Bomb Grade (62 page)

‘I don't know about that.'

‘But you killed him, didn't you?' demanded Charlie, harsh-voiced. ‘As a warning to Oskin and when you thought Oskin might defect you killed him, too. And his family, obscenely. Did you rape Lvov's girls yourself? Or just pass them around among the Militia from Kirov who helped you?'

‘I didn't do any of that! And you can't prove it.'

‘We can,' said Charlie, looking to Fomin. ‘The bullets that killed them will have been recovered, during the autopsies. Like the bullet that killed the Shelapin man in whose garage you dumped the plutonium cylinders as part of your diversion. They'll match ballistically, won't they, Petr Tukhonovich?'

Gusev's throat worked but initially he couldn't speak. Then he said, ‘Aleksai Semenovich! He organized it. Everything. Popov told me what to do, always …'

‘Did he tell you to come in so closely after us today?' demanded Schumann. That wasn't how we planned it, was it? You had to wait until everything was secure, like the American had been told to wait but ran in after you …'

Gusev pointed a wavering finger at Charlie. ‘He said he guessed from what you said when we arrived that Turket knew who we were!'

‘So Turkel had to die as well?' said Charlie. He'd quite recovered from the warehouse assault – forgotten any physical part of it – his mind icily sharp. He had to lead up to it and he'd been given the way. His voice as cold as his mind, Charlie said, ‘Popov knew all about it? That's what you told me.
“He said he knew all about you
.” What did he know about me, Petr Tukhonovich? And how?'

The smirk came back, the expression of a lost man lashing out in desperation. ‘Everything. Your phone's tapped, in that fancy apartment. The woman's, too, long before she thought it was done. He read your KGB record and got the baby's birth certificate and the record of the woman's divorce and her husband's death certificate. Everything! And he knew every time you met outside. Had photographs, in the botanical gardens. He was going to use them and the tape of your telephone conversations to show she was your spy, if the other ways to get rid of her didn't work. It was obvious he'd get her job.'

‘General Fedova was told her phone was being monitored after the threat to her daughter. Was that a way of trying to get rid of her, to make her resign, through fear?'

‘And it worked! She'd told him she was going quit.'

‘It had to be you who made the threat. Popov was with her at the apartment and the only other person could have been you.'

‘Popov told me what to say: wrote it down,' said Gusev, defensively.

‘That was a panicked mistake, involving the child,' said Charlie. ‘Narrowed down who it could be far too much, although it was clever of Popov to be with her when the call came.'

Schumann leaned forward, picking up the bank deposit. ‘What's the benefit of having money in Switzerland when you live in Russia?'

‘Run money,' admitted Gusev. ‘That's why it was so important for us to get here, to find out what all the evidence was: be in court to listen to anything that might emerge. We were ready to run, if there was the slightest danger.'

‘He was going to marry General Fedova,' said Charlie, quietly.

‘Only if she'd quit and he got the job. But not, obviously, if we had to run.' The man moved his head. ‘Imagine it, him the head of the entire nuclear anti-smuggling division and me the head of the Militia in Moscow. It would have been fantastic!'

Fomin grated his chair back and stood. ‘I officially withdraw the Russian protest to this arrest. And waive any diplomatic rights and requests involving his trial.' The man hesitated. ‘And apologies.'

‘Bastard! Lying, fucking bastard!
Why
?'

‘Too much could have gone wrong: too much
did
go wrong. The plutonium could have got through.'

‘Poisoning – killing – people as it went. Which wouldn't have stopped a device being made because there were some that were still sealed!'

‘The source wouldn't have been trusted again.' And somehow at the trial at which Popov and Gusev would have been feted as honest Russians he would have made the suggestion in his own evidence that they were the two who had sabotaged the shipment to mark them out for the vengeance pursuit from Baghdad.

‘It was murder!' said Hillary, disbelievingly.

‘All three died in the shootout. And they were killers.'

‘Their dying another way isn't any defence! And a court decides whether killers die, not some self-appointed vigilante.'

‘It's over,' said Charlie.

‘You're right,' said Hillary. ‘There's an embassy plane coming in to take Kestler's body back to Washington. I'm going on it. And I'm going to quit, like Natalia.' Her anger suddenly went. ‘Poor Natalia!'

‘Goodbye then.'

‘Don't say you'll keep in touch!'

‘I wasn't going to,' assured Charlie. ‘Safe trip.'

‘It will be. You won't be on it.'

chapter 39

T
he priest with whom Natalia had discussed the wedding officiated at Popov's funeral. He'd been content enough in the warmth of the church but the first snows of winter were in the air and outside he hurried through the graveside ceremony. There were only the two of them, Natalia and Charlie, and both shook their heads to the offer of casting the earth.

‘Thank you for coming with me,' she said, as they walked side by side from the cemetery.

‘I wasn't sure you'd want me to.'

‘I'm not sure that I did.'

The Berlin prosecutor had ruled the personal details in the taped confession weren't relevant to the trial and didn't intend offering them in evidence and Charlie hadn't told Natalia of the surveillance Popov had imposed upon them, although he had insisted it was safe for Sasha's protection to be lifted. He had told her everything he expected to become public but hadn't described the Zurich account as an escape fund. Fomin had handed over everything Popov had assembled on them and kept locked in his office safe. Charlie hadn't told her about that, either. Just destroyed it all. Natalia hadn't cried: shown any emotion. But then Natalia was not a crying person. ‘My posting here has been confirmed. I'm going to be here permanently.'

‘You want that?' she asked.

‘Yes.'

‘I still might resign.'

‘Why?'

‘My part was hardly an overwhelming success, was it?'

‘It couldn't have been, with Popov manipulating everything. Has anyone asked for your resignation?'

‘No.'

‘Then don't offer it.'

‘How long did you suspect Aleksai?'

Charlie shrugged. ‘Not too long,' he lied.

‘Why didn't you tell me?'

‘You wouldn't have believed me. You would have thought it was jealousy. I didn't have any positive proof, until he got to Berlin.'

‘Were you jealous?'

‘You don't have to ask me that.'

‘I did love him. I can't now, not after how he tried to use Sasha. But I did love him before.'

‘It's over now.'

They reached Natalia's car. ‘You going straight back to Berlin?'

He nodded. ‘I'm being called tomorrow. They rearranged things so I could come here.'

‘Hillary with you?'

He shook his head. ‘She's gone back to Washington.'

‘Sorry.'

‘It wasn't serious. I told you, she was a free spirit.'

‘Do you want me to run you to Sheremet'yevo.'

Charlie was surprised by the offer. ‘It would make you tight for time getting back for Sasha. I'll take a cab.'

‘She's very confused. Keeps asking me when Ley is coming to live with us. We're both confused, I suppose.'

‘I'd like to see her sometime.'

‘Not for a while.'

‘There'll be a lot of time, now that I'm living here.'

‘Yes,' said Natalia, distantly. ‘There'll be a lot of time.'

A Biography of Brian Freemantle

Brian Freemantle (b. 1936) is one of Britain's most prolific and accomplished authors of spy fiction. His novels have sold more than ten million copies worldwide, and have been optioned for numerous film and television adaptations.

Born in Southampton, on the southern coast of England, Freemantle began his career as a journalist. In 1975, as the foreign editor at the
Daily Mail
, he made headlines during the American evacuation of Saigon: As the North Vietnamese closed in on the city, Freemantle became worried about the future of the city's orphans. He lobbied his superiors at the paper to take action, and they agreed to fund an evacuation for the children. In three days, Freemantle organized a thirty-six-hour helicopter airlift for ninety-nine children, who were transported to Britain. In a flash of dramatic inspiration, he changed nearly one hundred lives—and sold a bundle of newspapers.

Although he began writing espionage fiction in the late 1960s, he first won fame in 1977, with
Charlie M
. That book introduced the world to Charlie Muffin—a disheveled spy with a skill set more bureaucratic than Bond-like. The novel, which drew favorable comparisons to the work of John Le Carré, was a hit, and Freemantle began writing sequels. The sixth in the series,
The Blind Run
, was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Novel. To date, Freemantle has penned fourteen titles in the Charlie Muffin series, the most recent of which is
Red Star Rising
(2010), which brought back the popular spy after a nine-year absence.

In addition to the stories of Charlie Muffin, Freemantle has written more than two dozen standalone novels, many of them under pseudonyms including Jonathan Evans and Andrea Hart. Freemantle's other series include two books about Sebastian Holmes, an illegitimate son of Sherlock Holmes, and the four Cowley and Danilov books, which were written in the years after the end of the Cold War and follow an odd pair of detectives—an FBI operative and the head of Russia's organized crime bureau.

Freemantle lives and works in London, England.

A school photograph of Brian Freemantle at age twelve.

Brian Freemantle, at age fourteen, with his mother, Violet, at the country estate of a family acquaintance, Major Mears.

Freemantle's parents, Harold and Violet Freemantle, at the country estate of Major Mears.