Kings of Many Castles Page 12

  She couldn’t let it happen! They’d combine against her, cut her out. “It’s a resolve to an operational difficulty. I’m prepared to give it a trial. If, for any reason, it doesn’t prove functional we’ll have to come to some other arrangement.”

  “Sure we will,” smiled Kayley, allowing Olga her escape. Won! he thought.

  “You’re right,” agreed Natalia, looking up from the transcript of Charlie’s interview with Vera Bendall. “It throws up a lot of questions.”

  “Most of which I didn’t follow through,” conceded Charlie, self-critically. The day had continued unexpectedly but in Charlie’s opinion far more productively than he’d anticipated. Kayley had used the fact that Charlie supposedly had to catch up with the newly produced information—as they did from his interview with Vera Bendall—to argue their first American embassy assessment should be postponed until the following morning and Charlie had gone along with it because the Russian forensic material, the incomplete KGB dossier and the preliminary medical report upon George Bendall were new, although then he couldn’t have guessed how important he would judge one of them to be.

  “When are you going to see her again?”

  “Directly after the U.S. embassy meeting. I’ll fix it there with Olga.”

  “You really think the embassy arrangements will be practical?”

  “Between us we’re covered from two sides. I’ll take my chances getting what I want from America.” At the moment all he wanted was one specific statistic.

  From anyone else it would have sounded arrogant but from Charlie it didn’t, thought Natalia. If only her professional trust could cross over to their personal situation. “You think from what Vera Bendall said the KGB were using him—had a use for him?”

  Charlie shook his head. “It could be. But it doesn’t fit! You were KGB. Can you imagine them taking on someone like George Bendall!”

  “I wasn’t operational,” reminded Natalia. “He could have had his uses because he was unpredictable.”

  “Two other things that don’t fit,” itemized Charlie. “How does a drunken, unpredictable misfit like George Bendall, who made a living robbing tourists, suddenly get—and hold—a job in a TV studio? Any job, for that matter?”

  “I was going to ask you that. I don’t know.”

  “Try the second. George Bendall retained British nationality. How did he get accepted into the Russian army?”

  “At the time the Russian army was made up of conscripts and volunteers from fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.”

  “The United Kingdom wasn’t one of them.”

  “You think it’s linked to what Vera Bendall said about the KGB?”

  “The Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye is military intelligence,” reminded Charlie. “What influence would the KGB have had?”

  “Enough to get him in, if they’d wanted.”

  Charlie hesitated at the direct question but decided things were sufficiently relaxed between them now. “Did the instruction come from your ministry for Olga to tell Kayley and I that things were missing from Peter Bendall’s dossier?”

  There was no hesitation from Natalia. “No,” she said at once. “It didn’t come from the control group, either. So it’s got to be internal Militia, blame apportioning.”

  It was an essential part of their self-imposed personal security that each had their own, independent telephone line into the Lesnaya apartment. Natalia rose hurriedly at the recognizable ring of hers, anxious that it wouldn’t wake Sasha. Natalia’s was the shortest end of the conversation and she spoke with her back to him so Charlie only picked up isolated words.

  She remained by the telephone after replacing it, turning to him. “George Bendall’s recovered consciousness. And the guards at Lefortovo found his mother’s body an hour ago. They didn’t take her bra away after she’d spoken with you. She hanged herself with it.”

  For once in her life Vera Bendall hadn’t looked away, accepting everything and anything, thought Charlie.

  10

  From the upper stairway platform on to which he emerged from the lift Charlie had an elevated overview of the abruptly converted U.S. embassy basement and decided that all the stories he’d ever heard of plots of quicksand being turned overnight into fully carpeted, kitchen-gimmicked American estates of barbered lawns, helicopter emplaced matured trees and individual boat docks on canals really were true after all.

  He was gazing down into a plasterboarded and sectioned beehive of criminal investigation, complete with its buzzing inhabitants of drones and worker bees. At its very center was the incident room itself, seried by mostly already occupied desks each with their own individual, screen flickering computer, telephone and individually dedicated fascimile terminal. At one end, dominated by a raised dais and a cleared desk larger than the others, were two only miniature electronic viewing screens flanked by four trestle-mounted static boards and at the opposing end a gantried projection camera. Linked by an open corridor was what Charlie recognized to be a mobile forensic laboratory. It was bisected by two long, metal-topped benches—each broken by suction-fitted sinks—upon which were mounted three more computers. There were four obvious although elaborate microscopes, each with two separate but comparison-capable viewing bases and four pieces of mysterious electronic machinery. On its own table, quite alone, was a large, bellow-middled piece of equipment which Charlie guessed to be a camera but wasn’t sure. A third, corridor-connected separation had a inner battlement of gray filing cabinets in the very middle of which was a triptych of corner-to-corner archival computers, their screens already filling with type being entered by hunched operators.

  Encircling everything was an appropriate honeycomb of individual outer rooms, each again with its momentarily dead-eyed computer, filing cabinet, telephone and fax machine. Each had access to the inner, communal area through a door.

  The entire, unroofed complex was whitely illuminated by a sky of fluorescent tubing and lifted from the basement concrete by an artificial wooden floor—already covered by sound-deadening carpet—beneath which was concealed what Charlie calculated to be literally miles of operating cable and wiring.

  Like the wrongly sexed but omnipotent Queen Bee he’d clearly appointed himself to be, John Kayley stood in the main room, expansive buttock perched on the large command desk. Charlie was surprised to see Olga Melnik beside the American; he’d expected her to be at George Bendall’s bedside. In which order would she choose to tell him? They both looked up at Charlie’s entry and Kayley waved, gesturing him down. Charlie was conscious of briefly becoming the focus of everyone in the main room as he descended into it and supposed Olga had been, earlier, even though there were no forgotten shirt-buttons today. There wasn’t, in fact, a shirt: the business suit came right up to her neck, Mao-style. As he got within hearing, Kayley said, “What do you think?”

  Charlie said, “I liked it in the movie.”

  Kayley allowed himself a tight smile. “This isn’t make-believe.”

  “I hope it isn’t,” said Charlie.

  Kayley’s smile went.

  “Vera Bendall’s dead. The son’s come round.” The words collided almost comically in Olga’s eagerness to get them out.

  Charlie allowed the apparent surprise. “Dead? How?”

  “Hanged herself, with underwear that was returned to her for your visit.”

  It was a poor attempt to spread blame. “Why wasn’t it taken away, afterwards?”

  “It was a mistake,” conceded Olga.

  Should he hit them this early? The suspicion was justified, particularly in view of the incomplete KGB file and he’d forewarned Natalia, for her to be ready. “Did she hang herself?”

  “Her neck didn’t break, if that’s what you mean. She suffocated, choked to death,” said Olga.

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” said Charlie. “Under whose administration does Lefortovo come, militia or FSB?”

  “Jesus!” said Kayley, understanding.

  Olga d
id, too. “The FSB,” she said, flatly. It was a suggestion she had to pass on as quickly as possible to Leonid Zenin. The crisis committee were meeting that morning.

  Charlie said, “She was, officially, accorded embassy recognition. We’d like a copy of the autopsy report. And for that autopsy to be as detailed as possible.”

  Olga wasn’t sure a post-mortem was planned. One certainly had to be carried out now. “Of course.”

  “I listened to your meeting with her, read it, too,” said Kayley. “She was upset, being kept there.”

  “Suicidally so?” demanded Charlie.

  The American shrugged. “Who knows?”

  Charlie talked looking around the prefabricated installation in apparent admiration, wondering how long it would take him to find what he wanted, if indeed it was here to be found. And then how to proceed. He was still working more from instinct than fact: the Russian forensic photographs were inconclusive and by themselves were insufficient. It was inevitable, he supposed, that the Russians would take offense at the questions that had to be asked. Others were necessary first. Or were they? Was he working—planning to work—for the possible benefit of George Bendall? Or to prove wrong experts who’d dismissed what he’d been so sure of? Wasn’t it paranoia, in fact, to imagine he had to behave like this at all, saying nothing until he was sure in the belief he might prevent the convenient evidence of an open and shut case being tampered with, as the old KGB files in his opinion had clearly been tampered with? The self-doubt surprised Charlie. But it wasn’t just self-doubt. It extended, as always, to Natalia. If his instincts were only half right she risked being caught up in open organizational warfare, even. She hadn’t positively accused him of exaggeration but he knew that’s what she was thinking, having warnings heaped upon her without having them fully explained. It was important, Charlie had determined, for Natalia to reach the conclusions for herself, without prejudging by having his opinions thrust upon her. Which didn’t answer his immediate uncertainty. Follow the tried and tested instinct, he told himself. “What about Bendall? Can he be interviewed?”

  “The recovery’s intermittent,” said Olga. “I’m going back to the hospital this afternoon.”

  “You’ve already seen him?”

  “He wasn’t aware of me, aware of anything. Didn’t respond to anything I said.”

  There was no hurry for them to see the man, Charlie decided. He was aware of Olga moving from foot to foot, as if she was impatient to be somewhere else. He was probably more impatient, for other reasons. He looked around the room again. “So what’s the set-up?”

  “Heads up, everybody!” Kayley called. “Meet-the-folks time.” The tour of the installation was conducted with the pride of a man showing off a new house. To most the acknowledgement was smiles and head nods, although the scientist controlling the forensic section and the man in charge of archives were introduced by name. The circuit finished at the side offices surrounding the main room, where two adjoining annexes were specifically set aside for Charlie and Olga.

  “And I’m right behind you,” declared the American, indicating the office directly after Charlie’s.

  I bet you are, thought Charlie. “Very hugger-mugger.”

  “You going to need any help with the computers?” Kayley asked, solicitously.

  “If I do, I’ll ask,” said Charlie. All access would be monitored. So would telephone calls. The rooms were glass-sided, too. It was very definitely going to be a goldfish bowl experience. Olga was still shifting from foot to foot. Time to resolve both their impatience, he thought. “Everything already logged?”

  “Just finishing off programming the witnesses’ statements,” said Kayley.

  “Then we’re totally up to date?” pressed Charlie. “Everything available to be accessed?”

  Kayley was immediately attentive. “Unless you’ve got something additional?”

  Charlie shook his head.

  “Or have something specific in mind?” persisted the American.

  “No,” said Charlie. He smiled. “Guess I’d better familiarize myself.”

  It was impressive. There was no dust or debris from the hasty construction—rather there was the discernible and pleasant smell of the perfumed polish that had removed any-and in a corner beside his supposedly personal cabinet the operating lights of an air purifier glowed, although there was no noise. The answer to a prayer and Kayley’s cigars, thought Charlie. The desk appeared to be genuine wood, although it probably wasn’t, and the side table upon which the computer was mounted had an angled, padded rest upon which Charlie at once and gratefully eased his never comfortable feet. It was IBM hardware, predictably operating the latest—and same—Microsoft Word program installed on his machine at the British embassy. Charlie checked the drawers for back-up disks but couldn’t find any and was unsurprised that he wasn’t expected—or intended—to download anything to take away. As he took off his jacket—for which a convenient hanger was waiting on the coat pedestal-he saw Olga Melnik talking animatedly into the telephone in her adjoining office.

  Mindful of his earlier expectation of any access being monitored, Charlie did not immediately boot up what he was most interested in but instead scrolled through the witnesses’ statements already on disk until he found that of Vladimir Petrovich Sakov, the tattooed cameraman who had wrestled with George Bendall for possession of the sniper’s rifle. It was the Russian transcript produced the previous day by Olga Melnik, with no additions from a second FBI interview, which meant the Bureau either hadn’t bothered-which Charlie didn’t believe—or didn’t intend a meeting of their own, which he thought even more unlikely. The third possibility was that they hadn’t got around to updating it, despite Kayley’s assurances that everything was logged.

  He didn’t need the reminder but he pulled up the verbatim record of his own encounter with Vera Bendall, scrolling through the stumbling words. Again there were no additions-nor explanations for the obvious questions—cross-referenced from Russian sources.

  Charlie felt an instant stir of excitement—a positive throb in his left foot, which was always the most sensitive—at the visual ballistic images of the bullets that shattered the shoulder of the American First Lady and caused the death of Secret Serviceman Ben Jennings. They were mounted against calibrated measuring grids in exactly the same way as the Russian evidence photographs he’d already studied of those extracted from the Russian president and his bodyguard and which Charlie had brought with him.

  Charlie looked around through his glass-partitioned cell in feigned casualness. Olga was now engrossed in her own screen. John Kayley’s room behind was empty. No one else appeared to be paying any attention to him whatsoever. He clicked on print, shielding the screen by lifting his briefcase on to his lap to take out what he’d brought from Protocnyj Pereulok. The comparison only took Charlie seconds: he didn’t even bother to take the Russian pictures fully from his briefcase, instead putting into it what he was now convinced to be the confirming printout of the American evidence. He closed the image of the bullets, clearing his screen to call up the ballistics menu. What he wanted—hoped for—wasn’t there, as it hadn’t been in what Olga Melnik had given him.

  Charlie pushed his chair back, although not far enough to lose the foot rest. How to do it? So far the interference had been to KGB archives and possibly with papers belonging to both father and son which had, according to Vera Bendall, been removed from the Hutorskaya Ulitza apartment by intelligence and militia officers. The challenge—a positive confrontation-was inevitable. And essentially it had to be in front of witnesses, to prevent anything else going missing. Why didn’t he wait; persuade Natalia to guarantee that the complete Russian ballistic evidence be made available? Because it drew her too closely—too dangerously—into the active operational working of the investigation, which didn’t fit—wasn’t part of her remit and which, from what he’d just studied and compared, definitely was going to become more difficult. Would the actual, physical American evidence stil
l be here, along the corridor? Or already back in Washington? Certainly something to discover.

  Slowly, not wanting to attract Olga’s attention, Charlie stood, stretched and made his way out into the main room, smiling back at the few who looked up and smiled at him. He still couldn’t see Kayley. He sauntered past the unoccupied command area into the forensic linking corridor, hands deep in his pockets, a man orientating himself to new and unaccustomed surroundings. The forensic controller—Bill Savage, Charlie remembered easily—saw him approaching and rose to meet him as Charlie emerged from the tunnel.

  “How’s it going?” There was no heavy, state-identifiable accent. Baldness—and the greyness in a compensating beard-made the man look older than he was.

  “Good finally to be working in something of an organized system.”

  “Pretty unusual situation all the way round,” agreed the man.

  “How’s it with you?”

  “Truth to tell, we’re kinda underemployed,” admitted the scientist.

  “Russians haven’t given you the rifle? Or the recovered bullets, then?” anticipated Charlie. Looking beyond the American Charlie saw that two of the other four men in the improvised room were reading magazines and the other two appeared to be testing or tuning equipment.

  “John’s asked for it.”

  “You the ballistics expert?”

  The other man shook his head, indicating one of the magazine readers. “Willie Ying’s our gun man. Why?”

  Charlie began moving, taking the controller with him, not responding until he got within the expert’s hearing. When he did, Charlie said, loudly, “It struck me there was something missing from what’s on the computer about the bullets.”

  The Chinese face came up abruptly from behind the magazine. It was Soldier, Charlie saw.

  Aggressively Ying said, “What’s the problem here!”

  Charlie smiled, ingenuously. “Lack of facilities. Britain being the poor relation, as usual.”