Brian Freemantle - In the Name of a Killer

Cowley paused, briefly looking up from his recitation of the scientific facts. ‘There was no comparison possible with three manufactured from a nylon base or one of polyester. Neither from the three …’ Cowley faltered, frowning up to meet the puzzlement of both Danilov and Pavin. ‘… Neither from the three made from bone, which is not a substance reacting to the stated tests,’ he forced himself to finish, unevenly.

There were several moments of complete silence in the room. Then Pavin insisted, defensively: ‘The log isn’t wrong.’

‘We compiled it together,’ Cowley agreed.

‘Let’s do it again,’ Danilov insisted.

They did. With the same result.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ complained Pavin, the man of absolute accuracy.

‘There’s one way it could,’ Danilov suggested.

‘It’s unthinkable!’ blurted Cowley.

‘Find another explanation.’

There was a further silence, then: ‘I can’t.’

The Moscow offices of the New York Times are on Ulitza Sadovo Samotechanya, about a mile from the American embassy, so it was convenient for them both to stop en route to taking Cowley to the US compound. The visit only took minutes. Afterwards, they agreed to meet again that evening: by then they would both have guidance. Danilov was quite open about going back to the Lubyanka.

With so much to transmit to Washington — and certainly verbally to discuss as well, on a secure line — Cowley set out at once for the FBI office. But almost at once he paused, changing his mind to make the simple detour. Pauline opened the door, smiling curiously.

‘Barry asked me if I’d make sure there were no problems, remember?’ Cowley said.

The agreement to a meeting had been instant, as before, but Danilov entered the suite of Kir Gugin more confidently on this second occasion.

Danilov said at once: ‘I know how you used me. Congratulations. It worked very well.’

Gugin shook his head. ‘You confuse me.’

Danilov was impatient with the charade. ‘I want you to use me again. There was more, wasn’t there? You hadn’t finished.’

The Colonel, whose intended disruption had itself been disrupted by the seizure of Petr Yezhov and who had been seeking a way to recover, smiled cautiously. ‘Why don’t we talk about it?’

‘Why don’t you just give me what I want?’

The effect would be what he wanted, Gugin reflected: the other man deserved the resentful independence, having realized the earlier manipulation. ‘Why not?’ he agreed.

In one of those bureaucratic decisions defying logic, unless it had to do with saving money, Barry Andrews had again been booked into the temporary, scarcely basic hotel across the river in Pentagon City. The commute to and from FBI headquarters was almost an hour if he hit rush-hour traffic, like he was doing this morning. All in all, Andrews was annoyed, thoroughly pissed off at the thoughtlessness. He didn’t deserve it; didn’t his record describe him as outstanding? He bet Cowley had never been dumped out in the boondocks, although Christ knows he’d deserved to be, so many times. Andrews felt the anger building and tried to stop it getting worse. Foolish to lose his temper. He’d given himself plenty of time, so it didn’t matter that he was stuck in traffic. He’d still be early: early enough maybe to grab some breakfast because he refused to eat anything in that Pentagon City dog’s nest. Give him time to settle down. That was the thing to do. Settle down. Stay calm: calm and cool. Today was the day. Reward time, after the Moscow imprisonment. Today he was going to get the final assignment of duties, within the Russian division. And ahead of Cowley’s return. Showed what little clout the guy had, in his own section, decisions being made without him.

The traffic block shifted and Andrews was able to start moving slowly across the 14th Street bridge. He’d certainly been treated pretty good since he’d gotten back, apart from the hotel. He guessed everyone getting a headquarters posting probably received the welcoming letter from the Director, but he’d liked the gesture: deserved it, too. And all the guys in the division had been friendly, beers after work the first night, always someone suggesting lunch, offers of help from everyone if he needed it. Had him marked out, Andrews guessed. Someone on the ascendancy: asshole creeping. He didn’t care. It was good.

He’d respond, of course: invent some problems so no one would think he was too smart, not needing help from anyone. Which he didn’t. Still wise to settle in, though: settle in and see which way the wheels turned. Even the shitty hotel wouldn’t be an irritant much longer. He’d kept on top of the letting agency and been promised he could get back into Bethesda by the weekend. Perfect timing for Pauline’s arrival. Have to go through it with her again, how he wanted it all to be. She hadn’t been properly concentrating in Moscow. The distraction of Cowley, he decided: everyone distracted by William John Cowley, reformed alcoholic, reformed everything, Mr Good Guy. If the man with the beard and the trick with feeding five thousand hadn’t got there first, Cowley could have invented a whole new religion.

The traffic was smoother when he left the bridge and Andrews settled more comfortably back in his seat: he’d been unaware of being tensed forward like that. It was going to be interesting, when Pauline got back: watching, listening, picking up the hints that would be there to what they’d done behind his back in Moscow. That was going to be the best part, in the very beginning. The first game. Cultivating the revived friendship, putting them together all the time and all the time each of them knowing — because they always had to know — that he had her. Who’d won. She was a bitch, he decided suddenly. Didn’t deserve him. No matter.

Andrews left the vehicle in the car-park on 12th Street to walk the last few hundred yards, admiring the squat red building as he approached. Had it really been personally designed by Hoover with machine-gun emplacements at the corners, to put down any communist-inspired insurrection? Quirky thing to find out: make a good cocktail-party story, if it were true. He was anticipating a lot of parties.

Entering the darker foyer from the outside brightness of a spring morning, Andrews didn’t immediately see the personal assistant who’d hand-delivered the Director’s letter. He was almost at the entry security turnstile, activating pass in his hand, when the normally bland-faced Fletcher approached, smiling this time.

‘Assignment day,’ Fletcher announced. ‘I’m to take you.’

Andrews smiled in return, falling into step with the man. ‘Any news from Moscow?’

‘Being wrapped up,’ the man promised.

On their way up through the floors and more monitoring turnstiles, Andrews said he was glad to be back in America (‘although Moscow was a marvellous workplace: don’t get me wrong’) and that the traffic here was a mess but the weather wonderful and that he might get himself a small boat, either on the Potomac or up on Chesapeake.

‘Sounds good,’ agreed Fletcher, standing back at the entrance to an anonymous, unmarked room for Andrews to enter.

Which he did. To stop dead, frozen, uncomprehending.

It was a large room but quite bare, just closed metal cupboards along one side and a table dividing it, although not quite in the middle.

William Cowley was sitting at the table. With Dimitri Danilov beside him.

Andrews was utterly astonished, momentarily beyond speech or thought. ‘Bill …! What in the name of …?’

‘Waiting for you, Barry. Come on in.’

Waiting for him? Why the hell were they waiting for him? He abruptly became conscious of other things in the room. There was a side-table, with a male stenographer and recording apparatus, red operating lights already on. And other men. He hadn’t seen them when he’d walked in but he became aware of them now. Five, all lined along the back. ‘I don’t understand … I mean what …’