Free Red Star Falling: A Thriller by Brian Freemantle Page A

arrest of Denning and Beckindale provides it?’
    ‘We’re certainly going to try,’ decided the Director-General.
    *   *   *
     
    It was more than likely Monsford had been told independently, Rebecca accepted, but if he hadn’t, the asshole had only himself to blame, refusing her calls and messages and leaving the curt instruction on her answering machine to make her own way to that morning’s session. She’d more than covered her ass—which she’d determined to continue covering in every other way from now on—by spreading her alert not just to his voice mail at Cheyne Walk and at his headquarters office but to the operations room as well. She’d called minutes before leaving Vauxhall Cross and been told there’d been no contact from the Director.
    Rebecca was intentionally early, conscious of the immediate attention from the secretariat supporting Sir Archibald Bland and Geoffrey Palmer, neither of whom had yet arrived. She was conscious, too, that yesterday’s place setting for James Straughan had been removed. Surreptitiously, confident that she was unobserved, Rebecca eased her repositioned seat away from Monsford’s. The general influx came about thirty minutes before the scheduled opening. Monsford came in just before MI5. Monsford wasn’t openly smiling but appeared relaxed, surveying those already gathered around the table, which he joined differently from the preceding day, passing in front of the secretariat, at which he briefly paused before continuing on to his designated seat, nodding in satisfaction as he reached it at the absence of Straughan’s place setting. He neither smiled nor greeted Rebecca.
    ‘I’ve been calling you: leaving messages.’
    ‘Something’s come up. I’ve been busy.’ He didn’t look at her as he spoke.
    Shit, she thought, disappointed. ‘You’ve heard about Radtsic then?’
    Monsford covered the lurch of surprise by noisily repositioning his chair, closing the gap Rebecca had created. ‘I spoke to Jacobson half an hour ago. He didn’t say anything!’
    ‘The significance didn’t register with our CCTV monitors in Hertfordshire: Christ knows why not!’ criticized the woman. ‘Radtsic made Elena watch yesterday’s BBC coverage of the shooting, which included the Russian airport film. Radtsic talks about a diversion being discussed in the initial days of his extraction planning. The remark was isolated overnight by a committee monitor. I got the call at seven this morning, after they couldn’t reach you. As I couldn’t, until now.’
    ‘Have you seen the clip!’ demanded Monsford.
    ‘The whole sequence,’ confirmed Rebecca. She was curious at his comparatively calm reaction. But he’d never been the quickest off the mental starting block.
    ‘Tell me: every word he said.’
    Rebecca hesitated, conscious that everyone was gathered around the table. ‘They’re both bewildered by the film: can’t understand it. Radtsic suggests it’s mafia, a turf war shoot-out, which Elena ridicules. They’re listening to the original Russian soundtrack, under the English voice-over. Which Elena reminds Radtsic specifically identifies MI6. That’s when Radtsic talks of a diversion.…’
    ‘Exactly!’ insisted Monsford. ‘Tell me Radtsic’s exact words!’
    The panic was settling, Rebecca thought, satisfied. ‘“A diversion was talked about, at the very beginning,”’ she quoted, having anticipated the man’s demand. ‘“It was before things changed and you went to Paris to bring Andrei out with you. It was only mentioned once, as far as I recall. Nothing was ever said again, after that one time.”’
    The room quieted at the entry of Bland and Palmer, which Monsford ignored. ‘No actual mention of killing! Just a diversion? That’s all he called it, a diversion?’
    ‘Diversion was the word,’ confirmed Rebecca. ‘He never referred to assassination, although assassination was the context in which he said it.’
    ‘Let’s begin, shall we?’