He allowed Jurgen Balg to take him to lunch in gratitude for being told first of the Warsaw link to the Pizhma robbery and used it openly to urge that he be allowed in on the questioning if a German arrest came from it. The impudence briefly confused the German, whose halting protests that such unprecedented access was impossible abruptly stopped when Charlie announced as if it had already been agreed by the Russians his setting up as a phoney trader in Moscow. Balg changed direction entirely, agreeing that even if the Pizhma nuclear material had already been smuggled out of Russia the closest liaison was absolutely essential in the future and promising to press Bonn as strongly as he could.
Charlie hadn’t expected Hillary to be in the FBI office at the American embassy, although it was the logical place for her to be: she simply hadn’t attended any of the previous gatherings since her arrival. She winked at him as he walked in. With the Americans Charlie didn’t try to infer Russian agreement, although he insisted he was confident it would come. Each reacted differently. Kestler said holy shit; Hillary said he couldn’t possibly consider doing it; and Lyneham said forget it, it didn’t stand a hope in a hot hell of Russian acceptance. Lyneham’s remark gave Charlie the perfect lead to argue they might, in view of what was on the audio tape, and finally explained the significance of Warsaw which he claimed to have been deciphered in London. Lyneham thought the analysts in Washington were going to be pissed off at being beaten by the Brits and Charlie offered it as a bargaining reason for Kestler’s continued admission to the Russian meetings.
‘It goes against their argument that it’s still somehow in Russia,’ the man pointed out. ‘They’re not going to like the thought of losing it.’
‘It’s a fact they’ve got to know about. And you’re the person to tell them,’ said Charlie.
‘What do you think the chances are of stopping it if it’s still here?’ demanded Kestler.
‘God knows!’ admitted Charlie. ‘All the Russian borders are supposedly closed. And those of the intervening countries. There’d be a logic to cache it somewhere to let the heat die down. The Moscow recovery would help that; maybe even be designed to achieve it.’
‘So your people told the Poles?’ queried Lyneham.
‘And the Germans,’ said Charlie.
‘That stuffs been adrift long enough to get it to the Middle East by slow mule train!’ said Hillary. ‘My money is on it already being there. You know what I think? I think we could be looking at another Gulf War fought very differently than the last.’
‘No,’ warned Charlie. ‘Germany and Poland were warned days ago.’
‘I don’t hear any police sirens,’ said the girl.
‘Just strange noises from Washington,’ said Lyneham.
Lyneham said he’d make a book on the sting idea being pissed on from a great height, offering odds of fifty to one against. Kestler wagered $5 and Charlie matched it with the first expense against his special contingency fund. Hillary said, contemptuously, she didn’t think it was something to bet on. It was a long way into lunch together at the embassy canteen before she relaxed. After lunch Hillary walked him back on to Ulitza Chaykovskovo.
‘You didn’t call, you didn’t write, you didn’t send flowers!’ she chided.
‘I had a lot to sort out.’
‘And now you have.’
Charlie gestured further along the multi-lane highway. ‘The Peking’s the best Chinese restaurant in the city.’
‘Seven-thirty?’
‘Fine.’ Which it was. Hillary might have a very necessary place in his scheme of things, as well as being gorgeous.
Charlie thought the rice wine was tasteless but drank it anyway and they had duck in pancakes because that was the thing to do. Hillary insisted on doing most of the ordering and there was a sweet and sour course and chicken in cashews and steamed dumplings.
She dismissed FBI sting operations against the American Mafia as totally different – always controllable – from what he wanted to do and asked if he’d seen the torture photographs and what about that business in the club, that had frightened her shitless! She was unimpressed by his spetznaz argument.
‘I’d need your help,’ Charlie announced.
‘My help!’
‘Technically, if it ever comes to anything. To check out what I was offered to make sure it wasn’t a con.’
Hillary regarded him warily. ‘Charlie, I like the way I look! These guys don’t fuck about: I don’t want any facial remodelling.’
‘Just a check to ensure I don’t get caught out along the way with a load of crap.’
She smiled, nervously. ‘I’m with Lyneham. It isn’t going to work so it’s a waste of time talking about it.’
‘ If it works,’ he pressed.
‘If it works we’ll talk about it again.’
When he asked if she wanted to go on to a club Hillary said he had to be joking, after last time. There was no question of her not going back to Lesnaya. Charlie was worried that this time he didn’t have the aphrodisiac of fear but he needn’t have been. Afterwards she lay wetly over him, her head on his shoulder.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ she said, her voice muffled.
‘Of course.’
‘You take house guests?’
He pulled away, better to look down at her. ‘You serious?’
‘Sure.’
‘Are we talking serious relationships or escape from embassy compounds?’
‘Escape from embassy compounds. I don’t go for serious relationships.’
‘My turn for a question. What’s the score between you and Kestler? You two didn’t seem the best of friends at lunch.’ And he was still curious at her earlier dismissal.
Now it was Hillary who moved away. ‘There isn’t a score. I don’t go for guys who wave their dicks around their heads like a lariat. I like to make my own choice. Which I did. Which is why I’m here. OK?’
‘OK.’
‘You did it brilliantly, Charlie.’
‘What?’ he said, not understanding.
‘Changed the house guest subject.’
‘What would the embassy say?’
‘Who gives a damn? It’s personal, not professional.’
And professionally he would need her if the sting operation came even halfway near to being set up. ‘You want your own bedroom?’
‘Let’s keep it for friends.’
They made love once more during the night, slowly, starting when they were still half asleep and stayed entwined afterwards so the telephone rang several times before Charlie could disentangle himself. As he picked up the receiver he saw it was just before seven, although it was still dark outside.
‘We picked up five Russians at a place called Cottbus, just over the Polish border,’ announced Balg. ‘They had six canisters with them. And Bonn’s agreed to your sitting in on the interrogation.’
It was the last of several meetings, a review of everything they had discussed while Peter Johnson had been in Washington, and they ate in Fenby’s private dining room at Pennsylvania Avenue. There was no public benefit parading an unknown Briton at the Four Seasons.
‘You’ve no doubt he’d make public what a stupid son-of-a-bitch Kestler was: and me with it?’ It had been Fenby’s recurring question, at every session.
‘None,’ insisted Johnson, who blamed Fenby for a lot of his own entrapment.
‘So the bastard’s got us by the balls?’ He’d never lost control like this before, never had to be the one obeying the shots instead of calling them, and Fenby didn’t like it.
‘And can use what he’s got like you tried to do,’ agreed the deputy British Director. ‘If anything goes wrong we’re package-wrapped for sacrifice.’