The Watchmen (37 page)
Chelyag nodded in acceptance, lips pursed, still calm. “In military campaigns—and these terrorists clearly believe they are involved in some sort of military campaign—it is very often necessary to make small sacrifices to achieve a larger objective. Particularly to deceive the enemy … . The British are supposed to have allowed an entire city to be bombed, many people to be killed, to prevent the Nazis knowing they had broken their most essential code during the Great Patriotic War.”
Danilov was actually leaning forward in his chair, knowing this wasn’t a lecture on military tactics or history.
The man tapped the record of the Hartz meeting. “I’m glad—the president will be glad—of this honesty. There is to be another session between the two of them. We will be just as honest: make it clear we understand all the difficulties but that no wedge can be forced between us, whatever new outrage occurs here. Immediately after their meeting the president will make a televised address to the nation, just as the American leader did.”
What was it! Danilov sought desperately. Until he worked it out, he wouldn’t know how to respond!
“The obvious complaint against Russia within the United States is that it was Russian weaponry used in the American attacks or attempted attacks. To reassure the American public, the president intends to announce that all military stockpiles throughout the country are to be placed under far more stringent and direct military control and supervision: no civilian involvement whatsoever. That strict and sole military supervision will, of course, apply particularly at Plants 35 and 43. To reinforce the commitment to that pledge, our chiefs of staff will appear with the president.”
Danilov thought he saw a glimmer of light, almost too faint to recognize. Taking a risk, he said, “Will anyone else appear publicly with the president?”
“Appropriate minister,” said Chelyag. He nodded as if approving Danilov’s question.
“When’s the television appearance to be?”
“Tomorrow,” said the chief of staff. “You do understand the importance of my being fully briefed on every development, particularly over the next two or three days?”
“I think so,” said Danilov, believing he did. The Duma impeachment debate would begin in two days. By which time the as-yet undeclared leaders—and military chiefs most affected by detente between Russia and America—would have been made publicly responsible for preventing the loss of any more Russian weaponry. Too much of which—apart from germ and biological warheads—Georgi Chelyag and the president already knew to be stolen and available for sale. On the pretext of preventing an American catastrophe, the president was going to imply to the American secretary of state that Moscow was prepared to sustain an atrocity to achieve the greater good of destroying a fanatical, international terrorist group. And in so doing, squaring the circle, to destroy the president’s impeachment-seeking opposition.
“Then you’ll also understand how important it was—and even more so is now—for you to continue to report only to me?” This time Chelyag’s smile was much longer.
“I thought I had made clear to whom I was solely reporting,” said Danilov.
“Precisely the reason I thought you might benefit from this meeting,” said Chelyag. “But I don’t think it’s necessary for this conversation to go beyond this room. Or the two of us.”
“No,” agreed Danilov. Was the president’s determination—desperation—to remain in office great enough for the White House to allow a germ warfare attack on Moscow? There was probably another cliché to describe his going from one impossible situation to another, but at that moment Danilov couldn’t be bothered to search for it.
With no reason to return to Kirovskaya, apart from to sleep and change his clothes, Danilov had begun to spend his evenings with Cowley, and because of the time he drove directly from the White House to the hotel. He did so automatically, still trying to digest—but almost not wanting to—the conversation with Georgi Stepanovich Chelyag. There couldn’t be any misunderstanding. So he was … was what? Corrupted wasn’t the word. There had to be one far bigger, stronger, to describe the enormity of what he’d become inveigled in—
agreed
to become inveigled in. Or had he? Could he, if he knew there was a possibility of a warhead being exploded in Moscow, say nothing, do nothing? Would—could—the Americans? Probably, he answered himself, using the total cynicism to which he’d just been subjected. But that wasn’t the question; it was an effort to avoid it. The question was what was he prepared to do—acquiesce to save himself or do nothing and knowingly let people die? Wasn’t there a depravity—depravity a better word than corrupted, although still not right—in his even having to ask himself the question? What about the words he should be thinking, words like integrity and honesty and morality, words he’d personally paraded like the banners now being waved outside the embassy he’d soon be passing? Not a decision he had to make, not now, not immediately. Hypothetical, even. The unknown man in Chicago had said
maybe
there’d be something else in Moscow: that he needed to discuss it with people here. He’d wait, Danilov decided, recognizing the avoidance and despising himself for it. Wait and think. Not something that could be decided in minutes.
agreed
to become inveigled in. Or had he? Could he, if he knew there was a possibility of a warhead being exploded in Moscow, say nothing, do nothing? Would—could—the Americans? Probably, he answered himself, using the total cynicism to which he’d just been subjected. But that wasn’t the question; it was an effort to avoid it. The question was what was he prepared to do—acquiesce to save himself or do nothing and knowingly let people die? Wasn’t there a depravity—depravity a better word than corrupted, although still not right—in his even having to ask himself the question? What about the words he should be thinking, words like integrity and honesty and morality, words he’d personally paraded like the banners now being waved outside the embassy he’d soon be passing? Not a decision he had to make, not now, not immediately. Hypothetical, even. The unknown man in Chicago had said
maybe
there’d be something else in Moscow: that he needed to discuss it with people here. He’d wait, Danilov decided, recognizing the avoidance and despising himself for it. Wait and think. Not something that could be decided in minutes.
William Cowley was sitting at what had become his accustomed stool at the corner of the bar. He was alone. He drained his glass when he saw Danilov enter and had two more drinks waiting by the time the Russian reached him. Without any discussion they carried their glasses to a table out of hearing from the bar. Danilov told Cowley he knew about the second meeting between the secretary of state and the Russian president, waiting to be told that the Americans also knew of the planned television address. Instead Cowley said although the Chicago voice had been American, without any discernible foreign intonation, he’d asked that all the Chicago surveillance pictures be wired for comparison against the old Russian intelligence files. To Danilov’s nodded acceptance, Cowley outlined the surveillance and photographic arrangements for that night. And then, frowning, he said, “You OK?”
“Sure. Why?”
“You’re pretty quiet. How did your meeting go?”
Danilov hesitated. “Just passed on your intercept. He told me about the second meeting, like I said. Any idea what it’s about?” How could he say this, behave like this!
“Hoped you might be able to tell me. It’s at your side’s suggestion, according to Hartz’s people.”
Danilov shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
Cowley said, “Spoke to the director again. He’s frightened the Chicago fuckup has skewed everything back home.”
“Pamela in trouble?”
“He didn’t seem very pleased. Says he’s looking for the next break from here.”
“Let’s hope we don’t keep him waiting,” said Danilov, not knowing it would only be a matter of hours.
From his locked den Hollis carefully followed that evening’s chosen, first-time stepping-stones through three consecutive online systems, not just to cut out any trace of his cracking—or of his being caught in a flytrap—but also to ensure the cost of that night’s three- or four-hour surfing would be charged to someone else. Finally online himself—as the Quartermaster—Hollis began a regimented march through the war game sites and found the message on his third entry.
It said
THE GENERAL REQUESTS THE QUARTERMASTER’S REPORT
and was timed that day. The system was to wait a further three days before going to the newly designated telephone he hadn’t used before. Hollis had expected more progress from Mark Whittier by now; perhaps it was time to lead the FBI auditor more positively.
Hollis surfed until he found what he wanted, the mapped and pictorially digitized re-creation of Paulus’s street-by-street siege of Stalingrad. Hollis appointed himself to the Nazi side, attacking the Russians. How incredible it would have been to be there in person in 1942! But this would have to do.
It was the FBI’s Moscow station chief, Barry Martlew, who made the initial identification of the immaculate, dark-blue 1962 Oldsmobile with upswept rear tail fins as it drew up to the rear of the Golden Hussar. And then recognized the driver as Yevgenni Leanov. In the momentary brightness of the opened door to the restaurant the photographer beside Martlew managed six shots of the former KGB linguist and his female companion.
“Got her perfectly,” guaranteed the photographer.
“Like to hear her voice,” said Martlew.
“Could be a long night if there’s to be another call from Brooklyn,” forecast the other man.
But it wasn’t. The couple emerged after only three hours, actually stopping in the lighted doorway to talk to someone unseen behind, which gave the photographer the chance for four more shots. Leonov drove directly to Nikitskij Boulevard, where the woman waited patiently for him to put the Oldsmobile away in one of what appeared to be at least three locked garages in a side alley before walking with him, arm and arm, around the corner to an apartment block on Pereulok Kalasnyj.
The garages were one hundred yards from Lev Ivanovich Baratov’s Mercedes outlet. Which was more than a mile from Pereulok Ucebyi, where two hours earlier the Cadillac in which Anatoli Sergeevich Lasin was setting out to collect a new, fifteen-year-old lover exploded so violently when he turned on the ignition that the vehicle was broken completely in half. The gas tank was full, and the resulting fire totally destroyed Lasin’s apartment and two others in the same block. Three people died in the blaze.
The photographs were of Naina Karpov. After it was enhanced, one of the departing shots showed the man to whom she was turning in farewell to be Igor Ivanovich Baratov.
Five of the pictures were pinpoint sharp, and in three of them she appeared to be looking directly at the camera, as if she were posing. The transformation from the dowdy, distracted widow of Pereulok Samokatnaja was so complete that Danilov thought that in a casual, crowded situation he might not have even recognized her. The neglected hair was coiffed perfectly around an oval, even beautiful face to show off the glittering earrings that, with the singlestrand choker, made a complete set that threw off enough light to be genuine diamonds, which they probably were. There was a diamondlike flare from the ring on her ring finger, too, but no wedding band. The dress—maroon, according to Martlew—was close fitting without being tight, cut bare-shouldered and in two of the pictures exposing deep cleavage hidden by a covering stole of the same material. She was smiling—openly laughing in one frame—to show sculpted, even teeth.
Yevgenni Leanov was just as immaculate—and smiling—in a single-breasted, Western-cut suit that Martlew remembered as dark blue. The surveillance photographs revealed a tactile attentiveness that had not registered with the two FBI watchers until the very end of the evening. In the arrival pictures Leanov had cupped Naina Karpov’s arm to help her out of the Oldsmobile and had his hand familiarly in the small of her back as they’d gone in through the restaurant’s rear door. Their hands had been touching in the first of the emerging photographs, and Leanov’s was around her waist in the others.
It was not possible to see anything of Baratov, apart from his face, from the angle of the one print in which he’d been caught. He’d been smiling, like the rest of them.
Danilov was grateful the necessary responses to the identification—and the murder of Anatoli Lasin—had delayed his day’s schedule until midday but he still felt crushed (the coming together of the rock against the hard place) by the hangover. It had been ridiculous—posturingly theatrical—to go on drinking as he had the previous night, as if integrity could be drowned in alcohol. He hadn’t, in fact, become forgetfully drunk. At least the vomiting had stopped. He wished the remorse and the pain would.
Because of Henry Hartz’s continued presence at the U.S. Embassy, they were again in Cowley’s suite. The Golden Hussar photographs didn’t occupy much space on the table around which they were sitting, even though they were enlarged as well as enhanced. The rest was taken up by official Russian prints of Anatoli Lasin’s blown-apart car and fire-blackened shell of the Pereulok Ucebyi apartment block. Considerately, ever conscious of how Larissa died, Pavin had covered the murder scene pictures with those of the destroyed apartments.
“If it was a delayed wake for the sadly missed husband, they enjoyed themselves,” said Cowley, disturbing the neatly piled prints of Naina Karpov. One of the American’s early-morning checks had been to establish from the Manhattan eavesdropping that there had been no calls from Brooklyn to the restaurant the previous night.
“There as well as back at Leanov’s apartment,” said Danilov, working hard to disguise how he felt, surprised that Cowley was showing no discomfort whatsoever. Practice, he supposed. The ownership of the Pereulok Kalasnyj apartment was one of several things that Pavin had established during the morning. Another was that Leanov had divorced his wife four years earlier. A third was that the lock-up block listed on the same property register was owned by Lev Baratov’s garage company.
“Why kill Lasin?” queried Pavin.
“Because he knew Nikov he was originally brought into headquarters, which might not have been the best idea,” reflected Danilov, his headache so bad his words seemed to echo in his skull. “To keep her talking—to get as much for the voice comparison as we could—we told Naina Karpov we were going to reinterview everyone we’d already seen. Lasin was their weak link.”
“The irony is that he didn’t tell us anything,” said Pavin.
“He would have if we’d threatened him with Lefortovo and a trumped-up charge over his handguns,” said Danilov.
“Let’s not forget, either, the example factor of the Nikov and Karpov killings,” suggested Cowley.
“Or fail to take advantage of it ourselves!” said Danilov, with an awareness that pleased him. The band wasn’t tightening around his head anymore, either.
“How?” Cowley frowned.
“We’ll use our resident informer,” decided Danilov. “Senior Colonel Ashot Ivanovich Mizin will work the two killings jointly. Tell him we’re still going along with his turf war theory and that it’s all part of the Osipov Brigade breakup. I want them to go on thinking they’re safe, with the investigation under the control of their own man.”
“We need to get to the Oldsmobile,” said Cowley. “There might just be something for forensic. And there’s an identification from the embassy guard.”
Danilov’s headache was definitely lifting. His stomach felt easier, too. “The Russian way,” he said simply.
“Not admissible in an American court,” refused Cowley, just as simply.
“In which court, under whose law, would an attack carried out from Russian soil—Ulitza Chaykovskovo—against what’s technically American territory ever be heard?” demanded Danilov.
“You any idea how many guilty bastards walk free from American courts on points of law?”
“You any idea how many people will die from anthrax or sarin if these bastards beat us and get a warhead into America?”
“I think I’ve taken my eye off the ball a little here,” Cowley abruptly apologized. “In Russia it’s got to be the Russian way, hasn’t it?”
The Russian president’s ultimate coup was to make his worldwide televised address from the podium of the Duma that was preparing to impeach him. He asked permission to do so from an entrapped, unable-to-refuse parliament with the American secretary of state at his side at an apparently impromptu press conference after their second meeting. He even had Henry Hartz seated at the very edge of the dais so that in some shots the two men appeared together.
The towering, white-haired man actually began by sweeping his hand out toward Hartz to declare that the man’s presence was physical, visible proof of the total commitment between their two countries to confront and defeat the fanatical terrorism that both were facing. So, too, was the fact that also in the chamber—there was another flowing hand movement to guide the cameras—were the military chiefs of all three armed services.
The announcement that all civilian participation in the safeguarding of all stockpiled Russian weaponry was being removed was accompanied by the raising high into the air of what the man declared to be a presidential decree he was lodging with the Duma. From that moment the security of every arsenal anywhere in the country was entirely in the hands of the military, who were trained for such a task and had the manpower to ensure it was properly and fully carried out. The camera-guiding gesture now was to the assembled ministers and their deputies—defense, foreign, and interior—with the insistence that although he had abolished civilian involvement at plant, installation, and stockpile level, appropriate civilian ministers should work with the military chiefs to ensure that never again would a single item of potentially harmful Russian war materiel fall into the wrong hands.
“Were that to happen—with the responsibility for preventing it so positively and clearly defined—the investigation to discover the culprits would be absolute, conducted by the special tribunals established by my decree today. Also set out in today’s decree are the penalties I would expect to be imposed. I realize, of course, that the creation of law involving punishment is the function of the Duma and the upper house. I ask them to ratify those parts of my decree that require it.”
Danilov and Cowley watched the address from the Savoy suite. Cowley said, “I don’t know what the hell game that guy’s playing, but I wouldn’t like to be on the other side.”
“Neither would I,” Danilov said hopefully.
In the final moments of preparation, both Cowley and Danilov thought beyond the basic illegality of burglary to the fact that neither was trained—or had experience—for what they intended to do. Cowley had never attended a SWAT team intrusion. On the two occasions Danilov had used a
spetznaz
unit, the entry techniques and safeguards had been the responsibility of its commander. It was obviously among the worries of the subdued Paul Lambert, who very early in the briefing asked if they had a search warrant.
spetznaz
unit, the entry techniques and safeguards had been the responsibility of its commander. It was obviously among the worries of the subdued Paul Lambert, who very early in the briefing asked if they had a search warrant.
“The entry is upon my—Russian—authority,” said Danilov. He didn’t doubt he could have gotten approval from Georgi Chelyag, but it would have been given in the unrecorded circumstances of their conversation, so there’d been no point in asking. Danilov had excluded the protesting Yuri Pavin and the trusted but unaware group from Petrovka from any involvement, distancing them—and their careers—from himself if anything went wrong. Another unspoken awareness between Danilov and Cowley was that if it did go wrong, the danger wasn’t so much from civilian arrest but from mobsters who imposed their own law with their own guns.
“No Russian backup?” persisted the leader of the forensic team.
“The embassy attack is an American-controlled investigation,” said Danilov, uneasy with the threadbare logic. It was a relief that his hangover had gone.
“Which needs to be tightly controlled,” broke in Cowley, just as uneasy. “I’m taking American responsibility for it being done this way.”
With the early-afternoon departure of the American secretary of state and his entourage, it was easier for them to use one of the small conference rooms back at the embassy. A greatly enlarged section of the Nikitskij Boulevard street plan and the lock-up garage side alley was on a display board with a selection of that afternoon’s photographs, also enlarged, alongside. Barry Martlew identified the garage in which he’d seen Leanov park the Oldsmobile and described how the up-and-over door had been secured at ground level by what appeared to be ordinary, snap-fastening padlocks.
“No obvious alarms anywhere,” said the Moscow-based agent. “It’s a cul-de-sac that bends where the garages are. Gives us some cover from the main road.”
“How long did it take Leanov to close three padlocks?” demanded Cowley.
“A good fifteen minutes,” said Martlew, understanding the question.
“So there are some precautions, and after New Rochelle that’s our greatest concern,” Cowley said to the two men whom Lambert had designated his entry specialists. “You lost friends in New Rochelle. After you’re sure that everything’s safe, I want you to go back to the beginning and start again. And if you have the slightest doubt, a bad feeling about anything, we walk away. OK?”
One man nodded. The other said, “OK.”
Cowley looked back to include everyone else in the room. “Let’s go play Watergate.”
“Watergate fucked up,” said someone.
The constant volume of roaring, speeding traffic in one of the busiest parts of the city—Ulitza Vozdvizenka, at one end of Nikitskij Boulevard—provided both the cover for the intrusion but also the risk of its being seen, despite the curve in the alley. Cowley had a rotating team cover the cul-de-sac from midafternoon, to ensure that the Oldsmobile remained inside its garage. Another group watched Yevgenni Leanov’s apartment to see if the man emerged and appeared to be going to collect the car.
Upon their arrival Cowley reduced the alley surveillance—just one man, lingering close to its entrance as the last alert to the two entry men. The rest dispersed unobtrusively in the immediate vicinity, mostly along the more pedestrian-crowded Nikitskaya. Cowley kept in constant touch by throat mike, his hearing aid—style receiver in his undamaged ear.
“We’ve got a problem,” alerted one of the FBI burglars. “The padlocks
are
wired: We can feel a lead. Guess the disarmament requires the approved key. Pick it and we ring the bells or whatever.”
are
wired: We can feel a lead. Guess the disarmament requires the approved key. Pick it and we ring the bells or whatever.”
Shielded by Danilov and others feigning arm-waving conversation all around him, Cowley said, “Can you fix it?”
“Depends how much slack wire we can get.”
“We can’t leave any sign.”
“Any alternative?” asked Danilov.
Lambert said, “There’s some magic stuff, epoxy resin based, we can squirt into the lock to give us a key definition. It would take an hour to set sufficiently to withdraw it to cut a workable key. We’re talking tomorrow. We wouldn’t have to damage any outer casing if we could get enough slack for a wire bypass.”
“Gotta clamp on the first,” came a voice from the alley.
Cowley, Danilov, and Lambert turned around at Skarjatin, to walk back the way they’d come. Danilov said, “I don’t understand the way it works.”
Lambert said, “Each padlock is alarmed. Break or force one and whatever happens happens. If we can get a loop above each of the three padlocks we maintain the circuit, make the locks themselves obsolete. All we’ve got to do then is pick them. Each will have a different operating key, of course. It’s quite simple.”
“Sure,” said Danilov. Three Americans in their group passed them without showing any sign of recognition, going in the opposite direction.
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