Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

Chelyag said, “The investigation is producing far more here than it is in America, isn’t it?”

“Because of American participation,” insisted Danilov.

“That’s a matter of interpretation,” said Chelyag, smiling again.

“More names,” announced a satisfied Yuri Pavin. “And we know which one fired the missile at the embassy.’

There were three names, all from the now-completed list of former intelligence personnel and all positively identified from fingerprints lifted from inside the Oldsmobile. One was a former spetznaz- seconded major. It was his print on the launcher trigger guard.

“He’d have had all the military training,” Pavin pointed out.

“What about the Lasin murder?”

“Everything fed to Mizin, as ordered,” responded the colonel formally. He smiled. “He said our thoughts were in line with what he was thinking.”

“Let’s hope”-started Danilov before his telephone rang.

“Leanov’s picking up the Oldsmobile,” announced Cowley.

The music went with the car, Billie Holiday in good voice, before the heroin took control. A tape, Cowley guessed. Leanov hummed along badly, obviously not knowing her tune rifts. There was no distortion on the tapes. The first bug was in the radio, not the speakers. From the frequent horn blasts, Nikitskij Boulevard was congested. Cowley looked up and nodded at Danilov’s arrival. “He’s alone. Got a voice like shit.”

Danilov said, “We’ve got a name for who fired the bazooka: a spetznaz officer. Two other names, as well. Probably the attack group that Naina Karpov sneered at for needing transport.”

“ Spetznaz fits,” said the American.

“A piece at a time,” agreed Danilov.

“We got two cars behind but they’re staying loose. Don’t want to spook him.”

The Billie Holiday tape was turned down in the middle of “Love for Sale,” and Leanov stopped trying to sing along. Cowley strained forward at another faint noise and said, “Dialing out: the car didn’t have a phone so it’ll be a cell phone.”

Lambert said, “Every digit’s got a different tone. I can get a number from that.”

“On my way,” said Leanov. Then: “Good.” A pause, for something from whoever he was talking. “We would have liked two.” Another gap. “I didn’t think the military was a problem?” A laugh. “Pay them the fucking money then; you’re getting yours.” The longest break yet. “I’m fifteen minutes away …. Stop worrying.” There was the bleep of the phone going off.

At once the tape was turned up. The song was “Strange Fruit.” Over a separate speaker an American voice said, “We’re getting pushed apart by the traffic. You want us to close up, not to lose him?”

“Not if it risks his making you,” said Cowley, into his handset. “We’re hearing him loud and clear.”

There was an interruption of the Billie Holiday tape while it reversed itself.

Cowley said, “Where’d you get the shooter’s name?”

“Old KGB files. His unit was attached.”

“Address?”

“ Spetznaz barracks.”

“Didn’t expect it to be all easy.”

“We’re on the M10,” reported one of the American pursuers.

“Which becomes the M11 and leads right up to Tushino,” said Danilov.

“It’s Plant 43,” accepted Cowley.

“Turning off,” came an American voice.

“Losing our traffic cover,” came the second voice.

“Dropping back,” said the first. Then: “We’re almost at once in the boondocks: open as hell.”

“Second car abort,” ordered Cowley.

“There’s a sign,” said the observer from the first car. “Timiryazev.”

“It’s all country. A huge park,” identified Danilov.

“Only one car between us on the road,” came the warning. “I think he’s slowing.”

“Abort,” ordered Cowley, for the second time. “Let him go.”

“Sorry,” said the observer.

“Nobody’s fault,” said Cowley. “Don’t try to pick up on the return journey.”

Inside the car Leanov turned off the tape. There was a faintly discernible sound they couldn’t recognize but the noise of the engine seemingly revved intermittently. Lambert said, “We’re hearing rough ground. He’s turned off, driving over bumps. Ruts.”

The engine died, the click of a door opening, Leanov’s voice shouting a greeting. Then the mumble of conversation they couldn’t hear.

Martlew said, “Shit! They’re outside the car.”

Lambert said, “We can probably enhance what they’re saying. Not here, though. Washington.”

Two, maybe three doors slammed. There was the more solid sound of a trunk lid going down. A click, some more unheard talk, then a closer whump.

“Something’s gone into the Oldsmobile trunk,” said Cowley.

“So we know where it’s going back to,” said Danilov.

Words floated from the monitoring speaker like leaves in a wind: “Idiots … as much as … told you … no worry … dollars … soon …” The door opening, closer, the squash of Leanov sitting and for the first time the clear sound of his saying good-bye and a reply, in a man’s voice.

Ella Fitzgerald sang all the way back to Moscow, ruined by Leanov’s backing. The surveillance reported his arrival back at the garage. Leanov lowered the up-and-over door after him when he put the car away and didn’t emerge for thirty minutes. He was carrying nothing when he did.

Cowley said, “Jimmy Schnecker and his guys arrive in three hours.”

“What about the empty warheads?” asked Danilov.

“Diplomatic baggage, coming to the embassy separately.”

Pamela Darnley read for the fourth time the official notification from the director of her second commendation, which had come with the equally formal confirmation of her appointment as permanent head of the antiterrorist unit. The satisfaction was a warm, comforting feeling.

“Congratulations,” said Terry Osnan.

Pamela had told him not to boast, although there had been an element of that, but because the promotion wouldn’t be circulated throughout the bureau until the end of the month, and he would have thought it odd if she’d kept it to herself until then. She was looking forward to telling Cowley. She realized abruptly that she would have liked to have done it personally rather than over a five-thousand-mile telephone link and was surprised at the awareness. “I had a lot of help, you at the top of the list,” she said. She could afford to be magnanimous.

“I’d put Bill and Dimitri higher,” said the man, who’d just listened with her to the Oldsmobile trip that had been relayed from Moscow. “It’s happening fast there.”

Which meant she had to work faster, Pamela accepted. Nothing of which she was in charge or controlled was going to end inconclusively, most certainly not that part of an investigation with which she was so personally identified. In two weeks’ time everyone in the bureau would know she headed antiterrorism. Which would only be a start. Pamela wanted everyone else to know it, too. And they would when she emerged the principal witness in a prosecution in what would be one of the most sensational trials in American legal history.

It was, of course, too much to fantasize about breaking the tradition of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation always having to be male-they were invariably outside political appointments anyway-but she didn’t see any reason in these days of sexual equality why the immediate deputy couldn’t be female. Not something to discuss with anyone else.

Nor, by the same token, getting ahead of herself by thinking about it too much. Back to earth time. The River Cafe, at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, was the obvious new focus. The tap was already in place, but it wouldn’t produce until Arseni Orlenko made another outing. And there was no way she could tighten the surveillance on Orlenko’s two Russian landlords in New Jersey, whose existence seemed ordinary to the point of boredom. Would Carl Ashton and his sweepers be working with the same intensity after locating the Challenger tampering? Their success-or failure-would be her success or failure.