“Then I don’t understand the objection you’re making.”
“It’s not an objection.”
“Have you found the Peter Bendall file!”
“Yes.”
Too quick, gauged Natalia. What was she missing! “The complete file, covering everything he did after arriving here from the United Kingdom up to the time he died, to include his family?”
The hesitation of the bloated general was indicative. “That is what I am trying to establish.”
“How!”
“Having the names of Bendall’s case officers cross-referenced.”
Spassky was an anachronism, the last stumbling dinosaur of an otherwise extinct species to whom it was instinctive to lie and evade. She supposed she should be grateful but she was abruptly determined not to be crushed when he finally fell. “Dimitri Ivanovich! Cross-referencing case officers on a Control that spread over thirty years could take another thirty years! You have three hours in which to provide our acting president with each and every recorded detail of George Bendall!”
“There is very little,” finally conceded Spassky.
She had to guard against hurrying, Natalia recognized, in growing understanding. “The son is mentioned in the father’s records?”
“Occasionally.”
“Over what period?”
“Early.”
“What do you mean by early?”
“When the family were first reunited here.”
“How regularly?” There was a forgotten satisfaction at conductingan interrogation-being so sure of herself in an interrogation-after so long.
Spassky spilled butts on to his already burn-scarred desk stubbing out the existing cigarette. For once he did not attempt instantly to light another. “Every month or two I suppose.”
“What sort of details?”
“Progress at school … assessments at assimilation …”
“Is it a complete stop or just interruptions?”
“Interr …” began Spassky before jerking to a stop, too late realizing he’d fallen into the easiest of interrogation traps, a question asked with the inference of the answer already known.
“They have been tampered with,” accused Natalia, openly.
“They are incomplete,” tried Spassky. “They were in disarray. The missing sections will be found.”
“Not in time.”
“I can let you have everything we have, up until the time the boy was maybe fifteen or sixteen.”
“Not let me have,” corrected Natalia, at once. “They are to be sent under FSB seal, by FSB courier, direct to Aleksandr Mikhailevich Okulov in the Kremlin.” It was fitting, she supposed, that she should exercise such paranoid self-protection in the Lubyanka. “Please do it now, to avoid wasting any more time.”
While Spassky made a flurry of telephone calls, culminating in his personally signing the dispatch note, Natalia sat comparatively relaxed reflecting how glad she was that there was now a sensible exchange between herself and Charlie. Refusing an over-interpretation, she supposed Charlie could have been right the previous night at omissions being caused by the chaos of reorganization. But just as quickly she remembered what he’d also said, about the Bendall family file being actively maintained until the defector’s death, only two years earlier.
“It’s the fault of Archives!” insisted Spassky, as the door closed behind the courier.
“You are ultimately responsible for internal security.” Which she had, without too much difficulty, evaded long before Spassky’s appointment, by cleansing the records of any reference to herself and Charlie Muffin.
“The missing sections could be found,” suggested Spassky, more in hope than conviction.
“Or they could not.” The man was introducing his own doubts now.
“It’s the primary responsibility of Archives,” persisted the man, his mind blocked by one defense.
There was no purpose in her staying any longer. “Has this meeting been recorded, Dimitri Ivanovich?”
“No,” denied the man at once, concentrating upon another cigarette. “Why should you imagine it would be.”
“It was once regular procedure.”
“It isn’t any longer.” He smiled, in recollection. “A lot of memories, at being back?”
“None,” insisted Natalia. She was, in fact, very eager to leave.
There was the ritual exchange of supposed information-together with the ritual offer and refusal of English-and another mutual appraisal.
Physically John Kayley was quite different from Charlie Muffin-much heavier, darker-skinned and with surprisingly long and thick jet-black hair-but Olga Melnik felt a similarity beyond the carelessness of the sagged suit and crumpled, yesterday’s shirt. She was determined against letting this meeting get away from her, as it had done that morning with the Englishman, and felt more confident after the second encounter with Vera Bendall. The brief initial search of the statements of those who’d known George Bendall-or Georgi Gugin-at NTV had failed to discover any significance from his mother’s Tuesday and Thursday recollection.
Kayley was as caught as Charlie had been by the woman’s comparative youthfulness against the seniority of her rank and for the same reason. His first impression was that it wasn’t going to be as easy maneuvring himself into the command role the president was insisting upon and which he’d initially chauvinistically hoped possible when he’d learned the Russian side of the investigation was being headed by a woman. He made a mental note to avoid hinting the sexism, although he wondered in passing if the cleavage valley was being offered for exploration.
“I’d welcome a brief run down in advance of reading what you’ve given me,” he said.
“Bendall himself isn’t yet recovered sufficiently to be interviewed,” responded Olga, much better rehearsed the second time. “There are the two interviews I’ve so far conducted with the mother, who’s in protective custody. She was evasive in the first. She began to break in the second, this morning. I don’t believe Bendall could have done this alone. I think there’s something significant in what you’ll see about his regularly doing something on Tuesday and Thursday …”
“Meetings, do you think?”
“The mother made a point of mentioning it.”
“You think she’s involved?” He took out a packet of his scented cigars. “You mind?”
Olga did, but shook her head. “Perhaps not directly involved. But I think she knows more than she’s telling me at the moment.” Olga now had a very definite intention not just how to control this interview but how, from now on, to handle this bizarre troika. She was actually gratefu-just-that the fortunately separate encounter with the Englishman had gone against her. She was alert now to what she might be up against and had had time completely to evaluate her situation. She had, she acknowledged, become arrogant, judging everyone by the inferior, graft-eroded standards all around her in the Militia. Into which, she decided, neither Charles Edward Muffin nor John Deke Kayley fitted. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that both considered themselves superior-better able, better experienced, better resourced-to supervise the investigation. She wasn’t frightened to compete with either in a one-to-one contest. With the Kremlin insistence upon total transparency, her undermining difficulties would come if the two Westerners combined to take side against her. Her answer-her protection as well as hopefully her advantage-was to play one off against the other to prevent such a combination.
“There would have been archives, on the father.”
“Being assembled.”
Kayley frowned, openly. “Still?”
“I’m expecting them later today.”
“What about all the witnesses?”
Olga nodded towards the mini-barrier of stacked files between them. “All there. Nothing that connects with anything the mother said.” The smell of the strange cigars made her feel vaguely nauseous.
“We’d also like the rifle, for forensic examination.”
“It’s still under tests here. You’ll obviously get the full report.”