Bomb Grade Read online

  ‘Quite so, quite so. Come in, man. Sit down.’ Dean spoke quickly but with extraordinarily clear diction. There was a thick file in front of the man which Charlie guessed, nervously, to be his personal records. Dean shuffled through the topmost sheets but then abandoned whatever he was searching for, pushing the dossier away more disarranged than when he started. ‘Much to discuss,’ he announced, hurried-voiced, extending both arms sideways figuratively to embrace the men sitting on either side of him. Gerald Williams, expressionless once more, allowed no response to the introduction. The thin man immediately to Dean’s right managed a single head nod of his own at being identified as Peter Johnson, Dean’s deputy. A lot of the surprise at Dean’s appointment had been fuelled by the open secret even before the transfer from Westminster Bridge Road that Johnson, for ten years the department’s Foreign Office link, resented being passed over for the very top job in favour of a schoolmasterly outsider. The bald-headed man broke away at last from his fascination with the river to produce a brief, functional smile when Dean listed Jeremy Simpson as the department’s legal advisor. The red-faced man emerged last, as political officer Patrick Pacey.

  Charlie’s mind was way beyond the Director-General’s staccato delivery. Whatever this meeting was about, it certainly had nothing to do with his dismissal or enforced early retirement. What then?

  The Director-General made another ineffective foray into the pushed aside file, abandoning the search as quickly as he had begun it to rotate his spectacles. Closer, Charlie saw one of the earpieces was padded with surgical tape for comfort. Tapping them against the discarded dossier, Dean said, ‘We’re in times of change.’

  ‘Yes, sir’

  ‘You think you can change?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Into a pumpkin if I have to, Charlie thought.

  ‘How would you feel about living permanently abroad?’

  ‘Where, exactly?’

  ‘Moscow.’

  Natalia Nikandrova Fedova rarely thought about him any more. When she’d finally accepted he was going to go on failing her it had been a positive effort to keep him out of her mind but it had become easier as the months passed. But it was unavoidable today. Natalia smiled, the sadness of the past dimming her all-absorbing love of the present, as she watched Sasha whoop and scream with the excitement of opening each new birthday gift. Maybe he didn’t know about Sasha. Natalia had convinced herself she’d found the way to tell him; made up her mind he would understand because he was so very good at the business they were both in – the best she’d ever known, far better than she could have ever been – and hated him for not suddenly arriving, unannounced, as she had sometimes fantasized he would. It shouldn’t have needed a child to bring him back if he’d loved her.

  The KGB had still existed, although uncertainly, when she’d tried to reach him: if she hadn’t headed its First Chief Directorate it would have been impossible for her to have tried at all. It didn’t exist any more: not, at least, by name or with the omnipotence with which it had once operated. But his service did and there would still be regulations against his coming to Moscow. But knowing him as well as she believed she did, Natalia knew regulations would not have stopped him. So if she had reached him there was only one conclusion: he didn’t want to see her again. Ever. And wasn’t interested in his child. She’d made a mistake, like she’d made a mistake with the first man to let her down, which she’d compounded by marrying him. Not a good comparison, she told herself, as she had on many previous memory trips. Her second trusting attempt had for all the obvious impossible barriers stopped short of marriage, although that had once been another fantasy, and had most certainly not been the disaster of the first. She had Sasha around whom her life revolved and with whom she was complete, without the need for anyone or anything else.

  Or was she?

  As if on cue, Aleksai Popov came into the Leninskaya apartment, the brightly wrapped package high above his head for the game Sasha recognized at once, leaping and jumping around his legs in the futile attempt to reach it before he knelt, solemnly to offer it to her.

  It was a battery-operated cat that waddled and emitted a purring growl and got the biggest scream so far from Sasha who, unprompted, threw her arms around the man for the thank-you kiss.

  Popov disentangled himself to come up to Natalia, kissing her lightly on the cheek: they were still very careful in front of the child.

  ‘That was far too expensive,’ she said. It would have come from one of the Western-goods shops.

  ‘I love her. Think of her as mine.’

  Natalia was unsure whether or not to be glad of the remark. Sasha hadn’t asked any questions yet but it wouldn’t be much longer. ‘You still shouldn’t have done it.’

  Popov shrugged the protest aside. Able, from the way he was standing, to conceal the heavy seriousness between them from other parents in the room he said, simply, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Natalia, just as serious. Should she, could she, take another chance?

  Stanislav Silin knew he had them rattled, Sobelov most of all. It was a good feeling, like it had been a good feeling watching the bombast leak from the man when Sobelov realized how easily the size of the robbery would re-establish things in their proper order.

  Silin had guessed, of course, about the money involved but he didn’t think it was an exaggeration to value 250 kilos of weapons-graded material, which was what he’d been promised, at $75,000,000 at least. They’d been dumbstruck by that, as he’d known they would be because he had been when the size had been put to him. Sobelov had tried to recover, questioning both the amount and the profit, but the others hadn’t doubted him. They hadn’t just believed him, they’d backed him, not even Bobin or Frolov supporting the demand that there should be a change in the system to involve all of them in the negotiations instead of leaving it to him alone, which was his agreed right as the boss of bosses. Silin had been worried at that insistence, unsure how much ground he’d lost: the fact that everyone apart from Sobelov was prepared to leave the brokering to him, like it had always been in the past, had to be the best indicator he could have wished that he could defeat Sobelov’s challenge.

  But he still couldn’t afford to relax.

  He’d always protected his sources but this time the secret had to be absolute, not just for their benefit but to prevent Sobelov trying to take over, which the man might attempt in his desperation. Just as secretly as he had to set things up in Berlin and for the same reasons.

  And when he’d put everything in motion he could start planning how Sobelov was going to die. He was going to enjoy that.

  Silin looked to the side of the room at Markov’s re-entry, for the nod of assurance that Marina’s guards had been properly briefed.

  Everything was working out perfectly.

  chapter 3

  Questions crowded in upon him but Charlie Muffin was too experienced to interrupt. It wasn’t just what Rupert Dean was saying. Or the awareness that he had been professionally reprieved. There was the overwhelming personal implication. But which couldn’t be allowed to become overwhelming. Anything personal had to be blocked off, later more calmly to be assessed. For the moment the posting was the only thing he could afford to let into his mind.

  So Natalia had to be forgotten.

  Dean’s presentation, like his demeanour, was that of a lecturer concisely establishing with facts and assessments and analyses a problem that phrases and words like ‘potentially catastrophic’ and ‘cataclysmic’ and ‘nightmare’ did not exaggerate. He also referred to ‘political sensitivity’ and ‘extreme caution’ and ‘essential cooperation’ and Charlie knew they weren’t exaggerations either. Dean concluded, ‘So that’s your brief, to liaise with the Russians and with the already appointed Americans to do everything you can to stem the flow of nuclear material to the West.’

  Charlie wondered if the telephone boxes in Moscow would be large enough for him to change into his Superman outfit. ‘There are officers from this depar
tment already attached to the British embassy in Moscow. Others from SIS, too.’

  ‘Engaged in their normal functions, which remain quite separate from what you are being appointed to achieve,’ said Dean. ‘Our role was extended years ago to combat the terrorism in Northern Ireland. Now it’s being widened even further. And what’s coming out of Russia and its former satellites provides the potential for the worst terrorism imaginable.’

  ‘To whom will I be responsible? The station chief? Or direct to London?’ Charlie had rarely engaged in an operation where jealously guarded territory did not have to be respected. Diplomatic niceties were always a pain in the ass.

  ‘London. But through the embassy,’ ordered the sharply featured Peter Johnson.

  ‘What’s my officially described position to be?’

  It was Patrick Pacey who responded. ‘An attaché. Don’t for a moment forget the genuine political importance of what you’re doing …’ He made a hand movement over the conference table and Charlie became aware that each of the group had his personal dossiers before them. ‘There won’t be any of the nonsense of the past,’ continued the department’s political advisor. ‘Just one example of what you’ve always explained away – and got away with – as necessary operational independence and you’re on the first plane back to London. And in this building only long enough to be formally dismissed from the service once and for all.’

  ‘And don’t suffer the slightest doubt at our seriousness,’ endorsed the deputy Director. ‘There are changes to our function. This is one of them: you’re one of them. So you’ve got to change, like everything else about the business we’re now in. There’s no place for anyone disobeying orders. That clear enough?’

  ‘Completely,’ Charlie said, caught by just one part of the threat. ‘This isn’t seen as a temporary assignment: one specific operation?’

  ‘The Americans got agreement a long time ago to appoint an FBI office in Moscow specifically to monitor nuclear smuggling,’ reminded the deputy Director. ‘You’re our equivalent.’

  ‘To liaise,’ instructed Simpson, the moustache hedge seemingly moving slightly out of time with the man’s upper lip. ‘That’s your sole function …’ He gestured sideways to Pacey. ‘You’ve got to do more than simply think what the politics are. Whatever it is, it will be inextricably tied up with legality. The Russians are the law, not us. We have – you’ll have – no legal jurisdiction. All the nuclear stuff haemorrhaging across Europe is coming overland through Poland and Hungary and Germany and the two countries that made up Czechoslovakia and what was Yugoslavia.’

  Minefield was too much of an appalling pun, thought Charlie. ‘It’ll be a waste of time even bothering,’ he declared. ‘Before we’ve even begun working our way through the officials we’d need to consult, every terrorist group, despot or dictator will have atom bombs up to their knees.’

  ‘Let’s be more specific,’ said the distinctively voiced Director-General. ‘We decide here in London who should be consulted and who shouldn’t. The important thing for you to understand, totally and at all times, is that you must never, ever, act without consulting us.’

  He’d made the protest to maintain his credibility, which was all that mattered. There were other, more essential parameters to be established: one more important than all others. ‘I don’t think I can operate effectively – as I will have to operate – living in the embassy compound.’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Williams, sensing a danger.

  Because it would severely limit the enormous expenses benefits, thought Charlie. ‘According to what you say, the nuclear trade is handled by gangsters: an acknowledged Mafia.’ He briefly hesitated, wondering if Natalia had transferred to the Interior Ministry, just as quickly thrusting the intrusion aside. ‘Would the Foreign Office like the idea of my meeting a questionable informant on embassy property …?’ He turned his attention to Simpson, warming to his argument. ‘Wouldn’t there even be a legal difficulty …?’ And then to Pacey. ‘… As well as a political one …?’

  ‘I still think …’ began Williams, anxious to continue his objection, but Dean cut the man off. ‘There are obvious advantages to your living separate from the embassy.’

  Push it as far as you can when you’re on a roll, Charlie told himself. ‘Crime makes Moscow astronomically expensive. My cost of living allowance will need to be proportionately substantial. Considerably more than might normally be accepted, even in the high-cost diplomatic postings like Tokyo or Washington. And the justifiable out-of-pocket expenses will undoubtedly be larger as well. I’m going to have to go where the Mafias go … clubs … restaurants …’ Charlie was close to enjoying himself: certainly he was enjoying Gerald Williams’ obvious anguish.

  ‘I don’t think all this needs to be discussed today,’ attempted the accountant, blinking nervously at the prospects for gain Charlie was working to establish.

  ‘I think it’s important to discuss and agree everything here today that might affect the success of what I have to do,’ said Charlie, equally anxious.

  Charlie was aware of the Director-General momentarily regarding him with what could have been a bemused smile. Then the man turned to Williams and said, ‘I think things should be put on the highest scale. This is a new role that has to succeed, to stop the political sniping that the country doesn’t need intelligence services any more. So I don’t want anything endangered by penny-pinching.’

  ‘I am to liaise with the Russians and whatever the FBI arrangement is there?’ Charlie hurried on.

  ‘Yes.’ Dean resumed charge of the conversation.

  ‘They know we’re sending someone over specifically for the purpose?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just someone? Or has my name been put forward, for approval?’

  ‘To the Russians, yes: more formal and official arrangements obviously had to be made with Moscow. With the Americans everything was left open, until today’s meeting.’ The Director-General paused. ‘Is there a problem?’

  If Natalia had transferred at the rank she’d occupied in the former KGB it was possible she’d even know he was coming! Nodding yet again towards his dossier, Charlie said, ‘There will be an extensive file on me, both in Washington and Moscow.’

  ‘The KGB is defunct. And their records, too. There obviously hasn’t been the slightest association with what you once were and what you once did.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m particularly popular in America, either.’

  ‘What you did, you did to the CIA, not the FBI. Each hates the other. The Bureau would probably approve, not criticize: find it amusing, even. And it’s very ancient history, anyway,’ dismissed the Director-General, showing how extensively he, and therefore everyone else in the room, had studied Charlie’s file.

  ‘Your sole primary concern is not making mistakes,’ warned Johnson.

  ‘I won’t,’ promised Charlie, carelessly.

  ‘No more than once,’ said Pacey. ‘I’ve already told you that.’

  ‘I like him,’ judged the Director-General. It was a remark addressed more to his deputy than anyone else: Charlie Muffin had been Peter Johnson’s recommendation.

  ‘He’s a liar and a thief,’ insisted the financial controller, seething at Charlie’s easy success with allowances and accommodation.

  ‘Isn’t that why he’s being sent: poacher turned gamekeeper?’ reminded the cadaverous deputy.

  ‘There are others who could have gone, without the uncertainties that always surround this man,’ argued Williams.

  ‘Costing as much as possible is all part of the budgetary exercises,’ said Johnson, defending his choice. ‘We’ve not only to establish a new role for ourselves. We’ve got to establish a financial ceiling. The more we spend in expansion, the more important and necessary we’ll appear.’

  ‘That’s cynical reasoning,’ reproached Williams.

  ‘Practical reasoning,’ corrected Johnson, equally insistent. ‘I want to build a new empire, not destroy one.’<
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  I want, isolated Dean. He didn’t want to confront the other man so soon but he had the worrying impression that Johnson’s annoyance at not getting the directorship might become a problem. Maybe it hadn’t been as wise as he’d thought to accept Johnson’s suggestion about the Moscow posting: it could have made Johnson imagine an unnecessary reliance. ‘We want to build a new empire.’

  ‘Muffin’s not the man to do it,’ insisted Williams.

  ‘We’re not relying on him doing it alone,’ reminded the Director-General.

  ‘I’ll tell Fenby: he was very helpful,’ said Johnson. John Fenby was the FBI Director. It had been Johnson’s idea, too, to seek the political support of the Americans through govemment-to-government pressure for a specific British posting to Moscow to match their own.

  ‘Is it really necessary to tell Fenby?’ asked the Director-General.

  ‘We’re becoming more like the FBI: we’ll need a close working relationship,’ Johnson pointed out.

  ‘You will keep me informed at every stage, won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think I need to be reminded to do that.’

  This was becoming petulant, decided Dean. Which was ridiculous. Ending it by looking away from his deputy to include everyone else, he said, ‘We’ve made an important decision today. Let’s do all we can from this end to make sure it works.’

  Peter Johnson’s first act upon returning to his own office was to call Washington.

  Stanislav Silin wasn’t any longer accustomed to doing things for himself. He’d forgotten how to, like he’d forgotten his own stepping stones to power. When Stanislav Silin wanted something done, anything done, he told someone to do it and if the task wasn’t performed to his total satisfaction then those who failed were punished. But not this time or this way. For this meeting and for this meeting place he couldn’t trust anyone inside the Dolgoprudnaya, not even Petr Markov, and most certainly not outside. Apart, that is, from Marina. No man had been as lucky as he had with a wife like her. The hatred boiled up at the threat Sobelov had created. Soon, he told himself, soon he’d make the man sorry. But there were other things first. He’d had to find this very special apartment himself and arrange the lease himself and for the first time in almost fifteen years he hadn’t been able to intimidate the landlord with the inference of who he was for fear the man might sell him out or be under threat from a higher or initially more feared bidder. Which was an irony Silin could appreciate, inconvenient though it had been: he’d even been amused when the landlord had tried to intimidate him with warnings of the consequences of his being a bad tenant.