('Shirokaya dusha' means 'broad spirit', and is the way in which Russians describe the typical Russian character as they perceive it - open, generous, warm and emotional).
"Allow me." He leaned down to take her suitcase. Ros held fast to the handle. First rule of interrogation. If you give way on the little things, it will only be a matter of time before you give way on the large ones. Bychkov's blue eyes narrowed a fraction, but his voice remained smooth. "This way, please."
He led her across the hall to an unmarked door and used a swipe card to open it, then stood back politely to let her in. Ros took the chair placed in front of the desk and was seated before he had rounded it. Bychkov unbuttoned his jacket and sat down. He flicked through the pages of her passport.
"Lindsay Butler, British subject." He looked up at her. "No longer Irina Selesnikova, Latvian reject and citizen of the Russian Federation, then?"
The room, Ros knew, was certain to be wired for sound, and possibly monitored. She shook her head.
"I don't know what this charade is all about, and I've never heard of Irina … whatever you said her name was." She was acutely aware of the memory stick she had taken from the body of their informer tucked in her inside pocket. "All I know is that you're making me miss my plane for whatever stupid bee you've got in your bonnet. I have an important meeting in London – not untrue – and if you - "
"I shall continue to call you Irina," Bychkov calmly overrode her words, "because this – " he waved the British passport and then slapped it down on the table in front of her, "this, excellent forgery though it is, is about as likely to be genuine as I am to be a card-carrying member of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club. Not that I believe your real name to be Irina Selesnikova, either." The deep blue eyes bored into her. "If you object, of course, you have only to tell me your real name."
Go to hell. Ros didn't utter the words; she let the expression of bored contempt on her face and the impatient tapping of her fingernails on the desktop speak for her. Bychkov returned her look steadily and with such intensity that Ros felt the kind of discomfort she only otherwise experienced when she had to strip for medical examinations. Her mouth was dry and she wanted to swallow, but she knew the gesture would be noticed.
"Your - colleague – out there said there was an irregularity," she said angrily. "Would you have the common bloody courtesy to tell me what the hell it is instead of wasting my time weaving fairy tales?"
"Fairy tales," Bychkov said thoughtfully. "You do yourself a disservice, Irina Alexeyevna. I think you are far more skilled at telling them than I am." When she merely raised her eyebrows and gave an impatient sigh, he added, "You seem to have a particular penchant for the Little Match Girl, for example. Lost children … that sort of thing."
Here we go again. The ambiguous comments, the subtle probing. Except, Ros thought, that he wasn't probing to find out information. That last shot had been far too pointed. He already knew; he was just waiting for her to confirm what he knew. Wait on, you bastard. She looked at her watch.
"I really don't have all day … Colonel? Can you kindly get to the point?"
"Major," he corrected dryly. "My rank is Major, as you know only too well. In Russian counter-intelligence … as you'll also be aware." He toyed with the passport.
Ros allowed Lindsay to show another flash of impatience. "The only thing I know is that my papers are in order, my ticket is valid, and you have no right to harass a British subject in this way!"
Now it was Bychkov's turn to shoot her an ironic glance. "You would perhaps care to have diplomatic representation? Would you prefer me to call your embassy?"
You're deniable. Absolutely. You're on your own, black op, no back-up from us. London might have provided her with a false passport, but those strictures still applied. She could be interrogated, detained at Bychkov's pleasure, and charged with whatever he chose, and nobody would help. The Grid wouldn't even know what had become of her. And he knew it.
"No, I thought not." The FSB officer shoved back his chair with a suddenness and a grating noise that made Ros jump. He went to a bookcase against the wall, and pressed a button set into it. Then he poured two glasses of water and brought one back to her. Ros ignored it, afraid that her hands would tremble, so he put it down on the desk in front of her.
"Did you hear a disturbance in the terminal while you were waiting in the queue, Irina Alexeyevna?"
She ignored the use of Irina's name, too. "I should think everyone in the damn terminal heard it. Another drunk, I suppose. One thing your country never has a shortage of. And you're bringing this up because - ?"
She expected a reaction to her increasingly belligerent tone, but Bychkov merely paced to the smoked-glass window and looked out. "I am bringing it up because I'd like to know if you heard what the man said."
"I've no idea what nonsense he was talking," she snapped. "I suggest you put him in one of your ubiquitous drunk-tanks until he stops. I fail to see the relevance of this."
"He was shouting," Bychkov said flatly, 'that you were a hostile spy and should be arrested to prevent you leaving the country. He has been arrested, and is being held incommunicado on my orders. Ostensibly to prevent a breach of national security." He span from the window, took two strides to reach her and leaned over her, bracing himself on the two arms of her chair. Instinctively, Ros shrank back from him, but as she tried to turn her head away he seized her jaw and wrenched her sharply back to face him. "So you will stop – his fingers pinched her skin painfully hard – playing silly games of make-believe. This is not your gentleman's club in London, this is Russia, and you are not playing a nice game of cricket, you are playing hard to get with the world's most ruthless intelligence service. I know what you are, I know what you have been doing here, and your game is up unless you co-operate with me right now."
He straightened up. His eyes were blazing now, and incongruously, Ros remembered a sapphire pendant her mother had once owned; the stones had given off the same blue fire. Her jaw was throbbing; later it would bruise. She glared right back at him and said aloud what she had thought earlier.
"And you can go to hell." She spat in his face for good measure.
The crack of his hand across her face almost knocked her from her chair; it would have done if the Russian hadn't grabbed the arms to steady both it and her. Ros felt blood trickling from her lip. Before she could wipe it, Bychkov handed her a tissue. She dabbed at her mouth, keeping her eyes down to give herself time. Drop the pretence. It was obvious that the man knew everything except her name and job description. Well, he's not getting those.
"Do you see that button on the wall?" Bychkov pointed to it. "It has switched off surveillance and recording in this room. Now, be honest with me. Your associate has betrayed you, Irina Alexeyevna."
"Because you turned him!" Ros snarled. Her mouth was swelling rapidly, and the pain increased her anger. "I saw you with him, browbeating him … what did you do, use his family against him?"
To her indignant astonishment, Bychkov laughed. "There speaks a true intelligence officer. For that is what you would have done, yes?" Again he bent low over her, and Ros, despite herself, flinched in expectation of another blow. "Bozhe moi, where does MI-5 get its recruits these days? I browbeat no-one – Pyotr Novikov came to me! His mother was on our files as an agent for London for almost ten years during the zastoi years of the Soviet Union. This makes her a heroine, of course, in the new Russia. But the son … no. He is nostalgic … for the glory days he never knew. For the iron fist of Stalin, for the strong ruler. Now, he thinks we have one." He jerked his thumb towards the obligatory air-brushed photograph of an obsidian-eyed Vladimir Putin on the wall. "So, he continues Mama's heroic work for MI-5. And at the same time – he freelances for FSB."
You're lying. But even as she glared at him over the tissue she was still holding to her bleeding lip, Ros remembered her first meeting with Pyotr in Novodievichi cemetery. He was a good man … he made us respected … even death has a price in Russia now. And she recalled the bitter tone of his voice, which even then she had recognised herself to be genuine. But it doesn't make sense. Why has this bastard waited this long to arrest me? Why didn't he put a stop to the operation before?
She forced her swollen lips to articulate the words as defiantly as she could. "So why didn't you stop me? Pyotr passed the intelligence on to London."
"Not all of it." Bychkov sat down again. "Oh no, my dear Irina Alexeyevna, not all of it. Your Pyotr did not want his British paymasters to get suspicious, so he sent the least that he thought he could get away with. The rest - to me."
Like all Russian interiors in winter, the little room was grossly overheated, but Ros suddenly felt so cold that she shivered. What had Harry said? I need you to persuade the source to agree to a face-to-face meeting at which you will get him to stop going three times round the mulberry bush and supply the information he's been promising. You will obtain the information … it is of crucial importance that you do. At the time she had put his impatience and the urgency of his demands down to the bomb attack and deteriorating relations between the UK and Russia. Chort vozmi. Could it be? Had Pyotr been working for the FSB the whole time?
She looked up at Bychkov. He could still be playing you. Letting you think he knows more than he does. Tricking you into admitting the rest. But then he already knew enough to have her charged and sentenced - for espionage, illegal entry, murder... you name it.
The rest - to me. "And it was you who had Kuznetsov killed."
Bychkov shook his head. "No. My Service, yes. But I am not responsible."
"Well, good for you." Ros injected as much lacerating scorn into the words as she could. "So your hands are lily-white; nothing to disturb your night's sleep." She snorted derisively.
"You think so." She blinked at his tone, a disdainful echo of her own. "How do you think you survived so long, Irina Alexeyevna? I tried to warn you that you were in danger the night you were attacked, and you would not listen."
Ros's eyes widened. "How do you know I was - "
"Listen!" His fist thumped the top of the desk and Ros's untouched glass of water tipped over and spilled its contents all over her knees. "This time, for once in your life, please, no British arrogance, just listen!" Ros was so stunned she didn't even feel the indignation she would normally have felt at the insult. "You were inches from arrest at Tsaritsyno. That operation to take you was planned and executed without my knowledge. I found out about it and got there just in time to abort it. If I had not, you would be on a train going East by now, not a plane going West. And I can assure you the dirt and cold there would make your accommodation at Yaroslavski Vokzal seem like bridal suite at the Kempinski!"
This time Ros couldn't even give voice to the words 'how do you know about Yaroslavski Vokzal?' Her mind was whirling in confusion and incredulity, the two smashing up against each other like waves in a flooded river, and drowning any attempt she tried to make at logical reasoning.
"And you escaped yesterday from your 'safe'- house – which was not at all safe – because I allowed you to. I was trying to frighten off your Pyotr. It seems I failed." He took off his cap, wiped beads of sweat from his hairline and looked at his watch. "We have no further time for this. Do you understand?"
Ros stared at him. "You – Kuznetsov. You knew him?"
"Time." Bychkov tapped his watch impatiently. "Do you understand?"
"Yes." Ros struggled to get a firmer grasp on the facts. They were so unlikely, so impossible, that the process reminded her of climbing up to the top of the haystack in Artyomovo; she felt off-balance and uncertain, and as she had been then, she was trembling and sweaty-palmed with pent-up fear. She finally managed to find the words. "You were … protecting me?"
"You and Valya Kuznetsov." There was weariness in his voice now, and sadness in his eyes. "Yes, I knew him. We were at the FSB training college together. Served together for many years."
"You knew he was - "
"Yes. He told me. I should, of course, have reported him. But I have doubts of my own," again he nodded towards the portrait, "and Valya told me why. Not all of it." He smiled wryly. "To protect me, he said." He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and removed an envelope. "I kept what Pyotr did not send to London. It is here. Take it. What Valya told me was bad. What he did not tell me I think was still more serious. He took great risks to help London. You will make sure this gets there. But be careful." His eyes darkened. "Someone there is either indiscreet - deliberately - or incompetent." Ros said nothing. She wasn't going to give him anything, even now – especially when she agreed with him.
He stood up. "Now … Miss Butler. I have checked your papers and they are in order. An unfortunate misunderstanding. You must hurry or you will miss your flight. I will escort you to the gate."
Ros got to her feet, still so shocked that merely to stand up was an effort as the adrenaline drained from her system. Bychkov put a hand under her elbow to steady her.
"I am sorry to have hit you. You made me angry. It is not a very pleasant farewell gift. Roses perhaps would be better."
"I hate them," Ros said automatically. She did. Her name meant she had been hounded with the bloody things all her life.
"Ah." His eyes twinkled. "Then perhaps we forget the slap and the spit and just shake hands. Like the English." He extended his hand and Ros shook it. "I know you will do what must be done. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Ros, her mind still in turmoil, was about to say no when she remembered. "Those kids at Yaroslavski. They're cold and hungry and they live like rats. If someone doesn't help them this winter they'll either freeze or starve."
"Intereyesno." Bychkov looked curiously at her. "You do not seem like a sentimental woman, not a mamochka with a soft heart, but it is there."
Ros flushed. "I gave my word, that's all. And they helped me - and Kuznetsov."
"So, I will help them." Bychkov opened the office door and guided her across the hall back to the border control point. He waved aside two young female officers in uniform skirts too tight and heels too high, and escorted Ros straight to the booth for diplomatic passport holders. When the officer manning it had saluted him, given Lindsay's passport a cursory glance and waved her through, he said politely, "A pleasant flight, Miss Butler. My apologies for the misunderstanding. We hope to see you in Russia again soon."
Ros waited in a daze for the flight to be called, barely hearing the unremitting buzz of trivial airport conversation all around her. When the British Airways ground supervisor informed her that she had been upgraded to business class, she found she was too drained even to ask why, but she was grateful for the empty seat beside her own. As the plane roared into the crisp, blue winter sky, she watched the tower blocks in which Irina's life in Moscow had begun passing underneath it like so many dominoes. Somewhere, in one of those faceless slabs, was Baba Tamara, perhaps still wondering what disaster could have befallen her lapochka.
"Miss Butler?" When she didn't respond, the stewardess tapped her on the shoulder. "Miss Butler?" Ros stared at her blankly. "Would you like an aperitif? Wine? Gin and tonic, perhaps? "
"I'm not … thank you." Ros asked for a glass of vodka and caught the well-trained young woman's fleeting expression of surprise. She'd be even more surprised if she knew why I need one.
"Would you like anything else?"
"My coat … I'm a bit cold." An insidious chill seemed to have wormed its way under her newly purchased leather jacket. "It's in my case." Twice, despite being addressed in English, she had started to respond in Russian. The stewardess handed her the coat, still dusty and creased from having been slept in the previous night, and moved on. Ros gulped the vodka in one, draped the coat over herself and felt something move in the pocket. She thrust her hand in, pulled the object out and found herself staring at Irina's watch, the one that Borya had stolen from her.
The alcohol had burned its way down her throat; now Ros felt her eyes smarting too. That was the final straw. She pressed her face quickly against the window as the tears spilled over. This time it wasn't just a moment's weakness; this time, and for the first time that she could remember in years, Ros Myers was really crying, shuddering with the effort of keeping her sobs silent and unnoticed by the people around her. She pulled the coat up higher to shield herself, furious that she couldn't contain the sudden overwhelming emotion.
You do not seem like a sentimental woman, Major Bychkov had said. She had seen the genuine perplexity in his eyes. No, I am not. Was not, until your damn country got into my bloodstream, infecting me with your bloody Slavic 'shirokaya dusha'. In one form or another, Russia had been the enemy of her own country throughout most of her professional had fled there because it was. In the envelope she carried lay proof of hostile Russian intentions against the UK, and she had had to kill an FSB officer to stop him killing her. But it wasn't those things that brought the tears. It was that little old lady hugging her frightened, friendless neighbour, the kindness of the man who had patiently shown his hapless, incompetent farm worker how to do the simplest tasks and praised her with a beaming smile when she finally got them right. And the shivering, abandoned little boy who had thanked her in the only way he could, by returning her watch.
Ros heard the rattle of the meal trolley, hastily reclined her seat, and closed her eyes. Her stomach ached with hunger – she had eaten very little for two days – but she didn't want her distress to attract the attention of the stewardess. And exhaustion from her broken night, emotion and the stress of her escape was washing over her. As her eyes became heavy and her awareness began to recede the last thing she heard was the brisk, laconic British voice of the pilot.
'Ladies and gentlemen, some flight information for you. We have just left Russian airspace …'
Thank you for reading. This chapter ran away with me a bit, so there will have to be another one to wind things up! Please review
