‘Weren’t the freight cars sealed? Guarded?’ asked Kestler.
‘The guard commander and several of his men came out, to see what the hold-up was,’ said Natalia, dulled by the recitation of disaster. ‘lt seems the doors were left open: a blatant security breach. They were simply shot down, six of them. Two more were killed inside the cars themselves; three others are likely to die, from their injuries. The two signal box operators were found shot dead.’
‘There is need for concerted and quick Western help,’ conceded Viskov, anxious to hurry the meeting on.
Not so fast, thought Charlie. ‘The men seized at Kirs? Where are they being questioned?’
‘There, initially,’ said Natalia, returning to her seat. ‘All will be flown here to Moscow, during the course of the day. The main interrogation will take place here.’ The curiosity with which she looked at Charlie barely covered her inner anxiety, for some sort of guidance. All she had been able to do so far was accept the criticism, direct or implied.
It didn’t conceal it at all from Charlie, who knew her so well. Quite brutally he decided he wouldn’t make his point now: he needed readmission, solely for the job, nothing at all to do with how he wanted to see Natalia again. So she had to infer he had something to offer, something they couldn’t afford to dismiss. If Natalia had to suffer for him to achieve that, then that was the way it had to be. ‘Will transcripts be made available?’
Viskov sighed again, at what he saw as hard bargaining. ‘There could be consultation,’ he offered, limiting the concession.
‘From both sides,’ accepted Charlie.
‘Have you a point to make?’ probed Viskov.
‘Not until I know more,’ lured Charlie, ambiguously. The man was practically on the hook, about to bite!
‘Use us, you said,’ reminded the deputy minister, hopefully.
Because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, thought Charlie. Aloud, exaggerating hugely, he said, ‘I will be fully briefed on London’s input by this afternoon.’
‘So will I,’ promised the American, following Charlie’s example.
‘We’ll be waiting,’ said Viskov. Heavily, he added, ‘And expecting no public announcements, of anything.’
There was already movement on the streets of Moscow when Charlie and Kestler left the ministry. Kestler said, ‘You sure we’ll have anything to offer, as soon as this afternoon? It’s going to take for ever just getting this report together!’
‘Fuck the report!’ said Charlie, urgently. ‘Telephone your Watch Room: whoever or whatever can make things move as fast as possible. We need everything there is from that satellite.’ Sometimes, he conceded, there were advantages after all from working as a team. Particularly when the other player had access to things he didn’t have.
Everyone had remained awake throughout the night at the Ulitza Kuybysheva penthouse, too. With forced humility it was Silin who poured the celebration drinks from the table with the city view and who took Sobelov’s telephone call and who proposed the toast after which he stayed silent for the repeated congratulations which each of the remaining five Commission members were anxious to offer individually.
He’d make them all watch when he put Sobelov to death, Silin decided. Let them see what happened to anyone who believed they could overthrow him. Maybe, even, insist on each of them inflicting some torture upon Sobelov themselves to prove their loyalty.
chapter 19
W ith their only negotiating benefit whatever – if anything – the repositioned American spy satellite might have detected Charlie’s initial intention was to gatecrash the US embassy personally to witness the exchanges with Washington, and be kept out of nothing, gambling that both Americans were so accustomed to his presence by now neither would challenge his intrusion. But Charlie wasn’t entirely sure he could con a done-it-all professional like Barry Lyneham and even a friendly, do-me-a-favour objection would have created friction Charlie didn’t want at such a delicate juncture. He was reasonably confident the Americans would share sufficient with him if there was anything to share and even more confident he could isolate what they might try to hold back from what Kestler offered at the ministry that afternoon. So there was much more to be gained returning immediately to Morisa Toreza to initiate the other moves he’d already decided.
The night duty watch were still staffing the embassy when he got there but Bowyer hurried in, unshaven, within minutes of Charlie’s arrival, which Charlie found both illuminating and irritating. He’d accepted Bowyer’s monitoring but hadn’t realized the man was employing others on the task as well. ‘Didn’t know you worried about me staying out late!’
‘What happened?’ demanded the station head, ignoring the sarcasm.
‘At the moment the score is won one, lost one. With the bad guys leading by a mile.’ Charlie used the recital as a template for what he had to tell London. It didn’t take as long as Kestler had forecast.
‘Jesus!’ said Bowyer, aghast.
‘Right! We should all start praying.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Preparing a full report! What else?’
‘I think we should alert the Watch Room at once.’
‘ I think I should be left to do the job I have been specifically assigned here to fulfil, as I think fit. It’s only four in the morning in London. Panic only generates more panic.’ He was pissed off as it was having the other man constantly looking over his shoulder: he was fucked if he was going to be told what to do by someone who’d openly admitted being glad he wasn’t involved.
‘I was simply trying to be helpful?’ flushed Bowyer.
‘The biggest help you could provide at the moment is telling me what time the canteen opens, so I can get some coffee.’ Enough, he told himself: it really wasn’t the time to fight petty battles.
‘Eight o’clock, as a matter of fact.’
The literal response was so absurd Charlie had difficulty not laughing outright. ‘Thank you. I’ll have to wait then.’
Charlie was almost finished by that time, which usefully coincided with the start of the first cipher-clerk shift. He dumped the bulk of his account for London transmission on his way to the canteen and carried the slopping cup back to his cubicle to finish off, which only took him another thirty minutes. Having added it to the first dispatch, Charlie kept to his buffet-room decision and telephoned Jurgen Balg, once more easily dismissing the hypocrisy. Until this moment he hadn’t needed the German; now he did. He said nothing about the American satellite: circumstances hadn’t changed that much.
‘Does this mean we’re cooperating at last?’ demanded Balg.
‘Germany’s the most obvious route.’
Balg laughed, openly and unoffended. ‘So I have my uses?’
‘And benefit because of it.’
‘Who knows you’re calling me?’
‘You.’
‘I see.’
‘Fiore has no need to know. About anything.’
‘No,’ agreed the German, at once.
‘Or anyone else.’
‘No,’ agreed Balg again.
Charlie waited patiently for a reciprocal contribution.
At last Balg said, ‘I’m not sure where Pizhma is: how long things might take?’
‘Northeast of Moscow,’ supplied Charlie. ‘Beyond Gorkiy. Nothing’s been said but Gorkiy was a closed city under communism, so I’m assuming the transfer was intended for some nuclear depot there…’ He hesitated, committing something to memory for later. ‘… The most direct route, skirting Moscow to the north, would be through Belorussiya, across Poland and into Germany. If it goes more southerly, then it transits the Ukraine. From which you’ve already had suggestions of nuclear movement. If the Ukraine is the way, then it could go through what was Czechoslovakia…’
‘… Or through Hungary to get into what was Yugoslavia,’ cut off Balg, impatient with the geographic dissection of Europe. ‘In unpoliced Yugoslavia they could spend as long as they like negotiating a purchase price.’