Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“I’m not being obstructive,” the local intelligence chief said uncertainly.

“No one is suggesting that you are,” Danilov said easily.

“If the purpose of the conversation with the president’s office is to ensure we each understand your position and function here, there’s surely no reason why we can’t hear it?” the military attache, Colonel Oleg Syzdykov, said with a smile.

Danilov forced himself to smile back, recognizing the military intelligence chief to be the most formidable opponent and warmed by a further realization. Chelyag hadn’t personally sent the advisory cable, and they believed he was exaggerating his authority! “None whatsoever.”

Guliyev gestured toward the telephone bank beside his expansive desk.

Danilov booked the call in his name through the embassy switchboard, turning to face his audience. Who was calling whose bluff? Hardly a bluff, in his case. He’d made it quite clear to Chelyag how he needed to work in America, and at the very first crisis meeting the presidential aide had precluded the direct involvement of any other agency. But there was something close to overconfidence in the attitudes of the people facing him.

The telephone rang and the ambassador again held out his hand in invitation. It was a secretary, a voice he didn’t recognize. Danilov repeated his name, feeling the perspiration prickling his back, and said he would not give a message but that he wanted Chelyag to be told personally who was calling from Washington. It was difficult to keep his voice even. The line went dead, as if the call had been disconnected.

Syzdukov said, “I think there really has been a misunderstanding!”

And then Chelyag came sharply on to the line. “What!”

Instead of immediately replying, Danilov leaned across the ambassador’s desk and pushed the button for speaker phone, so that Chelyag’s impatiently repeated demand echoed into the room.

“I am speaking to you from the office of His Excellency Ambassador Guliyev,” Danilov established formally. “Also with me are Head of Chancellery Timor Besedin and security officers Oleg Syzdykov and Ivan Obidin.” The first flicker of apprehension registered with the security chief. “There’s an operational difficulty that needs resolving.

The collapse of the four men was practically visible, their strings going slack. The ambassador tried anxiously to talk over Danilov, but Danilov refused the interruption, bulldozing on with the insistence that the separation was to spare the embassy embarrassment until Chelyag himself broke in.

“Is this line open, for everyone to hear? There’s an echo.”

“Yes,” said Danilov.

“Good,” said Chelyag. The lecture was terse, each man addressed individually by name. Any difficulty experienced by Dimitri Ivanovich Danilov would be considered positive obstruction, to be explained to the White House. Danilov was to be given every assistance and embassy facility without question or interference. Each of their department heads-the foreign minister himself in the cases of Ambassador Guliyev and Timor Besedin-would be notified of these instructions within the hour and asked why it had been necessary to reissue them, in view of the specific directives each had unequivocally been given.

“Dimitir Ivanovich?”

“Sir?”

“Anything further that needs to be made clear?”

“I don’t think so,” said Danilov. This whole episode had, he guessed, been set up. Some sort of loyalty test in the continuing internecine Moscow infighting in the middle of which he remained caught.

It was almost seven-thirty before Cowley and Pamela, working smoothly together from the communal incident room, organized all the searches possible from Danilov’s leads. The car rental companies hoped to complete their computer records check by the following day, but the Immigration Department thought it might take longer to trace the written visa slips, which weren’t transferred to computers and needed, therefore, to be gone through by hand.

Terry Osnan, pleased at last to be able to do something more than assemble records, said, “This has got a positive feel to it.”

“We hope,” said Cowley.

“Dimitri’s not the sort of guy I thought he would be,” said Pamela.

“Different how?”

She made an uncertain movement. “I don’t know. Quieter, I guess. If the forensic results turn out like he expects, it’s going to point toward some official complicity.”

“It’s something I want to talk through with him when we get the findings.” Cowley hesitated. “How about my buying you a thank-you dinner for last night?”

She looked at him silently for several moments from her desk. “I really was going through my angel-of-mercy routine, you know.”

“I know,” said Cowley, angry at himself. Shit! he thought: shit, shit, shit.

“I don’t want anything to get complicated.” Not unless it’s on my terms, she thought.

“Neither do I.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“Sure. Some other time.”

It was Cowley’s extension that rang. Carl Ashton said, “They’re jerking our strings again. All the blocked screens have cleared. And there’s another message, signed the Watchmen. It says within twenty-four hours they’re going to prove the hypocrisy that exists between America and Russia.”

“Where’s it being sent from?”

“They’re still using the Pentagon, for Christ’s sake! Proving we can’t catch them even though we know they’re there somewhere.”

“You think we should wake Dimitri up?” asked Pamela, when Cowley relayed the message.

“There’s nothing he can do to stop it happening, whatever it’s going to be,” said Cowley. “We can give him a few more hours.”

“What can we do to stop it?” Pamela said rhetorically.

“Nothing except wait.”

“What if they’ve got another missile? Or more bombs?” she said, still in self-conversation.

“Then we’ve got a new catastrophe,” said Cowley.

Anne Stovey took great care with her memorandum to Washington, believing that quite alone she’d found a lead-maybe even the lead-to the terrorist financing but not wanting to overstress the claim, in case she hadn’t.

But it had to be more than a coincidence that the security departments of four quite separate, unconnected banks had finally acknowledged complaints of irritating customers like Clarence Snelling that there had been nickel-and-dime differences in their accounts.

She rewrote her message three times, her conviction wavering at every attempt because there was so little to support her theory. For an hour she even considered saying nothing until the inquiries she’d asked the security departments to make produced something. An impossible task, she remembered, according to each security chief she’d spoken to. Her fourth rewrite included that phrase. It was late afternoon when she finally faxed it, quoting the reference from the terrorist inquiry incident room.

“Can’t it wait until we get home?” demanded Elizabeth Hollis.

“He might not be there if we wait.” Hollis hadn’t wanted another scene so he had taken his mother, announcing the sudden need to use the phone as they got close to the mall.

“What is it?” demanded the woman.

“A guy at work had a problem he couldn’t work out. I promised I’d think about it, try to find the answer. I think I have.” In more ways than Robert Standing would ever think possible, he thought.

“Maybe I’ll come with you. Look at Penney’s.”

“It’s too crowded. You’ll get tired. Stay in the car and listen to the music.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

Hollis had allowed ten minutes and felt a lurch of anxiety when he saw a woman using the telephone. He placed himself obviously outside the booth and just as obviously she turned her back to him. There was only a minute to go when she collected the unused coins from the ledge. He hurried forward, holding open the door. As she emerged she said, “Don’t worry, honey. She’ll wait, hunky guy like you,” and laughed. He could smell that she hadn’t showered. The phone rang.