Red Star Rising

from her and there was no way the FSB could find her if she stayed in Moscow, so why was he bothering? Because she deserved better than the way in which she existed: because he wanted to. He’d abandoned too many innocent people in the past, but this time he’d do his best to at least get her somewhere better than where-and how-she was now. She’d hate him, he accepted, when she realized Ivan’s body couldn’t be brought to England-which he didn’t think it could-but at least she’d get most of what she wanted. When there was no response from her end Charlie said, “Irena?”

“I don’t think I can do it,” she declared, sobs snatching at her words.

“You can. You must,” insisted Charlie, knowing he had to force her. “Do everything I’ve told you. The moment you get to London there’ll be people waiting at the airport, to look after you, as I’ve explained. From that moment you’ll be safe, forever. It’s got to be now, Irena. With me. No one will come back for you if you don’t come now. There’ll be no second chance.”

“I know,” she mumbled.

“So be there.”

“I’ll try.”

“Be there.”

Charlie was too early for his meeting with Natalia so he filled the time by going nostalgically into the Botanical Gardens that featured so much in their relationship. But wouldn’t any longer. There was little more he could say or do to persuade her, all the promises and assurances used up. Could he quit the service, as he’d told her he could? He believed so, even if Natalia didn’t. And he would resign. As well as keeping the personal vow never to lie to her again.

There’d be a lot he’d miss but a lot more than he wouldn’t, assignments like this in particular. Not that he could genuinely recall any that were as similarly cluttered by what he now recognized clearly to be meticulously planned chaos, the reason for which he at last knew and now understood. What he still didn’t know was precisely who those planners were and most important of all, what London would do with the sensation with which he’d presented them.

Charlie was already inside the restaurant, his chosen table so secluded in the corner farthest from the entrance that Natalia didn’t immediately see him when she entered, fifteen minutes late.

“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” said Charlie, as she sat.

“I stopped at the gardens, for old times’ sake.”

“So did I.”

She shook her head against an aperitif but Charlie held the waitress to get the ordering out of the way. Natalia appeared as disinterested in the food as Charlie, saying she’d have the same as him.

When the waitress left Natalia took a folded sheet of paper from her handbag and said, “Here’s Sasha’s tiger.”

“You didn’t tell me it had red ears.” Sasha had strayed over the body outline again.

“They were an afterthought.”

“Did you tell her we were meeting today?”

Natalia shook her head. “She wanted to give it to you herself if we bumped into you again.”

Charlie held Natalia’s eyes. “Does that mean we’re not going to?”

“No, it doesn’t mean that.”

“What then?”

“A compromise.”

“What compromise?”

“It said on television last night that you’re being recalled. The inference was that you were in some kind of trouble.” She raised her hand, a halting gesture, as Charlie moved to speak. “I don’t want any details!”

The same fear as Irena of danger by association, thought Charlie. “I’m not in trouble. I expect to be back here in a few days.”

“I’m glad. . that you’re okay.”

They stopped talking at the arrival of borsch and the red wine.

Charlie said, “It’s complicated, though.”

“Things that we do always seem to be.”

“You still haven’t told me what you mean by compromise.”

“How long’s it going to be, before everything you’re here for to be wrapped up?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks, say three. A month at the most.”

“There’s not the difficulty there used to be, moving in and out of Russia,” said Natalia. “I’m due leave and Sasha’s school is breaking up for their summer recess. It would work perfectly if you’d completed everything in a month. Sasha and I could come to London for a vacation.”

“Only for a vacation?”

“I’m not going to rush anything, Charlie. I want to see how I feel when I get there and I want to see how Sasha feels. We won’t stay with you but we’ll see you a lot and I want to be absolutely sure that it’ll work before I make the final decision. If you don’t think that’s a good idea. . that I’m not being fair and that it’s not going to give me or you enough time, then I’ll understand.”

“I think-” tried Charlie, but Natalia cut him off.

“I’ve always been honest with you, but you haven’t always been honest with me. So here’s my honesty. I do love you, despite all the things that have happened in the past. But we’re not starry-eyed teenagers. Love isn’t enough. I’m thinking mostly about Sasha, the adjustments she’s going to have to make. And we would have to make a lot of adjustments, too, both of us. That’s my compromise: how I want us to go forward. As I hope we can.”

“That’s how I want us to go forward, too,” accepted Charlie, at once.

Natalia sipped her wine, at last. “I’m glad that’s over.”

“So am I,” said Charlie, meaning it.

“You’re really not in trouble, are you, Charlie? That’s what I’m really worried about: something happening that would ruin it all.” She hesitated. “This is our last chance.”

“It’s complicated, as I told you.” There wasn’t a complication he couldn’t overcome after this: literally everything was falling into place exactly as he wanted.

Which it continued to do, with minor exceptions, throughout the rest of the day.

Charlie was anxious to limit the time he spent that afternoon at the embassy. He sent a courtesy memo to Peter Maidment advising the acting ambassador of his return to London, carefully omitting departure and return dates and was glad that Paula-Jane Venables’s absence from the rezidentura spared her assuming he was leaving the following day from his vagueness about her outstanding luncheon invitation. David Halliday wasn’t in his section, either, but the newspapers were: Svetlana Modin’s broadcast the previous night was yet again the basis for most of the print media coverage. His return to London-all using the word “recall”-confirmed an increasingly deepening disagreement between London and Moscow over the murder investigation. All reported the refusal of the Russian Interior Ministry to make any comment. Charlie didn’t encounter Paul Robertson, either, and didn’t try to locate the man.

Irena Novikov’s passport arrived as promised in the diplomatic bag but separately from the preliminary forensic report Charlie had asked to be conducted on the briefcase and the Russian murder dossier it had contained. On both the dossier and the briefcase there were five different and fresh sets of fingerprints. There was also sufficient surviving residual finger sweat hopefully to provide DNA traces. One of the five sets was identified as Charlie’s, from their being recorded on his personnel records. The other provable prints were Paula-Jane’s.

On his way back to the Savoy, Charlie weighed the potential advantages against disadvantages of making contact with Svetlana Modin, and decided not to bother. There wasn’t anything, either half true or totally invented, that might benefit him and he was determined not to risk anything that might further disorientate or unsettle Irena Novikov.

Would it take a month to conclude it all, as he’d told Natalia? Not everything, he accepted. To conclude everything, he’d have to identify Ivan Oskin’s killers and he’d already acknowledged he’d never be able to do that. So it could even be as little as two weeks. He’d take leave directly afterward. He wanted to be free of any distraction or intrusion when Natalia and Sasha were in London. He’d have to get the right hotel: a suite, not a room, but not overwhelm them, as Natalia so often complained he did. Maybe not an hotel at all. Perhaps she’d