Red Star Burning

confronted them, outargued the ridiculously mind-seized deputy director-general, for Christ’s sake! He could probably deceive a woman as obdurate as Jane Ambersom but realistically it wouldn’t be as easy with either Aubrey Smith or Gerald Monsford. And not just them. The recordings would be reexamined and soberly reanalyzed, every pause and nuance tested for the slightest suspicion-prompting, overeager ambiguity. Ambersom had been more than overeager. Desperate: as desperate as Natalia had increasingly sounded during the pleading calls that had been torturously played back to him.

Charlie wished he could listen to those recordings again. The words had registered and he’d known it was Natalia’s voice and not an impersonation, but in that brief, totally startled awareness he hadn’t properly heard them. Not the intonations or hesitations or an emphasis she might have imposed for him to gauge how exposed she and Sasha were. No, he didn’t need to hear the recording, Charlie corrected himself, once more refusing the self-deception. He knew exactly how exposed Natalia and Sasha were, just as he knew the pressure under which she’d been put to make the calls. He couldn’t-wouldn’t-fail her this time. Had she failed him? Charlie frowned at the unthinking jealousy, straining for recall. Igor Karakov, he remembered: a teacher at Sasha’s school. Just as quickly as the doubt came, Charlie rejected it. A friend, Natalia had said when he’d been in Moscow the last time: only a friend. She wouldn’t lie.

As he had earlier, escaping from Chelsea, Charlie fought against the impatience to get up earlier than usual, to be ready. If Smith or Monsford didn’t isolate his eagerness, the visually watching, voiceprinting analysts might. He actually remained in bed longer than normal but, as he had for the Jersey expedition, caught up during his showering and shaving, noting the outside rain.

“You got umbrellas?” he asked the guard, when his breakfast rolls and coffee arrived: if the debriefing was to be before noon, there wouldn’t be morning exercise.

Predictably there was no response. Charlie ate half a roll he didn’t want and crumbled the remainder to disguise how much he’d left and took his customary second cup of coffee, which that morning he didn’t want either. He didn’t try to read beyond the headlines of The Times that had come with his food, but did it twice to prevent the cursoriness being obvious. There was no newspaper connection with the Lvov episode, but to double check-as well as to fill time-Charlie scrolled through the Sky and BBC news channels and drew another blank. Charlie’s hopes rose when there was no exercise escort accompanying the breakfast retrieval and they grew when the exercise delay extended to twenty minutes. It reached a full thirty before the two men arrived. Neither wore a waterproof.

Charlie said: “We’re going to get wet.”

The man in charge said: “The rain will have stopped by this afternoon,” and Charlie’s surprise at getting a response collided with the satisfaction of knowing there was going to be another interrogation.

He had to proceed slower than a snail with hammer-toed flat feet as painful as his own, Charlie reminded himself, entering the familiar animal-murder room.

The three faced him in the same order as before but with the addition today of the replay machine, from which at once Charlie knew there’d been further Moscow contact. It was important for him to hear the new recording before making his intended pitch. The delay would enable him to detect attitude changes among those sitting in judgement upon him: to detect the slightest nuance to help what he wanted to achieve. Gerald Monsford sat Buddha-like with his hands familiarly cupping his expansive stomach, as if it required support. Charlie thought Jane Ambersom’s buttoned-to-the-neck Mao suit the perfect if outdated uniform for an indeterminately sexed torturer and at once stifled his wandering reflections. There had to be only one undivided concentration today and it didn’t include antagonism toward the deputy director-general, of whose personal dislike he’d already had too much evidence. It was Aubrey Smith who opened the session, which momentarily surprised Charlie.

The man said: “There’ve been some developments.”

Some developments, isolated Charlie. “What?”

“Three Russians accredited to their embassy here burgled your flat last night.”

Was there something here that he could twist to his advantage? wondered Charlie, hopefully. “Were they caught?”

“They’re currently in custody,” said the Director-General. “They’ll claim diplomatic immunity, of course. But it’s a criminal offense and we’re going to use it to the maximum.”

“What’s that mean?” pressed Charlie, curious at the unexpected leniency of the exchange.

“You’re dead,” announced Monsford, hurrying to appear more visibly and audibly participating than he’d so far been. “The death certificate is dated six weeks ago.” He looked theatrically at his watch. “By now there’ll be a named headstone on an old grave in Moss Side, Manchester-where your false identity legend has you being christened-and the church burial records will have been registered accordingly.…”

“That cover legend, unmarried bachelor clerk in a government pensions office, is fully in place-as you know it has been for years-and will easily satisfy the sort of media inquiries that’ll follow the Russians being named,” picked up Smith, seeing the other Director’s intrusion as confirmation of the man’s glory-seeking determination. With pointed clarification, he went on: “I’ve got the mystery already prepared-why should three accredited Russian diplomats burgle the no-longer-rented apartment of a very minor, now dead civil servant who has no surviving family and no known friends?”

Charlie didn’t let his mild impatience at the double act cloud his recognition of danger. “I was identified- pictured on Moscow television-during the Lvov investigation.”

“Not under the name in which your flat was rented and it won’t be your photograph we’ll leak to the media,” refused Smith.

Charlie saw an opening but hesitated, deciding to wait. “Moscow-the FSB-won’t accept any of it.”

“Of course they won’t,” agreed Monsford, choosing his intervening moment. “What they will accept is that you are in a protection program in which they don’t stand a chance of ever finding you and that the Vauxhall flat was nothing more than a major embarrassment trap that’s cost them three agents, two of them unidentified until today. To lose that many is bad enough and what they won’t know but which will terrify them is that we’ll expose their failed Lvov operation. We burned them with Lvov and now we’ve rubbed salt into very painfully sore wounds.”

And the FSB had Natalia and Sasha, balanced Charlie. The fragile opening hadn’t widened, as he’d hoped. He’d wanted a lot more. There was still the unheard recording. Indicating the side table, he said: “There’s been contact from Natalia, hasn’t there?”

“It’ll be the last, after the arrests,” predicted Jane Ambersom, finally entering the discussion.

“Can I hear it?”

In the time it took the woman to activate the machine, Charlie prepared himself, determined against the slightest reaction to Natalia’s voice. The initial seconds of traffic sounds were louder than before: an open street pod, not an enclosed kiosk, he guessed. When it finally came-to a stomach jump, despite Charlie’s expectation- Natalia’s voice was unexpectedly even, as if she’d prepared herself. “They’re examining my debriefing records. I don’t know how much they suspect. Remember, Charlie…” The cutoff was abrupt, either Natalia hurriedly putting down the receiver or having it snatched away and slammed back by someone else.

Charlie had let his head drop, not forgetting his earlier determination against reaction but cultivating it now, although undecided whether seeming to seize this late some significance from what Natalia had said would appear too obviously staged. But could he realistically hope for anything more? Jane had rejoined the two directors and all three were staring expectantly at him as Charlie looked up. The moment he did, the overly aggressive woman said: “What’s the matter with you?” and despite her uncertain sexuality, Charlie would have willingly kissed her. Instead he shook his head, as if confused, continuing to string out a response.

“What’s wrong?” repeated the woman.

It had to look as if the realization was starting out half formed and needed to be coaxed from him. “She’s very frightened: more frightened than she ever was when we had to be careful in Moscow. But she believes they know about us. And if they do, she’s realized she’s caught up in the biggest espionage coup Russia has ever attempted: the total failure of the biggest espionage coup Russia ever attempted. They’ll be convinced-any intelligence organization would-that she knew I was going to wreck it.”

Jane Ambersom turned and said something inaudible to the Director-General but to which Smith shook his head, not turning to her. The man said: “Is there something important in what you’ve just heard?”

They weren’t dismissing him out of hand! Charlie said: “What she hopes I’ve