Free Red Star Burning by Brian Freemantle

can get.”
    “What do you think about Charlie Muffin?” persisted the operations director. “From the personnel and assignment files, do you think he’s clean?”
    Monsford’s facial contortion really was a grimace this time. “I’d come down in his favor. The only thing that doesn’t make sense is his marrying a woman in the FSB and before that the KGB.”
    “Don’t the personnel assessments make a point of his not abiding by any rules?” asked Straughan, who believed he’d read everything more thoroughly than had the Director.
    “That’s not just breaking rules: that’s the suicide wish Smith had the man examined for. He would have known he could never survive if it ever became known.”
    “So would she, but she still married him,” argued Straughan.
    “If you’re making a point I’m missing it,” complained Monsford.
    “If he felt enough about her to go through a marriage ceremony—and she for him—he’ll do anything and everything to get back to Russia to help her, whether Smith agrees or not.”
    Monsford frowned, disconcerted by another argument he hadn’t understood. “Isn’t that our whole objective?”
    “I thought it was a factor worthwhile stressing to Smith.”
    “I’ve already got it flagged,” lied Monsford.
    “I don’t want to keep Radtsic on hold. We’re ready, apart from the security on a safe house.”
    “I’m seeing Smith at five to confront him with all the rest we’ve got.”
    “Do you want me to wait until you get back?” asked Straughan, warily. His mother’s caregiver left at six.
    “Yes,” decided the Director. “By then I expect to hear something even more helpful from Moscow.”
    Awkward bastard, Straughan thought. He was sorry now that he’d asked instead of risking the wrath the following morning.
    *   *   *
     
    Before he’d completed his exercise-period reconnaissance of the outside security and failed on his return to his upstairs cell, as he had on his exit from it, to identify all the interior precautions, Charlie finally acknowledged that escape from his hunting-lodge prison was impossible.
    Charlie slumped into a leather-creaking easy chair, head bowed to his chest again to continue the appearance of cowed acceptance, letting another half-formed idea harden. What could he do—what could he say or imply—to convince Aubrey Smith and Jane Ambersom that it was essential to their interests that Natalia and Sasha be brought out of Russia? And not just them. Gerald Monsford was involved, too. Why? Charlie abruptly asked himself, calling to mind his surprise at the MI6 Director’s presence at his initial interrogation. Strict interpretation of the internal and external divisions between the two intelligence services would normally have decreed the Lvov affair to be that of MI6, except that it had begun with the finding in the Moscow grounds of the British embassy—internationally and diplomatically designated UK territory—of a man who had been tortured before being murdered. And even though his investigation later crossed MI6 boundaries, Aubrey Smith held off the participation demands of Gerald Monsford. So what had changed to bring Monsford in now? Could there still be an internal power problem, even though Jeffrey Smale’s overthrow had failed? Or had Monsford been invited in by a still apprehensive Director-General in the hope of providing sideways-shifting blame for an as-yet-unknown disaster? For which his being married to a serving FSB officer would unquestionably qualify.
    He’d traveled too far down rough-track side roads leading nowhere, Charlie accepted: properly understanding the reason for Monsford’s presence had to remain a work in progress in a situation in which he appeared to be making very little progress. What lure could he find sufficient to convince the Director-General that getting Natalia and Sasha out was in the national interest instead of solely his? The only conceivable—and necessarily official—argument was