“Yes,” came in the American, as if on cue. “That’s certainly how I see it, too.”
Travin nodded, to disguise the heavy swallow. “I see you all acting together as a team,” he tried. “We respect your ability. Don’t expect you to hold back to be invited to give an opinion. This is, in fact, going to be a unique investigation.”
The precise words Alexei Popov had used in this very same room about a year earlier, remembered Charlie. Popov had been a far more adept bastard than his successor. Still wrong to be too confident, too soon. Looking obviously at the note-takers, Charlie said, “I am impressed by the obvious efficiency with which this has all begun. I will, of course, make available copies of all my reports to London, for your murder dossiers. And would like copies of yours-including that of this meeting-to create my full file ….” He smiled sideways at Miriam. “That’s the sort of arrangement to which you’d agree, wouldn’t you?”
She said, “Yes. That sounds fine.”
Miriam Bell offered the drink and suggested the conveniently close Intourist Hotel and Charlie accepted, although he preferred the bar of the Savoy. After they were served, she said, “You want to tell me what that was all about back there?”
“Doing my best to prevent the back of my head from being blown off, like some poor bastard’s was fifty years ago.” If he’d added any more water to his whiskey after the barman’s adulteration, there wouldn’t have been any taste at all.
“Not enough,” she protested.
The bolted-door reserve wasn’t the earlier suspected arrogance, Charlie decided. It was get-all-but-say-nothing.
“Things go wrong, they want scapegoats. We’re it.”
“What if things go right?”
“Same role.”
“I thought Lestov seemed a nice enough guy.”
“We’ll see.”
“What about you and I?”
“No reason for us to work in opposition.”
“What about together?”
“Doesn’t seem there’ll be an alternative.” He gestured for more drinks, changing his to vodka: there wasn’t the need to dilute the cheaper local drink so much to get a three hundred percent markup.
“But if there was, you’d prefer it?”
“Don’t want anyone else to suffer from my mistakes.”
“Or suffer those of others yourself?”
“That’s about it.”
“I suppose it’s also being honest.”
He grinned at her. “You get the identity of your American first, it’ll most likely lead me to my man, won’t it?”
“I think I’ve got the rules.” She sipped her drink. She’d chosen vodka from the beginning. “Surprised it’s me, not Saul?”
“Yes.”
“He’s expecting to be called back to Washington any minute. Didn’t want to be off base. So I get the big chance.”
Jesus, thought Charlie: sneaky bastard didn’t lie any better than Irena described the way he fucked. Emptily he said, “That’s what we all need, the big chance.”
“This isn’t my first overseas assignment,” she said, in unasked defense. “I’ve worked Manila. And Tokyo.”
“But nothing like this before?”
“Is it too obvious?”
Charlie recognized the little-girl-lost ploy. “Not at all. You all set to go?”
“I guess.”
“Pack a lot of chiffon scarves.”
“What?”
“Chiffon scarves. Pack as many as you’ve got.” The protection he’d decided upon after reading about Yakutskaya had arrived from Harrods that morning, in the embassy’s diplomatic shipment. He could hardly wait for Gerald Williams to get the bill.
Charlie assessed his score at ten out of ten. He judged Travin to be working to a separate agenda, to which Natalia limited her agreement, but she did admit there’d been a much longer, separate briefing between her deputy and the three Russians, which was why they’d made the mistake of not asking questions. And the Yakut ruling council had refused to send any evidence in advance of the investigation team’s arrival.
“Travin’s furious,” said Natalia, delighted with the recorded outcome of the man’s encounter with Charlie. It could hardly have been better if she had told him the threat she believed herself to be under.
“He’s not very good.” It was unthinkable that he would make any comparison with Popov.
“Don’t underestimate him.”
“I don’t underestimate anybody, not this early in a case.”
“What about the woman?”
“What about her?”
“Think you’ll have a problem working with her?”
That wasn’t at all what Natalia meant, Charlie knew sadly. “I don’t work with people, if I can help it. But there’s every reason-every advantage-in cooperating here, until it proves otherwise. So I will ….” He was about to make a joke of her real concern but abruptly stopped himself, remembering the hurt of her past. Instead he continued, seriously, “And I seem to remember promising that I would never, ever, cheat you. And I meant cheat in every way. So no, I’m not going to try to seduce Miriam Bell. Or anyone else, for that matter ….”
Natalia smiled, abashed. “I’m sorry.”
So was he, decided Charlie. One day, he supposed, the trust would be there. He wondered when.
Vitali Maksimovich Novikov straightened triumphantly from the attic box, gazing down at what he considered the treasure it contained. His father had been a meticulous man. There had to be something.
“Good to hear your voice,” greeted Kenton Peters.
“And yours,” said Boyce.
“Everything’s in place this end. The confusion is absolute.”
“That’s good.”
“And I’ve spoken to the man himself.”
“How is he?”
“As overconfident as always.”
“I’m glad the Yakutskaya authorities are being awkward.”
So am I. Like to know a little more of their thinking, though.”
“We can’t have everything, James! Who’s your disposable man?”
“Odd name. Muffin. An awkward bastard, according to his file. Actually caused a lot of trouble in your CIA a long time ago. Embarrassed your director as well as our director-general.”
“Deserves to be punished, then.”
“Quite. You briefed anyone?”
“Selected him. Haven’t briefed him yet. Too early. Better send me Muffin’s file. That CIA business would be ‘enemy of the state’ justification.”
“Will do,” agreed Boyce. “I think we’ve got everything under wraps, don’t you?”
“Can’t think of anything we’ve overlooked.”
8
All of Charlie’s forebodings were confirmed from the very outset. There was no trace of their confirmed reservations on Aeroflot’s ten A.M. Domodedovo airport departure for Yakutsk until Charlie offered his passport with a $50 note folded inside. That still, however, didn’t guarantee a seat. It was agony for him to have to run, like everyone else, but they got to the aircraft ahead of families with small children and the infirm, while there were still unoccupied seats. Vadim Leonidovich Lestov determinedly elbowed his way through to get beside Miriam Bell, and Olga Erzin and the Russian forensic scientist remained stubbornly and protectively together, which left Charlie to fight for himself, which suited him perfectly. He hoped it would be a permanently established division.
He managed a seat next to a Yakut who greeted him with a graveyard-toothed smile and a miasma of halitosis so bad Charlie wastempted to surrender his place to a loudly demanding, arm-waving woman with an apparent official boarding pass. There were, however, at least seven more identical arguments going on simultaneously throughout the aircraft, which meant it was overbooked, as Aeroflot planes always were, and that no other seat was available. Charlie was isolated as a dispensable foreigner by an androgynous stewardess, whose arrival he greeted with another $50 note, which secured his occupation and got the pass of the still-protesting woman torn up as she was escorted from the aircraft.