‘Too much.’
‘That’s the price.’
‘Twenty.’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Twenty-two.’
‘I can offer it,’ agreed Charlie. There wasn’t any satisfaction, not yet.
‘You’re in touch with other people?’ demanded Turkel.
‘You don’t expect me to answer that, any more than you would expect me to talk about you to anyone else.’
There was another approving nod. ‘There will be no payment, of any money, until everything has been checked and guaranteed genuine.’
‘Where?’
‘Here, in Berlin.’
Turkel was inventing new rules for a new situation, imagining he was protecting himself from any entrapment in Moscow. Which couldn’t be better! ‘Where in Berlin?’ pressed Charlie.
‘You’ll be told.’
‘There’ll be no examination of anything until we’re sure of the money,’ stipulated Charlie, making the demand that would be expected.
‘The money will be available. Your commission comes from the purchase price, not from us.’
‘Agreed,’ accepted Charlie.
‘What is your commission?’
Hopefully more than you could ever guess, thought Charlie. ‘You’re not paying it. So it’s my business.’
Turkel permitted a thin smile. ‘We’ll use the same contact procedure.’
‘It’s time-consuming,’ protested Charlie.
There was another mouth-stretching smile. ‘But safe.’
Not the next time, thought Charlie.
Charlie and Schumann continued playing safe, too, not attempting any contact after Charlie’s one alerting telephone call from the Kempinski’s public booth until they were seated by Bundeskrimina-lamt connivance beside each other on the returning Moscow aircraft. It took Charlie practically the entire journey to recount the Wannsee episode. As the seat belt signs came on for the Sheremet’yevo landing Schumann said, ‘We can do more next time but we still won’t be able to cover you properly!’
‘I know,’ accepted Charlie.
‘What’s London say?’
‘I haven’t told them all of it yet.’
He still didn’t from the soundproofed booth in the British embassy communications basement to which he went direct from the airport, although he did set out the Militia complicity he could prove as the reason for not officially informing the Russians.
‘That’s directly contrary to what was agreed,’ insisted Rupert Dean.
‘When those arrangements were made we didn’t know the extent or the level of Militia corruption!’
‘I’m not sure we do now.’
‘There’s no danger of losing the cylinders,’ repeated Charlie.
‘There’s an enormous danger of losing Moscow’s agreement to our being there. Which is vitally important for the future of this department.’
‘Which would be cemented in concrete if I am right.’
‘And buried in concrete if you aren’t.’
‘We can make it into a Militia success in the end.’ That was ultimately essential, for what Charlie wanted to achieve.
‘I agree it looks convincing,’ wavered Dean.
‘And we’ll lose it if I tell them now. I’ll never get another chance. So my being here will become pointless, a department disadvantage not a department justification.’
‘You sure you need the American woman?’
Charlie felt the blanket-like warmth of satisfaction at the growing concession. ‘She’s necessary to ensure nothing goes technically wrong.’ He could explain the lie away later.
‘You’ll never know how important it is for you to be right!’ said Dean.
‘I think I will,’ said Charlie.
The weakest link in the ensnaring chain Charlie was trying to forge was the awareness of the unquestionably spying Ludmilla Ustenkov of the extorting Militia lieutenant. The gamble was that’s all she and Popov and Gusev believed the man to be, a bribe-accepting opportunist he himself had reported to Gusev and not the channel to the new Dolgoprudnaya boss of bosses. Charlie took what precautions he could, refusing Nikolai Ranov any details of the Berlin visit and insisting that, having shown his good faith at their first meeting, his second with Sobelov had to be just between the two of them. Charlie, the arch-deceiver with the unshakeable belief he could divine it in others through a thick fog on a dark night, was encouraged by Ranov’s easy, unarguing acceptance. And even more relieved when Ranov relayed Sobelov’s agreement the next day.
It was the same room at the Metropole, which Charlie guessed the pretentious Russian kept permanently. Charlie approached the hotel with the same meandering caution as before, which he acknowledged would be a waste of time if he was wrong about Ranov. The man was in the lobby bar, with Sobelov’s customary bodyguards. They let Charlie pass without any recognition.
The drinks were set out on the separating table and again the beetle-browed Sobelov poured but there was none of the earlier condescension. He predictably disputed the price to which Charlie argued he was lucky even to have got that with everyone in the business either having gone underground or quit the city altogether after the arrest of the Raina group. It was a take-it-or-leave-it situation: there was no guarantee of improving the offer even if he could locate another client, which he doubted. As soon as Sobelov accepted, Charlie negotiated his own commission, which Sobelov would have expected, comfortably haggling his way through the first scotch to get three per cent. On the second drink Sobelov announced he would go personally to Berlin to be paid, which Charlie mentally ticked off as another part of the entrapment slotted into place, with the reflection that Sobelov wasn’t good enough to be a boss of bosses.
‘Except for me, the person who has to bring you both together.’
‘That’s what you’re getting paid for.’
‘It’ll have to be a simultaneous exchange, their handing over the money when they’re satisfied what they’re buying is genuine. Which I want to be satisfied about, too. I don’t deal in fakes.’
‘You know where it came from.’
‘I’m the man in the middle. Literally. I’m not being caught in the middle. I want to see it and have it tested.’
Sobelov shrugged. ‘I don’t see a problem.’
‘And I’m not transporting it. I’m not a delivery boy. I’ll need to know all the details to coordinate everything but you fix it being taken into Germany. I need to be there way ahead of you.’
‘I don’t see a problem with that, either.’
But you will, Charlie promised himself: you and a lot of others. Continuing to cut Ranov out, Charlie set up during the hotel meeting the inspection of the plutonium canisters, allowing himself three days for Dean’s assured Washington agreement about Hillary.
Charlie used one of the intervening days for a final, pre-Berlin session at the Interior Ministry with Popov and Gusev, alert for the slightest hint they regarded Ranov as anything more important than a bribe-grabbing policeman. Charlie let the Russians do most of the talking, which they were happy to do, Popov more eagerly than Gusev going through what became a review of the evidence each would present. They pressed him on his most recent German visit, which Charlie described as the sort of evidence rehearsal they were having now. He was reasonably sure the Germans had shared everything with him, although he couldn’t be positive: certainly he didn’t think they had withheld any major evidence. Charlie added that a number of foreign observers were attending to introduce his question about Dmitri Fomin. Popov said at once that the presidential aide would be there. Yuri Panin was going too, officially to represent the Russian Foreign Ministry.
‘There’ll be a lot to celebrate when it’s all over,’ predicted Popov.
‘I hope you’re right,’ said Charlie.
*
Charlie had planned the container inspection during the day to provide the embassy visit excuse to dispense with their spetznaz guard. But the evasion – more important that day than any since the attempted entrapment began – was more difficult because it was alien to Hillary, who additionally was nervous and hampered by even the limited equipment they had to carry and didn’t react or move as quickly as Charlie wanted. It took a long time before he considered they were by themselves and even then he wasn’t completely satisfied. His feet ached like hell by the time they entered the warehouse between what had been built as the Komsomol theatre and the outer ring road.