Natalia pounced the moment it came. “Everything we’ve heard totally justifies the commendation we’ve already agreed,” she declared.“And from what we’ve heard, it also justifies the Lubyanka inquiry ….”She looked directly at the deputy interior minister. “I’m personally sorry you don’t seem to have agreed to its need …?” She stopped, invitingly. Come on, she thought. Jump into the gaping hole.
Once more there was confusion throughout the room. Nikulin said, “I think we all might benefit from a detailed explanation.”
The president’s official was cautious, Natalia gauged: ready to change sides. “I am afraid there was a regrettable misunderstanding-one that’s easily resolved-between myself and the archival staff at the Lubyanka,” said Natalia. “And I take full responsibility for that. But I did not ask for the entire records of Yakutskaya. That would-”
“Your memorandum-” Travin tried to stop.
“Does not ask for that,” stopped Natalia, in turn. “Read it, more thoroughly than you appear to have done so far …”
There was concerted movement as everyone except Lestov went to their dossiers. The homicide colonel looked curiously at her. Natalia smiled back. Her stomach was churning.
“There can be no other conclusion-especially with your suggestions on how a necessary staff can be assembled and the work routines established-than that you intended every record to be withdrawn,” insisted Viskov, triumphantly.
“My first instruction to my deputy, yesterday, asks for-and I quote-‘a daily summary, as well as a detailed assessment, of the total number of camps that existed around Yakutsk.’ And even more specifically for any that might have held particular prisoners ….”
“That’s true,” said Nikulin. “That’s what it quite clearly says!”
The man was taking his escape with her, decided Natalia, relieved. If this was indeed a battle, then Nikulin was her reinforcement. More than that. Nikulin was the man who had to award the victory laurel. Natalia hesitated. She might be acquiring Charlie’s deviousness, but she wasn’t sure she could manage his final them-or-me killer instinct. Yes, she could, Natalia decided at once. There was Sasha-always Sasha.
Color began to suffuse Viskov’s face. “The memorandum is contradictory.”
“I don’t consider it is,” refused Natalia, directly addressing the presidential chief of staff. “At worst the request to the archives istoo general. It could have been resolved by a simple telephone call to me, from either the deputy minister or my deputy. My deputy could, in fact, have simply walked along our linking corridor. Neither chose to talk to me. Instead, from the correspondence that has been exchanged today, it would appear there has been a positive attempt to undermine my authority. And by suspending what I had already initiated, an investigation that has the president’s personal interest has been seriously delayed, possibly even jeopardized.”
Natalia stopped, pleased with her concluding reference to the president, which had only come to her as she talked and identified her unquestionably with Dmitri Nikulin. Committed, she accepted. In the middle of the battlefield, openly wielding her two-edged sword, with no retreat. There was a strange comparison between the two men she was confronting, Viskov’s face bulged and purple, outraged veins pumping in his forehead, Travin ashen in his awareness that he was indeed caught up in a war zone.
“I’m not at all sure what this dispute is all about or how it involves me or my department,” complained Mikhail Suslov, easing himself as far away as he could from the firing.
Wonderful! thought Natalia. “You are one of the most involved,” she told the deputy foreign minister. “There was always the need to look for foreign prisoners in the Yakutsk camps, which is why I suggested it. And why, by proposing the staffing I did, it could be completed as quickly as possible, certainly not over a period of six months, as has been ridiculously claimed. You’ve just heard from Colonel Lestov that our forensic examination of the grave uncovered a Western uniform button ….”
Natalia’s pause was intentional, concentrating their attention. “You also heard from Colonel Lestov that the buttons on the uniforms of both the dead English and American lieutenants were complete …”
It was the newly confident Lestov who finished for her.
“Which can only mean that there was another Westerner present during the murders … perhaps someone in or on his way to a nearby camp ….” The man hesitated. “Or actually involved with the murders.”
The detective’s statement shocked the room into total silence. Natalia sat happy for it to continue, for the awareness fully to settle,only breaking it when she saw Nikulin move to speak. To Viskov, she demanded. “Now do you still oppose the limited Lubyanka search?”
“It wasn’t properly explained,” protested Viskov. He was flustered now, sweating, a lost man.
Almost there, thought Natalia. “I wasn’t asked for an explanation … it seemed more important to denigrate the proposal, and me along with it. Which is astonishing, considering the Englishman’s press conference remark about the obviousness of a connection with the area itself ….”
Natalia paused once more, hoping for a questioning interruption, although she was prepared to bulldoze on. But the question did come, from Nikulin. “You think he-maybe the American as well-knows there was a second Westerner there at the time?”
“I haven’t been told yet by my deputy what has come from either the English or the Americans,” said Natalia, looking demandingly at Travin. She knew Charlie was withholding even an edited account until after this connived challenge. What they hadn’t anticipated was that it would come so soon. And now, Natalia thought, Charlie’s eventual offering couldn’t be as edited as he’d intended.
“There has not yet been any exchange,” said Travin, trapped.
“When did you ask for something?” pressed Natalia. “You’ll have logged your request, of course?”
“I was waiting for the return of Colonel Lestov,” tried Travin, desperately.
There was another long silence, which again Natalia ended. Soft-voiced in apparent disbelief, she said, “They’ve been back for two days!”
Travin looked fervently for help from Viskov. The deputy minister ignored him. Travin said, “I have been too busy following your other instructions.”
“But you haven’t!” rejected Natalia, louder now in outrage. “I initiated Lubyanka. Nothing arrived until today …” She feigned the sudden awareness of Suslov and the homicide detective before looking to Nikulin. “I don’t consider this is the time or place to continue this conversation. But I do think it should be continued …”
“I totally agree,” said Nikulin.
Charlie was sitting with Sasha on his lap, watching her permitted thirty minutes of English language cartoon, when Natalia got back to Lesnaya.
“Well?” he asked.
“I won,” declared Natalia. “But they know a second officer was there at the murder.”
“Oh, shit!” said Charlie, unthinking.
Sasha said, “What’s ‘shit’ mean?”
“Maybe I could have done better,” conceded Novikov. “I hadn’t expected everything to end like that, so quickly. I wasn’t properly prepared.”
“He seemed a good man,” allowed Marina. “Did he promise to help?”