Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

The two government officials appeared to have withdrawn, leaving the questioning to the trained lawyer. Danilov was uneasy at the prosecutorial questioning. Why? he thought again. He had the sudden fear Pavin was being edged towards a concession, but couldn’t think what there was to concede.

Smolin went briefly back to where he had first been sitting, picked up several sheets of paper, and carried them back to Danilov and Pavin. ‘These will be indexed, like everything else?’

Danilov had never seen any of them before.

The sheets were all dated on the fifteenth of the month, the day Ignatov’s body was found in the river. The first was a memorandum from Vladimir Kabalin, acknowledging his appointment as senior investigator into the murder of Ivan Ignatsevich Ignatov and suggesting to the Director that because of the man’s existing knowledge and involvement, Major Yuri Pavin be seconded as operational scene-of-crime officer at the river bank, in addition to Aleksai Raina, to organise all the necessary and essential routine. There was a reply, signed by Metkin, agreeing. A third sheet, from Kabalin to Pavin, contained detailed instructions that the entire area be sealed for scientific examination.

Danilov felt satisfaction, the first of a switchback of emotions he was to experience that day, sweep over him. He’d taken just the right precautions, without knowing why, to expose this whole charade as the evidence tampering it was. He remained utterly impassive, handing page after page to Pavin in the order in which he’d read them. Danilov knew Pavin was apprehensively respectful of authority, and would be awed in the presence of ranked officialdom, being questioned by the Federal Prosecutor; he ached for a way to let the man know there was no danger.

Pavin was red with confusion. He looked helplessly at Danilov, then back to the three officials. Stumbling again, Pavin said: ‘This can’t be. This never happened. I don’t understand…’

Much as he wanted to, Danilov decided he couldn’t intervene yet, not until he’d fully gauged the manoeuvre against them.

Smolin was back at the table, standing by the dossiers like a conjuror behind boxes from which inexplicable magic would be produced. ‘These are your files, brought by yourselves today. Come…!’ He beckoned Pavin, imperiously. ‘… Each memorandum is numbered. Locate it in the index. Then find its cross-reference…!’

Pavin stood but hesitated, and Danilov agonised at the appearance of the man physically holding back. When he did move, it was reluctantly. As he made the examination, the head-shaking bewilderment grew and he looked helplessly again at Danilov. ‘… It’s properly done! As I do it! But I didn’t do it! I was never ordered to seal the area: work with Colonel Kabalin and Raina. These orders, these messages, never came to me…!’

‘You received orders you did not carry out,’ accused Oskin, re-entering the discussion.

‘The ill feeling between yourself and some members of the Organised Crime Bureau is obvious,’ said Vorobie, speaking to Danilov again. ‘We have conducted a lengthy enquiry with Director Metkin. He believes – as we believe – that because you were passed over for the directorship, you gave telephone instructions from Washington to ignore essential routine to create precisely the sort of embarrassment that arose, to discredit your department and him…’

It was a much cleverer and much more devious effort than they had tried before. Would this be all Metkin had fabricated? Or would there be more? He’d been excluded from the arrest of Mikhail Antipov, then entrusted with the so-far failed interrogation, which didn’t make complete sense. Danilov decided to limit his defence until he was sure there was nothing else. It would still be a staggering counter-accusation to make.

He cleared his throat, not wanting to appear uncertain. ‘Your accusation – the accusation of Director Metkin – is entirely without foundation or substance. The files in this case have been fraudulently tampered with, altered to include documentation invented to conceal either total incompetence or an attempt to discredit Major Pavin and myself! All of which I can categorically prove…’

He welcomed the utter astonishment of the three men facing them. Further awareness came to Danilov. This had to be the make-or-break confrontation between himself and Metkin: if he was going to survive, he had to make the rebuttal utterly devastating. He pointed to the stacked table.

‘Those are our files. And because we were given no warning of what to expect this morning, you will accept we had no opportunity – or reason – to change them to support any defence we might make. They don’t, in fact, support us: they damn us…’

‘What’s your point?’ broke in Smolin. The lawyer’s voice had lost its attack. It was neutral, less sure than a few moments earlier.

‘Retain them until I produce a true copy.’

‘You have a copy…?’ broke in Smolin, again.

Before Danilov could reply, Vorobie demanded: ‘Why?’

The moment of positive commitment, Danilov recognised: there would be no retreat, no place of safety if he got anything wrong. He wouldn’t disclose his duplication of Serov’s documents, which still had to be tested. If he’d believed in God Danilov would have thanked Him for the decision, that first day back from Washington, to safeguard himself the way he’d devised there.

‘Anatoli Nikolaevich Metkin should not be the Director of the Organised Crime Bureau. He is incompetent, promoted beyond his capability… someone prepared to falsify and lie to remain in office and try to destroy others he regards as a threat…’

Astonishment stayed on every face, even Pavin’s.

‘The start of the investigation into the Ignatov killing was chaotic, completely disorganised and completely justifying the American complaint,’ resumed Danilov. ‘I believed a cover-up would be attempted, which is why, unknown even to Major Pavin, I have maintained duplicate records of every official communication in this case… I consider an enquiry should be held into the actions of General Anatoli Metkin’ – Danilov allowed a final pause – ‘both during his directorship, and as a Militia colonel of investigation before that.’

Both Sergei Vorobie and the Federal Prosecutor were looking at Oskin, the man representing the ministry to which the Militia was answerable. ‘How long will it take for you to produce your evidence?’

‘An hour,’ promised Danilov.

‘Time to summon Director Metkin,’ said Oskin.

‘I suggest senior Colonel Vladimir Kabalin also be included,’ said Danilov.

In the car, returning to Petrovka, Pavin said: ‘Where have you kept the copy memoranda?’

‘Among all my other files that irritate you so much, because of the mess.’

‘It won’t be there,’ predicted Pavin gloomily. ‘They’ll have gone through everything!’

But it was. Danilov looked up triumphantly at Pavin, who had gone to his exhibits. The man was standing by the open safe.

‘The gun,’ said Pavin, his voice choked with disbelief. ‘It’s not here! It’s gone!’

The surveillance by the New York Task Force was kept on the house near La Guardia, but no-one returned. The telephone tap heard nothing. The public records search through the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn did not produce any of the other names Petr Serov had coded, in his Washington office. None of them had been accorded a Social Security number.

‘I’m damned glad we’re not up there,’ said Rafferty. ‘It’s turning out to be one great big dead end. Harsh words are going to be spoken and ability questioned.’

Unaware of what was going to erupt in the next twenty-four hours, Johannsen said: ‘It ain’t going any better in Moscow, either. The only lucky guys are us, in this nice little backwater.’ He looked up, curiously, at Rafferty’s failure to reply.