The fresh outburst was less strident than those that preceded it. “You’ve already got enough for an arrest!” demanded the woman.
“The answer to that will have to wait for the next conference,” evaded Charlie, rising to bring the other three men up with him, to yet another protesting uproar.
“That was a disaster!” insisted Robertson, back in the anteroom.
“It did everything and more to achieve what I wanted,” rejected Charlie.
“What if you don’t get a name from it?” persisted Robertson.
“Today will bring something out of the woodwork.”
Robertson appeared, oddly, to become aware of Stout listening to the exchange. “Let’s hope so.”
“I’ll walk you to the gate,” Charlie told Pavel. As they went across the forecourt, Charlie spoke to the other man of his rejection of Robertson’s assessment, which he translated.
Pavel said: “He’s got every reason to be doubtful. To be honest, so am I.”
“We laid out enough bait,” insisted Charlie, wishing he sounded more confident.
“We need to establish undetected personal communication,” said Pavel. “What about individual cell phones?”
“We might as well stick tracking devices up our asses,” dismissed Charlie. “In England, we foiled dozens of Islamic terrorist plots before they had been mounted and captured the perpetrators of a lot more that we missed the first time through mobile phones. Once detected by scanners, they can be listened to and the users traced to within fifty yards by the electronic signals they emit. We’d be more discreet standing on street-corner boxes, with megaphones.”
Pavel lifted his shoulders in an awkward shrug. “Stay with phones at street kiosks then?”
“By far the safest.”
When they stopped, just before the gatehouse, the Russian suggested the already used cafe as another unmonitored meeting place, allowing an intervening gap of two days for incoming calls to begin on the publicly announced numbers. “During that time we can make our choice of telephone kiosks; get some numbers to exchange. From now on, Guzov’s people are going to permanently be just one step behind both of us, probably literally.”
“Which will make the Varvarka cafe an important test,” acknowledged Charlie, confident of his own trail-clearing ability but wondering about Pavel’s.
One of the designated telephones was ringing when Charlie entered his assigned embassy apartment and, for the briefest moment, he hesitated before snatching it up.
From the unexpected internal line Robertson said, “Something’s come out of the woodwork.”
17
Charlie Muffin was engulfed by a feeling of deja vu on the threshold of the spy-catchers’ inquiry room. Paul Robertson occupied the chief inquisitor’s position from which he’d conducted Charlie’s interrogation, flanked by the same male and female team. The two polygraph technicians were at their momentarily quiet equipment, but looking far happier than during Charlie’s session and Charlie recognized on either side of the door the two heavy-handed guards who’d stood threateningly over him before he’d ridiculed his polygraph examination. Harry Fish was to the left of the judgemental bench; in front of him, the familiar white handkerchief upon which lay three pinhead bugs. As Charlie came fully into the room, Reg Stout, in the same chair upon which Charlie had sat, was saying vehemently, “I have only ever seen devices like these once before in my life, when the original six were discovered in the telephone relay box.”
“And I’ve already told this inquiry I found them in your compound flat, taped to the underside of a chest drawer,” insisted Fish. “And shown you the Polaroid photographs, prior to those we also digitally took later as part of official evidence.”
“What’s your explanation for the bugs being where they were?” demanded the unnamed man who had orchestrated Charlie’s confrontation.
“I’m being set up!” protested Stout, his voice rising. “You won’t find my fingerprints on any of it.”
“The surface of the devices is too small to register fingerprints: they have to be handled with tweezers,” dismissed Fish. “There’s enough surface, though, on tweezers we did find in your apartment. There’s only one set of prints-yours.”
“What about the logs?” demanded Stout, desperately.
“Your fingerprints are on the spirals and the log cover,” said Fish.
“I want a lawyer,” demanded Stout, his voice wavering almost beyond control. “You’re framing me, with an illegal search. Planted stuff. You need a warrant.”
“You will be appointed a lawyer when you arrive back to London, under arrest,” came in Robertson. “And to help you when you meet with your lawyer, it was not an illegal search. We have a warrant to search wherever and however we want in this embassy, including all staff accommodation.”
Abruptly, in Russian, Charlie said, “It’ll go easier for you, Reg, if you make a full confession.”
Attracted by Charlie’s voice, Stout turned to the side of the room where Charlie stood and said: “I should have guessed you’d be part of it, too.”
“What did you say?” Robertson asked Charlie.
“You tell them what I said, Reg,” hopefully suggested Charlie, in English.
“How the hell can I?” protested the man. “You know I don’t speak the fucking language!”
“I know you’ve told me you don’t.”
“And I don’t! I’ll go to the papers about this-expose you all.”
“You’re a signatory to the Official Secrets Act, which precludes you or your representatives speaking about anything official to any media outlet or organization,” said the woman panelist, whom Charlie presumed to be a government lawyer.
“You will remain overnight, under guard, in your apartment, from which the telephone will be disconnected preventing your contacting anyone outside this embassy,” officially recited Robertson. “You’ll be repatriated, still under guard, on the first direct London flight tomorrow. In London, you will be formally arrested and will appear, in camera, before a magistrate. A lawyer will be present to represent you at this and any subsequent hearings.”
“I’m being set up,” repeated the ex-army major, in a near hysterical babble. “I’ve served my country, loyally, all my life. . got medals. . decorations. . this isn’t right.”
“Take him back to his quarters,” ordered Robertson, gesturing to the two waiting guards.
Stout twisted, his face contorted, to the advancing men. He stood, obediently, at the gesture from the larger of his two custodians and was led, unprotesting, from the room.
“What did you say to him in Russian?” Robertson again demanded of Charlie.
“I told him it would be better for him if he made a full confession.”
“Why did you tell him that?” asked the woman.
“He’s always insisted he can’t speak Russian,” reminded Charlie. “He was distressed. . disorientated. I thought there was a chance he might have slipped up and answered me in Russian. It would have undermined his denials, don’t you think?”
The three at the table frowned between themselves. Dismissively Robertson said, “Not particularly. But thanks for your effort.”
“Why’d you go back to Stout after clearing him the first time?” asked Charlie.
Robertson hesitated. “We didn’t clear him absolutely: his original polygraph was better than Dawkins’s or Sotley’s and that’s all we had, contradictions and inconsistencies in their separate statements. No supporting evidence. London’s decided that was because of their arrogance: that they were affronted having to undergo the polygraph at all. They performed much better under more formal investigation in England. They’re both being prematurely retired, of course, because of their obvious incompetence but there were some inconsistencies between what Stout told us the first time and what Dawkins said, under reexamination. .”
“. . so we decided to go back to Stout,” picked up Fish. “As small as they are, these bugs have miniscule transformers, to connect with their outside receivers. And they generate a pulse, which we picked up when we swept Stout’s apartment. We found them within an hour of your press conference getting underway.”