Bomb Grade (38 page)

‘It'll make both our records as complete as possible.'

‘Politics is the art of the possible, isn't that what they say?'

The ill-fitting response momentarily silenced the Briton with its absurdity, although not by its significance. Rupert Dean
did
have the excellent memory of which he'd assured his deputy. Whom he remembered paraphrasing that very same axiom of his revered Bismarck at their briefing review just before Charlie Muffin had gone to Moscow. Another indication, which he didn't need, of how closely and how much Peter Johnson had maintained his back-door communication with the American. Would Johnson have already warned Fenby? He was still waiting for Johnson's response to his ultimatum. Briefly Dean considered taunting Fenby about the inane remark, sure the American knew nothing whatsoever about the statesman who'd unified Germany. Instead he said, ‘Of course, ironically, I'm glad it's happened.'

‘Glad?' Fenby frowned, beginning to concentrate.

‘I'm temporarily withdrawing my man, obviously.' Dean wished it had been a face-to-face confrontation: he would have liked to see Fenby's complacency begin to crumble.

The FBI Director swivelled away from his powerhouse view. ‘I'm not sure I'm following you on this, sir.'

‘Well, I know you haven't swallowed that reassuring nonsense put out by Moscow.'

Fenby smiled in the solitude of his office. ‘Got a very balanced account from my people.'

‘Then you'll know there isn't a hope in hell of the Russians getting it all back: maybe none of what's still missing. We're going to have a major crisis – maybe more than one – on top of an already major disaster. With the Russians frantic to put blame on everyone but themselves. So the best place to be at the moment is as far out of it as possible, wouldn't you say?' Dean spoke looking at the muted television set already focused on the House of Commons chamber, in readiness for the prime ministerial statement. He'd have to congratulate Charlie Muffin, after the way the Downing Street briefing had gone: there couldn't be any doubts about the Moscow posting, from today. Or of the snipe-free security of the department.

In Washington Fenby felt the cold breath of uncertainty. He actually shivered. ‘It's certainly going to need a lot of care.'

Dean grimaced at the inadequacy. ‘Thought we should talk things through, to ensure we agree the scale of the problem.'

‘I've already spelled it out to my people,' lied Fenby. But he was going to, the moment he got this damned man off the telephone.

‘I look forward to getting your package,' said Dean.

‘Like I am to getting yours,' said Fenby.

You won't when you read it, thought Rupert Dean. When the need arose – particularly if that need was to protect Charlie Muffin and the Russian appointment – he intended utilizing it through every media and diplomatic outlet to reverse their Moscow expulsion. The threat alone should be sufficient to bring John Fenby to heel, which by itself was a pleasing thought.

The first praise came from Dmitri Fomin, who'd entered the Interior Ministry prepared to be annoyed at the abrupt summons but whose attitude changed within minutes of Natalia giving a precis of her interrogation of Lev Yatisyna in advance of playing the full account to the ministerial group. The presidential aide called it outstanding and there was a brief discussion about reconvening the operational committee in advance of the following day's planned session before it was decided to be impractical. Natalia said she had already arranged for an artist to make the promised sketches and pointed out ahead of anyone else there couldn't be any question of their being publicly issued until after Yevgennie Agayans was in custody. Radomir Badim said if necessary he would actually get an official clemency document prepared to extract everything there was from Yetisyna, assuring Fomin at the same time it would be rescinded or simply torn up when they'd got all they wanted. Fomin said that politically, most particularly to avoid embarrassment in the West, any mass trials of corrupt policeman would have to be held quite separate from hearings involving the attempted or successful nuclear thefts. Badim pointed out that would be difficult if Militia officers were actually named in connection with nuclear thefts. The encounter ended with Fomin increasing his earlier praise by promising to identify her in a memorandum to the President.

Natalia decided, apart from Charlie Muffin's expulsion, it had been a hugely successful day. That was how she set out to describe it to Aleksai Popov but when she got to their office level he'd gone. There was no reply from his apartment and she replaced the telephone, anxious to make the other necessary call.

*

They'd used pulleys to raise him into a sitting position with his feet outstretched and there was nothing to sit upon, so all Silin's weight was supported by his wrist bands and his arms became dislocated first at the shoulder and then at the elbows by his writhing in agony from what they did to him.

Sobelov himself began beating the soles of Silin's feet, pausing periodically to repeat the one question he wanted answered, and when he grew tired he gave the metal rod to each of the Commission until Silin's feet swelled into footballs. He screamed over and over again and his bowels collapsed but he didn't give Sobelov the names. They crushed Silin's feet then, slowly, between gradually tightened vices. He lapsed into unconsciousness several times and Sobelov became impatient with the delay in reviving him. Still Silin said nothing when the torture started again. They used the bar with which they'd beaten his feet to break both his legs and his kneecaps. Silin screamed but didn't talk.

Finally, exhausted, Sobelov said, ‘Remember, you're responsible for what's going to happen now.'

chapter 25

C
harlie was back at Lesnaya in time to see the CNN transmission of the statement from both the Prime Minister and the American President, as well as the cable network's round-up of the rest of the Western reaction. The British was by far the most reserved, the concentration upon the amount of material still missing rather than upon that recovered, a fact that was seized upon by the Russian television commentary, which Charlie considered the biggest bonus of all.

He considered calling Kestler, wanting to know anything additional to what he'd already seen and heard on Russian television that Hillary Jamieson might have found at Ulitza Volkhonka, but decided it could wait until the following morning when he talked to the American about the satellite voice pick-up at the same time as announcing his London return. It would probably have been difficult to locate either of them anyway: even this early in the evening Kestler would probably be working hard to add Hillary's pubic scalp to his collection. He thought of packing for the following day but dismissed it as unnecessary preparation and instead poured a glass of Macallan, raised it to himself in lonely congratulation and said, ‘Well done, Charlie. Keep it up.' He looked at his watch a lot, which was how he knew it was exactly seven-fifteen when Natalia finally rang.

‘Yetisyna broke, like a baby: the easiest ever,' Natalia declared, needing to boast.

Nothing about his being closed out, thought Charlie: her speed, her priorities. ‘Totally?'

‘Enough. Classic bully persona, collapsing under the slightest pressure.' Natalia used her account to Charlie as a rehearsal for the presentation the following day. She was glad now she hadn't been able to contact Aleksai. She wanted him to hear it first with all the others: most of all to hear the repeated praise and congratulation from higher authority. Aleksai had been accorded his: now it was her turn.

When she finished Charlie said objectively; ‘How much do you believe?'

‘Most of it. He's exaggerating, not actually lying.'

‘Who knows?'

‘Minister level. Fomin has promised a named reference to the President.'

‘Very good,' acknowledged Charlie. ‘No one else?'

‘It's going to be announced at a full meeting tomorrow.'

Not so good, thought Charlie, although he didn't say so. ‘To which I am no longer admitted,' he prompted.

‘I didn't know it was going to happen,' Natalia said at once, anxiously apologetic.

Charlie frowned, curiously. ‘Kestler thought it was a committee decision. I assumed you would have been present.'

‘I didn't know in sufficient time to tell you,' Natalia clarified. ‘I had to appoint interrogators to question the people arrested with the canisters: I was going to do it myself but then I had the message from Yatisyna that he wanted to see me, so everything had to be rescheduled. Everyone was assembled by the time I got there. Aleksai told me they thought it had been made public by the British and it had already been decided to withdraw all cooperation.'

‘By the British,' pressed Charlie. ‘Not by me personally?'

‘No. You weren't mentioned by name.'

‘And it was Popov who told you?'

‘Yes.'

Which was who it logically should have been, acknowledged Charlie. It was time he made his contribution. ‘The leak came from Moscow.'

‘How do you know?' demanded the woman.

‘According to the Western count, twenty-two canisters were stolen, not nineteen, which was what the Reuter story said. It also identified Murom as the train's destination: Kestler and I always assumed it was Gorkiy. We'd never heard of Murom. And what was taken has never been positively identified to us as plutonium 239. But it was in what Reuter put out.'

‘What are you going to do?'

Charlie didn't want to cheat her but he had to lie: what she didn't know she couldn't inadvertently impede and what Natalia had just told him from her side increased the danger. So in ignorance she – and Sasha – would remain safe; he strained for any sound of his daughter in the background but couldn't hear her. He had to move Natalia onwards and away with a scalpel-like finesse to prevent any experienced suspicion. ‘I have to go back.'

‘Back where?' she asked, confused.

A good start, Charlie decided. ‘London.'

‘Ordered?'

‘Yes.'

‘How long for?'

Charlie detected no hesitation or voice change. ‘Re-evaluation, I guess. I don't know.' Did he have to be this brutal, after everything else he'd done to her? Cruel eventually to be kind, he tried to convince himself. And wasn't convinced.

This time Natalia did hesitate. ‘Could it be permanent?'

Enough, Charlie determined. ‘No.'

‘Can you be sure?'

‘Permanently pulled out from something as big as this? You've got to be joking!'

‘There aren't any jokes here, Charlie.'

And didn't he know it! Risking that she'd been sufficiently deflected, he said, ‘I've got to leave tomorrow. So I need to know about the recovery now!'

It came disjointedly, a hurried, second-hand account of the Agayans and Shelapin Family purges to get to the interrogations in which she was personally involving herself. But Charlie refused to be hurried, breaking in to bring Natalia specifically back to everything she knew about what had happened at Ulitza Volkhonka. Which wasn't much. It had been one of several addresses checked of known members of the Shelapin Family. It was a rabbit warren of apartment complexes, so a surprise approach had been impossible. By the time the Militia and Special Forces had closed around the identified address, it was barred against them: the demand that the door be opened had been answered by a scatter of Kaleshnikov fire that injured two Militia officers. The door had been blown in by a grenade. The first Militia man across the threshold had been killed instantly and it was in the resulting fire-fight three gang members had died. It was only later, after all the arrests, that the canisters were found in the basement garage of one of the dead men, who had been named as Anatoli Dudin, an acknowledged Shelapin gang member who had a criminal record stretching back almost twenty years. The canisters had been intact and concealed only by a tarpaulin thrown over them. Every arrested Shelapin man denied any knowledge of the canisters or of the Pizhma robbery: their lawyers were already demanding their release.

‘You still haven't got Agayans or Shelapin themselves?'

‘No.'

‘Agayans is important, after what you got from Yatisyna.'

‘Charlie!'

‘Sorry,' he apologized. ‘What about forensic, at Volkhona?' It had been a mistake not trying to speak to Hillary Jamieson. ‘Have the canisters been checked for Dudin's fingerprints? Anyone's fingerprints?'

‘It's hardly relevant, is it? The man's dead. And they were on his property. Petr Tukhonovich didn't say anything about forensic examination.'

‘Petr Tukhonovich?' queried Charlie.

‘Gusev,' completed Natalia and Charlie remembered the Moscow Militia commander who'd announced the finding of the lorries in the Arbat.

Charlie was disappointed Natalia didn't see the point of a forensic examination. ‘Provable fingerprints, even of a dead man, would show that the Shelapin people were lying, wouldn't it? Like any prints could have led you to people with records for whom you haven't issued warrants yet.'

‘My mistake,' admitted Natalia.

‘Not your mistake. The mistake of the investigating scene-of-crime officer.'

‘I think the containers have been moved to Murom.'

Handled by everyone and his dog by now, guessed Charlie. ‘Nothing that can be done about it. Who's convinced everything else is still in Moscow?'

There was a pause. ‘It just seems to be the general consensus,' offered Natalia, at last.

‘Aleksai led the chorus the other day?'

‘He's one of them,' she agreed. ‘Gusev, too. Fomin and Badim seem to have accepted it, as well. Yatisyna's information was about Kirs, not Pizhma.'

‘I believe some of it, maybe all of it, is being shipped through Warsaw. Probably even
gone
through Warsaw,' announced Charlie, flatly.