Red Star Burning

thought the man had lowered to sound godlike. “I’m going up to Hertfordshire to meet Radtsic there.”

“I think that’s a better idea,” Straughan replied.

“Hertfordshire was always my intention. Keep in touch if there’s anything I need to hear before I get there. There can’t be anything immediate, can there?”

“No,” agreed Straughan. “We’re in the interim period now.”

The mezzanine-level communications control was the most secure of an already totally secure area within the MI6 building, its daily-changed entry combination restricted to the Director and his deputy, Straughan, and a rota of six duty officers. They did not receive the combination until arriving for their shift, which was why Straughan, in the middle of a conversation with Orly checking the aircraft arrival, was startled for the second time that day by peremptory knocking from outside. Rebecca’s visible annoyance through the observation window matched the irritation of her door hammering.

“Why didn’t I get today’s entry code?” she demanded, as she flounced past Straughan.

“I didn’t imagine it would be necessary today: you had permanent visual and audio access from upstairs,” said Straughan, warning the woman with a look to the studiously oblivious duty officer on the far side of the room. “Has he gone?”

“Ten minutes ago,” she said, also lowering her voice. “He thinks he’ll get there in time to greet Elana and Andrei, before Radtsic. And he was pissed off at your attitude, on the voice link.”

“And?” prompted Straughan, ignoring the warning.

Rebecca smiled for the first time. “He never bothered to turn on the equipment.”

“Why aren’t I surprised?” said Straughan, in resigned cynicism.

“Well?” prompted the woman, in return.

“Doubly backed up,” assured Straughan, gesturing to the paraphernalia on his desk. “Every word’s recorded and there’s a tandem line to our own system.”

Rebecca looked at the wall behind the regular duty officer, upon which was a five-deep battery of clocks set to the local time of every global capital. “How much longer until the French evacuation?”

“Forty-five minutes,” said Straughan, without consulting the wall clock. “I was talking to Orly when you arrived. Our plane will be cleared for takeoff by the time Elana and Andrei get there. They’ll get here ahead of schedule.”

Now it was Rebecca who gestured to the electronic litter on Straughan’s desk. “Seems as if our precautions weren’t necessary after all. Everything’s gone according to plan, so there won’t be any buck-passing.”

Straughan shook his head, doubtfully. “There’ll be a lot of internal uproar, between us and our brothers across the river. And maybe a lot of internal government examination, too. I don’t think we should stop doing it.”

“Neither do I,” agreed Rebecca.

Straughan didn’t jump this time, even though the telephone’s shrill was unexpected.

Rebecca said: “It’ll be Gerald, from the car.”

It wasn’t. Straughan listened for more than a full minute before saying: “You did the right thing. It’s got to be a cleanup: everything that’s possible to do. I want you as my permanent liaison. This is a catastrophe.”

“What is?” demanded Rebecca, when Straughan stopped although keeping the telephone in his hand.

“There was an ambush at a peage outside Orly. They’ve all been seized. Miller and Abrahams as well as Elana and Andrei.”

“Russian?” groped Rebecca.

“Painter thinks it was French,” said Straughan, emptily.

23

“We have to tell the Director,” insisted Straughan.

“Not yet!” refused Rebecca. What personal benefit was there? There had to be something!

“He’ll be at the safe house in less than an hour.”

“All we can tell him now is that there’s a difficulty. We need to know more. And get Monsford’s reaction recorded.” They now had a disaster of incalculable proportions and she wasn’t going to be hit by a single particle of the shit Monsford would spray in every direction except his own.

“We know Radtsic’s wife and son won’t be there to greet him: the promise we’ve given him.”

“What’s Painter and the rest of them doing?”

“Keeping as far away as possible,” guaranteed Straughan, urgently. “That was their instructions. We don’t want to lose any more people. Painter’s heading them back to Paris.”

“Why’s Painter think it’s a French seizure?”

“All the vehicles were French. There were some uniforms, the sort the French use in terrorist arrests, although they didn’t have any identifying insignia.”

“Are we talking Service de Documentation Exterieur et de Contre Espionnage or French police?”

“I don’t know.” Straughan shrugged, emptily.

“What’s our relationship if it is French?”

“I don’t understand the question,” protested the operations director.

“What’s the chances of the SDECE backing off when they learn it’s us?”

Straughan stared at Rebecca, not trying to disguise his astonishment. “Let me ask you a question back. What would the chances be of us backing off if we seized two French intelligence officers in a car with the wife and son of the deputy director of the FSB?”

Rebecca visibly colored. “So what do you think they’ll do?”

“Take the maximum possible advantage, of course.”

“They’ve got the wife and son: we’ve got the husband and father,” Rebecca tried again. “What about a trade, reuniting the family for joint, completely shared access?”

Straughan again looked at Rebecca in disbelief. “Physically reunite the family where: here in the Hertfordshire house or hand Radtsic over to the French?”

Rebecca’s color, which had begun to subside, flooded her face again. “It’ll have been that little shit Andrei, won’t it?”

“I’ve logged everything Jonathan Miller told me of every exchange he had with both mother and son,” said Straughan. “As far as I recall, Miller never told either of them exactly where we were flying them from: only that it would obviously be from somewhere along the north coast. Yet the ambush was only a few miles from Orly, as if our route was known in advance. And if Andrei knowingly set out to sabotage it, wouldn’t it be more likely he’d go to the Russians and their embassy, not to the French?”

“We haven’t yet confirmed it was a French interception,” Rebecca said.

“Whether it’s Russian or French is largely academic,” dismissed Straughan, philosophically. “The fact is that whichever it is has got them and two of our officers and the service is well and truly in the shit and sinking fast. And we should warn the Director.…” He gestured toward a computer on an adjoining table. “That’s monitoring Radtsic’s flight. It’s on time, landing in thirty minutes.”

“And it’ll be another two hours after that before he gets to the safe house,” said Rebecca. “Painter and the others will be back to Paris long before that, won’t they?”

Straughan looked at the French chronometer on the far wall. “Probably before Radtsic’s plane lands.”

“Does Painter have friends in the SDECE?”

“He has contact. I don’t know how friendly or not.”

“We’ll give it a little longer, for Painter to pull in every favor he can,” decided Rebecca. “We need as much information as possible for Gerald. Get a message to Jacobson. Warn him but tell him to say nothing to Radtsic. That’s Gerald’s responsibility: that and informing our government liaison.”

What sort of marked-card game was Rebecca Street playing? wondered Straughan. Whatever it was, it had been sensible to keep the safeguarding recording running for these exchanges, along with the rest. How much he wished again for someone like Jane Ambersom to help him decide what to do. The telephone interrupted the reflection. Straughan snatched it up, listened, and then said: “Fuck!”