“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 t
wo 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.
“You want to tell the president it’s going to take that long or shall I?” Pamela asked the deputy director of Immigration, guessing the director himself had ducked her call.
Observing local territory protocol, she had Stephen Murray pass to Chicago Customs the information that the arms cargo ship was already in the Atlantic. In minutes Terry Osnan’s master index identified Peter Samuels as the Customs director who’d attended the first Washington emergency meeting. Unlike the head of Immigration, Samuels personally and at once took her call.
“We’ve got planes as well as ships,” said the man. “If it’s somewhere in the Atlantic, we’ll find it.”
“We don’t want them to realize we’re looking.”
There was a pained silence. “It’s something we’ve done before.”
And they did it again, in just six hours. Pamela immediately called Leonard Ross. She said, “We’ve located the shipment. But we wouldn’t have been able to without Bill Cowley.”
“I still can’t believe it,” said Patrick Hollis. There were six people around the cafeteria table, including Carole Parker. They were all so occupied with Robert Standing that they hadn’t rejected Hollis when he’d joined them.
“I don’t know,” said Carole. “There was always something about him not just quite right.”
“There must be a lot involved for there not even to have been a bail application,” suggested a teller.
“You spent a lot of time with the FBI guy,” said another, to Hollis. “You get any idea how much?”
“No,” said Hollis, enjoying being asked for an opinion. “But I got the impression it was fairly substantial.”
“So he’ll go to jail?”
“I would think so,” said Hollis. “Poor guy.”
“Why ever feel sorry for him?” demanded Carole.
38
The aerial surveillance docking estimate of five days was confirmed by the Cidicj Star’s cargo manifest filed with Chicago Customs. It gave the fifteenth as the arrival date and listed three containers of tractor and engine parts for OverOcean portside collection. With so much time to prepare, William Cowley had the uneasy impression that he was returning to a vacuum, an impression heightened by all the necessary planning already under way. Worryingly, Leonard Ross’s diary was too full to see him on his first day back.
Terry Osnan had installed a large map of the eastern seaboard of the United States, extending up to include the east coast of Canada and the St. Lawrence Seaway entrance to the Great Lakes. On it he marked the progress of the Cidicj Star—appropriately designated by a red stick pin—constantly updating from Coast Guard aerial reports. Pamela had organized three SWAT teams and fixed at twenty the number of extra agents needed in Chicago to maintain the necessary surveillance on the containers once they were unloaded, to lead them to the terrorist group and the General for whom the military hadn’t offered any identification. Neither had the General made any further approach to the now totally FBI firewalled Cyber Shack.
Although the contact between Washington and Moscow had been absolute, Cowley and Pamela reviewed every development in his absence. Pamela began to regret the meeting halfway through, because it came out like a litany of her achievements, which she hadn’t intended. She thought Cowley looked drained—worse, he looked distracted.
She was even more discomfited when, at the end, he said, “Quite a success story! Congratulations!”
“You already said that, from Moscow,” Pamela reminded him curtly. “I got a couple of lucky breaks and you had a bad one. From which we’ve recovered. We’re still in good shape.” Her ex-husband had drunk too much—it was as much that as her career determination that wrecked the marriage—but she couldn’t recognize any of the signs in Cowley, although there was perhaps the vaguest hand tremor.
“Can’t think of anything you haven’t already got in hand,” he said. There was something like condescension in Pamela surrendering the desk chair to him. The irritation came at once. That was self-pity—or something like it—and went way beyond any remorse he needed to feel. Unless, perhaps, the uncertainty wasn’t remorse at losing the cargo—which she’d pointed out they’d found again—but something else. Back on base now. Time to get a grip on himself.
“What about going there ourselves?” Pamela said.
Cowley considered the question. “Chicago’s going to be the focus. Nowhere else we need to be.”
“Together.”
Cowley wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “There’ll have to be split-second coordination between us and Dimitri in Moscow. I can do that as easily from Chicago as from here; better, even, actually being on the spot.”
“I think we should be together,” stated Pamela.
“So do I.”
“How’s Dimitri taking the death of his wife?”
Cowley had forgotten Pamela had known. “OK.”
“What was it?”
“Routine operation that went wrong,” avoided Cowley. “Don’t know the details.”
“Your hair doesn’t look as if it’s sliding off the side of your head anymore. How have you been?” She couldn’t talk about what she wanted to in official surroundings like this. When—how—could she talk about it?
“OK,” he said, leaning sideways to his briefcase. “I brought you a present.” It was a joke matroyshka set; the one-on-top-of-the-other doll representing Boris Yeltsin had a red nose and a glass of vodka in its hand.
Pamela smiled her thanks and said, “I haven’t been anywhere to justify bringing back a gift. I could buy you dinner if you’re not one of those old-fashioned guys who thinks a man always has to pay.” Was this how it was done in singles’ bars? Not that the intention was sex. She wanted a different setting for a quite different sort of intimacy, and this was the best she could think of.
Cowley appeared as surprised as Pamela was at herself. He said, “That would be a nice welcome home.”
They went to Georgetown again. It was Cowley’s suggestion to stop for a drink at the Four Seasons, and Pamela chose a martini to his scotch. She changed to mineral water at Nathans and because that meant a half bottle Cowley fit in a second whiskey while she finished it. After walking aimlessly along M Street, they decided on the restaurant in wh
ich they’d eaten with Danilov. Again they were early enough not to need a reservations. Cowley had another scotch while they considered the menu and chose a French beaujolais to go with the meal.
Pamela said; “I’ve forgotten who’s to be the host.”
“So had I. Sorry. Want me to cancel the wine?”
“Shouldn’t you?” she asked, taking the opening.
He was caught by her seriousness. “Have I missed part of the plot here?”
“I hope not.”
“Why don’t you sketch it out for me?”
Pamela did, in seconds, knowing nothing beyond what Osnan had told her the day she returned from Albany. Anticipating the question, she said, “I tried to get a name but couldn’t.”
“I drink,” Cowley declared flatly.
“I’ve noticed.”
“But it doesn’t—will never—screw up how I work a case. Booze had nothing to do with my lifting the street surveillance in Moscow.”
“I accept that. But I’m not the person you’ve got to convince if these stories build.”
“How can I stop them? The stories, I mean?”
Pamela shook her head. “I don’t know. It was important that you knew they were circulating.”
“I appreciate it.”
“Were there any problems in Moscow?”
She couldn’t have heard of the previous occasion with the hooker. Only Danilov knew that. She was talking about now. “There were a couple of sessions: a celebration when we found the arms cache. Other people drank more than I did.”
“I just wanted you to be warned,” Pamela said. She supposed there had never been a right time but decided that her moment had been wrong. Until at least halfway through the meal Cowley toyed with just one glass of wine before deciding—and declaring—that it was a stupid reaction and began sharing it properly with her. It was an improvement and each relaxed a little, but what she’d said hung between them. Finally he said, “Was that what this was all about? Warning me?”
The Watchmen Page 43