Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“It is good to see you back,” Pamela said, settling into her chair in the cramped side office-surrendering the desk position to Cowley-and feeling the opposite.

“No, it’s not, as far as you are concerned,” Cowley replied at once. “You know I’ve just had a one-to-one with the director. I’m working the same rules now. And they’ll apply in whatever the future is. You’re not at all pleased to see me back. You saw this as your big chance-which it was and still is-but now you’re thinking my being here screws everything. It doesn’t. I’m not back here to watch my territory or my ass. We’re not in competition. We don’t have the time or the luxury to be. Any day now the bastards are going to hit again and we’re going to be under more pressure than you ever thought possible. You are going to be glad I’m back then, to take some of the heat.” Cowley paused. Then he said, “That’s it, for openers.”

Pamela didn’t respond immediately because she couldn’t. Neither did she show any facial surprise-any reaction whatsoever-to the pronouncement. Finally she said, “So I wasn’t glad. Pissed, in fact. Now I’m not sure.”

“Then you’ll have to learn to be.”

“OK,” she accepted doubtfully. She hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t a conversation like this.

“What did you think of the suggestion that we don’t expect any more attacks?”

“Total shit. Of course there are going to be. I wasn’t asked an opinion until now.”

Cowley smiled. “Now you’re going to be asked; we’re going to be asked. Before we are you’d better bring me up to date.”

It only took minutes. The second forensic search in New Rochelle (“they even sexed the worms”) had found nothing. In the intervening days since the disaster, they’d hit every known, possibly traceable and self-proclaimed radical group, from those that expected the world to end next week, through those that believed there was life on Mars, to those (“the freedom-of-expression Constitution’s got a lot to answer for”) that built shrines to Hitler and Satan, or both, and wanted to kill all the mentally ill, disabled, homosexuals, Jews, blacks, Catholics, and Protestants on the planet. There was no provable paramilitary group or organization in the area of the massacre, and the marina checks at New Rochelle and Norwalk had not produced a single sighting of any obvious reconnoiterer. The military hadn’t come up with anything.

“Zilch!” the woman declared. “We also went through the Russian ghettoes at Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach, where the links are to the mafias back home. No one expected to be knocked over by the rush of volunteers-a whisper would have been good. Nothing, not even for money and immunity. There was some copy-cat stuff, of course, from the crazies. One-a U.S. Army grenade-in Des Moines, two, both industrial dynamite, in St. Louis. No one got hurt, thank Christ.”

Everything that should have been done according to routine, acknowledged Cowley. “Moscow?”

“The Moscow murders switched the attention from us yesterday and so far today. But all we know is what Danilov let us have. We haven’t been able to add to it from here-establish a connection that makes sense, any more than he can.” Pamela paused heavily. “Or any more than he’s prepared to tell me he can.”

“Or is allowed to tell us he can,” Cowley picked up. “This was a Russian missile. And the mines that killed seventeen Americans were Russian, too, according to the metallography findings. You weren’t actually expecting the key to the store, were you?”

The woman made a vague, almost embarrassed gesture. “I hoped for more.”

Cowley guessed Pamela Darnley was about thirty, thirty-five tops: a fast-track contender to be this high this young. He decided it was too soon to repeat the near lecture he’d delivered earlier to the director about the environment in which Danilov existed, quite irrespective of the political straitjacket into which the man was probably strapped, whatever public declarations there might be about full and frank openness. “I know it seems like forever but it’s only been a few days.” Exactly six, he realized, surprising himself.

“You want to convince the great American public they shouldn’t be so impatient?”

“I’m not sure I could.”

“I’m sure you couldn’t. After September, 2001, and the anthrax outbreaks that followed there’s a lot of frightened people out there.” She consciously made her smile into a grimace. “A lot of frightened people in here, too. So what’s our way forward?” Did he mean what he said about not cutting her out?

“I need to speak to Dimitri.”

“Special friends?”

“Necessary friends,” Cowley said, unconcerned by the cynicism. “Which brings it all back to us. I’m case officer as well as outranking you in seniority. But I’m not interested in playing that game. All I’m interested in is getting this wrapped up, whatever it takes. I want your total, unconditional input. You make the breakthrough, I won’t steal it from you. Additional rules, OK?”

Pamela looked steadily at him for several moments. “OK,” she agreed. If he wasn’t sincere he had to be the world’s best bullshitter. She’d go along with it because initially there wasn’t any alternative. But only as long as it took her to decide if he was genuine or not. And if he wasn’t, she’d have to do something about it. She wouldn’t get another opportunity like this, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let it be taken away from her.

Why, wondered Cowley, had he made a commitment to Pamela Darnley that it hadn’t occurred to him to make to her predecessor? Reminded, he said, “What’s the news of Burt Bradley? He taking visitors? Able to talk?”

There was another long look. “I thought the director might have told you. He died early this morning.”

CNN made a news flash of the deputy foreign minister’s arrival at the American embassy. Yuri Kisayev insisted on entering the building from the front, directly off Ulitza Chaykovskovo, personally carrying one of the awkwardly shaped packages, trailed by his more heavily laden driver. He paused at the babble of questions, refusing to identify what he was passing over but insisting it proved the Russian intention to cooperate.

Cowley said, “I’m guessing warheads.”

“Very obviously a staged photo opportunity,” said Pamela.

“Dimitri say anything about it?”

“I couldn’t get him yesterday and he didn’t call back,” said the woman. “Nothing when we last spoke.”

Only when he recognized Dimitri Danilov’s voice did Cowley slot the receiver into the conference relay box. He began speaking in Russian. It was Danilov who switched immediately into English.

“How are you?” demanded the Russian. Cowley was back!

“Like shit on a plate, according to the director.”

Danilov laughed. “But you’re there?”

“Yes.”

“And OK?” demanded Danilov.

“Good enough,” dismissed Cowley. “This is a conference call. I’ve got Pamela Darnley with me.”

“We’ve spoken. Hello.”

“Hello,” said the woman.

“CNN has just shown your deputy minister at our embassy.”

“It’s the duplicate warheads we spoke about before you got hurt,” the Russian cut in.

Cowley hesitated. “That’s good. Our forensic people are anxious for them.”

“I can understand that.” In his Moscow office Danilov smiled, relieved that Cowley was understanding, too.

“How closely do you think your murders are connected?” Cowley saw Pamela, on the other side of the desk, frown at the question.

“Perfect fit, I’d say. There are still some things to sort out here before I can come over. Will a delay be a problem for you?”