“You realize how fortunate we are, having the media contacts we have in Canada?”
“Not really,” Ryabov frowned.
“You will,” promised Polyakov.
Alexei Popov’s replacement as Natalia’s deputy was a taciturn, sleek-mannered, sleek-featured Georgian. The deputy interior minister had outmaneuvered an unsuspecting Natalia to get Petr Pavlovich Travin appointed, making it obvious that after the Popov debacle the Interior Ministry felt it necessary to have their own watchdog as close to the top of her department as possible, which was in no way a guarantee of Travin’s honesty or integrity: an enshrined legacy of communism, maybe even inherited by them from the tsars, was that poachers made the best gamekeepers.
Travin listened, wordless and expressionless, while Natalia talked and still didn’t immediately speak when she’d finished and Natalia, who’d first met Charlie as his KGB debriefer when Charlie had staged a false defection, identified the familiar trick of extended silence to lure more from someone being interrogated. With that awareness came curiosity that Travin might already consider himself entitled to interrogate her. Finally the man said, “I expected to be involved from the very beginning: selecting the Russian team with you. I might have had some suggestions.”
The burly, mustached man did consider himself her equal-if not more-Natalia recognized. Stressing the demand in her voice, Natalia said, “You will be in charge, from here, of overall liaison, between us and the British and Americans. We expect-in fact it’s been politically decided we want-them to go to Yakutsk.”
“What is the chain of command?” demanded Travin, virtually in open challenge.
“Mine is to Dmitri Borisovich Nikulin, the president’s chief of staff. Yours is to me. It’s imperative from the outset that there are no misunderstandings between us. I hope there won’t be.”
“So do I,” said Travin, insolently.
How many times had she already said and thought those words? wondered Natalia. And how many times was she going to repeat them in the immediate future? She said, “The most important thing for you to understand is that whatever the outcome, no blame or error should attach to our people.”
“I’ve understood that already,” assured Travin.
“That’s good.”
It was only when Natalia was redrafting for the third time her bureaucratically necessary memorandum to Dmitri Nikulin-with copies to everyone else in the planning group-that she accepted the first version had been quite adequate and that she was stupidly delaying her return to Lesnaya and Charlie.
“I’m on my way,” she said into the telephone.
“There’s a lot to talk about,” said Charlie.
“I know.”
“It’s an opportunity!” insisted Vitali Novikov.
“How? Why?” asked his wife.
“There’ll be foreigners: American and English.”
“What good will they be?” demanded Marina.
“I don’t know, not yet. But I’ll find a way.”
“Vitali Maksimovich! You’ve tried so hard for so long. Nothing works!”
“You want Georgi and Arseni to live like we’ve had to live?”
“You know I don’t. But there is no other way. No way out.”
“My father was a clever man. A meticulous man.”
“And you’re clever, too, my darling. But I can’t see how Americans or British can help us.”
“I’ll find a way,” repeated the medical examiner, stubbornly. “Even if I have to cheat and lie.”
Gerald Williams examined his idea from as many aspects as he could think of before telephoning his fellow finance director across the river at Vauxhall Cross. His second call was to Richard Cartright in Moscow.
“I thought I should introduce myself, now that our two departments are going to be working together,” said Williams.
7
The phrase that came to Charlie’s mind was phony war, although it didn’t fit because he wasn’t going to allow a war between himself and Natalia, phony or otherwise. They were moving around the apartment, overly attentive upon Sasha, overly polite toward each other, with long periods of silence, as if each were expecting the other to fire the first shot.
It was, however, Natalia who proposed the armistice. “Angry?”
“No.” Charlie was on his second Islay malt of the evening, Sasha already asleep.
“What, then?”
“Disappointed.”
“It had to be this way: from our Foreign Ministry to yours, in London.” She shook her head to the wine he held up.
“I know that. You might just have mentioned something.” Charlie was, in fact, very angry, although not at Natalia. He’d timed the telephone lecture from Sir Rupert Dean at forty minutes, immediately followed by the promised memorandum, and after that there had been the personal visit from Richard Cartright with the insistence that he was sure they were all going to work together perfectly. Towhich Charlie had thought bollocks and said he was just as sure.
“I’ve got so much to mention I doubt I’ll remember it all,” said Natalia, turning his expression.
Charlie looked at her curiously. “Go on.”
“I’m not sure I can do it,” blurted Natalia. “That we can do it: keep secret what we have to. I’ve almost gone mad!” And she still didn’t intend to tell him everything.
“It might have helped to talk.” He was glad he hadn’t told her of Irena’s apparently brief affair with Saul Freeman. Glad, too, that there’d been no personal contact from the woman after that one night, which she’d hinted at when he’d walked her to the street-level door.
“Perhaps. I just wanted to do it this way. Try some separation, so that we couldn’t be professionally accused of anything.”
Charlie smiled at her sadly. “I know I was a shit before. But I’ll make you a solemn promise. I will never, ever, cheat you or use you or expose you to any risk I can possibly avoid. Or put Sasha at any risk.”
Natalia stayed silent for several minutes, changing her mind and pouring her own wine. “I believe you, about us.”
She didn’t, Charlie decided. She wanted to-maybe would come to, in time-but at the moment there was too much to forget. He took Sir Rupert Dean’s fax from his pocket and slid it across the table toward her. “Now it’s official, I suppose we can talk about it.”
She smiled, relieved it had been this easy, reading it slowly, not looking up for several minutes. “Those are all the facts there are?”
“Seems like it.”
“How do you feel about working with the SIS?” she asked, anticipating the answer.
“I don’t like working in groups. Cartright won’t be the only person.”
“It’s an order, Charlie,” said Natalia, at once worried.
“They won’t know that, will they? They might even have their uses.” He sipped his whiskey. “Read up on what I could about Yakutskaya, from the embassy library. Seems a hell of a place. There was an embassy assessment from here, in Stalin’s time, just at the suggestion of the gulags that was marked doubtful because the descriptions weren’t considered humanly possible.”
“Even though Stalin’s been denounced and disgraced, public records stay sanitized,” said Natalia.
“I won’t take a paperback and sun oil.”
Natalia refused the anxious flippancy. “Be careful.”
Charlie waited. When Natalia didn’t continue he said, “Everyone and his dog out to screw me?”
“I won’t let you be exposed to any risk I can possibly anticipate and prevent,” said Natalia, matching his earlier promise.
At once, urgently, Charlie shook his head. “Don’t anticipate for me! Let me anticipate for myself.”
“So you don’t trust me!”
“We’re not talking us!” insisted Charlie, “We’re talking gutter survival. I’ve been there: lived my life there. You haven’t, not operationally. Leave me to watch my own back, until I ask for help. That way there’s no confusion.”