Red Star Falling: A Thriller (8 page)

‘You mean she’s intentionally misleading us?’ challenged Passmore, at once.

‘Absolutely not,’ denied Jane. ‘I believe she fully understands she’s got to do everything she can to help Charlie. I also believe she sincerely believes Charlie mentioned Radtsic by name, because of her own surprising involvement. There’s also a lot of guilt. Knowing, too late, that she was cleared of suspicion—that her marriage to Charlie hadn’t been discovered—she feels she trapped him into going back to get her and their daughter out.’

‘She didn’t talk about the Radtsic investigation?’ asked Passmore.

‘Before we started talking I specifically excluded anything other than what might help Charlie,’ responded the woman. ‘It was she who mentioned Radtsic but only to make her point of Charlie knowing or having discovered something during the lost week. And let’s not overlook what else she said: that MI6 could have been the only source for Charlie’s information, whether it was Radtsic by name or just a mysterious “something,” which is my interpretation.’

‘An MI6 source doesn’t fit with what we know,’ protested Smith, turning to the other man. ‘I need our three back. What’s happening to them?’

‘Neil Preston’s booked on this morning’s direct Sheremetyevo flight to Heathrow. Peter Warren’s at the airport, to see if he makes it. In last night’s diplomatic bag to Moscow I sent a new passport, with all the necessary documentation for Wilkinson. It’s in the name of Paul Mason. If Preston gets out, we could put Wilkinson on the lunchtime flight: we’ve already made a reservation. If Preston’s intercepted, Wilkinson’s on the eleven
A.M.
express to Poland. The flight from there will get him into London at 2300 tonight.’

‘I wanted him here today,’ reminded Smith, in his customarily flat voice.

‘
Safely
here tonight,’ qualified Passmore, heavily. ‘This route is the quickest and gives us that safety.’

‘Does it
ensure
it?’ questioned the Director-General.

‘No,’ conceded the operations director. ‘I judged it our best chance.’

‘What about Warren, either way?’ asked Jane.

‘I’m keeping him there, whatever happens,’ said Passmore. ‘I’m briefing our man for Charlie’s access delegation later today: the entire group is being assembled in readiness from here. The Foreign Office want as little connection as possible with the compromised Moscow embassy to avoid the Russians pulling another trick to exacerbate our embarrassment. Moscow’s finally agreed to a delegation meeting with the Manchester tourists, too: they’ll all go from here, distanced from the embassy for the same reason. I’ve got one of ours in that group. Warren will be the dedicated conduit for both our officers.’

‘And despite all the distancing efforts, every single move of both delegations will get maximum media exposure to be relayed around the world to stoke the pressure upon us,’ anticipated Smith, objectively.

‘Has Moscow actually agreed to diplomatic access to Charlie, after delaying over the Manchester group for so long?’ asked Jane.

‘No,’ admitted Passmore. ‘It’ll obviously depend upon how much humiliation they’re determined to achieve. I’m guessing we’ll get to Charlie more quickly to provide footage of a sorry trail of British diplomats getting on and off aircraft.’

‘Are we thinking clearly enough?’ asked Smith, rhetorically. ‘We suspected Monsford was planning something but didn’t know what it was; told Wilkinson to warn Charlie. But before Wilkinson opened his mouth, Charlie told him he wasn’t working with his
assigned
MI6 group. Which makes Natalia’s suggestion that MI6 was Charlie’s source absurd: downright impossible.… Or does it?’

The others remained silent, waiting.

‘Go back through Charlie’s file,’ Smith picked up. ‘Jacobson and Halliday made up the MI6
rezidentura
in Moscow. Did either of them overlap Charlie’s Lvov assignment there?’

‘The Lvov assignment that Gerald Monsford went practically insane trying to take over,’ reminded Jane. ‘Maybe it really is that, a genuinely insane preoccupation.’

‘Jacobson brought Radtsic out,’ said Passmore, in further recollection. ‘Presumably he’s still babysitting the man in a safe house somewhere.’

‘We’d never get near him in an MI6 house, any more than we’d let them get within a million miles of Natalia,’ said Jane.

‘We’d be close enough if Jacobson were called as a witness before the committee,’ said Aubrey Smith.

‘There’d need to be a reason for calling him,’ said Passmore. ‘You think the arrest of Denning and Beckindale provides it?’

‘We’re certainly going to try,’ decided the Director-General.

*   *   *

It was more than likely Monsford had been told independently, Rebecca accepted, but if he hadn’t, the asshole had only himself to blame, refusing her calls and messages and leaving the curt instruction on her answering machine to make her own way to that morning’s session. She’d more than covered her ass—which she’d determined to continue covering in every other way from now on—by spreading her alert not just to his voice mail at Cheyne Walk and at his headquarters office but to the operations room as well. She’d called minutes before leaving Vauxhall Cross and been told there’d been no contact from the Director.

Rebecca was intentionally early, conscious of the immediate attention from the secretariat supporting Sir Archibald Bland and Geoffrey Palmer, neither of whom had yet arrived. She was conscious, too, that yesterday’s place setting for James Straughan had been removed. Surreptitiously, confident that she was unobserved, Rebecca eased her repositioned seat away from Monsford’s. The general influx came about thirty minutes before the scheduled opening. Monsford came in just before MI5. Monsford wasn’t openly smiling but appeared relaxed, surveying those already gathered around the table, which he joined differently from the preceding day, passing in front of the secretariat, at which he briefly paused before continuing on to his designated seat, nodding in satisfaction as he reached it at the absence of Straughan’s place setting. He neither smiled nor greeted Rebecca.

‘I’ve been calling you: leaving messages.’

‘Something’s come up. I’ve been busy.’ He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

Shit,
she thought, disappointed. ‘You’ve heard about Radtsic then?’

Monsford covered the lurch of surprise by noisily repositioning his chair, closing the gap Rebecca had created. ‘I spoke to Jacobson half an hour ago. He didn’t say anything!’

‘The significance didn’t register with our CCTV monitors in Hertfordshire: Christ knows why not!’ criticized the woman. ‘Radtsic made Elena watch yesterday’s BBC coverage of the shooting, which included the Russian airport film. Radtsic talks about a diversion being discussed in the initial days of his extraction planning. The remark was isolated overnight by a committee monitor. I got the call at seven this morning, after they couldn’t reach you. As I couldn’t, until now.’

‘Have you seen the clip!’ demanded Monsford.

‘The whole sequence,’ confirmed Rebecca. She was curious at his comparatively calm reaction. But he’d never been the quickest off the mental starting block.

‘Tell me: every word he said.’

Rebecca hesitated, conscious that everyone was gathered around the table. ‘They’re both bewildered by the film: can’t understand it. Radtsic suggests it’s mafia, a turf war shoot-out, which Elena ridicules. They’re listening to the original Russian soundtrack, under the English voice-over. Which Elena reminds Radtsic specifically identifies MI6. That’s when Radtsic talks of a diversion.…’

‘Exactly!’ insisted Monsford. ‘Tell me Radtsic’s exact words!’

The panic was settling, Rebecca thought, satisfied.
‘“A diversion was talked about, at the very beginning,”’
she quoted, having anticipated the man’s demand.
‘“It was before things changed and you went to Paris to bring Andrei out with you. It was only mentioned once, as far as I recall. Nothing was ever said again, after that one time.”’

The room quieted at the entry of Bland and Palmer, which Monsford ignored. ‘No actual mention of killing! Just a diversion? That’s all he called it, a diversion?’

‘Diversion was the word,’ confirmed Rebecca. ‘He never referred to assassination, although assassination was the context in which he said it.’

‘Let’s begin, shall we?’ suggested Bland, from farther along the table.

*   *   *

The Cabinet Secretary’s preamble was much briefer than the preceding day’s, adding to the continuing official record with the Russian arrest of Robert Denning and Jeremy Beckindale and Moscow’s agreement to a diplomatic visit to the Manchester tourists. Glancing briefly at a slip of paper passed up from the secretariat, Bland concluded, ‘And there is a request from MI6 Director Gerald Monsford immediately to address this committee.’

So close had Monsford put himself to her with his earlier chair shifting that Rebecca was aware of his left leg sometimes touching hers. There was none of the nervous twitching of the day before. The man’s briefcase remained unopened on the opposite side of his chair and there were no prompt notes in front of him.

‘I have a number of matters that I believe takes forward the concerns I expressed yesterday at my service’s penetration by foreign intelligence,’ began Monsford, leaning comfortably back in his chair. Following yesterday’s session, he continued, he had briefed the head of the security investigation within MI6. ‘Within three hours, forensic technicians discovered illegal apparatus connected to the personal recording equipment in my office. The official installation of my equipment was personally supervised by James Straughan. The concealed illegal apparatus was operated from Straughan’s private office. The only fingerprints upon it were those of James Straughan.…’ Monsford paused, allowing the reaction to move throughout the room. ‘Every conversation I have had over the last two months, either by telephone or with people in my office, has been illegally monitored and presumably passed on to whomever Straughan was working for. I have already ordered that all my audio records be scrutinized to learn the full extent of the potential damage.…’

Of course there would have been equipment! thought Rebecca. How else could Straughan have made the incriminating copies they’d hoped to be their insurance against being caught up in whatever Monsford was planning. Why hadn’t she thought…? Thought what: done what? Rebecca fought against the panic, trying to calm herself. She hadn’t known where or how Straughan had rigged what he’d called his tie line. And even if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to dismantle it. There was no connection to her, she reasoned, snatching for reassurances. So she was still safe. And had to stay that way. She had to hear it all through: do nothing, say nothing, but think harder and better than she’d ever thought before.

Directly across the table, Aubrey Smith had gradually, imperceptibly, reached out to grip Jane Ambersom’s arm, conscious of the furious vibration coursing through the woman, tightening a warning against another outburst.

‘… An even more recent indication,’ Monsford was saying. ‘Overnight a remark from Maxim Radtsic was isolated upon film. The reference is to a diversion presumably to be staged to facilitate his extraction. In the very early stages of the extraction of Natalia Fedova and her daughter, there was such discussion, which came to nothing. It was specifically in the context of Natalia and her daughter. I know nothing of a diversion in bringing Radtsic out. Radtsic is refusing to co-operate with us until his son is allowed to join them. After this meeting I am immediately going to pursue this distraction remark, not having the slightest idea to what it refers. About Radtsic—’

‘You can surely do more than question Radtsic?’ broke in Aubrey Smith, prepared from the earlier conference at Thames House. ‘He was brought out of Russia by the head of your Moscow
rezidentura,
Harry Jacobson, who was Radtsic’s control from the moment of Radtsic’s defection approach. It would have been Jacobson who talked to Radtsic of a diversion, wouldn’t it? We can bring Jacobson before this committee in person, as I intend producing some of my officers involved in Natalia’s extraction.’

Rebecca at last detected the tightness spreading along Monsford’s leg and felt a jump of satisfaction, her own concern lessened by calm reflection.

‘It would certainly be an option, if Radtsic remains recalcitrant,’ conceded Monsford, reluctantly.

‘Why an option?’ persisted the MI5 Director. ‘Jacobson is an essential witness in his own right. He was at the embassy virtually throughout this entire series of events, would have known everything.’

‘It’s obvious we have to hear him,’ declared Geoffrey Palmer, impatiently. ‘Let’s put him on the witness list.’ Turning to Monsford, he said, ‘What you’ve told us is potentially disastrous. The absolute essential now is our tracing the full extent of this cell and eradicating it.’

‘To that end I propose we add to the witness list the head of the security probe into my service,’ said Monsford.

‘Agreed,’ said Bland, quicker than his co-chairman.

Rebecca couldn’t discern any tension from Monsford now and decided the man considered himself the finger-flicking master of ceremonies.

As if in confirmation, Monsford said, ‘I also believe it’s time to counter Moscow’s propaganda by disclosing Maxim Mikhailovich Radtsic’s defection, as well as that of Natalia Fedova.’

‘No!’ objected Aubrey Smith, unusually loudly in his anxiety. ‘We only yesterday got Moscow’s agreement to a delegation to the Manchester group. We must not give them an excuse to delay or refuse contact with Charlie Muffin. Additionally, we now know Moscow has detained two MI6 officers. That inevitably means another delegation. There’ll be a time—and an advantage to be gained—in announcing Radtsic’s crossing. But this isn’t it. To do it now would be entirely counter-productive.’

‘We agree,’ quickly came in the unidentified spokesman from the Foreign Office contingent. ‘Confronting Moscow now would be a diplomatic mistake: we’ve got too many of our nationals exposed.’