Probably not for much longer, thought Cartright, glad he was on the absolute edge of the hurricane that was sweeping through the embassy. He was still recovering from the revelation that Charlie was living with Irena’s sister. “It’s kind of an unusual job.”
“How’d he get an apartment like they have? It’s in what used to be a palace. Incredible!”
“So I understand.”
“Does everyone at the embassy live like that?”
“He’s not properly attached to the embassy,” said Cartright, knowing from the military attache that deniability was already being considered. “I guess you’d say he was freelance.”
“Obviously a very successful one!” Cartright was much better looking than the American and she hoped he would be better in bed, too. He obviously wasn’t so mean. The restaurant was just off the Arbat, called the Here and Now, and was the social spot of the moment at which to be seen, which she considered promising. So was the imported champagne he’d automatically ordered. She was glad she’d worn the Donna Karan she’d bought in New York. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her cleavage.
“Hasn’t Natalia told you all about him?” questioned Cartright, trying to get the conversation on track.
“We’re not particularly close,” dismissed Irena. She was sure the five-man group at the bar were mafia. One smiled at her. She smiled back.
“See a friend?”
“I thought I had. It wasn’t.”
“Natalia probably considers herself very lucky, able to live in an apartment like that. Accommodation isn’t easy in Moscow, is it?”
“She had a pretty impressive place before.” Irena didn’t return the mafia man’s smile this time.
“If it’s as grand as you say, they probably do a lot of entertaining?”
“I wouldn’t know. Like I said, we’re not close.” The quail was wonderful and from the attention she was attracting Irena was sure the dark-haired girl who’d just come in was the star of the gangster series getting the top TV ratings. Irena was enjoying herself. The tuxedoed band began playing Glen Miller’s “In the Mood.” “A girl could get jealous at someone being more interested in her sister than in her,” Irena protested, pushing her plate and her chair away at the same time. “Come on! Let’s dance. And stop talking about Natalia and Charlie.”
Enough, decided Cartright. There was absolutely no hurry, she had the most spectacular tits and there was Saul Freeman’s recommendation.
During the evening the man she was sure was mafia intercepted Irena on her way to the washroom and asked her if she needed rescuing. She said no but added that she appreciated the gallantry and when he said anytime she gave him her telephone number.
Cartright started to get out of his car when they got to her apartment, in the Moscow suburbs on the way conveniently to Sheremet’yevo airport, but she stopped him, lying that she had to be up very early the following morning for a flight.
“Perhaps next time,” she said. Maybe she’d found herself someone with money, like Natalia. Discovering what he was like in bed could wait.
14
They had remained in conference practically the entire day, broken only by Sir Rupert Dean’s summons to Downing Street. Patrick Pacey, the department’s political officer, went with him. The director-general had also several times spoken to the Moscow embassy by telephone-to the ambassador as well as to the head of chancellery-and when he’d finally managed a connection to the Ontario Hotel in Yakutsk it had been eight P.M. local time there and he’d been told that Charlie had checked out.
Throughout the day the attitudes toward Charlie Muffin ebbed and flowed. Initially, after his Nazi-secret declaration, the criticism and accusations had been virtually unanimous, determinedly led by an inwardly very satisfied Gerald Williams, totally supported by the deputy director-general. A lot of the condemnation became muted-or stopped altogether-after the second TV transmission of the hotel parking lot interview with Colonel Vadim Lestov.
Dean said, “We don’t know enough to reach any conclusion or judgment.”
“And whose fault is that?” demanded the finance director. “Muffin was repeatedly told-ordered-to maintain the closest contact and report back everything we needed to know and at all costs avoid any reference to possible intelligence and difficult diplomatic situations. He’s done the total and complete opposite, as he always does. And as I have consistently warned that he would. To relay a message telling us to watch television was arrogant impertinence.”
“Made sense, though, to see and hear what the Moscow detective said, didn’t it?” sighed Jeremy Simpson, the legal adviser. “Muffinalso told the Moscow embassy his phone was tapped. Seems a good enough reason for saying nothing.”
“He said a lot on television,” pointed out Jocelyn Hamilton.
“Which remains the problem,” agreed Patrick Pacey, knowing the political thinking from having attended the cabinet Intelligence and Security Committee meeting at Downing Street with the director-general. “The last thing the government wants is reminders of Germany’s wartime past, now that we’re European partners. Or having one of our people sitting beside the Yakutsk leader like that, publicly associated with an anti-Russian attack.”
“Made worse by drawing attention to the sort of place Yakutskaya was,” persisted Gerald Williams. “I can’t imagine Russia wants that raked over. From whichever way we look at it, Muffin has put us-this department-in an appalling situation.”
“One, in fact, that we’ve already agreed we had to do everything to avoid, with our whole future so uncertain,” endorsed Hamilton. “There might be an explanation of sorts, but I’ll need a lot to convince me it was justified.”
“That’s a gross exaggeration,” argued the bald, mustached lawyer. “Quite obviously there were a lot of local problems we don’t yet know anything about. The Moscow detective went out of his way to say how good the relationship was. Which was exactly what Muffin was told to establish.”
“I think the enormous publicity is unfortunate,” said Pacey, echoing another concern from the earlier Downing Street crisis meeting. “There’d been no public announcement of our being officially allowed to have a man in Moscow. The inference that Russia needs Western help to fight its crime isn’t something we wanted to become too obvious.”
“Which it didn’t. And hasn’t,” insisted Dean, forcefully. “It’s entirely acceptable that someone from the UK-whose department was never identified-should have been in Yakutsk looking into the murder of a British officer, whenever the killing occurred. It was never stated that Charlie was based in Moscow or that he had any intelligence agency background. You inferred it was said, because you know.”
Pacey flushed, caught out. “No,” he remembered. “It wasn’t, was it?”
Williams felt a further fray in what he’d been so sure was the noose from which Charlie was at last going to dangle. He said, “With anyone else, it would not be necessary for us to be having this discussion: having to defend ourselves, cap in hand, in Downing Street! If this department becomes subsidiary to all those willing and eager to take over our traditional role, it will be dated back to this episode.” The finance director looked to the required records taker. “None of us will be here in a year’s time for us to be reminded of the warning I’ve just given.”
“If, on the other hand, we were all here-and I called for a transcript of what you’ve said all day-you’d be shown to be an absolute fool, wouldn’t you Gerald?” said Simpson. He stroked the drooping mustache. “And I will. There! You’ve got a whole year to work out an explanation for being so wrong.”
“I don’t want this to become personal,” warned Sir Rupert Dean.
“Unfortunately-and usually unfairly-it’s always been personal between Charlie Muffin and Gerald,” said Simpson.