The Watchmen

by Brian Freemantle

  “Bill?” The voice was louder, to his right, not his left. It said, not quite so distinctly, “The perforation is in the left, not the right,” and then more directly, “Yes, Bill. You’re talking. We can hear you. You’re all right. You’re fine. You’re going to sleep now and it’ll be a lot better in a while.”

  The blackness wasn’t the blackness of dying. The pain stayed in his head, although not so bad—bearable even—and there was a dream that he knew wasn’t really a dream. Of people being in the air, as if they were flying: Burt Bradley and the sheriff with the tractor whose name he couldn’t remember and the Highway Patrol commander whose name he couldn’t remember, either, but then he could—Petrich, Alan Petrich—and an explosion although he couldn’t hear any noise this time. But there were voices he could hear, real voices that he could hear much more clearly.

  One said, “You feeling better this time, Bill?” and Cowley felt himself—distantly heard himself—say, “Yes,” because he did, compared to how it had been before. He could endure the pain in his head now. He hadn’t been aware of the ache in his chest the first time but that was bearable, too, as long as he didn’t breathe too deeply.

  “My name’s Pepper. Joe Pepper. You’re in the George Washington University Hospital in Washington, and I’m your neurologist. You understand what I’m telling you, Bill?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s good!” Pepper said enthusiastically. “That’s very good indeed. I’ve taken away all the harsh light and I want you to open your eyes. I’ll tell you when we’re going to shine a beam directly in, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Open now.”

  There were several people—the movement of several people—around the bed, but he couldn’t distinguish anything about them. Everyone had more than one face and body, each superimposing on the other, although they didn’t quite fit, each outline slightly off center. He said, “I can’t see. Not properly. It’s blurred … like … .”

  “Here comes the light,” warned Pepper. “We’re going to hold your eye open.”

  It hurt but not so much as before, and a different voice said, “No corneal or retinal damage. I’m pleased with that. Looks like it’s all down to you, Joe.”

  Pepper said, “There had to be some good news.”

  “I thought I’d been killed,” said Cowley. The blur wouldn’t go but it didn’t hurt any longer to keep his eyes open.

  The neurologist said, “You’ve got a pretty severe concussion. You were against a tree so you were either blown into it or something hit you. You’ve got twelve stitches in the side of your head but there’s no skull fracture. You’ve got a busted rib, on the right. And your left eardrum is perforated …”

  “My eyes … ?”

  “Temporary,” assured the other voice. “You’ve jarred, maybe even bruised, the optic nerve. It’ll go, very quickly.”

  Pepper said, “And the hearing in your left ear will get better, although it won’t ever be quite like it was before. Considering, you’re one hell of a lucky guy.”

  “What about everyone else?” asked Cowley. He already had the impression that his hearing was clearer.

  “No need to talk about that now,” Pepper said at once.

  A woman’s voice, pleasantly soft but urgent, said, “We need the debrief. He turned back. We need whatever it was—”

  “Who’s that?” demanded Cowley.

  “My name’s Darnley, Bill. Pamela Darnley. I’m from the bureau. You feel able to talk to me?”

  “What unit?”

  “Terrorism. You OK to talk to me?”

  “Of course I’m—” began Cowley, impatiently loud, but he had to stop because of the quick burst of pain at his own noise. More quietly he said, “How many dead?”

  The woman said, “A lot. Seventeen.”

  Cowley squinted at the blur of faces at the bottom of his bed, wishing he could see her. “Burt Bradley dead?”

  “Lost his right arm completely. And his right leg, below the knee. And he’s blind.

  “Jesus Christ! The rest?”

  “Every one.”

  “I saw—” started Cowley, but she came in too quickly.

  “That’s what I need to know! What did you see?”

  “—bits of bodies,” Cowley finished.

  There was a silence around the bed. She said, “It was a hell of a mess. You sure you can go on with this?”

  “I’m your case officer! Sharpe. What happened to Sharpe?” That was the sheriff’s name, John Sharpe. His chest throbbed from the fresh outburst: the broken rib, he supposed.

  “Dead,” she said.

  “Petrich?”

  “Dead. The only local guy to survive was Steven Barr. He was farther away than you; didn’t get touched. But he saw you turn and start to go back. Say something?”

  Cowley carefully moved his head toward where he imagined the neurologist to be. “What day is it? I mean, how long have I been here since it happened?”

  “It’s the day after. The afternoon. Less than twenty-four hours.”

  “How long before my eyes clear?”

  “Forget it,” said Pepper. “You’re not doing anything for a long time.”

  “Neither are seventeen others guys, are they?”

  He’d slept again, although he hadn’t wanted to, but when he opened his eyes once more there was a definite improvement in his vision. The ophthalmic surgeon who’d examined him before said the nerve was obviously only jarred, which was good, and Pepper, who turned out to be a young but completely bald man, decided it was OK for Pamela Darnley to go on with the debriefing.

  Even close up he couldn’t properly discern her features, although he could see she was dark-haired, worn short, and had large glasses, which were black framed. She smelled good. She told him she’d set up the tape recorder on the edge of his bed and that the moment he felt like stopping he had to—Dr. Pepper was sitting in on the interview with them—but the bureau wanted everything he could remember, particularly why he’d turned and started to shout at the moment of the explosion.

  “The video and still camera?” demanded Cowley. “They survive?”

  “The video was relayed automatically. So we’ve got it all. The still camera was badly smashed, but they’re working on that now to see what they can salvage.”

  “What about the video commentary?”

  “That’s with the video. That’s OK.”

  “Anything on it about jungle training? Raking their tracks?”

  She didn’t reply at once. “There’s something about raking the ground. I don’t remember anything about jungle training: I need to check.”

  “While they were waiting for the tractor, to pull the boat out, I talked with Jefferson Jones. He told me that they’d literally cleared their tracks. He said, “These guys got jungle training, for sure.” Soldiers—particularly special unit guys who might also know how to fire a missile from a moving boat—get jungle training. And special unit training always involves booby-trapping abandoned materiel. That cruiser was very specifically abandoned and the trap set to get the maximum number of people—bureau personnel—around it by initially giving the wrong location.”

  “That all?” She sounded disappointed.

  “If I’d worked it out five minutes earlier seventeen people wouldn’t now be dead and Burt Bradley would still have his arms and legs and eyes.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Pamela.

  “The wrong-location call to the Highway Patrol been traced?” he asked.

  “A public booth in a mall at New Rochelle.”

  “The cassette we’ve got is a copy.”

  “The original’s gone. Wiped.”

  “Shit! Any claimed responsibility yet?”

  “No.”

  “How’d the bomb work?” he demanded.

  “Bombs,” corrected Pamela. “From the amount of recovered metal, there were at least three.”

  “How’d they work?”

  “Again it’s preliminary thi
nking, but it looks like antipersonnel stuff with a slack wire connected to the detonator or pin. When the boat started to move the wire tightened, activating the detonator or pulling out the pin.” She hesitated. “And they were antipersonnel. Shrapnel-packed, for maximum physical damage after detonation.”

  “Russian manufacture?” pressed Cowley.

  “Nothing on that yet. The metal’s being analyzed, obviously.”

  On the helicopter flight from New York he’d said overkill was better than underkill, Cowley remembered. He remembered, too, the forensic team leader’s praise of the local organization and the remark about spending more time with wives and families. “Jefferson Jones have any kids?”

  “Six,” the woman said shortly.

  “You told me you were with the terrorism unit?”

  “I’ve taken Burt’s place. Temporarily at the moment.”

  “Tell Ross I’m not off the case.”

  “I think I should have some input here,” intruded Pepper but Cowley spoke over him.

  “I’m not off the case! We are looking for people—some people at least—with special military experience and training. The whole thing was planned like a military operation: the attack on the UN, everything that happened afterward. I want every militant or crazy in the New Rochelle area—everywhere in New York State, Connecticut, and New Hampshire—checked out. If it wasn’t local knowledge, they reconnoitered, certainly the creek. Patrolman Mitchell talked of a marina farther downriver. Check every single boat owner and marina—and I mean every single one—for strangers seen moving about, as if they had a special interest: taking notes, photographs, stuff like that. And go hard on the military. They’re ducking. I want the names of every guy—and girl—whose records show a connection with any militant group that got them recognized or into trouble. Especially if it got as far as a court-martial. OK?”

  “Bill,” said the woman upon whom he couldn’t properly focus. And paused. “Bill,” she started again. “A few hours ago you thought you were dead. So did a lot of other people, me included. We’ve got to get these bastards before they kill anyone else, which means everyone’s got to be thinking straight, seeing straight.” She stopped. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be smart about seeing straight. The director’s asked me to report back, how you are. And I don’t think and the hospital doesn’t think—Dr. Pepper here doesn’t think—that you’re in any fit state to go on heading this investigation. That if you tried you’d endanger it. We’re not talking feelings or attitudes here. We’re talking operational practicality.” And my future, Pamela Darnley thought. My big chance, once-in-a-lifetime fast-track future opportunity.

  “You got any problem with the way I’ve been thinking, analyzing?”

  There was a pause. “No.” Who the fuck did this guy thing he was, Superman?

  “You believe you can organize the manpower—switch it from the concentration upon finding the boat, which we don’t need to do anymore—to pursue the special services’ check?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got any other line of inquiry to follow at this precise moment?”

  “No.” She wished she had.

  “I’ll judge my own capability. And if something comes up before I think I am capable, I’ll back off. Not for one moment, for any half-assed personal reason, will I endanger a successful investigation. You do me a favor and tell Ross that? Say that’s how I feel and ask him to go with me.”

  “I’ll tell him,” promised the woman. She wouldn’t have had to—could have used different words and expressions without actually lying—if the damned neurologist hadn’t been there as a witness.

  “Tell him that although the Hoover Building isn’t a line office, that’s where I think the incident room should be, where he has instant access. Bring Terry Osnan in as controller and evidence officer.”

  Pamela nodded, hating what she considered the subsidiary, gofer role.

  “Anything else?”

  “There was a call from Russia. Dimitri Danilov. Just to find out about you.”

  “You take it personally?”

  “No. But he’s calling back.”

  “Get all the Russian calls put through to you personally. Tell him you’re in temporary charge; that he should tell you all he gets. He’s a good guy. Straight as an arrow. Anything else?”

  “A Pauline called. Your ex-wife?” She sounded doubtful.

  “Pauline is my ex-wife.”

  “Needed to check: Director’s imposed personal security regulations and you’re getting a lot of media coverage at the moment. You want me to call Pauline back?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  A nurse had to dial the number, because Cowley couldn’t see to do it, and it was difficult for him to listen with the phone to his right ear because he normally held it against his left. The ringing tone hurt. Pauline wasn’t in her apartment so he left a message on the machine that he was fine and would call again.

  The overpoweringly perfumed smell in the BMW was beginning to nauseate Dimitri Danilov, along with all the other things he was sickened by.

  It was impossible to calculate how many thousands more biological and chemical weapons had been stored all around him in Plant 35. Or equate the total, disregarding cynicism with which international pronouncements were made about peace and stability. Portentious reflection. What about personal attitudes? Although, since Larissa, he’d imagined he’d had no interest in his career or his future or in anything—content to operate virtually as a nonfeeling, nonreactive automaton—there was an unexpected, even surprising, uncertainty at the extent to which he was going to challenge the highest level of government without the slightest degree of personal insurance.

  There was a very real physical distaste now, this very moment, enclosed in a sick-making car with two policemen epitomizing in suit-shining flamboyance the core of what was wrong with Russian justice. Despite their knowing he was not one of them, they still believed themselves capable of manipulating him. And above all, in the very forefront of his mind, was the distraction of not knowing if William Cowley—with whom the thought of working again had penetrated the self-pitying lassitude—was alive or dead. Thinking back to his earlier impression of several separate but connected parts making up a whole, Danilov recognized all the different aspects and emotions—his concern about Cowley most of all—had made him start thinking like the detective he was supposed to be.

  “We should have obtained an official search warrant,” complained Colonel Oleg Reztsov.

  Danilov actually sniggered at the mere thought of this man being eager to observe the law. He said, “I’m the ranking officer. It’s being done upon my authority and I accept all and every liability.” He’d actually delayed telling them what he wanted to do—search without warning the apartment of Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov—until he’d gotten into the car.

  “An illegal search will make illegal anything we find,” persisted Reztsov.

  Or which could have been planted for them to find, if there’d been time, thought Danilov. Enjoying the question before he asked it, Danilov said: “You always so particular about legality, Oleg Vasilevich? And you, major? Haven’t either of you ever moved first and bothered about procedure later?”

  Averin made no attempt to answer. It was some moments before Reztsov said: “It was you who stressed from the beginning the need for nothing whatsoever to go wrong.”

  “Viktor Nikolaevich Nikov has disappeared, according to your information. Entering his home will not be an illegal search for evidence. It will be a search to satisfy ourselves that he has come to no physical harm. Have you any problem or objection with that explanation, Oleg Vasilevich?”

  “None,” said Reztsov, tightly.

  Viktor Nikov occupied what was clearly the newest apartment block in the city, most levels of which had a startling and unobstructed view of the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers that Danilov had first seen from the air. By Russian standards—American even—the lobby was clean to the point of b
eing sterile and the elevator, in which they ascended with the smiling, bribe-expectant janitor with his master key, rose without any normal stop-start uncertainty. There wasn’t any graffiti, either. By the time they reached Nikov’s level, the ninth floor, the disappointed janitor’s smile had gone, he’d acknowledged Danilov’s authority and insisted he hadn’t seen Nikov for a week, maybe longer.

  The apartment was immaculate. The beds in the master and second bedroom were made, everything in the bathroom was arranged or in cabinets, the towels edge to edge on their rail. There were no unwashed pots or pan in the kitchen or trash in the undersink bin. There were some American-imported pornographic videos in the living room, and in a locked desk drawer, which Danilov forced, there was $900 in American currency. He had to force two more locked drawers completely to search the desk. There were some two-year-old American travel brochures, to Florida and California, and a receipt for $1,300, made out in dollars from Moscow’s Metropole Hotel and marked “paid in cash.” The bottom drawer held a Russian-made Makarov, with a clip of 9mm shells, and an American Smith & Wesson, with two clips of ammunition. Danilov fully extracted each drawer and on the undersides of two found stuck two separate envelopes, one containing $3,200 and another $2,000. He returned to the bedroom, checking closets and drawers as neatly arranged as everywhere else. On a closet shelf there were three empty suitcases and at its bottom five side-by-side pairs of shoes, all Italian made. Danilov looked hopefully for a telephone answering machine but there wasn’t one.

  Either Reztsov or Averin moved from room to room with him. On the second bedroom search the militia colonel said, “He’s run, obviously.”

  “Why?” challenged Danilov.

  Averin snorted a laugh. “Because he knows we’re looking for him, of course.”