“Except the obvious one that it’s a trap, a match-maybe even more than a match-for what the Russians fell into by burgling Charlie’s flat,” Jane persisted.
“I’d like us to continue our cooperation by actively considering a joint rescue operation,” declared Monsford, dismissing the woman’s opposition.
“Why joint?” demanded Jane, instantly seeing the possibility of personal revenge. “You want her and the child, why don’t you get them out by yourself.”
“Willingly, despite their being the wife and daughter of one of your officers,” accepted Monsford, confronting the expected question. “You couldn’t, of course, expect us to share whatever she told us of all those famous defectors you didn’t know were spying against this country until they gave their press conferences in Moscow.”
He had no alternative but to go along with Monsford, decided Aubrey Smith, although not for the reasons the MI6 Director was advocating. He’d only too recently survived an internecine war: he wasn’t going to risk walking away from this one until he knew far more than was immediately obvious. “Let’s start the planning tomorrow.”
“I want put on written record my total opposition to any of this,” insisted Jane Ambersom.
There was an echoing silence, each man hoping the other would respond to give him a follow-up advantage. Monsford, believing himself to have the most to gain, broke first. “I’m confused. First you demand to be included in whatever we do. Now you demand your complete opposition placed on provable record. Have I missed something in what we’ve been discussing?”
“My matching confusion also,” quickly came in Aubrey Smith, denying the SIS director whatever he’d set out to achieve.
Surprisingly, there was no renewed flush from the woman at this new confrontation. She said: “I don’t see any dichotomy. You intend a reaction that risks both our organizations being exposed to international ridicule and derision. While opposing whatever you do-and wanting that opposition recognized-I believe my continued involvement as devil’s advocate to be absolutely essential to maintain a balancing voice.”
The immediate impression of Aubrey Smith, who was fundamentally as honest and subjective as possible in the professional position he occupied, was that his recently imposed deputy had established a necessarily important safeguard. Gerald Monsford’s equally quick thought was that Jane Ambersom had put herself forward as a further-and an additional-sacrificial offering if his real objective went wrong, which even the best laid espionage plans so frequently did.
Responding first, the MI6 Director said: “You bring to mind Tennyson’s line of Janus-faces looking diverse ways.”
“I defer to your superior knowledge not just of classics but the art of the two-faced,” Jane shot back. “Didn’t Tennyson also remark that men may come and men may go but others lasting longer?”
“Has anyone got anything further to offer?” demanded Aubrey Smith, impatiently.
“I suspect Jane believes herself outnumbered,” Monsford said, flushed. “Why don’t we achieve a better balance by adding Rebecca to our panel.”
It would give her the opportunity to oppose the whore, Jane Ambersom realized. “I think that’s an excellent suggestion.”
It would probably put him at a three-to-one disadvantage, but at any disaster inquest Monsford’s manipulative hand would be more obvious, rationalized Smith. “If it’s the decision of the prime minister for this to be a joint operation, it establishes complete equality,” he appeared to concede.
“I look forward to tomorrow,” said Monsford, believing himself the victor.
“So do I,” said the woman, believing the same for herself.
Which was the more murderous place to be, Moscow or here in London? wondered Aubrey Smith. He’d have to be very careful that having survived once, none of his own blood was spilled, either literally or figuratively.
An hour later the London Evening Standard broke the story of the Russian burglary of Charlie Muffin’s flat.
An essential attribute for an intelligence officer is the ability to become a wallpaper person, someone able to merge indistinguishably into any background or surrounding. Harry Jacobson practiced the art more assiduously than most, as he was practicing it now, doubly invisible deep within the shadows of a buttressed, prerevolutionary wall opposite Natalia Fedova’s Moscow apartment on Pecatnikov Pereulok. The determination to perfect a chameleon camouflage developed early in his MI6 career, spurred by the fear that his noticeably cleft lip, a birth defect, would preclude his becoming a field operative, to overcome which he’d consciously adopted the appearance of a shoe-polished, department-store-suited bank clerk, complete with wire-framed spectacles and closely cropped hair. To conceal the harelip he cultivated an unclipped, walrus-style mustache that matched his hair’s natural blondeness, the disguise now so accustomed that it was not until this reflective moment that the facial similarity between himself and Radtsic’s heavy Stalin-like growth occurred to him. It could, decided Jacobson, be his escape from this additional surveillance assignment upon Natalia Fedova, which he resented as an extra and unnecessary burden. It was very definitely an objection to be put to James Straughan, maybe even as early as tonight.
Natalia Fedova arrived, on foot, at precisely the same time as she had the previous two evenings, wearing the same light summer coat and carrying the same briefcase, as always in her left hand with the entry key in her right. And, again as worrying as the previous two evenings, unaccompanied by the child who had until now always been with her.
London weren’t going to like the absence, Jacobson decided: they weren’t going to like or understand it at all.
9
They didn’t.
“We could be too late,” suggested James Straughan, keeping any satisfaction from his voice at the possibility of Monsford’s having miscalculated.
“It could mean a lot of other things, too,” argued Rebecca Street, loyally. As usual, she was giving the Director the full benefit of a plunging decolletage.
“Being too late is the most obvious,” insisted Straughan, who’d intentionally held back from announcing Sasha’s apparent disappearance during the mutual-congratulation orgy between the MI6 Director and his deputy at Monsford’s maneuvering Rebecca onto the planning group, savoring the moment of deflation. Although well aware she wouldn’t comprehend a single word, Straughan intended telling his mother about it that evening: he had a fading hope that his nightly monologues might get through to her.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier that we hadn’t seen the child for so long?” suspiciously demanded Monsford, who hadn’t activated his personal recording facility.
“I didn’t want to be premature. After three days I decided it should be flagged up.” Sometimes, thought Straughan, he feared this devious man would send him mad.
“What else?” said Rebecca.
“I don’t think we should use Jacobson to monitor Natalia’s apartment,” cautioned Straughan. “If the child has been taken from her, the place will be under permanent surveillance. Jacobson could be isolated.”
“It’s a possibility,” conceded Monsford, who’d led the other two through an hour’s review of Radtsic’s extraction before Straughan’s revelation. “I don’t like the uncertainty this introduces.”
“It needn’t materially change what we’ve agreed,” encouraged the woman. “We’re intending a diversion with Natalia, not a genuine extraction.”
“It’s an uncertainty we’ve no way of controlling,” repeated Monsford.
“How does it impact upon what we’ve discussed?” pressed Straughan, who’d considered Jane Ambersom a friend and wished he’d been less cowardly and confronted Monsford’s apportion onto her of all his own misconceptions over Lvov. Now Straughan was enjoying Monsford’s evident stress in front of a woman he wanted to impress.