“All Natalia’s got to do is make another bloody telephone calclass="underline" Smith’s keeping Charlie’s apartment line open,” Monsford pointed out.
“I thought we’d decided she’s reciting what the FSB tells her to say?”
“What if she somehow gets an unmonitored call out?” demanded Monsford. “Don’t forget Shakespeare’s warning of pernicious women.”
“We’ll confuse ourselves going around in hypothetical circles,” risked Rebecca.
“She’d have said more if she’d been able,” persisted Straughan, ignoring the warning.
“We’re gaining nothing by speculating,” insisted the woman. “The kid’s missing and that’s that. It’s not our complication.”
“We won’t allow it to become one,” said Monsford, decisive at last. “We don’t tell Smith or Ambersom. Tell Jacobson to take any cable traffic referring to it off the general file.”
“There’s no cable traffic about Radtsic-or Muffin or Natalia’s inclusion in his extraction-on the general file,” scored Straughan, pleased at the small victory. “You ordered it a dedicated, Eyes Only file restricted to us three, remember? I haven’t even told Jacobson why we’re maintaining surveillance on Natalia Fedova.”
“Of course I remember what I ordered,” snapped Monsford, testily. “And don’t wait another three days before briefing me on anything relevant to what we’re doing.”
“I’ll instruct the cipher room and the duty officer to alert me at once, irrespective of time: you’ll know within minutes of my knowing,” assured Straughan, fantasizing himself interrupting Monsford in the final seconds of his nightly pony ride with Rebecca.
“That fucking man is insufferable!” declared the woman, minutes after Straughan left, knowing that was what Monsford wanted her to say.
“His card’s marked: he’s just too stupid to suspect he’s going to fall upon what Shelley called the thorns of life,” said Monsford, furious at the lack of respect from both Straughan and the woman.
She smiled, despite the implication that she’d overstepped the familiarity, gesturing toward the window and the sluggishly meandering Thames. “Another transfer across the river?”
“Maybe.” Monsford smiled back, emptily. He feared that Straughan had a meticulously kept graveyard map of where far too many skeletons-literally and figuratively-were buried for any serious move against the man.
Aubrey Smith had never intended he and his deputy would be the first at the hunting lodge, but neither to be in the psychologically disadvantaged position of having to apologize for their lateness caused by a road-closing accident on their way. Having to do so relegated them to the secondary role in which Smith had hoped to place the MI6 duo, the initial setback furthered, despite briefing her in advance, by Jane Ambersom’s below-zero frigidity at Rebecca Street’s inclusion in the top executive group. The debacle was very intentionally exacerbated by the warmness of Rebecca’s near-suffocating response to their apologies, assuring them the two-hour postponement had not been at all inconvenient (“the duck confit at lunch was wonderful and the 1962 burgundy exceptional”) and the tour of the lodge magnificent, prompting Gerald-pointedly not Director Monsford-and her to wish they had such safe houses at their disposal.
“But these are particularly unusual circumstances, aren’t they?” Rebecca concluded. For once the Chanel business suit was severely practical, although the inherent sexual frisson still sharply contrasted with its absence from the trouser-suited Jane.
“Have you spoken with Charlie?” Smith hurried on, anxious to get beyond the late-arrival discomfort.
“You’re in charge…” Monsford continued to patronize. He gestured toward a small conference table, with a five-chair setting replacing the earlier tribunal formality. “We’ve waited for your seating arrangements.”
Without replying, Smith put Jane beside him, nodding to the others to choose their places.
“What about Charlie Muffin?” asked the MI6 deputy.
“Not until we’ve talked things through,” refused Smith, recovering slightly. “I want us to be absolutely clear about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it, without the slightest possibility of misunderstandings.”
“It’s surely all remarkably simple,” Monsford bustled in, impatient to assume the other Director’s authority. “We’ve got the photographs my people took of Natalia and Sasha. We can put prints into genuine British passports, although obviously under false, English names. In the passports there’ll be Russian tourist visas: my technical division have provable Russian inks and Cyrillic type fonts for entry and exit stamps. The photographs are good enough for my technical experts again to gauge with sufficient accuracy both the height, weight, and physique of Natalia and the child, for a complete selection of English-manufactured and — labeled clothes, sufficiently worn for them not to appear obviously new. Everything will be shipped to the embassy in the diplomatic bag. My rezidentura there will put together a choice of Russian souvenirs a mother and her daughter would be expected to bring back to England. We make contact with Natalia and arrange a pickup-that’s going to need a lot more detailed consideration, if they’re under tight surveillance-to get them to the embassy, where everything I’ve set out will be waiting, including their confirmed reservations on a direct British Airways flight to London.…”
The pause was as prepared as the recitation for Rebecca to come in on cue: “Taking the urgency into account, our technicians have already started work on the passports and the clothing.”
“You might like to hold on that,” stopped the other woman. “We’ve already prepared a complete documentation selection.”
Smith enjoyed the stretched silence, reluctant to snap it. “You seem to have started a little prematurely.”
“As you have,” challenged Monsford.
“‘You’re in charge,’” quoted Smith, verbatim. “Isn’t that what you said?”
“This isn’t a competition.” stated Rebecca, her overeffusiveness gone.
“Absolutely not,” mocked Jane.
“The problem isn’t one of technical resources or facilities: we can forge or manufacture whatever we need,” stressed Smith, content that the balance had been restored. “The problem is physically getting under our protection-and in a way that can’t diplomatically or publicly rebound-a woman and child presumably under FSB surveillance. How do you suggest we do that?”
“That’s what Gerald meant about detailed consideration,” said Rebecca.
“The entire purpose of this meeting,” reminded Jane, as conscious as Aubrey Smith of their recovery. “What’s your proposal?”
“She and the child have to come to the embassy by themselves,” improvised Monsford, looking to his mistress for support.
“Once they’re in the building, technically British territory…” tried Rebecca, loyally.
“That territorial protection would cease the moment Natalia and Sasha took one step outside the embassy.” Smith sighed. “But we’re assuming they’re under tight surveillance. How do you get a message to Natalia to go to the embassy without it being intercepted by those watching her? And-assuming that somehow you do-can you prevent their being seized long before they get into the embassy in the first place?”
“At this moment I haven’t the slightest idea,” conceded the SIS Director, although not as an admission of defeat. “This is a planning session, for each of us to give the most constructive input. What’s your contact proposal?”
“Diversions,” declared the MI5 Director-General, enigmatically. “By letting the Russians imagine we’ve taken their bait and that we’re coming for mother and daughter. But then introduce diversion after diversion to send them around in circles until they don’t know which is the genuine extraction and which isn’t.”
“They don’t need to run around in circles,” disputed Rebecca. “They’ve got Natalia and Sasha. They’re the only people the FSB need constantly to watch.”
“You’re looking in the wrong direction, which is what I intend them to do,” argued the soft-voiced Smith. “Of course they’ve got Natalia and Sasha. But Natalia and Sasha aren’t who they really want, are they? They want Charlie Muffin.”