Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘Do you like Larissa?’ asked Olga innocently.

‘Of course I do. She’s a friend.’

‘I think she likes you. I saw the way she was looking at you tonight.’

Danilov had removed the wipers from the Volga. The following morning both wing mirrors had been stolen.

Leonard Ross was an independently wealthy man and therefore completely sure of himself both publicly and privately, with no need constantly to play centre stage, so he was quite happy for Cowley, the Bureau expert, to present their suspicions. The Secretary of State stared throughout from the window of his seventh-floor office over the park and the very tip of the Washington monument.

‘It’s still speculation,’ Hartz insisted, when Cowley finished. The hope was obvious in the man’s voice.

‘On known facts,’ argued Ross. Somehow he’d rumpled the pure white hair and a part of it, near his forehead, stuck up like a surrender flag.

‘Very few facts,’ disputed the Secretary of State. ‘Little more than that it’s a Russian pistol and ammunition.’

At Ross’s gestured invitation, Cowley said: ‘We know in the Eighties the former KGB used world pressure for Jewish emigration from the old Soviet Union to infiltrate into this country a large number of professional criminals, to put as big a burden as possible upon our law enforcement. We even know where they predominantly settled, in Brighton Beach…’

‘… And since the collapse of Communism, organised crime has literally exploded in Russia,’ broke in Ross. ‘It’s taken the name of the role model it’s copied from here – the Mafia.’

‘I know about Brighton Beach! And the Moscow Mafia!’ said the Secretary of State. ‘What I want to know is the link with the Russian embassy!’

‘We don’t know that, not yet,’ admitted Ross. ‘Any more than we know why a Swiss financier was involved. And we’re not going to find out by approaching the Russian embassy ourselves. They’re blocking us, solidly.’

‘What do the Swiss say?’ asked Hartz.

Again the FBI Director deferred to Cowley.

‘Not a lot, as yet,’ conceded the Russian specialist. ‘We’ve got to assume there was some financial involvement between Serov and Paulac. We’re going to be blocked here, again, by the bank secrecy regulations, which we can’t break into. Paulac was a bachelor. Thirty-eight years old, head of an international investment company, unknown to the police until now. No reason for thinking he’s not quite respectable. As well as the office in Geneva there’s an offshoot in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. It’s the way these guys work, shuttling money between one bank secrecy country to another and back again, until it gets lost.’

‘Often the profits from organised crime,’ chipped in Ross. ‘They rarely ask the source: that way their integrity isn’t compromised.’ He seemed to become aware of the dishevelled hair, smoothing it down. Cowley liked the improvement: Ross wasn’t the surrendering type.

‘The Swiss say they’ll respond as best they can to any enquiry we make,’ said Cowley. ‘Problem is, we don’t know the questions to ask.’

‘You sure the Russians won’t help?’ queried Hartz, the long-ago accent sounding in his voice.

‘Definitely not if the collusion is official,’ said Cowley. ‘Or, from their response so far, even if it’s not. We’re stymied, either way.’

Hartz shook his head, doubtfully. ‘Could we have the Russian Mafia linking with the Cosa Nostra here?’

‘Yes,’ said the FBI Director brutally.

Without turning from the window, Hartz said: ‘OK, we could invite Russian participation: we established the precedent with the senator’s niece. But if there is official collusion, we’d get a programmed stooge, even if they agreed to come in on it.’

‘It’s a risk,’ accepted Ross. ‘And if that happens we’re back to square one, and likely to stay there. So we need to do all we can to get the guy Bill worked with before and trusts: Danilov.’

‘How could we do that?’ demanded Hartz.

‘You could feed the idea to the ambassador,’ suggested the Bureau Director. ‘Present it as a formal invitation for them to participate fully, in recognition of their allowing us into Moscow like they did. Make it clear Cowley is our man again, which would suggest Danilov as the obvious partner. Press the point about how well it worked last time. And there’s Danilov’s ability to speak English, which I wouldn’t think a lot of their Militia investigators can.’

‘It’s tenuous,’ argued Hartz.

‘There’s also a practical argument about their being officially involved,’ pointed out Cowley. ‘There is an obvious need to talk to Serov’s wife, in Moscow: we could reinforce the co-operation idea by asking for that to be done.’

‘There’s a lot of pressure for a press conference,’ continued Ross. ‘Let’s organise one right after your meeting with the ambassador

…’ He motioned sideways. ‘Put Cowley on, with whoever else you want to include. And announce the offer publicly. We could plant a few suggestions in advance, to guarantee the media speculate about the guy we want.’

‘It seems a lot of trouble, for one man,’ observed Hartz.

‘A professionally honest one,’ Cowley insisted. ‘If we don’t get that we might as well admit failure right now.’

‘And it’s not a lot of trouble if it gets us towards understanding all this,’ asserted Ross. ‘What if there is a nation-to-nation Mafia incorporation! You want to think about that? I don’t!’

Still reluctant to acknowledge what he was being told, Hartz looked at Ross. ‘The CIA are adamant they weren’t running anything with Serov?’

‘Emphatic.’

‘What about the body?’

‘It can be released as far as we’re concerned,’ agreed the Director. ‘It’ll be our gesture of co-operation. But I don’t want to let go of the effects, not yet. Something still might come up that makes them material, although at the moment nothing’s obvious.’

Silence enclosed the office once more. Hartz swung around from West Potomac Park and the unseen Lincoln Memorial. At last he said: ‘I’m frightened this is going to unravel into one great, big goddamned mess.’

‘I’m frightened it already has,’ said Ross.

The lovemaking was incredible, like it always was with Larissa: it was one of her days to fantasise and she’d wanted to be a whore, even making him pay her. Danilov thought she would have made a very good whore, far better than the blank-eyed professionals outside in the hotel foyer.

‘Satisfied?’ She was sprawled over him, leaking his wetness.

‘Completely.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I won’t be able to.’

‘Yes you will.’ She raised herself slightly off him, moving back and forth so that her nipples caressed his. ‘Yevgennie says you’ve been stitched up!’

‘What makes him say that?’ asked Danilov, immediately alert.

Larissa shrugged, making her breasts wobble over him. ‘I don’t know. It’s just what he said. Have you?’

‘Not as tightly as they’d like me to be.’ He hadn’t yet devised a way to use the spying secretary against them.

‘What’s it all about?’

‘I won’t do the deals.’

‘Yevgennie says you’re stupid not to do that, too. He says you did when you were in uniform.’

Danilov frowned. ‘That was a long time ago.’

‘Why make life difficult for yourself?’

‘I want to work as I do now.’

‘I don’t want to go on being your whore. This is only a game.’

‘I don’t want it either.’

‘You promised me we’d do something after the promotion.’

‘It wasn’t the right one.’