Brian Freemantle - No Time for Heroes

…’ He smiled. ‘I think I’ve won, don’t you?’

‘Now let’s get…!’ began Gusovsky, outraged, but the calmer Yerin talked over the other man in his soft but clear voice.

‘From what you’ve just said it would seem so. But there’s a lot more we need to know, because so far you’ve talked in riddles. I think you’d better start discussing things properly. So we’ll all understand what we’re saying to each other.’

Danilov did not, at this stage, want to go one step further. But he needed to end everything on his terms and with them even more unsure. He hoped his luck would hold. He looked briefly to the second table, aware of the bewilderment of the three men who had never before witnessed Gusovsky or Yerin treated with such contempt. He said: ‘These others aren’t necessary. From now on the discussion will just be between the three of us. I want them out of the room.’

‘ You want them out of the room?’ boomed Gusovsky, incredulous.

‘That’s what I said.’

‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, what you’re saying!’ erupted Gusovsky, his anger finally taking over, which was what Danilov had hoped. ‘Have you any idea who you are talking to? What we can do to you? You’re a little person, you hear…?’ He held out his thumb and forefinger, but in a narrowing gesture, not like Kosov’s in the hotel bar, earlier. ‘That little. That’s all. You can’t make demands, about anything. That’s what we do. So now you start showing respect! You sit there like the little person you are and you say what you think you’ve got that’s so important and you say please and you say thank you…’ The man stopped, breathlessly. He gulped, heavily. ‘You’ve annoyed me, little man. It’s not good for anyone, when I lose my temper.’

Perfect, judged Danilov. It could still fail – he wouldn’t know he’d succeeded until he was outside in the street, and not be sure even then – but he thought he’d got away with it. Why did they always defeat themselves by arrogance! ‘So you’re not going to tell them to leave?’

In front of him Gusovsky visibly trembled, the patchy redness against his normal complexion making him look ridiculous, like a painted clown. It was Yerin, again, who better suppressed his rage. ‘You’ve been told what to do.’

Here comes the test, thought Danilov. He pushed his chair back, standing. He was conscious of the three bodyguards instantly coming up, too, but he did not look at them, remaining staring down at the two Mafia chieftains. ‘ I control the Svahbodniy holding in Switzerland, not Raisa Serova! Let Kosov know when you want to talk again.’

All three guardians were barring the exit when he turned, and Danilov felt a stir of uncertainty. Without looking behind him, he said: ‘Tell them to get out of the way.’

It seemed a very long time before they moved, although later Danilov guessed it could only have been a minute or two: not even that, just seconds. It must have been a gesture, because no-one spoke behind.

Kosov was at the table by the dance floor. He rose the moment Danilov emerged, scurrying alongside as he continued towards the outer door.

‘What happened?’ demanded Kosov, anxiously.

‘I annoyed them,’ admitted Danilov.

It pleased Danilov to terrorise Kosov further by refusing to discuss the encounter, beyond saying he expected the Chechen to want another meeting. Just to drive Kosov to the edge – an edge over which he was now absolutely determined to push the bastard, for all he had done – Danilov warned Kosov they might want to talk to him, as well.

‘You told them I hadn’t misled them: that it wasn’t my fault?’

‘Of course I did,’ assured Danilov, who had forgotten.

Kosov returned him to Kirovskaya, where he remained only long enough to phone Cowley and say he was on his way to the hotel. Olga asked why he’d bothered to come home if he intended going out again so soon: Danilov said something unexpected had arisen and left her blinking uncertainly when he kissed her, as he left. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it, either.

Cowley had been drinking but wasn’t drunk when Danilov got to the Savoy. For the first time, Danilov explained in precise detail what he was trying to achieve, concluding with the wild possibility that had occurred to him during the actual encounter with the Chechen hierarchy.

‘You’ll never get it all together,’ protested the American, awkward in his gratitude. ‘I can’t believe you’re trying to do this, for me! Why should you?’

‘You were very necessary to me, in the the beginning,’ reminded Danilov. ‘And now it isn’t just for you. There’s Olga.’

‘I don’t know what…’

‘Then don’t say it,’ stopped Danilov. ‘It hasn’t worked yet.’

‘And won’t,’ insisted the impossibly depressed Cowley.

Danilov’s first instruction the following morning was for the re-arrest of Mikhail Antipov. He put Pavin in personal charge of the seizure, with specific instructions that everything necessary in a proper investigation had to be brought in this time.

He didn’t have to ask for a meeting with those in ultimate charge of the investigation. There was already a Foreign Ministry summons waiting for him.

It was not until the middle of that day that the hurriedly despatched Sergei Stupar telephoned Gusovsky at Kutbysevskij Prospekt. ‘Our lawyer made an approach, claiming it was an investment enquiry. The anstalt is frozen.’

Gusovsky replaced the telephone, looking across to the blind man. ‘The bastard was telling the truth! He does control it.’

The Justice Minister, Roman Barazin, was an addition to the group awaiting Danilov at the Foreign Ministry. Danilov guessed there had been a prior discussion, but his presence was not practically ignored, as it had been upon his return from Italy. He was, instead, the object of instant attack.

The Deputy Interior Minister, who had announced his supervision of the Organised Crime Bureau but done little to implement it, began it. ‘You’ve flagrantly ignored specific instructions, by arresting the widow of Petr Serov! And Yasev, an executive government official! They are to be released.’

‘I don’t think they should be,’ said Danilov calmly. ‘And they’re not arrested. They’re being held in protective custody. To which they agreed. It was all made clear in my overnight report.’

Vasili Oskin was at once deflated. Smolin tried to help, a lawyer wanting more facts before committing himself. ‘Why do they need protective custody?’

‘I also want to know that: I’ve not seen the overnight report,’ said Barazin. He was a fleshy, permanently red-faced man with a moustache as full as Vorobie’s: because of the man’s bulk, it suited Barazin better than the Deputy Foreign Minister.

Keeping to the sequence supplied by Raisa Serova, Danilov felt quite relaxed verbally repeating the woman’s confession. He introduced Yasev’s function in what, with the possible exception of Barazin, the government officials already knew, and set out the pivotal role of Vasili Dolya, the Director of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, in involving not one but two Mafia Families.

‘We should still have been consulted before you attempted to interview Mrs Serova,’ insisted Oskin, trying to recover.

‘At our last conference I was authorised to continue the criminal investigation,’ reminded Danilov. ‘It was Raisa Serova who inherited the control of the Swiss corporation from her dead father. I made that quite clear, at that conference. I considered interviewing her, after her lies at our other meetings, an essential part of that criminal investigation. I did not know Oleg Yasev would be with her until I arrived at her apartment on Leninskaya.’ It was pedantic, and they might suspect he was stretching the truth to its utmost, but there was no way they could confront him. Caught by a further thought, about questions he still wanted to put to the widow and her lover, Danilov said: ‘ Has Raisa Serova asked to be released? Or Oleg Yasev?’