Bomb Grade Read Online Free Page B
Author: Brian Freemantle
the budgetary exercises,â said Johnson, defending his choice. âWeâve not only to establish a new role for ourselves. Weâve got to establish a financial ceiling. The more we spend in expansion, the more important and necessary weâll appear.â
âThatâs cynical reasoning,â reproached Williams.
âPractical reasoning,â corrected Johnson, equally insistent. âI want to build a new empire, not destroy one.â
I want , isolated Dean. He didnât want to confront the other man so soon but he had the worrying impression that Johnsonâs annoyance at not getting the directorship might become a problem. Maybe it hadnât been as wise as heâd thought to accept Johnsonâs suggestion about the Moscow posting: it could have made Johnson imagine an unnecessary reliance. â We want to build a new empire.â
âMuffinâs not the man to do it,â insisted Williams.
âWeâre not relying on him doing it alone,â reminded the Director-General.
âIâll tell Fenby: he was very helpful,â said Johnson. John Fenby was the FBI Director. It had been Johnsonâs idea, too, to seek the political support of the Americans through govemment-to-government pressure for a specific British posting to Moscow to match their own.
âIs it really necessary to tell Fenby?â asked the Director-General.
âWeâre becoming more like the FBI: weâll need a close working relationship,â Johnson pointed out.
âYou will keep me informed at every stage, wonât you?â
âI donât think I need to be reminded to do that.â
This was becoming petulant, decided Dean. Which was ridiculous. Ending it by looking away from his deputy to include everyone else, he said, âWeâve made an important decision today. Letâs do all we can from this end to make sure it works.â
Peter Johnsonâs first act upon returning to his own office was to call Washington.
Stanislav Silin wasnât any longer accustomed to doing things for himself. Heâd forgotten how to, like heâd forgotten his own stepping stones to power. When Stanislav Silin wanted something done, anything done, he told someone to do it and if the task wasnât performed to his total satisfaction then those who failed were punished. But not this time or this way. For this meeting and for this meeting place he couldnât trust anyone inside the Dolgoprudnaya, not even Petr Markov, and most certainly not outside. Apart, that is, from Marina. No man had been as lucky as he had with a wife like her. The hatred boiled up at the threat Sobelov had created. Soon, he told himself, soon heâd make the man sorry. But there were other things first. Heâd had to find this very special apartment himself and arrange the lease himself and for the first time in almost fifteen years he hadnât been able to intimidate the landlord with the inference of who he was for fear the man might sell him out or be under threat from a higher or initially more feared bidder. Which was an irony Silin could appreciate, inconvenient though it had been: heâd even been amused when the landlord had tried to intimidate him with warnings of the consequences of his being a bad tenant.
Silin had specifically chosen the Ulitza Razina, in the oldest Kitay-Gorod district, because all the pre-revolutionary buildings, some actually minor palaces, had under communism been turned into apartment rabbit warrens with a warrenâs benefit of many different entrances, several from two streets quite separate from the Razina courtyard. Its most important advantage was the personal protection it gave him from Sobelov but it equally protected the people he was meeting that afternoon and upon whom not just his survival but an unimaginable business future depended. Like he could â and would â they could also arrive separately and leave separately and
âThatâs cynical reasoning,â reproached Williams.
âPractical reasoning,â corrected Johnson, equally insistent. âI want to build a new empire, not destroy one.â
I want , isolated Dean. He didnât want to confront the other man so soon but he had the worrying impression that Johnsonâs annoyance at not getting the directorship might become a problem. Maybe it hadnât been as wise as heâd thought to accept Johnsonâs suggestion about the Moscow posting: it could have made Johnson imagine an unnecessary reliance. â We want to build a new empire.â
âMuffinâs not the man to do it,â insisted Williams.
âWeâre not relying on him doing it alone,â reminded the Director-General.
âIâll tell Fenby: he was very helpful,â said Johnson. John Fenby was the FBI Director. It had been Johnsonâs idea, too, to seek the political support of the Americans through govemment-to-government pressure for a specific British posting to Moscow to match their own.
âIs it really necessary to tell Fenby?â asked the Director-General.
âWeâre becoming more like the FBI: weâll need a close working relationship,â Johnson pointed out.
âYou will keep me informed at every stage, wonât you?â
âI donât think I need to be reminded to do that.â
This was becoming petulant, decided Dean. Which was ridiculous. Ending it by looking away from his deputy to include everyone else, he said, âWeâve made an important decision today. Letâs do all we can from this end to make sure it works.â
Peter Johnsonâs first act upon returning to his own office was to call Washington.
Stanislav Silin wasnât any longer accustomed to doing things for himself. Heâd forgotten how to, like heâd forgotten his own stepping stones to power. When Stanislav Silin wanted something done, anything done, he told someone to do it and if the task wasnât performed to his total satisfaction then those who failed were punished. But not this time or this way. For this meeting and for this meeting place he couldnât trust anyone inside the Dolgoprudnaya, not even Petr Markov, and most certainly not outside. Apart, that is, from Marina. No man had been as lucky as he had with a wife like her. The hatred boiled up at the threat Sobelov had created. Soon, he told himself, soon heâd make the man sorry. But there were other things first. Heâd had to find this very special apartment himself and arrange the lease himself and for the first time in almost fifteen years he hadnât been able to intimidate the landlord with the inference of who he was for fear the man might sell him out or be under threat from a higher or initially more feared bidder. Which was an irony Silin could appreciate, inconvenient though it had been: heâd even been amused when the landlord had tried to intimidate him with warnings of the consequences of his being a bad tenant.
Silin had specifically chosen the Ulitza Razina, in the oldest Kitay-Gorod district, because all the pre-revolutionary buildings, some actually minor palaces, had under communism been turned into apartment rabbit warrens with a warrenâs benefit of many different entrances, several from two streets quite separate from the Razina courtyard. Its most important advantage was the personal protection it gave him from Sobelov but it equally protected the people he was meeting that afternoon and upon whom not just his survival but an unimaginable business future depended. Like he could â and would â they could also arrive separately and leave separately and