Kings of Many Castles (21 page)

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Authors: Brian Freemantle

BOOK: Kings of Many Castles
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Kayley said, “Good to hear you’re feeling better.”
Bendall smiled but didn’t reply.
Kayley took a pack of Kent cigarettes from a sagging jacket pocket and said, “You want a smoke?”
“I don’t,” said Bendall. The voice was far stronger than it had been on any previous recording.
“I won’t then.”
Jordan said, “Why’d you try to kill the American president, George?”
“My name is Georgi.”
“Why’d you try to kill the American president, Georgi?”
“Reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“Good reasons.”
“We’d like to hear them,” said Kayley.
“None of your business.”
“It is, Georgi,” said the FBI man. “The president’s wife got hit but we think you really tried to kill him. That’s what you did, didn’t you? Aimed to kill the American president.”
Bendall smiled again but didn’t reply.
“You know you were set up?” said Jordan. “You were meant to get caught while the other guy got away.”
“There was no one else.”
“You only had two cartridges. There were five shots.”
“Liar.”
From his briefcase Kayley took a copy of that day’s
Trud
, which led with the disclosure of the second gunman and held it up for the man to read. Bendall frowned but said nothing.
“Why are you frowning, Georgi,” Jordan demanded. “Didn’t you
know
there was a second shooter?”
“It’s a fake,” said the bandaged man.
Kayley swapped
Trud
for
Moskovskaya Pravda
,
Izvestiya
and
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
, all three dominated by the same coverage, and laid them out side by side on the bed in front of the man. “We’ll have a television brought in. You can watch your own network. It’s their lead story, too.”
“Not true.”
“They really made a fool out of you, didn’t they?” said Jordan. “Jesus, how they must be laughing!”
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Can’t understand why you’re taking the rap for people who set you up like this,” said Kayley. “They’re not doing anything to help you.”
“Need to think.”
“Let’s think it through together,” said Kayley.
Bendall began to hum the wailing dirge.
“That song got words?” asked Jordan.
The man hummed on, appearing oblivious of them.
“It’ll help you if you tell us about the others,” said Kayley.
“Comrades,” said Bendall.
“Comrades who deserted you, cheated you,” said Kayley.
“No! Go away!”
“Tell us what we want to know and we’ll go away,” said Jordan.
“GO AWAY!”
The roared demand was so unexpected that all three Americans actually jumped and there was a scuffed arrival of the two doctors at the door. Bendall screamed it again and tried to lash out at Jordan with his uninjured arm. He missed but swept the tape recorder off the bedside table, laughing when the cassette hood broke as it hit the floor. He threw his head back and shouted “GO AWAY” over and over again, breaking the words occasionally with a cackling laugh. He finally stopped shouting, exhausted, and when he did the
hysterical laughter turned to tears. They streamed, unchecked, down his face and his nose ran, too.
Agayan hurried in from the doorway, pushing past the lawyer. “What did you do to him … ! Say to him?”
“We didn’t do anything,” said Kayley, defensively. “Just tried to get answers to some questions.”
“Go away,” mumbled Bendall, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“Yes, go away,” agreed the psychiatrist. “This is bad.”
Badim had his fingers at Bendall’s wrist, checking his pulse. “Bad,” he echoed.
In the car on their way back to the embassy Jordan said, “We hit a nerve.”
“And maybe broke it,” said Kayley.
 
“It’s being overemphasized,” insisted Charlie.
“For what reason?” demanded Natalia.
“To create precisely the situation that’s arisen: to spread suspicion and distrust among us.” The way to prevent any official curiosity about Natalia’s dedicated Interior Ministry telephone number appearing on his hotel bill was to pay it-and then destroy it—himself. It would only represent a temporary out-of-pocket expense.
“So we’re back to KGB—of FSB—disinformation?”
“Doesn’t it fit better than anything else?”
Natalia didn’t reply for several moments and when she did it wasn’t an answer. “The leak’s been added to the presidential enquiry remit.”
“We’ll be OK!”
“We’ll be found out.”
“I’m not able to get back as soon as I thought I would.”
“How long?”
“Three, maybe four days.”
“Don’t call me direct again, like this. It could be traced.”
“You haven’t told me if there’s anything new.”
“Bendall had a mental collapse when he was with the Americans.”
Why had she waited until now to tell him! Because her personal concerns were overwhelming her professionalism, he answered himself. Forcing the calmness, Charlie said, “He’s all we’ve got!”
“We all know that.”
“What do the psychiatrists say?”
“They haven’t been able to talk to him properly yet.”
“There’ll be a tape. That’s the system we’re working with here.”
“The transcript hasn’t got up to my level yet.”
“And you haven’t got a prognosis, of his condition?”
“I told you, psychiatrists haven’t been able to talk to him yet! Medically he seems OK.”
“I’ll call …” began Charlie but Natalia said, “I told you I don’t want you to.”
“I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Yes.”
“Tell Sasha I’m sorry about the circus. We’ll go next weekend.”
“Yes,” she said again, almost uninterestedly.
For several moments Charlie sat hunched on his hotel bed, reaction colliding with reaction. What the fuck had Little Big-Foot-in-the Mouth said to tip Bendall over the edge! More importantly, what was needed to pull him back? And at this moment he couldn’t … Yes, he could. Kayley had told him about the intended meeting. Again Charlie got at once through to Donald Morrison.
“You heard how Kayley’s meeting with Bendall went? He told me earlier it was to be this afternoon.”
“Not a word.”
“I’m having all the meetings analyzed, by people here. So I need not just a transcript but a copy tape. Can you chase Kayley up, get one shipped over in the diplomatic bag?”
“As quickly as I can,” promised Morrison.
“If not quicker,” encouraged Charlie. He actually thought it was the MI6 man coming back to him when his phone rang five minutes later.
Instead Anne Abbott said, “How’s your day been?”
“You don’t want to know about it,” said Charlie, his mind not fully on the woman.
“I do, Charlie. I’ve got to know about everything, remember?”
Leonid Zenin insisted they personally confirm the extent of George Bendall’s collapse by going to Burdenko hospital which Olga had intended to do anyway. She was irritated at not having initiated the suggestion ahead of the man it was becoming practically automatic—or did she regard it as essential?-to try to impress as much
out
as
in
bed. Among the ground floor and ward level security men there was a discernible foot-shuffling uncertainty that they were in some way going to be blamed which Zenin did nothing to allay by sweeping autocratically past both contingents, shaking his head against any verbal explanation from either group. The warned-in-advance Nicholai Badim and Guerguen Agayan were waiting outside Bendall’s room.
“There’s no purpose in going in,” said Badim. “There’s a room along the corridor …”
“We came here to see for ourselves,” said Zenin.
“There’s nothing to see! Do!” protested the doctor.
“Please open the door; let us in.”
It wasn’t a request and Olga felt a sexual flicker at the authority. She said, “There were some sounds, like scuffling, on our dedicated tape?”
“Your people got to the door before I did. I understand he was trying to hit one of the Americans … lashing out at them.”
“You mean he was fighting them off?” asked Zenin, at once.
“No one was watching, even from outside,” said the doctor. “He was wildly out of control by the time I got here. My impressions was that he was trying to hit-to hurt—the nearest person.”
Zenin put himself closest to the deeply snoring, comatose man. “Difficult to believe someone as heavily bandaged as this would even think of trying to hit out at anyone.”
“Think is the operative word,” said Agayan. “Bendall wasn’t
thinking
. He was reacting.”
“To what?” demanded Olga. The tape was permanently revolving and she wanted to be featured on it as much as possible.
Agayan shook his head. “To something he didn’t want to confront.”
“By tomorrow I want to know what, in your considered, analytical opinion, went wrong today,” insisted Zenin.
“That sort of opinion is not possible overnight.”
“Do you really need reminding of the importance of this! Of everything connected with it!”
“Of course not!” protested Agayan, in matching indignation.
“Good!” said Zenin. The smile was a lip-withdrawn grimace. “So you’ll know how essential it is to help us, in every way you can. And I look forward to getting that help by tomorrow … .” He looked to Badim. “What’s wrong with him medically? Is he unconscious?”
“Deeply sedated. He had to be quietened.”
Olga said, “Could he be rational again when he comes around?”
“I don’t consider he’s ever been totally rational,” intruded Agayan, bringing both militia officers around to him at once.
“He’s said things we’ve believed to be important, things we’re trying to work on, work
out
,” said Olga. “Are you telling us it could all well be fantasy!”
“Quite easily,” said the psychiatrist. “He might well not even remember what he did.”
“Every taped conversation indicates that he knows perfectly well what he did,” rejected Zenin.
“In your judgment, perhaps.” said Agayan. “Your judgment isn’t necessarily mine.”
A smile at the psychiatrist’s refusal to be intimidated was flickering at the corners of Nicholai Badim’s mouth. It was out-matched by another of Zenin’s teeth-baring grimaces.
“I
knew
it wouldn’t take you long to help with a diagnosis,” said the militia commander.
“We can X-ray an arm, to find a break,” patronized Agayan. “We can brain-scan a hemorrhage or a tumor, because they’re physical
manifestations; we can visually see the problem, on a screen. We can’t photograph-visually
see
—mental illness. We can conduct outward observations and attempt verbal analysis and try to fit our conclusions into general and wide guidelines and every time we do it we know those guidelines are far too general and far too wide and that we could be wrong by a margin of one hundred percent. Precisely because I know the level and importance of what I’m being asked to do I don’t want to be wrong by a margin of one hundred percent. That’s why you’re going to have to wait for my opinion of this man’s mental condition and health. If you think anything he’s said gives you something to follow up, follow it up. But don’t expect it to materialize. If it does, you’re lucky. If it doesn’t, you’ve encountered the problem I meet every day of my life. The day you start solving a one hundred percent of all crime, I’ll be hoping to reach a twenty-five percent success rate with my patients.”
The only sound in the room was the sonorous rumble of George Bendall’s drugged breathing.
Trying to come to the aid of her lover, Olga said, “When will you be able to give us a firm diagnosis?”
The man shrugged, shaking his head at the same time. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get past you people for a proper conversation yet.”
“He said he understood me, when I charged him,” remembered Olga.
“He might equally have said he knew how to land a space vehicle to the moon if you’d asked him,” said Agayan.
“You both told me he was medically
and
mentally able to be interviewed; charged even!” Olga accused the two doctors.
It was the psychiatrist who continued to answer. “At the time we agreed that, we both considered he was. Today he suffered a mental collapse. Which proves everything I’ve tried to make clear to you, about reaching mental opinions.”
“When will the sedation wear off?” asked Zenin.
“Sometime during the night,” said Badim.
“What happens then?”
“We see how he behaves, how rational he appears to be, and then try to decide what else to do.”
“Might he need to be further sedated?” pressed Olga.
“Quite possibly.”
“Could he never properly recover to what until now we’ve believed to be a rational level of comprehension?” asked Zenin.
“Yes, that’s possible too.”
“For all our sakes, I hope you’re wrong,” said Zenin.
“You don’t have to concern yourself about my career,” said Agayan. “Only your own.”
 
“We need a new—a better—psychiatrist,” insisted Olga. She hadn’t liked seeing Zenin so openly opposed.
The man shook his head, not looking at her across the car in which they were driving, again without discussion, back to his apartment. “This will go to trial, whether Bendall’s got a mental condition or not. The caliber of every Russian witness will be important in front of an international audience. Agayan will look good in a witness box.”
Olga’s embarrassment became admiration. “I still think he’s hiding behind psychiatric mumbo-jumbo. Bendall’s understood what’s been going on.”
“I want you to talk very closely to Kayley, see if Bendall was trying to fight them off.”
“From doing what?”
“Something being done to him physically.”
Olga twisted in her seat to stare directly at Zenin. “You surely don’t imagine … !”
“Kayley’s FBI, a counter-intelligence agency, probably the other man, too. Maybe even the supposed lawyer,” argued Zenin. “Scopolamine is a known part of their lie detection equipment, just like it is with our people. Pentothal too. In similar circumstances the FSB would use them: the KGB certainly did.”
“We should have asked Badim to check for puncture wounds,” said Olga, reflectively.
“What?” Now Zenin looked at her.
“Supposing the Americans did inject Bendall,” suggested Olga. “The violence-the mental collapse even-might be the result of their drugs against whatever other medication he’s on.”
Zenin made the call from his apartment. Badim said he hadn’t looked for injection marks on Bendall’s free arm, which would now be punctured by the sedatives he’d had to administer to calm the man. There was one failed injection, which would have left two marks. Reluctantly he agreed to take a blood sample to test for any drug other than those recorded on Bendall’s hospital log. Even more reluctantly he agreed there could possibly have been a violent reaction if Bendall had been given an unauthorized drug.
Zenin remained on the line for both security group leaders to be brought to the telephone. Each man insisted that the briefcases of the three Americans had been thoroughly examined but that their orders had been that no body searches could be carried out upon accredited diplomats. Those orders had been reemphasized after such a search was attempted upon the British embassy visitors.
“A prepared syringe would have been no more obtrusive than a pen,” said Zenin, as he replaced the receiver.
An hour later Nicholai Badim called back, as instructed. There was what could be a puncture mark on Bendall’s uninjured arm where no hospital doctor would have attempted an injection. Blood had been taken for tests that would take at least twenty-four hours.
“They’ll deny it,” said Olga.
“They won’t be able to if we can prove he’s been drugged,” said Zenin.
 
“So!” demanded Anne. She’d chosen the Italian restaurant in Wilton Street because it had memories. Charlie hadn’t asked. She hadn’t offered.
“The British-which seems to come down to me—are being blamed for the leak. The ambassador or Brooking—probably both—have made it political. My people here don’t see things the way I do: there’s one trying to dig my burial pit. The scientists and professional experts can’t break away from other things to do what I’ve asked. The psychiatrists or psychologists-Christ knows which or who-are demanding I stay, to answer their questions. Which means I can’t get back to Moscow, where I need to be …” He couldn’t tell her about George Bendall’s collapse. There was no way he could officially know.
“That all?”
“That’s all that comes instantly to mind,” said Charlie, allowing the cynicism.
“So you’re pissed off?”
“Thoroughly fucked off.” He sipped the Barolo he’d ordered in preference to her Chianti suggestion, glad she’d conceded. “But curious.” It had taken a long time coming, too long. But now the feet were throbbing and he was sifting the wind-strewn intrusions.
The lawyer sipped her own wine. “Curious about what?”
“The cleverness of it all,” offered Charlie. “It never was about a mentally unstable man with a gun. We were
intended
to realize there was a second gunman. And believe we were uncovering other scraps …”
Anne frowned at him. “I’m not sure what you’re telling me?”
Charlie’s reply was delayed by the arrival of their food, guinea fowl for Anne, wine-cooked veal escalope for him. As the waiter left, Charlie said, “You ever personally experienced a sandstorm?”
Anne’s frown remained. “No.”
“You can’t see where to put your feet, the direction in which to go.”
“In which direction should we be going?”
“If I knew I’d take it.” This wasn’t any better than it had been at Millbank, earlier. At least Anne appeared to be taking him seriously.
“In which direction should I be going?”
“Which way have you been told to go?” asked Charlie.
“Mental instability, up to and including unfit to plead. I’m being kept back, too, for consultation with psychiatrists. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
“Or you with me.”
“I’m not complaining.”
In which direction was
this
going? “Did the engagement become a marriage?” he finally asked, guessing the earlier reference to the restaurant’s particular memories.
“Two years, four months and three days.”
“Very specific?”
“Prison counting: scratching off the sentence on the cell wall.”
Not his business-or his interest—Charlie decided, remaining silent.
“He wouldn’t compromise his career—he was a lawyer, like me—and I wouldn’t compromise mine. We met at week-ends but there were others in between that didn’t really mean anything. After two years, four months and three days we realized that we didn’t mean anything, either.”
Almost precisely the time he’d been permanently in Moscow with Natalia, thought Charlie. At once he stopped the reflection, irritation burning through him, making him physically hot. There wasn’t the slightest comparison! It was ridiculous even attempting-imagining—to make it. He and Natalia had to do something, though, to resolve their problems-real or otherwise-before they got any worse: before they ceased to mean anything to each other too, inconceivable though that was. Perhaps it was personally a good thing the London visit was being extended, giving them both time and space to realize what it was like to be without each other, even for a short period. Straw-clutching, Charlie recognized, objectively. There’d been other short breaks since they’d been together—intervals longer than this one would probably be-so nothing was likely to be different when he got back. Weren’t both of them allowing a self-deceit—an hypocrisy invoking Sasha as a bond-in prolonging their staying together?

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