“Wilfred Todd,” introduced the man, in an echoing voice matching his size and a knuckle-crunching handshake. “Looking forward to our getting together, your being an architect and all.”
“That your line of business?” probed Charlie, his stomach dipping at the possibility of his ignorance being exposed.
“My lad, John. Qualifies next June. He’ll be looking for a better position then. Could be there’s some openings with your firm.”
Becoming the focus of an overly ambitious father was an encumbrance he didn’t need but about which he could do little except, perhaps, store whatever transpired for later, as yet unknown, use. Strictly adhering to the story he’d invented for Muriel, Charlie toned down his fiction of billionaire Russian oligarchs while stressing that his was a particularly refined architectural expertise unsuited to a newly qualified entrant.
An English-speaking Russian guide took over from Muriel for the exploration of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square and Charlie retreated to the back of the Russian’s brusquely assembled group where Muriel put herself.
“I thought what we spoke about, my slipping away, was between the two of us.”
“It was. And is,” replied the woman. “All I said was that you had a particular architectural interest that wouldn’t interest the rest of them, to account in advance to the rest of the group for your slopping off. And I did that to protect myself, my job, and the company for which I want to go on working, okay!”
“Okay. And I’m sorry if I sounded tetchy.”
“Sorry is something I hope not to be by your being on the tour,” said the girl.
“I’m going now,” warned Charlie, refusing a response. “I’ll catch up later.”
Charlie used the camouflage of other milling tourists to get off Red Square, despite the impracticality of CCTV over such a vast area, his mind sifting the unresolved uncertainties, Natalia’s approach being the biggest of them all. And, startlingly, came up with the answer. Of course he knew why Natalia had made the calls to his flat in the manner and way she had: the way she’d expected him to comprehend. It gave him his all-important, just-short-of- perfect start. He hoped it would all continue that way.
Recognizing that the slightest changing breeze was psychologically important in the survival battle in which he believed himself embroiled, Aubrey Smith gained the first advantage not just by insisting the MI6 contingent cross the river to Thames House but by doing so reversed Gerald Monsford’s de facto takeover. To reinforce that reversal, Smith staged the conference in a corner room of MI5’s headquarters, with the fullest view of the MI6 building opposite, and warned in advance that John Passmore and Jane Ambersom would attend, knowing Monsford would match them with Rebecca Street and James Straughan. They arrived fifteen minutes early, reflecting their subordination, from which Monsford at once attempted to recover.
“Charles Muffin has very positively shown his allegiance to the Russians by what he’s done. I want confirmation that this meeting is being fully recorded, for production in any future official inquiry into the cooperation between our two services.”
“Of course a record is being kept,” assured the MI5 Director-General, pricking the bombast. “I’ll be interested to hear your proof that Muffin’s allegiance
“What other interpretation is possible?” demanded the MI6 counterpart.
There were shifts of uncertainty from Rebecca Street and the MI6 operations director.
“How about something as mundane as his not trusting that he’d arrive safely in Moscow?” suggested Smith, satisfied how well Monsford’s attitude suited his intentions.
“It’s his wife and child whose extraction we’re working to achieve: our entire, focused objective. Or at least what I believed it to be, until now,” Monsford said.
“Is it?” demanded Smith, shortly.
There was a moment of silence disturbed only by more discomfited chair fidgeting before Monsford, the belligerence fading, said: “I don’t understand that remark.”
“And I can’t expand it beyond saying that I’m curious at some … what…? Inconsistencies, I suppose.”
“The inconsistency is that of your officer with whom I mistakenly agreed to a combined operation.”
“My recollection, which will be confirmed by earlier records, is that the urging came more from you than me, which is one of the inconsistencies I’ve mentioned.”
“What are you suggesting?” demanded Monsford, the belligerence flaring.
“I’m not suggesting anything,” again deflated Smith.
“I’m becoming confused at the purpose of this conference,” Rebecca Street protested with strained impatience. “Are we supposed to be discussing the future of the operation in which Charlie Muffin was involved or talking in riddles?”
At Smith’s gesture, John Passmore said: “It’s a limited disappearance, which isn’t a riddle. We’ve established a potential sighting of Charlie returning to Heathrow airport on a KLM flight, four hours after he got off the Moscow plane in Amsterdam: by ‘potential’ I mean it wasn’t positive facial recognition. We’re making the surmise by forensically making the comparison from weight, height, and general stature in the CCTV image. Those physical statistics and a slightly better photographic image, although again facially insufficient, matched a differently dressed man caught on CCTV entering Manchester airport late yesterday evening. Compared against the registered timing of that Manchester CCTV photograph, there was one direct Manchester flight to Moscow and three staged at Heathrow en route to other destinations, from which connecting flights from London to Moscow could have been possible-”
“What about a confirming manifest name?” broke in James Straughan.
“I’m sure you’ve monitored the Dutch publicity about Charlie’s disappearance,” replied Passmore, his voice as calm as Smith’s. “We’d risk a publicity leak if we made a formal approach to an airline other than British. We didn’t get our checks in place in time to flag up an alert on Charlie’s legend name before the departure of the direct Manchester flight or any of the possible transit links. We’ve checked the manifests that are safe for us to access. The name Malcolm Stoat doesn’t appear, although there’s a glitch with a block visa on which a tourist group traveled from Manchester.”
“Are you reasoning that he staged the whole thing to get back to London to pick up a stashed alternative identity?” seized Straughan, professionally.
“That’s the most obvious interpretation,” agreed the other operations director.
“And a confirmation that he’s a double agent,” came in Monsford.
“Or that he didn’t trust going into Moscow by our route,” Smith argued back.
“Doesn’t that amount to the same thing?” challenged Monsford.
“No,” refused the other Director. “It could equally mean he had a facility to change the pseudonym and decided on a different route for better self-protection. Which doesn’t deviate from the agreed plan that to get Natalia and Sasha out he still has at some stage to make contact with everyone and everything we’ve established at the embassy.”
“Are you proposing we just sit back and wait for the bloody man to reappear as and when he chooses?” demanded Monsford, incredulously.
“Do you have a better suggestion?” prompted Smith.
It was Straughan, professional again, who answered. “Travel companies take block tourist bookings at hotels, as well as block group visas. It should be easy to locate the hotel in which the Manchester party are staying. Charlie might-”
“It was easy,” interrupted Passmore. “It’s the Rossiya, on the Ulitza Razina, and a man made a last-minute telephone booking so late that there wasn’t time to copy his name onto the master log that the Manchester firm holds: that’s the glitch I referred to.”
“Was there any real point in stringing everything out to get to this point!” broke in Rebecca Street, her exasperation even more obvious than before.
“None whatsoever, apart from my commitment to liaise fully and openly with you,” replied Smith, easily. “And we’d have got to it far sooner if our immediate discussion hadn’t begun the way it did. So let’s drop empty recriminations and move on. I’ve done nothing to fill in the blank on the tourist-group visa but I don’t think we should consider it as any more than a blank we’ve got to fill from surveillance on the hotel.”
“And if he’s there, ask him what the hell he’s playing at,” insisted Monsford.
“We know what the hell he’s playing at.” Smith sighed, heavily. “And if Charlie’s there it should reassure you about his loyalties: he wouldn’t be there if he’d gone over to the FSB, would he?”
