Brian Freemantle: No Time for Heroes

‘What time did you say?’

Danilov looked unnecessarily at his new watch. ‘Six.’ It was five-thirty. If they were going to be on time they’d be leaving now, to make allowances for the rush hour.

‘Do I look all right?’

‘Fine. But there’s a mark on your skirt.’

Olga look down, surprised, hurrying into the bathroom. Danilov heard the taps running. He poured vodka to the rim of the glass. Stage-effect, he thought. The dampness, where she’d tried to sponge it, made the spot look much worse when Olga emerged. He hoped it would dry before the others arrived, for Olga’s sake.

‘It’s going to be a good evening!’ predicted Olga brightly. ‘I know it is!’

Danilov jumped at the sound of the telephone, close to spilling his drink. He hurried to it, knowing it would be Larissa.

But it wasn’t.

‘I think something’s happened,’ announced Cowley.

‘What!’

‘The tape has just recorded the biggest goddamned noise I’ve ever heard. Now it’s dead.’

So were a great many people, one in particular. And within thirty minutes of the telephone call, briefly, inside, a blindly deranged man who loved her and wouldn’t let her go, even though Larissa wasn’t there any more – wasn’t anywhere any more – to be held and loved and protected, like he was going to protect her forever.

It was to take a week to establish that eight people had been killed and twenty more injured, two seriously. There were insufficient remains to identify Yevgennie Kosov or his wife Larissa, who had been sitting literally on top of at least four pounds of Semtex that exploded the moment the BMW ignition was fired. By a quirk – as obscene as the quirk that threw David Patton’s gun, still in David Patton’s hand, aside in the Sicilian shoot-out – Kosov’s ornately-jewelled watch was thrown clear by the blast: it was still working when it was found, close to the apartment wall. It was not attached to a wrist. Its discovery was officially logged in Militia records; it had disappeared when an identity-check search was made, three days after the atrocity.

Every window of the block was shattered, and the ground and first floors so badly imploded the entire section was declared dangerously unsafe and fifteen familes evacuated. The crater in Nastasiskij Prospekt was three metres deep and extended the entire width of the street.

The fire brigade were still dowsing the blazing wreckage of the car when Danilov got there. The heat of the explosion was so fierce the metal had burned, like paper: only the chassis suggested it might have been a car, and that was uncertain. What had survived was red, like blood, a cruel effect of water upon white-hot metal. It hissed and smoked, whitely, like awakening ghosts.

Danilov took it all in yet saw nothing. He trembled, like someone naked in the snow, but he was so hot his skin felt tight. He waved his police identity like a flag to get through the barriers to the very edge to the crater, staring down, knowing it was going to be all right because it had to be all right, and that she would be down there: injured, obviously, but still alive, able to recognise him when he got to her and went with her in the ambulance wedged between two fire trucks. He’d tell her it wasn’t important about Tatarovo and the wine tonight. They’d do it when she was better.

He stared wildly around, not understanding why he couldn’t see her, but there were a lot of people and a lot of swirling steam, so he had to be in the wrong place. He dodged in and out of firemen and uniformed Militia and when he still couldn’t see her he hurried to the ambulance and demanded to be told where she was, waving his police authority again, not realising – not caring – there were others injured and killed, and that the bewildered medic didn’t know what he was talking about. When he did see the man’s confusion Danilov said Larissa’s name, over and over again, and tried to describe her: hair and chiselled nose and the way she held her head sometimes, oddly twisted, as if she was withdrawing from whoever she was talking to. When the medic shrugged and began to walk away Danilov snatched at the man to stop him, but rescuers were pulling angrily at him now. He shook them off, yelling his rank, trying to get down into the hole where men still wore safety suits and reinforced masks, to protect them from the heat.

The hands became stronger, refusing to be shrugged away, and then voices penetrated, voices he knew, Cowley’s and Pavin’s, and he turned gratefully to people he recognised. ‘Help me! She’s down there! She’s probably hurt. Can you see her? I can’t see her.’

‘Come out,’ said Cowley. ‘They’re getting her. You’re in the way. So come out.’

‘You’re sure? They’ve got her?’

‘Come out.’

Danilov scrambled up, needing their help, because he was still shaking badly and his legs were very unsteady. The other two were on either side, arms cross-linked to cocoon him, getting him away.

‘Where is she! She’ll need me to go to the hospital.’

They kept walking, not speaking. It became abruptly dark, out of the search floodlights: briefly Danilov’s vision fogged completely, a wipeout of consciousness. When he became aware again, he was on the edge of the rear seat of the Volga, his feet and legs still outside the open door.

‘She dead, Dimitri,’ said Cowley, refusing Danilov his fantasy of shock. ‘She wouldn’t have known anything. But she’s dead.’

Danilov began to cry then, knowing it was true but not wanting to know it was true, racked by great, convulsive sobs and needing the arms that still held him. They stayed that way for a long time, the three of them in a tight group, Cowley repeating Larissa was dead until finally Danilov mumbled that he knew, but softly, so that if it wasn’t true it wouldn’t matter. He became aware of where he was and of the two men supporting him: became properly aware for the first time of the full horror of the atrocity itself.

‘OK?’ asked Cowley finally.

Danilov nodded.

‘We need to talk. For you to hear things.’

Danilov nodded again.

Cowley held him tightly, very briefly, ‘I’m sorry.’

Danilov was fully conscious of what had happened and what he was doing and where he was, but he still moved and reacted dully, needing to be prompted and guided as they entered the darkened, night-staffed embassy and were led by Cowley to the FBI office: Pavin remained at the rear of the procession, a cautious hand hovering at Danilov’s shoulder.

‘I’m all right,’ insisted Danilov when they got there. ‘Thank you, but I’m all right.’ He looked questioningly between Pavin and the American. ‘How?’

Pavin said: ‘I’ve known for at least three years. It was your weakness: how you could have been attacked. I’ve never understood why you weren’t. I always tried to cover your back.’

‘Yuri telephoned, after you called him to find out from the uniformed division what had happened,’ expanded Cowley. ‘I figured you might need help.’

‘We were going to tell them tonight,’ said Danilov, not really addressing either man. ‘Olga and Yevgennie. Talk about divorce and then get married…’ He gave a shrill laugh, momentarily close to the edge. ‘We’ve got a flat. We were going to celebrate with champagne tonight.’

Just as introspectively, Cowley said: ‘Holy shit!’

‘We came here for a reason,’ reminded the pragmatic, less emotional Pavin.

Cowley straightened, reaching for the tape which had been carefully marked, so he could cut it off before the sound of the explosion.

‘ We told you to come! ’ echoed Gusovsky’s voice. ‘ When we say come, you come! ’

‘ I couldn’t. Not immediately.’ Kosov was snivelling, a trapped animal.