“You’ve asked the station officer directly?”
“Not since getting this material,” said Charlie, sensing the concern in the man’s voice. “We obviously discussed it before that. I’m sure he doesn’t know anything.”
“If MI6 already had Oskin they wouldn’t admit it or share anything in a million years. And I don’t want to share anything with them or anyone else yet, as I’ve already made clear. Things are still far too uncertain, both here and where you are.”
Aubrey Smith saw this as his way to win the power struggle in London, Charlie recognized at once. “What about Irena Novikov’s demands?”
“I’ll pay her, of course. How much depends upon the ultimate value of what she’s given you. And I could also arrange her asylum.”
Smith was ducking the most important part of his question, Charlie acknowledged. “What about the body? She wants the whole package, not part of it.”
“It’s a technical situation that’s never arisen, as far as I am aware. And I certainly haven’t had time to discuss it with anyone yet. In fact, I can’t think of anyone with whom I could discuss it.”
“I promised I’d give her a reaction as soon as I could.” He’d also promised to make contact with Natalia, Charlie remembered.
“She can’t expect a decision this soon on something as complicated as she’s asked,” complained the Director-General. “Neither can you. What’s the situation with this damned Russian press conference that could make us all look absurd?”
“As confused as everything else.”
“I’m not sure of the benefit of keeping this joint American-British covert business running. Or using this Svetlana woman,” said Smith. “It could be exacerbating a situation that doesn’t need to get any worse.”
Was that a genuine remark or a way of letting him know that all the recorded conversations were still being forwarded to London? “It generates a little confusion.”
“Don’t we have enough confusion already?” asked Smith.
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s almost too much of that coming from somewhere?”
For the first time there was a reflective silence from the London end. “Are you suggesting there’s a positive disinformation operation going on?”
“I don’t know what I’m suggesting, if anything,” avoided Charlie. “It could be a possibility.”
“By whom? To achieve what?”
Charlie started to regret beginning the exchange. “I can’t answer that, either. Maybe I’m imagining there’s some kind of orchestration in a lot of things that have happened.”
“Maybe you have,” said Smith, his tone indicating the exchange was coming to an end. “I’ll get back to you if anything comes up from this end that would take us forward in a more positive way.”
“I’d like something positive to move things forward.” It had been a mistake to offer an amorphous idea without anything to substantiate it, Charlie acknowledged.
The embassy was still only waking up when Charlie ascended to its more regular working area, skeleton night staff handing over to the day workers and diplomats, although neither Paula-Jane nor Halliday were in their offices. That day’s unread newspapers-including those brought in on the early-morning flight from London-were still in their undisturbed stack in Halliday’s outer, unrestricted access room, the English ones uppermost. Only the Times and the Telegraph maintained their Moscow coverage and both their single-column stories were on the inside foreign pages, but datelined from Washington, pointing up the unusual diplomatic response from the State Department to Stepan Lvov’s demand.
Charlie hadn’t expected to find Robertson waiting there when he got to the compound apartment.
“We’re well met,” announced Robertson. “I was looking for you; the hotel said you’d left at dawn.”
“Not quite dawn,” said Charlie. “Early, though. You’re looking for me?”
“I’ve slotted you in for this morning.”
“What?”
“To come before the inquiry panel. We’re getting toward the end: you’re among the last.”
“After the previous charade? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“You can’t refuse,” insisted the man.
“I can and I do,” said Charlie. “And don’t fuck about like you did last time, threatening arrest and my being taken back to London under escort.”
“I will and I can,” Robertson mocked back.
“Go outside for a moment, will you?” Charlie said to the four awkwardly, foot-shuffling telephone monitors witnessing the confrontation.
“You don’t have the authority to get them to do that,” said Robertson.
“Their security classification isn’t high enough for what I am going to tell you.”
“Don’t be. .” started Robertson but the bravado faltered. To the other four men he said, “Give us a moment, will you?”
“Something has started that’s far more important than my fulfilling some piss-willie regulation that can’t apply to me because as you already know I don’t come into your time frame. I’m not trying to undermine your authority or what you’re trying to achieve here. If you’re determined to persist with this nonsense I want the personal order from the Director-General-and I mean Aubrey Smith himself, no one else-to appear again before your panel.”
“I insist upon knowing what it is you’re involved in.”
“You know I am not going to tell you.”
“Are you sure you’ve got the backing in London to behave like this?”
“No, I’m not at all sure,” admitted Charlie, honestly. “But it’s the stand I’m going to maintain until, again, I’m personally authorized by Smith to tell you any more.”
30
It had been a ridiculous dispute, achieving nothing except his being backed by the Director-General, but Charlie didn’t believe Paul Robertson would have invited the humiliation of being overruled for a second time. Robertson hadn’t made any secret of his resentment at his ridicule of the first examination, or of his uncovering Harry Fish’s duplicity. Could it be as simple as the man trying to even a score? Robertson and Fish were, after all, part of the same internal counterintelligence division. Of which, taking the possibility further, Robertson was the director and by association shared some of Fish’s caught-out opprobrium. Possible but still infantile, which Charlie found difficult to imagine Robertson would risk appearing.
Unless, of course, the man had been forced into the confrontation. If Harry Fish had been part of the Jeffrey Smale faction in London, it wasn’t a leap to think that Robertson was a fellow traveler and part of the same headquarters conspiracy. If Robertson were, he could have been obeying the instructions of the protection-promising deputy director in staging today’s debacle. But to gain what? Although he’d guaranteed by his sole your Eyes Only designation that the Director-General would be the only recipient of Irena Novikov’s story, the fact that there had been an exchange between them extending over almost three hours would have been visibly evident upon the London transmission log. There was every understandable reason for Smith’s enemies to want to discover as quickly as possible as much as they could about such a long conversation. But could Robertson or anyone else have conceivably imagined they’d learn anything from yes or no polygraph answers no matter how cleverly they’d phrased and posed their questions? Perhaps not under the polygraph routine. But they might have believed they’d learn something in a more open, free-ranging session, just as strongly as Charlie believed he would have instantly recognized what they were trying to achieve and amused himself by misleading them. Whatever, Charlie positively decided he wouldn’t allow it to grow into another distraction.