He’d got it right by agreeing to meet her, Charlie decided. “I don’t want that broadcast.”
“It’s a good story that no one else has picked up on.”
“I thought the idea was not to screw my investigation?”
“As well as for me to get exclusives.”
He had to be careful not to show his desperation. “You broadcast it, I lose the lead I’ve got,” exaggerated Charlie.
“Are you threatening me with the video recording?”
“Are you going to make me?”
Svetlana regarded him expressionlessly for what seemed a long time. “If I hold off, we agree to my deal?”
From scouring the Russian papers as intently as he had, Charlie knew she was right about no one else picking up on the connection, and his concern was as much to avoid Natalia learning about the attempt as the hoarse- voiced woman. And if Svetlana kept her promise, there could be the other opportunities to manipulate things to his benefit. “I agree to the deal.”
Svetlana smiled, gesturing the waiter to replenish their drinks. “And I get my exclusives.”
He couldn’t risk her having a change of heart, Charlie decided. “Since Putin got to power a lot of the freedoms achieved by Gorbachev and Yeltsin have been taken back or eroded, particularly press freedom. How long do you think you can go on like this?”
She laughed, genuinely amused. “Think back
“That’s my point!” risked Charlie. “If you keep cutting things when I ask you, you could end up nights in a row with nothing to say.”
“Okay, so I’ve made the first concession,” accepted Svetlana. “But I want the big ones, those that’ll make me untouchable forever! I help you, as I’ve just agreed to do, and you give me your solemn undertaking that you’ll repay me at the end. I get something that’s going to keep me on TV screens around the world. When you learn whatever the hell’s going on, you tell me. You also tell me how you finally got all the answers. I get my global exclusive, with enough to produce the supporting documentary. You get your man and I give you all the credit. How’s that sound?”
Better than he could have hoped, conceded Charlie. Could there be some physical protection in it for him, as well? He couldn’t at that moment imagine what but it was something to keep in mind. The only obvious drawback was the one he’d already identified, that she had the same sort of arrangement with Mikhail Guzov. Not a problem, Charlie decided. He was feeding the source, not drinking from it. “It sounds like something to explore, to our mutual benefit. Let’s see how it works.”
“I’ll make it work.”
So would he, determined Charlie.
Since the relocation of the monitored telephones to the compound apartment, Charlie had virtually abandoned his original assigned rabbit hutch, but on his way to the embassy the following morning he decided to check for any misdirected written messages-or anything else-that might have been misdelivered. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed but on the card table, to its left, were neatly stacked by date Halliday’s English-language publications. To its right, set out on a white sheet of A4 paper upon which was drawn a large question mark, was a polished brass bell.
Charlie was reaching hesitantly for it when through the left-open door behind him Paula-Jane said, “If it weren’t for those raftlike shoes, which I’d recognize anywhere, I’d believe I’d caught the embassy spy himself, breaking into offices.”
Charlie turned, leaving the bell. “How are you?”
“Me? I couldn’t be better. Which I guess you’d very, very much prefer to be.” She was designer-dressed as always, the interlocking
“I assume you’re talking of the car business?” invited Charlie, wanting to get it out of the way as soon as possible.
“Among other things,” said the woman. “You trying to convince me it really was an accident!”
“You wanted to see me?”
“I was sneaking in to get it back.”
“What?” frowned Charlie.
“The bell. I put it there as a joke when I got back last night, the lepers’ bell or for whom the bell tolls: whatever. I’d been to that American Cafe with Tex: his final farewell and I’d drunk too much. This morning I decided there was nothing funny about anything that’s happened to you and wanted to get it back; stop the whole stupid thing. I’m sorry.”
She appeared contrite, which was something else he didn’t expect. “It’s not the best joke that’s ever been tried on me, but thanks for trying to lighten the burden.”
“It should be me, thanking you, for not involving me. You’re probably well enough established to survive this other business with America, as Bill Bundy is. Or would have been if you’d let him in. I’m sure as hell not.”
Charlie was immediately attentive. “Was Bill with you last night?”
Paula-Jane shook her head. “There was a big crisis meeting at the embassy, apparently, after the television broadcast. Tex was only able to make it because he wasn’t any longer officially attached to the embassy; he’s flying back to the States today.”
There’d been an inference of an affair between P-J and the American, Charlie remembered. “I’m not sure I can survive if I don’t wrap it up soon.”
The woman looked very directly at him. “I’ve heard things about you.”
This wasn’t P-J the coquette. “Things like what?”
“That you don’t like to lose. Which is why you so rarely do, irrespective of the shortcuts you take.”
“What do you want me to tell you?” demanded Charlie, trying to jar the innuendo into something more recognizable.
“If you’re not going to trust me-which I know you don’t from what you did during Robertson’s first investigation-I can’t expect you to tell me anything, can I?”
“I thought you were grateful not to be involved?”
The woman smiled wanly. “Grateful doesn’t begin to describe it. I’m sad we got off to such a bad beginning and lost the colleague-to-colleague relationship, though. I could have learned a lot.”
“Or lost a lot, if you believe the car accident wasn’t an accident.”
The smile broadened. “How long’s it going to be, Charlie?”
“How long’s what going to be?”
Paula-Jane shrugged. “I suppose I should have known better. But I thought I’d worked it out; thought I’d run it by you, see what you’d say.”
“Run what by me?” Charlie continued to question, refusing to volunteer anything.
“London wouldn’t have knocked Washington’s offer back and you wouldn’t have been isolated for so long by yourself-my even being excluded, despite all the diplomatic bullshit-if you weren’t on the very edge of the big denouement that’s going to knock everything, and everyone, on its ass! What do you say to that?”
Charlie’s first reaction was to say that the vocabulary of people to whom he’d spoken over the preceding twenty-four hours appeared to be remarkably similar. Instead he said, “I say that it’s very fanciful and I wish it were more realistic.”
The woman remained silent and solemn faced for what seemed a long time. “So much for my trying to make things a little more pleasant between us! I suppose I should have expected it.” She made another vague gesture behind him. “Time to get back to the office work.”
Charlie glanced behind him. “What office work?”
