‘I only learned about it an hour before I left Moscow,’ lied Charlie.
‘What’s the Russian response to it?’ asked the legal advisor.
It was probably the best chance he’d get to bring the FBI into the discussion and maybe understand some of the Director-General’s enigmatic remarks, which was something else the man had refused to enlarge upon during their lunch. ‘I don’t know, now that I’m excluded because of what the Americans leaked.’
Charlie was curious at the look that passed between the Director-General and his deputy, before Dean spoke. ‘Which brings us to the reason for this meeting and the principle reason for your recall. Our level of protest.’
It’s not my principle reason, thought Charlie. He hadn’t scored sufficiently against Williams’ sniping but there didn’t seem any purpose in delaying any further: there certainly wasn’t any purpose in discussing a protest he didn’t want made. ‘I don’t see how we can argue against it. I’ve not officially been given any reason: not officially told my cooperation has been withdrawn. And we’ve got to accept that we were only ever admitted to what the Russians chose to include us. I don’t believe we’ve arguable grounds for complaint.’
‘You mean you don’t want us to protest?’ frowned the deputy Director.
Charlie breathed in deeply, readying himself: for the moment the FBI mystery had to remain unresolved. He looked to each of the men facing him, once more assessing Williams’ colour. ‘No, I don’t,’ he agreed, simply.
‘What?’
The demand came from Pacey, but everyone else was regarding Charlie with matching astonishment.
‘What the Russians initially offered appeared precisely the sort of liaison we hoped to achieve,’ allowed Charlie, cautiously. ‘But there was always a strong, underlying resentment. The American leak gave a focus for that resentment, until now I believe the Russians think sharing with us was a mistake…’
‘Are you admitting you haven’t established what you actually advised us you had?’ tried Williams, anxious not to miss any imagined opportunity.
‘The arrangement always made us dependent upon the Russians,’ said Charlie. ‘They needed us – or the Americans, to be more accurate – because of the satellite. But we had no control or practical participation in what they did or how they used whatever they got from us. We were just sources, nothing else…’
‘You weren’t supposed to be anything else!’ interrupted Wiliams, triumphantly. ‘You were specifically forbidden to seek or attempt anything else.’
‘Always Russian jurisdiction,’ reminded Simpson, reluctant though he was to support the financial controller.
‘Depending on the size of the weapon, enough plutonium has been stolen and is still unrecovered to manufacture at least forty nuclear devices,’ reminded Charlie. ‘If Moscow always leads and we always have to follow there will be other robberies as big, maybe even bigger. Russian silos and storage plants aren’t controlled. Police who aren’t totally corrupt are woefully inefficient, ineffectual and operate with antiquated methods and equipment. We have to get some agreement – an arrangement – to be proactive. It isn’t a question of national pride and nit-picking jurisdiction. It’s a question of stopping madmen – or the Mafia or warring Latin American drug cartels, all of which could easily afford the asking price – getting as many atomic devices as they want…’ Charlie hesitated, wanting them to assimilate every word, but before he could continue the eager Williams cut across him once more.
‘And Charlie Muffin has a way to stop it all!’ The attempted sarcasm was too blatantly hostile and both Dean and Pacey frowned at the man.
Here we go, thought Charlie. ‘No. Not all. Maybe only a very small percentage: maybe none at all. What I do think is that I could infiltrate the business, to a degree. I want to try to isolate the big traders, in Moscow. And their contacts at the plants and their negotiating middlemen in Europe and their buyers…’ Charlie looked directly to the legal director. ‘You’ve already confirmed law doesn’t even exist in Russia to assemble the sort of criminal intelligence I’m talking about: criminal intelligence we could supply to Moscow, to preserve that all-important jurisdiction. But perhaps more essentially criminal intelligence we could use ourselves and share with other countries outside Russia, which is, after all, where the trade really operates… where the real danger really is.’
‘How?’ prompted Dean, simply, knowing already.
‘By setting myself up in Moscow as a no-questions-asked broker, a dealer in anything and everything. There are dozens of such middlemen all over Russia already, a lot of them from the West. The Germans have mounted sting operations, although in Germany to retain their legal authority. Why can’t we? And take it one stage further, by setting ourselves up at source?’
‘You seriously think it would be possible?’ demanded Peter Johnson.
‘Yes,’ insisted Charlie. ‘Easily possible. In Moscow crime rules, not the law. It’s wide open: flaunted. If I didn’t believe I could infiltrate in some worthwhile way I wouldn’t be suggesting it.’ He shrugged. ‘And if I don’t we can kill it off as an idea that didn’t work. At least we would have tried something positive.’ And I might have satisfied a lot of personal as well as professional uncertainties, he thought.
‘Aren’t you overlooking the personal risk?’ demanded the thin-featured deputy Director.
‘Not at all,’ assured Charlie, even more insistent. ‘I’d need protection. Every one of the traders I’m talking about has his own guards: I wouldn’t be taken seriously if I didn’t have the same. Which Moscow could provide. It would represent their participation. I’m suggesting a joint operation, not usurping or overriding Russian authority.’ The nightclub confrontation had convinced Charlie how essential spetznaz would be if he persuaded these still-unconvinced men. The reflection made him think of Hillary. She’d awoken in Lesnaya without any of the first-morning-after awkwardness and made love and then breakfast as if there had been a lot of mornings-after. Charlie hoped there would be. Which wasn’t just a personal anticipation. He’d need her in what he was trying to get agreed today, if it worked out successfully.
‘What would all this cost?’ asked Williams, his face relaxing slightly in expectation.
He’d have to go for broke, Charlie knew. ‘The expense would be substantial. To fit the part I would need an impressive car, something like a Mercedes or BMW: vehicles like that are virtually tools of the trade, like having bodyguards. A Russian, not just as one of those bodyguard but as a chauffeur. An office. And I’d need to trade, in whatever I’m asked to buy or sell, to establish credibility. The department would have to be my supplier and buyer, but there’d be a financial loss: the need would always be to do the deal, not make a profit.’
‘It would cost thousands – tens of thousands even – and take months without the slightest guarantee of your ever being approached to broker any nuclear deal,’ objected Williams. ‘All we’d end up with is a warehouse full of stolen or black-market goods.’
The vehemence had gone out of the other man’s voice, judged Charlie, curiously: that last remark had been an observation, not a challenge. ‘It’s worked in Germany. In America the FBI have frequently trapped criminals – up to and including the Mafia – with exactly the sort of phoney-front operation I’m proposing. We’ve even done it ourselves, before our role was expanded. The cost would be extremely high. But I’m not suggesting we run it for months. We give it a reasonable period.’
‘There’s certainly precedents,’ encouraged Dean. ‘The problem I have with it is that it could only be done with Moscow’s cooperation. And the reason you were brought back is that they’ve withdrawn just that.’
The most difficult barrier to get around, Charlie acknowledged. ‘I’ve been rejected from a working group dealing with a specific situation at a specific level. This proposal would have to come officially and formally from here, not from me in Moscow. And if it comes from London it would obviously have to be in the same way and at the same level as you proposed my going there in the first place.’ Which he knew, from Natalia, had been to a level of the Foreign Ministry higher than her. But one to which she now appeared to have access. Which, by carefully rehearsing her, opened another channel of persuasion.