Free Red Star Burning by Brian Freemantle Page B

opinion?”
    “She thinks he went over a long time ago: that while our intention was for Charlie’s defection to be phoney, Natalia turned him and he was sent back as a double. And now it’s all gone badly wrong for them, this is a clumsy way of trying to get him safely to Moscow.”
    “The facts don’t fit her argument,” rejected Monsford.
    “What’s your take?”
    Monsford was annoyed at continuing to be the respondent instead of the questioner. “I don’t believe Charlie Muffin is a traitor. Every analysis of every assignment going back an entire year before the fake defection shows a lot of improvisation but not a single loyalty-questioning inconsistency.”
    “Right,” agreed Smith.
    “Against which I can’t reconcile his marrying a serving officer in an opposition service—” Monsford held up his hand against interruption. “And don’t give me any love-is-blind, there’s-always-an-exception-to-the-rule nonsense. He’s a professional—a very professional—operative whom I’d have welcomed with open arms crossing the river to my side.”
    “What do you think we should do?”
    “I was waiting for you to tell me,” evaded Monsford.
    “Charlie Muffin is a complete professional,” agreed Smith. “As such, he knew exactly what he was doing when he married Natalia Fedova and the consequences if it became known. He’s now got to face those consequences. He’ll be kept safe in the protection program and the woman will have to suffer whatever fate the Russians choose for her when they realize we’re not taking their bait. I sympathize with them both, but they each knew the inevitable outcome if they got caught out.”
    His entire fucking alternative operation was going down the drain, thought Monsford, desperately. “We both of us know Charlie won’t accept that, just as we both acknowledge how good he is. He’d abandon the protection and give you the slip, as he did a few days ago. Except this time he’ll go to Russia instead.”
    The Director-General shook his head. “He couldn’t do that without backup resources, which he doesn’t have.”
    “You want to run the risk of his trying, which he will, and create a huge diplomatic incident?”
    “You proposing we eliminate him?” There was no outrage in Smith’s voice.
    “I’m arguing we shouldn’t close everything down as quickly as you seem to be suggesting,” said Monsford. “I also believe it would be an argument that those who crack the whip in Downing Street would consider a validation.”
    “I don’t think…” began Smith, but was stopped by the burp of an internal telephone. He listened for several moments before interrupting, sharply: “You know what to do. Do it!”
    To Monsford’s inquiring look, Smith said: “The Russians have just broken into Charlie’s flat. And there’s been fresh contact from Moscow. It’s being voiceprinted to make sure it’s Natalia Fedova.”
    “Isn’t one thing going to complicate the other?”
    “I don’t see why it should,” said Smith. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”
    He wasn’t manipulating events, despaired Monsford. And he didn’t know how to reverse the situation.
    *   *   *
     
    It was the first time they’d met, at Maxim Radtsic’s insistence, in Jacobson’s car. An enclosed vehicle was the easiest for an entrapment, so as a precaution Jacobson drove several times past the pickup point from every possible approach to satisfy himself there were no ambush preparations in the immediate side streets. There weren’t, but Jacobson, who’d never before been involved in an extraction and was even less used to having the deputy director of Russian intelligence dependent upon him, wasn’t reassured, his stomach in turmoil as, precisely on time, he made his final approach, still only minimally relieved at the sight of the Russian waiting as arranged. That relief vanished when he realized that the clumsiness with which Radtsic fumbled open the passenger door was