Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘I could guess a lot you’d like to do,’ said Danilov. ‘Particularly here, which is practically as secure as the Kremlin and with all your people around you. But you’re not going to do anything. Now, or later. You can’t afford to.’

Yerin reached up, touching the other man’s hand warningly. ‘You tell us why you’re so sure about that?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to do,’ said Danilov. He considered moving closer to the fireplace but weighed the psychology again and didn’t: he would have looked small in comparison to the huge surround. ‘I didn’t tell you all the evidence I could bring against you. I didn’t tell you about the KGB deputy’s confession, about the gun that killed Petr Serov. And why we had to bring the security man out of the embassy in Washington. Or even a quarter of what Antipov has told us, about what he did for you. Which I could put to Zimin in Italy and get even more, if I wanted to. So I’ll tell you now…’ Which he did, not needing any prompting from the copied material he carried in his briefcase and which he was still unsure whether to show them, in the evidence form in which it was assembled.

The two Mafia chieftains remained motionless, but Danilov detected the now familiar redness coming to Gusovsky’s face: he abruptly realised he was clutching the briefcase to him, like the nervous lawyer during the brief trip to Switzerland, and hurriedly put it beside him.

‘Complete, wouldn’t you think? But I don’t think it is, you see. It would certainly seem so, on the surface: they’re all properly recorded confessions and you’re personally named, over and over again. But where’s the proof! It’s their word overwhelmingly against yours, but it could be argued against. And I do know how powerful you are. I believe you’ve got other people in ministries whose names I don’t know: people you could force or bribe to help in some way. The judiciary, too, so you might be able to influence the judges: even get those who’ve got to do what you tell them ruling on the admissibility of evidence. And I know you could get people killed, even in jail. I’d certainly have a hard job introducing the confessions of dead witnesses, wouldn’t I…?’ Danilov’s confidence was growing. Not by much, but the hollowness was lessening: he actually managed to smile. ‘I know you’d do all those things. In your position, you’d be mad not to. So you’re not in so much danger, after all…’

‘Which makes me think you are,’ intruded Gusovsky. He was very red, as always resenting being treated as the inferior.

Danilov held up a halting hand, intentionally overbearing. ‘I’m going to open the briefcase,’ he warned, more for his protection than theirs. ‘You know what it is I am going to show you, but I want you to understand the position it puts you in…’ Very slowly, he unclipped the case and extracted the photocopy of the replacement Founder’s Certificate for the anstalt, announcing what it was for Yerin’s benefit as he handed it beyond the blind man, to the standing Gusovsky. ‘ This is proof! You know we have the original. It carries both your names and both your signatures… I guess you were guided to the place where you had to sign, Aleksandr Dorovich, but the signature is still provably yours. I now hold irrefutable documentary proof of your attempt to gain control of a government fortune. But not held here, in Moscow. Evidence can disappear in Moscow, can’t it? The original is already back in Washington, sealed, in Cowley’s name. You can’t get it or interfere with it…’

Once more it was the rational Yerin who spoke. ‘You said, at the beginning, you were going to deal.’

‘I know and Cowley knows you kept copies of the photographs,’ said Danilov. ‘It was always inconceivable you’d part with something as useful: you must have thought us very naive, unable to think beyond the amount of money you were talking about. But the deal I offered then still stands, exactly as I set it out. I will ensure no prosecution against you. And you will never use those photographs. If you do, Cowley will in turn produce the original Swiss document, and no influence you think you’ve got could keep you out of jail…’ He paused, not wanting to show the fear but knowing how he had to finish, for his own safety. ‘And that is why I am going to walk out of here today, without any interference. Why I’m not in any personal danger. You’d agree about that, wouldn’t you? Understand now why Cowley isn’t here…?’

Gusovsky’s face blazed, and he had to grip the back of the other man’s chair to keep his control. Yerin said: ‘A standoff, this time. What about next time?’

‘I shall investigate as hard and as properly as I can. And bring whatever prosecution I can. And if you tried to fight me off by using the photographs, then I’d have a second prosecution with the Swiss case, wouldn’t I? Cowley would have to resign, but we’ve already gone through that. Like we’ve talked of how I’d respond to the pictures of Olga being released.’ The future was the weakest part of the whole bluff. And not just with future investigations into one of the major crime Families in Moscow: there was always the outside possibility the Justice Ministry and the Federal Prosecutor might change their minds, later, about bringing against these men precisely the prosecution they’d decided not to pursue. There was, he accepted philosophically, always going to be a nagging uncertainty. It was just another, to go with all the rest: he wasn’t sure in which order.

‘You were silly,’ insisted Yerin. ‘Of course we kept copies of the pictures. But I don’t think we would ever have used them. You would have been far too valuable. Worth the money and everything else we would have given you.’

‘I’m more comfortable this way,’ said Danilov, recognising the closeness to pomposity. ‘You know why it was so easy to trick you? You can’t imagine anyone being honest, can you? That’s what the director before Metkin said: that everyone in Russia is still too entrenched in the old ways…’

‘Leonid Andreevich Lapinsk certainly knew how to work the old ways in the old system,’ agreed Yerin. ‘We lost a good and grateful friend with his retirement. He managed to block your succession, but Metkin was never good enough to be the sort of director we wanted. He was far too stupid and far too greedy.’

Gusovsky’s control went completely after Danilov’s unopposed departure, the man’s fury fuelled by his impotency to orchestrate a situation of which he’d imagined themselves in charge. Yerin, no less furious but contemptuous of timewasting performances, said in rare impatience to the other man: ‘Stop it! It’s not achieving anything.’

‘I want him!’ insisted Gusovsky. ‘No-one treats me – no-one treats either of us! – like that!’

‘He’s got us, so that’s exactly what he can do,’ accepted Yerin. ‘He’s got protection, with the American, that we can’t touch. You know it and I know it but most importantly, he knows it. He’s fucked us. Absolutely.’

‘He can’t!’

‘He has,’ said Yerin flatly. ‘But he has to be reminded how vulnerable he’ll always be.’

It should have been pleasant – an enjoyable culmination, the farewell party – but it wasn’t. He’d achieved everything and more than he’d ever imagined possible. But too much was soured for Danilov to think of enjoyment. Leonid Lapinsk was the biggest disappointment: Lapinsk, whose admired protege he’d always imagined himself to be, and to whom he’d disclosed the progress of every case upon which he’d ever been engaged for Lapinsk to decide against whom to proceed and whom to protect, depending upon the bribe being offered: to realise – totally and for the first time – the real reason for Lapinsk’s head-down attitude that take-over day at Petrovka, when Metkin had been performing not to humiliate Lapinsk but to amuse the old man – to amuse everyone – at his expense. He tried telling himself Lapinsk had committed suicide from remorse and actually sent a letter of apology, but the cynicism was now so bomb-proof Danilov suspected the regret was probably more that he would eventually discover Lapinsk’s crookedness than belated penitence. Danilov was surprised Pavin hadn’t known, to warn him. Perhaps Pavin had known, all along. Perhaps, Danilov decided, he was everyone’s fool.