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Authors: Brian Freemantle

BOOK: Kings of Many Castles
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It wasn’t a convenient—safe—time to call Natalia. There was more than enough time, though, to go present-buying. Charlie actually thought he’d received a few presents himself that day. But they were in kit form, he had to assemble them himself.
 
Petr Tikunov’s second press conference since the shooting was again overwhelmed by the international media. The burly communist presidential candidate accused Okulov of stealing his party’s idea of an investigatory commission. But Okulov’s enquiry would be a cover-up, he insisted, conducted by puppets personally selected by Okulov himself. In answer to repeated questions about Okulov’s former association with the KGB, Tikunov said he left the public and the voters to judge the man’s previous connection with the intelligence service, the majority of whose officers, he knew, resented the disbandment and reorganization imposed by the existing government, disbandment and reorganization which had allowed the rise in crime culminating in the attack upon the two presidents. After his reelection, fighting crime-and seeking the FSB’s assistance in doing so-was going to be his immediate priority.
 
“If the need was for someone intimately aware of all the facts to bridge the two situations I should have been the one appointed!” protested Zenin.
Olga wondered if she would ever get properly to know this man. “You weren’t for the very reasons Okulov gave: it needs someone knowing every facet of the case but factionally above it. She is. You’re not, you’re the one who initially
proposed
an enquiry into the FSB!”
“Are you sure she’s factionally above it all?”
“Aren’t you?”
“She
was
KGB, before all the changes! Just like Okulov.”
“Which Okulov specifically referred to, from what you’ve told me. Referred to as a benefit.” Olga wished she were with him, instead of talking on the telephone. But everything was far too new to make demands upon him. The very thought surprised her. When had she ever been the one to seek and hope in a relationship! Lovers danced to her tune, not her to theirs. Until now. Exactly the time to get things in proper-normal-balance then. Spend at least one night apart: they weren’t, after all, rutting teenagers, discovering sex for the first time. But was it only—just—sex? That thought didn’t even deserve an answer.
“I think we should be extremely careful we don’t in some way fall victim,” said Zenin.
Precisely what she’d warned him about in the very beginning! remembered Olga. “We can be.”
“How did the exhumation go?”
“I advanced the timing, as you suggested. It was over before anyone else arrived. The tissue samplings were delivered to the laboratory by mid-afternoon. Kayley called six times during the day, trying to make contact.”
“What about the British … their new man?”
“Nothing.”
“Let’s talk tomorrow, early.”
“I’m missing not being with you,” she blurted and at once regretted it, wishing she could bite back the words.
“What … ?” he started, just as unthinkingly but instantly recovered. “Yes! I’m sorry. There’s things … tomorrow? Tomorrow night, I mean. If you’re free?”
“I’m free,” said Olga.
 
As always, Charlie let Natalia talk first, knowing her need was greater and afterwards kept his account brief and factual.
“Well?” she prompted, when he’d finished. She hadn’t mentioned the inference of the FBI possibly being expelled, not wanting to trample over ground already muddied by being walked on too many times before.
“You couldn’t be better protected, against our situation becoming known,” assured Charlie, sure that was the point of her question.
“You’re spanning everything, knowing everything.”
“And attracting enemies in doing so,” she said. “I’ve convened the first session for tomorrow. Summoned the FSB chairman himself, along with all the rest.”
“
Above
any enemies, looking down at them,” out-qualified Charlie. “You can dispose of them before they can endanger you. You’re ahead, whichever which way you want to look at it.”
“You’re actually taking things forward professionally, as a criminal investigation,” Natalia allowed.
“I wish I’d known about the Pentathol before seeing the pathologist.” It would mean a second visit, he supposed. “What state is Bendall in now?”
“Still sedated.”
“It was a good suggestion you made about a visitor’s log,” praised Charlie. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“What’s it like, being back there?”
The moment for guilt, Charlie recognized. Nothing came. “I’ve been too busy to do much else but work and appear before committees. I did get time to buy Sasha a doll. It wets itself and has to have its nappy changed.”
“She’ll like that.” He’d forgotten buying Sasha the same on a previous recall to London.
“I hope you’re looking after her,” he said, with insufficient thought.
“I was looking after her very well a long time before you reappeared on the scene,” came back Natalia, at once.
His mistake, Charlie accepted. “Best of luck for tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“I hope to get back the day after.”
“You told me already.”
“Goodnight then.”
“Goodnight.”
She hadn’t told him she loved him, thought Charlie. But then he hadn’t told her, either. He was still by the telephone when it rang.
Anne said, “That was a hell of a long call! I’m in the bar, waiting. Liberace’s look-alike ghost is about to make a pass at me.”
“If it’s Liberace’s ghost, you’re safe,” said Charlie.
 
 
Charlie had again to filter what he could tell the lawyer from what he shouldn’t have been in a position to know but there was sufficient for Anne to remark that he seemed to be working hard to provide her with a TV soap opera defense. Short of that being available, however, the decision had been made to have Bendall examined by two independent Russian psychiatrists to formulate a plea of mental impairment or even outright insanity, depending upon their diagnosis. But all that hinged on what sort of recovery the man made. It would also help if the court psychiatrists had access to Bendall’s previous psychiatric history that Vera had mentioned. A Russian lawyer necessary to lead Bendall’s defense had been engaged by fax that afternoon from the list Anne had brought to London with her.
“So you’ve finished?”
“Everything discussed and decided,” she agreed.
“You going back tomorrow?”
She frowned, in mock offense. “You in a hurry to get rid of me?”
“No,” said Charlie. “Not at all.”
“Good. And I haven’t done any shopping.”
They’d eaten again at a restaurant of Anne’s choice in Notting Hill and they had a nightcap again in the hotel bar and went unquestioningly to his room. Afterwards she said, “We’re getting very good at this. Maybe we should take it up professionally.”
Charlie said, “I thought we had.”
The bag containing Sasha’s doll was by the wardrobe, “toys” prominently printed against the name of the shop in which Charlie had bought it. Anne said, “You’ve already managed to do your shopping?”
“Some,” said Charlie.
He waited for the obvious question but she didn’t ask it.
Natalia Fedova had triumphed in a jungle of human animals for a long time before Sasha’s birth and for three years afterwards and in doing so, like Charlie, had perfected a number of survival rules. One—unknowingly again like Charlie, with whom she’d never discussed it-was never to be pulled down by the mistakes and misjudgments of people who imagined they knew better than she did. Which she anticipated, without needing proof, would be the attitude of both Yuri Fedorovich Trishin and Pavl Yakovlevich Filitov and why she set out from the very beginning to impose the control inherent in her appointment. She recognized the danger of the strategy and hoped Charlie was right in his assessment of her strength.
Befitting their presidential credentials they were allocated a suite of rooms, with a five-strong secretariat, within the Kremlin itself and Natalia summoned both men to it an hour before their scheduled start supposedly to brief them upon everything that had come before the crisis committee. She did so with two of their secretaries at the prepared apparatus, determined that everything be recorded. Filitov was just slightly ahead of the chief of staff with the authority-challenging protest that he’d thoroughly assimilated all that had come before the committee, with which he’d been provided overnight but Natalia talked them both down, insisting upon her agenda that their initial concentration be upon the missing KGB dossiers, extended only to what the succeeding FSB might have taken from the Bendalls’ Hutorskaya Ulitza apartment. Because of her intimate knowledge of the former KGB structure-as well as her personal knowledge of the crisis committee discussions which might not be reflected in its written material—she intended leading the questioning but of course expected them both to contribute. It was not until Natalia said she would seek Filitov’s advice before invoking their
imprisonment provisions that she got the impression they were beginning to defer to her, although the prosecutor’s reaction at first was more one of undisguised surprise.
“I don’t think we should lose sight of the rank and importance of people with whom we’re dealing,” cautioned the lawyer.
Nor, suspected Natalia, of the clear threats Petr Tikunov had made at yesterday’s press conference. “It’s precisely because I’m aware of the rank and importance that we’re discussing the provision now.”
“An opinion surely based upon a personal experience which ended several years ago?” suggested Trishin. “I don’t believe the acting president intended the recourse to be used lightly.”
“It won’t be,” assured Natalia. “We won’t forget, though, that it exists.”
Trishin attempted to restore his prerogative by querying Natalia’s full understanding of the other terms of reference, which she’d anticipated and not only answered without hesitation but corrected two that he misquoted. Filitov remained silent until that day’s witness list was brought in by the registration clerk.
The Federal prosecutor said at once, “We were not consulted about the summoning of the FSB chairman himself!”
“Do you have a problem with it?” Natalia was glad she
hadn’t
discussed it.
“Of course I do.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
“Yesterday you talked of premature reactions,” reminded the lawyer. “This is inappropriately premature until we’ve had the opportunity to judge the compliance.”
“Do you feel it’s inappropriately premature?” she asked Trishin.
The chief of staff looked uncertainly towards the recording bank. “I think prior discussion would have been advisable.”
Now Natalia indicated the silently turning apparatus. “Your dissent has been noted.”
“I didn’t say I dissented,” Trishin quickly insisted. “If we are to reach a combined opinion, which is in the terms of reference, we’ve got to come to combined decisions upon the conduct of the enquiry.”
Perfect politico-speak, Natalia recognized. “Combined decisions? Or majority decisions?”
Their exchanged looks answered Natalia’s question before Filitov did. The lawyer said, “Our primary term of reference is speed. Which requires majority opinions, in my judgment.” The man paused, to establish the mockery. “Dissent can always be noted.”
After politoco-speak, legal-speak, acknowledged Natalia. And each-rarely-as illuminating as the other. She hadn’t expected to benefit so much-be warned so quickly-from this pre-session encounter. She was glad she’d orchestrated it as precisely as she had. She hoped she could continue the momentum, although again she didn’t foresee the quickness with which that would come about.
There was still ten minutes to go before the official opening when their registration clerk reentered the chamber and initially bent to Natalia’s ear with his copy of the witness list.
“We all need to hear,” demanded Filitov.
“An unscheduled witness whom we’ll hear at once,” announced Natalia. “First Deputy Director Gennardi Nikolaevich Mittel.”
“I don’t understand,” protested Trishin, his frowned confusion matching the other man’s.
“It won’t take long,” promised Natalia, at Mittel came confidently into the room. The FSB deputy was a young man with an indented scar grooving the left side of an otherwise unlined face. His deeply black hair was helmeted directly back from his forehead in greased perfection and his civilian, uncreased gray suit was just as immaculate. The smile, as confident as his easy entry, showed sculptured dentistry. He took the fronting chair Natalia indicated and crossed one razor-sharp leg across the other.
“You are not on the list of witnesses whom this commission has asked to help it, Gennardi Nikolaevich?” invited Natalia. It was predictable, she supposed, but she’d thought there would have been a written protest, not a patronizing emissary.
“You summoned my chairman,” said Mittel, as if in reminder. He remained smiling.
“Viktor Ivanovich Karelin is indeed among those whom we wish to question,” agreed Natalia. Beside her she was conscious of Trishin and Filitov shifting, in belated understanding.
“Whom you will understand is an extremely busy man,” said Mittel. “I am here to represent him. I am sure I shall be able to help you with any questions you might have.”
Natalia let a silence chill the room. “Viktor Ivanovich fully understands that this is a presidential commission?”
The smile faltered. “Of course.”
“As you do?”
“Yes.”
“You have discussed it with Viktor Ivanovich?”
“He personally—officially—appointed me to represent him.”
“Tell us, for the record, what you and Viktor Ivanovich understand a commission established by the acting president to be?”
The man was no longer smiling. He unfolded his legs. “It is an enquiry into some irregularities that appear to have arisen in the
Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti,
an organization that no longer exists.”
In her former chief interrogator’s role within Special Service 11 of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, Natalia had invariably found conceit—condescension—the easiest shell to crack. She wondered if the man knew how much of the FSB’s defense he’d given away in that one reply. “That wasn’t an answer to my question. So I’ll make it easier for you. Do you—and your chairman-understand the authority of this commission?”
“Of course.” Mittel was wary now, his hands forward on tighttogether legs.
“An authority not lessened by the fact that Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov is at the moment
acting
president?”
“It is the authority of the office,” said Mittel.
“An authority and an office that your chairman is too busy to observe?”
“I can assure this commission that no disrespect was intended to it or to the acting president.”
“I think that is important to be established on the record,” said Natalia, indicating the secretariat. “Let’s see what else can be established. You have been deputed as the highest official of the FSB to help this enquiry?”
“Yes.”
“So help us.”
Mittel gazed back at her, blankly. “I’m sorry … I don’t …”
“Where are the complete files of Peter Bendall, a British physicist who defected to the Soviet Union in 1972, the corollary details that would have been maintained upon his family, after they joined him in Moscow, the information that would have been kept separately upon the son, George Bendall—also known as Georgi Gugin—and everything that was taken from the family apartment at Hutorskaya Ulitza upon Peter Bendall’s death and again upon the seizure of George Bendall, nine days ago?” Natalia wondered how long it would be before Trishin or Filitov came into the exchange. Or were they remaining gratefully quiet, leaving what was clearly an immediate and dangerous confrontation entirely to her?
Mittel remained unmoving for several moments. There was the faintest hint of the earlier smile, quickly gone. “As I pointed out a few moments ago, the KGB no longer exists as an organization. It has been largely disbanded, its functions, manpower and archives greatly reduced. What remained was absorbed by the FSB, which I represent here today on behave of its chairman. And on behalf of its chairman I have to assure this enquiry that the most rigorous search has been made, among archives that the FSB inherited, to locate the material you’ve asked for. I regret to say-regret to tell this commission-that nothing has been found.”
“Which is what we are going to be told by everyone else from the FSB whom we have called here today?”
“I am afraid so.” One leg was crossed easily over the other again.
The reforms and supposed new democracy
were
still fragile, the more so in the uncertainty of the rapidly growing communist strength. And the FSB remained a megalith, waiting in the wings to reemerge as an unchallenged government within a government. To protect herself there had to be provable discussion, with the other two on the panel. Even that might not be as protective as she hoped. “Would you retire, Gennardi Nikolaevich? But don’t leave the anteroom. We’ll need to call you back.”
 
“The intention is to reduce us—and by inference the acting president—to a laughing stock!” insisted Natalia. “The man’s actually
told us what each and every witness we’ve called is going to say!”
“We need to consult,” said Trishin.
“We
are
consulting, right now!”
“I meant with the president.”
The
president,
noted Natalia: not Aleksandr Mikhailevich or
acting
president. “If we do that, we’re making a laughing stock of ourselves: proving ourselves totally inadequate for the function for which we were appointed.”
“It’s directly confrontational,” judged Filitov.
“
Apparently,
” cautioned Natalia. Could she bring them with her, convince them? Their knowledge that she’d once served in the KGB—a service to which Trishin had already referred-might help. Both men were looking at her, waiting. She didn’t continue.
Finally Filitov asked, “What’s that mean?”
“It’s classical textbook, whatever name or acronym or initial letter designation you want to choose. They’re elite: above reproach, question or examination,” said Natalia.
“I still don’t follow,” protested Trishin.
“Our reaction is their test of strength: the strength of Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov if he succeeds to the presidency against those who will oppose him.” How much of a two edged sword was it to have maintained the secretariat recording? She was committed now: not a sword carrier, more a solitary standard bearer stranded in the no-man’s-land between opposing forces.
“That’s your professional judgment, based upon your knowledge of the organization?” demanded Filitov.
“Yes,” said Natalia, at once.
“Which makes it essential to consult Aleksandr Mikhailevich before we do react,” declared Trishin, relieved at the decision being taken from them.
“No,” refused Natalia, quickly again. “That is the test. You, Yuri Fedorovich, are the president’s—the acting president’s—chief of staff, the man who reflects his thinking, speaks for him,
acts
for him. You, Pavl Yakovlevich, are the judiciary: for the first time in more than seventy years the supposedly independent-of-government law. I—more tentatively although more specifically—represent civilian law enforcement, one of the few functions that has really been lost
to the FSB by the cosmetic disbandment of the KGB. In microcosm, who we represent is the new order in Russia.”
“Aren’t you over-stressing the symbolism?” challenged Filitov.
“I don’t think so,” said Natalia, as forcefully as she could.
“Are you inferring FSB
complicity
in the attack upon the presidents?”
“You know, from the crisis committee’s discussions that have been made available to you, that complicity hasn’t been excluded, although there’s no proof whatsoever to support an accusation,” reminded Natalia. “At this stage I’m suggesting nothing more than the Lubyanka moving to turn a potentially embarrassing weakness—their loss of records-into a positive strength-testing benefit. We have, now, not just to match but outmatch that strength: or, if you prefer, out-bluff them.”

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