The Watchmen (38 page)
“Two neutralized,” came the earpiece voice.
“What about you guys at Kalasnyj?” demanded Cowley, in apparent conversation with Danilov.
“Lights on in the apartment but the drapes are drawn,” came the reply. “Maybe a quiet evening, six-pack and a ball game.”
“No wise-assing: only what matters and what you’re asked,” ordered Cowley. Schnecker’s brusque instruction against nervousness going into the UN building, Cowley remembered: a million years ago? Two million?
“Three immobilized,” said the voice from the alley.
“Go back and start again,” Cowley instructed at once.
“You sure they’ve got this much time?” demanded Lambert.
“Dead they’ve got all the time they could want. Eternity,” said Cowley.
“Sneaky motherfuckers!” said the recognizable voice.
“What?” said Cowley.
“Secondary system, parallel to the guide rail for the up and over. Static wires, simple hook-and-eye connection on both sides. Door goes up but the wires don’t, unless they’re unclipped. Glad we had a second feel around.”
“So am I,” said Cowley.
“Thanks,” said Lambert, to the other American.
“Whenever you’re ready to join us,” invited the burglar.
Their rehearsed arrival in the alley was intentionally straggled, to avoid attracting attention additionally risked by some of the forensic technicians’ equipment. Further protective surveillance was reestablished along Nikitskij, on either side of the alley, with the existing man remaining in between at its entrance.
The up-and-over door was lifted a bare minimum to admit them, and no light was put on until everyone was inside. The sudden fluorescent glare momentarily blinded all of them. They recovered standing around the immaculately gleaming, dark-green vehicle as Lambert, assuming control, said, “We’re not here to admire. Let’s get it done.”
The smoothly rehearsed movement of the forensic team was another uncomfortable reminder to Cowley of how Jefferson Jones’s squad had automatically assumed their roles on the outskirts of New Rochelle. He physically turned away, conscious as he did so that Dimitri Danilov was already exploring the garage, at that moment at the very rear. Danilov pointed and said, “Steel door, steel framed. Locks top and bottom.”
To one of the men who’d picked the outer locks Cowley said, “You spare a moment?”
The technician stood beside Danilov for several moments before saying, “Now, that’s one hell of a door beyond which visitors aren’t at all welcome.”
“Try,” urged Cowley.
It took an hour. The constant checks with the watchers outside in Nikitskij Boulevard and Pereulok Kalasnyj were virtually the only sounds from inside. The forensic scouring of the Oldsmobile ended with the entry technician still on his knees, the door frame alarm safely looped and one lock already picked. Scanning the door itself with a stethoscoped magnet, he found the tumbler device activated by the slightest uneven movement. He steadied it—attaching magnets at either end—and said, “I haven’t seen anything like this outside a strongroom.” The second lock took a further fifteen minutes. When he felt delicately inside the door that was open just enough for his fingers to get through, he found two separate, rigidly fixed alarm wires that would have triggered if the door had widened another half inch. It took another ten minutes to disconnect them, before the door was finally opened.
“Jesus!” exclaimed Cowley, when the light finally went on in the room beyond. It was not intended—certainly not used—as a garage. Stacked the entire length of the opposite wall were boxed mines and grenades, with other boxes marked to be grenades and timers and heavy-caliber ammunition. Near the door were four of the same A4-427 rockets and their launchers used in the U.S. Embassy attack. Unprompted, the forensic cameraman began to photograph everything. The rigid, inside door fixings were simple booby traps to separate wall-mounted antipersonnel mines. Another lead ran from the tumbler to disappear beneath the main stockpile itself.
Cowley said, “Jerk that door open and the entire block would disappear.”
Lambert was bending over the mines, scraping off paint samples into a specimen envelope. Conscious of Cowley and Danilov behind him, he said, “The same as the Lincoln Memorial.”
Abruptly, into their earpieces, a voice from Pereulok Kalasnyj said, “An Audi’s just drawn up. It’s Naina Karpov!”
“Out!” ordered Cowley. “Everybody out!”
He and Danilov remained with the entry specialists reattaching the traps and alarms to the inner door. As they got to the outer garage door, the Kalasnyj voice said, “The light’s gone out in Leanov’s apartment.” Then, minutes later. “They’re coming out. On their way to you.”
“Shit!” said one of the technicians, failing to get the hook of the static alarm wire into its eye.
“Plenty of time,” calmed Cowley. “No hurry.”
“On to Vozdvizenka,” came the voice in Cowley’s ear.
“Got it!” said the technician. The three padlocks clicked home, one after the other.
“About to turn into your street,” came the warning.
“We’re out,” Cowley assured him. “Anyone feel thirsty? I’m buying the celebration drinks.”
Although it was much earlier in the day in Washington, Pamela Darnley said virtually the same thing to Barry Osnan when she emerged into the incident room from its side office.
“Celebrate what?” asked the man.
“Just had a call from Carl Ashton. The computer that brings
Challenger
back into Earth orbit had been misprogrammed. It would have gone out of trajectory just enough to burn on reentry.”
Challenger
back into Earth orbit had been misprogrammed. It would have gone out of trajectory just enough to burn on reentry.”
“With two Russians on board.”
In the Manhattan listening room the duty electronics officer called out, “Hey-up, guys! Arnie’s just announced it’s telephone time. Promised Mary Jo dinner with a special view.”
“Make a change for her from his crotch,” said agent in charge Harry Boreman.
There was a stir in the FBI office in Trenton, too. There the local bureau chief, John Meadowcraft, looked up from the surveillance pictures of Ivan Gavrilovich Guzov and Vyacheslav Fedorovich Kabanov and said to the photographer, “You’re right. They’re both using two different cell phones. Why two? Why not just one?” He decided against talking to Washington about it. An unwritten field office rule was never put a question to headquarters you didn’t know the answer to.
“You know what we’ve done?” Reztsov demanded from his deputy, lifting the French champagne in invitation to a toast.
Averin lifted his glass expectantly and said, “What?”
“We’ve guaranteed our future. It’s a good feeling.”
“Very good,” agreed the second Gorki homicide detective.
It was a feel-good (and for some, later, feel-bad) night of what turned out to be premature celebration, little sleep, some work, early-hour telephone calls, and a lot of political maneuvering. There were also, again later, some more overheard conversations and one that wasn’t.
The most immediate result of the early-hour telephoning was the agreement by both White Houses that Dimitri Danilov be included in the sort of satellite link-up that had first been established for the American secretary of state when Hartz had been in Moscow. The Russian acceptance was reached while Danilov was still with Georgi Chelyag, whom he’d earlier alerted at home and who didn’t bother to conceal his satisfaction at the embassy-developed photographs of the Nikitskij garage arsenal. The chief of staff absented himself for only fifteen minutes to get higher approval for Danilov’s participation. With it came the politicking. Chelyag ordered Danilov to return immediately to brief the president before he made another call to Washington later in the day. Chelyag was going to bypass the Foreign Ministry to liaise directly with Henry Hartz.
Danilov had suggested that Cowley’s celebration be in the security of the embassy mess rather than in the Savoy Hotel, and he’d strictly limited himself, determined against another hangover. Cowley hadn’t—neither had most of the others—but showed no sign of suffering. Both Paul Lambert and Barry Martlew did, gray-faced and pouch-eyed.
“It’s worth it, having something like this after so long,” insisted the forensic team leader. After the party he’d had to supervise what could be done at the embassy—the development, enhancement, and wiring to Washington of the pictures—and what had to be packaged, with instructions, for Washington scientific tests.
The four of them made up the Moscow contingent. In Washington it was Frank Norton, Leonard Ross, and Pamela Darnley. Norton’s opening to Moscow was: “You’ve done well there—damned well. We’re getting a handle on things at last.”
“There wasn’t a warhead,” Cowley cautioned at once. He, like Danilov, had begun to put the garage findings into perspective.
“We’ve got everything else,” insisted Norton.
“Have we?” Danilov asked rhetorically, raising the uncertainty he’d already talked through with Chelyag. “We’ve no way of knowing that’s their
only
stockpile—that this is even the weaponry they intend selling through Orlenko and Guzov.”
only
stockpile—that this is even the weaponry they intend selling through Orlenko and Guzov.”
“Whatever the intention, they’re not getting this lot,” said Norton. Addressing Danilov, he said, “You’ve got some official guidance on this?”
“It can be seized whenever it’s decided, by our SWAT equivalent.” Danilov looked sideways to Cowley.
“And of course we’ve got the garage under permanent surveillance. We won’t lose it,” said the American.
“You can’t guarantee that: No one could,” Ross objected at once. “It’s too dangerous, leaving it there.”
“We can’t touch it,” insisted Cowley, equally quickly, the euphoria all gone. “Finding it, like we have, still leaves us with as many problems as before, with the additional one that Dimitri’s just pointed out.”
An unformed idea, like a shadow in the dark, began nagging in Danilov’s mind but refused to harden.
“We know what they intended to do with their Pentagon access,” argued Norton. “It
was Challenger,
and we’ve got all the time in the world to correct it. We’re safe back here.”
was Challenger,
and we’ve got all the time in the world to correct it. We’re safe back here.”
“I’m not sure that we are,” said Pamela, pleased that her success had been acknowledged without her having to prompt the reference. “Remember what the woman says on the Chicago intercept:”more surprises than they can ever guess.” Surprises. Plural, not singular. I’m not convinced that we’ve got rid of the danger here by finding the
Challenger
interference. I’ve told Ashton to go on looking.”
Challenger
interference. I’ve told Ashton to go on looking.”
“You’re surely not suggesting we do nothing about the Moscow cache!” Norton demanded incredulously.
“I’m reminding everyone that if we move too soon in Moscow—before we’ve got positive leads and identification here—we risk their triggering something we can’t anticipate or stop,” said Pamela. There was no hesitation, no deferring to rank or authority, and no one seemed to expect it.
“I agree,” said Cowley.
“So do I. And it’s the argument I’ve already put here, since we discovered what’s in the garage,” said Danilov. What was it that wouldn’t come to him!
Pamela filled the silence from Washington. “Something might be moving. From what we overheard from Bay View Road, Orlenko made contact last night. The new number is the public phone at the River Café below the Brooklyn Bridge: the one with the view of the Manhattan skyline. We’re putting a tap on it, of course. But the pattern is for him to speak to Moscow after hearing from whoever he talks to.”
“It’ll be about the money,” remembered Cowley. “Any progress on that?”
“No,” said Ross. “What did you get out of the Oldsmobile?”
“I’m hoping we’ll get more from what we put
in,
” said Lambert. “We wired it, two separate microphones, one inside the radio, one inside the pod on the turning indicator arm. We’ve lifted five different fingerprint sets: There’s a match to the one print on the trigger guard of the launcher discarded after the embassy attack. We’ve got a lot of human hair and one cigarette butt from a filled ashtray on the front dash. We can pick up saliva from that for DNA—as well as from the hair—if we need a match. There’s clothes fibers, too. There’s some paint flakes from the trunk carpeting that could be from both the warhead and the missile that was fired at the embassy here. It’s all already on its way back to the laboratory.”
in,
” said Lambert. “We wired it, two separate microphones, one inside the radio, one inside the pod on the turning indicator arm. We’ve lifted five different fingerprint sets: There’s a match to the one print on the trigger guard of the launcher discarded after the embassy attack. We’ve got a lot of human hair and one cigarette butt from a filled ashtray on the front dash. We can pick up saliva from that for DNA—as well as from the hair—if we need a match. There’s clothes fibers, too. There’s some paint flakes from the trunk carpeting that could be from both the warhead and the missile that was fired at the embassy here. It’s all already on its way back to the laboratory.”
“I’m having the prints run through criminal records and against our ex—intelligence officer files,” said Danilov. “We’ve already shown last night’s photographs of the car to the embassy guard. He says it’s definitely the one used in the attack.”
“And you’re telling me that we still can’t move on it!” said the exasperated presidential aide. “I know the arguments, but we’ve really got to think this thing through. Do something!”
“From the photographs it looks to me as if there’s more explosives than were put in the Lincoln Memorial,” said Ross. “I know the reasoning for leaving it alone—have gone along with it until now—but I’m not so sure anymore. I don’t see how we can.”
The shadow in Danilov’s mind became a positive thought, literally like a shaft of light. “We don’t have to!” he announced.
The three men in the room turned to him, frowning. The same expression registered on the faces in Washington. “Naina Karpov and Yevgenni Leanov—and those we know about there, in America—aren’t ballistics experts. They’re stealing and selling. They won’t know if the stuff is armed—operational—or not. We can get back in to where they’re storing it—more easily than last night, because we know their security and booby traps now—and simply disarm everything. Remove firing mechanisms, sabotage the timers and detonators. The Watchmen would imagine its failure to be for the same reason as the UN missile: bad Russian manufacture. The last time they thought that, they came all the way from America to teach their suppliers a lesson.”
There were slow, nodded smiles of understanding from inside the room and from Washington. Pamela said, “How do you make the warhead inoperative if they get it and we find it? After last time they’ll check the detonating mechanism. That’s what the newspapers and television said had failed.”
The smiles went, but only briefly. Cowley said, “We won’t have to try. We’ve got two empty warheads of our own, one from each source. We bring them back from Washington and simply swop.”
“You haven’t found the warhead,” reminded Pamela.
“We’ll go ahead with the switch with what’s already there,” declared Norton, making the decision that should have been Leonard Ross’s.
“My people handle ballistics
after
their use,” reminded Lambert.
after
their use,” reminded Lambert.
“Why don’t the Fort Detrick specialists come over? And bring the empty warheads just in case?” suggested Ross. “I want to be sure nothing can go off, no matter what’s done with it if we’ve got to let it come here.”
Danilov suspected that Georgi Chelyag used their second encounter as a planning rehearsal. The man seized the American sabotaging of the weaponry as a further distancing of Russian presidential responsibility. He insisted their agreement could be phrased as a favor to an America deeply embarrassed by the terrorists’ Pentagon penetration.
“We’ll have to be horrified at what could have been a space shuttle disaster involving our astronauts,” said Chelyag, almost to himself.
“I
am
!” said Danilov, still uncomfortable with the other man’s total political cynicism.
am
!” said Danilov, still uncomfortable with the other man’s total political cynicism.
“And they still think there could be something more?” queried the chief of staff.
“Yes.” They hadn’t discussed it after the satellite closedown, but Danilov had been as conscious as Cowley of Pamela’s aggressiveness.
“Maybe we should put all our early-warning systems on standby?”
“I thought there’d been an assurance that nothing is directed toward us?”
“There has. And according to you it was
Challenger
’s directional system that had been tampered with. What’s to stop something being put back on course?”
Challenger
’s directional system that had been tampered with. What’s to stop something being put back on course?”
“It would become public knowledge that we’d done it.”
Chelyag smiled. “Of course it would. It’s a presidential decision, and the president would be failing in his responsibilities to the Russian people if he didn’t take the precaution, after what we’ve just learned. That can all be made clear in today’s conversation with Washington, with the assurance that there will be no leak from this end that what was done to the space shuttle is the reason for our doing it. Which it won’t, not even to the Duma as they prepare their censure vote. It might, of course, give them cause to pause and reflect, not having the slightest idea what’s going on.”
Danilov wondered how many situations there had ever been that Chelyag hadn’t manipulated 180 degrees to his or a superior’s advantage. Danilov suddenly decided the sewer life in which he lived and worked was preferable to what Chelyag inhabited and that he’d never again feel guilty at his own long-ago toe dip into what, by comparison, was perfumed corruption. He said, “I don’t think there’s anything else.”
Chelyag said, “The investigation is producing far more here than it is in America, isn’t it?”
“Because of American participation,” insisted Danilov.
“That’s a matter of interpretation,” said Chelyag, smiling again.
“More names,” announced a satisfied Yuri Pavin. “And we know which one fired the missile at the embassy.’
There were three names, all from the now-completed list of former intelligence personnel and all positively identified from fingerprints lifted from inside the Oldsmobile. One was a former
spetznaz-
seconded major. It was his print on the launcher trigger guard.
spetznaz-
seconded major. It was his print on the launcher trigger guard.
“He’d have had all the military training,” Pavin pointed out.
“What about the Lasin murder?”
“Everything fed to Mizin, as ordered,” responded the colonel formally. He smiled. “He said our thoughts were in line with what he was thinking.”
“Let’s hope”—started Danilov before his telephone rang.
“Leanov’s picking up the Oldsmobile,” announced Cowley.
The music went with the car, Billie Holiday in good voice, before the heroin took control. A tape, Cowley guessed. Leanov hummed along badly, obviously not knowing her tune rifts. There was no distortion on the tapes. The first bug was in the radio, not the speakers. From the frequent horn blasts, Nikitskij Boulevard was congested. Cowley looked up and nodded at Danilov’s arrival. “He’s alone. Got a voice like shit.”
Danilov said, “We’ve got a name for who fired the bazooka: a
spetznaz
officer. Two other names, as well. Probably the attack group that Naina Karpov sneered at for needing transport.”
spetznaz
officer. Two other names, as well. Probably the attack group that Naina Karpov sneered at for needing transport.”
“
Spetznaz
fits,” said the American.
Spetznaz
fits,” said the American.
“A piece at a time,” agreed Danilov.
“We got two cars behind but they’re staying loose. Don’t want to spook him.”
The Billie Holiday tape was turned down in the middle of “Love for Sale,” and Leanov stopped trying to sing along. Cowley strained forward at another faint noise and said, “Dialing out: the car didn’t have a phone so it’ll be a cell phone.”
Lambert said, “Every digit’s got a different tone. I can get a number from that.”
“On my way,” said Leanov. Then: “Good.” A pause, for something from whoever he was talking. “We would have liked two.” Another gap. “I didn’t think the military was a problem?” A laugh. “Pay them the fucking money then; you’re getting yours.” The longest break yet. “I’m fifteen minutes away … . Stop worrying.” There was the bleep of the phone going off.
At once the tape was turned up. The song was “Strange Fruit.” Over a separate speaker an American voice said, “We’re getting pushed apart by the traffic. You want us to close up, not to lose him?”
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