Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

The smoothly rehearsed movement of the forensic team was another uncomfortable reminder to Cowley of how Jefferson Jones’s squad had automatically assumed their roles on the outskirts of New Rochelle. He physically turned away, conscious as he did so that Dimitri Danilov was already exploring the garage, at that moment at the very rear. Danilov pointed and said, “Steel door, steel framed. Locks top and bottom.”

To one of the men who’d picked the outer locks Cowley said, “You spare a moment?”

The technician stood beside Danilov for several moments before saying, “Now, that’s one hell of a door beyond which visitors aren’t at all welcome.”

“Try,” urged Cowley.

It took an hour. The constant checks with the watchers outside in Nikitskij Boulevard and Pereulok Kalasnyj were virtually the only sounds from inside. The forensic scouring of the Oldsmobile ended with the entry technician still on his knees, the door frame alarm safely looped and one lock already picked. Scanning the door itself with a stethoscoped magnet, he found the tumbler device activated by the slightest uneven movement. He steadied it-attaching magnets at either end-and said, “I haven’t seen anything like this outside a strongroom.” The second lock took a further fifteen minutes. When he felt delicately inside the door that was open just enough for his fingers to get through, he found two separate, rigidly fixed alarm wires that would have triggered if the door had widened another half inch. It took another ten minutes to disconnect them, before the door was finally opened.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Cowley, when the light finally went on in the room beyond. It was not intended-certainly not used-as a garage. Stacked the entire length of the opposite wall were boxed mines and grenades, with other boxes marked to be grenades and timers and heavy-caliber ammunition. Near the door were four of the same A4-427 rockets and their launchers used in the U.S. Embassy attack. Unprompted, the forensic cameraman began to photograph everything. The rigid, inside door fixings were simple booby traps to separate wall-mounted antipersonnel mines. Another lead ran from the tumbler to disappear beneath the main stockpile itself.

Cowley said, “Jerk that door open and the entire block would disappear.”

Lambert was bending over the mines, scraping off paint samples into a specimen envelope. Conscious of Cowley and Danilov behind him, he said, “The same as the Lincoln Memorial.”

Abruptly, into their earpieces, a voice from Pereulok Kalasnyj said, “An Audi’s just drawn up. It’s Naina Karpov!”

“Out!” ordered Cowley. “Everybody out!”

He and Danilov remained with the entry specialists reattaching the traps and alarms to the inner door. As they got to the outer garage door, the Kalasnyj voice said, “The light’s gone out in Leanov’s apartment.” Then, minutes later. “They’re coming out. On their way to you.”

“Shit!” said one of the technicians, failing to get the hook of the static alarm wire into its eye.

“Plenty of time,” calmed Cowley. “No hurry.”

“On to Vozdvizenka,” came the voice in Cowley’s ear.

“Got it!” said the technician. The three padlocks clicked home, one after the other.

“About to turn into your street,” came the warning.

“We’re out,” Cowley assured him. “Anyone feel thirsty? I’m buying the celebration drinks.”

Although it was much earlier in the day in Washington, Pamela Darnley said virtually the same thing to Barry Osnan when she emerged into the incident room from its side office.

“Celebrate what?” asked the man.

“Just had a call from Carl Ashton. The computer that brings Challenger back into Earth orbit had been misprogrammed. It would have gone out of trajectory just enough to burn on reentry.”

“With two Russians on board.”

In the Manhattan listening room the duty electronics officer called out, “Hey-up, guys! Arnie’s just announced it’s telephone time. Promised Mary Jo dinner with a special view.”

“Make a change for her from his crotch,” said agent in charge Harry Boreman.

There was a stir in the FBI office in Trenton, too. There the local bureau chief, John Meadowcraft, looked up from the surveillance pictures of Ivan Gavrilovich Guzov and Vyacheslav Fedorovich Kabanov and said to the photographer, “You’re right. They’re both using two different cell phones. Why two? Why not just one?” He decided against talking to Washington about it. An unwritten field office rule was never put a question to headquarters you didn’t know the answer to.

“You know what we’ve done?” Reztsov demanded from his deputy, lifting the French champagne in invitation to a toast.

Averin lifted his glass expectantly and said, “What?”

“We’ve guaranteed our future. It’s a good feeling.”

“Very good,” agreed the second Gorki homicide detective.

It was a feel-good (and for some, later, feel-bad) night of what turned out to be premature celebration, little sleep, some work, early-hour telephone calls, and a lot of political maneuvering. There were also, again later, some more overheard conversations and one that wasn’t.

The most immediate result of the early-hour telephoning was the agreement by both White Houses that Dimitri Danilov be included in the sort of satellite link-up that had first been established for the American secretary of state when Hartz had been in Moscow. The Russian acceptance was reached while Danilov was still with Georgi Chelyag, whom he’d earlier alerted at home and who didn’t bother to conceal his satisfaction at the embassy-developed photographs of the Nikitskij garage arsenal. The chief of staff absented himself for only fifteen minutes to get higher approval for Danilov’s participation. With it came the politicking. Chelyag ordered Danilov to return immediately to brief the president before he made another call to Washington later in the day. Chelyag was going to bypass the Foreign Ministry to liaise directly with Henry Hartz.

Danilov had suggested that Cowley’s celebration be in the security of the embassy mess rather than in the Savoy Hotel, and he’d strictly limited himself, determined against another hangover. Cowley hadn’t-neither had most of the others-but showed no sign of suffering. Both Paul Lambert and Barry Martlew did, gray-faced and pouch-eyed.

“It’s worth it, having something like this after so long,” insisted the forensic team leader. After the party he’d had to supervise what could be done at the embassy-the development, enhancement, and wiring to Washington of the pictures-and what had to be packaged, with instructions, for Washington scientific tests.

The four of them made up the Moscow contingent. In Washington it was Frank Norton, Leonard Ross, and Pamela Darnley. Norton’s opening to Moscow was: “You’ve done well there-damned well. We’re getting a handle on things at last.”

“There wasn’t a warhead,” Cowley cautioned at once. He, like Danilov, had begun to put the garage findings into perspective.

“We’ve got everything else,” insisted Norton.

“Have we?” Danilov asked rhetorically, raising the uncertainty he’d already talked through with Chelyag. “We’ve no way of knowing that’s their only stockpile-that this is even the weaponry they intend selling through Orlenko and Guzov.”

“Whatever the intention, they’re not getting this lot,” said Norton. Addressing Danilov, he said, “You’ve got some official guidance on this?”

“It can be seized whenever it’s decided, by our SWAT equivalent.” Danilov looked sideways to Cowley.

“And of course we’ve got the garage under permanent surveillance. We won’t lose it,” said the American.