Monsford grimaced rather than smiled. “Precisely what I wanted to achieve!”
“And there’s something else: something that could be connected although there’s no peg to hang it on at the moment,” continued Straughan. “There was an overnight cable from David Halliday of rumors of something happening within the FSB.”
“I don’t trust Halliday,” declared Monsford. “He was close to Muffin in Moscow during the Lvov business but didn’t give us any indication to get us involved.”
“He told us Charlie didn’t confide in him,” reminded Straughan, defensively.
“He must have known something. What’s Halliday’s source?”
“Cocktail-party gossip from a German embassy reception.”
“Tell him to harden it up, beyond gossip. But tell Jacobson to stay away from Halliday. I don’t want him involved in anything to do with Radtsic.”
“And I’ll maintain the watch on the flat: see if we can pick up any more new faces.”
“Let’s have what Shakespeare called the observed of all observers,” quoted Monsford.
Straughan exaggerated his sigh. “Did Smith’s people sanitize the flat?”
Monsford’s face clouded at a question to which he didn’t have an answer. “Why?”
“If I were controlling the Russian surveillance, I’d tell them to break in if the place continues to appear empty. By continuing to doorstep it, they must believe he’s coming back.”
“Good point,” allowed Monsford. “I’ll try to get an indication. Smith needs all the help and advice he can get.”
“What do you think about Charlie Muffin?” persisted the operations director. “From the personnel and assignment files, do you think he’s clean?”
Monsford’s facial contortion really was a grimace this time. “I’d come down in his favor. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is his marrying a woman in the FSB and before that the KGB.”
“Don’t the personnel assessments make a point of his not abiding by any rules?” asked Straughan, who believed he’d read everything more thoroughly than had the Director.
“That’s not just breaking rules: that’s the suicide wish Smith had the man examined for. He would have known he could never survive if it ever became known.”
“So would she, but she still married him,” argued Straughan.
“If you’re making a point I’m missing it,” complained Monsford.
“If he felt enough about her to go through a marriage ceremony-and she for him-he’ll do anything and everything to get back to Russia to help her, whether Smith agrees or not.”
Monsford frowned, disconcerted by another argument he hadn’t understood. “Isn’t that our whole objective?”
“I thought it was a factor worthwhile stressing to Smith.”
“I’ve already got it flagged,” lied Monsford.
“I don’t want to keep Radtsic on hold. We’re ready, apart from the security on a safe house.”
“I’m seeing Smith at five to confront him with all the rest we’ve got.”
“Do you want me to wait until you get back?” asked Straughan, warily. His mother’s caregiver left at six.
“Yes,” decided the Director. “By then I expect to hear something even more helpful from Moscow.”
Awkward bastard, Straughan thought. He was sorry now that he’d asked instead of risking the wrath the following morning.
Before he’d completed his exercise-period reconnaissance of the outside security and failed on his return to his upstairs cell, as he had on his exit from it, to identify all the interior precautions, Charlie finally acknowledged that escape from his hunting-lodge prison was impossible.
Charlie slumped into a leather-creaking easy chair, head bowed to his chest again to continue the appearance of cowed acceptance, letting another half-formed idea harden. What could he do-what could he say or imply-to convince Aubrey Smith and Jane Ambersom that it was essential to their interests that Natalia and Sasha be brought out of Russia? And not just them. Gerald Monsford was involved, too. Why? Charlie abruptly asked himself, calling to mind his surprise at the MI6 Director’s presence at his initial interrogation. Strict interpretation of the internal and external divisions between the two intelligence services would normally have decreed the Lvov affair to be that of MI6, except that it had begun with the finding in the Moscow grounds of the British embassy-internationally and diplomatically designated UK territory-of a man who had been tortured before being murdered. And even though his investigation later crossed MI6 boundaries, Aubrey Smith held off the participation demands of Gerald Monsford. So what had changed to bring Monsford in now? Could there still be an internal power problem, even though Jeffrey Smale’s overthrow had failed? Or had Monsford been invited in by a still apprehensive Director-General in the hope of providing sideways-shifting blame for an as-yet-unknown disaster? For which his being married to a serving FSB officer would unquestionably qualify.
He’d traveled too far down rough-track side roads leading nowhere, Charlie accepted: properly understanding the reason for Monsford’s presence had to remain a work in progress in a situation in which he appeared to be making very little progress. What lure could he find sufficient to convince the Director-General that getting Natalia and Sasha out was in the national interest instead of solely his? The only conceivable-and necessarily official-argument was that if left in Moscow, Natalia represented a national security problem for Britain. And he’d already double-locked the door from both sides-and bolted it top and bottom-against that contention. His entirely truthful and personal defense against Official Secrets prosecution was that they’d never exchanged the secrets of either side. To vary that now could lead to charges being proffered while at the same time further nullifying any possibility of gaining their freedom.
And then, physically blinking at its total clarity, the unarguable resolution came to him. He doubted that Natalia would cooperate by disclosing the secrets of a twenty-year-long Russian intelligence career, but Smith and Monsford wouldn’t know that until she and Sasha were safe. And it didn’t matter, either, that her refusal would expose his deception, making it impossible for him to remain in the service: he was already in a protection program anyway.
He could make it work! Charlie told himself. He had to make it work!
The sphinxlike Aubrey Smith glanced fleetingly at Monsford’s offered photographs before putting them to one side and said: “Yes. Boris Kuibyshev.” The Director-General took other, different prints from a side drawer and handed them in return to the other man. “This is Igor Bukharin, who’s also listed in the embassy’s finance section. Did you miss him?”
Monsford didn’t hurry taking the easy chair to which Smith gestured, inwardly furious at the mockery. “We only began the check last night. We wouldn’t have bothered if you’d told me you were already monitoring the place.”
“It was such an obvious precaution I didn’t think it necessary.”
“You considered the possibility that they might burgle it, as well?” demanded the MI6 Director, struggling to keep up.
Smith smiled, wanly. “I’ve been expecting them to, ever since we identified the surveillance. It was swept clean the day we put Charlie into the protection program. There’s nothing for them to find. Except the surprise I’ve got in place.”
“What about the answering machine, with Natalia’s voice on it?” Monsford retaliated.
The condescending smile remained. “From inside the flat, the receiver appears disconnected. The line’s on divert, to our technical people who pick up every incoming call as well as the slightest audible sound of forced entry. They’d also hear if there were an attempted outgoing call if the Russians do go in and try to report back to their embassy Control.”