Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

Kosov smiled at the assurance. ‘It’s going to be very good, when you’re connected like I am: when we’re really a team, officially and otherwise.’

Danilov thought ‘connected’ had some American Mafia connotation, but wasn’t sure. He looked pointedly at his watch, which was a waste of time because it had stopped again. ‘Shouldn’t we go?’

The BMW was parked prominently outside the hotel. Danilov didn’t bother to check the three followers he was sure would be leaving directly after them, more concerned with feeding the incriminating tape. ‘How far do we have to go?’

‘I told you, it’s quite close.’

‘Where do they meet, the Chechen? Are there special houses… restaurants… public places… what?’

Kosov, who was heading back in the direction of Red Square, looked sharply across the car. ‘Who said anything about the Chechen?’

Shit! thought Danilov, caught out. Quickly recovering, he said: ‘That’s who the Americans think is involved.’

‘They move around,’ offered Kosov, after a pause.

He had to give as much as possible of the route. Seeing the illuminations ahead, Danilov said: ‘I would have expected the Kremlin stars to be taken down, wouldn’t you? It’s a Communist symbol, after all.’

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ dismissed Kosov, impatiently. ‘You’re not armed, are you?’

‘No.’ Should he explore the demand? It hardly required an explanation, and he didn’t want a too-persistent question-and-answer exchange.

Kosov turned on to Sverdlova. As they passed the US embassy – aware that briefly the American, at the listening apparatus, was only yards away – Danilov said: ‘Cowley says conditions inside the embassy there are terrible. The KGB bugs in the new building should have all been located by now, wouldn’t you think?’

‘I haven’t thought about that, either,’ said Kosov shortly.

Kosov had not attempted to play either his radio or taped music: so he was too distracted – concentrating upon other things – to show off. Or worried. Perhaps the Metropole drink hadn’t provided sufficient buoyancy. They were passing the monolithic Peking restaurant and Danilov was about to introduce it as another marker when Kosov pulled sharply into the underpass for the inner peripherique in the opposite direction. ‘What the hell are you doing? We’re going back the way we came!’ He’d keep to their optimistically devised monitoring but Danilov already knew he was in free orbit, virtually untraceable. The hope of maintaining a street-by-street identification had always been impractical.

‘Making a detour,’ replied Kosov flatly.

Recognising another name-identifying chance, Danilov said: ‘Surely you – and the Chechen – don’t think I’d surround myself with bodyguards! So we’re being checked out by minders?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Of course you know! This is ridiculous, Yevgennie Grigorevich!’

‘It’s not my idea!’

‘How much longer do we drive around and around like this?’

‘I said it wasn’t my idea!’

‘They were too obvious.’

‘Who? You’re not making sense!’ protested Kosov.

‘Your three Chechen protectors, back at the hotel.’

‘I don’t know anything about three men at the hotel.’

Enough, decided Danilov again: he had the Chechen linked by name with Kosov. ‘The Kammeny Bridge! This really is the conducted tour!’

Kosov did not reply.

If Moscow were divided by the Mafia into a cake they were a long way now from what was acknowledged to be the Chechen slice: certainly a long way from Kutbysevskij Prospekt or Glovin Bol’soj. Danilov was curious if they would continue, to complete the inner ring road. But once again Kosov made an abrupt and unannounced underpass turn to reverse yet again the direction in which they were driving. Preposterous though it was, Danilov conceded it would have been impossible for any surveillance car to have remained with him this far without being identified. They re-crossed the Kammeny Bridge and went by the embassy and the Chinese restaurant a second time but almost at once turned off Sverdlova, on to minor roads. On what Danilov thought he recognised to be Kisel’nyj Street Kosov unexpectedly slowed, to be passed by two cars flashing their lights.

‘I’m glad they’re satisfied,’ said Danilov.

‘Shouldn’t you be glad they’re so careful?’

‘I don’t know yet what I have to be careful about.’

They only drove for another few minutes and Danilov managed to get the place name when Kosov visibly began to slow once more. For the benefit of the tape, Danilov said: ‘Finally we get to Pecatnikov, which we could have done in five minutes if we’d come direct!’

‘I told you it was close,’ said Kosov.

Close indeed, to the favoured restaurant, Danilov recognised: Glovin Bol’soj was only two or three streets away. He half expected Kosov to go through the connecting alleys to reach it, but the man didn’t. Instead he pulled up within yards, in front of a huge, pre-revolutionary building which at first appeared a blank-walled, unlit block. Only when they went through a passage into an inner courtyard was there any sign of life or even habitation, which even then was still dimly lit.

Danilov guessed they were going into one of the apartments, but they didn’t. Kosov led towards a far basement corner, where there was a brighter light for the stairs leading down, but no nameplate to mark what it was. He absorbed everything as he followed Kosov, appreciating the absolute security. It was not, he acknowledged, protection against any sudden raid by a law enforcement agency. This was security against rival gang incursions, and was perfect. He hadn’t seen the surveillance, but the passage from the road would somehow be constantly monitored: any suspected entry would be identified halfway along and the occupants of whatever it was in this far corner warned before the intruder reached the courtyard. Danilov guessed there were enough exits from the rabbit warren he was entering for it to be cleared before an interloper began to cross the square.

Directly inside the basement entrance was a small, curtained-off vestibule with a reception counter to the left. An extremely attractive, heavily busted girl in a blouse too tight and too low smiled at him. The gold-adorned man from the Metropole blocked a further curtained entrance to whatever lay beyond: Danilov could hear the muttered noise of people. The man smiled, too, and advanced towards Danilov, hands familiarly outstretched for a pat-down search.

Danilov extended his own, halting hand. He’d have to concede, but it would be a mistake not to protest, now and later. This was the only chance he’d get: if he failed tonight, here, he failed in everything.

‘He’s OK. I asked,’ tried Kosov.

‘Orders,’ said the man, simply.

Would it only be a weapon search? Or would the man be feeling for a wire, too? Whatever, Danilov was glad he hadn’t gone along with Cowley’s suggestion. ‘This once,’ he accepted, tensing against the man’s hands going over his body. He would have welcomed the Militia – certainly the Militia at Petrovka – being this cautious.

‘OK,’ approved the man, stepping back.

‘Who was on guard when you were at the hotel?’ asked Danilov.

The man smiled again but didn’t answer.

A club, decided Danilov, as he pushed through the curtain. Hardly a public one, if every customer had to endure a body search. Another records check for Pavin tomorrow, to discover in whose name the property was registered. The room was very small, circular until the far end, where it flattened out into a roughcast, whitewashed wall, in which were set three doors, all closed. There was a small dance floor, surrounded by tables and chairs, and a tiny stage to the left. That, too, was curtained-off: to one side, from a glassed cubicle, another extremely attractive girl with displayed cleavage rivalling the receptionist’s was at a turntable. The music was quiet, American jazz. No-one was dancing. Danilov guessed there were about thirty people in the room, far more men than women. They were smoking well-packed Western cigarettes; the emptying bottles on the tables bore the labels of Western gins and whiskies. Three or four girls were alone at tables: he wondered if Lena Zurov had come here often.