“Her training was a long time ago,” warned Charlie. “And she’s very close to falling apart. The brush contact, to give her the passport, will be the most difficult part.”
“You any idea how much surveillance you’ll be under, leaving the country?”
“A hell of a lot,” accepted Charlie. “And then some. I’ve tried to cover that.”
“What are you going to tell the Russians?”
“That I’m being recalled for consultations. It would help if you could get that officially communicated through their ambassador to their Interior Ministry here.”
“No problem,” promised the Director-General. “Our forensic science people have picked up some discrepancies, particularly in the medical evidence. But I don’t think there’s enough for us to mount a serious objection: certainly not enough to get Oskin’s body back here.”
“I didn’t imagine there would be.”
“Does she suspect that?”
“No,” said Charlie, bluntly.
“You’re not to have any contact with her on the aircraft from Sheremetyevo,” ordered the Director-General. “Or at Heathrow. You’ll probably be under hostile surveillance on the plane and there’ll almost certainly be more from the Russian embassy when you arrive here. We’ll know her from the photograph you’re sending. Warn her she’ll be received by a man and two women, as if they’re relatives or close friends. She’ll be taken at once to a safe house. When it’s judged she’s really safe, she’ll get a house of her own, wherever in England she chooses to live.”
“Make sure that none of the three meeting her has any association, past or present, with anyone here at the embassy. Or with me. I don’t want any recognition to link me with them and by association with Irena.”
“Already ensured.”
“What if Irena asks about money?”
“She’ll have a tax-free income from an index-linked?500,000. Her eventual house or apartment will be paid for, as will all its services and utilities for the rest of her life. Plastic surgery-to alter her appearance, not essentially for the burn scarring, but that can be corrected if it’s medically possible-will be available if she wants it. As well, obviously, as a new, untraceable identity.”
“Apart from not having Ivan and his grave to grieve over, Irena should be happy enough with all that,” acknowledged Charlie.
“You’ve done well, Charlie. Bloody well. And not just there. Here.”
“There’s still a lot-too much-that could go wrong,” cautioned Charlie.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t.”
“Let’s,” agreed Charlie, meaning it.
During the waking moments of a fitful night Charlie had mentally arranged his priorities, paramount among them successfully smuggling Irena out of the country but with other uncertainties still to resolve.
Paula-Jane Venables was already in her section of the intelligence
“You certainly like early mornings,” she greeted, gesturing in invitation to the quietly hissing percolator.
“Coffee would be good,” accepted Charlie. “I needed to speak to London early.”
“Something come up?” she asked at once.
“I’m going back to London.”
“When?”
“A day or two.”
“Is it all over?”
“I’m not sure. I’m closing down the compound apartment: its use is over.” He smiled up as she brought him the coffee.
“Did anything ever come out of it?”
“It was worth a try.”
“What about the postponed Russian press briefing?”
“I’ve got to speak to the Russians about that. London doesn’t seem to think I need to be here for it, even if they reschedule it.”
“Doesn’t seem to have worked out very well for you?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry that things weren’t easier between us and sorry that it didn’t go better for you. You going to have time for me to reciprocate that lunch?”
“There’s rarely such a thing as a total success in what we do. And I’m not sure at this moment about the lunch. There might be a few more things to close down.”
“It would have helped to have got this one right, though, in the current London climate, wouldn’t it?”
“Would have helped a lot.”
“You didn’t bring your other stuff, to put in the safe?” said the woman, looking pointedly around Charlie as if she might have missed seeing the folder.
“Not quite finished with it all yet,” avoided Charlie. “When I was stationed here permanently the diplomatic bag went around four thirty: is that still the departure time?”
“Four thirty on the button: you can set your watch by it.” Paula-Jane made a vague gesture to the safe in the corner of her office. “What about your briefcase?”
“I’ll pick it up later,” said Charlie. “I’ll let you know about the lunch.”
There was an engaged sign displayed in the occupancy slot of Robertson’s inquiry room door so Charlie continued on to the compound apartment. There were only four logged calls, three from Svetlana Modin and one from Mikhail Guzov. Charlie told the two monitoring technicians that he was closing the operation down but hadn’t yet told Robertson.
“Everything wrapped up then?” suggested one of the men.
“Something like that,” replied Charlie.
Charlie chose a public telephone kiosk at random on Deneznyj pereulok, ensuring he had sufficient coin before finally going into the box. The FSB general answered at once, the condescension very evident until Charlie announced he was being recalled to discuss what London considered a combination of anomalies and discrepancies in the Russian material.
“What anomalies and discrepancies?” demanded Guzov.
“I don’t know-won’t know-until I get back.”
“I don’t. .” Guzov started, before correcting himself. “Neither my ministry nor the government expect this to become an unnecessary, possibly embarrassing dispute. As I am sure neither you nor your government wants, either.”
“I won’t know what my government wants or expects until I return to London,” Charlie parried. “I thought it courteous-part of our continuing cooperation-to advise you. It would be unfortunate, for instance, if any more public statements-certainly a reconvened conference during my absence in London-were prematurely made.”
“I had hoped you would have understood that there is not going to be a reconvened conference: that everything was going to be left to the court hearing.”
“I also hope that will not prove to be a premature decision,” matched Charlie.
“When can we speak again?”
“When I get back from London.”
“When will that be?”
“I’ll call from London, on this number, to tell you.”
“Do that,” demanded the Russian. “I fear there is a risk of some serious, even politically embarrassing, misunderstandings arising between us. Our forensic medical examiners found some inexplicable anomalies and discrepancies in some of your submitted material.”
He couldn’t have hoped for a better advantage, Charlie recognized. “Then it’s fortunate that all the assembled evidence, particularly the embassy victim, remains for further examination.”
Next he called Svetlana Modin, who also responded at once and with similar initial aggression. “We had a
