Kings of Many Castles

crossing crash by the afternoon. Hopefully with all the other officially tracable queries he’d raised earlier that morning. Charlie was aware of Anne’s uncertain frown across the raised bed covering.

Bendall’s eyes opened. At once Charlie said for the benefit of the tape, “George Bendall-Georgi Gugin-appears to have recovered consciousness,” and nudged Brooking into a repetition of the consular guarantee. Brooking reacted as if he were waking up too, but echoed virtually verbatim what he’d earlier registered on tape. Anne Abbott picked up the moment he finished, identifying herself as a lawyer there to formulate a defense, which would have to be presented in court by a Russian attorney.

“I don’t want any help from the British embassy. From the United Kingdom,” announced Bendall. His voice wasn’t as weak as it had been on the previous day’s tape to which Charlie had listened.

“Why are you going down for everyone else?” demanded Charlie, ignoring Anne’s fresh look of concern at what amounted to their dismissal by the man.

“No one else.”

“When did you get together?” asked Charlie. “It was the army, wasn’t it?”

Bendall began to hum, very softly, a tuneless wailing dirge that reminded Charlie of Middle Eastern music. Or Afghan, he reminded himself. “That where you met Vasili Gregorevich, in Afghanistan? Was he in the army with you?”

Bendall said something Charlie didn’t hear, his head turned, but Anne did. “Brother?” she queried.

There were no brothers! thought Charlie.

It was Anne who carried it on, understanding. “Is that where you formed the brotherhood? Joined it in Afghanistan?”

There was a moment’s more humming, then “Never knew.”

“You must have laughed at the officers, their not knowing?” said Charlie, taking Anne’s lead. The army record was one of drunken loutishness. It didn’t fit.

Bendall didn’t reply but he sniggered.

“You sure they didn’t know?” pressed Charlie. “You got punished a lot.”

“Didn’t understand.”

“What didn’t they understand, Georgi?” He didn’t like his English name, Charlie remembered.

“Didn’t understand.”

“Were you tricking them in the army … pretending …?” suggested Anne.

“Didn’t know.”

“That was clever,” said Anne, persuasively. “Good to stay together afterwards, too, when you left the army.”

“Meeting old friends … old comrades … every Tuesday and Thursday?” added Charlie. He was conscious of Brooking frowning in bewilderment between himself and Anne.

“Comrades,” said Bendall.

“Not at first, though,” prompted Charlie, recalling Vera Bendall’s account. “You didn’t meet up with them at first when you left the army, did you?”

The wailing hum rose and fell.

“Was that your song, what you sang when you were all together?” asked Anne.

It stopped, abruptly.

“Tell us the words, Georgi? It does have words, doesn’t it?” Fifteen minutes left, Charlie saw. He checked that their recorder was revolving smoothly.

“No one knows.”

No one knows what? thought Charlie, desperately. “Secret, like the brotherhood?” he guessed.

Bendall smiled. “Special.”

“You were, weren’t you Georgi?” said Anne. “A special person in a special group … special, secret group that noone knew about.”

“Shan’t tell you.”

“Did you swear an oath, Georgi?” asked Charlie. “Promise to be loyal to each other … protect each other?”

Bendall smiled but didn’t speak.

He said that it was right. That he had to, remembered Charlie. Bendall’s words when he was struggling for possession of the gun, according to Vladimir Sakov. “Was that what you were doing when you shot at the president, protecting the brotherhood?”

Bendall’s face clouded. “Had to.”

“Why did you have to?” pressed Anne. “What was the president going to do to hurt you and your friends?”

“I knew.”

“Tell us what you knew,” urged Anne.

“Right to do it.”

Even the same words, isolated Charlie. “Who told you that?”

“Someone who helped.”

“Who helped you?”

“Friend.”

“How many shots did you fire?” Another of Charlie’s reasons for going first to the U.S. embassy had been to discover how many cartridges had remained in the rifle’s ten-round magazine when it had been recovered, an obvious questions he was irritated at himself for not finding out earlier that it had been empty when it had been picked up after the fall.

“All of them.” The man’s eyes were becoming heavy.

“How many’s that?”

“Two.”

“Only two?”

“Special bullets. All they had.”

“Who’s ‘they’ Georgi?” came in Anne.

“Special,” said the man again.

He wasn’t referring to the cartridges, Charlie decided. “They’ll be very proud of you.”

“Yes.”

“Are you proud of them, to be one of the brotherhood?” asked Anne.

The smile was of a satisfied, proud man. He didn’t speak. Brooking was sitting back in his chair, legs extended full length in front of him, mind obviously elsewhere. Probably up his ass, thought Charlie.

“It’s good to belong to something: a proper-special-family, isn’t it?” coaxed Charlie.

The eyes closed, didn’t open.

“Georgi!” said Charlie, sharply. “Who are we? Why are we here?”

The eyes flickered open, although slowly. “Not going to tell you anything.”

“If I’m going to help defend you, you’ve got to tell me things I have to know,” said Anne, urgently.

“Too tired.”

“There’s a lot more time, as much time as you need,” said Anne. “All we need. We’ll come back again. For as long as it takes.”

Charlie didn’t totally believe Bendall was too tired to go on, but there was no way-no time because he was already aware of the doctors at the door-it could be challenged. Nor should it be. Over a life-time which seemed to begin when people had dinosaurs for pets Charlie believed he’d perfected an untrained ability to outpsychologize most psychologists. And the amateur Freudian diagnosis-even with the essential Freudian sexuality-encompassed wombs, although not physical ones, family dysfunction and surrogates, with generous outlets for mentally disturbed violence and an already beer-hall tested philosophy of foot-stamping marching songs and a lot of alcohol. Bendall had performed as much as he intended. And had unquestionably given away more than he wanted or imagined he had. It was important to leave Bendall thinking he’d controlled the encounter but with an eroding worm of doubt. “After you did it, how were they going to get you away, get you back safely among them?”

There was no obvious physical reaction but Charlie was sure Bendall wasn’t asleep and had heard him.

“Thank you, for being properly considerate,” said the waiting Badim, when they emerged. “I don’t after all