The Watchmen (43 page)
“Let’s hope we get it right.” At once Danilov said, “That didn’t come out as it was meant to. It wasn’t a criticism of you. It was the right decision: I’m sorry.”
Cowley smiled, ruefully. “Get up off your knees. I know it wasn’t a crack.”
“You going to be all right?” Danilov asked seriously.
“It’ll blow over. You know the saying.”
“The buck stops here,” provided Danilov.
“Or where it’s most convenient,” qualified the American.
Danilov was suddenly caught by the thought that the aphorism of a long-ago American president was probably more appropriate for him than for Cowley. Chelyag was now initiating the approaches, but with the passage of days what had seemed as protective knowledge didn’t appear as strong as he’d first thought. And the political embarrassment it would cause ended when the case did. Danilov acknowledged that ironically his future would be best safeguarded by the case not, in fact, being solved at all.
“I liked the other car!” protested Elizabeth Hollis. “Everyone drives Fords like this.”
“I told you,” said Hollis. “It was an economy decision that I return it. There’ll be a policy change soon. We’ll get another one just like it.” Hollis didn’t like being reminded of the one extravagance that might have made people curious.
“You’ve heard that news already on the other channel,” complained the cantankerous woman, jabbing an arthritically twisted finger toward the radio.
“I wanted to check something, make sure I didn’t mishear,” said Hollis. There should surely have been a public FBI announcement by now? He didn’t understand it.
He’d specifically timed their arrival at the mall the General had designated and was walking his mother by the telephone on their way to J. C. Penney when the public telephone rang. He continued on by without pausing, looking back only when the ringing stopped. A boy of about eighteen in jeans and a back-to-front ball cap was shaking his head. He was still shaking it when he put the phone down and walked away.
The announcement Hollis was anxious to hear concerned Robert Standing, but as they’d arrested him, the FBI must have a lead from the Cyber Shack to the General. Who, wondered Hollis, would the General turn out to be?
Robert Standing was charged with larceny, despite passing a polygraph test that went beyond the bank stealing to include every attack the Watchmen had committed or attempted. The man did not break down or cry, although he did perspire heavily during his second encounter with Pamela Darnley. After that the New York State district attorney, who’d appointed himself prosecutor, demanded further corroborating evidence of Watchmen association before permitting a third attempt to obtain an admission linking Standing to the terrorists.
With the agreement of both a subdued Albert Lang and his client, bail was discussed in camera before a judge. The term “national security” was repeatedly invoked by the New York state lawyer. He’d been in frequent contact with the Justice Department in Washington and was aware of the political platform an eventual trial would provide. Bail was not sought after the judge indicated it would be set at millions. The publicity-attracting sum would jeopardize the unbiased fairness of any jury.
Throughout the legal maneuverings Pamela Darnley seethed at what she considered the second lost breakthrough opportunity. She briefly considered moving Terry Osnan as Albany agent in charge to head up the continuing investigation there until deciding the man’s total command and knowledge of the Washington incident room would be weakened. Instead she put Anne Stovey in charge of three drafted-in agents with the instructions to find out more about Robert Standing than he knew about himself.
To herself privately and to Anne Stovey very openly Pamela vowed to find another Watchmen tie-in to justify a third confrontation with the bank official. It was Anne Stovey who suggested tracing any association Standing or his family might have with any branch of the military. Allowing Anne the credit—and the chance to tell her official supervisor of her own supervisory promotion—Pamela let Anne ask Osnan to initiate the Pentagon check, taking over the telephone only to ensure that the Chicago e-fit image and the full, detailed description of the General was being run through all military records, past and present, and even extended to the navy, despite the rank.
It was during the call that she learned of William Cowley’s impending return to Washington. She said, “Atmosphere any better there?”
“No,” Osnan said shortly. “Got something to run by you when you get back.”
“Why not now?”
“Not the time or the place,” refused the man. “It’s personal.”
Pamela spent the return flight mentally examining the past few days, searching for oversights. She had forgotten Osnan’s remark when she entered the J. Edgar Hoover building to find another setback awaiting her.
“Problem,” announced John Meadowcraft when she returned his call. “Both Guzov and Kabanov
are
using two different cell phones. But there’s only one issued in each name. They must have the other under other names.”
are
using two different cell phones. But there’s only one issued in each name. They must have the other under other names.”
“How’s that affect us scanning in?” queried Pamela.
“They don’t use it to talk,” declared the man.
“I don’t understand.”
“Each number on a cell phone pad also represents three letters of the alphabet and can be used to send text messages: no conversation.”
“Which we can’t break into?”
“The experts say it would be difficult, even if we had the number. We’ve only caught them using text on a few occasions, always in the parking lot of their realtor building. I sent a gal in looking for apartments. She saw Kabanov and Guzov both hammering away separately. They’ve only got one floor of a twenty-story building. So many phones it sounds like a bird aviary scanned from outside.”
“There must be something!”
“I spent the morning with virtually every electronics expert we’ve got.”
“Bank statements!” she demanded. “They have to pay!”
“Sure they do,” agreed the Trenton bureau head. “But not off any statement we’ve accessed, private or company. It’s either cash—and we haven’t followed either to any cell phone office or outlet—or a check in the name in which they hold the phones. And we don’t have that name, so we’re back where we started.”
“Shit!” Pamela said vehemently.
“So much I can’t see through it,” accepted Meadowcraft. “You or anyone else have a way around, I’d like to hear it.”
“I’ll run it by technical.”
“I already have,” reminded the man.
Too much was going wrong: confusingly, frustratingly wrong! “I’ll talk around,” she said, aware of the hollow echo of empty words.
It was only when she was setting the latest difficulty out to Osnan, for him to take up with any bureau division he thought might have a suggestion, that Pamela remembered his remark on the telephone in Albany.
“What’s personal?” she asked.
“How well do you know Bill? Socially, I mean?”
“Hardly at all. We only met on this case. A dinner, a few drinks is all.” The man wouldn’t have understood the nursing overnight.
Osnan hesitated. “Would you say he had a drinking problem?”
“No,” Pamela said at once. “Why?”
“A few rumors going around since the technical guys got back.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“Rumors don’t have names attached.”
“Being given as the cause for lifting the surveillance?”
“Inevitably.”
“Find the source. This isn’t the time for a story like that.”
“That’s why I told you. And why I thought you ought to know.”
There wasn’t any relaxation in Moscow. Cowley convened a conference of those he was leaving behind with Danilov present, making it clear the Russian unofficially shared control with Martlew and should know everything that went on, but there was the impression of slowing down. The round-the-clock watch was maintained on the Oldsmobile’s garage, but Baratov didn’t take his sister out again. There was no advance warning from the Manhattan listeners of telephone contact between Brooklyn’s Bay View Avenue and the restaurant on Moscow’s Pereulok Vorotnikovskij. The Warsaw agent in charge called several times, apologizing on each occasion for not being able to locate any Polish freighter shipments to America. They hadn’t located the name Yevgenni Mechislavovich Leanov on the passenger list of any Aeroflight or America-bound airline, but it was possible for people to travel on tickets in a name different from that on their passports. Georgi Chelyag’s concern at the president being associated with the ordnance loss revived when Danilov told him of Cowley’s return to America. Danilov exacerbated it by suggesting the American was going back for an inquiry into the disappearance, which didn’t actually amount to a lie.
Danilov even found time to go to Larissa’s grave in the Novodevichy Cemetery and was shocked by its neglect. The few flowers that hadn’t been stolen for other graves were atrophied, the vase on its side. They were dead leaves everywhere, and the headstone was covered in birds’ shit from a now-abandoned nest in the overhanging tree. It took him a long time to clean everything up and arrange the fresh flowers he’d brought. Afterwards he went to the other side of the cemetery, where Olga was buried. The headstone and surroundings were scrubbed clean; there wasn’t any leaf or tree debris, and the flowers were fresh. Igor, he guessed. One of the photographs he’d given the man had been mounted in a mourning frame and fixed to the base of the headstone. Danilov was surprised how attractive—beautiful—his wife looked. On each of the concluding evenings Danilov and Cowley drank, Cowley increasingly too much.
Until the very last night, that was. Things had, in fact, started to happen much earlier in the day. Danilov had only been in his office for an hour when the call came from Chelyag, asking if he had an available television. When Danilov told the chief of staff that he had, Chelyag said, “Watch the parliamentary coverage. I’ll see you at three.”
The reshuffle had the approval of the president, declared the prime minister. The reforms the White House had initiated needed fresh impetus from a revitalized government. And those reforms were being extended beyond the economy. The U.S. Embassy attack and the ongoing investigation had focused attention on Russian law enforcement and exposed a totally unacceptable level of corruption. The minister ultimately responsible had to bear the burden of that fault. Nikolai Gregorovich Belik was therefore being replaced. In the new democratic system of Russia the role of the Federal Security Service had changed, taking on more of a law enforcement role. Therefore it was as culpable for a level of criminality all too often described in the West as being out of control. It was an accusation that could not be allowed to continue. For that reason Viktor Kedrov was also being moved. The use of a Russian chemical and biological warhead in a fortunately failed attack upon the United Nations and of other Russian devices in further outrages had greatly embarrassed and humiliated the country as well as initially placing some strain upon relationships between Russia and the United States of America. As the Duma already knew, some steps had been taken to rectify clear lack of military supervision. Defense Minister General Sergei Gromov, who should have prevented that failure, was being retired.
“You chose correctly,” said the president’s chief of staff later.
“Unfortunate there was a need to choose,” said Danilov.
“The president supports people who are loyal to him.”
Danilov recognized they feared a parliamentary fight back. A battle in which he could still be the equivalent of a germ warfare missile fired against the White House. A mistake to ease the tension on the ratchet wheel. “I do not know the new interior minister.”
“An advocate of reforms and the new Russia.”
“Whom I should brief?”
Chelyag’s face hardened and Danilov was glad: He wanted the man fully to accept he’d not only deciphered the code but was able to communicate in it, just like a foreign language.
Chelyag said, “The crisis committee no longer exists because so many who formed it no longer exist in any position of authority. It is not being reestablished. You will continue to report only to me. The arrangement is understood by the new minister. Everything is now understood by everybody.”
A mistake to believe he was a better exponent of the newly learned art, Danilov recognized. “I’m sure it is.”
“How sure are you of this all concluding as it has to conclude, Dimitri Ivanovich?” demanded Chelyag, tightening his own ratchet wheel.
“The Russian end of the conspiracy here will be destroyed,” declared Danilov. “There’s still uncertainty—and a Russian element—in America.”
“We don’t want anything involving Russia ending inconclusively,” said the other man. “Don’t forget that, will you, Dimitri Ivanovich?”
That night Baratov did collect his sister in the Oldsmobile, and again they ate in the American-themed restaurant. Their conversation was inconsequential except for two minutes on the recording tape.
Baratov:
It must have been good, talking to him again?Naina:
He said he went straight through—that it was the easiest route imaginable.Baratov:
What about the stuff?Naina:
Waved over at Grodno without being stopped. Halfway there by now.Baratov:
What about Gavri?Naina:
Hasn’t made contact yet.Baratov:
I spoke to Svetlana about moving to America. She likes the idea.Naina:
The more I think about it, the more I think Gavri needs to go.
Cowley looked around the embassy listening room and said, “Yevgenni Leanov got past U.S. immigration. He’s in America, waiting for enough materiel to arrive to cause a major catastrophe.”
“‘Already halfway there,’” echoed Martlew. “And he’s probably going to kill another Russian.”
“Hell of a busy guy,” said Cowley.
Exasperated by the military’s insistence that it would take at least a month to run a three services’ personnel comparison against the Chicago e-fit and the manufacturers’ equally frustrating estimate to collate the distribution and purchase of maroon Land Cruisers throughout Illinois, Pamela seized the Oldsmobile intercept as the breath of air to blow her out of the doldrums.
Acknowledging the near impossibility of a search without a name—if indeed Leanov hadn’t traveled under his own—she used Frank Norton’s White House muscle to have immigration check every Russian passport arrival at every U.S. port or airport, East and West Coast, and to run checks for American residency addresses on the visa forms. There was renewed frustration at further insistence that such a search could take weeks despite the narrow timeframe since Leanov’s disappearance from Moscow.
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