“She in custody?”
“Of course,” said Zenin. “So far she’s denied knowing anything about what her son was doing or where he got the rifle. It is an SVD sniper’s weapon. It’s being forensically examined, naturally.”
“The mother must have said something more about him!” demanded Okulov.
“He’s been ill … mentally ill but she claims he got better.”
“Do you believe her?”
“It’s far too early to ask my people that.”
Okulov went to the chief of staff. “What about the British?”
“There’s been a formal approach through the Foreign Ministry, for information,” said Trishin.
“The Americans?”
“They want access to Bendall. Full investigative cooperation from everyone involved here.”
“Which we’ll give them. The British too,” decided Okulov. He was contemplatively silent for several minutes. “We have to emerge with unchallengable credibility. There will be maximum liaison between each and every investigatory department …” He smiled across the table. “And you, Natalia Fedova, will coordinate everything …”
Natalia’s first realization was that she’d been made the most vulnerable of them all. Another awareness was that no one had asked-was bothered even-about the other two victims of the shooting.
“The trial must be totally open, a media event,” declared Okulov, who’d insisted upon the chief of staff remaining after dismissing the rest. “I mean what I said about openness with the Americans and the British.”
“Of course.”
“There’s no danger of the Americans refuting the security lapses being their fault?”
“They won’t officially be in court,” Trishin pointed out. “There’ll only have observer status. We’ll have the stage, they won’t. And there really is a lot of confirming paperwork.” This was the man with whom, initially at least, he was going to have to work with more than anyone else. The second realization was that Okulov’s chances of being elected to the presidency was even more uncertain that Yudkin’s had been.
“Good,” accepted the other man, warming to the increasing personal possibilities. “We’ve got to discover a great deal more aboutthis man Bendall or Gugin or whatever he calls himself.”
“Whatever he calls himself isn’t important,” insisted Trishin, rebuilding his own bunker. “He
Okulov nodded, smiling, content for the other man to spell out the further personal advantage he’d already isolated. “Which he doubtless represents. We need to know if he’s a supporter of the old ways. Anxious for their return. That could be useful.”
Trishin was encouraged by the direction of the conversation. “I didn’t get the impression from any of the hospital doctors that there’s a possibility of Lev Maksimovich making a full and active recovery, if he survives at all. Which will be a tragedy.”
“A great tragedy,” agreed Okulov, refusing to respond too quickly to the obvious approach.
Bastard, thought Trishin. “Yours will be the mantle to continue the policies you’ve been so closely involved in formulating.”
There’s a power struggle whether Yudkin died or not, accepted Okulov. And he’d need allies who knew the keys to every locked hiding place. “Which I’ll require help to do.”
“The strength of the communists makes this a very uncertain time,” said Trishin, comfortable with platitudes. “It’s important to understand you have my complete trust and loyalty, Aleksandr Mikhailevich”
“That’s good to hear,” said Okulov. “It will be important to have someone like you, Yuri Fedorovich, upon whom I can rely completely.”
“Which you can.”
“You’re quite sure the security lapses can be shown to be those of the Americans?”
“As I’ve just made clear, Alexandr Mikhailevich, you can trust me.”
Until there’s a political reversal, Okulov added, mentally.
John Kayley could very easily have had the native American Cherokee Indian ancestry he frequently-and proudly-claimed. He was saturnine with smooth, black hair. He was also indulgently fat andunconcerned about it. His footwear was neither moccasin nor molded into the shapelessness of Charlie’s Hush Puppies, but the bagged, unpressed canopy of the button-strained suit could have come from a shared reject shop. The windowless office at Novinskij Bul’var was cloyed with the smell of the scented cigars the man smoked and on the table between them was a bottle of single malt already reduced by a third. It wasn’t Islay, Charlie’s favored choice, but he appreciated the gesture.
Kayley patted the Peter Bendall dossier with a pudgy hand and said, “I’m truly grateful for this. Like I told you, there’s a lot of heat but very little to put on the fire.”
“Thanks for this, too,” said Charlie. The American had offered unasked the complete list of the failed security precautions, as well as the hospital update that the president’s wife could lose her arm, which would be permanently impaired even if she didn’t. Charlie liked the fact that the other man wasn’t trying to disguise the exchange as anything more than the same give-to-receive shell game he was playing. It indicated-he hoped-that they were treating each other as professionals. He was still waiting for Kayley to point up the one incongruity that was so far troubling him. He wondered if the other professional omission was an oversight.
Kayley said, “Don’t envy you the son-of-a-bitch still being British.”
“It’s a bastard,” agreed Charlie. He nodded to his glass being topped up. He’d give the other man a little more time.
“You going to get access?”
“Not applied for yet. I expect it will be.”
“We’re asking for it, although I’m not sure of our legality. It’s Russian jurisdiction and prosecution, even though it’s the president’s wife that got hit.”
Kayley
“Limited’s my guess. He’s your national, you stand the better chance.”
“I’m prepared to share, if you are.” Surely Kayley would pick upon on that!
“Deal!” accepted the American, at once.
Perhaps Kayley was testing him. Charlie said, “Peter Bendall passed over a lot of your stuff to the Russians in the late sixties. There’ll be an American dossier on him.”
Kayley nodded, unembarrassed at being reminded of the obvious. “I guess. It would have been CIA, not the Bureau.”
“Available to you now, though?”
“I’ll check it out.”
A professional like Kayley would have done so hours ago. If the American was trying to control the exchange, he’d failed. Charlie decided it was better to continue in the expectation of getting something but not all, which was the level at which he intended to work. “You getting any political playback this soon?” There might be a loose ball to play off against Brooking and Sir Michael Parnell and at the moment it was scraps he was scrabbling for.
“Nothing positive,” said Kayley, shaking his head. “Washington’s not comfortable about the Bureau’s position here, if the communists get their man in.”
Charlie’s feet tweaked. “How’s that?”
“We were accepted here by Yeltsin and the reformers, all part of the fight against crime,” reminded Kayley. “State’s thinking is that we’d be the first to be told to get out if the old regime was reestablished. Guess that would apply to you, too.”
“Yes,” agreed Charlie. “I guess it would.” What the hell sort of spin would that put upon the situation between he and Natalia!
“This could even be our last case. How’s that for a thought?”
“Unsettling,” said Charlie, honestly. About far too many things, he mentally added.
