“Confronted with the positive evidence, Stout came close to collapsing, although he recovered by the time you came in,” resumed Robertson. “He was all over the place on his second polygraph.”
“He certainly wasn’t admitting anything from what I heard,” challenged Charlie.
“He doesn’t have to,” insisted Fish. “We’ve got the evidence.”
“Which isn’t enough, by itself, is it?” challenged Charlie, again. “You’ve got to sweep the entire embassy all over again, to ensure Stout hasn’t replaced the first lot of bugs you found.”
Robertson gave Charlie a condescending look. “What, exactly, do you imagine Harry’s people are doing right now?”
“It’s good to know everyone’s staying on top of their job,” said Charlie, unabashed. “And when that’s done, I guess you’re all looking forward to going home?”
Robertson slowly shook his head. “You think that all by yourself you can monitor three contact appeal phones and what might come in on them-sift the cranks from what could be your breakthrough call-as well as liaise with whatever your Russian militia friend might get from his end? The Director-General himself thinks you need help.”
“He hasn’t told me that,” said Charlie. Was this another act of desperation by the losing Aubrey Smith?
“He will when you speak to him; he’s expecting your call. I’ve arranged five o’clock, his time.”
Looking toward the electronics expert, Charlie said: “You staying on to hold my hand, too, Harry?”
“Obeying orders, as we all have to do,” replied the man.
Ignoring the inquiry panel, Charlie walked the length of their table to look down at the still displayed listening devices. To Fish, he said: “You got a glass?”
Fish paused, frowning, before handing Charlie the magnifying glass. Squinting down through it, Charlie said, “They’re not the same as those you found in my hotel, with the spur to their left. These are the same as the others that were found here the first time.”
“Of course they’re the same,” echoed Robertson, impatiently. “What else did you expect?”
“You’re right, of course,” agreed Charlie. “What else could I have expected?” More professionalism, he thought, answering his own question.
“I’m relieved that Robertson and Fish have solved their problem,” announced the Director-General.
“Have they?” questioned Charlie, from his suspended telephone booth.
Aubrey Smith hesitated. “They will have when the new sweep is completed and if we locate some fresh bugs that will give us even more evidence.”
“I would have appreciated being told directly that they’d been seconded to my investigation.”
There was another pause from the London end. “Let’s not get petulant. Robertson called to tell me what had been found in Stout’s rooms and how Stout being kept at the press conference helped. There was a natural progression to the conversation that followed. You can’t be expected to handle everything by yourself. I thought Paula-Jane could be brought in, too. Her speaking Russian would help, wouldn’t it? Maybe Halliday, too. MI6 have offered their help.”
“I don’t want any permanent embassy staff included,” argued Charlie.
“Why not?”
“There’s been very little so far to give me any confidence or faith in existing staff here. I want to maintain the separation.”
“Robertson and Fish are sure Stout’s their spy.”
“I’m not,” disputed Charlie.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“This was-and still is-an appallingly mismanaged embassy,” reminded Charlie. “My investigation should remain entirely independent from anyone here. Unquestionably the people with Robertson and Fish are sufficiently security cleared, but I need a system under which I personally examine and assess all recorded messages without my authority being questioned, apart from by you.” Charlie’s irritation was growing. “I know a secondary recording system has been installed ensuring calls will be taped to provide you with immediate access to every contact. I would like your guarantee that you will not instigate any action whatsover, as a result of what I have begun today, without prior discussion with me-”
“That is impudent insubordination!” interrupted the Director-General.
“That is a very necessary operational request, expressed as directly as it was to prevent the slightest misunderstanding between us,” persisted Charlie, glad that as always the exchange was being automatically recorded in London. “You have gone with me-trusted me-so far in risks that I have accepted to be entirely my responsibility. If I fail, I want that failure to be of my own mistakes and making, not through the interference of others following their insufficiently prepared initiatives or an agenda of which neither you nor I have prior knowledge.”
“I’ve read your file, know your history: Charlie Muffin, the maverick loner bucking all authority and opinions other than his own,” warned Smith. “And I’ve backed you all the way. Sometimes I’ve got to defer to collegiate pressure here.”
The internal counterintelligence department in which Robertson and Fish operated was under Jeffrey Smale’s direct control, Charlie remembered, many unexplained irritations abruptly becoming clearer.
The Director-General continued, “I think, upon reflection, that misunderstandings have occurred. Robertson can come back with his other two adjudicators, leaving his support staff with Fish and his people to provide your backup.”
Was Smith according him the battle honors? Or allowing Paul Robsertson a tactical retreat? “I’ll let Robertson know you want to talk to him again.” If he hadn’t won the battle he’d at least come out best in the skirmishes, Charlie decided.
“Don’t, for a single moment, forget anything I’ve told you,” pressed the man.
“Not for a single moment.”
Hunched on his bar corner stool at the Savoy Hotel, Charlie resisted the sink into self-pity, surprised at the feeling: self-pity wasn’t an emotion he very often, if ever, allowed himself. Of all his feelings after such an overfilled day-Natalia still firmly compartmented-the hovering depression was the easiest to identify. When he’d finally left the embassy, less than an hour ago, there had only been six calls to his dedicated telephone numbers: four of them, predictably, had been from journalists, seeking the earlier-refused personal interviews or follow-up information. The other two, predictable again, had been from cranks, a woman complaining that she was being sexually motivated by the FSB with a mind-controlling laser beam, and a man who interspersed his insistence upon a return to communist rule with a slurred rendition of one of the former Soviet Union’s marching anthems. Charlie had tried Pavel’s personal line as well as the two publicly supplied Petrovka numbers and got the answering service on all of them.
Working to retain his momentarily lost objectivity, Charlie acknowledged that it had been ridiculous to expect a worthwhile response so soon after the press conference. As yet, the appeal with its all-important contact numbers was virtually confined to television coverage and the late editions of two evening newspapers, and so far the TV coverage would not have been seen by anyone working normal office or factory hours. Charlie was encouraged by the one early evening TV repeat he had already seen in his suite by the station’s assurances of two additional and longer segments later that night, and the promise of an extended, although edited, version being carried the following day. He wasn’t, though, encouraged by his own hesitant stumbling and very visible perspiration during the press conference questioning. By his own judgement he’d appeared amateurish, suspiciously ill at ease, and haphazardly disheveled alongside the other three men. Briefly allowing a thought of Natalia to emerge from the locked part of his mind, Charlie hoped she would not have watched the full live coverage.