Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

The questioning continued for a further two hours, coming down largely to filling in dates and details. Raisa Serova produced the telephone number of the Ostankino leader, Yuri Ryzhikev, and Yasev gave the exact day when the Svahbodniy documents had been signed over, which was only one day before the Swiss authorities froze the account, supporting Danilov’s guess there had been insufficient time to plunder it. Yasev volunteered the relationship between himself and Raisa dated from their overlapping posting to the Russian embassy in Paris: Raisa volunteered that if they had been able to return the money, she had intended divorcing her husband to marry Oleg.

‘Putting something else right, as it should have been a long time ago,’ said Yasev.

‘What’s going to happen to us now?’ demanded Raisa. ‘The blind man, Yerin, said we would be killed if we ever told anyone.’

‘I think, for the moment, you should come into protective custody.’

‘I think so, too,’ agreed Yasev anxiously.

‘You’ll arrest them, both gangs, won’t you?’ said the woman, just as anxiously. ‘We won’t be safe, Oleg and I, until they’re locked up.’

‘We’ll arrest them,’ assured Danilov. Against how many charges would be possible?

Yasev and the woman went together into the bedroom, to collect clothes to take with them.

‘That didn’t turn out at all like I expected it to,’ admitted Cowley.

‘Nothing in this case turns out like we expect it to,’ reminded Danilov.

It took most of the remainder of the day to go through the protective custody formalities and prepare a full report, accompanied by a transcript of the statements of Raisa Serova and Oleg Yasev, for the Federal Prosecutor. Because the Deputy Interior Minister had taken over the ultimate authority for the Organised Crime Bureau, Danilov duplicated to him, as well.

‘I wish you wouldn’t go ahead with this other thing,’ said Cowley. ‘It has no purpose.’

‘We don’t know that, yet.’

‘Any more than we know your people are going to cover up as much as you suspect they will.’

‘Trust me,’ said Danilov glibly.

‘I do. And I think you’re taking too much of a chance. In any court that even admitted in evidence the tape of you and Kosov in the car, a clever lawyer could make you sound the crookedest cop in the history of corruption.’

Danilov conceded that at the moment the American was right. ‘I want to see them: know what they’re like. I need to be ready, in advance of whatever the official decisions are.’

‘If it’s an official decision, it’s an official decision!’ argued the exasperated American. ‘You’ve solved a case. They decide how to take it from here.’

‘We’ve solved an embezzlement case, which we didn’t know we had. We haven’t solved four murders. Which we knew we did have. The Italian convictions will be theirs, not ours.’

‘Where else is there to go?’ exclaimed Cowley, in despairing cynicism.

‘Maybe where I’m going.’

‘If they’ll see you,’ cautioned Cowley.

‘They’ll see me. They can’t ignore me.’

‘You’ll be as exposed as hell!’

‘I’ll cover myself.’

‘Nobody knows where the hell you’re going,’ objected the American. ‘You’re totally at their mercy.’

‘The car’s bugged,’ reminded Danilov. ‘You can listen.’

‘Maybe to the sound of the gun going off,’ completed Cowley.

‘We’ll hear what he’s got, before we show him how we can hurt him,’ said Yerin.

‘He’ll deal,’ predicted Gusovsky.

‘We’ve got to have Zimin killed,’ said Yerin conversationally. ‘It doesn’t matter whether he’s talked or not; he’s got to be killed.’ He paused. ‘We should have done it a long time ago.’

It was the Metropole again, but the man wasn’t waiting to intercept him in the foyer, nor in the bar itself, when Danilov arrived, a few minutes ahead of the arranged time. The waiter peremptorily tried to move him from the booth, until Danilov said he was waiting for guests and didn’t intend occupying it alone: he deliberately ordered beer, the cheapest drink on the list.

Danilov welcomed a few minutes by himself. He was about to try the biggest bluff of his life. Cowley, still not entirely knowing what he was attempting, had continued to argue against it. So had Pavin, who had come from their original office, where he still had his files, to announce the number deciphered from Kosov’s car phone had been traced to the Kutbysevskij address. Pavin had wanted to order foot and motor patrols around Kutbysevskij and the restaurant on Glovin Bol’soj until Danilov pointed out both were in Kosov’s Militia district, and that it was inevitable the man would learn about them. He refused, too, to have any squad personally imposed for protective surveillance. His most positive rejection was to Cowley’s suggestion he wear a body microphone and transmitter.

Danilov did not seriously believe he was in any physical danger – not this first time at least – but it was not until after he’d made the final arrangements with Kosov that he realised how few precautions there were to take. He wrote a detailed statement, listing as much as he suspected about the man’s links with the Chechen, to supplement the stack of incriminating tape transcripts. In particular, he itemised that day’s date and included timings for a provable and continuing narrative implicating the man in the imminent Mafia encounter. He intended to supplement it even further with whatever identifying conversation would be recorded from the BMW.

Kosov was fifteen minutes late. The reluctant waiter became smilingly attentive when he bustled towards the booth, looked disgustedly at the beer, and ordered Chivas Regal, widening his thumb and forefinger to make it double. Danilov was aware of three men entering the bar at almost precisely spaced intervals after Kosov. They wore Western-style suits and upon one there was a glint of gold, from a bracelet and a ring on the same hand, but the features were Slavic. The one with the gold reminded him of Mikhail Antipov: Danilov was glad he had not agreed to a similar escort, which would have been not so well dressed but just as obvious.

‘So there’s no hurry?’ said Danilov, as Kosov began to drink.

‘There’s time to talk. These men – the people you’re going to meet – like respect. They’re big… very big.’

‘Do I play the peasant or the kulak?’

‘Just trying to help,’ said Kosov. He was subdued, close to being openly frightened.

It would be wrong to offend the man. ‘Who will I be meeting?’

‘They’ll tell you their names, if they want to.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘It’s quite close.’

Both Kutbysevskij and Glovin Bol’soj were quite close. For a few moments he sat regarding Kosov, not speaking. Kosov would definitely be as vindictive as possible. He’d try to ride out the exposure, Danilov decided: certainly not resign, unless it was demanded. And resist that demand, as strongly as possible. ‘What else should I know about them?’

‘They’re very generous, to people they consider friends.’

‘I would have to prove the friendship, of course?’

‘Of course.’

There was nothing to be gained by pressing further. ‘They very worried about Italy?’

Kosov’s face clouded. ‘They’re still furious at being misled.’

‘Not by me. And you know how that happened.’

‘It would help if you explained again to them, in person.’

‘I’ll make a point of it.’ Danilov was suddenly caught by the irrational wish to play the car intercepts back to the man: particularly the one involving the sadly flattered Olga. He dismissed the fantasy, irritably, looking up in time to see two of the men who’d entered closely behind Kosov both looking at him: one turned away too quickly.