Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“No!” said Danilov. “No, we won’t.” He laughed. “I know! I know who the woman is from the Golden Hussar.”

Patrick Hollis had established the pattern of joining the FBI auditor in the cafeteria, savoring the cachet of association in front of Carole Parker and Robert Standing and all the others who despised him. Whittier smiled invitingly at his approach, and Hollis eased into the opposite seat. He knew everyone was looking, even though he had his back to the room. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good,” said the man.

“You’ve certainly been hard at it.”

“That’s the job.”

Hollis jerked his hand vaguely toward the room behind him. “Everyone knows who you are and what you’re doing by now.”

“Inevitable,” accepted the auditor. “Too late for anyone to hide their tracks, though.”

“You got someone?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Of course not. I’m sorry. It was just …” Hollis stumbled intentionally, sure he was acting out the apparent difficulty exactly right.

Whittier held up a hand with the forefinger narrowed within a fraction of his thumb. “I can tell you that we’re that close.”

There was more progress than setback for Pamela Darnley when she arrived in the incident room. Silently Terry Osnan handed her the Chicago printout upon which Ivan Gavrilovich Guzov was listed, together with Arseni Yanovich Orlenko, as a codirector of OverOcean Inc. The Chicago office had already applied to a judge in chambers for a telephone tap.

There was also a report from the audio science department. There was no match between the voice of Mary Jo Orlenko and the woman who had called the Highway Patrol from the New Rochelle shopping precinct.

There was too much activity at too high a level at the U.S. Embassy and Petrovka was too porous, so at Cowley’s suggestion they gathered at his suite at the Savoy. Cowley, who’d needed to excuse himself from the continuing embassy preparations for Henry Hartz’s meeting with the Russian president, said, “You sure!”

“As sure as I can be without scientific proof.” It was the first time Danilov had been in Cowley’s room. There was a bottle of Glenfiddich scotch, with glasses, on a tray on a side table.

Yuri Pavin, who had to be included because Cowley couldn’t be involved in the intended confrontation and whose presence was a further reason for their not having met at the American legation, said, “I think so, too.”

“Jesus!” said Cowley. He wondered why, when it began to happen, the resolution of cases invariably seemed mundane compared to the crimes themselves. A premature reflection, he realized. A resolution to an investigation of this enormity was always going to seem an anticlimax, and at the moment they were as far away from concluding it as they’d ever been.

“It could provide a lot of answers,” encouraged Danilov. “Explain the murders. Why Osipov and Zotin got killed. Even double warheads from two separate plants.”

“Valeri Karpov was tortured and killed!” reminded Cowley.

“‘It was business: only ever business,’” quoted Danilov.

“Jesus!” Cowley repeated.

Danilov turned to Paul Lambert and the technician the forensic chief had brought with him. “Will you be able to make positive identification from a telephone call?”

“That’s the level of distortion we’re working on from the Golden Hussar, with the addition of a distance factor,” Lambert pointed out. “It should be enough. A less relayed-less diluted-exchange would be better.”

“We’ll try for both,” decided Danilov. “Advance warning doesn’t matter.”

The technician wired Cowley’s room phone and tested the pickup by calling Barry Martlew at the embassy. The equipment worked precisely as it should have. The technician rewound and wiped the tape. “All set, when you’re ready.”

“You,” announced Danilov, to his deputy. “It would more likely be you, wouldn’t it?”

The telephone table and nearby chair appeared too small for the huge man. From his reaction, the reply at the other end was very quick. Pavin played his role to perfection. He was very sorry. He didn’t intend to intrude. The return was a necessary formality, which he hoped wouldn’t cause any distress. He was sorry he didn’t have any news, but they could talk about that when he got there. He was grateful for the understanding and cooperation. He could certainly be there in an hour. It wouldn’t take very long.

They listened heads bent, attentively, to the instant replay. Danilov realized he was breathing shallowly, as quietly as possible. He thought the others were, too.

Cowley said, “I think you’re right.”

Lambert said, “I do, too.”

“Let’s make sure,” said Danilov. He and Pavin stripped to the waist and stood self-consciously while the sound technician taped them with body wires.

The man said, “I’m afraid it will hurt when we tear the tape off, but I’ve got to put this much on to keep it all as close and as inconspicuously as possible against your skin.”

Danilov was surprised that he had far more body hair than his deputy. Larissa had called him her bear, he remembered. The technician fed the wires and microphones through their clothes as they dressed, standing back to check the concealment, patting each to ensure he’d fixed the wires to avoid their being detectable if either man was touched. The final preparation was to test the recordings and sound levels, which again were perfect.

“How’s it feel?” asked Lambert.

“Like I’m trussed up, ready to be cooked,” said Danilov.

“You’re doing the cooking,” said Cowley.

On their way out to Pereulok Samokatnaja, Pavin said, “All we need is talk, isn’t it?”

“And to avoid arousing the slightest suspicion,” warned Danilov.

When Naina Karpov opened the door of the converted apartment, he said, “Thank you very much for seeing us like this.”

Naina Karpov was as neatly dressed as before, in a sweater and skirt, and again there was no makeup or jewelry. The attitude of uncaring resignation had gone, though. Today there was no child watching television, either.

Danilov said, “I thought I’d come, too. Just in case you’d remembered something since last time.” She was curious. Understandable: no cause for concern. There was more danger in over- than underreacting.

“You gave me your card to call you, if I did.”

Danilov shrugged his shoulders. “You never know.”

“No,” said the widow. “I haven’t remembered anything since last time. Can I offer you tea?”

Quite calm, unworried, Danilov recognized. How it should be. He refused tea. So did Pavin.

“I’m glad your daughter’s better,” said Danilov.

“It was nothing. What have you found out?”

The voice, which they’d thought on the first occasion to be the huskiness of grief, sounded just the same, deep in her throat. Danilov said, “Nothing at all that helps.”

“You actually think Valeri Alexandrovich was involved in all this other business?”

“He worked for a factory that manufactured weapons,” Pavin pointed out. “But we’ve no proof. It’s embarrassing for us. And the Americans.”

“I’m sure he wasn’t.” Looking to Danilov she said, “I read-or maybe I saw it on television-that you’d been in America?”

“It’s a joint investigation. I’m the liaison.”

“More seems to have happened there than here?”

“They were lucky, preventing a terrible explosion. But nothing’s led them anywhere.”

“Was that all it was, luck?”

“Entirely. A park attendant saw something he didn’t understand on the statue.”

She shuddered. “I still can’t believe that Valeri Alexandrovich knew gangsters-people who would do things like that. That’s what the papers said: that the man he was found in the river with was a gangster and that he worked for a crime group whose boss was killed, too. Is that true?”