“Well enough to communicate in Polish: not draw unnecessary attention?” pressed Smith.
“Well enough to debrief in the language,” confirmed Charlie, feeling the first spurt of renewed hope. “Sasha obviously only has limited Russian.”
“We’ve prepared Polish documentation,” disclosed the MI5 Director. “There’s no matching entry to exit visa regulations for rail or road crossings. Once they’re across the Polish border, they’re safe. Actually in the European Union.”
“Yes,” agreed Charlie. “Once in Poland they’d be safe.”
“Which brings us back to how to reach Natalia,” said Rebecca, directly addressing Aubrey Smith. “Tell us how your diversions are going to achieve that?”
“Diversions?” queried Charlie, the feeling of satisfaction growing.
“The initial phone call can be easily managed,” insisted the MI5 Director-General, his entire concentration upon Charlie. “What we need from you is a way or a method-hopefully both-to make that contact with Natalia: the whole extraction stands or falls by our achieving that. And yours is the detailed knowledge upon which it depends.”
Exactly as he wanted it, Charlie recognized, the final satisfaction engulfing him. Don’t overplay it, came the balancing warning. “I understand.”
“But can you provide it?” demanded Rebecca.
“I’m sure I can,” said Charlie, maintaining the low-key reaction.
“How soon?” persisted Monsford.
“I need to think it through. I’ll have enough to discuss by tomorrow.”
“Sufficient for us to start moving by tomorrow?” picked up Smith.
“Definitely,” promised Charlie, tightly. “Sufficient to start tomorrow.”
Monsford and Rebecca sat tightly together in the rear of the car returning them to London, the soundproof glass screen fully raised between them and their driver.
Monsford said: “I didn’t enjoy playing the complete idiot back there.”
“You played it as it had to be played,” flattered the woman. “The recordings will show Smith forcing the pace, initiating the moves that will go wrong.”
“You think the woman might really have been in Potsdam with Putin?”
Rebecca shrugged. “Charlie says it’s possible. Who knows?”
“If she was-as well as being as high as she’s clearly been in the KGB as well as the FSB-she really would be a hell of a catch, wouldn’t she?” mused the MI6 Director.
“Maxim Radtsic became the senior deputy to the KGB chairman for the last year of its existence and still has that position today,” reminded Rebecca. “Getting him across, which we know we’re going to do, is the higher prize.”
“Getting both across would be the biggest coup of all,” said Monsford. “Coming so soon after the Lvov affair, it would reduce Russian intelligence-and Putin’s well-established Cold War determination-to a pile of dust.”
“If we tried to do both we’d end up with one extraction getting in the way of the other and risk finishing up with neither,” Rebecca warned. “Natalia and the child are our diversion to get Radtsic out. That’s enough.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Monsford sighed, as the car headed up the embankment toward Cheyne Walk. “Do you want to eat in or out?”
“It’s been a long day and will probably be longer tomorrow,” said Rebecca. “Let’s go straight home. After that lunch, all I feel like eating is you.” And that, she reflected, was an exaggeration.
Jane Ambersom flustered into the Mount Street restaurant, irritated at her second delay that day, searching anxiously around and smiling in relieved recognition at the wave from Barry Elliott, rising to meet her.
“You got my message that I’d be late?” she said, as the American reached her.
“Just as I was leaving the office: cleared my decks in the extra hour you gave me,” said her FBI liaison, leading her back to their table. “Something unexpected delay you?”
Jane nodded to the offered chardonnay. “An out-of-town meeting overran.”
“Anything of mutual interest?”
“Mutual to you? Or the CIA?”
“I don’t understand the question?” The man frowned.
“I’m supposed to act as MI5 liaison to both. I haven’t heard from the CIA.”
Elliott smiled, with schoolboy shyness. “I guess they’re nervous of you guys. They got their fingers badly burned the last time.”
“So it’s just you and I?” said Jane, risking the flirtation.
“Just you and I,” confirmed the American. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“Nothing that’s emerged so far: no really useful chatter,” avoided the woman, although carefully allowing the uncertainty.
“You don’t sound very sure,” quickly picked up the man, whose youthfulness was heightened by a schoolboy enthusiasm and a flop-forward forelock he constantly tried to sweep back into place, as he did at that moment.
“You are aware of all the rumors coming out of Moscow about some impending upheaval?” Jane continued to avoid.
“Nothing beyond the general traffic,” said Elliott. “Your people think it’s got some resonance?”
“We’ve got it flagged after the Lvov business,” she said, nodding to the waiter that she’d have the same at Elliott, who’d studied the menu more thoroughly.
“I’m not sure what you’re telling me,” complained the man.
“There’s nothing to tell. It could be coincidence, so soon after,” refused Jane, content that she had done enough not just to plant but to water a seed she might choose to cultivate further if she suspected she was being offered up as a scapegoat for the second time.
Which was a similar although not such a self-protective thought that came to James Straughan as he replaced the telephone in his Berkhamsted bedroom, long after he’d given up hope of hearing from the night-duty officer. It wasn’t the alert to which Gerald Monsford had decreed he should be awakened but it was close enough and Straughan was glad he at once called Cheyne Walk, sure from the strain evident in the MI6 Director’s answering voice that he’d fulfilled his fantasy and interrupted the bastard in flagrante.
“I got everything you wanted to England!” protested Maxim Radtsic.
“You should have told me, before doing it,” said Elana.
“You’re shouting,” warned Radtsix, looking around him. They’d parked the car and were walking slowly along the riverbank again.
“So are you!”
“Why should I have told you?”
“Because you should!” said Elana, frowning at her own childlike response. She’d known from her first case packing trial-and ensured it further by overpacking it on the trials that followed-that Radtsic would dismiss it as impractical and hoped he would reconsider their fleeing because she believed he was overreacting to coincidence. Now she’d lost every family memento.
“Why are you being like this!”
“I don’t believe we have to run.”
“Elana!” protested Radtsic, anguished at how it was going to be.
“I’m frightened: too frightened.”
The arrangement had been for Radtsic to meet Harry Jacobson that night in Gorky Park, close to the Ferris wheel where families with their children would have provided cover. Jacobson waited, increasingly apprehensive, for an hour after their appointed time before abandoning the rendezvous. He intentionally drove in the opposite direction from the embassy, although the registration would have been traceable, the fear not subsiding until he’d zigzagged through several streets. What the hell had gone wrong now? came the mantra pumping through his head.
“Is something wrong!” demanded Andrei.
“Nothing’s wrong. I just felt like calling you,” replied Elana.
“I’ve written to Father.”
“We haven’t had a letter here.”
“I sent it to his office.”
“I’m not sure that was a good idea.”
“He gave me a poste restante number I could use.”
“Should I tell him to expect the letter?”
“It’s up to you. It’s nothing serious. Nothing to worry about, I mean.”