Red Star Rising

“Who got it from their KGB asset,” completed Charlie.

“Where else?” agreed the Director-General. “By giving it to us they protected him. Incidentally, we also agree with you here that AMBER is the Russian code name for the mole they cannot catch but that they changed it to ICON. And we know that ONE, as the secrecy determination ratcheted up, is the chairman of the KGB himself and continued on into the FSB.”

“Making ICON-and the need to uncover him-also number one of the Russian’s Most Wanted list.”

“Which it would be, wouldn’t it, for someone they’ve known about for eighteen years, done incalculable damage and who they still haven’t managed to catch?” suggested Smith. “ICON is up there with the all-time greats in the spy ratings. My guess is they’ll have a full-time section permanently hunting him.”

“If they still haven’t caught him?” qualified Charlie.

“The analysts here don’t think they have,” said Smith. “You didn’t mention the gaps in the intercepted CIA radio traffic?”

“Because I didn’t isolate them,” admitted Charlie.

“I didn’t, either,” said Smith, equally honest. “Because the gaps were filled with KGB and FSB traffic, giving an impression of unbroken continuity. You did isolate sleeper, though. And that’s what our provisional assessment is. That the CIA has put ICON to sleep, until they choose to activate him. And while the Russians go on looking for him.”

“They-or he-are expecting something big: maybe a transfer back here to Moscow headquarters?”

“It could be,” agreed Smith. “The FSB will be going even more frantic at the possibility. Anyone being brought in from outside will be put through more loyalty tests than you can imagine.”

“None-or any-of which gets us any closer to understanding why Ivan Nikolaevich Oskin came to be found dead in our embassy grounds,” reminded Charlie. “Do the analysts think they’ve got it all? Or could there be more?”

“No one is going to admit we’ve got it all in less than twenty-four hours: what I’ve told you is basic, surface stuff. Of course they’re going to go on.”

“Any thought of a link up with MI6: maybe Oskin was negotiating with them, even though we know he wasn’t actually killed in the embassy grounds. His being dumped there could have been a message to them, although I don’t believe the resident MI6 officer here knows anything about it. But it would explain MI6’s efforts to get involved, wouldn’t it?”

“You’ve asked the station officer directly?”

“Not since getting this material,” said Charlie, sensing the concern in the man’s voice. “We obviously discussed it before that. I’m sure he doesn’t know anything.”

“If MI6 already had Oskin they wouldn’t admit it or share anything in a million years. And I don’t want to share anything with them or anyone else yet, as I’ve already made clear. Things are still far too uncertain, both here and where you are.”

Aubrey Smith saw this as his way to win the power struggle in London, Charlie recognized at once. “What about Irena Novikov’s demands?”

“I’ll pay her, of course. How much depends upon the ultimate value of what she’s given you. And I could also arrange her asylum.”

Smith was ducking the most important part of his question, Charlie acknowledged. “What about the body? She wants the whole package, not part of it.”

“It’s a technical situation that’s never arisen, as far as I am aware. And I certainly haven’t had time to discuss it with anyone yet. In fact, I can’t think of anyone with whom I could discuss it.”

“I promised I’d give her a reaction as soon as I could.” He’d also promised to make contact with Natalia, Charlie remembered.

“She can’t expect a decision this soon on something as complicated as she’s asked,” complained the Director-General. “Neither can you. What’s the situation with this damned Russian press conference that could make us all look absurd?”

“As confused as everything else.”

“I’m not sure of the benefit of keeping this joint American-British covert business running. Or using this Svetlana woman,” said Smith. “It could be exacerbating a situation that doesn’t need to get any worse.”

Was that a genuine remark or a way of letting him know that all the recorded conversations were still being forwarded to London? “It generates a little confusion.”

“Don’t we have enough confusion already?” asked Smith.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s almost too much of that coming from somewhere?”

For the first time there was a reflective silence from the London end. “Are you suggesting there’s a positive disinformation operation going on?”

“I don’t know what I’m suggesting, if anything,” avoided Charlie. “It could be a possibility.”

“By whom? To achieve what?”

Charlie started to regret beginning the exchange. “I can’t answer that, either. Maybe I’m imagining there’s some kind of orchestration in a lot of things that have happened.”

“Maybe you have,” said Smith, his tone indicating the exchange was coming to an end. “I’ll get back to you if anything comes up from this end that would take us forward in a more positive way.”

“I’d like something positive to move things forward.” It had been a mistake to offer an amorphous idea without anything to substantiate it, Charlie acknowledged.

The embassy was still only waking up when Charlie ascended to its more regular working area, skeleton night staff handing over to the day workers and diplomats, although neither Paula-Jane nor Halliday were in their offices. That day’s unread newspapers-including those brought in on the early-morning flight from London-were still in their undisturbed stack in Halliday’s outer, unrestricted access room, the English ones uppermost. Only the Times and the Telegraph maintained their Moscow coverage and both their single-column stories were on the inside foreign pages, but datelined from Washington, pointing up the unusual diplomatic response from the State Department to Stepan Lvov’s demand.

Charlie hadn’t expected to find Robertson waiting there when he got to the compound apartment.

“We’re well met,” announced Robertson. “I was looking for you; the hotel said you’d left at dawn.”

“Not quite dawn,” said Charlie. “Early, though. You’re looking for me?”

“I’ve slotted you in for this morning.”

“What?”

“To come before the inquiry panel. We’re getting toward the end: you’re among the last.”

“After the previous charade? Don’t be ridiculous!”

“You can’t refuse,” insisted the man.

“I can and I do,” said Charlie. “And don’t fuck about like you did last time, threatening arrest and my being taken back to London under escort.”

“I will and I can,” Robertson mocked back.

“Go outside for a moment, will you?” Charlie said to the four awkwardly, foot-shuffling telephone monitors witnessing the confrontation.

“You don’t have the authority to get them to do that,” said Robertson.

“Their security classification isn’t high enough for what I am going to tell you.”

“Don’t be. .” started Robertson but the bravado faltered. To the other four men he said, “Give us a moment, will you?”

“Something has started that’s far more important than my fulfilling some piss-willie regulation that can’t apply to me because as you already know I don’t come into your time frame. I’m not trying to undermine your authority or what you’re trying to achieve here. If you’re determined to persist with this nonsense I want the personal order from the Director-General-and I mean Aubrey Smith himself, no one else-to appear again before your panel.”

“I insist upon knowing what it is you’re involved in.”

“You know I am not going to tell you.”

“Are you sure you’ve got the backing in London to behave like this?”