Kings of Many Castles cm-13 Read online

  “Sometime during the night,” said Badim.

  “What happens then?”

  “We see how he behaves, how rational he appears to be, and then try to decide what else to do.”

  “Might he need to be further sedated?” pressed Olga.

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Could he never properly recover to what until now we’ve believed to be a rational level of comprehension?” asked Zenin.

  “Yes, that’s possible too.”

  “For all our sakes, I hope you’re wrong,” said Zenin.

  “You don’t have to concern yourself about my career,” said Agayan. “Only your own.”

  “We need a new-a better-psychiatrist,” insisted Olga. She hadn’t liked seeing Zenin so openly opposed.

  The man shook his head, not looking at her across the car in which they were driving, again without discussion, back to his apartment. “This will go to trial, whether Bendall’s got a mental condition or not. The caliber of every Russian witness will be important in front of an international audience. Agayan will look good in a witness box.”

  Olga’s embarrassment became admiration. “I still think he’s hiding behind psychiatric mumbo-jumbo. Bendall’s understood what’s been going on.”

  “I want you to talk very closely to Kayley, see if Bendall was trying to fight them off.”

  “From doing what?”

  “Something being done to him physically.”

  Olga twisted in her seat to stare directly at Zenin. “You surely don’t imagine …!”

  “Kayley’s FBI, a counter-intelligence agency, probably the other man, too. Maybe even the supposed lawyer,” argued Zenin. “Scopolamine is a known part of their lie detection equipment, just like it is with our people. Pentothal too. In similar circumstances the FSB would use them: the KGB certainly did.”

  “We should have asked Badim to check for puncture wounds,” said Olga, reflectively.

  “What?” Now Zenin looked at her.

  “Supposing the Americans did inject Bendall,” suggested Olga. “The violence-the mental collapse even-might be the result of their drugs against whatever other medication he’s on.”

  Zenin made the call from his apartment. Badim said he hadn’t looked for injection marks on Bendall’s free arm, which would now be punctured by the sedatives he’d had to administer to calm the man. There was one failed injection, which would have left two marks. Reluctantly he agreed to take a blood sample to test for any drug other than those recorded on Bendall’s hospital log. Even more reluctantly he agreed there could possibly have been a violent reaction if Bendall had been given an unauthorized drug.

  Zenin remained on the line for both security group leaders to be brought to the telephone. Each man insisted that the briefcases of the three Americans had been thoroughly examined but that their orders had been that no body searches could be carried out upon accredited diplomats. Those orders had been reemphasized after such a search was attempted upon the British embassy visitors.

  “A prepared syringe would have been no more obtrusive than a pen,” said Zenin, as he replaced the receiver.

  An hour later Nicholai Badim called back, as instructed. There was what could be a puncture mark on Bendall’s uninjured arm where no hospital doctor would have attempted an injection. Blood had been taken for tests that would take at least twenty-four hours.

  “They’ll deny it,” said Olga.

  “They won’t be able to if we can prove he’s been drugged,” said Zenin.

  “So!” demanded Anne. She’d chosen the Italian restaurant in Wilton Street because it had memories. Charlie hadn’t asked. She hadn’t offered.

  “The British-which seems to come down to me-are being blamed for the leak. The ambassador or Brooking-probably both-have made it political. My people here don’t see things the way I do: there’s one trying to dig my burial pit. The scientists and professional experts can’t break away from other things to do what I’ve asked. The psychiatrists or psychologists-Christ knows which or who-are demanding I stay, to answer their questions. Which means I can’t get back to Moscow, where I need to be …” He couldn’t tell her about George Bendall’s collapse. There was no way he could officially know.

  “That all?”

  “That’s all that comes instantly to mind,” said Charlie, allowing the cynicism.

  “So you’re pissed off?”

  “Thoroughly fucked off.” He sipped the Barolo he’d ordered in preference to her Chianti suggestion, glad she’d conceded. “But curious.” It had taken a long time coming, too long. But now the feet were throbbing and he was sifting the wind-strewn intrusions.

  The lawyer sipped her own wine. “Curious about what?”

  “The cleverness of it all,” offered Charlie. “It never was about a mentally unstable man with a gun. We were intended to realize there was a second gunman. And believe we were uncovering other scraps …”

  Anne frowned at him. “I’m not sure what you’re telling me?”

  Charlie’s reply was delayed by the arrival of their food, guinea fowl for Anne, wine-cooked veal escalope for him. As the waiter left, Charlie said, “You ever personally experienced a sandstorm?”

  Anne’s frown remained. “No.”

  “You can’t see where to put your feet, the direction in which to go.”

  “In which direction should we be going?”

  “If I knew I’d take it.” This wasn’t any better than it had been at Millbank, earlier. At least Anne appeared to be taking him seriously.

  “In which direction should I be going?”

  “Which way have you been told to go?” asked Charlie.

  “Mental instability, up to and including unfit to plead. I’m being kept back, too, for consultation with psychiatrists. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

  “Or you with me.”

  “I’m not complaining.”

  In which direction was this going? “Did the engagement become a marriage?” he finally asked, guessing the earlier reference to the restaurant’s particular memories.

  “Two years, four months and three days.”

  “Very specific?”

  “Prison counting: scratching off the sentence on the cell wall.”

  Not his business-or his interest-Charlie decided, remaining silent.

  “He wouldn’t compromise his career-he was a lawyer, like me-and I wouldn’t compromise mine. We met at week-ends but there were others in between that didn’t really mean anything. After two years, four months and three days we realized that we didn’t mean anything, either.”

  Almost precisely the time he’d been permanently in Moscow with Natalia, thought Charlie. At once he stopped the reflection, irritation burning through him, making him physically hot. There wasn’t the slightest comparison! It was ridiculous even attempting-imagining-to make it. He and Natalia had to do something, though, to resolve their problems-real or otherwise-before they got any worse: before they ceased to mean anything to each other too, inconceivable though that was. Perhaps it was personally a good thing the London visit was being extended, giving them both time and space to realize what it was like to be without each other, even for a short period. Straw-clutching, Charlie recognized, objectively. There’d been other short breaks since they’d been together-intervals longer than this one would probably be-so nothing was likely to be different when he got back. Weren’t both of them allowing a self-deceit-an hypocrisy invoking Sasha as a bond-in prolonging their staying together?

  “Have I said something awkward?”

  “I’m sorry,” apologized Charlie. “My mind went off at a tangent.”

  “I could practically see the cogs moving. Want to talk about it?”

  “No!”

  “Sorry!”

  “No, I am,” said Charlie. “That was rude.”

  “You’re quite a mystery man at the embassy, you know?”

  Charlie felt a stir of concern. “That’s what I’m supposed to be.”

 
“Story is that you’ve got an apartment in what used to be a royal palace?”

  “A minor grand duke was supposed to have lived there before the revolution.” He had to stop this: divert it.

  “Is there such a thing as a minor grand duke!”

  “It’s diplomatically better for me to be physically separate from the embassy.”

  “Morrison doesn’t live outside the compound.”

  “I’m officially recognized by the Russian government, like Kayley and the FBI. Morrison’s accreditation is as a diplomat.” It was getting threadbare.

  Anne frowned. “You lost me on the logic of that. There doesn’t seem to be any.”

  Charlie gestured for the waiter to clear their plates, needing the interruption. She shook her head against anything more and so did Charlie. He said, “Is this the Anne Abbott courtroom technique?”

  “You offended?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  “Curious, at the interest.” With luck the joking flirtation of the previous evening might just be the diversion.

  She smiled. “I like to get to know as much as I can about people I work with, particularly when it’s as close as we seem to be thrown together. That’s an Anne Abbott technique.”

  “What you see is what you get,” said Charlie, inwardly cringing at the B-movie dialogue.

  “Now I’m curious. It’ll be interesting to find out.”

  They walked back towards the Brompton Road along Beauchamp Place, pausing to window shop after Anne said she could use the extra time in London to restock her wardrobe, reminding Charlie he’d have a longer opportunity to buy Sasha’s promised present. And something for Natalia, too, despite her insistence that she didn’t want anything. Anne walked easily, familiarly, with her arm looped through his, pleasantly close. Natalia wasn’t tactile like that: too long by herself, caring for herself, he guessed. Charlie halted determinedly at the main road, demanding a taxi. It was Anne who suggested the brandy nightcap, which became several. There were only stools at the bar, which brought them close together again. Charlie didn’t try to move away. Neither did Anne.

  She said, “I ever tell you my philosphy about sex?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the obvious-logical-progression of friendship.”

  “What about love?”

  “That’s different. That’s letting things go too far.”

  “Very free spirited,” said Charlie. With whom had she philosophied in Moscow? he wondered.

  “I don’t want any more brandy.”

  “OK.”

  “Do you?”

  “No.”

  “Time to go to bed then?”

  They stayed close together walking to the elevators and got a car to themselves and kissed and Charlie enjoyed the uncommitting, uninvolving excitement of it, shutting his mind to everything except the woman he was holding and who was holding him back without any resisting stiffness or over-her-shoulder hesitation. They went to his room because it was the nearest along the shared corridor but there was no first-time urgency, which heightened the pleasure. They undressed each other, savouring the unhurriedness of it and when Charlie was naked she held him at arm’s length and giggled that he looked better without his clothes and his feet were a revelation all of their own and Charlie held Anne the same way and said he liked everything he saw, without any qualification. They led each other, matched each other, her preference, his preference and burst together and Charlie didn’t allow himself the surprise that he was able to do it-all of it-so quickly again.

  Anne said, “I won! The second time I had a multiple orgasm.”

  “That’s a whole new definition of friendship,” said Charlie, still breathing heavily.

  “That’s all it is though, ultimate friendship. No confusion.”

  “It’ll be the only thing that isn’t confusing so far,” said Charlie.

  “So it was meant for me?” said Walter Anandale. The White House showing of the slow motion TV film of the shooting had been delayed until that night because of the time the president had spent at the conveniently close Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Washington’s Georgia Avenue, to which Ruth Anandale had beenimmediately admitted. Secretary of State James Scamell was the only cabinet member absent from the meeting.

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt, sir,” said Wendall North.

  “She took my bullet,” said Anandale, more to himself than anyone else in the room.

  Wendall North decided against pointing out that the intercession had been totally accidental. “Yes, sir, she did.”

  “Wouldn’t that have been a hell of a coup, wiping out both presidents at the same time!”

  “Unthinkable,” said Defense Secretary Wilfred Pinkton.

  “We any closer to understanding it?”

  FBI Director Paul Smith shifted uncomfortably at the anticipated question. “We’re running the investigation, just like you ordered, Mr. President. The incident room’s ours, totally under our supervision at our embassy. Bendall had some kind of relapse when Kayley was interrogating him today. Everything had to be suspended.”

  “That isn’t an answer to my question!”

  “We don’t so far know who else is in the conspiracy.”

  “I want ass kicked, Paul. I want each and every son of a bitch involved in this either in the chair or behind bars for the next hundred years and I’m disappointed you’re not telling me you’re there already. You tell Kayley from me I don’t care how it’s done. Just do it!”

  It was three A.M. Moscow time when Paul Smith’s e-mail, couched in even stronger terms, was taken by the director’s personal assistant to the communication section of the FBI’s Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters.

  “Ass-burning time,” the man told the transmissions operator. “Make sure it’s not yours.” The remark, only marginally misquoting the president, was intended as a joke. It didn’t become one.

  Two address lists had been defined in Microsft Outlook for the Russian investigation. “Kayley” was the back-channel, eyes-only route for information and messages restricted to the Bureau Rezident, not to be shared under any circumstances. “Kayley+” was the block address automatically distributing Washington traffic to Olga Melnik and Charlie Muffin, to maintain the impression of complete cooperation.

  The FBI operator was new, being introduced into the job on the normally less stressful evening shift. It was the first personal director’s message he’d ever handled and he agreed with the assistant that it was very much ass-burning. In his nervousness he clicked the cursor on Kayley+.

  Paul Smith’s do-whatever-it-takes instruction was waiting in Olga Melnik’s e-mail box when she arrived in the incident room that morning, intentionally earlier than usual in her determination to confront John Kayley. Obeying Zenin’s telephone instructions she called Donald Morrison before leaving the American embassy.

  The time difference also benefited Charlie Muffin, in reverse. It was still only seven in the morning, London time, when he got the call from Morrison. Charlie awakened instantly and his interrupting questions finally awoke Anne Abbott beside him. Still sleepily voiced, she said, “What is it?”

  “If I knew-understood it-I’d tell you,” said Charlie.

  15

  Charlie Muffin’s reception was very different from the previous day. Within minutes of his beginning to speak at the reconvened meeting even Jocelyn Hamilton straightened from his overly-theatrical, shoulder-slumped affectation and hunched as attentively as everyone to the tape of George Bendall’s collapse. Charlie finished with the verbatim transcript of the FBI director’s cable that Morrison had relayed that morning. No one spoke, unwilling to offer an opening opinion. It was the director-general who did, finally.

  Sir Rupert Dean said, “No! They quite simply wouldn’t have tried to drug him! It’s inconceivable!”

  “Kayley’s under enormous pressure,” said Charlie.

  “I don’t think it’s inconceivable,” said Patrick
Pacey. “‘All and every investigatory means,’” he quoted, from the bureau director’s misdirected e-mail. “‘Earlier and explicit orders … clear understandingsfrom the highest level …’ There’s very obviously been instructions we don’t know about that fits what could have happened in Burdenko hospital …”

  “At the moment it’s only an unidentified although possible puncture mark on Bendall’s arm, which has no medical explanation or purpose to be there,” cautioned Charlie. “There’s no proof it was an unauthorized, invasive injection until they get the results of the blood tests.”

  “Where, legally, does that leave us-the United Kingdom?” asked the subdued deputy director.

  Jeremy Simpson hunched uncertain shoulders. “Totally uninvolved, particularly with Charlie here in London, which probably turns out to be very fortunate. Going beyond that, if it’s true, legally-technically-it constitutes a physical assault upon George Bendall. That’s according to our law and as Bendall, again technically, is still a British subject I suppose there are grounds for us to protest. But I don’t see any practical purpose in our doing that. I don’t know what it qualifies as in Russia, even if there’s any competent statute. But is that what we should be talking about? If the Americans have done this, it surely blows any honest cooperation-any cooperation honest or even limited-completely out of the water?”

  “Absolutely,” quickly agreed Hamilton, gratefully seizing the lawyer’s lead.

  “But it doesn’t affect a legal prosecution for murder, does it?” argued the director-general, just as quickly.

  “It might affect Bendall’s ability-competence-to plead if the damage is permanent,” said Simpson. “It could, possibly, be part of a defense plea in court.”

  That had been Anne’s first reaction, as they lay side by side immediately after the telephone call from Donald Morrison in Moscow. Charlie decided against saying anything, despite the fact that Anne was known to be back in London for consultations.

  “What’s the Russian response?” asked Dean.

  “I don’t know, not yet,” said Charlie. “Olga Melnik told Morrison she’d been withdrawn from the incident room-which means from the American embassy-for discussions. It wasn’t clear with whom.”