Free Dead Men Living by Brian Freemantle

It’s imperative from the outset that there are no misunderstandings between us. I hope there won’t be.”
    “So do I,” said Travin, insolently.
    How many times had she already said and thought those words? wondered Natalia. And how many times was she going to repeat them in the immediate future? She said, “The most important thing for you to understand is that whatever the outcome, no blame or error should attach to our people.”
    “I’ve understood that already,” assured Travin.
    “That’s good.”
    It was only when Natalia was redrafting for the third time her bureaucratically necessary memorandum to Dmitri Nikulin—with copies to everyone else in the planning group—that she accepted the first version had been quite adequate and that she was stupidly delaying her return to Lesnaya and Charlie.
    “I’m on my way,” she said into the telephone.
    “There’s a lot to talk about,” said Charlie.
    “I know.”
     
    “It’s an opportunity!” insisted Vitali Novikov.
    “How? Why?” asked his wife.
    “There’ll be foreigners: American and English.”
    “What good will they be?” demanded Marina.
    “I don’t know, not yet. But I’ll find a way.”
    “Vitali Maksimovich! You’ve tried so hard for so long. Nothing works!”
    “You want Georgi and Arseni to live like we’ve had to live?”
    “You know I don’t. But there is no other way. No way out.”
    “My father was a clever man. A meticulous man.”

    “And you’re clever, too, my darling. But I can’t see how Americans or British can help us.”
    “I’ll find a way,” repeated the medical examiner, stubbornly. “Even if I have to cheat and lie.”
     
    Gerald Williams examined his idea from as many aspects as he could think of before telephoning his fellow finance director across the river at Vauxhall Cross. His second call was to Richard Cartright in Moscow.
    “I thought I should introduce myself, now that our two departments are going to be working together,” said Williams.

7
    The phrase that came to Charlie’s mind was phony war , although it didn’t fit because he wasn’t going to allow a war between himself and Natalia, phony or otherwise. They were moving around the apartment, overly attentive upon Sasha, overly polite toward each other, with long periods of silence, as if each were expecting the other to fire the first shot.
    It was, however, Natalia who proposed the armistice. “Angry?”
    “No.” Charlie was on his second Islay malt of the evening, Sasha already asleep.
    “What, then?”
    “Disappointed.”
    “It had to be this way: from our Foreign Ministry to yours, in London.” She shook her head to the wine he held up.
    “I know that. You might just have mentioned something.” Charlie was, in fact, very angry, although not at Natalia. He’d timed the telephone lecture from Sir Rupert Dean at forty minutes, immediately followed by the promised memorandum, and after that there had been the personal visit from Richard Cartright with the insistence that he was sure they were all going to work together perfectly. To
which Charlie had thought bollocks and said he was just as sure.
    “I’ve got so much to mention I doubt I’ll remember it all,” said Natalia, turning his expression.
    Charlie looked at her curiously. “Go on.”
    “I’m not sure I can do it,” blurted Natalia. “That we can do it: keep secret what we have to. I’ve almost gone mad!” And she still didn’t intend to tell him everything.
    “It might have helped to talk.” He was glad he hadn’t told her of Irena’s apparently brief affair with Saul Freeman. Glad, too, that there’d been no personal contact from the woman after that one night, which she’d hinted at when he’d walked her to the street-level door.
    “Perhaps. I just wanted to do it this way. Try some separation, so that we couldn’t be professionally accused of anything.”
    Charlie smiled at her sadly. “I know I was a shit before. But I’ll make you a