Kings of Many Castles

“That intelligence fellow’s a problem. I know he’s not officially recognized here as such but that’s what he is. Or was. And a confounded nuisance as well, from all the stories I heard before I arrived.”

“He’s caused a lot of problems in the past,” confirmed Brooking.

“I won’t allow him to cause any in the future. If London wants their own investigation, let them send someone from there to do it, separate us from that part of it. We’re going to have enough difficulties as it is.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t ask for someone from London, for precisely that reason?” suggested Brooking.

Parnell allowed a half smile. “What’s your thinking?”

“Muffin’s already got the reputation in London as an uncontrollable troublemaker. Politically and diplomatically we couldn’t be in a more unmapped minefield, with what’s happened. There will be mistakes, no matter how hard we try to anticipate, mistakes we don’t officially want to be associated with.”

Parnell’s smile broadened. “We’ll have to watch the bloody man very carefully, of course.”

“We might actually in the final analysis get rid of him altogether. It’s still an experimental posting, despite his having tricked his way successfully so far.”

“That would be good!” said Parnell, enthusiastically. There was a pause. “So! What do we tell London?”

“That we’ve inherited another intelligence embarrassment,” insisted Brooking, at once. “Let’s start from the very beginning preparing the way to distance ourselves.”

The eruption was inevitable, the only uncertainty its timing, and Burt Jordan, the CIA station head, and the FBI Rezident, John Kayley-both of whom felt themselves safely beyond the endangered fall-out area-found much to occupy them in the initial file photographs of the shooting while Wendall North outlined the situation he’d just left at the Pirogov Hospital. They were in the chef du protocol’s office at the American embassy on the Novinskij Bul’var section of the inner ring road, even his desk surrendered by the local diplomat, David Barnett. Barnett considered himself the safest of them all in the aftermath and sat trying to guess when the explosion would occur.

“So that’s it,” concluded North. “A …”

“Total disaster,” completed Jeff Aston, director of the White House Secret Service detail.

“We all know that,” tried North. “The immediate need is to prioritize: evaluate and anticipate.”

“Just how much do we all know to evaluate and anticipate, Wendall?” persisted Aston, who was black, six and a half feet tall, weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds and had protected two previous presidents before Walter Anandale. “Give us an idea of your prioritizing. How would you assess the fall-out? Would you put a treaty that isn’t going to be signed more or less important than the maiming of the president’s wife? And where would you put the likely death of a Russian president against the possible resurgence of a communist government? And whereabouts in all of it would you put the fact that the shooting was allowed to happen in the first place because that’s something that personally and professionally interests me a hell of a lot ….” Aston had hassled Barnett into including both the CIA and FBI, determined there should be witnesses. They’d already been waiting when the unsuspecting Wendall North arrived from the hospital, making it impossible for him to exclude them.

“I don’t think that’s very constructive, which is what we’ve got to be,” protested North, conscious that he had no defense against the Secret Service chief’s attack.

“Right again, Wendall,” goaded Aston. “But I’m still a little curious about things being destructive. Which it’s my job to prevent … providing, that is, I’m not prevented or obstructed from doing it.”

“There’ll be an enquiry,” said North. He was red-faced and visibly sweating, despite the air-conditioning.

“I’m sure as hell glad to hear that, Wendall. Your office kept all the preparation and planning details for this trip, all the way back to when the negotiations first started? I don’t want you or any of your staff to worry, if you haven’t. We have, in the Secret Service. Every memo, notes of every discussion, telephone logs of every call and what the outcome was. And not just in English. Russian, too. I’ve already cabled Washington for it all to be handed over to counsel. Important, to keep everything intact. You know how these rumors start after something like this, suggestions of things getting lost or tampered with. So if you’ve got any problem finding anything, you just let me know because it’s important that all the facts are established by whoever investigates the worst cockamamy screw-up since God knows when …”

“I’ll remember that,” said North, tightly. “But at the right time. Which isn’t now.” He’d hoped having George Bendall’s identity, which he’d learned at the hospital, would have deflected this obvious attack.

“Don’t you worry about remembering, Wendall. I’ll remind you often enough.”

“There are other things to talk about,” prompted the bespectacled, fair-haired diplomat whose office had been taken over and who had decided Aston had sufficiently established blame.

“Absolutely,” agreed Aston. “Let’s try to make sure we get it right this time.”

“There’s going to be a lot of balls in the air,” warned the CIA’s Burt Jordan. “From what Washington has rounded up so far this guy’s father did a lot of damage to the American nuclear program as well as to the British. Which was bad enough at the time. This is a hell of a lot worse. My guess is they’ll hunker down. Throw George Bendall to the wolves, which the bastard deserves anyway,and say he’s Russia’s problem by adoption, not theirs.”

“There’s some sound political reasoning in that,” said North, relieved the inquest had moved on.

“Not for Moscow,” challenged the locally-based diplomat. “Making them responsible for the man who’s probably killed their president and badly wounding our First Lady throws detente right out the window.”

“That’s a fight between London and Moscow,” challenged North, in return. “A fight we’ve got to stay on the outside of but do everything to make swing in our direction, to our president’s benefit. There’ll be a tide of sympathy now. And our missile shield planning is still in place, whatever happens here.”

There was no reaction to the cynicism.

Kayley said, “So politically we don’t need Russia or the treaty anymore?”

“Not as much as we did,” qualified North. “What we do need is to ride shotgun on the British, particularly with whatever they do here …” He looked directly at Jeff Aston. “And to make damned sure there’s no rebound on us.”

“You mean get into bed with the British …?” Jordan began.

“ … And fuck them every which way,” completed Kayley.

Wendall North winced at the coarseness but said, “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

Charlie padded softly into the darkened bedroom, letting his clothes lie where they fell. He was careful easing himself under the covers to avoid any disturbing contact with Natalia, who lay with her back to him.

Natalia was fully awake but didn’t turn. And remained so long after Charlie had settled into occasionally snuffled sleep.

4

The naming of traitor’s son George Bendall was to bring a very changed world-some changes predictable, some not-to Charlie’s door and for the first time in a permanently precarious life Charlie could rarely, if ever, remember the uncertainty he felt sitting in his river view office awaiting the first approach.

Natalia’s giving him to within thirty minutes the timing of the official announcement ended, as far as Charlie was concerned, the futile pretense of keeping their professional lives entirely separate. Charlie’s argument that morning had been that this attempted assassination needed their personal cooperation, but Natalia had equally insisted there should always be the mitigating defense of their never having colluded, which no tribunal would or could ever accept.

Charlie’s confusion was not being sure where, if anywhere, it left he and Natalia. They both recognized the answer to the problem. It would, quite simply, be for one of them to quit their conflicting jobs. Which wasn’t in any way simple. To both such a sacrifice was unthinkable. There was nothing else Charlie could do. Wanted to do. Was able to do. And he knew-as Natalia knew-that what was already stretched to near breaking point between them would snap beyond repair within weeks of Charlie becoming a house-husband, in title if not in legal fact.

Which put the onus on Natalia, upon whom the onus had far too often and far too heavily already been