Brian Freemantle - Red Star Burning

Its coming down to me, declared Maxim Radtsic.

Elana stopped with her knife and fork suspended before her, gazing at her husband across the dinner table. You werent responsible for it going wrong, Maxim Mickailovich: not for any of it.

Im directly below the Director, held the position the longest: even before Gorbachev or Yeltsin came to power.

What about Andrei?

Andrei has to come too.

There must be some other way.

There isnt.

I dont want to. Andrei wont want to, either. You cant do this to him.

Itll save us. Andrei, too.

How?

Trust me.

Im frightened.

Just trust me, said Radtsic, hating the words as he uttered them.

Kill myself? echoed Charlie, derision and astonishment combined.

Thats what I think youll end up doing.

Bollocks, rejected Charlie. At the back-too often in the forefront-of his mind had always hovered the expectation of dying. But violently: from a breath-sucking assassins bullet or the burn of a back-alley knife or a shattering explosion. But never of killing himself, not even while confronting his now fossilized existence.

It would be understandable, sympathized the small, hunched psychiatrist, George Cowley. Youve spent almost thirty years at the front end of British intelligence, always on the edge. Now youre blown, in a Protection Program with a new identity, a retirement salary, a safe house, and a protection regime. All of which youre refusing to acknowledge or observe. From which the only conclusion is that youre either inviting Russian assassination or intending to kill yourself.

Bollocks, repeated Charlie. He had to do better than this: convince this asshole of an MI5 psychiatrist that hed got it all wrong. As he, in turn, had got it all wrong, staging an intentionally deceiving performance for the too easily detected minders during his limited excursions from the safe house. The internal cameras and listening devices would be recording everything of this performance, too, he accepted.

It would have been easier for you, if maybe not for them, if youd had a family: a wife, children, to fill the emptiness within you, Cowley pressed on. But you havent, have you, Charlie? All youve ever had is the job and now you dont have that anymore.

Wrong again! agonized Charlie. He did have a wife. And a daughter. A family still in Russia that no one knew about. Nor could they ever know, because Natalia Fedova was a senior officer in the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, the intelligence agency of the Russian Federation that his own MI5 service believed was determined to assassinate him.

You expect me to adjust in five minutes to all thats happened! demanded Charlie, discomfited at his inadequate reply.

Cowley, who had the highest security clearance, tapped Charlies file on the table between them. Ive read every word thats in here: know everything youve done. And having read it Id expect you to understand the very real danger youre in and accept all the protection thats being offered.

What danger was Natalia facing after his most recent Moscow assignment? Charlie asked himself, as he had repeatedly over the past three months. If he was blown, as MI5 believed him to be, the search might stretch back to his phoney Moscow defection, when Natalia Fedova had been his interrogator. Charlie had never been totally satisfied then shed sanitized their subsequent relationship from what then would have been KGB records. Im not convinced the risk is as great as everyone believes it to be.

Thats for the Director-General to decide, not you. And that decisions been made.

As yours has been made, Charlie fought back. And its wrong.

You ever kill anyone, Charlie? demanded the psychiatrist, unexpectedly.

Never intentionally. That was debatable, thought Charlie, uneasy at the prescience of the other man. Charlie hoped there was nothing in the bulky personnel dossier with which Cowley could catch him out.

Didnt it ever worry you, people getting killed? Assassinated? persisted the other man.

It didnt happen often and when it did-or had to-it was part of the job: I never pulled a trigger. That reply was a cop-out, Charlie acknowledged, but theyd been talking of death and dying for the past thirty minutes and he was fed up at the verbal ping-pong.

Could you have pulled a trigger, if youd had to?

Id been trained to that level, as a last resort: I never got to that resort. Charlie was surprised at the sudden although easily suppressed anger, an emotion he hadnt experienced for a long time because it indicated lack of control, which was always dangerous professionally.

Do you still think you could pull the trigger, if you had to?

Not with the barrel against my own head, no, refused Charlie, guessing the direction in which Cowley was leading.

You sure about that? demanded the psychiatrist. Or are you pissed off that the rest of your life is going to be spent incarcerated in security-covered, audio-and-CCTV-equipped safe houses, forever buried deep within a protection program, never ever able again to meet or speak to anyone you once knew?

Ill get there, responded Charlie, dismissively.

Youre not even trying, accused Cowley, dismissive in return. Youre supposed to have adopted the new name-the entirely new identity-youve been allocated and you havent. Youre supposed never to establish patterns-never the same restaurants, never the same pub, never the same cinema, never the same route or transport to the same supermarket-and you havent. Youre supposed to alter the way you dress, alter as much of your appearance as possible, and you havent: youre even still wearing those spread-apart Hush Puppies about to fall off your awkward feet. As part of that appearance change-in your particular case, all the more essential because of the target you now are-youre supposed seriously to consider surgical facial reconstruction and you havent bothered to attend three specialist appointments to discuss it.

I told you Id get round to it! Lame again, Charlie recognized.

How often, since youve been in the program, have you seriously considered suicide?

Since entering the protection program I have never, ever, considered suicide, replied Charlie, enunciating each word for emphasis.

I dont believe you, declared Cowley. Its a fucking awful existence. Ive never had a protected patient who hasnt thought of taking his or her own life.

How many actually did?

Six, Cowley came back at once.

Im not going to become your seventh! assured Charlie.

I know youre not, agreed the psychiatrist. Im going to put you on suicide watch to ensure you dont.

Fuck it, thought Charlie. He had to hurry to reach Natalia in time.

Defect to the British! exclaimed Elana, her voice breaking. You cant we cant She tried to continue but couldnt, her mind seized by the enormity of what Radtsic had told her, her eyes fixed farther ahead of the embankment road along which they were walking, the river-bordered British embassy in the distance. We cant youre the virtual head of Russian intelligence its unthinkable. She tried again: What about Andrei?

Itll be easy with Andrei at the Sorbonne, insisted Radtsic, whose heavy mustache, gray like his thick hair, and heavy, indulged body had in the past made him the butt of jokes about his physical resemblance to Stalin. Paris is closer to London than we are here in Moscow. The moment we run hell be picked up and brought to us there. Well be together and well be safe.

Its too much for me to understand, protested the woman. In contrast to her husband, who was fifteen years her senior, Elana was a slim, even elegant woman committed to her career as professor of physics at Moscow University. My work what about my work I mean I dont know.