Now it was Passmore who lapsed into silence for a moment, good arm once more crossed to where his other had once been. “I’m convinced there’s something else. I haven’t the slightest evidence for the suspicion beyond instinct, but from some of the things Straughan said I believe there’s a something being kept from us. If it is, we’re being set up to be scapegoats.”
“Which I won’t let us be,” refused Smith, emptied by what he saw as the confirmation of what he’d feared since this current episode had begun.
“How, then, do we prevent it?” wondered the operations director
“Managing independent contact with Charlie could help.”
“Who could be following the same instinct by doing what he’s done, as well as asking for those separate passports,” suggested Passmore.
Harry Jacobson nervously lengthened his reconnaissance at the ferry terminal, the knot in the very pit of his already hollowed stomach tightening further in his despair of ever properly ensuring there wasn’t a snatch squad in the ebb and flow of people he was scouring for the first glimpse of Maxim Radtsic, hoping against hope that once more the man wouldn’t appear and that the operation would be aborted before it even began. It wasn’t just the apprehension of becoming the victim of an FSB counterplot that convinced Jacobson the Russian’s extraction was doomed. He was equally worried by the accumulated recognition that in the questionably professional planning there were far too many unforeseeable, abyss-deep pitfalls-the unexpected discovery of Andrei Radtsic’s live-in girlfriend the latest-in what had been conceived more like a tin-soldiered, make-believe war game commanded by incompetents safe in their London riverside bunkers. Now the game could be over before it even began because the most undisciplined tin soldier hadn’t obeyed orders, leaving him, if the analogy was continued, the first of the other tin soldiers likely to fall if it was all an FSB entrapment.
Jacobson reluctantly acknowledged that his alternative, walking away and lying that Radtsic hadn’t turned up, wasn’t feasible. The chances of the FSB executive director approaching another Western intelligence agency, the CIA the most likely, were too great and if the man did and there was eventual publicity, his career in MI6-already hanging by a thread, according to Monsford’s most recent diatribe-would be over. But he didn’t need to lie, he realized, finally identifying the Stalin look-alike barging his way through the shifting melee below.
Jacobson observed the postsailing-surveillance precautions, minimally encouraged at isolating no one showing undue interest in either of them, eventually following the Russian into a windowed observation lounge that provided a panoramic view of the red-walled, star-towered Kremlin as the ferry made its slow way parallel along the river. The view kept everyone on the fortress side, leaving the farthest section of the observation room free for Jacobson and Radtsic.
“You had time to settle everything with Elana?” opened Jacobson, choosing a gradual lead-up in the hope of limiting Radtsic’s reaction to Andrei’s romance.
“I think so,” said the older man, although uncertainly.
“Has she really changed her mind back again: agreed to come?”
“Yes.” The uncertainty was still there.
Contrary to which the nervousness wasn’t as visible today, Jacobson saw, as they were constantly intent upon their surroundings: even the chain-smoking seemed less. “What about you? You happier with everything than you were?”
“I still don’t understand the delay,” protested the Russian. “Why can’t we go right now? Tomorrow? Why can’t we make it tomorrow?”
“Tell me about Andrei,” avoided Jacobson, taking the obvious opening.
“Why are you bringing him into the conversation?” The Russian frowned.
“How do you think he’ll react at suddenly learning what’s happening?”
“I want to talk to you about that: make sure there’s a proper, safe proposal.”
“That’s the sort of care I’m trying to convince you we’re taking.”
“Maybe I overreacted earlier.”
They were drifting away from what needed to be talked about, Jacobson recognized. “You didn’t tell me how you thought Andrei might react.”
“It’ll be all right, when he settles down. Understands.”
The Kremlin was disappearing as the boat took the first bend in the river and people began spreading themselves more evenly around the enclosed lounge, lessening their isolation. “It’s the very beginning, the moment it happens, that I want to discuss.”
“What’s the problem?” demanded Radtsic at once, stopping with an unlit cigarette suspended before him.
“We’re making plans to get Andrei out but we’ve discovered he’s in a relationship.”
“What are you talking about? What relationship?” The cigarette remained unlighted.
“A girl, a fellow student. French.”
Radtsic finally fired the cigarette, smiling slightly. “He’s a full-blooded Russian.”
“You knew then?”
“No. What’s there to know?”
“She doesn’t appear to be a casual girlfriend. They’re living together.”
“What!”
The Russian’s surprise was genuine, gauged Jacobson. “Everything’s got to be very quick, once the extraction starts: no unexpected complications. What’s most important is avoiding any interference from the French authorities.”
“I told you Andrei needed to be warned,” reminded Radtsic.
“How often are you in contact: exchange letters or talk on the phone?”
“I’m sure all my telephones are monitored: that my mail is being intercepted. I’ve told you that. I also told you Andrei wouldn’t accept messages through an intermediary.”
“I’ve brought a pocket tape recorder,” said Jacobson. “He knows your voice. Make a recording, telling him to trust the person who brings it to him: that he must do what that person tells him.”
Radtsic shook his head, his inhalations now coming with chain-smoking regularity. “You’re not listening to me! He’ll think it’s a trick. Or something made under duress.”
“How, then, Maxim?” asked Jacobson, desperately. “Tell me how!”
“Elana,” announced the Russian. “She’ll have to be got out first, ahead of me, through Paris. You’ll have to coordinate their extraction, together with mine here.”
“Will she be allowed to travel?”
“I have the authority to approve it.”
“You’ve told me you’re being watched: that your telephone’s tapped and your mail opened,” argued Jacobson. “Your approving Elana’s travel would trigger every alarm.”
“It’s me they’re monitoring, not Elana. There’d be a period, a few days, before the connection was made.”
Jacobson suspected that Radtsic was trying to force the pace and didn’t blame the man: it actually improved the Russian’s control of events, and if Elana was already out of the country it greatly reduced the chances of her suddenly changing her mind. Once in France, she’d be committed, with no way back. And so would Radtsic. “I’ll put it to London: see if they’ll accept it as an alternative to what they’re putting in place now.”
“I can put everything in motion within two days,” promised the Russian, eagerly.
“Don’t!” ordered Jacobson, just as urgently. “You’ve got to wait for London’s approval. Prepare whatever preliminaries are necessary. But don’t positively initiate anything, not until we meet again. And, Maxim…”
“What?”
“Not here. Never again here, at the terminal.”
“Where, instead?”
Insurance time, Jacobson thought at once. “You’ve got my private number. Call tomorrow, at noon, from a public phone. I’ll give you the location then.”
“Will you have spoken to London by noon tomorrow?”
“About a lot of things,” confirmed Jacobson.