Agency thing. It’s past.”

“I hope. What do you think I should do now?”

“You sleeping with Cartright and Lestov?”

“Yes,” said Miriam at once, totally without embarrassment.

“Tell Lestov you’ve been cut out. And that you don’t know why.” And if Natalia relayed that to him, from Lestov, he might be better able to decide if Natalia was being truthful or troubled by integrity again, decided Charlie.

“What’ll that achieve?”

“There’ll have to be some reaction. Let’s see what it is.”

“What about Cartright?”

Charlie thought about it. “Maybe we should satisfy his curiosity. A name, even. You mind being the messenger in your own special way?”

She sniggered. “It was my decision to begin with, wasn’t it? I guess now it makes you my unpaid pimp.”

Charlie smiled back. “I’ve always accepted that was what people like you and I are, whores and pimps. The professional ones just get treated better.”

Charlie went through all the required motions with Vadim Leonidovich Lestov, talking of assessments and reevaluations and complaining there appeared to be very little progress and even conveyed some irritation at Lestov’s refusal (“There are still facts to be checked before any disclosures can be made”) to hint at the intended Russian announcement. Charlie actually went as far as asking if there was any official Russian impatience, which Lestov countered by asking about London’s attitude after insisting that as far as he was aware Moscow was prepared for the investigation to continue indefinitely. Charlie said he hadn’t detected any London restlessness.

He was back at the embassy an hour before the scheduled meeting with McDowell, Cartright, and Gallaway. He considered passing on to London what he’d learned about the German POWs but decided against it until after the encounter with Vitali Novikov the following day. He limited himself to cabling that the Russians were still refusingto disclose their intended media release and occupied the remainder of the time deep in paper-plane- building reflection. He ended it even more instinctively sure that only one or two doors remained closed against his understanding virtually everything.

Charlie put on a very positive performance in the head of chancellery’s office, guessing at progress in Washington as well as that the impending Russian announcement would be startling but admitting that London had been an entirely unproductive, embarrassing expedition. He was, further conceded Charlie, anxious for whatever input any of them might have.

“Jackson called, from Berlin: some crossed wires with London about your going there,” said the military attache. “He thought you learned a lot?”

“That someone else had been murdered to fill Norrington’s grave,” said Charlie. “We’ll never know who it was.”