Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

The car shuddered over the bureau’s tire-tearing security ramp, jarring Cowley’s chest. Just before he got out of the car he took another Tylenol. It was difficult to swallow without water, and the coughing hurt.

There was a lot of glad-handing in the entry lobby, where Leonard Ross’s personal assistant was already waiting. On the way up in the elevator the man said he looked great, which Cowley knew he didn’t from examining himself in a hospital mirror just before he left. Illogically, his size seemed to make the weight loss more obvious, and instead of minimizing the head injury the smaller dressing drew attention to how much hair had been cut away. Cowley thought that rather than look like a covering, the dressing itself looked like a deformity growing from the side of his head. Which throbbed, as his chest did, despite the Tylenol.

There was coffee and Danish already set out in the lounge area of the director’s suite. Ross came across the room to greet him and afterward personally poured the coffee. Cowley tried to prevent any awkwardness-certainly any facial reaction to the jab of pain-as he came forward to accept the cup. He had wondered if Pamela Darnley would be included and was glad she wasn’t: glad, in fact, that there was no one else except himself and the director.

The no-nonsense former judge said, “You look like shit.”

The tone of the meeting had been quickly established, Cowley accepted. “Surface appearance. I’m fine. I told Pamela I wouldn’t risk this investigation by not being fit enough to go on with it.”

“And she told me,” said Ross. “Your neurologist also told me he would have liked you to have stayed for another week.”

“Every doctor’s worried about his malpractice insurance.” Pepper’s parting words had been that he expected him to be readmitted in two or three days.

“I can’t risk it, Bill. You any idea the sort of heat we’re under? The bureau most of all.”

“I’ve seen the coverage. Which is why I want to get back.” He shook his head against an offered Danish and wished he hadn’t.

Ross took one, crumbling it on his plate. “You want to explain that?”

“OK. I’m still slow, physically. But I can sit at a desk, think things through. You see that half-assed discussion on television after the funeral, some guy suggesting these bastards had frightened themselves so badly they wouldn’t do it again?” He hoped he had properly understood the tone of this meeting.

“I heard about it.”

“That really the guidance from here?”

“No!” Ross said positively. “I’m guessing at political pressure from the White House, although Norton denies it. Necessary for people to feel they can sleep safely in their beds at night.”

“So by how much is the heat going to be turned up on us-you-here at the bureau when the next attack comes, which it surely will, and the fact that we didn’t think another attack would happen is thrown right back at us!” demanded Cowley.

“I’m ahead of you.” The director sighed.

“Doesn’t the fact that I’m making the point prove I’m fit enough to come back here and think of things as a whole and not in panicked isolation?”

Ross smiled fleetingly. “Clever argument.”

“ Valid argument,” insisted Cowley. He cautiously waved an arm toward the city outside. “You have any idea how many targets there are out there after the U.N. tower and the trade towers before that!”

“There’s already extra security around all the obvious ones.”

“Which again was leaked, from here, to the Post two days ago. So when the hit comes that’ll be thrown back, too.”

“Providing you’re right.”

“I am,” said Cowley. The headache had gone and his chest was easier, scarcely any discomfort. “But there’s an even stronger, practical reason for my being back here. Pamela doesn’t think she’s getting the cooperation from Moscow.”

“That’s why I agreed to see you today,” disclosed Ross. “I thought there was a special relationship?”

“There is, between Danilov and myself,” said Cowley, deciding that to succeed he had to go as far as he could and exaggerate as much as was necessary-knowing the conditions in Moscow, there was hardly cause to exaggerate. “Moscow isn’t Washington and their Organized Crime Bureau isn’t like us.” He hesitated. The director set the tone, he reminded himself. “Here the only corruption is ambition, which I guess is how it should be. At Ulitza Petrovka virtually everyone from the janitor upward is on the take: Capone’s Chicago was a kindergarten by comparison. More people-politicians as well as his own organization-are working against Dimitri than with him.”

“You’re saying you’re indispensable,” cut in the director.

“Yes,” Cowley said unashamedly. “It’s nothing personal against anyone here. But it’s very personal with me. He’s five thousand miles away, virtually unable to trust anyone within five yards of him in his own building. He needs to speak to someone he knows as a friend when he talks to us.”

“A very, very clever argument,” said the haphazardly dressed director, smiling longer this time.

“Very, very valid,” echoed Cowley. He wished there was more facial reaction from Ross-something he might have been able to read.

“Pepper also told me he had you sign a specific waiver against premature discharge. Which he thinks this is.”

Told me! Cowley picked up the phrase belatedly: The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation personally talking to the physician of an injured agent! Could he have been working his ass off for a purpose that had already been decided? If he was reading the runes correctly, he was back! “The federal insurance people want me to sign the same exoneration?”

“Yes,” admitted Ross.

“Why did we go through all this then?” chanced Cowley.

“I needed to be sure.”

“Are you?”

“I think so.”

“Am I still case officer?”

“Initially under the strictest-and personal-operational control. And I’ve agreed with the incident room being established here for that reason.”

“You want me to sign the insurance waiver?”

“No.”

“That makes it your personal decision.”

“You feel competent to lecture me on law?”

“I wanted to make it clear that I understood the legal implications.”

“If there was an alternative to bringing you back I’d have taken it. At this moment I wish there had been.”

This really was trousers-down, ass-in-the-air time, thought Cowley. “I’m glad there wasn’t.”

“I want you to convince Danilov that Pamela Darnley can be trusted just as much as you can,” demanded the director.

“In case I can’t cut it?”

“You don’t need me to explain what I’m saying.”

“Thank you.”

“This isn’t for your career benefit. I don’t want you imagining that this meeting gives you any special privilege, either.”

“I don’t. And won’t. What about authority?”

“I appointed Pamela Darnley acting case officer. I’ll tell her you’re back.”

“She’ll be disappointed.”

“I hope I’m not.”

It was the first time he’d seen Pamela Darnley with total, unblurred clarity, and Cowley decided she was remarkably attractive: close, he supposed, to being beautiful. He tried to avoid the physical comparison with Pauline but couldn’t. Like Pauline, she was richly auburn haired, although heavier busted-heavier altogether-which was compensated for by her height, which had to be at least five ten, maybe more. There was an elegance about the tunic dress without the edge-to-edge precision of Pauline the previous night, and worn with the insouciance of someone who either didn’t care or knew she didn’t have to try too hard. He suspected the latter. The heavy-framed glasses that had registered indistinctly during the hospital visit outlined deeply blue or maybe black eyes in an oval face spared, with the same insouciance, anything more than base makeup and pale lipstick. There was no wedding ring. Cowley was abruptly discomfited by an analysis-and most definitely by the comparison with Pauline-that was totally irrelevant. The incident room had been created from a small lecture hall, and Terry Osnan said it was good to see him back.