Red Star Burning

Halliday had filled in a third of the far too empty mosaic for him to get a clearer idea of the eventual picture.

The fury that had engulfed Charlie earlier at the unavoidable inference that Natalia and Sasha were included in his clearly intended sacrifice came again and now he didn’t suppress it: rather he let it burn and build, savoring the anticipation of as-yet-undecided but overwhelmingly fitting retribution. What could be sufficiently overwhelming to punish those who intentionally set out to destroy the two people central to his very existence? A question at the moment impossible to answer. But he would, Charlie determined, however long it took.

Outwardly conscious of the passing curiosity of Metro users at his standing as he was, Charlie boarded a linking train to connect to Mira station. Whom would he punish? he asked himself again, as he gratefully sat to ease his throbbing legs. They all, in some way, had to be complicit. He guessed Gerald Monsford to have been the primary instigator, too easily identifiable from his preposterous code designation. Monsford’s cow-uddered milkmaid Rebecca Street would have known, too, along with their lickspittle operations director, James Straughan. What about Aubrey Smith? Charlie Muffin was too familiar with the amoral practicability of espionage-that there was absolutely no morality, successful practicability its only goal-to despair at any debt-discarding betrayal by a man whose MI5 career he’d so recently salvaged. But there was still a blip of disappointment that evaporated as quickly as it came. The man’s obvious acquiescence made him as culpable and as deserving of reprisal as the others. The Janus-sexed Jane Ambersom would have looked in whatever self-serving direction the others took, and having been disabled from his army career the order-indoctrinated John Passmore would have obeyed his superiors’ rules of engagement.

As he crossed to his final Ulitsa Mira connection Charlie acknowledged the background to his mosaic was still incomplete. He couldn’t begin his retribution until he understood the parallel extractions. There was an unsettling similarity to what he’d imagined to be the intended rescue of Natalia and Sasha, the only difference the sex of the offspring. Except for the operational designations, came the immediate caveat. There’d be no purpose allocating two different code names to the same assignment. His earlier recognition that one was planned as a diversion from the other had to be the only conclusion.

Which brought Charlie’s mind back to the importance of David Halliday. The MI6 man was the only source from whom he could discover more about what he now accepted to be the primary objective. And he’d already rationalized the degree of trust he could expect from a man as desperate to retain his pensioned career as Halliday.

Or was Halliday that only source? Minimally forewarned as he was, couldn’t he risk contact with those waiting at the embassy? Searching for him from the embassy, he remembered. He’d have to endure the recriminating, explanation-demanding brouhaha from London but their responses might provide further mosaic tiles. The downside might be to confuse Halliday, who’d doubtless learn of his approach, despite his ostracism. Wiser to wait, albeit briefly.

He was, after all, no nearer linking up with Natalia. That remained his primary objective, he thought, as he bought a copy of Pravda from the station kiosk.

“A total, abject disaster,” announced the flushed Sir Archibald Bland, his voice cracked from his earlier confrontation at 10 Downing Street, where his cabinet-secretary competence had unthinkably been questioned for the first time in his ten years’ tenure. “Everything is to be closed down: canceled, abandoned, whatever. This is a disaster for which each of you is required to provide a full and detailed explanation, prior to your being called upon personally to account for what’s happened. Neither of you will leave this room until I am given that explanation.”

Gerald Monsford’s squirmed reaction was heightened by the totally contrasting response from Aubrey Smith, who remained as unmoving as his voice retained its accustomed monotone. Smith said: “We’ve only had the opportunity of seeing the televised seizures, hearing the Russians’ accusations, and reading the Evening Standard. What, diplomatically, has so far come from Moscow?”

The cabinet secretary made an impatient, fly-flicking gesture to Geoffrey Palmer, who said: “The indications are they intend officially charging all sixteen with spying and publicly arraign them in court, just as we arraigned their diplomats. The ambassador’s preliminary assessment is that even if we try to negotiate with a release offer for their burglars, Moscow will still impose a prison term and keep us on a string for months.…”

“Maybe, even, including in that imprisonment the two tourists, both male, who’ve already suffered heart attacks,” expanded Bland. Outraged, he continued: “Consider the situation you’ve created! Sixteen totally innocent British holidaymakers incarcerated in a Siberian gulag, for God knows how long! It’s absolutely appalling.”

“So where’s your bloody man, Charlie Muffin or Malcolm Stoat or whatever the hell you choose to call him!” resumed the Foreign Office liaison to the Joint Intelligence Committee, directly addressing Smith.

“I don’t know,” admitted the MI5 Director-General. “And until I do, we can’t close anything down. Nor, in my opinion, should we consider exchange negotiations involving their diplomats. They’re our only bargaining lever. We shouldn’t surrender it. Any more than we should be panicked by suggestions of show trials and Siberian imprisonment. They’ve scored an impressive PR coup and they know it. They won’t risk their advantage by putting sick men in jail.”

“We’re not asking your opinion,” rejected Bland. “We’re ordering you to extricate yourselves and this government from a total, unimaginable mess.…” He looked around the table. “How do we find the damn man to get ourselves out of it?”

“I take it any thoughts of extracting his wife and daughter are abandoned?” ventured Jane Ambersom.

“Of course it does!” said Bland, irritably. “Do you have a constructive point?”

“One of my responsibilities is American liaison. Why don’t we ask their help in locating Charlie Muffin in Moscow?”

Palmer broke the ensuing silence. “Again, what’s your point?”

“The most obvious is utilizing more people in the search,” offered Jane. “It would also widen the responsibility by letting an American involvement become known.”

“He’s still your man,” challenged Rebecca Street, eager to separate MI6 from direct accountability for Charlie Muffin.

Jane smiled at the intervention. “Not if we also let it be known that Muffin is no longer in either of our services, but instead that he’s gone freelance. Moscow knows Irena Novikov is in America: my American link here has told me Moscow has asked for diplomatic access to her. Moscow will also know from their swoop on the Rossiya and the observation they’ll have stepped up on our embassy since Charlie’s Amsterdam disappearance that he’s not working from there. And from their lawyers talking to the arrested diplomats they know Charlie isn’t any longer living at his Vauxhall flat.…”

“They’ll know he had access to Natalia’s calls,” Rebecca said, trying again to deflate the other woman. “How could he have had that, and discovered the numbers to which to reply, without our resources?”

“Doesn’t your telephone have a remote-access facility, to access calls from anywhere in the world?” mocked Jane. “Most people’s have. Charlie’s did. Mine has, too.”

“Both the Amsterdam and Manchester flights originated from England,” persisted the MI6 deputy.

“So what?” dismissed the other woman. “Freelancers can live wherever it’s most convenient for them to work, can’t they?”

“It’s a worthwhile suggestion,” accepted Bland. “We’ll keep it on the table, as a contingency. What we need more immediately is a positive rebuttal to their television footage that’s being globally transmitted, along with the accusations they’re making.”

“By now the media will have swamped Manchester, not just the travel firm but hunting every possible relative of the sixteen who’ve been arrested, for every photograph and anecdote,” predicted Rebecca, desperate to come out ahead in the exchanges. “Every interview will insist they’re not spies. The prime minister or the foreign secretary wouldn’t be lying to Parliament declaring they’re entirely innocent of any Russian accusation. Neither would the government, in an official protest Note to Moscow.”

“What does the prime minister or the foreign secretary say if they’re challenged in the House about Charlie Muffin?” asked Bland, his tone hinting interest, not rejection.

“They won’t be, will they?” returned Rebecca, ready for the question. “Charlie Muffin isn’t the name in the media headlines. It’s Malcolm Stoat, who doesn’t exist. Again there’d be no lie denying any knowledge of that name.”

“The Russians have got photographs of Charlie, from his public exposure during the Lvov affair,” said