Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

Pamela said, “But it didn’t go off. We prevented it.”

“Bill Cowley prevented it.”

The two female agents were in head-bent conversation now, looking annoyed.

“Prevented it brilliantly,” agreed Pamela. “But you’re right, Al. It has taken a hell of a time-too long-and none of us is doing anything at this very moment, sitting around here with our fingers up our asses. So here’s what I’d like you personally to do. I’d like you to get over to Immigration and you tell the superintendent in charge-his name’s Zeke Proudfoot-you tell Zeke Proudfoot how pissed off we all are that it’s taking him and his people so long and that’s why you’ve been seconded to them, to put a burr under their blanket. Let’s get that address off the visa application by the end of the day, OK?”

The two female agents were smiling now. None of the men were.

“Now let’s just wait a moment here-” began the man.

“What, Al?” stopped Pamela.

“I thought we had a specific role here. A task force?”

“Of which I’m supervisor, like I’m deputy case officer of the entire investigation.” Pamela smiled. “Which has got to be flexible. I’m open to persuasion and you’ve persuaded me. You give me a call around midday, tell me how you’re getting on: If we’re all out, leave a message with Terry Osnan. If I’m here I’ll probably know the answers to those other questions you were asking earlier about Manhattan.”

The man stood and remained staring at her for several moments before storming from the room. As the door slammed behind him Pamela said, “I mean it, about flexibility. Anyone else got any suggestions that might be useful?”

No one spoke.

“Here’s how we’ll do it then,” resumed Pamela. “I’m assigning each of you your own four-person group. The Pentagon is providing the personnel records of everyone it’s referring to us. The reason for their being let go is primary, obviously. Get everything checkable-Social Security number, medical details, everything and anything that is publicly traceable-you can use to find things they won’t have volunteered. Lied about. Like criminal convictions. Any previous military record is a concentration, among civilians. A hidden court-martial, you win the kewpie doll. Membership in all organizations if we can find them. The guy-or girl-we’re looking for is a computer freak, and all the steers we’re getting from the experts is that computer freaks are arrogant, sure they can never be caught. Check out every one if you can for an Internet address, through the telephone company against the addresses the Pentagon will have. We’ve got ten manned terminals here in the incident room, all ready to be used. I don’t want anyone confronted personally without our being able to catch the lie: We go in unprepared, they’re not going to be there waiting for us when we go back a second time.” She paused. “Anyone got any improvements on that?” Another pause. “And this time I am looking for input.”

Again no one spoke.

“Let’s find who we’re looking for,” Pamela concluded. She was on her own, in charge, and determined that everyone knew it, Leonard Ross most of all.

The couple-a dark-haired, big-busted girl of about twenty-five, the fair-haired, bull-chested man older, maybe thirty-five or even more-arrived at 69 Bay View Avenue by yellow cab at 10:45 A.M. They had luggage, a suit bag and a matching airline carry-on grip, in red tartan.

The photographer in the observation van got three exposures, one very good of the two of them full face. Another agent got the number of the cab and telephoned it to the first of the four backup cars parked the most convenient to the direction in which the taxi moved off. They identified it easily on Neptune Avenue but waited until it turned on to Copsey before pulling it in. The driver, a third-generation New York Italian, said he’d picked them up outside Terminal 2 at LaGuardia just before ten. They hadn’t talked a lot-not at all to him, apart from giving him the address-but when they had it had been in English. The girl had an American accent but the guy hadn’t, although he hadn’t been able to pin it down. German, maybe: guttural like Germans speak, from the back of their throats. He couldn’t positively remember anything they’d said. He thought there’d been a John or a Joe mentioned. Someone had been difficult: The girl had definitely called someone a son of a bitch. They hadn’t seemed particularly close, not sitting together or holding hands or anything like that, like he would have done, a girl with tits like that. He hadn’t seen-hadn’t looked for-a wedding ring. The driver demanded to know who was going to pay for his time when they asked him to follow them in to the Manhattan office to make a formal statement. They told him they would.

The observation photographer’s film was already there by then, ferried in for development and multiple printing by a second standby car. Within thirty minutes it led three other cars and ten agents back to Terminal 2 at LaGuardia. The third Brooklyn car had gone directly there the moment the cab driver named the airport, to hold as many of the terminal’s morning and already landed airline staff as possible.

During the two-hour period before ten there had been eight longhaul arrivals and five shuttles each from Boston and Washington. The FBI squad divided, half trying to prevent as many crew as possible from leaving the terminal-discovering at once that four shuttle crews were already returning on commuter nights-the other five attempting to shortcut the search by obtaining passenger manifests. Which paid off. A Mr. and Mrs. A. Orlenko had boarded an American Airlines flight in Chicago that had originated in St. Louis, and the crew was still in the building, waiting to return to the Missouri hub as passengers.

A sharp-featured senior stewardess named Mary Ellen Burford identified the couple from the photograph as having occupied seats H7 and 8 in her section. Two agents immediately began naming and trying to locate from airline records people who sat in every surrounding seat. Two others tried but failed to get aboard the aircraft before the cleaners reached row H. They still lifted five different sets of fingerprints from the plastic meal trays and from the magazines in the front pockets.

Mr. and Mrs. Orlenko were just ordinary, unremarkable people, said Mary Ellen Burford. As far as she could remember, the woman had refused breakfast and slept most of the way, using eye shields. The man had drunk two spicy Bloody Marys. When the woman had been awake, they hadn’t talked much. From her minimal contact-serving the drinks and breakfast to the man-she didn’t remember any discernible accent.

In the bureau’s Third Avenue office, from which Cowley was coordinating the investigation, the telephone records of 69 Bay View Avenue proved immediately productive and later curious. From the country and city codes, Danilov at once recognized the listed international calls-three outgoing, two incoming-as Russian. The two incoming and one outgoing were from the same number in Gorki. The other two outgoing were to Moscow. The last was dated two weeks before the attack on the United Nations.

When Danilov spoke to him, Yuri Pavin said he hoped to get names and addresses by the end of the day. He’d try, said the colonel, to bypass the Gorki militia and deal directly with the telephone authorities there. The wired photographs of the couple were already being run, with the names, against Moscow criminal records, and he wouldn’t have any alternative but to go to Reztsov and Averin for a Gorki comparison. He was ready for the aircraft fingerprints, when they were wired.

“Seems to be a lot happening there,” suggested Pavin.

“Routine but impressive,” agreed Danilov.