No Time for Heroes

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘This is preposterous!’ exploded Metkin. ‘I am being accused –!’

  ‘You’ve already been accused, by me!’ Danilov shot back. To the three men sitting in judgement, he said: ‘Let me be accompanied by a ministry official, to authenticate everything that occurs: everything that will also be authenticated quite separately by the tape recording.’

  ‘The entire thing could be twisted!’ persisted Metkin.

  ‘Like other things have already been twisted,’ scored Danilov.

  ‘It would not be independent!’ said Kabalin.

  ‘Would you accept my independent integrity?’ demanded Smolin.

  ‘You!’ blinked Metkin.

  ‘If I were the official present at today’s interview? And I conducted it, and were the person to announce to the man that the gun hadn’t been disposed of?’

  ‘Of course,’ mumbled Metkin, with no choice.

  Smolin had been identified as an honest man by Lapinsk, remembered Danilov.

  ‘Then it is settled,’ said Oskin.

  Not yet, thought Danilov urgently. ‘There are other factors to be considered. Apart from myself and Major Pavin, only three other people were authorised to know the combination of the evidence safe. One, obviously, was the Director. The second was senior Colonel Kabalin. The third was his scene-of-crime officer, Major Aleksei Raina …’

  ‘This is intolerable!’ tried Metkin again. The man was extremely red-faced now, seemingly finding it difficult to remain still. Beside him Kabalin remained ashen, looking nervously from speaker to speaker.

  ‘It is a factor to be considered,’ judged Vorobie.

  The communications register, remembered Danilov. ‘It is possible someone else might be able to help in the enquiry. There is still the matter of falsified documents.’

  ‘What falsified documents?’ demanded Metkin.

  Uninvited, Danilov crossed to the table where the forgotten dossiers lay, allowing himself the briefest of checks before smiling up, satisfied, at the signature he wanted to find. He picked the register up and carried it to where the three men sat, putting it open at the relevant pages in front of them. Alongside, he set his nightly maintained photocopies. ‘The duplicates are the true record. The memorandum ordering Major Pavin to seal the scene of the crime, and those between the Director and Colonel Kabalin, have been added subsequently and the entire numbering sequence, referencing and indexing also changed, to cover their attempt to discredit …’

  ‘… Ridiculous!’ blustered Metkin, aware for the first time there was an accurate record. Groping desperately, he said: ‘Why should he have made a copy, other than to protect himself from the justifiable charge that he and his assistant failed to obey my orders!’

  Danilov let the other man’s question hang in the air. ‘If I intended altering the communications register, why would I have made copies showing the message as not on file but let the originals remain? That just doesn’t make sense. Wouldn’t I have removed them and had the dossier falsified my way to erase all traces?’

  ‘You knew I’d have my secretarial copy!’ said Metkin, unthinking now in his panic. ‘That’s how I’ve exposed you!’

  ‘Then there would have been no purpose in my trying to change anything in the first place, would there?’ deflated Danilov. He was supremely sure of himself at last, confident he was beyond any further attack. He returned to the officials, ‘It’s the system that any document received and put into any record is signed for, as a receipt. You’ll see the signature on all the disputed slips is that of my secretary, Ludmilla Radsic. I would suggest her evidence, of how – and when – they came to be in the register would form an important part of whatever enquiry is set up.’

  Oskin gave the verdict. ‘Pending that enquiry, supervision of the Organised Crime Bureau will be transferred to my personal directorship at the Interior Ministry.’

  Metkin, thick-voiced, said: ‘What does that mean for my position?’

  ‘It is suspended,’ declared Oskin.

  A good homicide detective with a hunch like a burr under a saddle blanket knows when the time for cosy relaxation is over. Rafferty was a very good homicide detective. And Johannsen respected his partner’s hunches.

  They went through everything assembled in America and everything shipped from Moscow and Geneva, and crosschecked each other’s re-examination. When that blanked out they tried to refine the scrutiny to the stages of the investigation, working backwards instead of forwards, from the first moment of Rafferty’s intuitive feeling. Which had been directly after they’d received the shipment from the New York Task Force of the items taken from the abandoned home of Igor Rimyans.

  ‘Got it!’ announced Johannsen triumphantly. He held up one of the photographs taken from the Rimyans’ home, waving it like a flag, then offered it to Rafferty. ‘Look in the background, beyond the group being snapped! See the guy, almost out of the frame?’

  ‘What about him?’ asked Rafferty, staring down but seeing nothing of significance.

  ‘There he is again!’ declared Johannsen, proffering a second print. ‘Third from the left in one of the pictures the Swiss police sent us: pictures of Russian guys who’d been entertained in Geneva by our late lamented Michel Paulac!’

  ‘Eric, my son, I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. One day you’re going to make a great detective. And on that day your country is going to be as proud of you as I am.’

  ‘And my life will be fulfilled,’ said Johannsen.

  The blind man took the call, because the attempted entrapment had been his idea. He talked Metkin down, impatient with the incoherent babble. ‘Who knows about the gun?’

  ‘Me. Kabalin.’

  ‘So nothing can be proved, providing you both insist you know nothing about it.’

  ‘Kabalin is shaky.’

  ‘Tell him if he tries to do a deal – causes us any problems – we will kill him. Make sure he understands. But we’ll kill his wife and his children first. One by one. Make sure he understands we mean it. Because we do.’

  ‘It hasn’t gone right, has it?’ gloated Zimin. ‘In fact, it’s gone very wrong.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  The interrogation of Mikhail Antipov did not resume the day of the confrontation, nor for several days after. The Russian Foreign Ministry offered the American State Department an expanded apology at international diplomatic level, and the Federal Prosecutor invited William Cowley to Pushkinskaya and talked of personality clashes and internal jealousies to be examined by an immediately convened tribunal. Washington agreed not to make any public disclosure, accepting Moscow’s argument it could further impede an already interrupted investigation, with no practical benefit.

  Ludmilla Radsic told the tribunal that upon the Director’s personal instructions, following the original American protest, she had signed receipt of memoranda she had not been permitted to read. She’d had nothing whatsoever to do with the compilation of the register and did not know its contents. She had been personally briefed by the Director prior to her appointment as Danilov’s secretary to make separate notes and report back to him on everything that occurred in his office. She’d been told to listen to every telephone conversation and to every conversation in Russian between Danilov, Pavin and Cowley. She’d had to write down the exchanges in as much detail as possible: once, entering the Director’s office, she’d heard him relaying something about the unsuccessful interview with Raisa Serova to someone on the telephone. She did not know the combination of the exhibit safe, nor what had happened to the Makarov. She’d had to surrender every reminder she’d made, so she had no written evidence Each of Metkin’s secretarial staff testified they had not prepared the disputed messages.

  Metkin and Kabalin continued to deny falsification, insisting the memoranda were genuine, or any knowledge of the missing murder weapon. Metkin also categorically denied ordering Ludmilla Radsic to spy for him. The woman’s circumstantial evidence was judged enough to continue the suspension of both
men but insufficient to bring any formal, criminal charges of conspiracy to impede the course of justice.

  Danilov regarded that as a cover-up, to remove a problem but prevent a public government humiliation, and Cowley agreed with him. Their disillusionment worsened when the questioning of Antipov re-started.

  Although directorship of the Bureau remained with Oskin, the day-to-day supervision was passed to Smolin, who conducted the session as he’d undertaken. Antipov still swaggered, lolling sideways with one arm lodged over the chair back: by now he virtually had a full beard and he smelled badly, from not washing. When Smolin identified himself Antipov laughed in Danilov’s direction and said: ‘He so bad you’ve got to do his job for him?’

  Smolin was too experienced a lawyer ever to feel irritation. ‘It’s all gone wrong,’ he said. ‘They were caught, trying to get rid of the gun. That’s why I’m here: this is official. We’ve still got the gun and it’s going to put you in front of a firing squad. And we have their confessions, too.’

  ‘Congratulations!’

  ‘It’s everyone for himself now. That’s all they’re interested in, saving themselves. As you should be.’

  ‘Who’s they?’ demanded Antipov.

  ‘You tell me,’ said the prosecutor, possibly his only mistake.

  ‘No!’ refused Antipov. ‘You tell me!’

  ‘Metkin. Kabalin.’

  The Mafia man pulled a face, turning down both corners of his mouth. ‘Never heard of them. Like I never heard of anyone named Ivan Ignatov. Or something or someone called Chechen or Ostankino.’

  That was the moment Danilov and Cowley – and Smolin – knew they’d lost. The Federal Prosecutor persisted for almost a further hour, until the repetition risked becoming farcical.

  ‘Metkin and Kabalin weren’t his only protectors!’ decided Danilov in the conference that followed, careless in his frustration at making the accusation to a government minister in the presence of the American.

  There was no disapproval from Smolin. ‘Which would have to mean someone within the Interior Ministry.’

  ‘Or the judiciary,’ added Danilov.

  ‘Which might also account for the decision not to proceed with criminal charges against Metkin or Kabalin!’ suggested Cowley, emboldened by Smolin’s easy acceptance of what Danilov had said.

  ‘That was taken on my advice,’ corrected the Federal Prosecutor, although still with no resentment. ‘There wasn’t enough, legally, to proceed.’

  ‘When will there be?’

  ‘When there is a mistake that can’t be covered up,’ insisted Smolin.

  Danilov hoped there was still the possibility of finding one, but didn’t tell Smolin. He’d insisted upon a replacement secretary. She was a hopefully smiling woman named Galina Kanayev, who had a dumpling face on a dumpling body and whose first job, under Pavin’s guidance, had been to correct the falsified communications dossier. She welcomed the relief of typing Danilov’s official request to the Foreign Ministry for a re-examination of all Petr Serov’s material returned from Washington. Prompted by being told of the comparison he was going to have to make, Pavin said the three names Lapinsk had provided had not shown up in any criminal record: he was about to begin on the records of government personnel.

  Danilov told Cowley that night, in the Savoy bar, he had finally initiated the search. ‘It’s a possibility,’ accepted the American doubtfully.

  ‘Any other suggestions?’

  ‘What about surveillance on Antipov, when he’s released?’

  ‘We’ll try,’ agreed the Russian. ‘He’ll expect it, though.’

  ‘What about bugging his apartment, before you release him?’

  ‘I’ll suggest it,’ said Danilov.

  Cowley remained in the bar after Danilov’s departure. By now he had an accustomed place in the corner furthest from the door. He saw, the moment she entered, the darkly attractive, short-haired girl who’d established an equally accustomed place at a side table, just inside the entrance, for over a week now. He guessed she was a professional, because there were a few of them regularly around, but he’d seen her reject quite a few approaches, so obviously she was extremely particular. He smiled almost without thinking, in the way of bar regulars, and she smiled back: worriedly he wondered if she might have misunderstood and make an approach, but she didn’t. He smiled at the girl as he finally left the bar and she shifted slightly, smiling up expectantly. But he carried on alone to his room.

  ‘The man was head of the Organised Crime Bureau!’ protested Maksim Zimin. ‘We knew how the investigation was going! Now we don’t! It was a totally unnecessary mistake!’

  It was the first time that one of Alexandr Yerin’s intricate proposals had collapsed so badly, and he didn’t like the failure or the criticism. ‘They weren’t our only source, close to what’s going on.’

  ‘They were the best! Kosov doesn’t have any inside access,’ persisted Zimin. ‘And we can’t intercept what’s going to Oskin!’ He thought this more than balanced the Washington error.

  ‘There’s no benefit in looking back,’ intervened Gusovsky, although he agreed with Zimin. ‘The link-up is far more important. We are going to get the company details legally assigned soon now.’

  ‘We’re not going to delay the meeting?’ queried Zimin, the delegate, hoping his reluctance didn’t show. He was uneasy operating outside the guaranteed safety and protection of Moscow.

  ‘Definitely not,’ insisted Yerin. ‘We’ve got to maintain their confidence.’

  ‘There’s no way we can be blocked, getting the money. You can make all the agreements: they won’t expect you to be carrying it with you,’ said Gusovsky.

  ‘We won’t have the investigation monitored!’ said Zimin, not wanting to relax the pressure on the blind man.

  ‘Kosov will have to work that much harder,’ said Gusovsky.

  ‘What about Metkin and Kabalin?’

  Yerin gave a waving gesture, like someone disturbing an irritating insect. ‘They’re no further use to us.’

  ‘They know!’ insisted Zimin.

  ‘And if they talk they go to jail for the rest of their lives! They know that, too. Stop pissing your pants!’

  ‘I need to know everything about Switzerland,’ said Zimin.

  ‘Just make the contact and convince them we can set up the deal,’ said Yerin.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The funeral, at Novodevichy cemetery, of Petr Aleksandrovich Serov provided the news-starved media with the first public event since the activity around the scenes of the American murders: what little there had been at the Moscow river bank had ended before the Ignatov killing had been leaked by the Washington mayor. The swarm of international journalists, cameramen and TV crews hugely outnumbered the tiny group of mourners.

  Danilov and Cowley did not attempt to join it. Instead, glad of the tight-together clutter of gravestones and portrait-adorned vaults, they remained initially unrecognised outside the mêlée. That, in turn, hid the Militia photographer. It had been Cowley’s idea to get police pictures, which Danilov had acted on without reference to Smolin. It had been a mistake proposing the electronic eavesdropping on Mikhail Antipov’s apartment on Ulitza Fadajeva. The prosecutor had said there was insufficient time for the installation before the man was released. Smolin had seemed uninterested in any surveillance in depth, which had unsettled Danilov.

  It was an overcast day of low, scudding clouds, the few trees rusting with approaching autumn. It was cold, too, although Raisa Serova did not wear a coat: her suit was an appropriate mourning black, without any visible jewellery. Twice, while they watched, she spoke sideways to Oleg Yasev. Danilov had not expected her to be accompanied by the Foreign Ministry official, but Raisa kept her hand linked through the elbow-cupped arm of the fair-haired Yasev, while being constantly attentive to Serov’s elderly parents, on her other side. The old lady, bowed as much by arthritis as sorrow, was crying, needing her husband’s arm around her shoulders as well
as Raisa’s help to get to the graveside. There were only three other mourners, all men. Danilov didn’t recognise them, but got the impression they were officials from their dress and demeanour.

  It was an American television cameraman, panning to follow Raisa Serova from the grave to her car, who recognised Danilov and Cowley from the earlier publicity. Raisa became aware of the sudden switch of attention and glared, particularly at Danilov. There was another headtogether exchange with Yasev, who appeared to nod in agreement with what she said, as Danilov and Cowley were engulfed by the pack, like they had been outside the restaurant in Georgetown.

  Now, as then, they refused every question, shouted in Russian and English: Danilov used the American’s bulk, following in the man’s wake as Cowley shouldered his way towards the waiting Volga. The press determination to get some comment matched that of Cowley and Danilov not to give it. A solid barrier formed between them and the car, refusing to give way, and Pavin, who had remained in the driving seat, had literally to add his weight from the rear to complete the path Cowley was trying to form. Someone got his hand trapped in the door, yelling with pain as Danilov slammed it closed. For no obvious benefit, apart from still more photographs, the pack remained thronged all around the car. Pavin had to edge forward inches at a time to reach the cemetery gates.

  ‘Jesus!’ said Cowley, as the vehicle reached the main highway.

  ‘I should have had some uniformed officers.’ Would Smolin have vetoed that, too?

  ‘Those three guys mean anything to you?’ Cowley had marked the three unknown mourners as officials, too.

  ‘We can ask Yasev.’

  ‘I’d already decided to ask him.’

  ‘Surprised he was there?’

  ‘I suppose it was understandable.’

  The police photographs were printed at once, to maximum enlargements, and compared to every picture so far gathered on the three cases. There was no match. Danilov had just finished dictating the official request to Oleg Yasev for their identities when the call came from Smolin that the widow had already complained, through Yasev, about the media presence at the funeral. She blamed the Russian investigator personally for releasing the time and location to the press. Today’s protest had also repeated the demand that her husband’s still-retained diary be returned. Smolin saw no reason why that should not be done.