“So how dangerous are the five things that aren’t fixed?” demanded Cowley.
Neil Hamish, the ballistics experts, spread his hands in an open gesture. “Nothing’s been defused; it’s the detonation and timing we’ve rigged. So technically it’s all dangerous. The five untouched are two antitank mines made to shatter thick armor and three phosphorous incendiaries. If they’re connected with any of the other stuff, we’ll be OK. If all five were used separately and for one incident-and that’s very unlikely-you’ve got a major explosion and an inferno at the target scene, not before. Explode them in a crowded environment, a shopping mall for instance, and you’ve got a catastrophe.”
“I think it’ll be judged that we’ve already got one,” said Cowley.
Barry Martlew said, “For someone claiming to be on the side of the good guys, the president staged a hell of a diversion, didn’t he?”
Danilov, who’d been waiting for the accusation, gave them Chelyag’s explanation. Voicing everyone’s exasperated disgust, Martlew said, “Jesus Henry Christ!”
“Let’s consider the positives,” Cowley insisted, briskly. “We’ve got a good lead on how the stuff will be shipped, and we’ve got the Chicago waterfront under wraps. We’ll know from Customs in advance the arrival of any Cidicj line freighter. The cargo manifest has to be declared, so we’ll even know if anything’s specifically consigned to OverOcean Inc. I don’t know how strong we are in Poland, but we could move some people up to Gdansk from the Warsaw embassy. We might have dropped the ball but I think we can pick it up again.”
It was not until Igor Baratov returned the Oldsmobile to its garage the following day that they began seriously to suspect that Leanov was no longer in Moscow. Later that night they were sure. In between Danilov managed meeting with Georgi Chelyag.
“It had better be important!” greeted the presidential aide.
“Judge for yourself,” said Danilov. His irritation ebbed at Chelyag’s visible reaction to the weapons loss.
For once, although briefly, the chief of staff appeared lost for words, initially only saying: “Oh.” Quickly he added, “Definitely while the president was there?”
Into Danilov’s mind came Barry Martlew’s remark and just as quickly the personal protection there might be in it. Maybe, he thought, he was no longer the discardable nobody who’d served his brief purpose. “Absolutely no doubt. The Americans are actually talking of it being a diversion.”
“What!”
“If the surveillance had been in place, we wouldn’t have lost anything.”
“Washington been told that?”
“Yes,” Danilov said, only slightly exaggerating. “If it leaks-not just now but any time in the future-it’ll destroy most of what you achieved, won’t it? It would be easy for the public to believe the president was involved, even. Reignite the whole censure debate.”
From Chelyag’s unblinking concentration Danilov wondered if he’d overemphasized the threat of his personal knowledge. Chelyag said, “What have you done?”
“Dismissed it as ludicrous; stressed the absolute, leader-to-leader cooperation. Problem is, the facts would hardly need manipulation, would they?”
“There could be further direct contact,” suggested Petrov.
“To a suspicious mind, wouldn’t the denial look like a confirmation?” How quickly Danilov had learned and adjusted to the way the chief of staff’s mind worked.
“Will you be able to judge the way the American thinking is going?”
“I think so.”
“I need to know; we can’t be caught out.”
“The greater danger would be for the leak to emanate from here.”
“Yes?” encouraged the older man.
“Which can’t happen.” Danilov smiled. “I’m the only Russian who knows.”
Chelyag didn’t smile back. “That is very fortunate.”
“Very,” agreed Danilov.
The proof of Leanov’s disappearance-agonizingly vague about the man, illuminating about others-emerged after Igor Baratov arrived in the bugged car to collected his sister from Pereulok Samokatnaja. Cowley and Danilov were already waiting in the embassy’s bureau offices, alerted by the pursuit car from the garage. The conversation actually began with Naina Karpov asking about the Oldsmobile’s flat, which Baratov said his garage had been unable to find. There was some conversation about educating their children-hers as well as his-abroad (“we can certainly afford the fees”) before Baratov said, “Heard from Yevgenni?”
“I don’t expect to.”
“Long drive?”
“Worth it.”
“He going to deal with Gavri?”
“He’s going to see how he finds things.”
“I think we should. It’s undermining our position here.”
“You heard from Petrovka?”
“A week ago. Osipov is definitely being dismissed as a turf war killing and Lasin’s death as part of it. Ashot Yefimovich is handling it all. Insisting the brigade’s disbanded.”
The woman laughed. “You can’t believe how easy it is to operate here, can you!”
Baratov laughed in return. “What about the presidential nonsense yesterday! There we were, right under the stupid bastard’s nose, and none of them had a clue!”
The warning crackled from the following vehicle that the route didn’t seem to be to the Golden Hussar.
Naina Karpov said, “Mizin’s a good man. Needs looking after.”
“I’m doing it,” assured Baratov. “You and Yevgenni seem to be close?”
“I like him. It’s good.”
“Permanent?”
“It’s an idea.”
“How would it work? If we decided on a move, he’d have to replace Gavri in America, wouldn’t he?”
“Too early to say. You want your kid educated abroad, what’s wrong with America?”
“Nothing,” said Baratov.
The restaurant was one of the latest on the current fashion list, out beyond the inner beltway. Called the New York Grill, it actually was run by an American. Cowley decided against his watchers going in to eat. For the first time in several days he and Danilov went to the Savoy bar to fill in the time. Over their third scotch Danilov nodded toward the American’s glass and said, “You seem to be enjoying it?”
“I always have.”
“I know.”
“That supposed to mean something?” Cowley demanded, defensively.
“Just talking.” The Russian shrugged.
“You think it’s a problem?” There was an edge to Cowley’s voice now.
“You know that better than me.”
“It isn’t.”
“Good.”
“Something been said?”
“No,” said Danilov. He missed another two rounds and insisted they skip a third to get back to the embassy for Naina Karpov’s return from the restaurant. They had to wait almost an hour, which Cowley occupied drafting an account for Washington and speaking directly to Terry Osnan. Nothing of significance was said during Naina Karpov’s homeward journey. Baratov played Billie Holiday all the way back to Nikitskij after dropping his sister off. Cowley said, “We need to keep this up much longer, I’ll buy them a new fucking tape.”
Pamela Darnley’s first full day in Chicago, which had only just ended, had been one of inquests and frustrations, too, only lifted at its very end by the news of Robert Standing’s Albany arrest and learning that she’d been right about another illegal entry through the Pentagon. Her concern at hearing from Terry Osnan that Cowley and Danilov had lost the arms shipment and the man seemingly on his way from Moscow went beyond the professional. Secure now in her own permanent appointment, she was worried about Cowley, well aware the scapegoat vacancy was available if there were many more mistakes or failures.
Protected herself-wishing there was something she could do to help Cowley-she insisted that Steven Murray write an official, case file explanation for the failure to provide a scanner and ordered s
ix top-of-the-range devices from bureau headquarters, both analog and digital, against the contact being made to Bay View Avenue the same way again.
She’d seized the Albany identification of the computer cafe, Cyber Shack on Halsted Street, as a major, potentially case-solving breakthrough, particularly when she saw how much concealment there was among the milling students from the Illinois University campus less than a block away. She carried with her Patrick Hollis’s anonymous first cable and the second he’d sent that morning, again using Robert Standing’s computer ID and also addressed to the General. It read:
WAR CHESTS ARE LOCKED.
It was 12:32 P.M. and crowded inside and out when Pamela arrived, with Stephen Murray and a five-man backup, with a SWAT team on standby. They’d already established that the cafe was owned by brothers Herbie and Jason Montgomery, both former computer science students at the university who had no criminal convictions, no civil court orders against them, no posted debts, and permanent addresses in the city. Pamela said, “This is letterbox rental: We go straight in and identify ourselves?”
It was Pamela’s first encounter with nerds. Herbie Montgomery wore thick-lensed John Lennon glasses and looked like a bright-eyed nesting bird peering from inside a tangled hedge of hair that merged with an unclipped beard spread to his chest like a bib. His brother was clean shaven, without glasses, and had the soap-faced pallor of someone who never strayed from the sunless vastness of cyberspace. Both wore bib-and-suspender overalls and work boots. Their back office was a snake’s nest of cables, coils, wires, and blank-eyed terminals.
When Pamela showed the two men copies of the two messages, Herbie said, “Hey! Guy didn’t take anything that wasn’t his.”
“Let’s go from the beginning,” said Murray.
“One cool cracker,” obliged Jason. “Came in last Wednesday, said he wanted to rent page space. Called himself the General, like all hackers and crackers do. Paid fifty dollars up front. Expected him back from time to time: That’s the usual way, not on the web themselves so they use our home page and our terminals. But this guy collects his own mail from outside. Cracked in, downloaded, and was away.
“But like I said,” took up Herbie, “he paid. He’s still in credit.”
“OK,” said Pamela. “So let’s go back again. Proper name?”
Herbie smiled sympathetically. “Cyber gypsies don’t use real names. Surfing you can be who you like, go where you like. Nobody knows you’ve been or gone ’less you want them to. This guy wanted to be the General so that’s who he was.”
“How’d he pay?” asked Murray, anticipating the answer.
“Cash. Fifty-dollar bill.”
“Where is it now?”
The brother looked at the local bureau chief in astonishment. “How do we know! It was four days ago! Might have banked it, used it in change, spent it. Could be anywhere.”
“You ever see him before?” persisted Pamela, all expectation gone.
Herbie shook his head. Jason said, “Nope.”
“Describe him.”
Both men thought. Herbie said, “Big guy. Obviously kept himself in shape: no gut. About forty-five. Stood tall, like an army type.” He buried his hand into his bird’s-nest hair. “Had that sort of haircut, too. You know, right up to the top of his head.”
“And a tattoo,” reminded Jason.
“What of?” demanded Murray.
“Eagle. The American eagle, on his left arm.”
“How could you see it?” asked Murray.
“He was wearing a short-sleeved sport shirt, with jeans. New. And combat boots. Like the others.”
“What others?” demanded Pamela.
“There were three other guys in the jeep outside-a modern one, not an army type, but the doors were open and he sat with his foot up against the dash, so I saw his boots,” said Jason.
“What color was the vehicle?”
“Maroon,” said the brothers, in unison.
“I tell you what I want you guys to do,” said Pamela. “I want you to come down to the bureau offices with us and take all the time in the world to work with an artist on an e-fit of the General and the others, if you can remember enough about them. And we’ll look through every make of jeep there’s ever been until you recognize the one they had.”
“What the hell’s this guy done!” demanded Herbie.
“Caused a lot of trouble,” she said.
On their way back out to the car, Murray said, “It’s good.”
“Not good enough,” Pamela said.
When she got back to the office, there were call-back messages from the director and Terry Osnan.
Osnan said, “The navy has a navigation satellite in geostationary orbit over the Pacific. It had been put out by two degrees. Would have put everything off course.”
The director said, “I’m not sure how many more commendations I can award. Looks to me like you might be heading for a presidential medal.”
What about a deputy directorship? wondered Pamela.
Robert Standing had been led away from the building in handcuffs, with virtually every window occupied by watching bank staff. Hollis was sure Standing had been crying; certainly two or three girls inside had been weeping. Carole Parker had been one of them.
36
The most intense inquest was obviously long distance, from Washington. Leonard Ross insisted on a written, detailed account to which Cowley had to add two further responses to the director’s subsequent queries. In addition there were repeated, tense-voiced telephone conversations. Ross actually echoed Barry Martlew’s diversion cynicism, which Cowley answered by quoting Igor Baratov’s intercepted ridicule of clearing the lock-up garage under the Russian president’s nose. The protection-seeking Danilov had already decided to keep the recorded ridicule-the entire tape and its contents-from Georgi Chelyag.
From the “long drive” remark on the recording, they guessed the man had left Moscow by road, most likely with the arms shipment. Nevertheless, they checked passenger lists of Aeroflot’s U.S. flights and of all the American carriers for the preceding two days. They found no record of Yevgenni Meckislavovich Leanov leaving Moscow by air.
“Viktor Nikov had two passports,” reminded Danilov. “The KGB printed genuine documents. Leanov’s farewell present from the Lubyanka could have been as many as he wanted.”
Cowley spent a long time on the telephone to the FBI office at the Warsaw embassy-which had already received independent priority instructions in the director’s name from Washington-and wired all the available photographs, including Leanov’s from his KGB dossier. The Polish-based agent in charge apologized for not having any useful contacts within the Gdansk port.
“And we can’t risk approaching Cidicj direct, can we?”
“No,” agreed Cowley.
“You’ve no idea what sort of vehicle-or vehicles-will be delivering the stuff? Just that it’ll most likely be Russian registration but that’s not definite?”
Cowley squeezed his eyes shut in exasperation. “I don’t need reminding!”
“Don’t hold your breath that we’ll get anything,” said the other man.
Pamela Darnley was still in Chicago when Osnan relayed the request for Customs authorities there to post an “instant advise” watch for incoming Cidicj freighters. When she spoke to the Washington incident room, Osnan said, “We’re also circulating Leanov’s photograph with a detain order to all airports, harbors, and border crossings.”
“What’s the atmosphere like?”
“Deeply unhappy. You coming back?”
“Albany first, to hear all that Robert Standing has to say.” The case-closing breakthrough might only have been delayed, not lost. The three-D digitized computer drawing of the General looked good-like an identifiable living person-and the physical description was far better than most she’d known, with the bonus of the eagle tattoo. And the Montgomery brothers were positive about the maroon Toyota Land Cruiser. All she had to do was break Standing; in th
e euphoria the heat would be taken off Cowley. Her sudden desire to do that-help him however she could-surprised her. Then she thought: Why not? They were level-grade colleagues now, no longer with a superior-to-subordinate barrier. And it would be her choice, just like in a singles’ bar.
Pamela went cautiously into the interview at Albany police headquarters, warned by Anne Stovey (“thanks for the commendation”) of her initial arrest interrogation.
“He won’t shift,” said the local FBI agent.
“He been Mirandaed?” queried Pamela. It didn’t matter how many people she had to teach to suck eggs, she didn’t intend getting screwed by a legal technicality like failure to advise the man of his legal rights.
“Read out, in full, in front of his lawyer-the top guy here in Albany-to whom he was granted immediate access before being asked a single question,” confirmed Anne. “Everything recorded on tape.”
Pamela looked up from the transcript of the first interrogation. “He got a mental problem?”
“Those are his answers,” said the other woman.
“Let’s try again,” said Pamela.
Robert Standing was unshaven and unshowered, the underarms of his shirt sweat-rimed, and he was red-eyed. There was a smell. In total contrast, the lawyer beside him was immaculate in pinstripes, with a mustache and goatee in a miasma of after-shave and cologne. He insisted on a formal exchange of cards, identifying himself as Albert Lang, which she already knew. Pamela had to search through her purse for a card to return.
He looked pointedly at the recording apparatus, waiting for it to be turned it on. As soon as Anne Stovey did so, the man said, “My client has cooperated fully with your investigation. Having done so, he has the right to refuse this second interview, but I have advised him to continue to cooperate. I want to place on record, at this juncture, that it is my client’s intention to sue the Federal Bureau of Investigation for harassment and illegal arrest.”
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