No Time for Heroes (10 page)

Still reluctant to acknowledge what he was being told, Hartz looked at Ross. ‘The CIA are adamant they weren't running anything with Serov?'

‘Emphatic.'

‘What about the body?'

‘It can be released as far as we're concerned,' agreed the Director. ‘It'll be our gesture of co-operation. But I don't want to let go of the effects, not yet. Something still might come up that makes them material, although at the moment nothing's obvious.'

Silence enclosed the office once more. Hartz swung around from West Potomac Park and the unseen Lincoln Memorial. At last he said: ‘I'm frightened this is going to unravel into one great, big goddamned mess.'

‘I'm frightened it already has,' said Ross.

The lovemaking was incredible, like it always was with Larissa: it was one of her days to fantasise and she'd wanted to be a whore, even making him pay her. Danilov thought she would have made a very good whore, far better than the blank-eyed professionals outside in the hotel foyer.

‘Satisfied?' She was sprawled over him, leaking his wetness.

‘Completely.'

‘I'm not.'

‘I won't be able to.'

‘Yes you will.' She raised herself slightly off him, moving back and forth so that her nipples caressed his. ‘Yevgennie says you've been stitched up!'

‘What makes him say that?' asked Danilov, immediately alert.

Larissa shrugged, making her breasts wobble over him. ‘I don't know. It's just what he said. Have you?'

‘Not as tightly as they'd like me to be.' He hadn't yet devised a way to use the spying secretary against them.

‘What's it all about?'

‘I won't do the deals.'

‘Yevgennie says you're stupid not to do that, too. He says you did when you were in uniform.'

Danilov frowned. ‘That was a long time ago.'

‘Why make life difficult for yourself?'

‘I want to work as I do now.'

‘I don't want to go on being your whore. This is only a game.'

‘I don't want it either.'

‘You promised me we'd do something after the promotion.'

‘It wasn't the right one.'

‘What's that got to do with it!'

‘What if Yevgennie files for an official enquiry into what I did in the past?'

‘With what he's doing now? How can he?'

‘He could feel cheated enough, by both of us, not to care. Things are going to be difficult enough for you as it is – we could end up trying to live on your salary!'

Larissa smiled at him, saddened by his reluctance. ‘I'd be happy enough. I love you. Don't you love me enough?'

‘I love you
too
much,' said Danilov. Which he did. He felt complete with Larissa: fulfilled. If Larissa was prepared to risk whatever needed to be risked, why wasn't he?

Cowley told himself he was just going out for a walk, although he knew of course that he wasn't: even walking was part of it, a reason for leaving the car behind. He'd isolated the bar on his way home, on the edge of Crystal City, but hadn't realised how long it would take to get there on foot. He stopped twice, the second time half turning back. But he didn't complete the movement.

There weren't very many customers. The barman shifted, impatiently, at Cowley's uncertainty over his order. He chose beer: people didn't get drunk on beer. Not unless they drank a lot, and he didn't intend drinking a lot. Just stopped off for one, while he was out for a walk: the sort of thing people did, out walking.

It tasted good: damned good. Cowley sipped, enjoying the taste and the ambience: enjoying everything. The beer didn't affect him. Hadn't expected it to. No reason why he shouldn't have another.

Cowley made the third into a chaser, for a Wild Turkey on the side, feeling the mellowness move through him. But still not drunk. He could handle it now. Learned how to do it. Just too late, that's all: too late to convince Pauline. Wished it hadn't been too late: wished to hell she'd give it one more shot. Just friendship. That's all. Couldn't expect anything else.

One more whiskey, with a beer back. Then he'd quit. Still in control. Clear headed. Coherent. Not a problem any more. Wouldn't be, ever again.

Cowley did stop, after that drink. The barman said he'd see him again maybe and Cowley agreed maybe. He felt good, not just from the booze but because he knew he wasn't drunk. Proved he could do it. That he was OK now. Just a pleasant way of spending a pleasant couple of hours.

He'd been a coward, Lapinsk accepted. A coward when he'd been appointed to the Bureau – perhaps because the manipulators recognised him as weak – and a coward during his directorship and finally, most craven of all, a coward holding back from Dimitri Ivanovich whom he'd groomed to do what he had never had the courage to do. And who would not be able to do it, not now.

Absolutely to accept – without any excuse or mitigation – that you are a coward is possibly the worst thing a man can be called upon to confront.

In Russia those who ultimately control Families, their boards of directors, are called
komitet
, which means committee; it is the equivalent of the Italian Mafia
cupola
. For this gathering at Arkadi Gusovsky's home, the indulgently fat and perfumed Zimin had been included, because he'd had to be: he spoke Italian and English, both of which were important for the coming weeks.

‘According to the lawyers, the Swiss formalities will take some time,' announced Gusovsky.

‘Why don't we postpone the Italian meeting?' suggested Zimin, the appointed delegate.

‘Because we'd lose face: show we're not ready,' dismissed Yerin, irritably. ‘We're not going to do that.'

‘We're sure of getting control,' said Gusovsky. ‘We'll go ahead with the meeting: it'll take several weeks, to settle everything. But then there'll be no problem. Everything will be ours.'

CHAPTER TWELVE

The media manipulation was perfectly orchestrated. The State Department leaks stopped short of giving a reason for the meeting between the Russian ambassador and Henry Hartz, which built up speculation. The suggestion of Moscow being invited to join the investigation was given to selected journalists by the publicity-conscious mayor, Elliott Jones, after a detailed briefing from Hartz. The campaign got the name and photograph of Dimitri Ivanovich Danilov in every newspaper and news agency report and on every television screen. The State Department and FBI both refused to comment, but after letting the stories develop their own momentum the Bureau promised a press conference in which William Cowley would take part.

There was a totally unexpected fillip to the manipulation from the Russians themselves. The day before the Washington conference, the Interior Ministry in Moscow made an ideally low-key statement that the ambassador's summons to the State Department had been to discuss the murder of Petr Aleksandrovich Serov. What had been discussed was being considered.

That night Cowley considered going for another walk to Crystal City, but didn't. He hadn't suffered from a hangover after the previous occasion – one of the problems of the past was that no matter how much he'd drunk, he'd never felt ill the following day – but he thought it was better not to drink at all. The ease of the decision pleased him, as further proof he had everything under total control.

Cowley travelled to the State Department, where the conference was to be staged, in the Director's car: to achieve maximum effect they got out at the main entrance, picking their way through a white dazzle of camera lights. In an anteroom Elliott Jones was being powdered down by a make-up girl to prevent skin shine.

The FBI Director led the way into the conference room, the mayor following. Lights burst on and the noise began and Cowley had a feeling of an event re-creating itself: it was practically a mirror image of the murder press conference in Moscow, insisted upon by Senator Burden. Cowley had detested it then, and he was detesting it today. He felt his skin flush in the heat of the lights and thought maybe he should have had make-up after all.

Ross gestured for quiet, which he got almost at once. He talked in measured, even tones: Cowley decided the man must have been an impressive judge. Until that moment, the make of the murder weapon and the fact that the bullets had been of Russian manufacture had not been released. Ross made the prepared announcement, to guarantee the headlines, waving down the eruption of questions that followed. Once again he quickly regained command. Because the crime appeared to have those Russian links as well as to involve a Russian diplomat, it had been decided to invite Russian representation, just as Russia had invited the FBI involvement in an earlier case with which they were all familiar. As the Director of the FBI, he sincerely hoped Moscow would accept the offer. There were essential enquiries to be made in Moscow, but a Russian investigator would also be welcome in the United States and shown every assistance, just as William Cowley had been given all possible help when he had gone to Moscow.

The snowstorm of questions ranged over every possible theory, speculation and rumour, to hardly any of which they provided positive answers. The most concerted query revolved, in every conceivable way and manner, around the Mafia. Ross acknowledged there was a Mafia, even by that title, in Russia, but refused to postulate any connection yet with organised crime in either America or Sicily. They did not yet know why a Swiss financier had travelled from Geneva to meet a Russian attaché: that was one of the questions a Russian investigation might answer.

When his turn came to be questioned, Cowley accepted the circumstances were coincidental to the earlier Moscow case. He had enjoyed working there, and was sure the level and extent of the co-operation he'd known then could be repeated in this case were he to be reunited with Dimitri Danilov. Here Cowley looked sideways, to Ross, and said he had officially praised the Russian's ability in written reports to the Director, at the conclusion of the earlier murder enquiry. If there were no Russian participation the case might be impossible to solve. He was sure the Russian authorities did not wish the investigation to fail and would do whatever they could to prevent that happening.

Cowley's only potential awkwardness came with a series of persistent questions about whether he thought an accredited diplomat at a foreign embassy was involved in criminal activities. Cowley's only reply, which echoed hollowly when he gave it, was that he had no reason to connect Petr Serov with any crime. The Director repeated it, for emphasis. That denial sounded hollow, too.

Back in the anteroom, afterwards, Rafferty said: ‘The only way left to get Danilov here if that fails is to send in a SWAT team to kidnap him!'

‘If they do respond but send a stooge, I guess we've got part of our answer, about collusion,' said Ross, reflectively.

‘Then where are we?' asked Cowley.

‘The same place as we are at the moment,' said the Director. ‘Nowhere.'

The media coverage in Moscow was restricted in comparison to Washington only by the limitations of television channels and newspapers. The television at the Kirovskaya apartment faded halfway through the item, with Danilov's face filling the screen, sending Olga into a screaming rage. The following morning Danilov stopped and bought all the papers, as he had when the murder of Serov occurred; on this occasion he was featured on all the front pages. He stored them in the boot, for Olga to read that night. When he got to Petrovka there were no mockery-intended copies on his cluttered desk. He'd been there an hour when the summons came from Metkin.

‘You have been ordered to the Interior Ministry,' announced the Director. ‘We both have.' The man stopped, rehearsing what he had to say. ‘Leonid Lapinsk committed suicide last night. Shot himself with his service revolver, which he hadn't surrendered.' Another pause. ‘Through the mouth: blew his head off.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Danilov recognised the Federal Prosecutor, Nikolai Smolin, from previous encounters, but needed introductions to Vasili Oskin, the Deputy Interior Minister in whose office they convened, and to Sergei Vorobie, the Deputy Foreign Minister. He was refusing to anticipate anything about the summons or to believe any of the newspaper speculation.

It was difficult anyway to focus fully in these initial moments, after the intentional brutality of Metkin's announcement. Danilov's instant reaction had been pity, for a sad, totally disillusioned old man who'd despised himself as a failure. But just as quickly the doubt came, the doubt of a trained investigator. Had Lapinsk really been sad and disillusioned, deserving pity? Or was there some other reason for taking his own life – if indeed he
had
taken his own life? He wouldn't be able to answer that sort of question until he'd at least read the full report. The preliminary, which Metkin had contemptuously shown him, had talked of clear-cut suicide. But there had been nothing to suggest a reason. He had to know why, before he could decide between pity and condemnation.