Like practically everything in Charlie Muffin’s upwardly and on-wardly mobile philosophy, the vindication was relegated to his mental trophy shelf for later burnishing-which none ever were-while he hurried on. Which, practicably, was not immediately possible because the bullets and George Bendall’s rifle had physically-and finally-to be transported from the militia forensic laboratories, in the faraway Moscow outskirts of Chagino. There was coffee and separate reflection in their respective offices while they waited. From his Charlie saw both Olga and Kayley in gesticulating telephone exchanges but decided against calling his own embassy. There was no time difference urgency. Having satisfactorily proved his suspicions from a partial test, he now wanted the complete ballistics analysis before, fittingly, lobbing the bombshell into London’s lap. Which wasn’t, at that precise moment, his most pressing concern. They now had, unquestionably, two gunmen from which a neon-lit, flag-waving conspiracy emerged, which jigsawed with missing KGB archives and the death in custody of a potential witness who’d remembered the official removal of more papers and belongings-including those of the one seized gunman-that had not been mentioned in anything that Colonel Olga Melnik had provided. But far more importantly were not known about by Natalia, whom he’d specifically asked the previous night. Which, as muddied waters went, was thicker than pea soup, a mixed metaphor that Charlie was content with because it was so appropriate. There was something approaching a familiar comfort at being confronted by a situationtotally different from that with which he’d begun: in Charlie’s life, the obvious had never, if ever, turned out to be obvious.
Olga’s sudden activity in the adjoining office alerted him to the arrival of the material evidence, which Kayley escorted her to the embassy reception area officially to receive. It was obvious that virtually everyone in the complex knew of a development, if not precisely what it was, but Kayley limited the audience in the forensic section to its specific staff, himself, Olga and Charlie. The much-filmed rifle as well as the medically-recovered bullets made up the Russian package but Willie Ying’s concentration was again upon the distorted metal. The tests were as straightforward as those earlier, quadruple checked within thirty minutes.
The Chinese straightened, finally, and said, “There isn’t any possible doubt.”
Kayley said, “I need to have this spelled out, nice and easy. I’ve got a lot of curious people to tell.”
Ying looked invitingly at Charlie, who said, “You’re the expert.”
The Chinese scientist said, “Western European and central European bullets are officially weighed in grains. Quite literally the measurement is the average weight of a seed of corn, one seven-thousandth of an avoirdupoidal pound …” He indicated the still unexamined sniper’s rifle. “That’s the Soviet-now Russian-military SVD, the Dragunov. It fires a 7.62mm cartridge, the bullets from which weigh 145 grains. The commercial version of the SVD, known as the Medved, fires a 9mm sporting cartridge that weighs 220 grains. It is technically impossible for the sniper’s rifle recovered from the scene of the crime to fire 9mm bullets.” He turned to the table, picking up two glassine sachets. “These are 7.62mm. According to their exhibit tags, one was taken from the Russian guard, Feliks Ivanov. The other killed our guy, Ben Jennings …” Ying swopped plastic envelopes. “ … All these three-the two that hit the Russian president and the one that injured the First Lady-are 9mm. They were fired from a gun we don’t have …”
“ … By someone we don’t know,” completed Charlie. “Now let’s talk about other things we don’t have, either.”
“We talking Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963!” demanded Walter Anandale, empty-voiced in disbelief.
“There’s unquestionably another gunman, logically a group,” said Kayley. It had only taken five minutes for him to come up from the basement and for Wendall North and James Scamell to be summoned to Cornell Burton’s embassy office. The ambassador sat to one side.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” decided the president. “Get Ruth out of here.”
“I’ll get on to Donnington right away, tell him the situation’s changed,” said North, moving towards the desk phones.
“Wait!” ordered Anandale. “Let’s talk this through. You think this whole godamned thing’s been a set up, right from the beginning?”
“No,” cautioned Scamell. “What I do think is that quite early on, once we started to negotiate, people saw an opportunity-for what, exactly, I don’t know-and began to plan.”
“What people, whose people?” demanded the Texan. “Yudkin’s? Or the communists? Or Okulov? Who, for Christ’s sake!”
The secretary of state shrugged, helplessly, turning to the FBI Rezident. “I can’t help there, sir. Not yet.”
“Nor can I,” said Kayley.
Anandale turned back to his chief of staff. “We don’t make any more public appearances. I don’t personally meet Okulov or anyone connected with Yudkin. We time a spokesman-issued statement about the hope to continue negotiations an hour after we’re airborne, on our way to Washington. Everyone clear on that?”
“Clear,” echoed Wendall North.
Anandale came back to the FBI man. “You did good, John. I’ll remember that, make sure that the director knows it, too.”
“So Charlie was right!” declared Sir Rupert Dean. He spoke looking at his criticizing deputy. Jocelyn Hamilton remained silent.
A copy of Charlie’s Moscow fax lay before each of the control group.
“The bullet that killed the American still came from George Bendall’srifle,” professionally pointed out Jeremy Simpson, the legal advisor.
“And now Bendall’s part of a conspiracy,” said Hamilton, choosing his time. “Our situation’s worse, not better.”
“We don’t know what the situation is,” rejected Patrick Pacey. Irritation at the deputy director’s constant carping deepened the permanent redness of the man’s blood pressured face.
“We know it’s escalated,” insisted Hamilton. “We need to start thinking-planning-proactively.”
“There’s certainly a need to withdraw Muffin for consultation,” conceded Dean, his spectacles working through his hands.
“And for preparing contingency plans, to build up our investigation in Moscow,” insisted Hamilton. “This service-maybe its future-could be decided by the outcome of all this. Since the end of the Cold War and the de-escalation of violence in Northern Ireland it’s been difficult to justify a counter-espionage function apart from becoming even more of an anti-terrorism force. Defining an FBI role is still experimental, it can’t be seen or allowed to fail.”
“Replace Muffin, you mean?” directly accused the heavily moustached Simpson.
“Safeguard the department. And ourselves,” qualified Hamilton.
11
Olga Ivanova Melnik felt as if she’d been engulfed by a flooded river-the swollen Volga of her Gorky birthplace at the start of the March thaw-swept helplessly along by swirling currents over unseen, snagging rocks. All-or any-of which was totally alien to Olga Melnik’s until now carefully structured and even more carefully disaster-avoided career. She wasn’t, of course, frightened of being sucked down. Olga Melnik wasn’t the sort of person to sink beneath the first ripples of uncertainties. She just needed a momentarybackwater; time briefly to tread water and examine-apportion and equate-everything swamping over her.
Olga accepted, objectively, that she should have anticipated Charlie Muffin’s challenges; been readier, even, for the suggestion that Vera Bendall’s death might not have been an accident. She shouldn’t have needed the difference in the size of the Russian-recovered bullets to be pointed out to her, either. Nor been unprepared for the demand about the bullet casings, none of which had been found. The reason was obvious from the chaos and panic at the scene of the crime, there for everyone to see and understand from at least five different television films, but she should have offered the explanation instead of having the admission drawn from her. But perhaps her greatest embarrassment, close to positive humiliation, had been having to admit not knowing the whereabouts of any of George Bendall’s personal papers the initial militia search squad-her officers! — had removed from the Hutorskaya Ulitza apartment. She’d heard Vera Bendall’s eavesdropped claim within an hour of the stupid bitch making it and let more than another twenty-four elapse without even asking about it!