“Just listen to everything,” urged Charlie.
“You’ll tell me what’s going on, though, won’t you?”
“That’s our deal, isn’t it: mutual self-protection?”
Wilkinson’s cell phone was answered on its fourth ring without any identifying acknowledgment, and from the total silence beyond and the response delay Charlie guessed Wilkinson had quieted those around him. Charlie said: “You know who this is, Patrick. Don’t let the others waste their time trying to isolate where I am. It’s a public kiosk. You’ve probably discovered our technicians fitted trackers into the ones issued to us in London.”
“It’s good to hear from you at last.” Wilkinson’s voice sounded more computer generated than human.
Despite the pointlessness they’d still attempt to locate him, Charlie knew. “The reason for your being here hasn’t changed but I’m only working with you, Warren, and Preston. Tell London that. Tell them also that the four of us were part of a setup, me most of all. I want you to make sure that gets through to the Director-General.”
“I need-”
“The need is for the two of us to meet.”
“That’s what I want.”
It was going to be foot aching and tiresome, Charlie accepted, but there was no other way. “Are you familiar with the Moscow Metro system?”
“No.”
“It has a circle line, just like London. Here it’s called Kol’cevaja. Ride it, tomorrow, between ten and noon.”
“What else?”
“Just that.”
“Where will we meet?”
“Where-and when-I decide,” said Charlie.
“I don’t follow what you’re saying.….”
“The scanners haven’t picked up where I’m speaking from, have they?”
“I don’t follow that, either.”
“Everyone around you have been scanning ever since we started talking, trying to locate me, haven’t they?”
“We’re not all together.”
“What you’ve got to understand is that none of you will be able to find me now and none of you will be able to pick me up tomorrow, irrespective of how closely they stay with you. I’m telling you-and I want you to tell the Director-General this as well-that we were decoys and that I know Monsford’s operation has gone bad.”
“You expect me to go around and around in circles, until you decide to make contact?” demanded Wilkinson.
“That’s precisely what I expect. I also expect all of the others to go around and around with you, although pretending not to be with you. I’ll find you but neither you nor anyone with you will be able to locate me. I’ll only approach you when I’m completely satisfied you’re alone.”
“What about the reason for our being here.”
“It’s still active but without MI6. Make that very clear to London, And tell the Director-General that the other extraction has hugely increased the value of ours.”
“Thanks for meeting me,” said Jane Ambersom.
“What meeting?” said James Straughan, pointedly. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being able to talk to her.
She smiled. “There isn’t one. You know you can trust me as I know I can trust you.”
“We committed ourselves when you called last night and by my being here,” said Straughan. She’d concealed her car among a line of other anonymous vehicles close to the Oval underground station at which she’d been waiting for him, fifteen minutes earlier.
“Smith told me all that happened at the Foreign Office yesterday.”
“Told only you?”
“Passmore was with me.”
“I’m not sure whether what I was told is the truth.”
“It probably was not.”
Straughan didn’t answer as spontaneously as Jane had hoped, staring directly ahead at the empty cars. At last he said: “More than probably not.”
It was a chance she had to take, Jane decided. “Monsford set us up, didn’t he, with Charlie and his family?”
“He intended to sabotage it.”
“Is he still trying?”
“I don’t know. It’s a repeat of what happened to you, Monsford protecting himself.”
“Is Charlie in physical danger?”
Straughan didn’t reply.
“James?”
“He should be careful.”
Jane felt nothing, neither surprise nor anger. “Aubrey Smith thinks Monsford could still get away with it, bringing us down in the process.”
Straughan frowned across the car. “The French have so far refused to see anyone from the Paris embassy, not until we respond to their demand for an explanation. They’re seeing the Russian chef du protocol, though. Radtsic’s refusing cooperation until we get Elana and the boy here. Jacobson’s having an emergency meeting with Monsford right now. Monsford told Rebecca there’s no reason for either her or me to be there with him: that’s how I was able to get away.” He looked instinctively at his watch. “I can’t be much longer.”
“Where are you supposed to be?”
“With a dementia specialist: discussing getting my mother into care.”
“You think Monsford’s making his escape arrangement?” risked Jane, openly.
“We know he’s making his escape arrangement,” said Straughan.
“We?” isolated Jane, instantly.
“Rebecca is determined she won’t go the same way you did.”
“You going to tell her about this?”
“No.”
“So she’s making her own escape arrangements.”
“She imagines she is.”
“What about you?”
“I have but it’s difficult.”
“We committed ourselves the moment you got into this car,” reminded Jane.
Straughan smiled. “Haven’t lost your touch, have you?”
“I lost it the last time. I’m not going to let the motherfucker beat me again. What’s your difficulty?”
“He’s had his own sound system installed in the office. But he’s using it selectively.”
Jane answered his earlier smile. “So you’ve installed yours?”
“After we discovered what he was doing. He’s always very careful to avoid anything incriminating.”
“How much have you got?”
“All of it.”
“Including how Charlie was to be used?”
“All of it,” repeated Straughan. “The difficulty is how to avoid suicidal self-destruction getting it to those who’ll sit in judgment. It contravenes every internal security regulation as well as the entire Official Secrets Act.”
“I agree you couldn’t personally make it available,” said Jane, the excitement stirring through her.
“You couldn’t, either,” insisted the man. “You’d be even more culpable after all that Charlie did. And what Monsford did to you.”
“There could be a way: maybe even more than one.”
“It’s better you don’t tell me,” Straughan said, hurriedly.
He was backing off, Jane recognized. “Would you make all you’ve got available to me?”
Straughan hesitated. “I didn’t imagine I’d find a problem answering that.”
“I didn’t believe Monsford was capable of sacrificing me.”
“If it hadn’t been you it would have been me: he gave himself two choices. By accepting the sideways transfer you saved me.”
“I know,” said Jane, tensed.
“So it’s payback time?”
Right on the button, Jane thought. She said: “I’d appreciate that.”
“A source investigation could only lead to me.”
“It’s not inevitable,” argued the woman. “I’m assuming Rebecca’s escape is her own copy?”
“It’s the originaclass="underline" mine’s the copy.”
“Could yours be forensically proven to be a copy?”
“No.”
“Then there’s a way to prevent your ever being discovered.”
“I made a mistake, coming here like this. I wish I hadn’t,” declared Straughan.
“We haven’t met, remember?”
“I should get back.”
“Are you seriously considering putting your mother into care?”
“I’ll do everything I can not to.”
“Then you’ve got to save yourself, as Rebecca is determined to save herself.”
“Shit!”
“Rebecca’s double protection is that she got her recordings from you and did her duty bringing them to Bland or Palmer not just to expose Monsford but to protect the service from your ever making it public,” bullied Jane, devoid of hypocrisy. “And that would put you before a security-closed court who’d jail you for a very long time. You wouldn’t be able to go on caring for your mother from a prison cell, would you, James? Without a job you wouldn’t even be able to get her anything but the minimum of care.”