Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“None,” said Reztsov, tightly.

Viktor Nikov occupied what was clearly the newest apartment block in the city, most levels of which had a startling and unobstructed view of the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers that Danilov had first seen from the air. By Russian standards-American even-the lobby was clean to the point of being sterile and the elevator, in which they ascended with the smiling, bribe-expectant janitor with his master key, rose without any normal stop-start uncertainty. There wasn’t any graffiti, either. By the time they reached Nikov’s level, the ninth floor, the disappointed janitor’s smile had gone, he’d acknowledged Danilov’s authority and insisted he hadn’t seen Nikov for a week, maybe longer.

The apartment was immaculate. The beds in the master and second bedroom were made, everything in the bathroom was arranged or in cabinets, the towels edge to edge on their rail. There were no unwashed pots or pan in the kitchen or trash in the undersink bin. There were some American-imported pornographic videos in the living room, and in a locked desk drawer, which Danilov forced, there was $900 in American currency. He had to force two more locked drawers completely to search the desk. There were some two-year-old American travel brochures, to Florida and California, and a receipt for $1,300, made out in dollars from Moscow’s Metropole Hotel and marked “paid in cash.” The bottom drawer held a Russian-made Makarov, with a clip of 9mm shells, and an American Smith amp; Wesson, with two clips of ammunition. Danilov fully extracted each drawer and on the undersides of two found stuck two separate envelopes, one containing $3,200 and another $2,000. He returned to the bedroom, checking closets and drawers as neatly arranged as everywhere else. On a closet shelf there were three empty suitcases and at its bottom five side-by-side pairs of shoes, all Italian made. Danilov looked hopefully for a telephone answering machine but there wasn’t one.

Either Reztsov or Averin moved from room to room with him. On the second bedroom search the militia colonel said, “He’s run, obviously.”

“Why?” challenged Danilov.

Averin snorted a laugh. “Because he knows we’re looking for him, of course.”

To the hovering janitor Danilov said, “Be more precise. One week or two since you last saw him?”

“More like two,” said the subdued man.

“Before I got here. Unannounced and unpublicized. And even longer before you began asking at his garages,” Danilov pointed out. “And I would have thought he would have taken more of his clothes and certainly all the money that was in the desk, wouldn’t you?”

“There’s been enough publicity from America. An investigation here was obvious,” insisted Averin. “He was in too much of a hurry to get out. And there’s no passport. He’s obviously taken that.”

“Doesn’t something about the desk surprise you?” asked Danilov.

“What?” Averin frowned.

“There’s nothing personal there whatsoever. No letters, no photographs, nothing. This doesn’t look to me like a hurried departure. To me this looks like an apartment that’s been thoroughly sanitized, cleaned of anything that might have helped this investigation. Or that might have told us where to find him.”

“Either way he’s running,” insisted Reztsov.

Seeing the direction in which the janitor was looking, Danilov said, “We’ll take the money for safekeeping. Log it in an evidence file.”

On their way back to the hotel Danilov declined the invitation to dinner for the second night, insisting he had too many calls to make. As he passed through the lobby he identified one of his breakfast companions still engrossed in the newspaper the man had been frowning over that morning.

The same voice as before answered Cowley’s extension and asked him to hold to be transferred. Another woman who identified herself as Pamela Darnley said she’d actually seen Cowley that day and that the injuries weren’t life-threatening, although it was still too early to say when-or even if-he’d be returning to the investigation.

“I’m acting case officer,” continued the woman. “He told me to tell you to share everything with you-that everything’s two way.”

“So what happened?”

The speed with which she talked betrayed Pamela Darnley’s impatience to hear whatever Danilov had to share.

“Do you know where the bombs came from?” Danilov asked when she finished.

“Still under analysis. Anything from your end?”

Danilov hesitated, at once accepting the stupidity of not wanting to work with anyone but Cowley whose integrity and ability he knew so well. “I haven’t been to the plant yet,” he lied easily. “I’ll keep in touch, either direct like this or through Moscow.”

There was a matching hesitation from the other end before the woman said, her disappointed suspicion obvious, “OK. Look forward to hearing from you.”

The connection to Yuri Pavin was just as quick. Danilov said, “Who or what does the Moscow telephone number on the warhead belong to?”

“It doesn’t exist,” said Pavin. “At least not any longer. I’ve asked the telephone authorities to check their records, but they say they don’t keep any for discontinued numbers.”

“Shit!” said Danilov. It fit, he supposed, with Ivanov’s assertion that the program had been abandoned twenty-five years earlier. “We can’t find Viktor Nikov.”

“He’s dead,” replied the deputy in Moscow. “Found in the Moskva, jammed under one of the Smolenskaja Bridge supports. Shot mafia style, with a bullet through the mouth. Another one in the head.”

“How long …?” started Danilov, but the other man continued talking.

“He wasn’t alone,” said Pavin. “He was handcuffed and roped to another man, Valeri Alexandrovich Karpov, who’d been killed the same way. Not listed in records. According to what we found on him, he lived at Pereulok Samokatnaja 54, here in Moscow. I’m just on my way.”

“Wait until tomorrow,” ordered Danilov. “I’m coming back.”

Neither Reztsov nor Averin looked like proper detectives even when they were doing what was supposed to be their proper jobs. It was the major who escorted Aleksai Zotin, whom they identified as Nikov’s brigade leader, into the interview room at Gorki militia headquarters, but he did so subserviently, standing back almost politely for the gang leader to enter ahead of him.

Zotin was an immensely fat, damp man preceded by the odor of his own perspiration. He waddled to the desk that divided the room and had to splay his legs to sit down. He said to Danilov, “You’re new. This a shakedown?”

“Haven’t you heard that Viktor Nikov’s been murdered in Moscow?”

“Who?”

Danilov sighed. “Viktor Nikov, one of your bulls.”

“Don’t know what a bull is. Had a driver of that name a long time ago. Haven’t heard from him for a long time.”

Danilov realized that it didn’t appear as if he could perform properly as a detective, either. “You think your memory might improve in a cell?”

Zotin laughed at him openly, nodding toward Reztsov. “Even he does better than that, and he’s paid a lot of money to put me out of business.”

“That’s not true, of course,” said the militia colonel. Like everything else about the man, it was a token gesture.

It had been a stupid threat, acknowledged Danilov. There was absolutely no evidence upon which to hold Zotin, and to do so-and then be forced to free him-would make him look even more ridiculous than he already did.

“The murder’s a major investigation in Moscow. If we can make a connection between Nikov and you, I’ll charge you with complicity to steal microbiological weaponry from Plant 35. That’s a life sentence, no remission.”