He could, decided Charlie. And would. “The assumption is that George Bendall is a highly trained marksman.”
“What if he is, or was?”
“He was a television station gofer!”
“Who’d been in the army.” She was disconcerted by the thought that Charlie wouldn’t let go of an opinion even when overwhelmingly proven to be mistaken.
“There’s still a lot we haven’t got from the Russians.” Would he have to admit keeping his suspicion from Natalia to get it?
“Nothing that’s going to affect this analysis,” insisted Anne.
“Wait and see,” said Charlie. Why, he wondered, was it so difficult to admit to the lawyer the possibility of his being wrong? He was relieved at the appearance at the door of Donald Morrison.
“I’ve just been lunched by the CIA,” announced the younger man.
“And?” anticipated Charlie.
“Jordan told the truth about the saltimbocca being good but mostly he lied.”
Olga Melnik decided that George Bendall’s army record, under his assumed Russian name, would form an essential-and convicting-part of the man’s prosecution. He’d served a total of eight years-a much longer period than she’d imagined and something else the stupid mother hadn’t volunteered-two of them in East Germany and eighteen months in Afghanistan. He had been selected for specialist instruction after showing an aptitude for marksmanship in basic training and qualified, on an SVD rifle, as a Grade 1 sniper two years after enlistment. In Afghanistan he was credited with ten confirmed kills and three more had been judged to be most likely his. Four of the confirmed kills were listed as senior ranking leaders of the formative Taliban regime.
The first indication of a possible psychiatric condition emerged during his Afghanistan service. He served six weeks detention, in Kabul, for what was described as a frenzied and unprovoked attack in which the jaw was broken of a fellow member of his own squad. There were three other disciplinary report references to violence,one involving an Afghani, for which he was not imprisoned. He was named as one of four suspects in the fatal shooting of a Russian major, for which another soldier was eventually convicted, and after the investigation he was suspended from the snipers’ detail. He was not reassigned to it. There were nine different charges of excessive drunkeness on two of which, with others, he was accused of drinking diluted diesel from military transporters which caused convulsions that required hospital treatment. He was based in an army camp in Odessa after leaving Afghanistan and it was there that he was finally court-martialed and jailed for six months, preceding his discharge, for the violent robbery of a civilian taxi driver who lost an eye in the attack.
Olga had just given orders for the multiple duplication of the dossier when Leonid Zenin called on the internal line from his office on the floor above. “The FSB can’t find all the references to George Bendall in his father’s KGB file. Looks as if there’s a lot missing.”
“A prosecution will hardly need it, from what I’ve just got from the army. Bendall’s a raving drunken lunatic.”
“That’s not really the point though, is it?”
“No,” agreed Olga, remembering their earlier conversation. “What are you going to do?”
“How’s it going with the British and the Americans?” queried Zenin, not replying.
“Well enough.” Olga felt a stir of uncertainty.
“Have they asked for KGB material?”
“Yes.”
“The orders are to cooperate fully. They should be told why we-or rather the KGB replacement-aren’t able to provide it.”
But she’d be the identifiable person telling them, Olga realized, uncomfortably.
“You’re right, Charlie. It’s a hell of a view!” Beyond the embankment the summer sun was striking diamonds off the Moskva, churned by follow-my-leader pleasure boats.
“Did you manage to catch Okulov’s Duma statement on TV?” Reciprocating the American’s hospitality of the previous day, Charlie had Islay malt on the desk between them.
“I thought Petr Tikunov chewed him up and spat out the bits he didn’t want.”
That was Charlie’s impression, too. “It was a pretty obvious inference that the security relaxations were imposed from Washington.”
“He won’t have made any friends with that.”
“That your diplomatic playback?”
The American shook his head. “Personal view. You?”
“Not yet.”
“Met the Russian gal this afternoon.”
Moving towards it, guessed Charlie. Would Kayley play his hand any cleverer than Burt Jordan had, with Morrison? It had been stupid of the man to lie that the Agency hadn’t tried to find Peter Bendall after his defection. What had amounted virtually to a joint operation would obviously remain on British file. Charlie said, “What do you think?”
“Attractive. Nice tits.”
“Professionally?”
“Difficult to judge, from one meeting. We agreed we need a working structure.”
“She suggest anything?”
“No. Gave me a whole bunch of stuff. Guess she gave you the same, when you met?”
“I hope so.”
“Thought the second meeting with the mother was better than the first?” suggested Kayley.
Not bad, Charlie conceded. Should he admit to not having seen it or play the bluff? “What did Olga think?”
“That there might be something in it.” The director had burned his ass for having so little to report about his conversation with the Russian colonel. It had been wise to hold back about the British access.
“You agree with her?”
“Difficult to say until I’ve gone through everything. You haven’t told me what you think.”
Time to try an ace, Charlie decided. “I’m keeping an open mind until I see her myself.”
“That’s best.”
“I think so.”
“Tomorrow, right?”
Correct on timing, wrong on tactics, gauged Charlie. “Right.”
“It’s good we’re like that,” said Kayley, extending a hand with his forefinger over his index digit.
“You’ll get it all,” promised Charlie.
“How’s about me coming along with you?”
That was practically desperate! “It’s British consular access! Diplomatic! I’m only being allowed in under protest.” It hardly qualified as diplomatic without Richard Brooking. But Kayley wouldn’t know that.
“You any idea what sort of pressure I’m under with the goddamned president sitting on my lap!”
“I told you, you’ll get it all. I can’t do more than that.”
“I was looking for a favor.”
Charlie recognized the inherent threat. “I’m going directly from the mother to Olga. Why don’t we establish the working structure then?”
“I’m disappointed, Charlie.”
Which was exactly what Colonel Olga Melnik intended the man to be, Charlie guessed.
Walter Anandale snapped off the remote control, blanking the screen upon which they’d watched the entire replay of Aleksandr Okulov’s parliamentary appearance and said, “That’s made me personally responsible for the whole fucking thing, including the maiming of my own wife, for Christ’s sake!”
“That would be an extreme interpretation,” said Wendall North, uncomfortable at the reappearance of security lapses he’d hoped safely swept behind him.
“We got people at home looking for extremes. You know that!”
“It certainly wasn’t necessary,” retreated the chief of staff.
“You get on to that guy … what’s …?”
“Trishin,” helped the other man. Why did the president have such a problem with that name?
“Trishin. And you let him know I don’t like what his guy’s justdone … that I don’t like it at all … And then you get on to our public affairs people and tell them to start lobbying, not just among the media travelling with us but back home in Washington, too. I want it countered … Okulov wants to play dirty pool he’s going to get his knuckles crunched …”
“We could suggest it’s the Russians trying to get out from under, which it is,” proposed North.