world, Moscow’s positive denial was the initial lead item in more than fifty European, American, and Asian daytime radio and television news bulletins.
Associated Press was the first international news agency to create a composite file of the global reaction, which Halliday brought into the embassy hall in which Charlie stood with Robertson, watching the applications in the process of being sorted into their security level checks.
Robertson said, “I wasn’t told London was going to go into this degree of duplication, and I don’t believe anyone anticipated this sort of result. This could turn the conference itself into an anticlimax if you don’t have enough to say.”
Charlie’s concern had already gone way beyond that awareness, to the fear that it might diminish the all important public response. “It wasn’t properly thought through.”
“How many times have I heard those precise words at the beginning of a disaster assessment?” said Halliday, whose in-house MI6 embassy records were the first to be consulted for application comparison, before their onward submission to London.
“It’s a fuck-up before it even gets started,” judged Robertson.
“Only if I allow it to be,” said Charlie.
“There are two logical interpretations from all this,” speculated Robertson. “One is that the Russians gained something of enormous importance from the embassy bugging. The other is that it’s the dead man who’s important. You going to be able to answer either of those questions?”
Those weren’t the priorities in Charlie’s mind at that moment. In little more than an hour, he had to confront Guzov and God knew who else and whatever demands they might make. One uncertainty prompted another. Surely he wasn’t being set up in some way! He couldn’t see how but then he wouldn’t-shouldn’t-be able to. It was on London’s orders that everything had been so abruptly turned on its head with the involvement of Robertson and Fish, and he hadn’t expected that, either. Where was Fish? came another question. “I think I can do enough to ensure it won’t turn into a disaster assessment.”
“Which I’m glad I’m not going to be part of if you’re wrong,” said the MI6
“I won’t be,” insisted Charlie, thinking that Halliday was the sort of man he’d always want to have in front rather than behind him.
“At least it’ll ensure you come out on top of the local viewing figures, which I never imagined you would,” said Halliday.
“What’s that mean?” demanded Robertson, his voice indicating the annoyance at the man.
“Your timing’s head to head against Stepan Lvov’s major-live-election address to his party conference,” said Halliday. “Didn’t you realize that?”
“No,” admitted Charlie.
“Who the hell’s Stepan Lvov?” asked Robertson.
“The guaranteed new Russian president, who’s going to turn the world into a better place,” identified Halliday.
“Does that include not having his people bug our embassy?” asked Robertson.
“Top of his list, along with a cure for cancer and the common cold,” persisted Halliday.
Reminded by Robertson’s remark of the initial reason for the man and his team being there, Charlie said, “Where’s Harry Fish?”
“Isolating the embassy’s conference hall from any electronic intrusion into the main building,” said Robertson. “He’s apparently got some gizmos that’ll shatter the eardrums of anyone trying to tap into any embassy system.”
And others that detect a lot more electronic intrusion, suddenly thought Charlie, reminded of his bugging concern when Natalia had been in his suite the previous evening. “You think all the accreditation checks will be completed by Wednesday?” he asked the man.
“We’ll probably manage the clearances, providing we don’t get more than another fifty to sixty applications,” undertook Robertson. “The problem already looks like equipment accommodation. Even with handheld cameras and minimal sound booms, it’s going to be a crush getting all the television crews in. And then there’s the radio station gear.”
“There’ll have to be pool agreements, two or three stations using one group of technicians and equipment,” decided Charlie.
“They don’t like doing that,” Robertson pointed out.
“And if you impose that restriction on any Russian station, there’ll be the automatic assumption-and accusation-that the excluded technicians are suspected of being intelligence agents,” added Halliday.
“Let there be,” dismissed Charlie, most of his concentration still upon Harry Fish. “This isn’t a friend-winning exercise.”
“I’m still not sure what sort of exercise it is,” complained Robertson.
“Winning precisely the right sort of friend,” provided Charlie.
Which he wasn’t going to do at Petrovka, Charlie guessed, hunched in the back of the now readily available embassy car, which was blocked for more than ten minutes getting through the media siege directly outside the embassy gates that spilled over onto the gridlocked embankment road. That delay, compounded by the time- consuming detour to locate Harry Fish, meant he was going to be late getting to the headquarters of the organized crime bureau, but Charlie was encouraged by the necessary conversation with the electronics expert.
An impatiently waiting Sergei Pavel was actually at the point of going back inside the police building when Charlie arrived, only just managing to bring Pavel back by shouting as he got out of the car, which on impulse Charlie asked to wait.
Pavel said at once, “What in the name of God is happening?”
“London miscalculated.”
“They’re planning something inside. I don’t know what but a colonel from the
“What about forensics?” risked Charlie, a DNA challenge at that moment his main concern.
Pavel frowned. “None. Why?”
“It’s not important,” hurried on a relieved Charlie. “Whatever happens inside now I will personally get you into the conference, freeing you from Guzov’s control and satisfying a Russian presence, which is his argument. But I don’t want to announce it to him or anyone else today. How would it affect you, personally and professionally? Would it be a problem, at either level?”
“From what’s already happened today I don’t know-can’t know-until we meet the others. I’ll call, afterward. It’s chaos up there.”
The group gathering in Pavel’s office numbered the same as those of Charlie’s original confrontation there, but the three he didn’t recognize replaced the earlier forensic scientist. Charlie said, “I apologize for my lateness.” It was a full fifty minutes, he calculated.
To Charlie’s surprise, it was not the baleful Guzov who opened the expected attack but the Foreign Ministry’s Nikita Kashev. “Everything’s been escalated, beyond any common sense,” complained the man, at once. “We have done everything possible to maintain an amicable working relationship. The United Kingdom has done everything to sabotage it with false and unfounded accusations.”
“And I for my part have done everything to make clear to you, to everyone, that I am in no way responsible, nor can I in any way influence or change London’s response to what the British embassy here in Moscow has been subjected to,” argued Charlie.
“I am attached to the legal department of the president’s secretariat,” identified the youngest of the three strangers. “My name is Semon Ivanovich Yudkin. I am authorized to ask you to communicate both to your acting ambassador and to your Foreign Office in London the opinion of our president and our government that the current difficulties are being intentionally exacerbated and manipulated to influence the forthcoming elections in this country. That opinion-and protest-was officially communicated an hour ago to your ambassador here and to your Foreign Office to London.”
“This. . what you have said. . is nothing I can. . to do.” Charlie stopped, forcing some cohesive control. “This
