Charlie didn’t get any better guidance on the operational suggestion he intended to push as hard as he could that afternoon. There was, in fact, a total lack of reaction. Dean was neither openly surprised nor outrightly dismissive, again called it interesting and said in his hurried voice that he looked forward to hearing the opinion of the full group about that, too.
All of whom were waiting, in the same seats as before, when he followed Dean into the office-linked conference room. Today the bald but moustached Jeremy Simpson was staring directly at him instead of at the river, which Charlie took as another sign of approval, like the smiles that came with all the nods from everyone except Gerald Williams, who gazed at him tight-faced and slightly flushed. Charlie pointedly smiled at the man, curious how much higher the colour would go before the end of the afternoon.
‘I think we’re all agreed the Moscow posting is working extremely satisfactorily,’ began the Director-General, to assenting movements from everyone apart from the financial director.
Peter Johnson tapped his dossier, as if bringing the encounter to order, and said, ‘Aren’t you interpreting a lot from the GCHQ voice pick-up?’
Proving time again, Charlie recognized: and he had to impress them probably more than he’d ever before impressed a control body. ‘There’s a positive reference to “the Zajazd Karczma”. Which is Polish, not Russian. It’s an hotel in Warsaw. I’ve been there. On the GCHQ tape there are two references to Napoleon: in fact the full name of the hotel is Zajazd Karczma Napoleonska. It’s supposed to be an historical fact that Napoleon stayed there en route to Moscow with his Grand Army. The first reference is garbled, apart from “Napoleon’s room”. The second is also incomplete – “… this Napoleon would have won
…” I think it was a joking remark: they’d just carried out the biggest nuclear robbery ever and they knew it. Whoever it was – which will be provable, timing the photographic frames to the voice recordings – was showing off: releasing the tension. I think the full phrase would have been something like “ if or had he had this Napoleon would have won…” Poland is the shortest route from Russia into the West: according to the Germans, it’s been used before to transit nuclear material. And there are over two hundred kilos still missing from the Pizhma robbery.’
‘The assumption seemed sufficient to alert the Polish and German authorities,’ supported Dean.
Dean hadn’t told him that earlier. Charlie hoped Jurgen Balg was properly appreciative of the six-hour head start he’d given the man, to get in first.
‘Why should we ignore the Russian belief that the plutonium is still in the Moscow area?’ challenged Williams.
‘You’ve already got my arguments for that,’ said Charlie, gesturing to the dossiers before each man, undecided whether or not to disclose the Arab buyer/French middleman claim from the Yatisyna interrogation. ‘It has no value in Moscow. The West is the market place.’
‘Why?’ persisted Williams, the opposition prepared. ‘Why can’t the buying and selling be done in Moscow?’
It was the obvious introduction for his new operational suggestion, but the time wasn’t right: he had to convince them more, about everything else, even confuse their thinking slightly, if he could. ‘The buying and selling is done in Moscow! And in St Petersburg and in a lot of other cities and former republics as well! Buying and selling but for delivery in the West. That’s the way the system works.’
‘What system?’
Williams had prepared himself, Charlie acknowledged. ‘The system that previous investigations have established.’
‘Nothing’s carved in stone. This robbery is different; bigger than any other. Why can’t it be moved differently from anything in the past?’
‘No reason whatsoever.’ Charlie didn’t like having to concede the admission and not because of the enmity between himself and the other man. He was agreeing that he could be wrong and he didn’t want anyone apart from Williams – whom he knew he could never convince – to believe he could be wrong about anything. ‘But from what we know about Warsaw, the probabilities are that it’s being taken – or more likely been taken – out along an established route.’
‘ Think we know about Warsaw,’ disputed Williams. ‘I’m not prepared to be as easily persuaded. Nor should anyone else.’
‘Several of us might be,’ suggested Dean, mildly.
‘What have the Polish authorities come back with?’ questioned Williams.
‘Nothing,’ conceded the Director-General.
‘And the Germans?’
‘Nothing,’ the man repeated.
‘While the Russians, following standard police investigatory procedure, have recovered several kilos and made arrests!’ said Williams.
Standard investigatory procedure he’d urged upon them, reflected Charlie. There wasn’t any benefit in pointing that out: it would look as if he was boasting – and in some desperation – because he was being out-argued by Williams. And he was being out-argued. He’d have to do very much better than this to carry the other men with him. ‘You already know what I feel about that: that I believe what was found in Moscow was a false trail.’
‘Deliberately laid?’ queried the Director-General.
‘I believe so, by those who carried out the successful robbery at Pizhma.’
‘So they knew in advance of the attempt at Kirs?’ said Simpson.
‘They had to,’ argued Charlie. ‘It’s inconceivable there would be two robberies on the same night from the same plant.’
‘Why couldn’t it have been a deliberate decoy, two separate acts of the same planned robbery?’ demanded Williams, ineptly.
‘One of those arrested inside the plant was the leader of the biggest Mafia group in the area. If the decoy had been deliberate, those taken at Kirs would have been disposable, street-level people,’ said Charlie, watching Williams’ colour rise. It was another obvious moment to talk of the Yatisyna interrogation but still he held back.
‘So one crime group, with inside knowledge of another, set that other Family up. Using their further inside knowledge of the nuclear installation itself?’ set out the Director-General.
‘That’s my assessment,’ agreed Charlie.
‘Why would they have had to have inside knowledge of the plant itself?’ asked Patrick Pacey. ‘Knowing an entry attempt was being made would have been sufficient, surely?’
Charlie shook his head. ‘They had to know the material was being moved, because of the decommissioning. And how and when and at what times it was being transported. Whoever it was at Pizhma knew it was being taken to them. All they had to do was wait and intercept it at Pizhma.’
‘Someone with a very special inside knowledge, then?’ pressed Dean.
‘Very special,’ accepted Charlie. It wasn’t a speculative road down which he wanted to go. He had no intention of offering what he believed to be the significance of akrashena: of even disclosing the importance of the word. It would seem disjointed, but Natalia’s interrogation would provide the deflection. He said, finally, ‘Those who went into Kirs believed they had several buyers already established. The arrested local Mafia leader claims to have met an Arab and a Frenchman in a Moscow club.’ He’d have to get a name from Natalia, he thought, remembering the episode with Hillary Jamieson.
There were frowned looks from the Director-General and Johnson and Williams shuffled through his documents, confirming Charlie’s impression the bundle consisted of everything he’d sent from Moscow. Williams said, ‘We haven’t been told of this!’