Charlie felt out unseeing for the now-cold tea, needing the respite. Not the victims in the grave. Raisa had been brunette: shot in the head. Timpson, too. Larisa Krotkov? Hank Dunne? Who was the missing Caucasian? The Englishman? Why had they been allowed to live, the others killed?
Charlie lifted and replaced the cup, without drinking, conscious of Novikov still sitting before him, motionless. There wasn’t any sound from the other room, either. It had to be Larisa Krotkov and Hank Dunne. Some intentionally put to death, some intentionally allowed to live. Nothing about Hitler’s bunker staff in the same camp. Wouldn’t be, Charlie acknowledged, irritated at the intrusion. This was a doctor’s log, nothing more. He had to work out the rest. Closer but still not close enough.
Beneath that final entry for May 5 was a list of drugs and the amounts that had been administered, each listed against a time. Also noted were temperatures and blood pressure counts, ironically marked under the believed nationalities as the man’s son had itemized his findings against the bodies of the Yakutsk grave more than fifty years later.
“It was the same incident, wasn’t it?” demanded Novikov, anxiously.
“Yes.”
“So there were witnesses? Others involved?”
Which he’d already known, thought Charlie. There was nothing new; nothing that took him one step-one millimeter-further forward. And yet …? His mind remained blank. Trying too hard; hoping too hard. Nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to look. “There’s nothing more?”
Novikov’s face was ashen. “This is not enough?”
“I’d hoped for more.” Charlie heard the faintest of noises from the entrance hall behind him and guessed Marina had eased herself to within hearing. “It won’t affect your being here.”
The man opposite him visibly sagged with relief. “I’m sorry. I thought it was valuable, would help.”
Instead of immediately replying, Charlie went back to the notes, reading everything for a fortnight prior to May 4 and for a full month after May 5. Camp 98 was not mentioned again. It became a repetitive catalogue of mine injuries often resulting in amputation and of illness and disabilities caused by the climate. There were a lot of deaths recorded and frequent complaints of Moscow’s refusal or inability to provide drugs. At last Charlie said, “I’d like to take this ledger, for the May entries.”
Novikov’s concern was immediate. “It would have been an offense for my father to make notes like that. Still would be, for me to have kept them. The references to Moscow officials? They had to be security, didn’t they? The Narodny Komitet Vnutrennikh Del, then?”
“No one else will ever see it but me. And I already know you have it.”
“You are asking me to trust you: putting ourselves in your hands.”
“You did that in Yakutsk.”
Abruptly, a man making an impulsive gesture he might quickly regret, Novikov thrust the log farther across the table toward Charlie. “Promise me that no one else will ever see it. And that when you no longer need it you will destroy it.”
“I promise,” said Charlie, putting the log into his own briefcase before the doctor could change his mind.
“Will I see you again?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps not.”
“Thank you, then, for the last time. I think of you as a good man.”
That wasn’t Charlie’s impression of himself, riding the metro back into the center of Moscow with his briefcase clutched to his chest. At that precise moment he thought of himself as a failed man, not knowing where else to look, what else to do. And yet …? He physically shrugged aside the unanswerable self-question, irritated by it and the foot twinge that came with it and which he never usually ignored. This time, for once, it had to be wrong. Charlie didn’t like not knowing what to do.
“It was obviously something you had to know immediately,” said Lestov.
“Of course,” accepted Natalia. She’d accepted Nikulin’s refusal to disclose any reason for the Russian decision because she’d had no alternative; had secretly been relieved at the thought of the whole thing drifting to an inconclusive end just as long as it ended without any danger to her and Charlie-and Sasha-personally. Now, in minutes, everything was thrown into total confusion again. “She wouldn’t say why?”
Lestov shook his head. “Just that it was an official instruction from Washington.”
“It could be a trick,” suggested Natalia.
“Where’s the trick?”
“Lulling you into believing you could safely share with her something you might be withholding,” guessed Natalia.
Lestov shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think so.”
Natalia got up from her desk, walking head bent toward the huge ministry window. She arrived in time to see a GIA traffic policeman, on foot, extract payment from a flagged-down motorist preferring to pay an instant bribe rather than waste a day in court protesting an invented speeding offense. Charlie hadn’t told her anything about the American withdrawal. He’d insisted nothing had emerged from the lunch with Miriam Bell: claimed to be worried about the lack of progress. The American girl was sleeping with Lestov, according to Charlie. Maybe she’d told her lover but not Charlie. Or Charlie was keeping things back from her in the belief that she’d lied about not knowing why the Russian decision had been made. Which took themback to their distrustful beginning. Her fault, then-her decision, she acknowledged. Surely it wasn’t necessary for Charlie to balance everything, like for like? Over her shoulder Natalia said, “What about the Englishman?”
“He claims the London visit was for reevaluation,” said Lestov. “He didn’t offer anything new yesterday.”
“You believe him?”
“No.”
