“If Elana and Andrei show up,” qualified Miller.
They didn’t. Elana arrived precisely on time but alone and as both men rose to meet her, Miller said: “I wish I hadn’t said that.”
The station chief ordered Chablis for Elana and as the waiter left said: “Why isn’t Andrei with you?”
“He’s coming later,” said Elana. She was the epitome of Parisian chic in a fitted black suit that heightened the blondness of her tightly coiled chignon.
“Is there a problem?” asked Abrahams.
“He said he has a late class and would join us when it finished.”
“So there is a problem?” said Abrahams, instinctively checking his watch, which read 7:35.
Elana sipped her wine, not looking directly at either man. “He doesn’t want to do it. Neither do I.”
“But you’re here, to meet us?” said Miller.
“We don’t have a choice, do we?”
“Is that what Andrei thinks?” pressed Abrahams.
“It’s what I’ve tried to convince him. I’m not sure that I have.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve accepted I have to run, leave everything.”
“Andrei can’t stay,” insisted Miller, shaking his head against the waiter’s approach for their order.
“I know.”
“You can’t have more time to persuade him. Maxim Mikhailovich’s flight has been booked,” urged Miller. “Everything is arranged to a schedule.”
“I know that, too. That’s why I’m here.”
“Will you come with us without Andrei?”
“I don’t want to face that choice.”
“Is it the girl, Yvette?” suggested Abrahams.
Elana shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, although they seem very close. She’s very pretty. I like her.”
“If he doesn’t come tonight we’ll have to meet tomorrow,” said Abrahams.
“I really don’t think you’ll have more success than me trying to persuade him,” cautioned Elana.
“We’ll guarantee him a place at another university in England, reading the same subject,” promised Miller.
“Pretending to be someone he isn’t: reborn at the age of twenty,” said Elana, nodding to more wine.
“It’s preferable to the alternative,” risked Abrahams.
“Is it?” she demanded, pointedly.
They ordered at eight o’clock, Elana dismissively asking for a plain omelet, both men choosing steak just as disinterestedly. At Elana’s hinting look at the diminishing bottle, Miller reluctantly ordered a second Chablis. Andrei arrived as their food was served, refusing to eat but gulping the offered wine. Elana and the two MI6 officers only bothered with token gestures of eating.
“We can understand your uncertainty,” said Miller.
“No, you can’t,” rejected Andrei, sharply.
“We didn’t create this situation,” tried Abrahams. “We’re offering your only way out of it.”
“It’s not the only way out!” refused Andrei, loudly, helping himself to more wine.
“The only safe way out,” accepted Abrahams.
“Is your relationship with Yvette the problem?” risked Miller.
Andrei’s head came up demandingly. “All of it’s a problem.”
“Yvette being one of them?” pressed Miller.
“Of course.”
“All the preparations to get you out are made now,” said Miller. “It’s possible, when you’re settled, that we could bring Yvette for a reunion. There’s no reason why she couldn’t come to England, is there?”
“Could you do that?” seized Andrei, the hostility lessening.
“I could suggest it, when things settle.”
“What are the preparations for our leaving?” intruded Elana.
“It’s to be within the next thirty-six hours,” generalized Miller. “We’ll meet tomorrow, for me to give you specific pickup arrangements: I’ll call tomorrow to say where. It’s really very simple. You’ll be driven directly to an airfield where a private plane will be waiting. You will be flown to London and reunited with Maxim Mikhailovich that same evening.”
“Airfield or airport?” asked Andrei.
“That hasn’t been decided yet,” lied Miller. “It won’t, obviously, be Charles de Gaulle. There’s a lot of facilities available all along the northern coast of France.”
“Did you mean what you said, about Yvette?” asked Andrei.
“Of course.”
“This is the only way for you all to stay together,” insisted Abrahams.
“I need more time,” demanded Andrei.
“You can’t have more time,” refused Abrahams. “It’s got to be now.”
“We’ll be waiting for your call,” said Elana.
The two men remained at their table after the Russians left, each waiting for the other to open the conversation. It was Abrahams who did. “The steak’s too cold now.”
“We’ll order more,” decided Miller. “And get Paul in from the car.”
“What do you think?”
“We could have a problem. That’s why I kept all the planning so vague.”
“Do you think Elana would leave without him?”
“I don’t know.” Miller shrugged.
“London will never agree to the kid being reunited with his girlfriend!”
“Of course they won’t,” agreed Miller. “But if it gets the awkward sod to England, it won’t matter, will it? He’ll be in the bag.”
As he joined them Painter said: “How’d it go?”
“Christ knows,” said Abrahams. “Let’s order some more food. And some decent red wine.”
21
Rebecca Street was already in Monsford’s office when Straughan entered. Neither looked at the other. As he leaned sideways to start his recording system Monsford said: “I want to hear everything’s ready: that nothing can go wrong.”
The operations director waited until Monsford straightened, nodding to the unseen switch. “Everything working as it should?”
“Perfectly,” frowned Monsford.
“Let’s hope Radtsic’s extraction does the same.”
Monsford sighed. “I’m due at the Foreign Office at eleven. Diplomatically everything’s going to hell. So let’s get on with it, shall we?”
“Are we included in the meeting?” interrupted the woman.
Monsford shook his head. “Restricted to directors and government liaison: their decision. I’ll fill you in later.”
Straughan set out the operation chronologically, with Maxim Radtsic’s 6:30 A.M. departure from his Moscow apartment to the FSB’s Lubyanka headquarters, at which he’d remain for fifteen minutes, with an additional five allowed as failsafe, to establish his arrival. He’d assured Jacobson his leaving so quickly afterward would not be logged: according to Lubyanka procedure, he would be registered as being on the premises although absent from his desk: there’d be a staff voice mail that he was in unspecified conference. As a precaution against an unexpected summons, Radtsic would keep his pager with him. From Lubyanka he would be followed separately throughout the briefly broken journey by Jacobson and one of the three in-flight escorts. The other two would be waiting at Sheremetyevo airport to ensure Radtsic’s unimpeded arrival and passage through all the embarkation formalities. Radtsic’s arrival at Sheremetyevo would be the signal for the private plane’s departure from Northolt and for the Paris rezidentura to pick up Radtsic’s wife and son for Orly, where the landing and departure were factored for one hour, which again included a failsafe for unexpected delay. Straughan expected the linkup and takeoff to take no longer than thirty minutes. By that time Radtsic would be airborne and beyond interception, with just three hours’ flying time from Heathrow. There, transport and cleared-in-advance arrival would already be in place. An hour earlier the plane carrying Elana and Andrei would have landed at Northolt, from where they would be taken to the prepared safe house in Hertfordshire to await Radtsic.
Straughan rose as he finished talking, glancing imperceptibly although blankly at Rebecca, to put in front of Monsford the thin file from which he’d recited the details. “Everything’s there, annotated against the timings.”
“Nine thirty tomorrow morning,” Monsford at once challenged. “Why not today: I told you I wanted it all over as quickly as possible.”