Red Star Burning

“Your father says it will all work out, eventually.”

“I don’t want to do it: any of it! I won’t do it! You go, both of you. Leave me.”

“We can’t do that. You’ll be seized: jailed. Used in some way to get us back to Moscow.”

Andrei stood on the other side of the room, shaking his head again but not speaking.

“Tell me about the girl, Yvette.”

“She’s living here with me,” blurted Andrei. “She stayed away, for us to talk: for me to find out why you came so unexpectedly, but she’ll be back.”

“We didn’t know she’d moved in.”

“It hasn’t been long.”

“Do you love her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does she love you?”

“I don’t know,” he said again.

“We’re going to be called, at this number.”

“Who by?”

“The British.”

“What!”

“To be told how we’re being got out.”

“I don’t want this: any of this!”

“Neither do I, my darling. But we haven’t a choice.”

20

Maxim Radtsic’s insistence upon resuming their meetings to discuss the lead-up arrangements only slightly diminished Harry Jacobson’s satisfaction that the entire ill-conceived, haphazardly planned affair was soon to be over. Jacobson matched Radtsic’s insistence by decreeing the Bolshoi as their venue for the very first of his personal celebrations. Jacobson was a ballet fanatic and Swan Lake his favorite but that night his fear of entrapment superceded his enjoyment of the performance.

Freed as he now was from the absurd assassination diversion as well as safely shepherding Radtsic to London, Jacobson was able to look past the immediate to the promotions so clearly open to him for what he’d done-and been unarguably prepared to do.

It was objectively accepted that despite the facile diplomatic charade of cover embassy titles and descriptions, Russian intelligence knew the identities of most if not all British espionage officers in Moscow, just as MI5 and MI6 knew the identities of most if not all Russian operatives in London. That was how each country was so quickly able to match the other, agent for agent, in tit-for-tat spy expulsions. And why Jacobson knew that within days, hours even, of Radtsic’s defection the FSB would identify him as the MI6 Control who’d flown out on the same plane as their deputy executive chairman.

Which, following that inevitability to its only conclusion, made absolutely impossible his return to Moscow. About which, apart from the ballet, he had no regrets.

There was the slight blip in Jacobson’s reasoning at the brevity of his Moscow posting until he balanced that brevity to be in his favor rather than against a fitting and deserving reward. He doubted there’d ever been, in this or any other hostile country, another MI6 station chief who, after just months, had landed a catch as big as a deputy head of intelligence. And this wasn’t any other hostile country. This was the hostile country, the Russian Federation, led by a man so determined upon a new, even more frigid Cold War that he’d openly threatened a western-facing missile fence across central Europe after crushing the upstart former republic of Georgia as brutally as then-Czechoslovakia and Hungary had been crushed at the height of communism.

Jacobson judged Washington his most logical move, the posting for which this impending coup most qualified him. But Jacobson believed himself a true and natural European and genuinely supported its union of nations. Paris was traditionally viewed as the promotional jewel in the diplomatic crown. And of all his intelligence career ladder- scrambling Jacobson had most enjoyed his earlier tour in the French capital, although its ballet lacked the tingling magic of that approaching its intermission before him.

For which Jacobson was ready, rising as the curtain fell for the encounter ritual of checking Radtsic for unwelcome interest before the Russian assured himself that Jacobson was also clear. Which, by strict tradecraft interpretation, he wasn’t, although there was no possibility of Radtsic’s becoming aware of his three other intended escorts, the only purpose for whose presence was physically to identify the man whose uninterrupted flight they had to guarantee and of whose identity Jacobson himself was unaware: their Bolshoi attendance had been independently arranged by Straughan, after Jacobson’s choice of meeting place.

Jacobson established himself in the shadow of a pillar close to the bar entrance after very intentionally ordering the twice-as-expensive French over Russian champagne in another early celebration of his anticipated career advancement. Radtsic bulldozed his way into the salon with his accustomed autocratic swagger, ignoring the protests of two separate groups in front of which he forced himself to be served. The swagger remained while he moved back into the now-crowded room, although away from where Jacobson watched. Tonight’s safety signal, from the protection of another pillar deeper within the room, was for Radtsic to consult but quickly pocket his program, which he did more quickly than Jacobson had expected. Jacobson didn’t hurry to respond, double-checking his own surroundings, irritated by Radtsic’s open look of expectation before he reached the man.

“Ready at last!” greeted the Russian, sardonically.

“Everything’s fixed, yes.”

“When?”

“The nine A.M. British Airways flight the day after tomorrow.”

“Why not tomorrow!” Radtsic instantly demanded.

Jacobson maneuvered his back to the pillar, as much to mark Radtsic for the three unknown watching escorts, who, according to Straughan, knew his identity from photographs, as for his own protective view of the chandeliered room. “This is the first completely suitable, available flight upon which you can be fully escorted.”

“It’s an unnecessary delay.”

“It ensures your greatest security,” insisted Jacobson.

“How?” persisted Radtsic.

“It’s a direct flight, removing stopover interception. Our people will be onboard.”

“Who?”

“I don’t even know their identities. And go through Sheremetyevo more quietly.”

“What are you talking about!” questioned the other man, coloring.

“The way you walk, your whole attitude, attracts attention.”

Radtsic’s face reddened. “I don’t expect or want to be addressed like this.”

“And I don’t want all that’s been arranged for your benefit to collapse, with your wife and son already out of the country, by your focusing attention on yourself as you’ve done at every meeting we’ve had.” He shouldn’t have given way to the annoyance, Jacobson warned himself: in less than forty-eight hours he’d be rid of the arrogant bastard.

It took Radtsic several moments to compose himself. “What are the arrangements?”

“We have to meet one more time, tomorrow night. I’ll tell you the place and the time by cell phone. At tomorrow’s meeting I’ll give you your ticket-a return, obviously, although you’re not coming back-and your passport. Both are in the name of Ivan Petrovich Umnov. The passport is authentically Russian, so it can’t be challenged. Neither can the exit visa from here nor the entry documentation into Britain, to which will be attached all the British accreditation for an international engineering conference genuinely being held in Birmingham. That’s your cover: you’re an engineer specializing in mineral-drilling machinery. I’ll also give you one hundred pounds in sterling, with the currency-exchange receipts and all the Birmingham contact information, including an apparently confirmed appointment with Yuri Panin, the current deputy trade minister at the Russian embassy in London.” Jacobson drank heavily from his champagne glass, needing it.

Radtsic, the color gone, said: “Your service is very efficient.”