The Watchmen (23 page)
It made operational sense to split up, Cowley and Danilov flying up to New York by bureau plane leaving Pamela Darnley in Washington to supervise the individual checks on the former Pentagon employees on the following day’s promised list.
A bureau lawyer flew with them to make the application for a search warrant and wire tap on 69 Bay View Avenue to a judge roused by the Manhattan office and waiting in chambers by the time they got to the city. By then two agents from the Manhattan office had driven out to Brooklyn and made one pass by the house, a neglected clapboard owned by a property company in Trenton, New Jersey. No lights had been burning and it looked deserted. On Cowley’s orders from the incoming plane from which he was coordinating everything, they hadn’t attempted any neighbor inquiries but parked as inconspicuously as possible to wait and watch. The police commander of the local precinct was called at home, told of the bureau presence—and why—and asked that no foot or vehicle patrol interfere if they realized a surveillance was under way. The police chief said there weren’t any foot patrols in the area but he’d alert traffic. If there was anything he could do, all Cowley had to do was ask.
The telephone company night-duty supervisor with whom Cowley discussed the telephone tap assured him that the billing records of calls into and from the Bay View Avenue house would be available within five minutes of the clerical staff arriving at 8:00 A.M. the following morning. The tap itself was installed by 10:30 that night, to be monitored around the clock by a rotating task force of eight operatives. Cowley took them with him on the plane, freeing up the Manhattan office for the twenty-four-hour surveillance for which Cowley asked for intentionally battered, Midwest registered and apparently much used communications and observation vehicles. They were to be driven up from Washington overnight, with the exception of the one available in New York, which Cowley rejected as too new and likely to attract attention in the neglected suburb. He also ordered six vehicles hired by the following morning—none four-door Fords, the too-recognizable federal pool choice—so that no regularly parked cars or vans would arouse any suspicion.
The largest room at the bureau’s New York office on Third Avenue was turned into an incident room. On the first of the exhibit boards were pinned a blown-up street plan of Bay View Avenue and its surrounding waterfront roads. There also appeared photographs of Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov, one official militia arrest photograph of the man when he’d been alive, two more of him after his body had been recovered from the Moskva River.
At midnight Cowley demanded, “Anything not in place that should be at this stage?”
“I don’t think so,” said Danilov. He was, in fact, awed by the speed and completeness with which the entire operation had been organized in little more than the three hours since Pamela’s paged alert in the Georgetown restaurant. At its fastest—and most unobstructed—Danilov couldn’t have achieved it in Moscow in under two days. He’d also adjusted to the now-familiar curiosity at his presence on an FBI investigation, although he didn’t think the Manhattan office had, not fully.
“Let’s have a drink and make sure,” said the American.
Their reservations were at the United Nations Plaza. Cowley had taken Danilov to the bar there on his earlier visits to show off its glass-and-chrome Americanism.
Danilov said, “There’s a lot of this in Moscow now. And dollars—and crime—rule more than ever.” This time he joined Cowley in scotch. It would be the first time he could speak properly to the American, and Danilov wanted to. It seemed absurd, but he supposed Cowley to be his only real friend.
“You really think Nikov’s our man?” said Cowley. He really did intend a review of all they’d done as well as having a drink: The lift he was getting was more from the adrenaline than from the booze. Why was he even thinking about it anymore? His drinking was under control.
“Obviously part of it. It’s part of
what
that I can’t make up my mind about.”
what
that I can’t make up my mind about.”
“We’ll give it twenty-four hours before we exercise the search warrant,” decided Cowley. “I’m hoping they’re still there. Will lead us somewhere.”
“Don’t you intend picking them up if they are?”
“I want all of them, not just one or two. People this determined wouldn’t give us the rest under questioning. They’d consider themselves prisoners of war: not even name, rank, and serial number.”
“Dangerous strategy, if we lose them.”
“Legally there’s no proof—no suggestion even—of a crime committed here in America,” Cowley pointed out. “Let’s hope we get enough for you to pick up in Moscow. And that people don’t get in the way.”
“Nothing’s gotten any better there. Worse maybe.” Danilov hesitated, looking down into his drink. “The great anticorruption crusader stopped crusading. It was too much trouble.”
Danilov wanted to talk, guessed Cowley. “What happened?”
“I destroyed them,” Danilov declared, quietly, not looking at the other man. “The Chechen Brigade that ordered Kosov’s car bombed, with Larissa in it, for not earning the money they were bribing him with. Created a war between them and an Ostankino Brigade and watched them picked off, one after the other, until all the hierarchy we knew about were killed.” The Russian looked up at last. “Doesn’t that tell you how it is in Moscow: letting them kill each other because I knew they’d bribe or murder their way out of any charge I legally brought against them!”
Cowley shrugged. “Not the first time a policeman’s done that anywhere in the world. You couldn’t have proved the guys in charge gave the order for Kosov to be killed.”
“I wanted them dead,” said Danilov. “Would have killed them myself if any I knew about hadn’t been taken out.”
“You sure about that?” Cowley queried, in disbelief.
“Quite sure,” Danilov insisted at once, coming up from his drink again. “I’m still not satisfied. I broke the gang—destroyed the men responsible for Larissa being killed—but I never found the bull who actually planted the explosion.”
“Stop it, Dimitri!” urged Cowley, although sympathetically. “You’re going to eat yourself away with hate like that.”
“Maybe I already have.” The Russian shrugged. “After the gang war I gave up trying with anything else within the department or the militia. There’s too many and too much for one man—a squad of men.”
“It was a vengeance crusade. Not the same thing.”
“I still stopped.”
“So start again.”
“Maybe.” It wasn’t important enough—wouldn’t mean anything—to talk about the divorce from Olga. Danilov looked pointedly at Cowley’s gesture for refills and said, “How are you managing?”
“OK,” Cowley said at once. Not for the first time—unaware of Danilov’s earlier, matching reflection—Cowley thought how odd it was that the only person aware of a problem that could end his career was a Russian who so few years ago would have been an enemy and considered the information a weapon. Instead of which Danilov had saved his career, smothering the sexual blackmail the Chechen gang had attempted during their last combined investigation in Moscow, posing him helplessly drunk to be photographed naked with a gymnastic hooker.
“You sure?”
“I haven’t slipped for over a year,” insisted Cowley. “I won’t, not now. I’m clean. Well and truly.”
“That’s good.”
“I think so. It’s good to be able to talk like this, too.” He paused, feeling he should offer something in exchange. “Pauline’s getting married again.”
“You ever hope to get back together?” Danilov asked presciently. A dark-haired, slightly built woman, he remembered. Not unlike Pamela Darnley.
“I’d thought about it after I got straight.”
“What about her?”
“We saw each other a few times as friends. Which we still are. But I let her down a lot when I was drinking. One girl in particular, but there were others I threw in her face. I don’t think she would ever have been able to believe I could change that much.”
Danilov snorted a laugh. “Couple of maudlin old failures, aren’t we?”
Cowley finished his drink, putting the empty glass down firmly on the table to make an unspoken statement. “No failure this time. There can’t be.”
“No, there can’t be,” agreed Danilov. To which of them was it more important to prove themselves
to
themselves? About the same, he guessed.
to
themselves? About the same, he guessed.
The Bay View Avenue clapboard remained empty throughout the night, which they knew before arriving at the bureau office because Cowley’s instructions had been for him to be called the moment there was any movement. The telephone billing records arrived exactly at 8:05 A.M. They were in the name of an Arnie Orlenko.
“Orlenko’s a Russian name,” Cowley identified at once.
“And Arnie is an easy Americanization of Arseni,” suggested Danilov.
“Wouldn’t it be great to get a break just once?” mused Cowley.
“That only happens in detective novels,” reminded Danilov.
Pamela Darnley assembled her intended task force controllers before 8:00 A.M., too, which was a mistake because the expected list hadn’t arrived from the Pentagon. She started to fill the time briefing the eight male and two senior-grade female agents on what she knew from Manhattan, which was obviously very little. Even more obvious—she guessed to the rest of the incident room as well as to herself—was that she couldn’t possibly have answered at least three consecutive questions from Al Beckinsdale. Irritated, she acknowledged a fact she scarcely needed to remind herself about: that she was in sole supervisory control of a specific task force, without the physical authority of William Cowley, the case officer. She also acknowledged that Beckinsdale had to be at least fifteen years her senior. What she judged to be the first opportunity to justify herself to Leonard H. Ross, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this chauvinistic son of a bitch saw as showoff sex challenge time. So be it.
“Case this important, I’m surprised we haven’t been able to get things faster from the Pentagon or Immigration, that being the only lead we’ve got after all this time,” persisted Beckinsdale, a fat man who perspired and rarely fastened his collar or tightened his tie. He lolled back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him.
“The Pentagon computer was sabotaged, as you know,” Pamela said, evenly. “And Immigration’s a physical check through God knows how many individual pieces of paper.”
“Can’t imagine that would have been much reassurance to people who’d lost family if the Lincoln bomb had gone off. Could have killed a lot of people.”
There was an uneasy shift from among the group facing her. One agent said something Pamela couldn’t hear to the man next to him, who smiled.
Pamela said, “But it didn’t go off. We prevented it.”
“Bill Cowley prevented it.”
The two female agents were in head-bent conversation now, looking annoyed.
“Prevented it brilliantly,” agreed Pamela. “But you’re right, Al. It has taken a hell of a time—too long—and none of us is doing anything at this very moment, sitting around here with our fingers up our asses. So here’s what I’d like you personally to do. I’d like you to get over to Immigration and you tell the superintendent in charge—his name’s Zeke Proudfoot—you tell Zeke Proudfoot how pissed off we all are that it’s taking him and his people so long and that’s why you’ve been seconded to them, to put a burr under their blanket. Let’s get that address off the visa application by the end of the day, OK?”
The two female agents were smiling now. None of the men were.
“Now let’s just wait a moment here—” began the man.
“What, Al?” stopped Pamela.
“I thought we had a specific role here. A task force?”
“Of which I’m supervisor, like I’m deputy case officer of the entire investigation.” Pamela smiled. “Which has got to be flexible. I’m open to persuasion and you’ve persuaded me. You give me a call around midday, tell me how you’re getting on: If we’re all out, leave a message with Terry Osnan. If I’m here I’ll probably know the answers to those other questions you were asking earlier about Manhattan.”
The man stood and remained staring at her for several moments before storming from the room. As the door slammed behind him Pamela said, “I mean it, about flexibility. Anyone else got any suggestions that might be useful?”
No one spoke.
“Here’s how we’ll do it then,” resumed Pamela. “I’m assigning each of you your own four-person group. The Pentagon is providing the personnel records of everyone it’s referring to us. The reason for their being let go is primary, obviously. Get everything checkable—Social Security number, medical details, everything and anything that is publicly traceable—you can use to find things they won’t have volunteered. Lied about. Like criminal convictions. Any previous military record is a concentration, among civilians. A hidden court-martial, you win the kewpie doll. Membership in
all
organizations if we can find them. The guy—or girl—we’re looking for is a computer freak, and all the steers we’re getting from the experts is that computer freaks are arrogant, sure they can never be caught. Check out every one if you can for an Internet address, through the telephone company against the addresses the Pentagon will have. We’ve got ten manned terminals here in the incident room, all ready to be used. I don’t want anyone confronted personally without our being able to catch the lie: We go in unprepared, they’re not going to be there waiting for us when we go back a second time.” She paused. “Anyone got any improvements on that?” Another pause. “And this time I
am
looking for input.”
all
organizations if we can find them. The guy—or girl—we’re looking for is a computer freak, and all the steers we’re getting from the experts is that computer freaks are arrogant, sure they can never be caught. Check out every one if you can for an Internet address, through the telephone company against the addresses the Pentagon will have. We’ve got ten manned terminals here in the incident room, all ready to be used. I don’t want anyone confronted personally without our being able to catch the lie: We go in unprepared, they’re not going to be there waiting for us when we go back a second time.” She paused. “Anyone got any improvements on that?” Another pause. “And this time I
am
looking for input.”
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