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  “You do something for me-have something done for me?” asked Charlie, only just according Kayley his authority. “You get Willie to weigh the bullets you’re holding as evidence?”

  “What!” demanded Savage, again.

  The Chinese ballistics expert didn’t immediately speak. Then he said, “I told you I was waiting. And why.”

  “Don’t wait!” urged Charlie. “You’ve seen the photographs.”

  Ying look enquiringly to his supervisor who said to Charlie, “You got something?”

  “Weigh the bullets,” insisted Charlie.

  Ying did so with the impact-distorted metal still encased in its plastic exhibit envelopes, the minuscule weight of which was known and easily subtracted to achieve the reading. He repeated the simple experiment three times before looking up directly at Charlie. The American said, “I won’t offer it as empirical until I’ve tested what the Russians have.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” said Charlie, as satisfied relief flooded through him. “But it’s quite impossible for those two bullets to have been fired from the same rifle, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” conceded the Chinese, quietly.

  There had been no prior indication that it would be a smaller gathering but Natalia decided that despite Charlie’s ill-explained insistences she had no positive personal problem and from the previous evening’s rehearsal she was quite confident she was totally prepared for anything that might arise. The only unexpected although quickly understood absence was that of General Lev Lvov, whose function was now to protect acting president Aleksandr Okulov, the other absentee. In the nuance and rumor-fuelled hothouse of Moscow political uncertainty it isolated General Dimitri Spassky as the man responsible for the security debacle, which Spassky had already and very obviously recognized. The ashtray in front of the man was overflowing and the hand with which he lighted the continual replacements was more visibly shaking than usual.

  “There is some encouraging news,” announced Yuri Trishin. “The president has recovered consciousness. The latest from the Pirogov doctors is that his condition is stable and that he is out of immediate danger, although still critical.”

  “Encouraging indeed, great news!” hurriedly coughed Spassky, anxious to have his name first on record.

  The impatience of the presidential chief of staff for Natalia and the fourth member of the group, Militia Commandant Leonid Zenin, dutifully to respond was almost palpable and as soon as they had Trishin said, “So what’s encouraging for me to hear in return?”

  Nothing, conceded Natalia, accepting it was a question posed to her. According to the Lefortovo prison authorities, she said, there was nothing to suggest Vera Bendall had been likely to take her own life, although that did not excuse the oversight of not removing articles of clothing with which she could do herself harm. It was hoped to interview George Bendall later that day. The investigation had been centralized at the American embassy. Ruth Anandale continued to improve although the indications were that she had permanently lost the use of her right arm. A decision was being made in the next twenty-four hours whether to amputate the leg of Feliks Vasilevich Ivanov, the Russian security guard injured in the shooting. The likelihood was that it would be necessary.

  Natalia hesitated as she came to the end. Everything on yourterms, to your orchestration, Charlie had lectured: don’t let anyone else get their explanations or excuses in ahead of you. Spassky had to be first. “Unless there has been a discovery in the last two or three hours that Dimitri Ivanovich has not shared with me there is the risk of considerable embarrassment. Substantial sections of former intelligence files containing information that could be important to this investigation remain missing ….” She turned to the militia commandant. “I also understand, from taped meetings involving Senior Investigating Colonel Olga Melnik, that the American and British investigators are aware of what’s happened?”

  It was Zenin who got in first. “I am not aware of the Americans or British being told. If they have been, I can only assume it emerged in answer to her being asked why the material was incomplete.”

  Spassky was quick to follow, surprisingly strong voiced in the chosen denial. “I am not, nor ever was, directly or personally responsible for archives.”

  “You are head of counter-intelligence-internal security-within Lubyanka,” challenged Natalia.

  “Exactly! We are talking of departmental mismanagement.”

  “Are we?” demanded Natalia. “I don’t think we are.”

  “Are archives definitely missing?” asked Trishin.

  “Yes,” finally admitted the old man.

  Natalia didn’t want the impetus taken away from her. “Deliberately taken?”

  “I have no evidence of deliberate interference,” insisted Spassky.

  “Has a thorough search been made?” pressed Natalia.

  “Yes,” said Spassky, again.

  “Isn’t it an unfortunate coincidence that Vera Bendall died in custody in a prison administered by the FSB?” leapt in Zenin. “I suggest that the most thorough, independent enquiry be held.”

  So Charlie had planted his suspicion in time for some contact between Olga Melnik and Leonid Zenin. Natalia’s realization was fleeting, quickly replaced by near incredulity at what Zenin had just proposed. The militia commandant was actually pressing for the Russian intelligence service to be investigated by an outside organization, which was unthinkable. Even the supposed enquiry into the failed, KGB-supported coup against Mikhail Gorbachov in 1991had been a strictly controlled, internal tribunal. Natalia’s awareness continued, worryingly. Was this what Charlie had anticipated and really been preparing her for, a collision of nuclear proportions between Russian intelligence and presumably Russian civilian police, with herself inevitably-more inextricably than she’d ever fearedcaught up in the middle? And she would be literally trapped in the middle, a former KGB executive now a department director of the Interior Ministry with ultimate authority over the militia.

  The same analysis-although not necessarily in the same personal order-had obviously been made by the men in the Kremlin office with her.

  Spassky’s reaction was such open-mouthed disbelief that all he could initially utter was, “What?” so weak-voiced that he said it again, in louder outrage. “What!”

  Trishin was no less surprised but more controlled. “You’re virtually making an open accusation.”

  Surely, thought Natalia, the civilian commandant did not for a moment imagine the militia strong enough-able enough-to confront an intelligence apparatus developed over more than seventy years!

  “I believe the gravity of what’s happened demands a thorough enquiry,” insisted Zenin. “I understand, too, that also to be the feeling of the Americans and the British.”

  Natalia was immediately, intently, alert. Charlie hadn’t given her any indication of that. But then he hadn’t properly-fully-explained all the guidance he’d given. And Zenin had clearly spoken to Olga Melnik at the American embassy, bringing him more up to date than she was. “What reason do you have for saying that?”

  “The impression of my officers in direct contact with their investigators.”

  Impressions, isolated Natalia: there was only one officer, Olga Ivanova Melnik. The militia chief was railroading.

  “The woman was in militia, not FSB, custody at Lefortova!” said Spassky, inadequately.

  “Precisely why I think an enquiry justified,” argued Zenin. “I do not want any innuendo-any innuendo whatsoever-directed at my service.”

  Was it as simple as that, not an attack at all but simply a defense, in advance of any accusation? Natalia said, “By whom, or what, do you consider such an investigation should be conducted?”

  “What else but a presidential commission?” said Zenin.

  A neat sidestep from direct confrontation, Natalia recognized. The unbelievable challenge had been laid but Zenin had separated himself from directly pursuing it.

  “I think,” said Trishin, “
That this suggestion needs to be considered. Discussed with others.”

  Dimitri Ivanovich Spassky’s hand was shaking very badly when he lit his new cigarette.

  Like practically everything in Charlie Muffin’s upwardly and on-wardly mobile philosophy, the vindication was relegated to his mental trophy shelf for later burnishing-which none ever were-while he hurried on. Which, practicably, was not immediately possible because the bullets and George Bendall’s rifle had physically-and finally-to be transported from the militia forensic laboratories, in the faraway Moscow outskirts of Chagino. There was coffee and separate reflection in their respective offices while they waited. From his Charlie saw both Olga and Kayley in gesticulating telephone exchanges but decided against calling his own embassy. There was no time difference urgency. Having satisfactorily proved his suspicions from a partial test, he now wanted the complete ballistics analysis before, fittingly, lobbing the bombshell into London’s lap. Which wasn’t, at that precise moment, his most pressing concern. They now had, unquestionably, two gunmen from which a neon-lit, flag-waving conspiracy emerged, which jigsawed with missing KGB archives and the death in custody of a potential witness who’d remembered the official removal of more papers and belongings-including those of the one seized gunman-that had not been mentioned in anything that Colonel Olga Melnik had provided. But far more importantly were not known about by Natalia, whom he’d specifically asked the previous night. Which, as muddied waters went, was thicker than pea soup, a mixed metaphor that Charlie was content with because it was so appropriate. There was something approaching a familiar comfort at being confronted by a situationtotally different from that with which he’d begun: in Charlie’s life, the obvious had never, if ever, turned out to be obvious.

  Olga’s sudden activity in the adjoining office alerted him to the arrival of the material evidence, which Kayley escorted her to the embassy reception area officially to receive. It was obvious that virtually everyone in the complex knew of a development, if not precisely what it was, but Kayley limited the audience in the forensic section to its specific staff, himself, Olga and Charlie. The much-filmed rifle as well as the medically-recovered bullets made up the Russian package but Willie Ying’s concentration was again upon the distorted metal. The tests were as straightforward as those earlier, quadruple checked within thirty minutes.

  The Chinese straightened, finally, and said, “There isn’t any possible doubt.”

  Kayley said, “I need to have this spelled out, nice and easy. I’ve got a lot of curious people to tell.”

  Ying looked invitingly at Charlie, who said, “You’re the expert.”

  The Chinese scientist said, “Western European and central European bullets are officially weighed in grains. Quite literally the measurement is the average weight of a seed of corn, one seven-thousandth of an avoirdupoidal pound …” He indicated the still unexamined sniper’s rifle. “That’s the Soviet-now Russian-military SVD, the Dragunov. It fires a 7.62mm cartridge, the bullets from which weigh 145 grains. The commercial version of the SVD, known as the Medved, fires a 9mm sporting cartridge that weighs 220 grains. It is technically impossible for the sniper’s rifle recovered from the scene of the crime to fire 9mm bullets.” He turned to the table, picking up two glassine sachets. “These are 7.62mm. According to their exhibit tags, one was taken from the Russian guard, Feliks Ivanov. The other killed our guy, Ben Jennings …” Ying swopped plastic envelopes. “ … All these three-the two that hit the Russian president and the one that injured the First Lady-are 9mm. They were fired from a gun we don’t have …”

  “ … By someone we don’t know,” completed Charlie. “Now let’s talk about other things we don’t have, either.”

  “We talking Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963!” demanded Walter Anandale, empty-voiced in disbelief.

  “There’s unquestionably another gunman, logically a group,” said Kayley. It had only taken five minutes for him to come up from the basement and for Wendall North and James Scamell to be summoned to Cornell Burton’s embassy office. The ambassador sat to one side.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” decided the president. “Get Ruth out of here.”

  “I’ll get on to Donnington right away, tell him the situation’s changed,” said North, moving towards the desk phones.

  “Wait!” ordered Anandale. “Let’s talk this through. You think this whole godamned thing’s been a set up, right from the beginning?”

  “No,” cautioned Scamell. “What I do think is that quite early on, once we started to negotiate, people saw an opportunity-for what, exactly, I don’t know-and began to plan.”

  “What people, whose people?” demanded the Texan. “Yudkin’s? Or the communists? Or Okulov? Who, for Christ’s sake!”

  The secretary of state shrugged, helplessly, turning to the FBI Rezident. “I can’t help there, sir. Not yet.”

  “Nor can I,” said Kayley.

  Anandale turned back to his chief of staff. “We don’t make any more public appearances. I don’t personally meet Okulov or anyone connected with Yudkin. We time a spokesman-issued statement about the hope to continue negotiations an hour after we’re airborne, on our way to Washington. Everyone clear on that?”

  “Clear,” echoed Wendall North.

  Anandale came back to the FBI man. “You did good, John. I’ll remember that, make sure that the director knows it, too.”

  “So Charlie was right!” declared Sir Rupert Dean. He spoke looking at his criticizing deputy. Jocelyn Hamilton remained silent.

  A copy of Charlie’s Moscow fax lay before each of the control group.

  “The bullet that killed the American still came from George Bendall’srifle,” professionally pointed out Jeremy Simpson, the legal advisor.

  “And now Bendall’s part of a conspiracy,” said Hamilton, choosing his time. “Our situation’s worse, not better.”

  “We don’t know what the situation is,” rejected Patrick Pacey. Irritation at the deputy director’s constant carping deepened the permanent redness of the man’s blood pressured face.

  “We know it’s escalated,” insisted Hamilton. “We need to start thinking-planning-proactively.”

  “There’s certainly a need to withdraw Muffin for consultation,” conceded Dean, his spectacles working through his hands.

  “And for preparing contingency plans, to build up our investigation in Moscow,” insisted Hamilton. “This service-maybe its future-could be decided by the outcome of all this. Since the end of the Cold War and the de-escalation of violence in Northern Ireland it’s been difficult to justify a counter-espionage function apart from becoming even more of an anti-terrorism force. Defining an FBI role is still experimental, it can’t be seen or allowed to fail.”

  “Replace Muffin, you mean?” directly accused the heavily moustached Simpson.

  “Safeguard the department. And ourselves,” qualified Hamilton.

  11

  Olga Ivanova Melnik felt as if she’d been engulfed by a flooded river-the swollen Volga of her Gorky birthplace at the start of the March thaw-swept helplessly along by swirling currents over unseen, snagging rocks. All-or any-of which was totally alien to Olga Melnik’s until now carefully structured and even more carefully disaster-avoided career. She wasn’t, of course, frightened of being sucked down. Olga Melnik wasn’t the sort of person to sink beneath the first ripples of uncertainties. She just needed a momentarybackwater; time briefly to tread water and examine-apportion and equate-everything swamping over her.

  Olga accepted, objectively, that she should have anticipated Charlie Muffin’s challenges; been readier, even, for the suggestion that Vera Bendall’s death might not have been an accident. She shouldn’t have needed the difference in the size of the Russian-recovered bullets to be pointed out to her, either. Nor been unprepared for the demand about the bullet casings, none of which had been found. The reason was obvious from the chaos and panic at the scene of the crime, there for everyone to see and understand fr
om at least five different television films, but she should have offered the explanation instead of having the admission drawn from her. But perhaps her greatest embarrassment, close to positive humiliation, had been having to admit not knowing the whereabouts of any of George Bendall’s personal papers the initial militia search squad-her officers! — had removed from the Hutorskaya Ulitza apartment. She’d heard Vera Bendall’s eavesdropped claim within an hour of the stupid bitch making it and let more than another twenty-four elapse without even asking about it!

  She would have got around to it eventually, she reassured herself; not eventually, almost at once. Tomorrow, certainly. How could she have been expected to cover everything, the smallest details, in such a short time! It was easy for the motherfucking Englishman, getting everything handed to him on a plate, not having to supervise an entire investigation and think about each and every political implication.

  Those political implications-every implication-were too great properly to encompass now, this soon. But the escalation made it logical for Leonid Zenin to share this first interrogation of George Bendall. But that was all it was, the escalation, not any inferred criticism of her oversights. How could it be? The confrontation-the rock jarringly awkward question after awkward question from the motherfucking Englishman-in front of the fortunately limited audience in the American embassy basement hadn’t been recorded. So there was no way Zenin could know. Would ever know. But she couldn’t be caught out again: shouldn’t have been caught out at all.She’d identified Charlie Muffin for-and as-the danger he was from the very beginning. A mistake recognized is another mistake avoided, she reminded herself, calling to mind the appropriate Russian proverb. She felt firm ground underfoot, no longer jostled by conflicting currents.

  She was impatient to begin the interrogation and hoped Zenin wasn’t late, standing close to the window and looking up Gospital’naya Ulitza towards the blue domed church of Saints Peter and Paul, the direction from which she expected him to come. He’d sounded pleased, excited even, during the telephone conversation when he’d told her to wait for him and Olga was curious about the crisis committee meeting. Clearly it had gone better for him than hers had for her.