Fomin stared sideways at Gusev, switching his outrage. ‘Explain this!’
‘I did not…’ began Gusev, spiritedly, but then he coughed, as if something abruptly jammed his throat, and then he sagged for a brief moment, no more than seconds, but Charlie thought the man had ingested a poison and that they were going to witness a suicide but Gusev coughed again, clearing the obstruction, but the false protest drained from him. ‘It was so good, so perfect,’ he said. ‘But we misjudged too much: we believed Silin could stay in control of the Dolgoprudnaya, which he thought he could if the robbery was a success. And then there was the satellite…’ He looked bitterly at Charlie. ‘… the satellite and how you used it. Realizing akrashena meant there had to be official involvement… That frightened us most of all.’
‘Is that why you never challenged me on it, to avoid drawing attention to yourself? Hoping I’d think it came from the military.’
‘Aleksai Semenovich said it would never be traced to us: that too many other people knew so we should just ignore it.’
If they were going to get a confession it might as well be a full one, Charlie decided. ‘What was more important, carrying out the robbery? Or using it to discredit myself and the American…?’ Charlie paused. ‘… And General Fedova?’
Gusev looked at Charlie warily. ‘The robbery, for me. Both, for Aleksai Semenovich. He had it all worked out.’
Charlie thought he had now, too. He’d been guessing, making assumptions, but it was clearing in his mind. He still needed more guidance, to avoid making a mistake. ‘Tell us the sequence. Starting with you and Silin.’
‘We’d known each other for years. Worked together: his territory was my area. It was a good arrangement. I knew Silin had traded nuclear: he had a contact at Gorkiy. We didn’t interfere: we got our share. Then Aleksai Semenovich started to talk of getting into the business ourselves: becoming millionaires. That’s how it began, just a nuclear robbery but a big one…’
‘Which is why Oskin was posted to Kirs?’ interrupted Charlie, wanting to get it all.
Gusev nodded. ‘Aleksai Semenovich was in charge of nuclear operations: he knew all the plants that were being decommissioned and chose Kirs. So he sent Oskin to Kirov, to do the groundwork…’
‘… And Oskin put Lvov into the plant?’ anticipated Charlie, confidently.
There was a further nod from the Russians. ‘It was they who decided it would be easier to stop the train at Pizhma rather than attack Plant 69. Which it was. But then you were appointed. Popov didn’t like that. He didn’t think much of the American but he said he knew all about you…’ There was a contemptuous snicker. ‘And he did. He said everyone would start setting up if you had any success. So you had to be made to look stupid.’
What was there for Popov to know all about him? It would be wrong to break the flow now, but he wouldn’t forget it. ‘So the phantom robbery was set-up?’
There was another snicker. ‘Actually by Popov, the man supposed to be stopping it. That’s what he went to Kirov for and then took the woman up there and made her think she was part of something important, like you all thought you were part of something important and it was all bullshit, absolute bullshit.’
The woman, picked out Charlie, offended. ‘Like the interrogations were all bullshit, people knowing nothing, so whatever General Fedova did would fail?’
‘Absolutely,’ agreed Gusev. ‘Like we thought we could make your ridiculous sting idea fail, putting people around you to tell us all you were doing.’
‘And he did ensure that people knew she’d failed,’ intruded the presidential aide, suddenly.
‘What?’ queried Charlie.
‘He criticized General Fedova from the very beginning,’ disclosed Fomin. ‘Complaining reports, sent over her head. Particularly about the Shelapin and Agayans debriefings. That they were pointless: got nowhere. That she should be removed from the investigation entirely.’
‘Like you would have got nowhere if you’d concentrated on Moscow, which is what we’d planned…’ picked up Gusev, shaking his head. ‘The fucking satellite!’
‘We’re losing the sequence,’ stopped Charlie. ‘Kirs became a total decoy, like the finding of the lorries and some canisters were decoys, but what about the Agayans and Shelapin Families? Why them? Just convenience, because the stuff had to be planted on some group?’
‘Part of the fighting within the Dolgoprudnaya that we didn’t take enough notice of. Agayans and Shelapin were siding with Sobelov, although they’re personally at war. So Silin, through whom we were going to traffic what we got, wanted to harass them: teach them who was the stronger. That’s why we had Oskin approach them, for the Kirs raid. That was all a trick: we could orchestrate everything they did.’
‘Who killed Agayans? And why?’
‘I don’t know. Nothing to do with us. The story is that he knew people, in the Prosecutor’s office, who were afraid he might talk. He threatened to, apparently.’
‘Was Lvov going to talk?’
‘He was going…’ started Gusev and stopped, just as abruptly.
The wrong approach would destroy the admission, letting the man retreat. Which way? ‘He’d already gone, hadn’t he? Gone across to Sobelov? Like Ranov had gone across to Sobelov. But Lvov was important. Four of the containers seized in the first interception here were empty, but they had markings from the Kirs plant. The only person they could have come from to enable Sobelov to make the switch was from someone inside the plant. Which was Lvov. But Sobelov had eight containers, to set himself up in the nuclear business. So he switched another four of the consignment which went to Iran, via Odessa.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
‘But you killed him, didn’t you?’ demanded Charlie, harsh-voiced. ‘As a warning to Oskin and when you thought Oskin might defect you killed him, too. And his family, obscenely. Did you rape Lvov’s girls yourself? Or just pass them around among the Militia from Kirov who helped you?’
‘I didn’t do any of that! And you can’t prove it.’
‘We can,’ said Charlie, looking to Fomin. ‘The bullets that killed them will have been recovered, during the autopsies. Like the bullet that killed the Shelapin man in whose garage you dumped the plutonium cylinders as part of your diversion. They’ll match ballistically, won’t they, Petr Tukhonovich?’
Gusev’s throat worked but initially he couldn’t speak. Then he said, ‘Aleksai Semenovich! He organized it. Everything. Popov told me what to do, always…’
‘Did he tell you to come in so closely after us today?’ demanded Schumann. That wasn’t how we planned it, was it? You had to wait until everything was secure, like the American had been told to wait but ran in after you…’
Gusev pointed a wavering finger at Charlie. ‘He said he guessed from what you said when we arrived that Turket knew who we were!’
‘So Turkel had to die as well?’ said Charlie. He’d quite recovered from the warehouse assault – forgotten any physical part of it – his mind icily sharp. He had to lead up to it and he’d been given the way. His voice as cold as his mind, Charlie said, ‘Popov knew all about it? That’s what you told me. “He said he knew all about you.” What did he know about me, Petr Tukhonovich? And how?’
The smirk came back, the expression of a lost man lashing out in desperation. ‘Everything. Your phone’s tapped, in that fancy apartment. The woman’s, too, long before she thought it was done. He read your KGB record and got the baby’s birth certificate and the record of the woman’s divorce and her husband’s death certificate. Everything! And he knew every time you met outside. Had photographs, in the botanical gardens. He was going to use them and the tape of your telephone conversations to show she was your spy, if the other ways to get rid of her didn’t work. It was obvious he’d get her job.’