Red Star Rising

“No,” admitted Charlie, flatly. “Neither do I think Irena will cooperate anymore if we don’t have some hope to offer her.”

“She’s already given us what Ivan stole from the archive.”

“But that. .” started Charlie, but was stopped by a sudden thought.

“What?” demanded the Director-General, when Charlie didn’t continue.

“I wasn’t thinking properly. . it wasn’t going to make sense,” hurriedly improvised Charlie. “There doesn’t seem to be much progress in the mole hunt here?”

“That’s not your priority. Or your remit.”

“Nor’s it Robertson’s to question how and with whom I’m trying to fulfil my function here,” said Charlie. It wouldn’t be an easy contention to defend if push came to shove. Quickly, to implant the innuendo in Aubrey Smith’s mind, he added, “Unless Robertson was acting to your instructions.”

“He certainly isn’t following my instructions.”

Which meant they were from Jeffrey Smale. Charlie decided he’d got everything he wanted out of the exchange and was anxious now to pursue the thought that had belatedly occurred to him. He made an additional copy of the Russian dossier on the murder he scanned in full to London and spent the rest of the afternoon toothcombing through it himself, impressed by how well the Russians had fictitiously woven the murder and dumping of Ivan Oskin’s body into the drug-trafficking gang’s arrest and claimed retribution killing of Sergei Pavel. Charlie believed he found four discrepancies in the Oskin medical evidence, but judged none sufficient to mount an effective, body-disposing challenge, particularly keeping in mind his conviction that the Russians could-and undoubtedly would-confront him in return with the blood fabrication.

He divided his growing bulk of material between his briefcase and the fortunately concertina-sided folder in which the murder files had been delivered, and after filling the briefcase, carefully rearranged its combination lock numerals, getting to Paula-Jane Venables’s office just after five.

“I decided to use your safe for my briefcase,” he told her.

“Cleared an entire shelf for you,” said the woman, her back to him as she opened it. Over her shoulder, she said: “The combination is 61617E.”

“I won’t open it without your being present,” promised Charlie.

“What about the folder?” she asked, nodding to what Charlie still had under his arm.

“Stuff I’ve still got to go through,” said Charlie.

Irena answered on the second ring, the uncertainty obvious despite her usual hoarseness. He said, “I need to see you.”

“I’ve just got in from work. Where are you?”

“In a call box. I’ve just left the embassy.” He hadn’t anticipated a Metro madrigal today, he remembered.

“Is everything arranged?”

“No.”

“What is it then?”

“I have to see you,” he repeated. A means justifying an end, Charlie thought again, reminded of his need to talk to Svetlana Modin.

“Where?”

“Your apartment.”

“What if. .”

“I’ll be clear.”

“I’m frightened.”

“I’ll be there in an hour,” said Charlie, knowing that wasn’t the reassurance she’d wanted. Knowing, too, that he should feel a shit, which he didn’t.

31

Irena Novikov perched on the very edge of the window-fronting couch like a frightened bird about to burst into flight, both hands gripped tightly in her lap but unable to stop the fear twitching through her, a nervous tic pulling at the corner of her mouth on the unmarked side of her face. Her eyes were fixed on the folder that Charlie left very visibly on his lap. “There is a problem?”

“A big one.” Charlie was wedged on the straight-backed chair, its discomfort matching the ache from his protesting feet at the pursuit-dodging underground train ritual. He was sure he’d identified two people-a man and a woman, working separately-who’d kept up with him for four route switches before he’d managed to lose them, convincing him that the surveillance manpower had been at least doubled to defeat his evasion.

“What?”

“We can’t break the code. There’s more than one, each of which needs separate unconnected ciphers. And there’s obviously a further cipher-again, maybe even more than one-necessary to identify the participants. Without all the keys, we can’t open any doors.”

“Which proves how important it is: sensational, like Ivan said,” insisted the woman. She lighted a cigarette.

“It isn’t anything unless we can read it: understand it all.”

“What about your code-breakers? They must have decoded something!”

“Ivan must have told you more?” coaxed Charlie, avoiding her question.

She hesitated, the nerve in her cheek tugging her mouth into an unintended smirk. “He said Cairo was involved.”

“So he must also have told you a lot of the stuff was CIA traffic? That’s where a lot of it came from, the CIA station in Cairo.”

“He told me some of the early stuff was.” She lit another cigarette from the butt of that she’d almost finished, coughing.

“Told you? Or showed you?”

“Told me. . showed me some things.” Her voice was almost inaudible now.

“He also told you it was sensational?”

“Yes.”

“Why was it sensational?” pressed Charlie. “He must have told you why!”

Irena shook her head. “I told you. He said it was too dangerous for me to know.”

“Irena, I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth.” Charlie very carefully kept his voice flat, hinting no irritation or annoyance.

She sat, avoiding his eyes, for several moments before her lips moved, as if forming words, but there was no sound.

“I didn’t hear what you said, Irena?”

“People,” she managed, in a hoarse whisper.

“What about people?”

“That’s why it is sensational. Because of the people it is about.”

“Who are they, these people it is all about? What are their names?”

The woman shook her head, the first forcefulness since she’d let him into the apartment. “No! He wouldn’t tell me any names. That’s what I couldn’t know, to keep me safe. Any names.”

“You read it all, didn’t you?” Charlie openly accused. “Ivan didn’t show you some; he showed you all of it, didn’t he? And you looked at it all again, after he was murdered and you’d recognized he was the victim from the description at the press conference from which you got my number?”

The silence lasted much longer this time. At one point, Irena’s shoulders started to heave and Charlie was frightened she was going to collapse, but she didn’t, although when she looked up her eyes were red from the nearness of tears. “He showed me everything and I looked at it all again, when I knew it was Ivan who’d been