Bomb Grade (41 page)

‘I understand,' totally capitulated the deputy.

Johnson had shown himself to be a weak man by not telling him to go to hell, Dean decided.

‘NO!'

No torture had torn such a scream from Silin, the anguish bursting from the crushed and mutilated man as Marina came into the cellar between two men, with Sobelov following and she turned at his cracked voice, seeing him for the first time and she screamed the same word, over and over and just as desperately.

Sobelov came around her, putting himself between Silin and his wife. ‘It's your choice. Tell me what I want to know and nothing will happen to her. If you don't, you can watch.'

‘Don't tell him!' Marina's voice was abruptly calm, without any fear. ‘They'll kill us anyway. They've got to. So don't tell him …'

Sobelov slapped her back-handed across the face, stopping the outburst, all the time looking at Silin. ‘Your choice,' he said again.

‘Go fuck yourself,' Silin managed.

‘No. I'll fuck your wife instead.'

Marina kept her eyes shut while they undressed her and while Sobelov raped her and didn't open them when Markov and then another man raped her, too.

After the third rape Sobelov came very close to the bulging-eyed, bulging-cheeked Silin and said, ‘That was just the start. You want to stop what's going to happen to her now?'

Silin spat at the man, an explosion of blood and flesh hitting Sobelov in the face and chest. The man staggered back, gagging.

Markov went to Silin, jerking his head back. He turned to Sobelov and said, ‘He can't tell us anything now. He's chewed his tongue off.'

‘Hurt him!' ordered Sobelov. ‘Hurt them both. As much as you can.'

chapter 26

C
harlie hadn't expected the one-to-one session with the Director-General before going in front of the full committee. Or that it would carry over into Rupert Dean's private dining room with lunch and the best Margaux Charlie had ever tasted.

Charlie decided things were very definitely on an upswing, which he wanted to continue because he had a lot to achieve. Dean's remark that he'd done better than they could have hoped caused Charlie to work out for the first time that he'd only been in Moscow for three months. It seemed months longer and Charlie realized it had begun as an unconscious impression even on his way in from the airport and in everything that had happened since. London appeared strange, somewhere new and unfamiliar, a place he'd visited a long time ago and didn't properly remember any more. And brighter, a clean, freshly washed brightness that made the grass and the trees positively green compared to the grimed buildings and threadbare open spaces of the Russian capital, green only in its designated parks. It showed, Charlie supposed, that he was doing what he'd been told, adjusting to Moscow being his home.

The reality of that wasn't as inviting as it had been the last time he'd been on the seventh floor of this Embankment building. At least he'd returned to congratulations and not the threatened summary dismissal, although the Director-General made an unspecified reference to embassy difficulties, which Charlie tried to turn into his protest about Bowyer. He didn't, obviously, do so by naming the man. Or even by making a positive complaint because he had no proof, but if Bowyer's instructions hadn't come from the man himself the Director-General would certainly have had to know and approve the internal spying. Instead, Charlie talked in generalities of embassy supervision and of uncertainty about chains of command superseding diplomatic seniority. And ended wondering if he'd generalized too much because instead of being as positive as he'd previously been on their telephone links the Director-General merely said it would be interesting to expand the problems with the committee.

Charlie didn't get any better guidance on the operational suggestion he intended to push as hard as he could that afternoon. There was, in fact, a total
lack
of reaction. Dean was neither openly surprised nor outrightly dismissive, again called it interesting and said in his hurried voice that he looked forward to hearing the opinion of the full group about that, too.

All of whom were waiting, in the same seats as before, when he followed Dean into the office-linked conference room. Today the bald but moustached Jeremy Simpson was staring directly at him instead of at the river, which Charlie took as another sign of approval, like the smiles that came with all the nods from everyone except Gerald Williams, who gazed at him tight-faced and slightly flushed. Charlie pointedly smiled at the man, curious how much higher the colour would go before the end of the afternoon.

‘I think we're all agreed the Moscow posting is working extremely satisfactorily,' began the Director-General, to assenting movements from everyone apart from the financial director.

Peter Johnson tapped his dossier, as if bringing the encounter to order, and said, ‘Aren't you interpreting a lot from the GCHQ voice pick-up?'

Proving time again, Charlie recognized: and he had to impress them probably more than he'd ever before impressed a control body. ‘There's a positive reference to “the
Zajazd Karczma”
. Which is Polish, not Russian. It's an hotel in Warsaw. I've been there. On the GCHQ tape there are two references to Napoleon: in fact the full name of the hotel is
Zajazd Karczma Napoleonska
. It's supposed to be an historical fact that Napoleon stayed there en route to Moscow with his Grand Army. The first reference is garbled, apart from “Napoleon's room”. The second is also incomplete – “…
this Napoleon would have won
…” I think it was a joking remark: they'd just carried out the biggest nuclear robbery ever and they knew it. Whoever it was – which will be provable, timing the photographic frames to the voice recordings – was showing off: releasing the tension. I think the full phrase would have been something like “
if or had he had this Napoleon would have won
…” Poland is the shortest route from Russia into the West: according to the Germans, it's been used before to transit nuclear material. And there are over two hundred kilos still missing from the Pizhma robbery.'

‘The assumption seemed sufficient to alert the Polish and German authorities,' supported Dean.

Dean hadn't told him that earlier. Charlie hoped Jurgen Balg was properly appreciative of the six-hour head start he'd given the man, to get in first.

‘Why should we ignore the Russian belief that the plutonium is still in the Moscow area?' challenged Williams.

‘You've already got my arguments for that,' said Charlie, gesturing to the dossiers before each man, undecided whether or not to disclose the Arab buyer/French middleman claim from the Yatisyna interrogation. ‘It has no
value
in Moscow. The West is the market place.'

‘Why?' persisted Williams, the opposition prepared. ‘Why can't the buying and selling be done in Moscow?'

It was the obvious introduction for his new operational suggestion, but the time wasn't right: he had to convince them more, about everything else, even confuse their thinking slightly, if he could. ‘The buying and selling
is
done in Moscow! And in St Petersburg and in a lot of other cities and former republics as well! Buying and selling but for
delivery
in the West. That's the way the system works.'

‘What system?'

Williams
had
prepared himself, Charlie acknowledged. ‘The system that previous investigations have established.'

‘Nothing's carved in stone. This robbery is different; bigger than any other. Why can't it be moved differently from anything in the past?'

‘No reason whatsoever.' Charlie didn't like having to concede the admission and not because of the enmity between himself and the other man. He was agreeing that he could be wrong and he didn't want anyone apart from Williams – whom he knew he could never convince – to believe he could be wrong about anything. ‘But from what we know about Warsaw, the probabilities are that it's being taken – or more likely
been
taken – out along an established route.'

‘
Think
we know about Warsaw,' disputed Williams. ‘I'm not prepared to be as easily persuaded. Nor should anyone else.'

‘Several of us might be,' suggested Dean, mildly.

‘What have the Polish authorities come back with?' questioned Williams.

‘Nothing,' conceded the Director-General.

‘And the Germans?'

‘Nothing,' the man repeated.

‘While the Russians, following standard police investigatory procedure, have recovered several kilos
and
made arrests!' said Williams.

Standard investigatory procedure he'd urged upon them, reflected Charlie. There wasn't any benefit in pointing that out: it would look as if he was boasting – and in some desperation – because he was being out-argued by Williams. And he was being out-argued. He'd have to do very much better than this to carry the other men with him. ‘You already know what I feel about that: that I believe what was found in Moscow was a false trail.'

‘Deliberately laid?' queried the Director-General.

‘I believe so, by those who carried out the successful robbery at Pizhma.'

‘So they knew in advance of the attempt at Kirs?' said Simpson.

‘They had to,' argued Charlie. ‘It's inconceivable there would be two robberies on the same night from the same plant.'

‘Why couldn't it have been a deliberate decoy, two separate acts of the same planned robbery?' demanded Williams, ineptly.

‘One of those arrested inside the plant was the leader of the biggest Mafia group in the area. If the decoy had been deliberate, those taken at Kirs would have been disposable, street-level people,' said Charlie, watching Williams' colour rise. It was another obvious moment to talk of the Yatisyna interrogation but still he held back.

‘So one crime group, with inside knowledge of another, set that other Family up. Using their further inside knowledge of the nuclear installation itself?' set out the Director-General.

‘That's my assessment,' agreed Charlie.

‘Why would they have had to have inside knowledge of the plant itself?' asked Patrick Pacey. ‘Knowing an entry attempt was being made would have been sufficient, surely?'

Charlie shook his head. ‘They had to know the material was being moved, because of the decommissioning. And how and when and at what times it was being transported. Whoever it was at Pizhma knew it was being taken to
them
. All they had to do was wait and intercept it at Pizhma.'

‘Someone with a very special inside knowledge, then?' pressed Dean.

‘Very special,' accepted Charlie. It wasn't a speculative road down which he wanted to go. He had no intention of offering what he believed to be the significance of
akrashena:
of even disclosing the importance of the word. It would seem disjointed, but Natalia's interrogation would provide the deflection. He said, finally, ‘Those who went into Kirs believed they had several buyers already established. The arrested local Mafia leader claims to have met an Arab and a Frenchman in a Moscow club.' He'd have to get a name from Natalia, he thought, remembering the episode with Hillary Jamieson.

There were frowned looks from the Director-General and Johnson and Williams shuffled through his documents, confirming Charlie's impression the bundle consisted of everything he'd sent from Moscow. Williams said, ‘We haven't been told of this!'

‘I only learned about it an hour before I left Moscow,' lied Charlie.

‘What's the Russian response to it?' asked the legal advisor.

It was probably the best chance he'd get to bring the FBI into the discussion and maybe understand some of the Director-General's enigmatic remarks, which was something else the man had refused to enlarge upon during their lunch. ‘I don't know, now that I'm excluded because of what the Americans leaked.'

Charlie was curious at the look that passed between the Director-General and his deputy, before Dean spoke. ‘Which brings us to the reason for this meeting and the principle reason for your recall. Our level of protest.'

It's not my principle reason, thought Charlie. He hadn't scored sufficiently against Williams' sniping but there didn't seem any purpose in delaying any further: there certainly wasn't any purpose in discussing a protest he didn't want made. ‘I don't see how we can argue against it. I've not officially been given any reason: not officially told my cooperation has been withdrawn. And we've got to accept that we were only ever admitted to what the Russians chose to include us. I don't believe we've arguable grounds for complaint.'

‘You mean you don't
want
us to protest?' frowned the deputy Director.

Charlie breathed in deeply, readying himself: for the moment the FBI mystery had to remain unresolved. He looked to each of the men facing him, once more assessing Williams' colour. ‘No, I don't,' he agreed, simply.

‘What?'

The demand came from Pacey, but everyone else was regarding Charlie with matching astonishment.

‘What the Russians initially offered appeared precisely the sort of liaison we hoped to achieve,' allowed Charlie, cautiously. ‘But there was always a strong, underlying resentment. The American leak gave a focus for that resentment, until now I believe the Russians think sharing with us was a mistake …'

‘Are you admitting you haven't established what you actually advised us you had?' tried Williams, anxious not to miss any imagined opportunity.

‘The arrangement always made us dependent upon the Russians,' said Charlie. ‘They needed us – or the Americans, to be more accurate – because of the satellite. But we had no control or practical participation in what they did or how they used whatever they got from us. We were just sources, nothing else …'