Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

She hadn’t actually been sidelined in all the frenzied activity of the preceding twenty-four hours, but one of the first decisions had been that she should remain in Washington and she’d seized it, reanalyzing, reassessing, rereading all there was, seeking the opening. When she’d realized it she’d almost laughed aloud, it was so obvious.

She also had put some hope on the search for Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov’s visa application and the American address he’d listed on it, but when it had finally been located by Immigration it had been 69 Bay View Avenue, Brooklyn. She got no satisfaction from telling the even more resentfully hostile Al Beckingsdale they not only already had it but that it was wired. She didn’t want anyone claiming any credit for what she’d worked out.

Pamela was actually refining her intended use of the Orlenko monitor when Terry Osnan appeared at her office door and said, “My number three at Albany-a good agent-is on line three: says she thinks she knows how it’s all being financed.”

“What’s the lead?” demanded Danilov.

“The possible supplier of the warhead,” said Reztsov, from Gorki.

“You’ve got a positive identity?”

“We expect to in the next couple of days. And there’s a possibility of a connection with the Zotin Brigade.”

“I’ll come for an arrest,” Danilov told the man. “Tell me when you’re ready to move.”

There was every career-advancing reason for Pamela Darnley to go up to Albany rather than to bring Anne Stovey to headquarters, totally emptying the bureau office there being among the considerations, but impatient though she was, Pamela determined that everything had to have its priority, and Chicago-and her agonizingly simple suggestion-dominated that. But the Albany message now gave her possibly two breaks. In addition, she had guaranteed access-visible, in-his-face recognition-to the director, to ensure all the credit was properly accorded.

The diligent Terry Osnan had followed the bureau’s evidence collation procedure to the letter, and that required the initialed identity of every examining agent recorded against each incoming item and message. Because of this it took only minutes to identify Al Beckingsdale as the incident room agent who had discarded Anne Stovey’s original alert and caused the delay in responding to it.

Despite being acting case officer, Pamela’s grade was insufficient to dismiss Beckingsdale. She continued strictly to follow procedure, verbally warning the blustering man before handing him his required copy of her written request for Leonard Ross instantly to remove the Pittsburgh agent in charge from the investigation.

Her summons came within the hour.

Leonard Ross didn’t rise at her entry. He remained behind the desk upon which her memorandum was laid out and disappointed her by appearing to ignore the link between the Chicago telephone number and both Roanne Harding and Arseni Orlenko. Instead, he asked her to refresh his memory about the original bank theft. He genuinely wanted only that-unlike Pamela, who’d needed a full account from Anne Stovey in Albany-because the first “pennypinching” case had come to trial soon after Ross had been elevated to the New York circuit bench.

“We’ve got four separate banks with God knows how many branches admitting it’s happened-or is happening-to them,” concluded Pamela. “That isn’t coincidence.”

“I don’t think so, either,” agreed the director. “It could answer one of the many outstanding unknowns.”

“So could putting a tap on the public phone in Chicago,” urged Pamela, eager to get the conversation back to her agenda. “We’ve got an even more definite connection there.”

“All sorts of legal difficulties, state and federal,” cautioned the man.

So he hadn’t realized the other way! “And practical, from the sheer volume of what will have to be listened to,” accepted Pamela, taking her time now. “But surely we’ve got to do it: try to do it.”

“I’ll discuss it with the attorney general,” Ross said. “Talk to the White House about getting the Illinois governor involved, if necessary. You heard anything from Moscow?”

She sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her big moment talking about Moscow, from which she hadn’t yet heard anyway! “Chicago’s a street phone. We could avoid involving anyone at all apart from ourselves by putting it under permanent bureau surveillance. We know every call that’s made from Brooklyn, as soon as a number is dialed. The moment we identify Chicago, we alert the observation team and pick up whoever’s at the Chicago end.”

Ross regarded her without speaking for several moments. Then he said, “Nothing’s more obscure than the obvious.”

What the hell was that, recognition or praise or what! Cautiously-knowing Cowley’s intention to let the Brooklyn couple remain free, to guide them further toward the Watchmen-she said: “We’d have to pick up the Orlenkos, too. But they would have served their purpose, giving us whoever it is in Chicago. Who’s clearly farther up the ladder, dealing with them and Roanne Harding.”

“Who was the Pentagon infiltrator and now a murder victim, providing just cause to arrest them,” completed the former judge. “I like the way you’re bringing this together.”

Acknowledgment, at last! “Thank you. I’ll talk to New York and Chicago before going up to Albany.” And get my name on the detailed instruction briefings, she thought. “Agent Stovey isn’t convinced the banks’ security people are taking it seriously enough.”

“Make them,” Ross demanded shortly. “What about Beckinsdale not taking it seriously enough?”

“You have my memorandum,” said Pamela, equally brief. All the necessary details were there. It would be wrong-impolitic-for her to offer any comment or opinion.

Once more the man remained momentarily silent. “You’re making an impressive contribution. It’s being noted.”

“Thank you,” Pamela said again.

Terry Osnan was waiting to follow her into the side office when Pamela got back. Al Beckinsdale wasn’t in the incident room.

Osnan said, “You really play hardball.”

“Come on, Terry!”

“Mistakes happen.”

“Not on my watch, not if I can help it. He’s been a pain in the ass from the start. I want team play, not resentment.”

“Anne could be wrong.”

“If it’s a blowout it still doesn’t alter the fact that he didn’t react properly.”

“OK,” capitulated Osnan.

“What about Anne Stovey?” demanded Pamela. “She get things wrong very often?”

“No,” said the woman’s station chief. “Hardly ever.”

“Good,” said Pamela. “It’ll be a welcome change.”

There was immediate female recognition between the two women.

Pamela Darnley identified the graying, sensibly dressed, sensibly shod Anne Stovey as a state capital stalwart, probably born within twenty miles of the office in which she’d remained, by choice, throughout her entire career. One framed photograph on the woman’s desk in the office they’d just left showed her as part of a family group of husband and son. The other had father and son proudly posing with pole and line and a fish half the size of the boy’s arm.

Anne Stovey saw the sveltely dressed, tightly coiffed, seriously bespectacled Pamela Darnley as an interested-in-nothing-but-a-career woman prepared to run up the downward escalator in her total determination to get to the top. In the fifteen years that she had served in Albany, Anne had seen the attitude in a lot of male agents-for whose families she felt sorry-but never in a female one. She was curious about the experience to come.