Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

“Shit!” Pamela said vehemently.

“So much I can’t see through it,” accepted Meadowcraft. “You or anyone else have a way around, I’d like to hear it.”

“I’ll run it by technical.”

“I already have,” reminded the man.

Too much was going wrong: confusingly, frustratingly wrong! “I’ll talk around,” she said, aware of the hollow echo of empty words.

It was only when she was setting the latest difficulty out to Osnan, for him to take up with any bureau division he thought might have a suggestion, that Pamela remembered his remark on the telephone in Albany.

“What’s personal?” she asked.

“How well do you know Bill? Socially, I mean?”

“Hardly at all. We only met on this case. A dinner, a few drinks is all.” The man wouldn’t have understood the nursing overnight.

Osnan hesitated. “Would you say he had a drinking problem?”

“No,” Pamela said at once. “Why?”

“A few rumors going around since the technical guys got back.”

“Who?” she demanded.

“Rumors don’t have names attached.”

“Being given as the cause for lifting the surveillance?”

“Inevitably.”

“Find the source. This isn’t the time for a story like that.”

“That’s why I told you. And why I thought you ought to know.”

There wasn’t any relaxation in Moscow. Cowley convened a conference of those he was leaving behind with Danilov present, making it clear the Russian unofficially shared control with Martlew and should know everything that went on, but there was the impression of slowing down. The round-the-clock watch was maintained on the Oldsmobile’s garage, but Baratov didn’t take his sister out again. There was no advance warning from the Manhattan listeners of telephone contact between Brooklyn’s Bay View Avenue and the restaurant on Moscow’s Pereulok Vorotnikovskij. The Warsaw agent in charge called several times, apologizing on each occasion for not being able to locate any Polish freighter shipments to America. They hadn’t located the name Yevgenni Mechislavovich Leanov on the passenger list of any Aeroflight or America-bound airline, but it was possible for people to travel on tickets in a name different from that on their passports. Georgi Chelyag’s concern at the president being associated with the ordnance loss revived when Danilov told him of Cowley’s return to America. Danilov exacerbated it by suggesting the American was going back for an inquiry into the disappearance, which didn’t actually amount to a lie.

Danilov even found time to go to Larissa’s grave in the Novodevichy Cemetery and was shocked by its neglect. The few flowers that hadn’t been stolen for other graves were atrophied, the vase on its side. They were dead leaves everywhere, and the headstone was covered in birds’ shit from a now-abandoned nest in the overhanging tree. It took him a long time to clean everything up and arrange the fresh flowers he’d brought. Afterwards he went to the other side of the cemetery, where Olga was buried. The headstone and surroundings were scrubbed clean; there wasn’t any leaf or tree debris, and the flowers were fresh. Igor, he guessed. One of the photographs he’d given the man had been mounted in a mourning frame and fixed to the base of the headstone. Danilov was surprised how attractive-beautiful-his wife looked. On each of the concluding evenings Danilov and Cowley drank, Cowley increasingly too much.

Until the very last night, that was. Things had, in fact, started to happen much earlier in the day. Danilov had only been in his office for an hour when the call came from Chelyag, asking if he had an available television. When Danilov told the chief of staff that he had, Chelyag said, “Watch the parliamentary coverage. I’ll see you at three.”

The reshuffle had the approval of the president, declared the prime minister. The reforms the White House had initiated needed fresh impetus from a revitalized government. And those reforms were being extended beyond the economy. The U.S. Embassy attack and the ongoing investigation had focused attention on Russian law enforcement and exposed a totally unacceptable level of corruption. The minister ultimately responsible had to bear the burden of that fault. Nikolai Gregorovich Belik was therefore being replaced. In the new democratic system of Russia the role of the Federal Security Service had changed, taking on more of a law enforcement role. Therefore it was as culpable for a level of criminality all too often described in the West as being out of control. It was an accusation that could not be allowed to continue. For that reason Viktor Kedrov was also being moved. The use of a Russian chemical and biological warhead in a fortunately failed attack upon the United Nations and of other Russian devices in further outrages had greatly embarrassed and humiliated the country as well as initially placing some strain upon relationships between Russia and the United States of America. As the Duma already knew, some steps had been taken to rectify clear lack of military supervision. Defense Minister General Sergei Gromov, who should have prevented that failure, was being retired.

“You chose correctly,” said the president’s chief of staff later.

“Unfortunate there was a need to choose,” said Danilov.

“The president supports people who are loyal to him.”

Danilov recognized they feared a parliamentary fight back. A battle in which he could still be the equivalent of a germ warfare missile fired against the White House. A mistake to ease the tension on the ratchet wheel. “I do not know the new interior minister.”

“An advocate of reforms and the new Russia.”

“Whom I should brief?”

Chelyag’s face hardened and Danilov was glad: He wanted the man fully to accept he’d not only deciphered the code but was able to communicate in it, just like a foreign language.

Chelyag said, “The crisis committee no longer exists because so many who formed it no longer exist in any position of authority. It is not being reestablished. You will continue to report only to me. The arrangement is understood by the new minister. Everything is now understood by everybody.”

A mistake to believe he was a better exponent of the newly learned art, Danilov recognized. “I’m sure it is.”

“How sure are you of this all concluding as it has to conclude, Dimitri Ivanovich?” demanded Chelyag, tightening his own ratchet wheel.

“The Russian end of the conspiracy here will be destroyed,” declared Danilov. “There’s still uncertainty-and a Russian element-in America.”

“We don’t want anything involving Russia ending inconclusively,” said the other man. “Don’t forget that, will you, Dimitri Ivanovich?”

That night Baratov did collect his sister in the Oldsmobile, and again they ate in the American-themed restaurant. Their conversation was inconsequential except for two minutes on the recording tape.

Baratov: It must have been good, talking to him again?

Naina: He said he went straight through-that it was the easiest route imaginable.

Baratov: What about the stuff?

Naina: Waved over at Grodno without being stopped. Halfway there by now.

Baratov: What about Gavri?

Naina: Hasn’t made contact yet.

Baratov: I spoke to Svetlana about moving to America. She likes the idea.

Naina: The more I think about it, the more I think Gavri needs to go.

Cowley looked around the embassy listening room and said, “Yevgenni Leanov got past U.S. immigration. He’s in America, waiting for enough materiel to arrive to cause a major catastrophe.”