Freeman picked up the cables. Miriam’s read, Demand immediate OSS identification of American victim, which understand British already have. Further understand London about to go public.
Freeman said, “You should have cleared this with me.”
“If I’d known what the fuck was going on, I would have. And that’s what I’m going to tell each and every inquiry when I get back to Washington, as ordered.”
Freeman made a warding off movement toward Miriam. “Ignoring all the rules, first cabling, then calling Kenton Peters direct at the State Department instead of going through headquarters, was unforgivable! You know that! What else did you expect?”
“What I expected-but sure as hell didn’t get-was to be properly treated as a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And told the true reason for monitoring an investigation by Britain and Russia which I was not intended in any way to contribute to. And obstructed as much as possible so that I couldn’t.”
“What did Peters tell you?” sighed Freeman.
“That I didn’t have to bother. That Russia would never find out and if they did, would admit nothing. And that whatever Charlie Muffin and his department came up with would stay as buried as it had been for the last fifty years and that they were fall guys, too. And then he realized what he’d said-including me as a fall guy-and said he hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded and that I was to forget that, too.”
Freeman indicated Miriam’s just-replaced telephone. “And then you called him a son-of-a-bitch and to kiss your ass.”
“And enjoyed doing it: he qualifies.”
“He might. It was still the worst career move you ever made.”
“You going to tell me what it’s really about-not some shit about saving the current president?”
“I don’t know! Peters said it would embarrass the president now, although it was a long time ago. That it was all I needed to know-that anyone needed to know.”
“You feel good about this, about screwing me like this?”
Freeman lifted and let drop Miriam’s cable. “You sent it. I wouldn’t have let you.”
“Conscience clear, right?”
“Conscience clear. Say hello to Washington for me.”
“You can kiss my ass, too!”
“I did, remember?”
“All I remember is that you were a lousy fuck. At the time it was just a physical judgment. Not now.” The bastard would shit himself if he knew what she had, but she wanted a bigger reaction than the one she’d get from Saul Freeman.
Directly after the war and the control division of Berlin between the four Allied powers, America created the most comprehensive archive of the taking of the city and its postwar history right up to the bringing down of the Wall in 1991. It was called simply the Document Center and after 1991 America made a gift of it to Germany. There were more than a million photographs included in the material.
The hair of the archivist who greeted Charlie appeared to have receded in equal proportion to his beard, as if it had simply slipped from the top to the bottom of his face. His English was faultless but sibilant. He said, “We’ve had researchers come for a month work for more than a year, there’s so much here.”
“I’ve got quite a narrow time frame,” said Charlie. “And a positive direction.”
“That should certainly help,” agreed the man.
“I hope it will,” said Charlie. It would be good not having to work in the rain, although not for more than a year.
“We understand each other?” demanded Kenton Peters, who had come personally to Pennsylvania Avenue rather than have the FBIdirector come to him at Foggy Bottom, which was unprecedented.
“Yes sir,” said the director.
“It’s totally unforgivable.”
“I agree.”
“And you understand about the investigation?”
“Yes.”
“I want this to be the last I hear about it from this Bureau.”
“It will be,” assured the other man.
26
There was still too much fury-fueled adrenaline for Miriam Bell to feel tired, although she would have liked to shower, but the car was waiting at Dulles, as she’d been told it would be, so the strip-down in the aircraft toilet would have to do. She hadn’t slept at all during the flight, using the time, and was glad. She was thinking very differently now, much surer of herself, than she had been during the initial confrontation with Saul Freeman. Wished, indeed, she could turn the clock back for a rerun: she’d thought of a lot of better answers after it was too late. To rebuff Saul-the-Shithead, that was: there was still the confrontation to which she was going, where the in-flight rehearsal-and what she’d brought with her from Moscow-could hopefully be put to better and more effective use. At least she’d been thinking more clearly-leaving things as they should have been left-when she’d spoken to Lestov.
Washington seemed oddly colder than Moscow, although there was a pale sun, but there was a lot more color from the trees on the Parkway and once they crossed the Potomac by the Key Bridge everything appeared much cleaner and people on the sidewalk seemed to move with much more purpose. When she said so to the driver, he remarked that Moscow must be a god-awful place to live. Miriam said it had its moments.
There was an escort waiting for her at the reception desk of the FBI headquarters, which was completely unnecessary because sheprobably knew the building as well as he did, but she guessed it was part of the disapproval she was supposed to be aware of from the beginning. Which she was, but she was not intimidated by it. There was, in fact, still a lot of anger, but well controlled now. She was ready and believed herself prepared to fight back.
Nathaniel Brindsley, the Bureau deputy director in charge of overseas personnel, was a balding fat man whose cheeks puffed when he breathed because of emphysema. He’d transferred to the Bureau after ten years with the CIA, which permanently tagged him an outsider despite his working twice that long at Pennsylvania Avenue. Considering his official title and position, it was also considered unusual that Brindsley had never served outside Washington, not even in a local FBI office within America. Brindsley so snugly fit his chair that Miriam thought the man would have brought it up with him, like a permanent appendage, if he’d politely risen at her entry. But he didn’t. Instead, as she sat in the chair he indicated with an impatient head jerk, he said, “As foul-ups go, you’re scoring ten. And rising.”
“You-and whoever’s pulling the strings-are way ahead. With ten as crisis meltdown, you’re at twenty.” With some irony Miriam estimated she’d been roughly over Yakutsk, crossing Siberia, before she’d properly acknowledged she was flying into a put-up-or-shut-up survival situation, with no second chance. And decided to put up.
“You’re forgetting our respective positions and authority here!”
Committed now, Miriam determined, “Question for question. You’ve forgotten how you were staking me out in the sun: leaving me to sweat with a totally inadequate briefing!”
“You were briefed to the extent you needed to be.”
“Bullshit, Nat! Which you know it is! We got a long-ago secret to keep that way, I need to know what it is. Need to know what I have to hide, if one of the others-too many of the others-come up with it. You sent me blindfolded and naked into the ring, with a target on my fanny. Which makes you a bastard.”
“You swear at me, it’s insubornation. I swear at you, it’s sexual harassment.”
“You try and drop me because I offended some sphincter-stricken cocksucker who considered I was a disposal item, then you-and he-are looking at a lot more than a complaint of sexual harassment.” Hardly any of this was part of the rehearsed script. She might nothave anything more to lose, but this wasn’t put up. It was personal put down, a suicide jump.