Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

Anatoli Metkin had not had time to innovate any changes or even to become accustomed to the Director’s suite, and Danilov decided the man looked the furtive interloper he was. Metkin was physically indecisive, neither tall nor short, fat nor thin. A crowd person, but for his face, which was criss-crossed and latticed with lines, and his mouth was bracketed by two deep grooves that began close to his eyes and curved the entire length of each cheek. His eyes were unusually light blue and unsettling because of it, and he didn’t blink a lot, as if he were afraid of missing something.

‘You’re surprised at my appointment,’ declared Metkin.

‘I didn’t have the opportunity earlier to congratulate you,’ evaded Danilov. The hypocrisy stuck in his throat. How much more would he find difficulty in saying and doing, in the future?

‘Lapinsk had promised the directorship to you, hadn’t he!’

The former Director would not have admitted that. ‘The appointment is the responsibility of the Interior Ministry, not a gift of an outgoing incumbent.’

‘Exactly!’ said Metkin, triumphantly, as if the reply had proved something.

Which Danilov supposed it had, hopefully for his own future protection, rather than Metkin’s satisfaction. Who was Metkin’s protector in the Ministry? There would be safety for himself, if he could find out. There were papers on the desk, and Danilov was curious to know if Metkin had written reminder notes for himself.

Fixing Danilov with an unbroken gaze, Metkin said: ‘I do not intend any misconceptions between us.’

‘I hope there won’t be,’ said Danilov. The man was altogether too anxious, falling over himself to make his points and doing it badly. There was advantage to be taken here.

‘Your appointment is provisional. Did Lapinsk make that clear?’

‘No,’ Danilov conceded. Had it been an oversight by Lapinsk? Or an admission of further failure the old man hadn’t been able to concede?

Metkin smiled, crumpling his face further. ‘If the experiment doesn’t work, it will be reconsidered. For that reason, your promoted rank to Lieutenant-General is only acting, subject to confirmation.’

On what grade – his old or the temporary one – would his pension be calculated if he abandoned the whole stupid nonsense and quit the Militia entirely? ‘There is a car?’ He might as well get everything spelled out at the very beginning.

‘Not personally assigned. Allocated from the car pool, and only when operational requirements permit.’

Which they never would, Danilov accepted. ‘How do you see this new role being fulfilled?’

Metkin went at last to his reminder notes. ‘Your function is to be administrative from now on. You will be responsible for all operational rotas and rosters. You will supervise and be answerable for all supplies and facilities throughout the building. You will control and administer all financial matters and prepare accounts and forward budgets, for presentation to the Finance Ministry. You will also liaise, where necessary, with uniformed Militia offices throughout the city.’

Danilov sat silent for several minutes, content to let Metkin believe he was overwhelmed by the catalogue of duties. Which were administrative, despite what Lapinsk had said, and would be overwhelming, if he ever tried to perform them properly, because they were the work of at least four men. But Metkin was failing to realise how the role he had just announced could be selectively manipulated. Hoping he was maintaining a look of shocked bewilderment, Danilov said: ‘Have you officially notified every relevant department here at Petrovka?’

‘The second thing I did after taking office.’

That would be an essential part of the ridicule, accepted Danilov. Which was the only aspect from which the idiot would have considered it. ‘And the Ministry?’

‘The first thing I did,’ said Metkin. ‘Both our own and Finance.’

He’d answered one of his earlier questions, Danilov decided. Metkin wasn’t clever at all. The man was really remarkably stupid. Danilov was sure he could make Metkin look even more stupid. He was going to enjoy doing it.

It was regular commuters on the New York and Boston shuttles from National who became daily more offended by the smell from the anonymous grey Ford. Two noted the Hertz bumper sticker and complained to the airport office, on the third day.

The service attendant began retching when he was ten yards from the vehicle and backed off, believing he recognised the smell, although he wasn’t sure. He was definitely sure he was paid to jockey cars and fix minor faults, not examine decomposing bodies. That was a job for the police.

The Hertz supervisor agreed, and dialled the 911 emergency number.

‘Zimin was entrusted with briefing Antipov because he controls the bulls,’ insisted Yerin. ‘He should have gone to America himself, to see it went right: he likes seeing people hurt.’

Gusovsky had agreed to Zimin being excluded from the meeting at his house in Kutbysevskiy. They were alone in the study, the bodyguards relegated to the outer rooms.

‘We didn’t suggest he went,’ reminded Gusovsky, lighting one of the thin cigars the doctors had prohibited when the shadow on his lung was first detected.

‘He should have suggested it himself.’

‘There’s the other obvious way.’

‘Who goes to Switzerland?’

‘Stupar. The Swiss won’t recognise his qualifications, though: he’ll have to work through a local lawyer.’

‘I think we should start limiting knowledge only to what people have to know. It’s safer.’

‘I agree,’ said Gusovsky.

‘And that should include Zimin from now on. He’s only good at controlling thugs.’

Gusovsky didn’t respond. If Zimin proved a liability, he’d have to be eliminated. Gusovsky decided against reaching a decision too soon: when it happened – if it had to happen – he’d make it an example throughout the Family, to prove no-one was safe, no matter how high in the organisation. A public execution, in fact.

Cowley supposed his identification was inevitable (‘Hey, don’t I recognise you?’) once the Georgetown photographs were compared in the newspaper picture libraries. Just as it was inevitable the media would fill in the lack of real information with long references to his having been the first American investigator officially to work in Moscow. He still regretted the exposure. He’d missed the initial coverage, on the previous evening’s TV news, but it was repeated on every morning channel and all the newspapers carried his picture at the scene the previous day and from the Moscow affair: some even had shots and lengthy accounts of the case. There was, of course, no identification of Pauline’s second husband as the killer: according to the carefully concocted official records, the murderer was the mentally deranged Moscow labourer they had first – wrongly – arrested.

There were already three enquiries from FBI Public Affairs for interviews by the time Cowley got to his office. There was also a message from the State Department that the Russians were providing more up to date photographs of Serov. The embassy had also formally requested the return of the body. Cowley rejected the interviews, and telephoned the Director’s office for a meeting that afternoon.

A list of what had been found on the body was already on his desk and Cowley at first skimmed it hopefully, remembering Johannsen’s remark about a pocket diary. There wasn’t one. In addition to the DC driving licence that had provided the original identification, there were locally billed MasterCharge and American Express cards, four house keys, $76 in cash, a pair of spectacles, in their case, American manufactured ballpoint and fountain pens, and a clean pad of reminder notes marked as undergoing forensic testing for previous page indentations. There had been a plain band of Russian-origin gold on the man’s wedding finger, and a tie clasp and matching cuff-links of American make.