Red Star Burning

commissary?”

“Maybe not as much as in the beginning. I had a couple of drinks with Pat Wilkinson last night. I didn’t get anything specific, certainly not what they’re here for. But one of the others, Denning I think it was, said something about being pissed off hanging around, not knowing what was happening.”

Getting indicators from Halliday was like pulling teeth with eyebrow tweezers, thought Charlie. “Nothing about me by name?”

“Not that I heard.”

“Keep in mind what I told you: watch your back,” encouraged Charlie. “Why not bring the Rossiya into the conversation, see what their reaction is?”

“Straughan told me to stay away.”

“Don’t you think Straughan could have gone further than telling you to recite the sort of phrases you’d use teaching a monkey to talk,” ridiculed Charlie. “It feels good to know I’m safe. How do you feel?”

“Who are you really trying to help, Charlie, me or yourself?”

“You’ll have your answer to that this time tomorrow,” promised Charlie, which was an exaggeration because his idea still wasn’t completely formulated.

“How the hell am I supposed to respond to that?” protested Halliday.

“By trying harder to break the door and safe combinations. And thinking back over this conversation to decide if you gained anything by holding back as I know you’ve held back.” Charlie heard the other man say, “No … wait…” in the seconds before he replaced the phone.

“Why’d you keep me waiting?” demanded Rebecca Street. “We left Gerald more than an hour ago.”

“I needed to guarantee the quality: enhance it if necessary,” replied Straughan, easily, gesturing to the recorder on the desk between them.

“Did you have to?”

“Not at all, which I’m glad about. If the need arises to use it I don’t want any technical indication of interference, not that enhancement should register. From where you were sitting, were you able to see?”

Rebecca nodded. “He turned off during the references to the assassination. And when he slagged off Palmer and Bland.”

“You did well, getting a lot of that stuff on our copy,” praised Straughan.

“And you did even better,” returned the woman.

“You think we should go on recording our meetings with him?”

“Absolutely. I’m not going to be his scapegoat, like the Ambsersom woman before me. What odds would you give about tomorrow?”

“I don’t gamble on things like this,” refused Straughan, stiffly. “When Jacobson asked him directly about handing over the passport and tickets, Radtsic was adamant he hadn’t called Paris. But there’s no way we can be sure. Jacobson was certainly relieved by Radtsic’s new attitude: not a trace of the old arrogance.”

“We’ve done the right thing, taking the precautions we have,” insisted Rebecca, unprompted.

“And broken every rule and regulation in the book,” qualified Straughan.

“With every justification, knowing the tricks Gerald’s playing,” persisted the woman. “I’ll look after the recording, okay?”

“Okay,” agreed Straughan, pushing it farther across the desk toward her. “Make sure it’s well protected.”

“Protection’s the name of the game and I’m very good at it.”

Straughan had warned his mother’s caregiver he’d be late getting back to Berkhamsted, determined to guarantee the recording quality of his encounter with Rebecca Street, as well as theirs with the Director. He had broken every rule and regulation, in addition to the law itself, Straughan recognized. And was terrified. He wished there was someone in whom he could confide: someone like Jane Ambersom, who had always been so kind and understanding.

As they had been the previous night, Miller and Abrahams were waiting ahead of the Russians, this time in the bar of the George V. There were three additional MI6 officers, again under the supervision of Paul Painter, spread protectively in the expansive adjoining lobby. Painter was directly in their line of sight to give the earliest warning of unexpected, suspect arrivals.

Elana entered again precisely on time, as chic as before in a camel-hair topcoat over a heavy roll-neck white sweater. She was alone. There were no warning signals from the foyer.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Elana, as she sat.

“We are,” declared Miller, flatly. “Andrei can’t behave like this.”

“He’ll be with me,” promised Elana. “He resents what’s happened … it’s going to make the situation with his father very difficult … but he’s accepted there’s no alternative.”

“Are you quite sure he’s coming?” demanded Abrahams, ordering the woman’s wine.

“He’s given me his word,” said Elana.

“Is that enough?” pressed Abrahams.

Elana’s head came up sharply but the rebuke was halted by the returning waiter. After he’d left she said: “It’s more than enough.”

“London’s worried Andrei might do something unpredictable.”

“He won’t,” insisted the woman. “What are our arrangements?”

Miller hesitated, uncertainly. “It’s tomorrow. I can’t give you a positive time. Everything has to be coordinated with Maxim Mikhailovlich’s departure. I’ll call the apartment to give you the pickup time. Both of us will take you.”

“Where?”

Abrahams gestured in the direction of the Seine. “The bateau mouche ferry terminal at the far end of Avenue V. We can join the perephique from there. Don’t bring any baggage. Just yourselves.”

“I understand.”

“Elana, I must ask you an important question,” said Miller. “What will you do if Andrei backs off at the last minute?”

“I have told you he won’t back off. The question doesn’t apply.”

“Treat it as a hypothetical question.”

“No.”

Charlie stalled at the very moment of commitment, confronted by the choice he’d never imagined having to make. He hadn’t substantially lied to Halliday, prising from the man what little he had during their first contact that day, nor during the second when he’d learned nothing additional. Like an inferior player he’d just rearranged the pieces on a chessboard without achieving checkmate. He had always ignored the compartmenting edict to guarantee personal survival and when he’d discovered that survival threatened, he’d without hesitation committed every illegality short of intentional murder to stay alive. But in the process he’d never, ever, sabotaged a British assignment. Which was what he was contemplating now, the enclosed telephone just yards away in the corner of the bar. He had every justification. He didn’t have the slightest doubt that the Janus- faced combination of MI5 and MI6 intended Natalia and Sasha to be included in his destruction. Why, then, was he holding back? Charlie didn’t know, not fully. On that taunting corner phone he’d fifteen minutes earlier told Natalia- abruptly, Charlie’s mind blocked and just as suddenly he believed he did know the reason for his reluctance, and it worried him because he couldn’t remember the last occasion he’d been halted by self- doubt. Not about himself, he qualified. As always, about Natalia and Sasha and whether what he intended could rebound into another mistake, to go with all the others. Not just self-doubt, self-pity, Charlie recognized. Something that, encouragingly, had been markedly absent from Natalia during that earlier telephone conversation in which she’d unquestioningly told him what he wanted.

This wasn’t going to be a mistake: worsen his chances of getting them to safety. This was going to be the retribution he’d always intended. Charlie rose for the second time from the bar and dialed the number Natalia had provided for the FSB-retained, communist-era neighbor-informing-upon-neighbor facility. There was an immediate automatic answer.