Read Kings of Many Castles Online
Authors: Brian Freemantle
Kings of Many Castles (17 page)
Charlie touched glasses to the traditional Russian toast, wishing the witches had been kinder when he was tramping pointlessly around the high rises. The liquid burned and went down his throat like a clenched fist. “They work together a lot, Vasili and Georgi?”
“Permanent team, most of the time.”
“Is that usual?”
“Suited everyone else.”
“Did they know each other, before Georgi started working here? I heard someone helped Georgi get a job? Vasili maybe?”
“That’s the story I heard. I never asked.”
Charlie wetted his lips with the drink. It stung. “There a favorite bar everyone drinks in around here?”
“Elena’s, on Tehnicskij.”
“Did Georgi and Vasili use it?”
Sakov took his time. “Sometimes.”
“They spent time together outside of work, then?”
“Seemed to.”
“What about Tuesdays and Thursdays?”
The Russian looked blankly at Charlie. “What?”
“His mother said Georgi used to do something every Tuesday and Thursday but she didn’t know what it was.”
Sakov shook his head. “Neither do I.”
“How’d it come about that Georgi was your gofer on the day of the shooting?”
“Rostered, I guess.”
“He didn’t ask for it particularly?”
“Not that I heard. You’re not drinking?”
Charlie brought the glass to his lips again. “You didn’t like working with him?”
“I already told you that.”
“Why didn’t you ask for a roster change?”
“It wasn’t that bad! He fetched and carried OK.”
“How many days ahead were the rosters fixed?”
“A week. This was regarded as a big job.”
“He brought the rifle up to the gantry in an equipment bag?”
“That’s what they say.”
“You decide what equipment you want?”
“Of course.”
“What was it supposed to be?”
“Spare tripod stand.”
“You didn’t check it?”
“I told you, he did the job OK. You told him what you wanted and he did it.”
“So that’s what happened? You told him what you needed and left him to get it ready?”
“Yes. Nothing wrong with that!” The belligerence was back.
“Nothing wrong at all,” agreed Charlie, quickly. “How many trips did he need, to get everything up?”
“Two. He took the camera and mount up first and put down a line to gather up the leads. Then went back for the rest of the stuff.”
“What about security checks?”
The man shook his head. “We had our identity discs, of course.
But we arrived in an NTV van. The security people saw us: knew who we were.”
But we arrived in an NTV van. The security people saw us: knew who we were.”
Charlie sighed. “He would have got the rifle up on the second trip?”
“Yes.”
“What did he have to do, when you were filming?”
“Keep out of my way until I asked for something.”
“Tell me what happened, from the time you heard the cavalcade was coming.”
“Got the warning from the scanner … from other cameras along the route … Picked the cars up as soon as they crossed the Kalininskij bridge on to Krasnopresnenskaja nabereznaja. Tracked them all the way to the White House. Refocused, for the tight shots, as they got out of the car. Saw the president go. The blood splashes. Then the fucker went into me. That’s when I saw the gun. He was bringing it towards me, I thought, so I grabbed at it …”
“I saw the fight,” broke in Charlie. “What did he say, when you were fighting. You were saying things, both of you? I saw you!”
“I don’t remember, not properly …” Sakov cupped a hand to each ear. “I still had the cans on at first, to the scanner. Then they got knocked off. We were swearing. Calling each other cunts. I think I said what the fuck was he doing and he said it was right. That he had to. He said he’d kill me, to get me out of the way. Tried to turn the gun. I couldn’t hear much when the helicopter came over, only to get away from him but I couldn’t. When I tried, he started to turn the gun.”
“How many shots did you hear?”
“None.” He cupped his hands to his ears again. “I told you I had earphones on, to the scanner.”
“Did you know Georgi was trained as a sniper, in the army?”
Sakov snorted, disbelievingly. “No.”
“Did he ever talk to you about himself … about the army … what he did in his spare time …?”
Sakov shook his head. “Didn’t even know his father was a spy until I read it in the papers.”
Bendall would have absorbed the language from the age of four, remembered Charlie. “What about politically. Did he talk about hating
the new regime … the Americans … anything particular?”
the new regime … the Americans … anything particular?”
“No.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“Because he’s fucking mad … useless.”
Mad maybe, thought Charlie. But not useless.
“Is it a long way away?”
Not by Russian distances but Sasha would probably think it was. “Yes. A long way,” said Charlie.
“Do you have to go by aeroplane?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be gone a long time?”
“No more than two days.”
“Will you bring me back a present?”
“Sasha!” corrected Natalia, sharply.
“Maybe if you’re good,” said Charlie. There was a tightness about Natalia but they hadn’t had chance to talk yet. “And being good is going to bed.”
“It’s not time yet,” protested the child.
“It will be when you’ve finished your milk and cleaned your teeth.”
“Not fair,” pouted the girl.
“Bed,” insisted Charlie. “I’ll be back by the weekend. We’ll do something. You choose.”
“The circus!”
“The circus,” agreed Charlie.
Charlie had drinks ready-his Islay malt, her Volnay—when Natalia returned from Sasha’s bedroom.
She said, “You spoil her.”
“That’s what fathers are supposed to do.”
Natalia didn’t smile. “Don’t buy her anything expensive.”
“What would you like?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s tonight’s problem?”
Natalia’s disclosure of a presidential commission was hurried, disjointed, but Charlie let her talk herself out. “I’m being dragged in, deeper and deeper. We’ll be discovered, you and I,” she concluded.
Charlie regarded her for a moment in total bewilderment. “Natalia! It’s a commission into how—and why—things disappeared from old KGB archives! How can that extend to us! You cleared all the records of anything to do with us.”
“It’s possible.”
“It’s not!” She could make monsters from every shadow; sometimes from no shadows at all.
“It’s a risk!” she persisted.
“It’s not.”
“I’m more in the middle-more the object of everyone’s attention—than we ever anticipated. I’ll be seen an an enemy of the KGB successors.”
“Nothing’s changed!” Charlie insisted. But it had, he thought.
“What have you been called back to London for?”
“People wanting to appear to be doing something. It’s called consultation.” He paused. “Do you wish it was for something more permanent?”
“No,” denied Natalia.
Charlie didn’t believe her. He’d been wise not to tell her that Anne Abbott was being recalled with him.
“I didn’t expect things to end like this,” said Olga. That wasn’t true. By the time they’d got to the brandy-French at his insistence—they’d both known they were going to sleep together. There hadn’t even been any conversation about it on their way to his apartment. What she hadn’t expected was the dinner invitation—of course impossible to refuse-or that he’d choose the Mercator, which really did have to be the best French restaurant in Moscow. Most unexpected—and pleasurable—of all was how good he’d been once they’d gone to bed.
“Sorry?”
“Of course not.” His body-and his performance-had been even more athletic that she’d fantasized about, looking down at him approaching the hospital earlier that day. She turned sideways, pleased that he’d kept the light on. “You?”
“Of course not. There’s something I haven’t told you, until now.”
“What?”
“I played your interrogation tape at the Kremlin.”
“To Okulov himself?”
“And Trishin. Their opinion was the same as mine, brilliant. But we decided we don’t want you to question Bendall again until after the British.”
“Why?”
“There might be something they’re holding back we can use to break him.”
“I can break him by myself.”
“We’ll do it this way,” said Zenin.
He hadn’t allowed her to take control in their lovemaking, either, but she hadn’t minded that as much as she did this.
Charlie got the jump seat, which jammed his knees beneath his chin so tightly he couldn’t have jumped anywhere, difficult anyway after the exertion of already shuttling between the British and American embassies to ensure they were completely up to date before their encounter with George Bendall. At least, Charlie consoled himself, he was opposite the slender-thighed Anne Abbott and not the fatassed Richard Brooking. They travelled initially unspeaking, the lawyer and the diplomat exchanging transcripts of Olga’s interrogation of Bendall and Charlie’s meeting with the NTV cameraman. As Brooking finished Vladimir Sakov’s account of the gantry struggle he looked uncomfortably to the woman, who’d read it first, and said, “Appalling language!”
“Dreadful,” agreed Charlie. “Shouldn’t be allowed.”
Anne smiled at Charlie. “A lot of openings.”
“We’ll do it as we did with the mother.”
“You lead,” said Anne.
“We need to talk about that,” interjected the head of chancellery.
“About what, exactly?” demanded Charlie. He didn’t want the man buggering things up.
“This is not something I’m accustomed to,” admitted Brooking. “In fact, I haven’t ever done anything like it before.”
“All good for the CV,” said Charlie. “Better to let Anne and I handle it, though, don’t you think?”
“I’ve the ranking authority!”
It was an embassy car, with the ambassador’s chauffeur. Charlie was surprised the pompous prick hadn’t insisted on flying the British pennant from the bonnet masthead. “What’s the book say you’ve got to do.” There’d be a guidance book. There always was.
“Ascertain the full facts. Establish the nationality is genuinely British, obtain the passport number if possible. Offer consular assistance. Obtain all United Kingdom residency details to advise next of kin. Make clear any repatriation advance is a loan that has to be repaid and get the applicant’s signature to that agreement,” quoted the man.
Anne covered her mouth with her hand and looked determinedly out of the window at the glued-together traffic.
Jesus! thought Charlie. “Let’s work our way through all that. London’s already established he’s British, with a British registered birth, although he doesn’t hold a British passport as such. There aren’t any United Kingdom residency details and I don’t think, whatever happens, we’ve got to think about repatriation. Agree with me so far?”
“Yes,” said Brooking.
“Ascertaining all the facts is what Anne and I are here to do, right?”
“Right,” accepted Brooking.
“So there we are!” said Charlie, triumphantly. “All you’ve got to do is offer the consular assistance, tell him Anne and I are it, and leave the rest to us.”
“It doesn’t sound much,” said the man, doubtfully.
“It’s your
being
there, as the ranking diplomatic representative, that’s important,” urged Charlie.
being
there, as the ranking diplomatic representative, that’s important,” urged Charlie.
“Yes, of course.” Brooking still sounded doubtful.
Charlie said, “It’s all a great deal more uncertain—more complicated—than it seemed to be at first?”
“Yes,” agreed Brooking.
“Everything’s going to be recorded, that’s part of the cooperation agreement.”
“I understand that.”
“I’m not trying to teach you your job, of course-heaven forbid! —but on something that’s going to be circulated around the highest levels of the Russian and American government it might be better if you waited to ask about anything that’s not immediately clear from our questioning, rather than putting it on tape at the time.”
“Quite! Good thinking.” Brooking smiled, relieved. “All quite straightforward really, isn’t it?”
“The best way’s always straightforward,” sighed Charlie.
“My feelings exactly,” said the man.
One of the several reasons for Charlie’s early morning trip to the centralized incident room had been to ensure with Olga Melnik their acceptance at the Burdenko hospital. They were fifteen minutes ahead of the agreed time but the first security check point was at the ground floor reception. Brooking hurried into the lead, producing his Russian diplomatic credentials and standing vaguely to attention to be compared against an identification photograph that Charlie had given Olga, and in the temporary separation Anne squeezed Charlie’s hand and whispered, “That’s my dinner table anecdote: you try to steal it, I’ll serve an injunction.”
Charlie said, “There’ll be more.”
Virtually as he spoke the protest erupted ahead of them—“I am an accredited representative of Her Majesty’s government, I must not be physically touched!”—and Charlie turned to see Brooking pushing away an attempted body search.
Softly, for only Anne to hear, Charlie said, “Oh fuck, what did I tell you!” Louder Charlie said, “If there’d been that sort of security five days ago, people wouldn’t be dead and maimed and we wouldn’t be here.”
More quietly Anne said, “It’s still not diplomatically permissible.”
The awareness seemed to be registering at the checkpoint. There
was a huddled conversation and Brooking was ushered through, untouched. There was no attempt to body search either Charlie or Anne, although all their documentation-as well as their photographs—was compared and their briefcase contents examined. There was an insistence upon testing the tape recorder to confirm that’s what it was. To get further into the hospital they had to pass through an airport-style electronic, metal-detecting frame.
was a huddled conversation and Brooking was ushered through, untouched. There was no attempt to body search either Charlie or Anne, although all their documentation-as well as their photographs—was compared and their briefcase contents examined. There was an insistence upon testing the tape recorder to confirm that’s what it was. To get further into the hospital they had to pass through an airport-style electronic, metal-detecting frame.
When they caught up with him Brooking said, “That was outrageous! I’ll file a protest!”
“What’s the point?” pleaded Charlie. “They’re doing their job!”
“Authority is the point.”
“It might well be,” acknowledged Charlie, with a meaning Brooking didn’t comprehend. “There are times usefully to invoke it and there are times when you are going to fuck everything up, like now …”
“I don’t think …” broke in Brooking, in fresh outrage, only to be interrupted in turn by Anne Abbott.
“I do, Richard! If this all degenerates any worse and I’m asked why, I’m going to have to say you weren’t any help at all. In fact, that you got in the way. And we’re having a row within the hearing of Russians one, if not more of whom, I am sure speaks very good English. I’d also expect there to be CCTV cameras, with sound, and for every moment of this totally unnecessary nonsense to be recorded. Which I deeply regret, as I’m sure Charlie regrets. I thought we’d talked about this, on the way here.”
Brooking’s face burst crimson. “I …” he started, then abruptly stopped, his eyes searching the vestibule and the corridors leading from it for the threatening cameras.
“My name is Badim,” said a voice, behind Charlie. “Nicholai Iliach Badim. I am the surgeon-administrator. I can escort you, if you’re ready?” He spoke English.
“And I am Guerguen Semonovich Agayan, psychiatrist-incharge,” said a second man. He spoke English, too.
“We’re ready,” said Charlie. Fucked up before we start, he thought. Then he thought, no
I’m
not. It was unsettling to realize he’d begun to think of himself as part of a team, although while he was in England it had obviously been necessary to designate the
eagerly accepting Donald Morrison as the local British contact with the now supposedly centralized investigation and to duplicate all the Russian witness interviews. Perhaps, for once, there needed to be a team.
I’m
not. It was unsettling to realize he’d begun to think of himself as part of a team, although while he was in England it had obviously been necessary to designate the
eagerly accepting Donald Morrison as the local British contact with the now supposedly centralized investigation and to duplicate all the Russian witness interviews. Perhaps, for once, there needed to be a team.
The photo-comparison and briefcase check was repeated outside the guard-blocked ward but there was no attempt at body searching.
“Strictly half an hour,” said Badim. “We’ll stay with you.”
Brooking nodded in smiling agreement. Charlie thought how fortunate his earlier visit to the American embassy had been and said, “This is officially a British embassy interview, without the presence of any foreign nationals. We respect, of course, your medical restrictions. Which we’ll observe. But you cannot remain with us. Everything that is said is being recorded and will be made available to your authorities.”
Brooking made no move to speak.
Anne said, “That’s international law, once you’ve agreed he’s medically and mentally capable of being interviewed. Which you have.”
Badim said, “I’ll register a protest, as I did yesterday.”
“So will I,” threatened Agayan. “We’ll be directly outside, from where we can see the patient.”
“And we’ll abide to your time stipulation,” undertook Anne. Charlie wished she hadn’t, standing back for Anne and Brooking to go into the cramped room ahead of him. There were again four men inside, all of whom looked expressionlessly at them but made no move to leave. The gray-bandaged George Bendall lay gray faced on his gray bed, eyes closed.
Charlie said, “We’ll be half an hour.”
A surprisingly slight, bespectacled man said, “Our instructions are to remain at all times in the room with the prisoner.”
Charlie saw the record light was rhythmically throbbing on the heavy, antiquated Russian equipment beside the bed. “We want you to go.”
“We have our orders.”
Charlie moved to the dirt-fissured window to get a better signal on his cell phone and dialled the direct line into the American embassy
incident room. Olga was very quickly on the line. Charlie said, “I’ll put you on to your people,” and passed the telephone to the clerk-like man, who listened without responding until the very end, when he said, “I understand.” He handed the telephone back to Charlie as he stood and still not speaking led the other Russians from the room.
incident room. Olga was very quickly on the line. Charlie said, “I’ll put you on to your people,” and passed the telephone to the clerk-like man, who listened without responding until the very end, when he said, “I understand.” He handed the telephone back to Charlie as he stood and still not speaking led the other Russians from the room.
Charlie was careful to place their recorder on a table on the opposite side of the bed to the still operating Russian machine, to avoid conflicting disturbance, gesturing Anne to the solitary chair vacated by the Russian recordist. There were two other chairs waiting at the door by the time he went to fetch them. Both Badim and Agayan lurked in the corridor. Charlie accorded Brooking the seat closest to the eyes-tight man, depressed the start button of their machine and nodded for the diplomat to open the encounter.
It was several moments before Brooking did so, not initially anticipating the invitation. He stumbled, several times calling Bendall by name in the hope of waking him. He looked sideways in confusion when the bandaged man remained with his eyes closed. Charlie made rotating movements with his hands for Brooking to continue, which the diplomat awkwardly did although limiting his contribution to setting out the consular representation. By the time he’d finished Brooking was visibly sweating and his starched, cut-away collar had garrotted an unbroken red line around his nervous throat.
“Do you understand everything I’ve said, Mr. Bendall?” concluded Brooking.
The feigned sleep continued. Brooking looked helplessly at Charlie and Anne.
Charlie said, “Vladimir Petrovich Sakov calls you a fucking idiot. Useless with it.” Although Charlie was concentrating intently upon the man in the tunnelled bed he was aware of Brooking’s wince. Bendall’s eyes remained steadfastly closed. Thirty minutes, remembered Charlie. “Vasili Gregorevich wouldn’t have said that, would he?”
There was a lid flicker, a stirring.
“You think Vasili Gregorevich died in an accident? I don’t. I think he was killed, probably by the same people who murdered your mother.” Olga Melnick should easily be able to recover all the
details of the Timiryazev railways crossing crash by the afternoon. Hopefully with all the other officially tracable queries he’d raised earlier that morning. Charlie was aware of Anne’s uncertain frown across the raised bed covering.
details of the Timiryazev railways crossing crash by the afternoon. Hopefully with all the other officially tracable queries he’d raised earlier that morning. Charlie was aware of Anne’s uncertain frown across the raised bed covering.
Bendall’s eyes opened. At once Charlie said for the benefit of the tape, “George Bendall—Georgi Gugin—appears to have recovered consciousness,” and nudged Brooking into a repetition of the consular guarantee. Brooking reacted as if he were waking up too, but echoed virtually verbatim what he’d earlier registered on tape. Anne Abbott picked up the moment he finished, identifying herself as a lawyer there to formulate a defense, which would have to be presented in court by a Russian attorney.
“I don’t want any help from the British embassy. From the United Kingdom,” announced Bendall. His voice wasn’t as weak as it had been on the previous day’s tape to which Charlie had listened.
“Why are you going down for everyone else?” demanded Charlie, ignoring Anne’s fresh look of concern at what amounted to their dismissal by the man.
“No one else.”
“When did you get together?” asked Charlie. “It was the army, wasn’t it?”
Bendall began to hum, very softly, a tuneless wailing dirge that reminded Charlie of Middle Eastern music. Or Afghan, he reminded himself. “That where you met Vasili Gregorevich, in Afghanistan? Was he in the army with you?”
Bendall said something Charlie didn’t hear, his head turned, but Anne did. “Brother?” she queried.
There were no brothers! thought Charlie.
It was Anne who carried it on, understanding. “Is that where you formed the brotherhood? Joined it in Afghanistan?”
There was a moment’s more humming, then “Never knew.”
“You must have laughed at the officers, their not knowing?” said Charlie, taking Anne’s lead. The army record was one of drunken loutishness. It didn’t fit.
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