The turn into a driveway he didn’t recognize was abrupt, throwing him sideways and momentarily full length on the rear seat. When he thrust himself up Silin saw they were approaching a wooden villa he didn’t know – like he didn’t know anything – an old-fashioned building girdled by a verandah. There were people on it, arranged like an audience: Bobin and Frolov were there with the rest of the Commission, with Sobelov at the head of the steps, a smiling host. Silin snatched out for the console again, to lock all the doors.
Very slowly, prolonging every movement, Sobelov descended the steps and tapped lightly, mockingly, for Silin to open his door. Silin actually shook his head, whimpering back across the car to get away from the other man. And then he whimpered even louder when Sobelov, even more mocking, opened the door anyway from his side, clearly knowing it would not be locked.
‘We’re throwing a party for you, Stanislav Georgevich: everyone’s coming,’ smirked the man. ‘We’re all going to enjoy it. You especially. We’ve got a lot to talk about: you’ve got a lot to talk about. To me.’
chapter 22
E xpectantly Charlie watched the wired-to-electricity shock go through the assembled Russians at Kestler’s announcement that the photographs proved the breaching of the nuclear canisters to be intentional.
There were two additional Russians, one in recognizable Militia officers’ uniform, the other a slightly built, anonymously dressed civilian whom Charlie’s like-for-like antenna at once recognized. They, like everyone else in the room, gave reactions similar to the ministers and the presidential aide. Natalia managed to look convincingly surprised. She showed no trace of tiredness. She was sitting with the spetznaz officers separating her from Popov, who’d abandoned the black tunic for one of his immaculate suits. The man had nodded and relaxed his face into the beginning of a smile at Charlie’s entry. Charlie had nodded and smiled back more openly.
Predictably the discussion began with the Russians, led by the spetznaz commanders, challenging the American photo interpretation. When that dispute ended with their reluctantly agreeing it was the only possible conclusion, Charlie let the increasingly wilder theories swirl about him but didn’t contribute, even when invited, unwilling to lose a strengthening idea among the general here’s-what-I-think eagerness to voice an opinion. As the discussion trailed into silence Popov abruptly announced that the weather had favoured them, with no disseminating wind, and that containment experts from Kirs and Kotelnich had capped the smashed housings and sufficiently water-suppressed the contamination not just around the site but throughout the carriages to enable the train to complete its journey with the rest of its untampered cargo. A comparison between the loading manifest and what remained on the train put the loss at nineteen canisters, not the American assessment of twenty-two.
‘And we have located the lorries and the cars used in the robbery,’ announced the operational director, triumphantly. With theatrical timing, he added, ‘Here in Moscow.’
Popov deflected the top table attention of Fomin and Badim to the uniformed Militia officer, who coloured although clearly prepared for the introduction, which he completed by naming himself to be Petr Tukhonovich Gusev, colonel-in-charge of the central Moscow region. In a pedantic, police-phrased account, Gusev said that at precisely 4.43 that morning a Militia street patrol had located three lorries and a BMW parked in central Moscow, close to the Arbat. The lorries were empty. The German Ford had been found thirty minutes later, abandoned on the inner Moscow ring road, empty of petrol.
‘In view of the Pizhma contamination, both areas have been sealed pending an examination by nuclear inspectors,’ picked up Popov, on cue. ‘No one involved in securing the areas has been told what the lorries contained, of course, to avoid a nuclear theft of this magnitude becoming publicly known. The initial Militia patrol carried out some preliminary general checks on all the vehicles. The engines of the lorries and both cars were discernibly hot, to the touch…’ He hesitated, for the implications to be realized. ‘They had clearly arrived in the city within an hour, maybe less, of their being discovered!’ Popov nodded to the Militia commander. ‘By six o’clock this morning, all major routes out of Moscow were sealed. In the five hours since, extra Militia and Federal Security Service personnel have been drafted into the city. Any vehicle attempting to move beyond the outer Moscow ring road is being stopped and searched…’ The man smiled towards the minister. ‘I think we can confidently say that the proceeds of the Pizhma robbery are contained within Moscow and that it will only be a matter of time before they are recovered. Certainly nothing can get through the cordon we now have encircling the city…’
The palpable relief went through the room like a communal sigh. Charlie passingly noted the look on Natalia’s face and then saw Fomin, smiling broadly, turn towards Popov. Before the man could speak Charlie said, ‘I don’t think we can confidently say anything of the sort!’
Popov’s face closed. Fomin turned to Charlie, the intended praise unspoken. ‘You have an observation to make?’
‘Several,’ promised Charlie. ‘There’s no reason at all to suppose the contents of the lorries were transferred where they were found. If an hour elapsed before their discovery – thirty minutes even – the transfer vehicles could have got way beyond the city limits before any checks were in place. So your cordon is useless. Dumping vehicles used in a theft is basic robbery practice. But why abandon the four vehicles where they’re bound to be found so quickly? Or leave the Ford on a no-stopping ring road where its being immediately found was even more assured? The thing’s got a petrol gauge. Knowing that it was running out of fuel, why wasn’t it abandoned in some back alley somewhere? Like the other vehicles could have been split up and left in places where they wouldn’t have been found or aroused suspicion for days. Everything was left for exactly the same reason that the canisters were breached. It’s all decoys: the breaching to delay the beginning of any proper investigation – which it did – and the vehicles to concentrate everything within Moscow. Which it did. Making it that much easier to get the stuff into the West.’
‘A fascinating theory, without any supportive facts,’ sneered the taller of the two spetznaz officers.
‘Establish some facts then!’ Charlie knew he’d get six buckets of shit knocked out of him in a stand-up fight with the Special Forces officer but in a stand-up discussion of deception it wasn’t a contest.
‘How?’ asked the other soldier, sparing his colleague.
Charlie gestured sideways, to Kestler, ‘From the American photographs we know exactly what time the train was stopped: twelve thirty-five the night before last. And we know precisely the time the trucks were found at the Arbat and the Ford on the ring road. They would have been driven fast from the scene of the robbery. So let’s try an average speed of sixty kilometres an hour. Drive the trucks – once they’ve been cleared by your nuclear people and by your forensic examiners – between Pizhma and Moscow to see if the journey takes almost twenty-nine hours! They’d have had to be going backwards to take that long! Fill the Ford up with petrol and see if it can make the journey on one tank. It won’t be able to. See how many times it has to be filled up to get directly from Pizhma to Moscow. The petrol left, on arrival here, will indicate how large a detour they took to offload the canisters before dumping the vehicles in Moscow.’
‘I think we must accept those as valid qualifications,’ conceded Badim, reluctantly.