Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

The Key Bridge was blocked, stopping them. She turned to look directly at him, expecting him to elaborate, but he didn’t. The traffic became freer after Washington Circle but clogged again at the detour that had been imposed around the White House.

Cowley was back at the bureau building. He held up a warning hand as Danilov entered the incident room and said, “No Russian bear hugs.” He touched his head. “And you might as well laugh at this and get it over with.”

No dressing had been necessary after the removal of the stitches, and the two-inch-wide furrow along the entire side of Cowley’s head, where the hair had been cut away, made it look as if his scalp had slipped sideways. Pamela did grin and said, “If it’s a fashion statement, I can’t say I like it.”

There was definitely an easiness between the two of them, Danilov decided. “It’s not as if I have that much hair to spare.”

The relaxation was brief. Cowley said, “I’d rather you gave me now what you couldn’t from Moscow.”

“I need to give it to the forensic team who’ve got what was delivered to your embassy.”

In Paul Lambert’s section they were greeted by a mixture of curiosity at Dimitri Danilov-a Russian in the heart of America’s counterintelligence organization-and undisguised amusement at Cowley’s appearance.

Danilov said, “You’ve tested what was sent from Moscow? Compared the paint and the metals?”

“Not a single match,” dismissed the scientist.

“Good.” Danilov smiled, although he’d already known there would be some disparity when there shouldn’t have been.

“That prove something?” demanded Cowley.

“I hope this will,” said Danilov, taking from his pocket the envelopes he’d carried with him at all times since Gorki and added to after collecting the samples from the Moscow plant. Opening two separate, carefully labeled envelopes he said, “Is that enough metal?”

“Should be,” said Lambert.

“What about the paint?” asked Danilov, opening the other identified envelopes.

“More than enough.”

“How long?”

“Twenty-four hours, to be absolutely sure.”

“That’s what I’ve got to be, absolutely sure,” insisted Danilov.

“What are you trying to prove?” demanded Pamela.

“Where the UN missile definitely came from,” replied Danilov. To the forensic scientist he said, “Have you made a positive comparison between the stenciling on the UN warhead and what was sent to you, marked as coming from Gorki-specifically the name itself?”

Lambert coughed uncomfortably. “I need to double check that.”

“Do,” urged Danilov. “Should you be able to tell if the template from the two separate Gorkis is the same or different?”

“A simple matter of enlarging photographs of both names sufficiently to compare their outlines,” said Lambert. “It will show up the imperfections in the manufacturing stamp for each letter. If the imperfections are different, then so are the templates.”

“Gorki is the important word but I’d like every letter checked. And those from the Moscow plant: the words on the mines as well as the warhead from Kushino.”

Back in his office Cowley said, “What do you expect to find?”

“Quite a lot of effort to lead me-us-in the wrong direction,” said Danilov.

“How?” asked Pamela.

It took Danilov almost an hour to explain. Even then he omitted the cell threat to Anatoli Lasin and the importance he attached to Ashot Mizin, the man who had eagerly volunteered to deliver the warheads and mines from militia headquarters to the Russian Foreign Ministry. Long before he finished he was aware of Pamela’s skepticism. When he did stop, she said, “It can’t be as bad as that.”

“I’d like not to think so. But I do. That’s what I meant in the car by saying how misdirection of which we are aware could sometimes be useful.”

“You any idea how to use it yet?” asked the less doubtful and more pragmatic Cowley.

“Let’s wait for the results of the scientific tests.”

“Is there anything else?” said Pamela, making no more effort to hide her disappointment than she had her skepticism.

“Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov made two visits to America, one in January, the second in August of last year,” disclosed Danilov. “He’d have had to complete a visa application form with a contact address in this country, wouldn’t he?”

Cowley smiled broadly. “Absolutely!” he said.

“Both visits were on a passport in the name of Nikov,” added Danilov. “But there’s a possible alias, Eduard Babkendovich Kulik. He had a Russian driver’s license in that name. Which-”

“-he could have used to rent a car, which a man with an interest in cars would almost automatically do,” completed Pamela excitedly. “And rental agreements require residency addresses!”

Although Danilov telephoned from the J. Edgar Hoover building to warn of his impending arrival, there was still confusion when he got to the new Russian embassy off Wisconsin. The obvious initial reaction was that he was a deluded imposter. The jet lag that began to engulf him didn’t help his heavy-eyed, disheveled appearance, either, and he began regretting not waiting until the following day, which Cowley had suggested, when there might have been more on the suspect in the camouflage jacket. He spent more than half an hour alone in a bare room into which he was shown by an unnamed and clearly disbelieving reception clerk who demanded his passport and militia credentials before the door abruptly burst open and a gray-haired man, red faced with anger, demanded, “What the hell’s going on!” It was the start of a further hour of outraged demands, anger, threats, and quite a lot of communication by telephone and fax with both the White House and the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.

“I forbid you to behave in such a manner, imagining you can work totally independently of this embassy and my authority,” declared the ambassador, Andrei Guliyev, virtually at the moment of their meeting. “You will communicate through me-and only through me-at all times and do nothing without my prior approval. It’s also ridiculous for you to expect to live outside the diplomatic compound.”

“Hasn’t there been notification of my coming from the president’s office?” queried Danilov. This far from Moscow he had no way of protecting himself between the conflicting pressure from the Duma and the White House.

Guliyev looked to his head of chancellery. Timor Besedin said: “Our notification came from the Foreign Ministry.”

Why hadn’t it come from Georgi Chelyag? thought Danilov. “At most I don’t imagine needing more than the intelligence bureau’s secure communication facilities.”

“I have not been officially informed of this,” protested the embassy’s security chief, Ivan Fedorovich Obidin loudly. “The militia has no right of access to my rezidentura. It’s out of the question. I expect, however, to accompany you on inquiries you make while you are here in America. I shall contact Moscow suggesting this. That way the secure rezidentura facilities can be used. By me, to relay what’s necessary.”

Danilov sighed, holding back the irritation he felt for the president’s chief of staff not personally sending the message. He hadn’t expected to make friends but to make enemies here would serve no purpose. And there would, he was sure by now, have been a lot of separate conversations and instructions from Moscow to each of these men from their respective superiors. “I’m fully aware of the pressure you have personally been under since all this began. Which is precisely the reason why there has to be a separation. The FBI has no positive leads. Neither have I, from Moscow. There will be more outrages-atrocities even. If I am attached to this embassy and living in the Russian diplomatic compound-and my presence here in Washington becomes known-then it will be to this embassy and you, Mr. Ambassador, that fresh demands and criticism will be directed. Working independently of the embassy is diplomatically essential, in the opinion of the president.” He paused, confident the inference of ultimate, inner sanctum access was necessary. “I don’t need secure facilities to talk to Chief of Staff Chelyag. Any telephone will do.”