“You’re sure there would have had to be official Russian knowledge of their being in Yakutsk?”
“Totally,” said Charlie, at once. “That was a closed penal colony-not even known about in the West during the war.”
“So how did a British and American officer come officially to be there? And then get murdered?”
“Another question on a long list I don’t have the answer to,” said Charlie, in further admission. “Something else I think we should bear in mind is our man’s uniform. Buttons on officers’ uniforms usually carry their regiment’s insignia, don’t they …?”
“I believe so,” agreed the director-general.
“The buttons on this lieutenant’s uniform don’t,” reminded Charlie.
“You suggesting a secret intelligence unit?”
“I’m not ruling it out.”
“A British officer, possibly intelligence-linked, in a part of the Soviet Union where he had no right to be-and therefore no permission to be-killed for being there,” mused Sir Rupert Dean, reflectively.“Working, somehow, in some way, with an American of matching rank. Somewhere there has to be a record.”
“Of the operation, perhaps,” accepted Charlie. “What would it say about their disappearance?”
“Stalin was too paranoid ever to have allowed British and American intelligence into a place like Yakustkaya,” insisted the sociopolitical professor. “Whoever got them to Yakutsk did it without Kremlin knowledge or agreement.”
“So they just had to disappear, without explanation?”
“It was wartime,” said Dean, reminding in return. “Hundreds-thousands-disappeared without explanation. Stalin was our ally. Neither Britain nor America could have admitted spying on him, although of course we did.”
“That’s all a long time ago,” said Charlie.
“But not to be dismissed until we know what they were doing there,” persisted the director-general. “It is a long time ago. All the history has been written: tidied up, as history always is. Two possible intelligence officers, together as they were, where they were, is phenomenal. If the secrets of what Stalin had created in Yakutskaya had leaked out-after the war had turned in our favor??it could have been enough to break the West’s alliance with Russia. And had the West split with Stalin, there wouldn’t have been the division of Europe at Yalta and Potsdam. Imagine that. No Soviet Union, no forty years of communist stranglehold on Eastern Europe, no Cold War, no God knows what else ….” He snorted a laugh, unamused. “You could have been inches from the truth, not fantasizing, when you talked of wartime mysteries!”
Charlie Muffin, who prided himself as an Olympic-class mental sprinter against his physical difficulty to reach a shuffling trot, recognized that his academic controller was practically out of sight ahead of him. Struggling to keep up-an unpleasant experience-Charlie said, “Can we speculate that much, this early?”
“We can imagine a possible scenario,” insisted the other man. “Gulag 98 is the obvious key.”
“I understand no records exist in Yakutsk.”
“Mosow’s the most likely,” suggested Dean. “Trial and deportation documents, even.”
“I would think so.”
“How much of what you’ve told me-written in your report-do the American and the Russians have or know?” demanded the director-general.
“The local autopsy reports, detailing all the body marks, were shared,” recounted Charlie. “So were the lists of belongings found on each body, but there was a mistake I didn’t correct. The inscription in the cigarette case is copperplate, all swirls and curlicues. The initials were copied down wrongly: the sweeping old English F-representing an S-was taken really to be F so it’s inaccurate. The Russian forensic scientist has full and undistorted photographs of all three faces, which we should get copies of. We can get our own from our own body. The two nine-millimeter bullets are common knowledge. And the.38 and the shrapnel from the grenades that made the grave. I’m sure neither have the waistband label ….” He hesitated. “That’s all, I think. They would have seen the marks where the ring was missing on our lieutenant, as I saw that things had been snatched or ripped from the other two bodies.”
“You haven’t mentioned Gulag 98.”
“I’m going to need the Russians to trace records,” said Charlie. “I don’t think the Americans have it.”
“We’re supposed to be in tandem with Washington,” reminded Dean.
“Tell Washington that.”
“You think they’re holding back?”
“I think for a situation involving so many people, agencies and government departments there’s an echoing lack of reciprocal information.”
“The same has occurred to me,” said Dean.
“Until we start getting a little back, it might be an idea to keep our hand covered.”
“You didn’t offer anything: interpret the fact they weren’t armed, anything like that?”
“No,” assured Charlie.
“You got a lot, Charlie-concluded a lot,” praised Dean. “And you’re right. We should be able to find a name, this end. But until we do-and get an idea of what our dead man was doing-I agree we should keep a tight lid on things.”
How difficult might it be following that instruction and resolvingNatalia’s new, as yet unknown problem? Everything had to be adjustable, as long as it was in his favor. He said, “The people at the embassy here will want an explanation.”
Sir Rupert Dean was silent for several moments. “And we’ve got to maintain a working relationship there,” he agreed. There was another silence. “Keep it all general, without positively lying. Particularly test out Gallaway. When this first broke, I expected it to be a military investigation, but the Defense Ministry ran a mile, not wanting to dirty their hands. Maybe they know something they’re not telling us.”
“Will they tell us, ever?” questioned Charlie, more to gauge the other man’s thinking than for the answer. He was pleased at the director-general’s acceptance of what had, until now, only been a suspicion.
“Not if they don’t want to. Or can’t,” said Dean, simply. “It’s not just identifiable responsibility everyone’s running from. The publicity is hysterical. Questions are being asked in the House. Daily demands for a statement from the prime minister. It’s all getting out of hand.”
“I’ll have whoever’s job it is get the body and belongings back today,” promised Charlie.
There was another silence. Then Dean said, “I might bring you back: continue here what you’ve started there. Be ready, if I do.”
That would leave Natalia-and Sasha-alone. Which he couldn’t do, not immediately-not until he’d sorted out whatever it was that was worrying her. Quickly Charlie said, “Shouldn’t I first see what the Americans and Russians are prepared to share? There seems to be some anxiety in the American embassy about people flying in from Washington.”
“This has waited more than fifty years. I’m not counting in days,” said Dean.
He was, thought Charlie, if there was any danger to his Moscow appointment. Or to Natalia. And apart from the voice mail impatience and the director-general’s initial greeting, there hadn’t been any rebuke. Praise, even. Probingly he said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to say more from Yakutsk. If it caused any problems.”
“Nothing serious,” dismissed the director-general. “Certainly nothing that needs to be discussed after this conversation.”
“I got the impression of a lot of angst in London.”
“Your only concern is my support. And you have it.”