Determinedly Charlie said, “Hi. Charlie Muffin.”
The two men nodded back but didn’t speak.
Freeman said, “Must be good to get back?”
“Great,” said Charlie. And waited.
“Good of you to come,” said Freeman.
“We’re all working together, aren’t we?” Charlie spoke looking at the two silent strangers, able to see Miriam at the same time. She was subdued, unsmiling.
“Like to think so,” agreed the FBI chief.
“So would I,” said Charlie.
“Everything escalated while you were away. It’s been a media circus. The president’s responded with an executive order demanding answers. Plans an Arlington burial.”
“Very impressive.”
Freeman shifted, seemingly uncomfortable. “Thought it might be useful to talk through everything we’ve got.”
Who thought? wondered Charlie. “I’d like to hear that, too.” He took from his pocket a much-edited and sometimes altered version of the account he’d earlier sent to London. “That’s all I’ve got together at the moment.”
Freeman’s forced bonhomie faltered at being outmaneuvered. His eyes flickered to the men against the wall.
Miriam said, “I’m afraid I haven’t worked as fast as you. All we’ve done is talk it through in very general terms.”
Charlie estimated it had been a full five minutes since the blue-eyed man had blinked. He wondered if he could make him now. He said, “Okay, so let’s talk. It was clearly a combined intelligence mission. Records of American military intelligence, G2, are stored at Adelphi, Maryland. With the urgency and authority of an executive order, you’ll have accessed them by now, so I’d appreciate knowing the result of that. It’s too soon, obviously, to have got your own photographs of your body, but you’re quite clearly geared up to run graduation checks at West Point. What sort of time frame are you running on that? You have a Rapid Physiognomy Comparison facility at Bureau headquarters, don’t you? It shouldn’t take long, if you use that. I’d be interested in your theories about the missing articles, against what was left on the bodies. We’ve quite a lot to talk about, in fact, haven’t we?”
The stranger didn’t blink but Freeman did, looking even more obviously at the Washington visitors. He said, “You’ve covered quite a lot of ground there.”
“I thought that’s what we had to do,” said Charlie. “What’s come out of Adelphi?”
“Nothing so far,” said Freeman.
“But you’re checking there, so you’ve already decided it was intelligence,” accepted Charlie, smiling at the unintentional admission. “That’s something, I suppose. Means you’re already wondering, as I am, how two officers could disappear like they obviously did, for so long. So you’ll be organizing a records search of your CIA forerunner, the Office of Strategic Services …?” He gestured to his specially prepared report, lying unread and untouched on Freeman’sdesk. “You’ll see we’re carrying out those sort of inquiries in London. I’d appreciate your letting me have your results as soon as possible, as you’ll see I’ve promised to let you have ours …?”
“Yes, of course,” said Freeman.
“What’s the State Department guidance about possible embarrassment?’ he asked, directly addressing the two unspeaking men.
“That’s the big question,” tried Freeman. “What was our guy-your guy, too-doing there in the first place?”
Which wasn’t even an attempt to answer the question, Charlie acknowledged. An executive order from the president himself was certainly important enough for someone to have traveled all the way from Washington. But it was a very long way to come to sit and say nothing-practically like a performance in a B-movie. Unless they did know and their participation was turning into a damage-limitation exercise better planned than his at Yakutsk.
As if aware of the reflection, Freeman said, “That Nazi business really was a hell of a bluff.”
“Thanks.”
“It was that, wasn’t it? A bluff, I mean, like you told Miriam it was.”
“Absolutely.” Or were they groping more than he believed? If they were, he’d already achieved all there was to achieve, misdirecting sufficiently and disclosing nothing he shouldn’t have disclosed.
“You really can’t take it-anything-any further?”
“Everything I’ve got is there,” said Charlie.
“I’ll get something to you,” promised Miriam.
“With whatever there might be from Washington,” added Freeman.
“That’s about it, then,” accepted Charlie. There wouldn’t be the expected happy hour invitation today.
“We’ll keep in touch,” insisted Freeman.
Freeman had to accompany Charlie to be officially signed past embassy security. As they walked, Charlie said, “You want to tell me about that?”
Freeman said, “I’m sorry. They made the rules.”
“Which were?”
“That’s how they wanted it done.”
“What are their names?”
“I can’t tell you, Charlie.”
“And you expect me to cooperate!”
“How do you think I feel?”
“I don’t know, Saul. How do you feel?”
“Like a prime cunt.”
“That’s about right,” said Charlie. “I’m sorry for you.”
“I’m sorry for myself.” The man straightened as he walked, as if trying physically to cast off the episode. Actually smiling, which he hadn’t done so far, he said, “Dick Cartright tells me a girl I introduced him to is related to the one you’re with. Isn’t that a fantastic coincidence?”
“Fantastic,” agreed Charlie, without a pause. Sometimes gossip and an inferior man’s need to boast was a wonderful thing.
“I’ve never known arrogance like it!” protested Kenton Peters, who hadn’t from anyone who knew who he was. The appalled indignation echoed over the line from the embassy’s secure communications bunker.
“That’s appalling,” sympathized James Boyce. “But you’ve no doubt there is something he’s keeping back, not telling London?”
“None.”
“It can’t be about there being a second officer. I’ve seen what he sent today. It’s there.”
“Our people haven’t. So he hasn’t shared it.”
“So you could be right that he’s got the connection. Is it time to eliminate him?”
There was silence from Moscow. Then Peters said, “I’ll leave everything in place. We’ll take him anytime, when it suits us. Maximum effect.”
“I’m not happy,” complained Boyce.
“Neither am I.”
“Damned nuisance.”
“Yes.”
17
Natalia recognized that with the open support-at the moment, at least-of Dmitri Borisovitch Nikulin and the now totally shared guidance of Charlie Muffin, she potentially held a very sharp two-edged sword. The importance was properly using it against the attacks of the deputy interior minister and his acolyte, not falling upon it herself. Which made Charlie, whom she could easily believe a reincarnation of Machiavelli, the more important: the one from whom she had to learn.
It was certainly Charlie’s survival plan for her that, although incomplete, sounded feasibly straightforward when he sketched it out in the botanical gardens but less certain when she was alone, as she was now, back in her echoing ministry office, knowing that Petr Travin, two doors along their shared corridor, and Viktor Viskov, on the floor above, were plotting her overthrow with equal determination.
Lead, Charlie had insisted: that was the way for her to remain ahead, from the front, not by following from behind. And she’d substantially increased her lead, she knew. The Moscow homicide detective had performed far better than she’d expected at his departure press conference from Yakutsk-Natalia made a note to congratulate the man-and her unattributed statement accusing the Yakutskaya authorities of inexplicable obstruction had chimed perfectly with it. The overseas digest of the foreign press frenzy-circulated to Viskov as well as to her-from the Foreign Ministry showed it quoted favorably by every major print and network television outlet in America, Canada and England, as well as being widely reported throughout Europe.