Bomb Grade (28 page)

Popov's heavy combat boots clattered over the floor but Natalia was too dulled even to look around at his re-entry. It was Badim's frown towards her lover that concentrated Natalia's attention.

‘What is it?' demanded the minister, discerning Popov's uncertainty.

‘The American says they know how it was done: how many vehicles were involved, the number of men in the ambush. Even the road they took, to escape! And that containers are strewn around the train!'

Kestler was early picking Charlie up from the embassy, with things to talk about. ‘Popov started to tell me everything was suspended!' he announced. ‘That we were out!'

‘I agree with you,' said Charlie. ‘Space technology is a wonderful thing.'

‘You are directly impugning my ability!' protested Johnson.

‘I am doing nothing of the sort. And you know it,' said the Director-General. ‘I'd be failing in my responsibilities if I didn't take over personal control.'

‘It's a matter for the full committee!'

Dean regarded the other man quizzically. ‘Under your personal control it can be handled alone! Under my personal control, it requires a committee!'

‘Of course that wasn't my imputation! I would have convened the committee.'

The man was letting his bruised pride cloud his reasoning. ‘Which is
precisely
what I intend doing. As and when there is sufficient reason to call everyone together and to whom I shall be the conduit of every development.'

chapter 20

I
t was the American's game so it was right Kestler should run with the ball. Which suited Charlie fine. His most recent embassy confrontation needed thinking about. Charlie had no doubt the ambassador himself would have accepted the explanation that he was waiting until after this meeting before making a full presentation, which was the easy excuse Charlie offered, but the defence had been weakened by his not having arranged an appointment – and giving a reason for it – with Wilkes. The censure had been a double act masterpiece, the Head of Chancellery mouthing the words with Bowyer providing a lot of the feed lines. It had culminated with the threat of an official protest to Peter Johnson, whom Saxon said had already asked for any indication of insubordination. Had he not immediately before the bollocking spoken to the Director-General, Charlie would have been more concerned than he was. He nevertheless determined to do better in the future, which did not mean conforming, just getting his story better next time.

Far more worrying was Kestler's embassy arrival remark that Popov had been about to shut them out until hearing what they had to trade. That was warning enough that post-mortem blame was already being apportioned and that a lot was being dumped on them. What he didn't know and couldn't guess was how much Natalia was getting. Charlie doubted the recrimination fallout could have moved so fast in so few hours, but Natalia was the most obvious internal target and there'd be a lot of flak flying. If she were absent it could mean she was the first casualty. What about Popov? The man was hardly endangered at all. The Kirov and Kirs interception appeared to have gone perfectly and the man's approach to the American put him still very much at the centre of things. That call itself was interesting. Why to Kestler and not to him? Careful, Charlie warned himself. There were a hundred possible answers to each uncertainty with as many chances of his not getting any of them right: the danger of spinning the conspiracy carousel too fast was ending up too giddy to think straight.

It was a good feeling not to be any longer apprehensive about Kestler. The brash gaucherie wasn't there any more. Kestler hadn't been overawed in the presence of the deputy Interior Minister during the night, seeming to think of what he was saying before he said it. And Charlie was reasonably confident the younger man was not trying any sort of shell game. He believed Kestler's isn't-space-technology-wonderful call had come within minutes of the man being told what the satellite had picked up. Just as he believed Kestler had shared everything that he had been told. And hadn't held back during their initial preparation discussion during that telephone conversation and again during the car journey.

As they were escorted up to the executive floor of the by-now familiar ministry, Kestler grimaced to Charlie, Trickle it out, a little at a time.'

‘It's down to you,' agreed Charlie, standing back for the American to enter first.

The tension in the room was palpable. So was the ill-concealed hostility: like preparing to do root canal dentistry on rattlesnakes with toothache. The relief Charlie felt seeing Natalia was brief. The freshly neat appearance in a suit she hadn't been wearing earlier was belied by her expression and her physical attitude. She sat slump-shouldered, her usually unlined features creased by what Charlie guessed to be a combination of fear and despair. Natalia stared directly at him and Charlie would have liked to think it was an imploring look for help, but didn't allow himself the fantasy. By comparison Aleksai Popov appeared positively vibrant, clear-eyed and thrust forward half out of his seat towards them. Charlie thought a Superman cape might have complemented Popov's action-man outfit and at once stifled the sneer: personal jealousy didn't have any place in this room, this afternoon.

From the top table arrangement Viskov clearly wasn't in charge any more. Having carried out his intended embassy photographic comparison after Kestler's wake-up call, Charlie recognized Rado-mir Badim in the chairman's role, which was hardly surprising in the circumstances. He quickly surveyed the rest of the room, seeking more identities from the previous night's scrutiny. There was no one else he could positively label but a tall, austerely dressed and austerely demeanoured man directly in front of the Interior Minister looked similar to Dmitri Fomin, a member of the President's secretariat.

Badim waved them towards a table yet again set apart from the rest of the room and demanded, ‘You have information!'

‘I hope we both have information to exchange with each other,' said Kestler and Charlie decided he couldn't have done better himself.

The minister's face tightened. ‘You have already been accorded access to a considerable amount.'

It was to Popov that Kestler briefly turned before coming back to the minister. ‘As you will have already been told, we have a considerable amount of data collected at the actual moment of the robbery at Pizhma. A complete documentary record of everything that occurred will, of course, be made available to you.'

Made available after detailed photo-analysis and image enhancement, Charlie knew. It would be up to Rupert Dean to make certain they got all that from Washington separately, to match what the local Bureau office made available to him.

Popov's impatience at Kestler's offer was so obvious that Badim looked enquiringly towards the man, who inferred it to be an invitation. ‘How?' Popov questioned, loud-voiced. ‘Quite obviously you had advance intelligence that there was to be a second robbery; advance intelligence intentionally withheld from us, enabling the theft to take place!'

Battle-lines were being drawn, recognized Charlie, contentedly. But drawn badly. The intention not to intrude on Kestler's presentation didn't preclude him from any general discussion, certainly not when it was a full frontal attack which had to be just as quickly resisted, before it gained any dangerous support: Popov had made the accusation half looking at the presidential official, either for approval or affect. ‘That would have been very difficult, wouldn't it?' Charlie suggested, mildly.

‘Why?'

‘We didn't know anything about material being transferred by train from Plant 69 until
after
it had been stopped and robbed at Pizhma, did we?' pointed out Charlie, intentionally keeping Popov on the back foot with another luring question. ‘All our meetings here have been recorded, verbatim. By the people making the recordings this afternoon. It would be quite easy for you to confirm that. They might even have transcripts with them …' Charlie looked towards the note-takers and let the suggestion trail away, before he patronized too far. It was tough shit if Popov ended up looking a prick in front of his superiors and Natalia: Popov had picked the fight, not him. Charlie couldn't decide if Natalia has straightened slightly in her seat.

‘How
was
your data obtained?' demanded Badim.

‘An American reconnaissance satellite was positioned in geostationary orbit over the area,' admitted Kestler, simply. ‘As I made clear at every meeting, my Bureau – my government – is prepared to offer every facility.'

‘A spy satellite!' The accusation came from the austere man and Charlie became even more convinced it was the presidential aide whose photograph he'd studied earlier that day. They were making a lot of premature mistakes in their anxiety to make accusations that hardly mattered.

‘A surveillance facility the information from which we always had every intention of freely sharing with you, fulfilling our understanding of the official agreement between us,' corrected Kestler, perfectly pitching the formality. His conclusion was just as perfect. ‘Which is what I am here today to do.'

Now it was Dmitri Fomin who flushed. Charlie's satisfaction at their so far rebutting any criticism was marred by a concern that their very success in doing so would add another layer to the discernible hostility. There was nothing they could do about it now. Bridge-building had to come later. He hoped they had the opportunity.

‘Photographs?' came in Badim again.

‘A total of 150, all time-sequenced,' confirmed the American. ‘Each frame is individually timed, providing a chronological record of every stage of the robbery. On the assumption that the drivers remained at the wheels of their vehicles, a total of eighteen men were involved …'

Steady, thought Charlie, glad the man beside him had paused; don't forget the trickle affect.

‘How sharp is the detail?' asked Badim.

‘Extremely good,' assured Kestler, which Charlie knew to be an exaggeration: on their rehearsal-packed way to the ministry Kestler had admitted they wouldn't know the clarity until after the technical evaluation.

‘It was the middle of the night!' protested Popov, anxious to recover.

‘Our infra-red and image-intensifying technology is highly developed. So is our analysis: we can identify a person's height, stature, weight … a full profile,' said Kestler. ‘I am told, for example, it is possible to identify which of the attackers carried out the killings of the train guards.'

Charlie showed no surprise at hearing something he had not been already told. Despite the conversation with the Director-General he didn't automatically believe it was something deliberately withheld, either. Instead, his mind followed the tangent he'd opened up with his GCHQ request to London. Kestler had found the denial easy because of the Russian's clumsiness, but the American satellite
was
a spy in the sky, an overhang – literally – from the Cold War. And the technology
was
sophisticated: as long ago as Brezhnev, the Americans had a device miles high over Moscow capable of listening in to the Russian leader's car telephone conversations. It was virtually certain the Kirov satellite – years in advance of what was available during Brezhnev – would have had a listening as well as a photographic capability. Kestler hadn't mentioned the possibility. Maybe it hadn't occurred to him. Or maybe he hadn't been told. Or then again been told but instructed to say nothing.

‘So the detail is extremely good?' insisted Badim.

Charlie, to whom verbal subtlety was like the scent of prey to a famished lion, wondered if there was any significance in the Interior Minister virtually repeating himself.

‘Extremely so,' assured Kestler.

‘What else do the photographs show?'

‘The vehicles, to which the canisters were visibly transferred. There were three lorries, one canvas topped, the other two solid bodied. And two cars. One is certainly a BMW. The other is foreign to Russia, too: most probably a German Ford.'

‘You talked about knowing the escape road?' demanded Popov.

‘The most obvious route,' said Kestler. ‘Southwest, towards Gorkiy. Presumably continuing towards Moscow.'

‘Presumably?' queried Fomin. ‘Can't your satellite continue to track it?'

Kestler shook his head. ‘It was geo-stationary: held in one position by the counter-revolution of the earth. And that one position was over Kirov. Pizhma was at the very edge of its “eye”.'

Abruptly Fomin crossed the narrow gap to the table at which Badim sat and for several moments there was an unheard, head-bent exchange between the two men, with Viskov leaning sideways to listen although not contribute. Fomin had not resumed his seat before the Interior Minister said, ‘If the photographs are a consecutive time sequence, it will be an easy calculation to establish precisely how many canisters were taken?'

Charlie assumed Kestler's brief hesitation reflected the same surprise he felt at the question. It was an even easier and more immediate calculation to establish how many canisters had gone to have subtracted the number remaining on the train from the figure of those loaded at Kirov.

‘Of course,' said the American. If he was surprised it didn't sound in his voice.

‘Do you have that figure available?'

The first twitch came to Charlie's left foot.

‘Not of those transferred. But it would be easily obtainable in advance of the hard data arriving,' offered Kestler. In what he later admitted to Charlie to have come automatically, the American added, ‘But I can tell you there were five canisters left lying beside the train.'

‘I can assure you the entire area has been sealed,' said Badim, hurriedly.

The disclosure was like the tolling of a huge bell, so deafening it made the senses reel. In an instant Charlie understood the repeated queries about detail: perhaps the overwhelming reason for their being admitted at all. The Russians believed the photographic detail already sufficient – which it most probably would be, after enhancement – to show that the abandoned canisters were opened and leaking their radioactivity. Which was why they had so far been unable to establish precisely what had been stolen: the area was too hot to go anywhere near. Just as quickly, not wanting Badim or anyone else to realize the premature revelation, Charlie said, ‘That's obviously a very necessary precaution. What is the extent and degree of the contamination?' Another response came to him, but he decided to wait for his answer.