Red Star Burning

“I don’t want to keep Radtsic on hold. We’re ready, apart from the security on a safe house.”

“I’m seeing Smith at five to confront him with all the rest we’ve got.”

“Do you want me to wait until you get back?” asked Straughan, warily. His mother’s caregiver left at six.

“Yes,” decided the Director. “By then I expect to hear something even more helpful from Moscow.”

Awkward bastard, Straughan thought. He was sorry now that he’d asked instead of risking the wrath the following morning.

Before he’d completed his exercise-period reconnaissance of the outside security and failed on his return to his upstairs cell, as he had on his exit from it, to identify all the interior precautions, Charlie finally acknowledged that escape from his hunting-lodge prison was impossible.

Charlie slumped into a leather-creaking easy chair, head bowed to his chest again to continue the appearance of cowed acceptance, letting another half-formed idea harden. What could he do-what could he say or imply-to convince Aubrey Smith and Jane Ambersom that it was essential to their interests that Natalia and Sasha be brought out of Russia? And not just them. Gerald Monsford was involved, too. Why? Charlie abruptly asked himself, calling to mind his surprise at the MI6 Director’s presence at his initial interrogation. Strict interpretation of the internal and external divisions between the two intelligence services would normally have decreed the Lvov affair to be that of MI6, except that it had begun with the finding in the Moscow grounds of the British embassy-internationally and diplomatically designated UK territory-of a man who had been tortured before being murdered. And even though his investigation later crossed MI6 boundaries, Aubrey Smith held off the participation demands of Gerald Monsford. So what had changed to bring Monsford in now? Could there still be an internal power problem, even though Jeffrey Smale’s overthrow had failed? Or had Monsford been invited in by a still apprehensive Director-General in the hope of providing sideways- shifting blame for an as-yet-unknown disaster? For which his being married to a serving FSB officer would unquestionably qualify.

He’d traveled too far down rough-track side roads leading nowhere, Charlie accepted: properly understanding the reason for Monsford’s presence had to remain a work in progress in a situation in which he appeared to be making very little progress. What lure could he find sufficient to convince the Director-General that getting Natalia and Sasha out was in the national interest instead of solely his? The only conceivable-and necessarily official- argument was that if left in Moscow, Natalia represented a national security problem for Britain. And he’d already double-locked the door from both sides-and bolted it top and bottom-against that contention. His entirely truthful and personal defense against Official Secrets prosecution was that they’d never exchanged the secrets of either side. To vary that now could lead to charges being proffered while at the same time further nullifying any possibility of gaining their freedom.

And then, physically blinking at its total clarity, the unarguable resolution came to him. He doubted that Natalia would cooperate by disclosing the secrets of a twenty-year-long Russian intelligence career, but Smith and Monsford wouldn’t know that until she and Sasha were safe. And it didn’t matter, either, that her refusal would expose his deception, making it impossible for him to remain in the service: he was already in a protection program anyway.

He could make it work! Charlie told himself. He had to make it work!

The sphinxlike Aubrey Smith glanced fleetingly at Monsford’s offered photographs before putting them to one side and said: “Yes. Boris Kuibyshev.” The Director-General took other, different prints from a side drawer and handed them in return to the other man. “This is Igor Bukharin, who’s also listed in the embassy’s finance section. Did you miss him?”

Monsford didn’t hurry taking the easy chair to which Smith gestured, inwardly furious at the mockery. “We only began the check last night. We wouldn’t have bothered if you’d told me you were already monitoring the place.”

“It was such an obvious precaution I didn’t think it necessary.”

“You considered the possibility that they might burgle it, as well?” demanded the MI6 Director, struggling to keep up.

Smith smiled, wanly. “I’ve been expecting them to, ever since we identified the surveillance. It was swept clean the day we put Charlie into the protection program. There’s nothing for them to find. Except the surprise I’ve got in place.”

“What about the answering machine, with Natalia’s voice on it?” Monsford retaliated.

The condescending smile remained. “From inside the flat, the receiver appears disconnected. The line’s on divert, to our technical people who pick up every incoming call as well as the slightest audible sound of forced entry. They’d also hear if there were an attempted outgoing call if the Russians do go in and try to report back to their embassy Control.”

Monsford hoped the fury, which was making him physically hot, wasn’t registering on his face. “What’s the surprise you’ve got waiting for them?”

The MI6 Director listened with his head bowed, more to conceal any facial redness than in concentration. When Smith finished, Monsford said: “I’d have appreciated hearing all this earlier.”

“It’s a contingency plan that might never be activated,” reminded Smith. “Of course you would have been told in advance. If it became necessary.”

At least he had more time to decide if there could be any benefit to him, Monsford realized. “It’s the PM’s personal decision we cooperate, so it’s right I should tell you that we’re getting indications from Moscow of something happening within the FSB.”

Smith gave no response to the implied rebuke. “What?”

“I’ve ordered a specific inquiry,” said Monsford, inadequately.

“You suggesting there’s a connection?”

“I’m suggesting it’s a possibility that shouldn’t be overlooked.” He needed more, much more, agonized Monsford.

“Let’s not overlook it then,” patronized the Director-General.

“What’s your feeling about Charlie Muffin’s interrogation?” asked Monsford, unsettled by the other man’s superiority.

“I think they’re using Natalia as bait.”

It wasn’t just dismissiveness, decided Monsford. The bloody man was positively excluding him. “What’s Ambersom’s opinion?”

“She thinks he went over a long time ago: that while our intention was for Charlie’s defection to be phoney, Natalia turned him and he was sent back as a double. And now it’s all gone badly wrong for them, this is a clumsy way of trying to get him safely to Moscow.”

“The facts don’t fit her argument,” rejected Monsford.

“What’s your take?”

Monsford was annoyed at continuing to be the respondent instead of the questioner. “I don’t believe Charlie Muffin is a traitor. Every analysis of every assignment going back an entire year before the fake defection shows a lot of improvisation but not a single loyalty-questioning inconsistency.”

“Right,” agreed Smith.

“Against which I can’t reconcile his marrying a serving officer in an opposition service-” Monsford held up his hand against interruption. “And don’t give me any love-is-blind, there’s-always-an-exception-to-the-rule nonsense. He’s a professional-a very professional-operative whom I’d have welcomed with open arms crossing the river to my side.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“I was waiting for you to tell me,” evaded Monsford.

“Charlie Muffin is a complete professional,” agreed Smith. “As such, he knew exactly what he was doing when he married Natalia Fedova and the consequences if it became known. He’s now got to face those consequences. He’ll be kept safe in the protection program and the woman will have to suffer whatever fate the Russians choose for her when they realize we’re not taking their bait. I sympathize with them both, but they each knew the inevitable outcome if they got caught out.”

His entire fucking alternative operation was going down the drain, thought Monsford, desperately. “We both