‘About what?’ asked Charlie. He had, of course, to pretend he hadn’t noticed anything.
‘Sounding off like I did at Jamie.’
‘None of my business,’ said Charlie.
‘Under a lot of pressure from Washington,’ exaggerated Lyneham, hugely. ‘They want results. This latest thing about the Ukraine isn’t going to help, either.’ He managed to get two buffalo wings into his mouth at once and started chomping.
‘I know.’ Despite Kestler’s named appointment, he supposed Lyneham carried the ultimate responsibility. Why wasn’t Bowyer as concerned then? There was no comparison between the length of time he and Kestler had been in Moscow. But Charlie, who rarely accepted the obvious, was far more inclined to think Bowyer had got some sort of back-channel assurance that he was absolved from any failure.
It was several moments before Lyneham had room to speak again. ‘That’s not the only problem in Washington. There’s some internal shit.’
Confession time, guessed Charlie; confiding time, at least. He waited, knowing the FBI man didn’t need encouragement.
‘Jamie’s connected,’ announced Lyneham, enigmatically.
‘To whom or to what?’ demanded Charlie, attentively. So the Happy Hour invitation wasn’t social after all.
It only took Lyneham minutes to sketch the Fitzjohn family tree in which Kestler had his special nest.
‘You think he’s fireproof?’ asked Charlie.
‘I think he’s less likely to get burned than a lot of others.’
Charlie wasn’t interested in a lot of others, only himself. The idea of working with someone more flame-resistant than himself made Charlie uneasy. It explained a lot of Lyneham’s attitudes, too. ‘He worry you?’
‘He worries the hell out of me,’ confessed Lyneham.
‘You under orders to treat him with special care?’
‘No,’ replied Lyneham. ‘Jamie himself has never once asked for any favours, either. But you know the way these things work?’
‘Yes,’ said Charlie.
‘Just thought you should know.’
‘I appreciate it,’ said Charlie, who did.
The serious purpose of the encounter achieved, Lyneham made a head movement into the room and said, ‘Kind of wish it was me they’re interested in!’
Charlie was already conscious they seemed to be the object of fairly frequent attention from female embassy staff at several tables between them and the bar. ‘What are they looking at?’
‘ For,’ corrected Lyneham. ‘Where I tread, others surely follow. Or rather one particular other. The female to male ratio here is completely skewed. So anyone with half a dick who knows it’s not just to pee with is the most popular guy in town. Particularly if he’s a bachelor. Which Jamie is.’
‘Lucky Jamie.’ The dangerously enthusiastic little sod seemed to have it all.
Lyneham was sure he’d pitched it just right. First the admission of being too hard on the eager bastard, then the family connection, now the begrudging admiration for his sexual prowess, neatly combined to portray a crusty, bark-worse-than-bite mentor showing concern about a protege for whom he deep down had a lot of regard. ‘He’s got two ambitions: to hang scalps of nuclear smugglers from his tent pole and see fucking declared an Olympic sport.’
‘Let’s hope he achieves both.’ He had been right about Lyneham, he decided.
‘Sure as hell won’t be for want of trying, on either count.’ Perfect, Lyneham congratulated himself: he’d ended on the subtle reminder of Kestler’s unpredictability.
The younger American’s entry into the mess appeared timed just as perfectly, coming at the precise conclusion of the conversation between Charlie and the FBI chief. Forewarned and curious, Charlie closely watched the reaction of Kestler’s arrival upon the assembled women. A blonde at the nearest table positively preened and an older woman at another bench gave a finger-fluttering wave. Kestler greeted his audience with the panache of a matinee idol accustomed to adulation, noted Charlie and Lyneham’s order as he passed and stopped at two tables on his return with the drinks, leaving both laughing too loudly at whatever he’d said. Charlie saw he’d been wrong imagining earlier that Kestler didn’t drink. As well as their whisky the man carried wine for himself.
‘See what I mean?’ said Lyneham, maintaining the mock envy.
‘What?’ demanded Kestler, in feigned ignorance.
‘I filled Charlie in on your one-man crusade to free the embassy of sexual frustration,’ said Lyneham.
‘It’s a job and somebody’s got to do it,’ cliched Kestler cockily, enjoying the approbation of the older man. It was a brief relaxation. ‘Washington messaged us, about fifteen minutes ago. And then there was a call from Fiore, at the Italian embassy. Both are talking about fuel rods and Fiore thinks their Mafia are probably involved in a tie-up with a group here. It’s not clear if it’s connected with the Ukraine suggestion or whether it’s something quite separate.’
Umberto Fiore was the Italian who’d approached Charlie at the embassy reception and with whom Charlie was lunching in two days. What Kestler had just passed on would be enough to convince London he had built up useful in-country contacts: hopefully, Charlie thought, he’d be able to pad it out with more after meeting the Italian. Abruptly there was a flicker of apprehension. If Fiore kept his reception undertaking, he’d have telephoned Morisa Toreza, like he’d called Kestler, giving Thomas Bowyer the opportunity secretly to advise London in advance of his being able to impress Rupert Dean. ‘Did you try Popov again?’
Kestler nodded. ‘I was told he wasn’t available and that they didn’t know when he would be. So this time, just for the hell of it, I asked where he was because I had some important information. And got told again he wasn’t available but they’d pass a message on. So I left my name.’
‘Like I said, the good old Russian runaround,’ insisted the persistently cynical Lyneham, lumbering to his feet to get fresh drinks and calling Charlie a lucky son-of-a-bitch because mess rules prevented non-members buying.
Kestler played eye-contact games with the preening blonde and said to Charlie, ‘You fancy making up a foursome? I could make a personal recommendation.’
‘I might. But would any of them?’
‘You haven’t any idea of the desperation in this city!’ Kestler realized what he’d said as Charlie was about to respond and said, ‘Oh shit! I’m sorry, Charlie. That wasn’t what I meant. What I meant…’ He was flushed with embarrassment, redder than he had been under Lyneham’s attack.
Charlie grinned at the younger man’s confusion, unoffended. ‘I need to get back to my embassy anyway.’
‘What about later?’ demanded Kestler, abandoning the available harem in his eagerness to make amends. ‘Why don’t we look around the town? Go to a few of the clubs where the bad guys hang out?’
Charlie was immediately attentive. It was something he had to do – he’d even argued the need during the London expenses negotiations – but he’d never considered either Lyneham or Kestler as his guide. The rumpled, elephantine Lyneham probably wouldn’t have been allowed past the door and he hadn’t imagined a fitness freak and wrongly believed non-drinker like Kestler venturing anywhere near unhealthy nightclubs. ‘I’d like that.’
‘It’s a bit like watching animals in a zoo,’ warned Kestler, enjoying being the man of experience like he’d earlier enjoyed being identified as the stud. ‘Seeing them at play it’s difficult to imagine they’d bite your head off.’
Which it was.
Lyneham said he was too old to go with them, freeing Charlie of one uncertainty, and he was relieved of another far more pressing concern when an urgent-voiced Bowyer said on the telephone that there’d been calls for him from both Fiore and Balg, both of whom had refused to leave messages. Charlie said he knew what it was about from other sources and that it looked big. He was fairly confident Bowyer would send some sort of message to London and the date would coordinate perfectly with whatever expenses he later submitted. He had to remember to get as many supporting bills as possible.