Bomb Grade (6 page)

Lyneham glanced at the FBI file on Charlie Muffin faxed from Washington that morning. ‘Quite a track record.'

‘Track record! How the hell has he ever survived?'

That was a question that intrigued Lyneham far more than the litany of Charlie's misdemeanours, what he'd done to the CIA Director heading the list. Any guy who'd hung on – lived, even – through all that had to have a very special respect for his own ass and if he was going to work with Kestler he could be a very useful brake on the idiot's over-the-top-and-at-'em enthusiasm. Against which clashed the unarguable logic that the guy had to be one hell of an ornery bastard to have taken all the risks he had in the first place. On balance, Lyneham decided the arrival of Charlie Muffin was an additional cause for concern. ‘I guess he's good.'

‘How close am I going to have to work with him?'

Lyneham gestured to what had come from Washington. ‘In the same sack is what they want.'

‘How do you feel about that? You're chief here.'

Lyneham shifted uncomfortably at the reminder of ultimate responsibility. ‘We're talking doomsday and Armageddon, son. If Washington want you joined at the hip, I'll do the stitching myself.'

‘Who'll be in charge, if we're a team?'

It was a necessary operational question. And not one upon which he was going to commit himself, anxious to spread the accountability. ‘I'll message Washington.'

Kestler thrust up, unable to remain still any longer, nodding to the other material on Lyneham's desk. ‘Why don't we make him an arrival present of those?'

‘Those' were the photographs of the mutilated man in the skiff on the Berlin lake. From his fingerprints the German Bundeskrimina-lamt had identified him as Gottfried Braun, a small-time hustler and con man upon whom their most recent intelligence was of his boasting close contacts with various Russian Mafia groups with available nuclear material.

‘You know what they show?' demanded Lyneham.

‘A guy with his balls in his mouth.'

Lyneham sighed, unamused. ‘They show that no one in the nuclear business fucks about: that you've got to treat it all very seriously and not take any chances and think before you make any move. They don't take prisoners and they don't give a fuck about who or what the FBI is or about any other organization trying to stop them.'

‘I do treat it seriously,' insisted the corrected Kestler, solemnly. Then he said, ‘So shall I send the photographs to the British embassy? Show how keen we are to work together?'

‘Why not?' agreed Lyneham.

Aleksai Semenovich Popov was the operational director against Russian nuclear smuggling, so it was to him that the advice of Charlie Muffin's politically agreed appointment was channelled from the Foreign Ministry. Popov brought to his position the forethought, planning and the minute attention to every detail that, had he not chosen an alternative career, would have gained him chess Grand Master ranking at international level. Such attention to detail made it automatic for him to check old KGB records and the discovery startled him. He read the file several times at the Interior Ministry building less than a mile away from where the two Americans had the same day had their discussion about Charlie Muffin. Finally he rose and went further along the corridor to the deputy Director's office.

‘I think you should see this,' Popov said to Natalia. ‘It seems you know this man.'

Charlie Muffin had not expected to be met at Sheremet'yevo by Thomas Bowyer and said so, when he thanked the man.

‘Traditional courtesy to a newcomer,' said the station chief. The Scots accent was quite pronounced and Charlie supposed the suit could have been described as a Highland tweed. Bowyer was ruddy cheeked and stray haired and would, Charlie decided, have looked more at home on a moor than forcing his way through a crowd of taxi-touting Russians to the embassy Ford. As they got in Bowyer said, ‘Been to Moscow before?'

So London had not sent his complete file. ‘A long time ago.'

‘Funny place. Didn't know it in the old days but people who did tell me it's changed a lot. Dangerous as hell now …' He nodded back towards the retreating airport. ‘A lot of those taxi guys only take you halfway into town before mugging you, stealing your luggage and dumping you in the road.'

‘I've heard.' The state of the roads didn't seem to have changed, thought Charlie, as the car thumped into a bone-jarring pothole.

Bowyer chanced a look across the car. ‘What's it like, back home?'

Charlie understood the question and the gossip-eager reason for his being met in. ‘Pretty bad. Blood all over the floor.'

‘I'm damned glad I'm here, out of it.'

‘It's the best place to be, out of it.'

‘Can't say I envy you your job, though.'

Charlie hesitated, remembering the back-channel suspicion. ‘It's going to take a while for me to learn what the job really is.'

‘You're going to get some help on that,' offered Bowyer at once. ‘There's been a scientific and military group here for the last fortnight: they're going home the day after tomorrow. London's fixed a briefing, before they leave.'

Charlie frowned, curious Johnson hadn't warned him in London. ‘That'll be useful.'

‘And anything else more generally you need, just ask.'

‘I appreciate the offer,' said Charlie. More often than not in the past when he'd arrived in a city as an outsider he'd met resentment and even outright hostility from in-country embassy personnel. But he wasn't going to be an outsider this time, was he? Charlie still found the realization difficult and wondered how long it would take to adjust.

‘You certainly seem to have some clout,' said Bowyer.

‘To get what?'

‘That sort of apartment on Lesnaya, for a start. The Head of Chancellery got turned down on cost grounds for one only half as grand as what you've got.'

Charlie hoped it wouldn't cause any jealousy: insular, bundled-together embassies were breeding grounds for all sorts of irrational attitudes and envies. Remembering again his belief that Bowyer was watching and listening for London's benefit, Charlie said, ‘I didn't think it would have worked for me to be in the compound.'

‘Everything still needs to go through the embassy,' said Bowyer, at once.

Heavily, Charlie said, ‘You're the conduit to London. I know that.'

‘We're not going to fall out over territory,' said Bowyer, reassuring in return. He looked across the car again and grinned. ‘You're on your own, Charlie.'

Which was always how he'd wanted it to be, reflected Charlie, responsible for no one except himself. The self-accusation came at once. An attitude he'd let wash over into his private life and made him lose Natalia. Ahead, the Moscow high-rises were coming into view. Was he
really
going to live – think of it as home – in a place that all his working life had been the focus of everything he'd had to oppose and undermine? Hard-headed reality at once blewaway the whimsy. Only as long as he didn't fuck up, he reminded himself.

Somewhere in this towered city, he thought, Natalia was living. With their baby.

*

By coincidence the Russian who headed the Dolgoprudnaya cell in Berlin arrived at Sheremet'yevo just an hour after Charlie Muffin. The man was met in, too, personally by Stanislav Silin, who had decided their meeting could be best, and most discreetly, conducted during a meandering car ride around Moscow. They'd worked that way before, several times, so the man wasn't suprised by what otherwise might have seemed inexplicable courtesy.

‘What was that lake business all about?' asked Silin.

‘The obvious. Some cunt thinking he could get away with a con.'

‘Who did it?'

‘The word is that it was The Turk.'

The traffic slowed, near the Skhodnaya turn-off, and Silin looked briefly across at the other man. ‘I thought he was our buyer?'

‘He's anybody's buyer. He's Iraq's main middleman and they want everything they can get.'

Silin smiled. ‘Good. I've got a spectacular deal.'

‘How much?'

‘Two hundred and fifty kilos.'

‘What? You've got to be joking!'

‘Guaranteed.'

‘We haven't been able to get hold of more than maybe three and a half, four and a half at the most, in the last three years!'

Silin picked up the outer ring road, going north. ‘Nearer five. Like I said, this is spectacular.'

Silin was conscious of the other man shaking his head.

‘It can't be genuine.'

‘It is. Can you sell it?'

‘Of course I can sell it. There's a queue.'

He'd have to trust this man more than he was trusting anyone else apart from Marina, accepted Silin. But he'd done that already, agreeing to the way their own Swiss account was established. ‘I've promised the suppliers $25,000,000, with $8,000,000 up front. They want it in Switzerland.'

‘What are they selling, uranium or plutonium?'

‘I don't know, not yet.'

‘It doesn't matter if it's authentic, weapons-graded stuff.'

‘What could we expect to get ourselves?'

The man shrugged. ‘I've never tried to broker this much. I doubt even The Turk would take it all. Nothing of any size has come from anywhere for a long time; just the shit that got the German killed. So like I said, there's a queue.'

The motorway began its gradual curve eastwards. ‘Just an estimate?' invited Silin.

‘Seventy-five million. Could go as high as $100,000,000 if it's uranium 235.' The man shook his head again. ‘I just can't believe it! It's incredible!'

‘And there's more,' promised Silin.

‘What's the Commission say?'

Silin snatched another sideways glance. That was an impertinent question, even from someone with the special relationship they had. So he'd heard something. Maybe even been approached. ‘Sobelov's making a bid,' he announced, bluntly.

There was a movement as the man turned towards him, but he didn't immediately speak. Then he said, ‘
Because
of this?'

Silin shook his head. ‘It's my negotiation, my contacts, like it always is.'

To their left the signs to Dolgoprudnaya, where they'd both been born and from which the Family got its name, began to appear; Silin had intentionally gone northwards, as a psychological reminder to the other man of their long-standing loyalty to each other.

‘He's a fool, like he's always been! No one's going to follow him.'

‘I think Bobin and Frolov are with him.'

‘Where's their edge?'

‘They don't have one. Just muscle. They want a war with the Chechen.'

The man snorted a laugh. ‘What are you going to do?'

‘Nothing, immediately. I don't want anything to interfere with this. When it's all sorted out – when you've made the deliveries – I'll make some changes.' Silin briefly considered taking the Dolgoprudnaya road instead of going in the opposite direction into Moscow but decided against it.

‘This will bring a hell of a lot of heat if it works,' predicted the man. ‘There's been nothing this big before. Ever. This is a lot of complete bombs.'

‘That's for the physicists,' shrugged Silin. Bluntly again, he said, ‘You had any contact from here, apart from me?'

‘No,' denied the man at once.

‘Would you tell me, if you had?'

‘How can you ask me that?' demanded the man, outraged. ‘Aren't we
real
family! Cousins.'

‘I can ask when I'm confronting a challenge,' said Silin. He could have been wrong about the impertinence of the Commission question. They
were
cousins.

‘If I had been approached, I would have told you,' said the man, positively. ‘I haven't been.'

‘It's good to have someone I can rely on.'

‘You always have been able to. And always will be. You know that.'

chapter 6

N
ever before, not even when she'd faced the official enquiry into Charlie's return to London, had Natalia needed the diamond-hard control necessary when her current lover announced the Moscow arrival of her previous lover she'd never expected to see or hear of again. But she managed it. Just. And not rigid-faced, which would have betrayed the effort, or with any shake to her hand or quaver in her voice. She even succeeded with the required indignation at their not having been consulted ahead of the Foreign Ministry agreement and promised to make a formal protest – which she later did, both for the record and because there
should
have been some discussion – at the discourtesy.

Paradoxically – in a situation of utter paradox – Natalia was actually helped to cover her inner confusion by the stunning unexpectedness of the announcement. Few of her daydreams had been like this, in the early months and years when she'd had fantasies and daydreams, before she'd locked Charlie Muffin away for ever in her memories. She'd expected a letter or a telephone call, a warning of some sort so she could prepare herself and have ready all the words and feelings and even the recriminations.

All of which she supposed she could still do.

Only the fact of Charlie's assignment was a shock. It hadn't been a personal, abrupt confrontation. She didn't think – she
knew
– she couldn't have handled that: the self-control was strained to the limit as it was. But now she could prepare herself, take everything at her speed, do everything as and how and when she wanted.

Did
she want to meet him again, let him back into her life again as if all the hurt and pain had never happened? It had always been part of the day-dreaming that she did: that he would reappear and finally commit himself and that everything would have a happy ending, like the bedtime stories she told Sasha. But now the daydream could become a reality Natalia wasn't sure any more. Charlie Muffin was in the past. She was with Aleksai Semenovich now. He was everything that her drunken husband and then Charlie hadn't been and couldn't be. Aleksai wanted to marry her but never pressured her, prepared to wait on her terms and for her decision. In the meantime he was a gentle and exciting lover who'd never failed her, either in or out of bed, and who genuinely did treat Sasha as if she were his own: it seemed quite natural, to him and to the child, that it was Aleksai who often read the bedtime story with the happy ending.