Free Dead Men Living by Brian Freemantle Page A

solemn promise. I will never, ever, cheat you or use you or expose you to any risk I can possibly avoid. Or put Sasha at any risk.”
    Natalia stayed silent for several minutes, changing her mind and pouring her own wine. “I believe you, about us.”
    She didn’t, Charlie decided. She wanted to—maybe would come to, in time—but at the moment there was too much to forget. He took Sir Rupert Dean’s fax from his pocket and slid it across the table toward her. “Now it’s official, I suppose we can talk about it.”
    She smiled, relieved it had been this easy, reading it slowly, not looking up for several minutes. “Those are all the facts there are?”
    “Seems like it.”
    “How do you feel about working with the SIS?” she asked, anticipating the answer.
    “I don’t like working in groups. Cartright won’t be the only person.”
    “It’s an order, Charlie,” said Natalia, at once worried.
    “They won’t know that, will they? They might even have their uses.” He sipped his whiskey. “Read up on what I could about Yakutskaya, from the embassy library. Seems a hell of a place. There was an embassy assessment from here, in Stalin’s time, just at the suggestion of the gulags that was marked doubtful because the descriptions weren’t considered humanly possible.”

    “Even though Stalin’s been denounced and disgraced, public records stay sanitized,” said Natalia.
    “I won’t take a paperback and sun oil.”
    Natalia refused the anxious flippancy. “Be careful.”
    Charlie waited. When Natalia didn’t continue he said, “Everyone and his dog out to screw me?”
    “I won’t let you be exposed to any risk I can possibly anticipate and prevent,” said Natalia, matching his earlier promise.
    At once, urgently, Charlie shook his head. “Don’t anticipate for me! Let me anticipate for myself.”
    “So you don’t trust me !”
    “We’re not talking us !” insisted Charlie, “We’re talking gutter survival. I’ve been there: lived my life there. You haven’t, not operationally. Leave me to watch my own back, until I ask for help. That way there’s no confusion.”
    In his opinion she couldn’t do without his help, but he could do without hers, judged Natalia. “There isn’t a score to even, Charlie.”
    “I’m not balancing scores,” persisted Charlie, unhappy at her response. “This hasn’t anything to do with your not talking to me before now … .” He waved the London fax still lying between them. “You think the Americans got the same?”
    “Positive.”
    “So,” Charlie said patiently, although still with some urgency. “We’ve got fifty-year-old unreported, totally unknown murders of apparent English and American officers. We’ve got a hostile, probably obstructive local authority. We’ve got a resented Moscow intrusion. Without doubt someone involved from America. And in effect, I’m working under monitor … .” He paused, trying to imagine anything he’d left out. Unable to, he went on, “Each and every one of whom—with the possible exception of whoever America sends—will be trying to discredit each and everyone else. There’s no way, from a distance of three thousand miles, you could or can anticipate what will be going on. Not in a way to help me … .” He gulped at his whiskey, needing the pause. Who the fuck was going to help him, then? It was the worst possible scenario, a bunch—a committee—of disorganized, fractious, warring people. And committees-working with them, for them, being part of them—ranked on Charlie’s hate list equal to tight shoes, ice in single malt and the need constantly
to justify his expenses. Maybe, even, a little higher than all three.
    “I wasn’t thinking of three thousand miles away,” said Natalia, quietly. “I was thinking about back here, in Moscow.”
    Charlie drank some more whiskey, matching her seriousness. “I’d be grateful. And need it.”
    Maybe she needed it more than him, thought Natalia.