Red Star Burning (44 page)

“Stop!” demanded Natalia, urgently. “You’ll definitely be on the same plane? I want you to be with us. I don’t want to be alone, not knowing what to do.”

This was far more difficult than he’d anticipated: as close as he was to her, he could feel her nervousness vibrating along the bench. “I will always be with you but as far back as I can be: the last, probably, to board the plane. The others you don’t know will be onboard, too. I have to tell London we’re on our way. The moment you enter the embarkation lounge I’ll trigger that alert.…” He had to stop her physical shaking, Charlie decided. “What’s the first principle of entering an operational situation?”

Natalia frowned sideways. “Don’t play tradecraft games, Charlie!”

“I’m not playing a tradecraft game!” he insisted. “Answer the question!”

The twitching spread to Natalia’s face at Charlie’s tone. “Guarantee an exit: why do you want me to acknowledge that?”

“There’s a second complete set of tickets, doubly to guarantee our exit,” said Charlie, tapping the bulky manila folder on his lap. “I’ve booked the three of us, as well as our escorts, on a direct MEA flight to Nicosia, also from Vnukovo. I’ll only have minutes from my London call to catch the Helsinki flight. If I miss it you’ll still have three other escorts and an assured, protected arrival in London. I’ll simply call London again, tell them what’s happened but that you’re still on the Finnair flight. If, when we’re all at Vnukovo, there’s something I don’t like, all of us will abandon the Finnair route, although staying booked on it, and switch to Cyprus. But Cyprus is only an exit insurance. But remember, once you’ve started to board, don’t turn back. That’s the unbreakable rule: don’t turn back, keep going.”

“Why can’t one of the escorts alert London, use the Cyprus plane if it’s necessary?” asked Natalia.

Her shaking had subsided and Charlie was reassured by the professional question. “I personally want to guarantee you’re onboard, safe.

“I feel confident every moment I’m with you but so frightened, so incapable, the minute I’m not,” Natalia said, feeling out for his hand.

“Twenty-four hours from now we’ll be exaggerating our stories about it all, laughing.”

“I don’t think I will be.”

“But you’re going to go through with it,” encouraged Charlie. “Not let Sasha down.”

“I won’t let you or Sasha down. You know that.”

Finally handing her the package, Charlie said: “Everything you want is there. We’ll talk a lot on the throwaway phone, on your way to Vnukovo airport.”

“Yes,” she said, looking down at the package before closing her handbag.

“What have you told Sasha?”

“Nothing. I didn’t want her talking at school. I’ll tell her tonight. She’ll be excited.”

“Are you?”

“I will be, this time tomorrow. Excited and happy for the rest of my life.”

*   *   *

“You can’t be serious!”

“I couldn’t be more serious,” said Jane Ambersom. She was glad she’d waited until after their lovemaking, anticipating his reaction to the story prepared between her and Aubrey Smith. Barry Elliott had pulled away and was now sitting directly opposite on their crumpled sheets, naked but with all intimacy gone.

“Why the hell haven’t you told them!”

“You can’t begin to understand Monsford’s outright animosity.”

“But they’ve got to be warned! It’s … it’s what you said, absurd: absurd not to.”

“I’m telling you. They’d dismiss it as disinformation if it came from us.”

“You think it’s this guy Straughan: that it’s why he killed himself?”

“He must have known something: suspected something. There’s got to be a damn good reason for the operations director of M16 to kill his own mother and then himself.”

“This new?” demanded Elliott, head suspiciously to one side. “Or is this something that Irena Novikov told Charlie about the Lvov penetration?”

They hadn’t anticipated the question. Improvising, Jane said: “There could be indications.”

“You going to give them to me: an actual printout of the debriefing?”

Shit, thought Jane. “There isn’t a debriefing paper. It was conversation between them when they were still in Moscow: before Charlie had any reason to suspect her.”

“He didn’t file a proper, official report?” pressed Elliott, head still to one side.

“I wasn’t at M15 during the Lvov affair,” escaped Jane, “I’m picking up secondhand, telling you what I’ve been told. Certainly there’s nothing officially logged.”

“But you know both camps. What’s the problem between you?”

“Monsford,” said Jane shortly. “The bastard who framed me for his mistakes.”

“You’re surely not suggesting…?” stumbled Elliott, incredulous.

“I’m telling you what we suspect from what I’m told of the Lvov investigation. I can’t tell you anything more.”

Elliott looked down, appearing surprised at his nakedness. “I’m cold and think I should get back under the covers.”

“I think so too,” invited Jane.

*   *   *

Within fifteen minutes of their being together Charlie was reassured, a feeling he’d rarely experienced since the very beginning of the attempt to get Natalia and Sasha out of Moscow. Ian Flood appeared a totally controlled, self-confident man who allowed himself to think before speaking, which wasn’t slowness but sensible consideration, not interrupting as Charlie outlined in detail the following day’s extraction. Charlie was enjoying, too, being back in his familiar corner stool at the Savoy bar, brief though the visit had to be. The FSB had discovered his preference for the hotel during the Lvov investigation: Mikhail Guzov, the involved FSB colonel, had personally confronted him as he’d sat on the same stool. At this time of the evening the bar was filling with the professional girls, two of whom Charlie recognized from before, but the bartender had changed.

“There are photographs of Natalia and Sasha with the tickets: you’ll have to add the names I don’t know to the two left open,” concluded Charlie. He hadn’t demanded the other names and Flood hadn’t offered them.

“Aren’t you following in tandem from Pecatnikov to ensure they get to the airport?” questioned Flood, polishing his spectacles for the second time since they’d made contact. It wasn’t a mannerism, Charlie knew, but an added, head-lowered precaution against their conversation being overhead despite their carefully established separation from anyone close.

Charlie shook his head. “Natalia doesn’t think she’s under observation but I don’t want to take the risk: the FSB know what I look like. I’ll keep beyond airport CCTV until you enter and for Natalia to see me.”

“I’ll have one of the others in a separate car from Pecatnikov,” decided Flood. “I’ll put the other one inside the terminal. Is that how you want it?”

Charlie nodded. “Make sure everyone understands there’s to be no interference if I’m challenged: the only essential is to get Natalia and Sasha out.”

“What have you told Natalia about that?”

“Nothing. I’ve said I might miss the flight alerting London.”

“You think there could be CCTV recognition?”

“It’s no secret that I’m here,” said Charlie. “I’ve got to ensure against the possibility. That’s why I want you to keep me permanently in view inside the terminal, until the last minute. If I’m not satisfied I’m clear after checking in for Helsinki I’ll switch to the Cyprus flight.”

“Why bother?” questioned Flood. “You’re the weak link. The essential is getting Natalia and the child out. Why can’t I and my team extract them, leaving you to make your escape later?”

“She’s as tight as a spring, about to snap,” judged Charlie. “If she doesn’t physically see me, she’ll abandon. The major FSB and CCTV concentration will be at Sheremetyevo, not Vnukovo. And I’ve laid a false trail to Warsaw from another airport. I’m making myself visible to Natalia and you, no one else.”

“It’s your call,” acknowledged Flood, doubtfully. “Okay, we don’t intervene if you’re challenged. What if she sees it? Do we try to make her get on the plane?”

“If you can, without turning it into a second incident,” said Charlie. “If I am intercepted I’ll try to concentrate the attention as a distraction for you.”

“You must consider this a hell of an important extraction,” said Flood, head bent for the third time, covering the preceding two by holding his spectacles up to the light as if there were a blemish he couldn’t clean off.

The man wouldn’t have been told of the personal relationship, Charlie realized. “If it weren’t important, it wouldn’t have been initiated. You come with any guidance from the Director-General?”

“There’s an internal war between us and MI6,” said Flood. “He knows we were used as dummies to get Radtsic out. But Smith’s convinced, without knowing why, that there’s also an order out for you to be eliminated.”

“I’ve already been warned.”

“Smith wants you warned again: wants you to believe it,” said Flood. “And why I was also told getting you out was as essential as extracting Natalia and the girl. My orders are to follow your instructions, without question. But whatever those instructions are, that you’ve got to be brought out too.”

“Which gives you a problem,” said Charlie.

“Which gives us both a problem,” agreed Flood. “You got a God you can trust that it’ll all go to plan?”

“No,” said Charlie.

“That’s another problem,” said Flood. “Neither have I.”

*   *   *

It was inevitable that he should think about Charlie Muffin as he approached the Savoy Hotel, supposed David Halliday: it was where he and Charlie had spent a lot of time during Charlie’s previous assignment and because of which it had become a favorite watering hole of his. It was, reflected Halliday, about the only benefit he’d gained from his association with the man. It had been a mistake not to have held back the day the FSB picked up the Rossiya tourist party. And made an even bigger mistake imagining an advantage in cooperating with Charlie instead of maintaining the monitor that others in the MI6
rezidentura
had been ordered to keep to locate the man. But he’d got away with it, Halliday reassured himself: broken the contact until finally Charlie had stopped trying to reach him. He wasn’t being ostracized as much after his inclusion in the last stage of the Radtsic extraction and wasn’t being blamed for the French fiasco. Now he reverted to the trusted practice of avoiding each and every difficulty.

It was initially only a fleeting image, as Halliday pushed through the hotel entrance, looking instinctively to his left, into the bar, but he was sure it was Charlie getting off his accustomed bar stool, another man beside him. The door leading from the lobby to the baroque dining room was heavily engraved but there were sufficient gaps in the etching for Halliday, hurriedly concealed on its far side, to confirm the sighting and to see Charlie pass something to the other man before turning to leave.

Halliday left, too, after five minutes, crossing the square to the Metropole, relieved the shaking had gone when he lifted the brandy snifter for the first recovering sip. It was, he decided, his chance to be completely rehabilitated: of not being kept out any longer.

32

He’d got everything wrong, acknowledged David Halliday: done it all by the book, except perhaps insisting he speak personally to the Director, but instead of getting the congratulations and gratitude he deserved for finding Charlie Muffin he’d been berated by Gerald Monsford for not following the man and relegated to being duty driver for Stephan Briddle and Robert Denning outside the Savoy Hotel at three o’clock in the fucking morning! Briddle was openly mocking him and Denning was an unapologetic farter who’d already stunk the car up.

“You know what they say about life?” reminded Briddle, to whom Halliday had complained of the Director’s tirade. “It isn’t ever fair.”

“You come across Flood before? asked Denning, from the rear gas chamber.

“No,” said Halliday, who’d gone with Briddle into the hotel because his Russian was better with a fifty-dollar bribe to the night porter to identity the replacement MI5 officer.

“You absolutely sure Flood’s still in his room: didn’t leave separately after Charlie?” pressed Denning.

“I already told you he ate dinner in the restaurant, has a wake-up call booked for five thirty, and a Hertz car’s being delivered at seven,” said Halliday, irritably.

“I really would like to know what’s in that package you saw Charlie pass over,” came in Briddle.

“It’s passport-and-ticket size,” snapped Halliday. “They’re moving.”

“And it’s happening early,” said Briddle, reflectively. “There’s two direct London flights from Sheremetyetevo before eleven and three transfer connections by one
P.M.
”

“It’ll be direct,” predicted Denning. “Transfers risk interception wherever they stop.”

“
If
it’s Sheremetyetevo,” cautioned Briddle. “Charlie Muffin’s a sneaky fucker.”

Would it have been better if he’d stayed with Charlie? wondered Halliday. Hardly, except for being spared Monsford’s wrath and this ignominy. Certainly not professionally. Was there any point in staying in the service, apart from the final pension entitlement? He didn’t stand a chance of promotion. Even if Monsford was replaced, he was the sort of vindictive bastard who’d poison all the personnel files. And why should he be replaced, after the Radtsic coup? The man’s directorship was set in stone.

“Here’s Beckindale with breakfast!” announced Denning, as the second anonymous rental car came down the street. He farted as he spoke, and Halliday knew he wouldn’t be able to eat anything Beckindale had bought.

*   *   *

Charlie finally abandoned the idea of sleep at five and was showered and dressed by five thirty. Charlie wished he could have started out with Natalia, be with them all the way from Pecatnikov, as unrealistic and unprofessional as that would have been. He was confident of Flood: didn’t doubt the man’s professionalism. Natalia had recognized the risk of Sasha’s doing or saying something unexpected and would guard against it. Six fifteen, Charlie saw, checking his watch. Too early to call even though she’d already be awake: probably hadn’t slept at all, as he hadn’t. He’d give her a little longer.