“Not even the medal, about which they were particularly proud?”
“No.”
Charlie leaned forward, picking up the citation, caught by a sudden thought, hoping but not expecting to find what he did. “Your mother got to Moscow with everything she saved from the palace in late 1941?”
“Yes,” said the son, swallowing.
“And was made a hero of the Soviet Union for doing it.”
“That’s what the citation says.”
“No, it doesn’t,” corrected Charlie. “It’s for ‘Special Services to the Soviet Union.’ And is dated December 1944. That would have been almost four years after she saved what she did from the palace, wouldn’t it?”
“If those are the dates,” conceded the man. “Things take a long time to get done in a bureaucracy. Particularly in wartime.”
There would have been treasures, Charlie knew. Maybe from the Catherine Palace or from what-and where-Raisa did for the remainder of the war, after 1941: maybe even small works of other people’s and other countries’ art. How much and how many would have been hoarded by Raisa Belous and gradually disposed of by this man over the years, for a few rubles-kopeks, maybe? Even a prized medal, which Charlie now doubted she’d gotten for what she’d done at Leningrad but for a far greater contribution afterward.
Belous was looking fixedly at him, apprehensively. The man hadn’t gone to an English-language newspaper to honor his mother.He would have demanded to be paid. Probably had been. And by some of the foreign correspondents he’d spoken to, as well. There wasn’t anything to be gained, challenging the man. Charlie recognized he’d gotten all he wanted. It had, in fact, been a far more productive afternoon than he’d expected. He hoped Lestov had, as well. It was as much for the Russian’s benefit-and ultimately Natalia’s — as it was for him. His curiosity about Miriam could wait. Charlie said, “Thank you. It’s been very helpful.”
Belous blinked, surprised. “You think you can find who killed my mother from what I’ve told you?”
Belous would have been prompted by the Moscow News. Charlie guessed; maybe by some of the Western correspondents, too. “Not by itself. But it’s added a lot to what we already know.”
“What was she doing at Yakutsk, with the officers?”
“That’s one of the things we don’t yet know,” said Charlie. But I’m getting closer by the day, he thought.
Natalia was for once already at Lesnaya when Charlie got home. Sasha was bathed and settled in bed and his Islay and glass were set out in readiness.
Natalia said, “We’ve got Gulag 98. As well as a lot of other obvious possibilities.”
Charlie sipped his whiskey, knowing she hadn’t finished, enjoying her excitement.
“Guess who was sent there, as well as the fifteen Germans?” she demanded.
“Who?” asked Charlie, dutifully.
“Larisa Yaklovich Krotkov. Who was on the curators’ staff at Tsarskoe Selo. The complete staff list still exists. I ran a comparison with the names at Gulag 98. And there she was!”
Charlie stopped drinking. “What was she jailed for?”
“Assisting the enemy.”
“Any details?” Coincidence, or another piece of the jigsaw?
“Not so far.”
“We can use it,” insisted Charlie. “You can use it.”
“How?”
“You’ve sent the Gulag 98 file on to Travin?”
She nodded. “In this afternoon’s consignment. But how can Lestovbe shown to discover it when he’s not examining the camp material?”
Until this moment it had been a problem Charlie hadn’t known how to overcome, but now he did. “Did Lestov pick up on the interview with Fyodor Belous?”
“You made it clear enough. He’s having Belous’s place raided tonight, to see if there’s anything the man hasn’t already sold. And Raisa was Trophy Brigade. So was her husband, from the very beginning.”
“One thing at a time,” said Charlie. “Have Lestov do what you’ve already done, run a check on all the curator staff at Tsarskoe Selo, which he could logically do after today’s interview. It’ll throw up Larisa Krotkov’s imprisonment. And where she served it.”
“Yes,” agreed Natalia, distantly. “That’ll do it, won’t it?”
“It’s them or you,” urged Charlie, knowing her difficulty. “Them or us.”
“I know.”
“Arrange a personal meeting with Nikulin, include Lestov, for him to get the credit,” advised Charlie. “But you make the direct accusation, against Viskov and Travin.”
“I know that, too,” said Natalia. “And I’m as frightened as hell.”
There wasn’t the hiss-voiced fury of Kenton Peters’s first telephone calls, a loss of control Boyce had never before known. Now the anger was in the frustrated determination to find out how Henry Packer had been exposed.
“Only you and I knew he was still in Moscow. And neither of us made the calls,” said Boyce. It was Cartright who’d discovered the anonymous contacts. “And there wasn’t any way Charlie Muffin could avoid recognizing him, after the amount of television coverage.”
“Still damned impudent of Dean to put what he did in the exchanges.”
“It would have been wrong for me to intervene.”
“I quite understand,” said Peters. “I don’t know or understand how, but the information must have come from a Russian source.”
“From which it follows that Moscow has more than we suspected or guessed about Raisa Belous and Yakutsk,” suggested Boyce.
“I’ll not give up,” insisted Peters. “I’ll go on until I do find out.”
“We both will. But shouldn’t we move on a little?”
“I don’t like Norrington being identified,” said Kenton Peters, taking the suggestion.
“I’m not letting it be made public,” assured Boyce.
“I’m surprised the Russians allowed the photograph to be published, to let Raisa Belous be identified,” continued Peters. “I’ve always said they’re the uncertainty, didn’t I? This and Packer confirm it.”
“You didn’t know your president was going to make his hero announcement until it was too late,” gently reminded Boyce.
“What the president did will never occur again,” said Peters. “He knows just how annoyed I am about that. I’ve told him enough to understand what the effect could be. He’s terrified.”
“I was merely pointing out that oversights can happen. And we can hardly remind Moscow, can we? We’re not supposed to know.”
Unable to move his mind for long from what came close to being the first embarrassment of his career, Kenton Peters said, “The Agency lost a good man in Packer. He’s useless now that he’s been so publicly identified.”
Boyce said, “We’ll have to put on hold any move against Muffin for the time being. Nothing too close.”
“I’ve asked for someone else to be selected,” disclosed Peters. “Muffin’s an uncertainty and you know I don’t like uncertainties.”
22
Again it was the absence of anything positive or worthwhile that confirmed for Charlie a suspicion he didn’t need proved any further. It wasn’t even the fault-or obstruction-of the other three with whom he’d yet again gathered in the military attache’s office. They were as much puppets as he was intended-chosen-to be. The difference was they didn’t know how their strings were being pulled. Charlie did and was thoroughly pissed off at the realization. Withhis feet, dancing was a dirty word anyway; it was equally forbidden when he was the puppet.
“My people can’t trace anything on a Lieutenant Simon Norrington, either by name or by the army serial number his family gave,” apologized Gallaway. “Nor any cross-reference to a Raisa Belous. Whatever existed must have been destroyed.”
“What about an art squad?” persisted Charlie, as a test, already knowing that one existed.
“I only filed that request yesterday,” said the attache. “I’m still waiting.”
“So am I,” said Cartright. “So far I haven’t even had an acknowledgment. As far as I know, SIS didn’t have an interest.”