that needs to be discussed with him. Would you have any objection?”
“None whatsoever,” responded Charlie, seeing the first possible benefits.
“But no one diplomatically accredited to the embassy will participate.”
“Of course not.”
“Questions must be restricted to the murder investigation. There must be no discussion whatsoever about listening devices or withdrawal of embassy personnel.”
“Questions will inevitably be asked.”
“And must be refused.”
“An outright refusal could result in a misleading misunderstanding,” risked Charlie, nervous of erecting any barrier but wanting to log a minimal warning.
“That’s the ruling,” insisted the ambassador.
“Which of course I will observe,” emptily promised Charlie.
“There have also been further representations both to me here at the embassy and in London, through the Russian ambassador, denying any Russian knowledge or responsibility for the listening devices,” said Maidment. “In each approach there was a demand for participation in the press conference.”
“I advised you to expect that,” reminded Charlie.
“And I warned London,” said Maidment, looking more toward the note taker than Charlie. “No one suspected of any involvement with any Russian security service will be allowed within the embassy precincts. Which is the purpose of the accreditation confirmation.”
Charlie decided against bothering to remind the other man that it was he who had talked earlier of excluding Guzov. “What’s the official response going to be to Moscow’s representation?”
“An acknowledgement of their Note.”
Which was fence sitting, not a response, Charlie recognized. Could he risk including Sergei Pavel, without actually mentioning it? He could by the strictest interpretation of Maidment’s caveats. “I’ll announce the conference for Wednesday.”
“It’s important that you understand that everything about this is your responsibility,” insisted Maidment.
What, wondered Charlie, was the collective noun for a group of shit-scared diplomats: a cower of diplomats was all that came to mind. “I totally accept that.”
“And I am declining any further involvement,” added the frightened man. “From now on everything goes direct to your Director-General, who in turn will deal with the Foreign Office.”
“Of course,” said Charlie, snatching a benefit he hadn’t imagined possible.
Unsure from which direction the next problem might come-simply resigned to the inevitability that one would-Charlie did his best to cover his back with his own account to London of the encounter with Maidment before moving on to his dedicated apartment and telephone requirements, sparing himself the playground petulance by e-mailing his demands to Harold Barrett. He posed his telephone interception queries to Harry Fish the same way as well, copying London’s authorizing approval to both men. Charlie completed his computer correspondence by announcing the press conference on the TASS, RIA Novosti, and Izvestia online news agencies and duplicated the information to the Associated Press wires for the Western media, although knowing that they would pick up the constantly read Russian news services. In every e-mail, he identified Paul Robertson as the man to whom all necessary accreditation information should be addressed. He also set out the admission and exit restrictions and stipulated that the conference would be strictly limited to the murder investigation. Finally, he duplicated everything to London. And then he sat back to wait, wondering who would be the first through his door.
It was Paula-Jane Venables. She burst into the room, without knocking, the slip from the TASS service still in her hand and said: “Hey! We got a breakthrough here?”
“We’ve got enough hopefully to unlock some doors.”
“Like what?”
“I want to keep that until Wednesday.”
“For Christ’s sake, Charlie!” she protested.
“No one officially accredited to the embassy can be involved, for obvious reasons.”
“What’s official got to do with it!”
“How it’s got to be.”
Her face hardened. “And I was prepared to forgive and forget!”
“Forgive and forget?”
“I know.”
“Know what?” Charlie frowned, genuinely confused.
“How you tried to stitch me up a second time, with Robertson.”
“I didn’t try to stitch you up,” denied Charlie. “You did wrong and in these very particular circumstances, it was right to do what I did.”
“Which was to prove you’re a bastard.”
“Which was to behave professionally, which you hadn’t been doing. And we’re not achieving anything debating it.”
“Fuck you!” She was red faced now, her hands trembling as if with the effort of holding back from hitting him.
“Quite a few people seem to be trying to do that, one way and another,” remarked Charlie, mildly.
Paula-Jane remained where she was, shaking and with no words left but reluctant to retreat the loser. The impasse was broken by Robertson’s entry, again unannounced. The man looked between Paula-Jane and Charlie before saying: “I’m sorry. Am I interrupting something important?”
“Not at all,” said Charlie. “Paula-Jane’s just leaving, aren’t you?”
She took the offered escape but paused at the door and said, “Bastard! Sneaking fucking bastard!” before slamming it closed behind her.
Charlie said, “Did you tell her I’d suggested she be recalled?”
Robertson’s face opened, in understanding. “Not personally. I did recall her, though. It came out during her reexamination. Which she passed the second time, to everyone’s satisfaction. She’s not our inside source.”
“You found out who is?”
Robertson shook his head. “The concentration’s now on Dawkins, back in London. I hope there aren’t any bad feelings about that polygraph business.”
“I hope there aren’t at the way it ended,” responded Charlie, who didn’t care a wet fart about Robertson’s feelings but was intrigued at the man’s surprisingly changed attitude.
“This conference is going to be very much your show,” said Robertson. “You’d better tell me what you want me and my guys to do.”
His performance wasn’t just going to be monitored by film and audio recordings, Charlie decided. Like Sinbad the Sailor, he was going to have Robertson on his back just as Sinbad had the clinging old man of the sea.
Harry Fish was added to the mix within fifteen minutes to answer Charlie’s queries in person. It took another ten to go through the no-hard-feelings bullshit before Fish insisted that he could defeat any Russian scanner interception with white noise equipment, which would at the same time detect Russian eavesdropping attempts. Additionally, he could attach to Charlie’s phones recording apparatus sensitive enough to pick up extraneous and, hopefully, identifying background sounds-to establish whether the incoming calls were from a pay phone from a street kiosk, a cell phone, or a landline-that would normally be inaudible to the human ear. In certain circumstances, landline calls would be traceable.
The e-mail from the facilities and housing officer allocating Charlie his two requested telephone lines and numbers, both within the available compound apartment, arrived in the middle of the discussion with Fish.
“My people will install both connections and everything else you’ll need to block any intrusion,” guaranteed the electronics sweeper.
And install his own duplicate eavesdropping equipment, Charlie accepted, unconcerned. “It’s good to be part of a team: none of this will work without your help,” lied Charlie, to make them believe he didn’t suspect the bullshit they were shoveling.
“It’s still got to work,” cautioned Robertson.
