The agonized conclusion greatly altered Charlie’s perception of everything.
With the chance of being with Natalia again he could imagine no better city in the world than Moscow from which to work in a job everyone else in the old firm would have given their eye-teeth to get. Without her, Moscow was a grey, gritty Mafia mecca of the soulless preying on the helpless and the job was one he was being hindered from doing properly by restrictive officialdom and everybody’s-friend amateurism. The recollection abruptly came to him of the knocker’s van disappearing up the Vauxhall Bridge Road with all his worldly possessions. Moscow, without Natalia, was all he had: there was nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.
Charlie was on his third Macallan and the damp floor of rare self-pity when the telephone jarred in the Lesnaya apartment.
‘You have a right to see Sasha,’ announced Natalia.
‘I’d like to,’ Charlie managed, dry-throated despite the whisky.
‘A moral right. Nothing more. Nothing legal.’
‘No.’
‘On my terms.’
‘Of course.’
‘She’s never to know.’
‘Of course.’
‘That’s all it is. The chance to see Sasha.’
‘I understand.’
‘There’s a lot you have to understand.’
Hillary Jamieson wore a skirt Fenby considered far too short, a sweater that was far too tight and wasn’t treating him with the sort of respect an FBI employee should show and he didn’t like it. Or her. He wasn’t happy, either, that for once his likes or dislikes, so important to anyone’s career, couldn’t affect anything: in addition to having the slenderest legs and the pertest breasts he’d ever wanted not to see, Hillary Jamieson had honour and distinction passes in every applied physics and molecular scientific degree it was possible to achieve and an IQ rated at genius level, which meant he was stuck with her to advise him about what was coming out of Moscow.
‘So 250 kilos is sufficient to build a bomb?’
Hillary frowned at the apparent naivety. ‘Lots of bombs: enough to start a full-scale war.’ She agreed with the considered Bureau judgment that Fenby was a prick – the word that came into her mind – and guessed he couldn’t make up his mind whether to look up her skirt or concentrate on her tits. Hillary enjoyed making the silly old fart feel uncomfortable.
‘It was a serious question,’ said the Director, stiffly.
‘It was a serious answer. But weapons-graded uranium or cassium or plutonium isn’t gunpowder: you just don’t pack it into a cartridge and fire it, bang! It needs a highly technical facility staffed by highly trained scientists to manufacture an atomic device.’
Fenby was undecided whether to mention the way the girl dressed – as well as his irritation at her lack of respect – to the head of the Bureau’s scientific division. She definitely needed bringing into line but he’d become a joke in the Bureau if word got out that he’d initiated the censure. ‘According to the CIA a lot of displaced Soviet scientists have been employed in the Middle East.’
‘If they’ve got facilities then you’ve got trouble.’
‘What about fuel rods?’
‘Nothing to do with weapon construction, although plutonium is a uranium byproduct. Someone’s trying to jerk someone else off. A con.’
Jerk off! thought Fenby, agonized. And he was sure she’d shifted in her chair to make her underwear more visible. ‘I want you to get rid of anything you’re currently working on. I want you solely available on this; let the Watch Room know where you’ll be out of office hours. And that includes weekends. I’ll send memoranda this afternoon to everyone who needs to be advised.’
‘Yes, sir!’ said Hillary. She hadn’t intended it to be quite as mocking as it had sounded.
He wouldn’t complain, Fenby determined: it wasn’t important enough to risk being laughed at. He was sure her pants were pink. Maybe with black edging, although that could have been something else.
It was an hour later that the call came from London. ‘Good to hear from you, Peter!’
‘I’m not sure it is,’ said Johnson, from the privacy of his South Audley Street townhouse.
The skyscraper on the Ulitza Kuybysheva was one of the newest in Moscow, visibly modern as Stanislav Silin had tried – and was determined to make – the Dolgoprudnaya modern like the established Mafias of Italy and America, with which he intended strengthening their already tentative links. Through one of their many registered companies they owned the entire penthouse floor, which was normally over-large for their Commission meetings but necessary today for the final planning meeting to which Silin had additionally summoned the middle echelon and group leaders from every Family involved in the robbery. Everyone listened in total admiring silence to what was going to happen and for several minutes afterwards just looked from one to the other, a lot in disbelief.
‘Any questions?’ demanded Silin.
No one spoke.
‘In fact,’ the Dolgoprudnaya chief finished, ‘our part could be considered minor…’ He gestured towards where the Commission sat, separate from the rest, wanting to end on a note for his own continued amusement. ‘Sergei Petrovich Sobelov will ensure everything goes as intended, at the scene…’ He smiled, bleakly. ‘Which is the only way it can go, exactly as we intend it.’
He was anxious to get home to hear what Marina had decided to do to the Ulitza Razina apartment.
chapter 15
C harlie didn’t know what to do. Or say. It would have been wrong to try to kiss her, which was his first impulse. And to offer to shake hands seemed ridiculous. Which it would have been. So he just stood at the apartment door, waiting for Natalia to do or say something.
Natalia didn’t know what to do or say either and stood on the other side of the threshold, looking to Charlie for the first move. Which didn’t come. Finally, unspeaking, she stood aside. Charlie went in but stopped immediately inside.
‘At the very end,’ she said. She wished she hadn’t been thick-voiced.
He walked down the small corridor but halted again directly outside the door. ‘You’d better go in first,’ he said, like a courteous visitor outside a sick room.
Natalia did, calling Sasha’s name as she entered. The child squatted rubber-legged by the window, tending her wooden farmyard. She looked up, blank-faced, at Charlie’s entry.
‘This was my friend, from a long time ago,’ announced Natalia. Charlie’s Russian was good enough now: Was my friend.
‘Hello,’ said Sasha and smiled, looking at the gift-wrapped package in Charlie’s hand.
Charlie hadn’t known how to prepare for Natalia but he’d imagined he would be ready for Sasha. But he wasn’t, not at all. She was dark, like Natalia, the hair frothing in natural curls to her shoulders, and chubby-cheeked, although she wasn’t fat. The eyes were blue, again like Natalia, but the nose was bobbed, upturned at the tip, which was like neither of them, but she did have Natalia’s freckles. In the photograph she’d been a baby and babies to Charlie all looked the same: now she was a tiny, real thing, a person in miniature. The dress was red-checked, with bows on the bodice, and there were patent shoes with white socks and Charlie thought she was the most perfect, fragile, prettiest creature he’d ever seen. Mine, he thought, his throat clogged. Not a creature! I’m looking at my own daughter, baby, child, girclass="underline" someone I made. Mine. Part of me. He coughed to say more clearly: ‘It’s for you.’ He’d relied entirely upon Fiona, who’d recommended the doll and even chosen the paper to wrap it in. She would obviously have told Bowyer, and Charlie was curious what had been relayed to London.
Sasha hesitated, looking to Natalia for permission. Natalia nodded and said, ‘All right.’ The child stopped smiling as she came up to Charlie, solemnly accepted the gift and said: ‘Why?’
Charlie blinked, nonplussed. ‘I thought you’d like it.’ Christ, his feet ached. Everything ached: feet, body, head, everything. He felt lost.