Charlie's Apprentice by Brian Freemantle

Author:Brian Freemantle [Freemantle, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thrillers, Espionage, Mystery & Detective, International Mystery & Crime
ISBN: 9781453227633
Google: t_NuVCPdzJ4C
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-08-23T08:31:51.125000+00:00

Twenty-seven

So large had Natalia Fedova’s Directorate become from the increased demands made upon it that a total of thirty deputies and department heads assembled for the meeting, which because of its size was held in the main conference room at Yasenevo.

Natalia supervised everything, even the seating plan around the long rectangular table, topped by a much smaller one to complete the T. There were only two places at the top table. One was obviously hers, as the division chairperson. The other, on her right, was for Fyodor Tudin, a visible display to all of his authority as her immediate deputy.

There were separate seating arrangements to the left of the room for the secretaries and file clerks: it was essential everything be officially recorded. And not just for the archives but witnessed by each senior executive. Natalia was determined against the slightest mistake, believing she couldn’t afford to make one.

It was the first complete gathering of chief officials since her appointment, which gave Natalia the excuse to host a brief pre-conference reception, designed to prevent any straggling arrivals in the chamber itself, and to minimize the difference in rank between Tudin and herself. She orchestrated the start so that she and the man entered the conference room side by side. Tudin, a swarthy, belly-bulged man whose permanently red face betrayed the blood-pressure brought on by his drinking, smiled and nodded in private approval at the seating arrangements.

Natalia sat first, however, intent upon the men settling before her. The majority were newcomers to the reorganized intelligence service. She had personally approved nearly all of the appointments, vetting them to ensure they genuinely embraced the changes that had swept both the country and the organization. There were only five, including Tudin, whom she considered old guard, men who mourned the passing of the Communist Party and the absolute power of the former KGB. She wondered if they formed a clique with Tudin in any move against her. It was the way putsches had been organized in the past, and three were nominally under Tudin’s direct control, his subordinates in the republic division.

Natalia had prepared her opening remarks as carefully as everything else: throughout she was conscious of Tudin’s persistent sighs of condescension, and once she thought she detected a smirk of complicity from a contemporary of Tudin’s, a man named Pavel Khrenin. She outlined the increased demands upon their reformed Directorate and described it as one of the most important arms of the now independent Russian Federation, in which it was practically regarded as a separate, autonomous ministry. She was pleased at the way the reorganization was proceeding and hoped it would soon be complete: that was not just her expectation but that of the government they served. She had called this conference, the first of what she intended to be regular sessions, to receive a full assessment from every division and directorate head and to inform that government of what had been already established, what it was hoped to create and what their ambitions were for the future.

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