a nightmare: I’ve been told that already.”
Halliday gestured Charlie farther into the unexpectedly littered MI6
rezidentura,
files, dossiers, and newspapers—English language as well as Russian—overflowing from benches and side desks onto a floor shadowed by unclosed cabinets and open desk drawers. Halliday said, “Not as bad as it looks.”
“Which looks bad enough,” commiserated Charlie, needing to move some of the records to take the offered seat. The headline in that day’s unfiled
Moscow News
on top of the heap read: MYSTERY DEEPENS IN BRITISH EMBASSY MURDER .
Halliday shook his head, smiling. “On open, possibly intercepted transmission, little more than embarrassment. A lot of analyses about Stepan Lvov’s presidential chances, which is occupying every Western embassy in Moscow and shouldn’t surprise anyone in the FSB. My judgement is that Lvov’s a shoo-in, so if I’m right, it’s not even embarrassing that we’ve been monitoring him. If he loses, I’m a bad analyst they don’t have to worry about keeping too close an eye on.”
“Very pragmatic,” complimented Charlie. “I’ve never seen so many worried people running around so many corridors. Or quite so many journalists, cameramen, and TV crews outside this embassy.”
“The inquisitors are due any time, thumbscrews and all.
There’s bound to be a lot of other transgressions swept up in the spring cleaning. And Reg Stout, who’s rightly shitting himself, says he’s called the militia to clear the media away.”
“He told me he hardly speaks Russian.”
Halliday shrugged. “He’s always talking through the hole in his ass.”
“How worried are you about the internal inquiry?”
Halliday smiled again. “I certainly didn’t let the FSB bug-masters in.”
“You must have recognized how fucked up the security was here, before the shit hit the fan?”
Halliday patted the closest folder to him on his desk. “I did, long before the shit hit any fan. And here’s the log, with attachedcopies of every warning message I’ve sent to London over the last six months. London’s going to have a lot of self-explaining to do, as well as the idiots here . . .” The man patted his special folder again. “With this already on my record, I’m going to come out of this inquiry smelling like a rose.”
“Always better than smelling of shit,” agreed Charlie.
“I told Monsford, my director, you’d declined my offer of help, by the way. He said he might take it up with your boss. Thought you should know in advance.”
“I appreciate your telling me that,” said Charlie, deciding at that moment that although admiring Halliday’s apparent professionalism, he didn’t personally like the man. But then, Charlie asked himself, when had liking someone have anything to do with anything?
Charlie had wondered if in five years the official interior design preponderance of desk and countertop Bakelite with matching linoleum floor covering would have disappeared but, of course, it hadn’t—it just became more scratched and scuffed. The insolent, blank-faced disinterest of the counter clerk at Ulitsa Petrovka was the same as Charlie remembered, too: Charlie’s guess at four minutes before the man would bother to look up from the curled-edged, unturned page of what he was reading was short by an additional full minute.
“Important to keep up to date with all the regulations,” sympathized Charlie, sure the man was looking at the latest office-circulating porn magazine: the clerk was two pages short of the photographic offerings.
There was grunted surprise at Charlie’s mockery being in Russian. “You the Englishman to see Sergei Romanovich Pavel?”
“That’s me,” agreed Charlie, equally surprised at the expectation.
“It’s the top floor, second door on the right when you get there,” dismissed the man, nodding toward the linoleum-clad stairs as he went back to his magazine.
Charlie took his time and was glad he did.
Halliday gestured Charlie farther into the unexpectedly littered MI6
rezidentura,
files, dossiers, and newspapers—English language as well as Russian—overflowing from benches and side desks onto a floor shadowed by unclosed cabinets and open desk drawers. Halliday said, “Not as bad as it looks.”
“Which looks bad enough,” commiserated Charlie, needing to move some of the records to take the offered seat. The headline in that day’s unfiled
Moscow News
on top of the heap read: MYSTERY DEEPENS IN BRITISH EMBASSY MURDER .
Halliday shook his head, smiling. “On open, possibly intercepted transmission, little more than embarrassment. A lot of analyses about Stepan Lvov’s presidential chances, which is occupying every Western embassy in Moscow and shouldn’t surprise anyone in the FSB. My judgement is that Lvov’s a shoo-in, so if I’m right, it’s not even embarrassing that we’ve been monitoring him. If he loses, I’m a bad analyst they don’t have to worry about keeping too close an eye on.”
“Very pragmatic,” complimented Charlie. “I’ve never seen so many worried people running around so many corridors. Or quite so many journalists, cameramen, and TV crews outside this embassy.”
“The inquisitors are due any time, thumbscrews and all.
There’s bound to be a lot of other transgressions swept up in the spring cleaning. And Reg Stout, who’s rightly shitting himself, says he’s called the militia to clear the media away.”
“He told me he hardly speaks Russian.”
Halliday shrugged. “He’s always talking through the hole in his ass.”
“How worried are you about the internal inquiry?”
Halliday smiled again. “I certainly didn’t let the FSB bug-masters in.”
“You must have recognized how fucked up the security was here, before the shit hit the fan?”
Halliday patted the closest folder to him on his desk. “I did, long before the shit hit any fan. And here’s the log, with attachedcopies of every warning message I’ve sent to London over the last six months. London’s going to have a lot of self-explaining to do, as well as the idiots here . . .” The man patted his special folder again. “With this already on my record, I’m going to come out of this inquiry smelling like a rose.”
“Always better than smelling of shit,” agreed Charlie.
“I told Monsford, my director, you’d declined my offer of help, by the way. He said he might take it up with your boss. Thought you should know in advance.”
“I appreciate your telling me that,” said Charlie, deciding at that moment that although admiring Halliday’s apparent professionalism, he didn’t personally like the man. But then, Charlie asked himself, when had liking someone have anything to do with anything?
Charlie had wondered if in five years the official interior design preponderance of desk and countertop Bakelite with matching linoleum floor covering would have disappeared but, of course, it hadn’t—it just became more scratched and scuffed. The insolent, blank-faced disinterest of the counter clerk at Ulitsa Petrovka was the same as Charlie remembered, too: Charlie’s guess at four minutes before the man would bother to look up from the curled-edged, unturned page of what he was reading was short by an additional full minute.
“Important to keep up to date with all the regulations,” sympathized Charlie, sure the man was looking at the latest office-circulating porn magazine: the clerk was two pages short of the photographic offerings.
There was grunted surprise at Charlie’s mockery being in Russian. “You the Englishman to see Sergei Romanovich Pavel?”
“That’s me,” agreed Charlie, equally surprised at the expectation.
“It’s the top floor, second door on the right when you get there,” dismissed the man, nodding toward the linoleum-clad stairs as he went back to his magazine.
Charlie took his time and was glad he did.
Similar Books
