Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

‘What’s that got to do with it!’

‘What if Yevgennie files for an official enquiry into what I did in the past?’

‘With what he’s doing now? How can he?’

‘He could feel cheated enough, by both of us, not to care. Things are going to be difficult enough for you as it is – we could end up trying to live on your salary!’

Larissa smiled at him, saddened by his reluctance. ‘I’d be happy enough. I love you. Don’t you love me enough?’

‘I love you too much,’ said Danilov. Which he did. He felt complete with Larissa: fulfilled. If Larissa was prepared to risk whatever needed to be risked, why wasn’t he?

Cowley told himself he was just going out for a walk, although he knew of course that he wasn’t: even walking was part of it, a reason for leaving the car behind. He’d isolated the bar on his way home, on the edge of Crystal City, but hadn’t realised how long it would take to get there on foot. He stopped twice, the second time half turning back. But he didn’t complete the movement.

There weren’t very many customers. The barman shifted, impatiently, at Cowley’s uncertainty over his order. He chose beer: people didn’t get drunk on beer. Not unless they drank a lot, and he didn’t intend drinking a lot. Just stopped off for one, while he was out for a walk: the sort of thing people did, out walking.

It tasted good: damned good. Cowley sipped, enjoying the taste and the ambience: enjoying everything. The beer didn’t affect him. Hadn’t expected it to. No reason why he shouldn’t have another.

Cowley made the third into a chaser, for a Wild Turkey on the side, feeling the mellowness move through him. But still not drunk. He could handle it now. Learned how to do it. Just too late, that’s all: too late to convince Pauline. Wished it hadn’t been too late: wished to hell she’d give it one more shot. Just friendship. That’s all. Couldn’t expect anything else.

One more whiskey, with a beer back. Then he’d quit. Still in control. Clear headed. Coherent. Not a problem any more. Wouldn’t be, ever again.

Cowley did stop, after that drink. The barman said he’d see him again maybe and Cowley agreed maybe. He felt good, not just from the booze but because he knew he wasn’t drunk. Proved he could do it. That he was OK now. Just a pleasant way of spending a pleasant couple of hours.

He’d been a coward, Lapinsk accepted. A coward when he’d been appointed to the Bureau – perhaps because the manipulators recognised him as weak – and a coward during his directorship and finally, most craven of all, a coward holding back from Dimitri Ivanovich whom he’d groomed to do what he had never had the courage to do. And who would not be able to do it, not now.

Absolutely to accept – without any excuse or mitigation – that you are a coward is possibly the worst thing a man can be called upon to confront.

In Russia those who ultimately control Families, their boards of directors, are called komitet, which means committee; it is the equivalent of the Italian Mafia cupola. For this gathering at Arkadi Gusovsky’s home, the indulgently fat and perfumed Zimin had been included, because he’d had to be: he spoke Italian and English, both of which were important for the coming weeks.

‘According to the lawyers, the Swiss formalities will take some time,’ announced Gusovsky.

‘Why don’t we postpone the Italian meeting?’ suggested Zimin, the appointed delegate.

‘Because we’d lose face: show we’re not ready,’ dismissed Yerin, irritably. ‘We’re not going to do that.’

‘We’re sure of getting control,’ said Gusovsky. ‘We’ll go ahead with the meeting: it’ll take several weeks, to settle everything. But then there’ll be no problem. Everything will be ours.’

The media manipulation was perfectly orchestrated. The State Department leaks stopped short of giving a reason for the meeting between the Russian ambassador and Henry Hartz, which built up speculation. The suggestion of Moscow being invited to join the investigation was given to selected journalists by the publicity-conscious mayor, Elliott Jones, after a detailed briefing from Hartz. The campaign got the name and photograph of Dimitri Ivanovich Danilov in every newspaper and news agency report and on every television screen. The State Department and FBI both refused to comment, but after letting the stories develop their own momentum the Bureau promised a press conference in which William Cowley would take part.

There was a totally unexpected fillip to the manipulation from the Russians themselves. The day before the Washington conference, the Interior Ministry in Moscow made an ideally low-key statement that the ambassador’s summons to the State Department had been to discuss the murder of Petr Aleksandrovich Serov. What had been discussed was being considered.

That night Cowley considered going for another walk to Crystal City, but didn’t. He hadn’t suffered from a hangover after the previous occasion – one of the problems of the past was that no matter how much he’d drunk, he’d never felt ill the following day – but he thought it was better not to drink at all. The ease of the decision pleased him, as further proof he had everything under total control.

Cowley travelled to the State Department, where the conference was to be staged, in the Director’s car: to achieve maximum effect they got out at the main entrance, picking their way through a white dazzle of camera lights. In an anteroom Elliott Jones was being powdered down by a make-up girl to prevent skin shine.

The FBI Director led the way into the conference room, the mayor following. Lights burst on and the noise began and Cowley had a feeling of an event re-creating itself: it was practically a mirror image of the murder press conference in Moscow, insisted upon by Senator Burden. Cowley had detested it then, and he was detesting it today. He felt his skin flush in the heat of the lights and thought maybe he should have had make-up after all.

Ross gestured for quiet, which he got almost at once. He talked in measured, even tones: Cowley decided the man must have been an impressive judge. Until that moment, the make of the murder weapon and the fact that the bullets had been of Russian manufacture had not been released. Ross made the prepared announcement, to guarantee the headlines, waving down the eruption of questions that followed. Once again he quickly regained command. Because the crime appeared to have those Russian links as well as to involve a Russian diplomat, it had been decided to invite Russian representation, just as Russia had invited the FBI involvement in an earlier case with which they were all familiar. As the Director of the FBI, he sincerely hoped Moscow would accept the offer. There were essential enquiries to be made in Moscow, but a Russian investigator would also be welcome in the United States and shown every assistance, just as William Cowley had been given all possible help when he had gone to Moscow.

The snowstorm of questions ranged over every possible theory, speculation and rumour, to hardly any of which they provided positive answers. The most concerted query revolved, in every conceivable way and manner, around the Mafia. Ross acknowledged there was a Mafia, even by that title, in Russia, but refused to postulate any connection yet with organised crime in either America or Sicily. They did not yet know why a Swiss financier had travelled from Geneva to meet a Russian attache: that was one of the questions a Russian investigation might answer.

When his turn came to be questioned, Cowley accepted the circumstances were coincidental to the earlier Moscow case. He had enjoyed working there, and was sure the level and extent of the co-operation he’d known then could be repeated in this case were he to be reunited with Dimitri Danilov. Here Cowley looked sideways, to Ross, and said he had officially praised the Russian’s ability in written reports to the Director, at the conclusion of the earlier murder enquiry. If there were no Russian participation the case might be impossible to solve. He was sure the Russian authorities did not wish the investigation to fail and would do whatever they could to prevent that happening.