Bomb Grade (46 page)

‘… Who travels with men carrying Uzi machine guns …' Natalia broke in.

‘… Who travels with men carrying Uzi machine guns because there is no such thing as law and order in Moscow and respectable businessmen have to protect themselves,' he took over from her.

‘That's not what Shelapin is going to tell the court.'

‘Who's going to believe that lying bastard?'

‘It's all part of a convincing case against you. The Federal Prosecutor has done a deal with Yatisyna: no request for the death penalty in return for his testimony against you.'

The man's head came up, sharply, as if he were physically confronting a challenge. He said, ‘I don't believe you,' but he didn't sound sure.

‘You've heard the tape!' said Natalia. ‘That's enough for you to get an idea of what's being put against you.'

‘I'm not going down, not dying, to save others! Or on Shelapin's lies.'

It wasn't the collapse she'd wanted but the concession was there. ‘You don't really have a choice. It's already been made. Yetisyna is provincial: small time. You're head of a major Moscow group, part of one of the leading clans. It's much better for public opinion, here and outside, if the case is brought against you.'

The man smiled, which surprised her. ‘You completely sure about that?'

Natalia didn't know how to reply. ‘That's what the prosecutor thinks.'

‘Does he know it was me?'

The question further confused her. ‘Of course he knows.' Please God don't let that be the wrong reply!

The smile flicked on and off again. ‘Tell him I shall be extremely annoyed if any charges are brought against me. Tell the Militia people, too: them most of all.'

‘What are you saying?' demanded Natalia, remembering Yatisyna's insistence of Agayans' protective knowledge of corruption. Into her mind, as well, came the Moscow Militia commander's fatalistic resignation:
There is no such thing as law and order in Russia
.

‘I'm not saying anything. Not yet. But I will, if this nonsense goes on. You tell people that.'

‘Which people.'

Agayans shook his head. ‘Just people. Those who need to will hear.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘
You
don't need to. I don't know you.'

It was becoming practically a replay of her interview with Yatisyna. There was certainly nothing to be gained trying to continue the interview. ‘We'll speak tomorrow.'

‘Maybe,' said Agayans, as if he were the person in charge, not Natalia.

Natalia nodded for the escorts to take Agayans away, remaining where she was at the table for the tape to rewind. She wanted to listen to it again, like she intended listening to the Shelapin encounter again. Neither had been good, although this had been better than the first, and she needed to be absolutely prepared for the criticism that was inevitable at the later ministerial grouping.

The scream was inhuman, animal-like and very short. For a moment Natalia remained frozen at the desk. Then she burst from the room, going immediately to her right, where she knew the detention cells to be. Several minor corridors led off a main junction. She hesitated, uncertainly, and then saw people running and ran with them, towards an already huddled group, shouting for people to get out of her way.

Yevgennie Arkentevich Agayans lay spreadeagled on his back, one leg tucked beneath the other, gazing sightlessly at the ceiling through the owlish glasses that absurdly had remained perfectly in place. The top must have been broken from the bottle, although she couldn't see it because the jagged edge that had almost decapitated him was still buried deep in the man's neck: the bottom half of the bottle was intact and already almost filled with blood from the way it had torn into his carotid artery. As she watched, the pressure became such that the bottle was forced out of Agayans' throat, splattering them all with blood.

‘You're making things untenable for me,' complained Peter Johnson.

‘You're making things untenable for yourself.'

‘You knew I was going to monitor him,' insisted Peter Johnson.

‘It went beyond monitoring,' insisted Dean.

‘I didn't know the situation at the embassy.'

The Director-General sat for several moments, silently regarding his deputy over his cluttered desk. ‘You knew, even to the wording, of something you thought had been withheld from the ambassador. Bowyer came direct to you, like Fenby came direct to you.'

‘We would have had to mount a defence, if something
had
been withheld.'

‘You're saying it was to
protect
Muffin!'

‘To protect the department.'

There was another accusing silence. ‘You were undermining an operative specifically put into Moscow to
justify
this department!'

‘Bowyer allowed himself to get caught up in internal embassy politics that I knew nothing about.'

‘I shall formally protest, to the Foreign Office here and to Wilkes, in Moscow, at the blatant deceit of the Head of Chancellery.'

‘That could lead to his dismissal: his withdrawal almost certainly.'

‘What was he trying to achieve, against Muffin?'

‘Bowyer grossly misinterpreted my instructions. But I did order the monitoring.'

‘I know where the responsibility lies. He'll be disciplined but not withdrawn.'

‘You're asking for my resignation, aren't you?' said Johnson.

‘No,' said Dean, who an hour earlier had chaired the deferred meeting at which it had been agreed to propose the sting operation to Moscow. ‘I want you personally to go to Washington. And I want Fenby's full support for this new idea. Just as I want your full support. In future I expect both of you to work with me, not against me.'

‘I'm to give him an ultimatum?' frowned Johnson.

‘Phrase it how you want,' said the Director-General. ‘But tell him I don't want the embarrassment of what his well-connected protégé did becoming public. And I'm sure he doesn't.'

‘I see,' said Johnson, slowly.

‘That's what I want both of you to do. See things properly in the future.'

Bastard, thought Johnson and Dean knew it. That's how he wanted the other man to think of him.

‘The Foreign Office hasn't raised any objection, so we're going to propose it,' the Director-General told Charlie, who hadn't been invited to that morning's meeting. ‘There's absolutely no guarantee that Moscow will even contemplate it, of course. In fact I think it extremely unlikely.'

He'd got away with it! Charlie thought he'd made a reasonable case – but only reasonable – and the postponement the previous evening obviously for a private discussion had worried him. ‘But I can go back right away?' Charlie had spent a depressing night in London. He'd actually gone back to The Pheasant, which had completely changed in three months: there was a bank of light-cascading fruit machines that had made his eyes ache and a constantly blaring juke box that had made his head ache. Excusing himself to ease past him, a shaven-headed youth with an earring had called him Pops'. And they'd stopped stocking Islay whisky.

‘If the idea is accepted, you're going to have to be careful going to the embassy.'

‘I always was,' said Charlie.

‘There won't be any more misunderstandings,' assured Dean.

He might as well try to win everything. ‘Was there some misunderstanding with Washington, too?'

The spectacles moved smoothly through the man's fingers and Charlie wondered if Dean ever used them for their proper purpose. ‘Not any longer.'

‘Do I need to know what they were?'

‘No,' refused Dean, shortly.

He
had
been right about the man being like Sir Archibald Willoughby! ‘I'm to continue dealing with you, personally?'

Dean nodded. ‘We'll only give it a limited run, if they do agree.'

‘I understand that.'

‘How are you finding Moscow, apart from the job?'

‘Pleasant enough,' said Charlie, non-committal.

At that moment, in Moscow, the final tape of Natalia's interviews clicked off. For several moments no one in the ministerial or presidential group spoke. Then to Natalia the expressionless Dmitri Fomin said ‘Thank you,' and led everyone from the room and Natalia knew the recent commendation had become meaningless.

chapter 29

N
ataila contacted Charlie within an hour of his getting back to Lesnaya and admitted calling several times before, the relief obvious in her voice that he was finally there. It was Natalia who wanted an immediate meeting and suggested the botanical gardens at Glavnyy Botanincheyskiy Sad, one of their favourite places when they'd been together. Charlie began to attach a significance until Natasha said it was conveniently close to the crèche from which she had to collect Sasha later that afternoon.

She was already there when he arrived, on the arranged seat near one of the tropical hothouses. She'd come close, but not quite, to covering the dark half-circles under her eyes, her mouth was pinched and for once the usually kept-in-place hair was disarrayed.

‘It's all gone terribly wrong,' she declared, even before he lowered himself on to the bench beside her. ‘And I'm the one identified with it, no one else.'

‘How?'

Natalia had a debriefer's cohesive recall and recounted in detail and in sequence the contemptuous interview with Shelapin and what had happened immediately afterwards with Agayans. The escorts had been suspended but were still denying any collusion: one had left Agayans to collect the key to the central prison area, which regulations insisted be held at all times in the main control room and there were two other warders supporting the story of the second of his being called to a corridor telephone to a supposed summons from her, leaving Agayans momentarily unguarded. ‘A minute, no more.' There hadn't yet been a public announcement of the killing but she'd told Shelapin, trying to shake him. And hadn't. He'd actually laughed at the murder and at her and continued accusing her of attempted extortion. All the other arrested Shelapin gang members denied any knowledge of the Pizhma robbery and of the canisters either in the Mercedes or in the garage at Ulitza Volkhonka. Shelapin's lover had named six people from the transvestite chorus line who'd been at a homosexual orgy at the time of the Pizhma theft and every one had testified Shelapin had been there. Although the Federal Prosecutor had ruled the satellite photographs inadmissible in a Russian court she'd asked the Americans for every positively identifying factor from the pictures. None of the men in custody, and certainly not Shelapin himself, matched any of the height, weight or physical details obtained by high-focus analysis. Because of the public concern the intended prosecution, based solely upon the evidence of the canisters, was to be open to the world media. Shelapin had warned his defence lawyers would publicly strip the skin off her, layer by layer ‘until I bleed to death, as Agayans did'.

‘And like it's been stripped off at every ministerial meeting,' Natalia added.

Charlie listened with his mind ahead of what she was saying, isolating points he considered important but not setting them out to her: he always had to keep in mind that in her permanent anxiety about the baby, Natalia might inadvertently say something to snag the fragile net he still hadn't properly woven. Gently, consciously taking advantage of Natalia's distraction, Charlie probed for more. There was a stir of satisfaction when Natalia identified the Up and Down club as the meeting place claimed by Yatisyna for the witnessed encounter between Agayans and the Arab and French nuclear purchasers. Natalia said they'd decided against publishing the artist's sketches until they were surer Yatisyna wasn't concocting the whole story: the club owners and staff denied ever having seen either man on the premises, which could have been more through fear than lack of recognition. Charlie had her go into much more detail of her interview with the Moscow Militia commander, confirming Gusev's presence at the very earliest planning meetings and at every major arrest and qualified several points in Natalia's account of the man's close-to-despairing resignation at the extent of Militia corruption.

‘Which I'm now dragged into,' reminded Natalia. ‘It was my name that was used to get the second guard away from Agayans. How's that going to look in an open court, alongside Shelapin's accusation that I wanted a bribe?'

Bad, in the way a clever lawyer could manipulate it, he thought. ‘What's Popov say?'

‘That it's not as bad as I'm making it.'

‘I don't think it is,' lied Charlie, trying to lift her depression. ‘These are professional Mafia. It's ridiculous to expect them all to roll over and play dead at their first interrogation.'

The weak autumn sun was abruptly swallowed by cloud and Natalia shivered. ‘Neither he nor you are at the ministerial meetings. That's what they
do
expect. I don't want assurances, Charlie. I want advice on what to do. How to break them.'

Which Popov obviously hadn't offered. ‘Any public trial is a long way off. That's not an immediate problem. Does Yatisyna know Agayans has been killed?'

‘I haven't told him. The guards may have done.'

‘Tell him. And tell him you might have to move him out of the security of solitary confinement, into a more open regime. Trade his continued protection against everything else he can tell you. Make sure he's properly frightened.'

‘What about Shelapin?'

‘Let him stew. He knows the canisters are enough.'

It sounded more constructive than it really was but Natalia nodded, her face softening very slightly. She looked at her watch, shivering again. ‘I have to collect Sasha.'

‘I've got something to talk to you about, first. Let's walk in the hothouse.' That had been another favourite.