than a counter-intelligence function. Which was why, during his sleepy-voiced conversation with an awakened Sir Rupert Dean in London, the director-general had given the empire-preserving instruction that the embassy-attached MI6 be kept out for as long as possible.
Since that conversation Charlie had decided the delay, twelve hours at the most, would achieve little more than further alienating him from people who were supposed to be colleagues but who viewed him with the distaste that Brooking had evidenced minutes before. But it was a familiar experience for Charlie to find there was shit on every baton he picked up. He couldn’t ever remember actually being part of a relay team but resisting inter-embassy association was a matter of professional necessity as much as self-protecting ostracism. Charlie never had been, nor ever would be, a team player. It made him reliant upon others and a further Charlie Muffin rule was never to rely upon anyone except himself.
An unsettling challenge came at once to mind. What about Natalia? Not a contradiction, he assured himself. He trusted Natalia implicitly and absolutely, trusted her more than she trusted him, with every justifiable reason for her doubt. He relied upon her, too, in equal proportion. But that trust and that reliance was personal, not professional. He would never, of course, have admitted it to anyone-most certainly not to Natalia, who would misunderstand it to be a lack of love, which it wasn’t-but because Charlie Muffin knew himself so completely he acknowledged he’d never accept Natalia’s professional judgment in preference to or above his own.
Sir Michael Parnell entered the room with vaguely hesitant authority. He was a thin man, although not as thin as Peter Bendall appeared in the file photographs, and any further similarity was smothered beneath the fullness of deeply black hair. Like Brooking, the ambassador wore a dinner jacket and black tie and to Charlie,who did not smoke, the cigar aroma smelled the same. Charlie’s protocol-routed request, through Brooking, had been to meet Parnell immediately and he wondered if the man’s initial refusal had been disinterest or the instinctive arms-length distancing of a regretted member of embassy staffing. Probably a combination of both. Moscow was a prestigious appointment and Parnell had only held it for four months and now he was about to confront his worst sleeping or waking nightmare.
Parnell looked undecided between the two men already in the room before settling on Charlie. “Do I really need to hear what this is all about?” The man’s voice was unexpectedly high.
Instead of replying directly, Charlie looked at Brooking and said, “You thought so, didn’t you? You got any second thoughts?”
Parnell’s face stiffened. Brooking colored. The head of chancellery said, “Yes sir, you do.”
“My director-general thought so, too.” He wasn’t going to improve any working relationship with these two men by showing the respect their condescension hadn’t earned, so fuck them. He didn’t want to spend any more time with them than they wanted to spend with him.
“What?” demanded the ambassador.
The lawyer’s arrival delayed Charlie’s reply. So well had he isolated himself against embassy staff contact that there was the briefest moment of surprise, although he was sure he didn’t show it. She was tall for a woman, although not overly so, slim and small busted. If she were publicly to become known in what was to follow Charlie supposed willowy would be the English tabloid description. She wore a severe black suit that Charlie accepted to be her embassy-recognized uniform and he guessed the deeply auburn hair which now hung loose would during the day be more tightly pinned and controlled. She wasn’t wearing make-up, either, apart perhaps from the lightest of lipsticks, and Charlie decided that she had been in bed and probably asleep when Brooking telephoned. She politely greeted the two diplomats by title and name and remained looking enquiringly at Brooking, who hurriedly introduced her to Charlie as Anne Abbott.
“Now I won’t have to repeat myself a third time,” greeted Charlie.Her handshake was firm, confident, and he liked her attitude towards the other two men, respectful of their embassy rank but not deferential. He put her at about thirty-eight, certainly not older.
“What is it?” demanded Parnell again, impatiently.
Neither the ambassador nor the woman openly gave the sort of disbelieving reaction Brooking had shown when Charlie told them, although Parnell at once asked if Charlie were sure and Charlie said he was.
“The nationality is the key,” insisted Anne. “There’s no doubt he’s still British?”
Charlie handed her the London material. “You’ll need to go through everything. It’s Peter Bendall’s entire archive. If he’d taken Russian nationality, it would have been logged. There was a lot of speculation that his refusal to adopt Russian citizenship showed an intention to return to England, despite the sentence he’d still have had to serve …” He looked to the other two men. “I’ve made copies of everything except the seizure video which needs the embassy facilities to duplicate.”
“It’s surely a moot point whether he had or he hadn’t taken citizenship,” challenged Parnell, objectively. “George Bendall is still
“Who’s shot a Russian president hopefully about to agree to a Star Wars-banning treaty with America,” picked up Brooking, assessing the diplomatic fall out.
Charlie hadn’t considered the political symbolism. Completing it he said, “An agreement that won’t now be reached. Might never be.”
“And what’s left is the mess, our mess, to clear up as best we can,” said Parnell.
“What will the procedure be? Diplomatically, I mean?” asked the woman, practicably.
“In normal circumstances if a British national is arrested for an alleged crime the embassy applies for consular access,” recited the ambassador, formally. “I don’t consider this normal. I’ll want guidance from London.”
“What about legal representation?” Anne persisted.
Parnell shrugged. “That’s usually made available.”
“Are you criminal or civil?” Charlie asked the lawyer.
“Criminal.”
“Recognized under Russian law?” pressed Charlie.
She shook her head. “I’d need guidance, like the ambassador. But I don’t think I’d be accepted in open court as anything more than a qualified observer. I could probably get attachment to a Russian lawyer’s briefing team if London wanted it. What are your instructions?”
“To investigate as much as I can as best I can,” generalized Charlie. He went to the ambassador. “I’d like to be included in any access that’s arranged. My director-general will be contacting you tomorrow.”
“I’ll definitely need Foreign Office guidance for that,” warned Parnell.
“Sir Rupert expected you would,” said Charlie.
The thin man’s head came up sharply at the suspicion of condescension. Charlie stared back, blandly. Remaining fixedly upon Charlie, Parnell said, “It
“Perfectly,” said Charlie. Bollocks, he thought.
“Of course,” said Anne, accepting her inclusion in the caution.
As she walked from the head of chancellery’s office with Charlie, leaving the two diplomats composing their alert cable to the Foreign Office in London, she said, “It’s illegal under the Copyright Act to duplicate videos.”
“Let’s not tell anyone we’re going to do it.” Charlie had never told anyone in advance what he was going to do. Or hardly ever afterwards. It was better that way for their propriety, ulcers, general state of health and overall peace of mind.
Charlie’s mind as he emerged into the darkness of a slumbering Moscow night was anything but peaceful. He hadn’t properly started yet and there were already things that worried him, one more obviously than the others. He didn’t even need the warning ache from his talisman feet to tell him all was not right.
“We’ve got everything to consider, to protect ourselves against,” protested Sir Michael Parnell, guiding the discussion.
“I understand what you’re saying,” agreed the about-to-be-promoted head of chancellery.
“We’ve got to be careful.”
“Absolutely.”
“If it gets to consular access, it’ll be you, Richard.”
“I know,” accepted Brooking, uncomfortably.
