Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“I wouldn’t like to bet,” Pamela said dully.

Pamela would have lost, if she had. It took more than thirty minutes to get a Customs helicopter to the 23rd Street pad and longer-just under an hour-for a launch to reach them. The cruiser’s name wasn’t logged at the marina, because it only pulled alongside to pick up passengers, and no one remembered it by chance or could guess how many people were on board, apart from the two men who joined. The unmarked Customs launch and helicopter checked a total of twenty boats in a three-hour period. Neither Guzov or Kabanov was on any of them.

“Lost us without trying!” Pamela said incredulously. “The biggest, most concentrated investigation in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and two of the main targets just walk away!” She snapped her fingers. “Poofl Just like that.”

“We couldn’t have been ready, no matter how early the warning,” argued Cowley. “There’s no way we would have anticipated a boat.”

“It could have been the guy-the General, even-who fired the first missile,” said Pamela.

“Yes,” agreed Cowley.

“You think they could be casing the U.N. tower-planning a second hit?”

“If they are, there doesn’t have to be a public warning, any panic,” Cowley pointed out. “Their missile’s empty. But they’re not going to get the chance to fire it, are they?”

“You feel sure about that after today?”

“Yeah,” said Cowley. “I feel sure enough about that.”

“I wish I did,” admitted Pamela.

“You won’t have to wait long,” Cowley pointed out. They were flying to Chicago that night for the following day’s arrival of the Cidicj Star.

“You think we can both afford to go now that we’ve lost them?”

“Chicago is where it’s going to happen,” said Cowley. “It’s where we’ve got to be.”

The search of Bella Atkins’s treble-locked apartment just slightly lifted the depression beyond installing the listening devices, although the limited findings initially created more questions than they answered.

The place was almost too immaculate. Nothing had been left uncleared or unwashed in the kitchen-even the trash bin liner was clean-and all the pots and pans were meticulously in order, according to size, and every knife, fork, and spoon in its allotted part of the silverware tray. The label on every can in the pantry faced outward, instantly readable.

One of the dusting technicians said to no one in particular, “I’m going to be lucky to lift any prints at all from a place as polished and buffed as this.”

“Make sure you clean up well after yourself,” warned Paul Lambert. “Her alarm system is the cleanliness and neatness.”

There wasn’t the slightest disorder in the bedroom. Her clothes were hung in color coordinates, matching shoes laid beneath each outfit, and in bureau drawers sweaters and shirts and underwear each had its own drawer, in which items were crisply folded. The impression in the living room was of furniture being arranged to measurement, the easy chairs precisely the same distance from the sofa, each chair spaced the same around the table in the dining alcove. Books were shelved according to height and author; from the complete works of Elmore Leonard, she appeared a crime thriller fan. The video library was all wildlife or Discovery Channel programs. There were no messages on the answering machine and the recording tape was blank.

The most obvious discovery were the photographs. There were a lot of a smiling, younger Bella with men in army uniforms, jungle greens and camouflage and dress. There were several of her very young, a child, with an older dress-uniformed master sergeant who could have been her father and then with three men in the same age range as herself. None was annotated with names or descriptions, but one of the men had an American eagle tattoo on his left arm. The searchers’ equipment included cameras and each print was copied.

There was a sofa bed in the second bedroom but otherwise it had been turned into a study, although surprisingly there was no computer. Neither were there any personal papers or correspondence, apart from bank statements into which the only income appeared to be Bella Atkins’s monthly Pentagon salary. Outgoing was limited to regular utility payments cross-referenced to supply company statements neatly clipped together in a bureau drawer. There wasn’t any billing record of a personal cell phone.

“Not as polished and buffed as I feared,” said the fingerprint specialist, hunched over the opened-up sofa bed. “Got a nice set that don’t appear to be Bella’s off this metal strut.”

“And there’s an interesting divide in the clothes closet,” said another of the team, emerging from the bedroom. “Most of the stuff is size fourteen, Bella’s size. But four outfits are size ten. There’s two pairs of shoes smaller than Bella’s, too. And in the underwear drawer there are three smaller bras than Bella seems to need.”

“According to the lease, she’s the sole tenant,” said Lambert.

“Then she’s got a smaller friend,” said the bedroom searcher.

“Wonder how difficult it’s going to be to find out who she is?” said Lambert.

It wasn’t, in fact, difficult at all. The fingerprints on the sofa bed were those of Roanne Harding. Her dress and shoe size matched what few items were found in the murdered girl’s Lexington Place apartment.

“And we’ve pulled up the photographs to get the units,” Lambert told Cowley and Pamela. “It looks like one was in the Rangers and the other two were Special Forces. And the old guy with Bella when she was a kid: He’s Special Forces, too. Got a Medal of Honor and a Bronze Star among all that stuff on his chest.”

“These guys had jungle training for sure,” remembered Cowley, aloud.

“What Jefferson Jones told you up in New Rochelle, just before the explosion,” said Pamela, matching the recall. “Let’s see how fast the military can move their asses when they get everything on a plate.”

“Time we moved ours,” reminded Cowley. To Osnan he said, “I’ll speak to Dimitri from the Chicago office. Anything I need to know, reach me there.”

Osnan did, within fifteen minutes of their arrival, while Cowley was on the telephone to Dimitri Danilov.

“What?” demanded Cowley, passing the Moscow connection to Pamela.

“Vyacheslav Kabanov got off the train from New York thirty minutes ago. Picked up his car and drove home like all the other commuters.”

“What about Guzov?”

“Didn’t show. Car’s still in the station lot.”

“He’ll be on his way here to Chicago for the Cidicj Star ’s arrival,” predicted Cowley. “It’s going to be OK.”

The Cidicj Star had been allocated a berth beneath the main Customs building. A conference room directly overlooking the harbor was transformed into yet another incident room.

The freighter had been under continuous Customs air, sea, and radar surveillance from the moment, just before midnight, it passed through the Straits of Mackinac from Lake Huron into Lake Michigan and began to sail the final gauntlet between the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. Its estimated docking time remained the same, and its hourly progress was marked on a familiar map. Additional telephones, computer terminals, and a wide-screen television had been installed. Operating staff stood around with not enough to do.

Everyone assembled too soon, before midday, crowding the room unnecessarily. Cowley was reminded of the early need of people in high places to be seen to be involved. He was briefly concerned that Peter Samuels, who arrived from Washington before nine, might expect to take personal command until the Customs chief asked to be briefed and made it clear it remained a Bureau operations. The Chicago police commissioner, included as a Washington-instructed courtesy, arrived with his deputy and seemed surprised that at least a deputy FBI director wasn’t present.