Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

The garages were one hundred yards from Lev Ivanovich Baratov’s Mercedes outlet. Which was more than a mile from Pereulok Ucebyi, where two hours earlier the Cadillac in which Anatoli Sergeevich Lasin was setting out to collect a new, fifteen-year-old lover exploded so violently when he turned on the ignition that the vehicle was broken completely in half. The gas tank was full, and the resulting fire totally destroyed Lasin’s apartment and two others in the same block. Three people died in the blaze.

The photographs were of Naina Karpov. After it was enhanced, one of the departing shots showed the man to whom she was turning in farewell to be Igor Ivanovich Baratov.

Five of the pictures were pinpoint sharp, and in three of them she appeared to be looking directly at the camera, as if she were posing. The transformation from the dowdy, distracted widow of Pereulok Samokatnaja was so complete that Danilov thought that in a casual, crowded situation he might not have even recognized her. The neglected hair was coiffed perfectly around an oval, even beautiful face to show off the glittering earrings that, with the singlestrand choker, made a complete set that threw off enough light to be genuine diamonds, which they probably were. There was a diamondlike flare from the ring on her ring finger, too, but no wedding band. The dress-maroon, according to Martlew-was close fitting without being tight, cut bare-shouldered and in two of the pictures exposing deep cleavage hidden by a covering stole of the same material. She was smiling-openly laughing in one frame-to show sculpted, even teeth.

Yevgenni Leanov was just as immaculate-and smiling-in a single-breasted, Western-cut suit that Martlew remembered as dark blue. The surveillance photographs revealed a tactile attentiveness that had not registered with the two FBI watchers until the very end of the evening. In the arrival pictures Leanov had cupped Naina Karpov’s arm to help her out of the Oldsmobile and had his hand familiarly in the small of her back as they’d gone in through the restaurant’s rear door. Their hands had been touching in the first of the emerging photographs, and Leanov’s was around her waist in the others.

It was not possible to see anything of Baratov, apart from his face, from the angle of the one print in which he’d been caught. He’d been smiling, like the rest of them.

Danilov was grateful the necessary responses to the identification-and the murder of Anatoli Lasin-had delayed his day’s schedule until midday but he still felt crushed (the coming together of the rock against the hard place) by the hangover. It had been ridiculous-posturingly theatrical-to go on drinking as he had the previous night, as if integrity could be drowned in alcohol. He hadn’t, in fact, become forgetfully drunk. At least the vomiting had stopped. He wished the remorse and the pain would.

Because of Henry Hartz’s continued presence at the U.S. Embassy, they were again in Cowley’s suite. The Golden Hussar photographs didn’t occupy much space on the table around which they were sitting, even though they were enlarged as well as enhanced. The rest was taken up by official Russian prints of Anatoli Lasin’s blown-apart car and fire-blackened shell of the Pereulok Ucebyi apartment block. Considerately, ever conscious of how Larissa died, Pavin had covered the murder scene pictures with those of the destroyed apartments.

“If it was a delayed wake for the sadly missed husband, they enjoyed themselves,” said Cowley, disturbing the neatly piled prints of Naina Karpov. One of the American’s early-morning checks had been to establish from the Manhattan eavesdropping that there had been no calls from Brooklyn to the restaurant the previous night.

“There as well as back at Leanov’s apartment,” said Danilov, working hard to disguise how he felt, surprised that Cowley was showing no discomfort whatsoever. Practice, he supposed. The ownership of the Pereulok Kalasnyj apartment was one of several things that Pavin had established during the morning. Another was that Leanov had divorced his wife four years earlier. A third was that the lock-up block listed on the same property register was owned by Lev Baratov’s garage company.

“Why kill Lasin?” queried Pavin.

“Because he knew Nikov he was originally brought into headquarters, which might not have been the best idea,” reflected Danilov, his headache so bad his words seemed to echo in his skull. “To keep her talking-to get as much for the voice comparison as we could-we told Naina Karpov we were going to reinterview everyone we’d already seen. Lasin was their weak link.”

“The irony is that he didn’t tell us anything,” said Pavin.

“He would have if we’d threatened him with Lefortovo and a trumped-up charge over his handguns,” said Danilov.

“Let’s not forget, either, the example factor of the Nikov and Karpov killings,” suggested Cowley.

“Or fail to take advantage of it ourselves!” said Danilov, with an awareness that pleased him. The band wasn’t tightening around his head anymore, either.

“How?” Cowley frowned.

“We’ll use our resident informer,” decided Danilov. “Senior Colonel Ashot Ivanovich Mizin will work the two killings jointly. Tell him we’re still going along with his turf war theory and that it’s all part of the Osipov Brigade breakup. I want them to go on thinking they’re safe, with the investigation under the control of their own man.”

“We need to get to the Oldsmobile,” said Cowley. “There might just be something for forensic. And there’s an identification from the embassy guard.”

Danilov’s headache was definitely lifting. His stomach felt easier, too. “The Russian way,” he said simply.

“Not admissible in an American court,” refused Cowley, just as simply.

“In which court, under whose law, would an attack carried out from Russian soil-Ulitza Chaykovskovo-against what’s technically American territory ever be heard?” demanded Danilov.

“You any idea how many guilty bastards walk free from American courts on points of law?”

“You any idea how many people will die from anthrax or sarin if these bastards beat us and get a warhead into America?”

“I think I’ve taken my eye off the ball a little here,” Cowley abruptly apologized. “In Russia it’s got to be the Russian way, hasn’t it?”

The Russian president’s ultimate coup was to make his worldwide televised address from the podium of the Duma that was preparing to impeach him. He asked permission to do so from an entrapped, unable-to-refuse parliament with the American secretary of state at his side at an apparently impromptu press conference after their second meeting. He even had Henry Hartz seated at the very edge of the dais so that in some shots the two men appeared together.

The towering, white-haired man actually began by sweeping his hand out toward Hartz to declare that the man’s presence was physical, visible proof of the total commitment between their two countries to confront and defeat the fanatical terrorism that both were facing. So, too, was the fact that also in the chamber-there was another flowing hand movement to guide the cameras-were the military chiefs of all three armed services.

The announcement that all civilian participation in the safeguarding of all stockpiled Russian weaponry was being removed was accompanied by the raising high into the air of what the man declared to be a presidential decree he was lodging with the Duma. From that moment the security of every arsenal anywhere in the country was entirely in the hands of the military, who were trained for such a task and had the manpower to ensure it was properly and fully carried out. The camera-guiding gesture now was to the assembled ministers and their deputies-defense, foreign, and interior-with the insistence that although he had abolished civilian involvement at plant, installation, and stockpile level, appropriate civilian ministers should work with the military chiefs to ensure that never again would a single item of potentially harmful Russian war materiel fall into the wrong hands.