No Time for Heroes

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘So there’s no hurry?’ said Danilov, as Kosov began to drink.

  ‘There’s time to talk. These men – the people you’re going to meet – like respect. They’re big … very big.’

  ‘Do I play the peasant or the kulak?’

  ‘Just trying to help,’ said Kosov. He was subdued, close to being openly frightened.

  It would be wrong to offend the man. ‘Who will I be meeting?’

  ‘They’ll tell you their names, if they want to.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s quite close.’

  Both Kutbysevskij and Glovin Bol’soj were quite close. For a few moments he sat regarding Kosov, not speaking. Kosov would definitely be as vindictive as possible. He’d try to ride out the exposure, Danilov decided: certainly not resign, unless it was demanded. And resist that demand, as strongly as possible. ‘What else should I know about them?’

  ‘They’re very generous, to people they consider friends.’

  ‘I would have to prove the friendship, of course?’

  ‘Of course.’

  There was nothing to be gained by pressing further. ‘They very worried about Italy?’

  Kosov’s face clouded. ‘They’re still furious at being misled.’

  ‘Not by me. And you know how that happened.’

  ‘It would help if you explained again to them, in person.’

  ‘I’ll make a point of it.’ Danilov was suddenly caught by the irrational wish to play the car intercepts back to the man: particularly the one involving the sadly flattered Olga. He dismissed the fantasy, irritably, looking up in time to see two of the men who’d entered closely behind Kosov both looking at him: one turned away too quickly.

  Kosov smiled at the assurance. ‘It’s going to be very good, when you’re connected like I am: when we’re really a team, officially and otherwise.’

  Danilov thought ‘connected’ had some American Mafia connotation, but wasn’t sure. He looked pointedly at his watch, which was a waste of time because it had stopped again. ‘Shouldn’t we go?’

  The BMW was parked prominently outside the hotel. Danilov didn’t bother to check the three followers he was sure would be leaving directly after them, more concerned with feeding the incriminating tape. ‘How far do we have to go?’

  ‘I told you, it’s quite close.’

  ‘Where do they meet, the Chechen? Are there special houses … restaurants … public places … what?’

  Kosov, who was heading back in the direction of Red Square, looked sharply across the car. ‘Who said anything about the Chechen?’

  Shit! thought Danilov, caught out. Quickly recovering, he said: ‘That’s who the Americans think is involved.’

  ‘They move around,’ offered Kosov, after a pause.

  He had to give as much as possible of the route. Seeing the illuminations ahead, Danilov said: ‘I would have expected the Kremlin stars to be taken down, wouldn’t you? It’s a Communist symbol, after all.’

  ‘I haven’t thought about it,’ dismissed Kosov, impatiently. ‘You’re not armed, are you?’

  ‘No.’ Should he explore the demand? It hardly required an explanation, and he didn’t want a too-persistent question-and-answer exchange.

  Kosov turned on to Sverdlova. As they passed the US embassy – aware that briefly the American, at the listening apparatus, was only yards away – Danilov said: ‘Cowley says conditions inside the embassy there are terrible. The KGB bugs in the new building should have all been located by now, wouldn’t you think?’

  ‘I haven’t thought about that, either,’ said Kosov shortly.

  Kosov had not attempted to play either his radio or taped music: so he was too distracted – concentrating upon other things – to show off. Or worried. Perhaps the Metropole drink hadn’t provided sufficient buoyancy. They were passing the monolithic Peking restaurant and Danilov was about to introduce it as another marker when Kosov pulled sharply into the underpass for the inner peripherique in the opposite direction. ‘What the hell are you doing? We’re going back the way we came!’ He’d keep to their optimistically devised monitoring but Danilov already knew he was in free orbit, virtually untraceable. The hope of maintaining a street-by-street identification had always been impractical.

  ‘Making a detour,’ replied Kosov flatly.

  Recognising another name-identifying chance, Danilov said: ‘Surely you – and the Chechen – don’t think I’d surround myself with bodyguards! So we’re being checked out by minders?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you know! This is ridiculous, Yevgennie Grigorevich!’

  ‘It’s not my idea!’

  ‘How much longer do we drive around and around like this?’

  ‘I said it wasn’t my idea!’

  ‘They were too obvious.’

  ‘Who? You’re not making sense!’ protested Kosov.

  ‘Your three Chechen protectors, back at the hotel.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about three men at the hotel.’

  Enough, decided Danilov again: he had the Chechen linked by name with Kosov. ‘The Kammeny Bridge! This really is the conducted tour!’

  Kosov did not reply.

  If Moscow were divided by the Mafia into a cake they were a long way now from what was acknowledged to be the Chechen slice: certainly a long way from Kutbysevskij Prospekt or Glovin Bol’soj. Danilov was curious if they would continue, to complete the inner ring road. But once again Kosov made an abrupt and unannounced underpass turn to reverse yet again the direction in which they were driving. Preposterous though it was, Danilov conceded it would have been impossible for any surveillance car to have remained with him this far without being identified. They re-crossed the Kammeny Bridge and went by the embassy and the Chinese restaurant a second time but almost at once turned off Sverdlova, on to minor roads. On what Danilov thought he recognised to be Kisel’nyj Street Kosov unexpectedly slowed, to be passed by two cars flashing their lights.

  ‘I’m glad they’re satisfied,’ said Danilov.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be glad they’re so careful?’

  ‘I don’t know yet what I have to be careful about.’

  They only drove for another few minutes and Danilov managed to get the place name when Kosov visibly began to slow once more. For the benefit of the tape, Danilov said: ‘Finally we get to Pecatnikov, which we could have done in five minutes if we’d come direct!’

  ‘I told you it was close,’ said Kosov.

  Close indeed, to the favoured restaurant, Danilov recognised: Glovin Bol’soj was only two or three streets away. He half expected Kosov to go through the connecting alleys to reach it, but the man didn’t. Instead he pulled up within yards, in front of a huge, pre-revolutionary building which at first appeared a blank-walled, unlit block. Only when they went through a passage into an inner courtyard was there any sign of life or even habitation, which even then was still dimly lit.

  Danilov guessed they were going into one of the apartments, but they didn’t. Kosov led towards a far basement corner, where there was a brighter light for the stairs leading down, but no nameplate to mark what it was. He absorbed everything as he followed Kosov, appreciating the absolute security. It was not, he acknowledged, protection against any sudden raid by a law enforcement agency. This was security against rival gang incursions, and was perfect. He hadn’t seen the surveillance, but the passage from the road would somehow be constantly monitored: any suspected entry would be identified halfway along and the occupants of whatever it was in this far corner warned before the intruder reached the courtyard. Danilov guessed there were enough exits from the rabbit warren he was entering for it to be cleared before an interloper began to cross the square.

  Directly inside the basement entrance was a small, curtained-off vestibule with a reception counter to the left. An extremely attractive, heavily busted girl in a blouse too tight and too low smiled at him. The gold-adorned man from the Metropole blocked a further curta
ined entrance to whatever lay beyond: Danilov could hear the muttered noise of people. The man smiled, too, and advanced towards Danilov, hands familiarly outstretched for a pat-down search.

  Danilov extended his own, halting hand. He’d have to concede, but it would be a mistake not to protest, now and later. This was the only chance he’d get: if he failed tonight, here, he failed in everything.

  ‘He’s OK. I asked,’ tried Kosov.

  ‘Orders,’ said the man, simply.

  Would it only be a weapon search? Or would the man be feeling for a wire, too? Whatever, Danilov was glad he hadn’t gone along with Cowley’s suggestion. ‘This once,’ he accepted, tensing against the man’s hands going over his body. He would have welcomed the Militia – certainly the Militia at Petrovka – being this cautious.

  ‘OK,’ approved the man, stepping back.

  ‘Who was on guard when you were at the hotel?’ asked Danilov.

  The man smiled again but didn’t answer.

  A club, decided Danilov, as he pushed through the curtain. Hardly a public one, if every customer had to endure a body search. Another records check for Pavin tomorrow, to discover in whose name the property was registered. The room was very small, circular until the far end, where it flattened out into a roughcast, whitewashed wall, in which were set three doors, all closed. There was a small dance floor, surrounded by tables and chairs, and a tiny stage to the left. That, too, was curtained-off: to one side, from a glassed cubicle, another extremely attractive girl with displayed cleavage rivalling the receptionist’s was at a turntable. The music was quiet, American jazz. No-one was dancing. Danilov guessed there were about thirty people in the room, far more men than women. They were smoking well-packed Western cigarettes; the emptying bottles on the tables bore the labels of Western gins and whiskies. Three or four girls were alone at tables: he wondered if Lena Zurov had come here often.

  No-one paid them any noticeable attention as they skirted the dance floor towards the far wall. Danilov expected them to go through one of the doors, but Kosov stopped at a table almost hidden by the unused stage, where a dark-haired, sallow-faced man sat alone.

  He smiled up at Danilov, indicated a chair and said: ‘It’s good to meet you.’ He extended his hand but didn’t stand.

  Danilov didn’t sit or accept the offered hand. ‘I will speak with Arkadi Pavlovich Gusovsky.’

  The man lowered his hand but remained smiling. ‘You’re speaking to him.’

  Danilov breathed out, heavily. He hadn’t expected, after all the caution so far, immediately to meet the Mafia leader, but they should at least have surrounded whoever this substitute was with others, to make it look right. It was unthinkable Gusovsky would have greeted him without escorts. Unthinkable, too, that the real ganglord would have smiled at the handshake refusal. ‘I’ve been through enough theatrical shit tonight. I’m not going through any more. Go and tell Gusovsky I want to meet him. I don’t care how many others he wants around him, but I’ll only deal with him direct. He’s got five minutes to make up his mind. If I’m not with him in that time – and satisfied that it is him I’m meeting – I’ll leave, having wasted my time. Tell him in those words. You got all that?’

  The smile faded, into blankness. ‘I’m not used to being spoken to like that,’ tried the man.

  ‘I’m sure you are,’ said Danilov. ‘And you’re wasting time. Tell Gusovsky I want to talk about murders. And drug deals in Italy. And about fund-holding corporations in Switzerland. And about all the mistakes you’ve made and are going to go on making – make worse, in fact – unless we speak.’ He looked at the watch that wasn’t working. ‘You’ve already lost one of your five minutes.’

  For a moment or two longer the Mafioso remained where he was. Then he pushed the chair back, noisily, and disappeared through the left-hand door.

  ‘What are you doing!’ hissed Kosov, beside him.

  Briefly Danilov had forgotten the other policeman. Kosov’s face was twisted in frightened bewilderment.

  ‘Establishing ground rules,’ said Danilov. It seemed a long time since he and Cowley had done the same.

  ‘I told you …’

  ‘… I’m here now, Yevgennie Grigorevich! From here on I’ll decide how to behave: what to say and how to say it. You don’t have to be involved, associated with it.’

  ‘This is madness …! Terrible …!’

  ‘You know what Gusovsky looks like? I want a sign that it’s him.’

  ‘No … no …’ muttered Kosov, looking nervously around the room. ‘This isn’t right … not how it should have been …’

  Danilov wasn’t sure whether that was a denial or a refusal: either way it didn’t matter. Kosov was clenching and unclenching his hands, eyes rolling in a fruitless search for nothing in particular: probably, Danilov thought, it was escape. An ancient record on the turntable – Louis Armstrong singing ‘Mac the Knife’ – had reached the phrase about oozing blood, which Danilov hoped didn’t turn out to be appropriate. He guessed it was an in-joke against them, for the benefit of the others in the room. They were being stared at now, standing obviously by the stage. ‘I’ll make my arrangements my way. If they don’t like it, it’s my …’ He paused at the cliché shared between East and West. ‘… It’s my funeral.’

  Kosov was too disoriented to make any coherent response: he positively moved back, as if retreating, when the man who had greeted them emerged from the nearby door, trying to compensate for his own rebuff by simply jerking his head, for Danilov to enter. Kosov shifted, from one foot to the other, but was spared a problem he didn’t want by a further head movement, forbidding him to follow into the inner sanctum.

  Beyond the door was a small, private dining room. There were only three tables. At one sat two men, the older with unnatural milky eyes. His companion was totally nondescript apart from the physical thinness of a man suffering a prolonged illness. His face had a chalk-white pallor and his skin, particularly on the hands he now held in front of him, resting his chin to examine Danilov, looked paper thin, as if it might tear. The appearance was worsened by a crumpled grey suit that was too large, sagged off the shoulders, the jacket sleeves partially covering the hands, despite the way he was sitting with his arms up. There was a finger-wide gap between his shirt collar and his neck.

  Only one of the other tables was occupied. One man, wearing a turtlenecked sweater under a chamois bomber jacket, was a stranger; the other two had completed the watching group at the Metropole, with the gold lover outside. Definitely street people, Danilov decided. And he knew who the blind man was: so the chances were it was Gusovsky he was meeting. There were bottles and glasses on each table, but no food.

  Danilov went to the table with the two men and sat, uninvited. To the thin man he said: ‘I still don’t know who you really are …’ He half turned, to address directly the man unable to see him. ‘… But I know you, Aleksandr Yerin …’

  The most obvious stir at his awareness of a name came from the escort table: there was one very noisy grating of a chair. Yerin leaned forward, so adjusted to his disability that if the eyes had not been opaque it would have seemed he could see. Danilov’s impression was that he was sniffing, like an animal sniffs the scent of another, to gauge danger. Only the thin man remained totally expressionless. Still with his chin on his hands, he said: ‘I am Gusovsky.’ The voice was surprisingly deep, a rasping timbre.

  ‘I hope you are,’ said Danilov.

  ‘My man outside said you were insolent,’ said Gusovky, as if he were confirming something. He pointedly poured red wine into his own and Yerin’s glasses. There was a third glass on the table: the man put the bottle down without offering it to Danilov.

  Danilov thought it was an artificial gesture, like so much else. ‘I’m guessing it was Georgi Visco. He should have carried off the deception better than he did, with his KGB training. And you should have put people around him, like you have here. That was bad attention to detail. And the three you sent to watch my mee
ting with Kosov, to make sure I was alone, were a bad choice, too. They couldn’t have been more obvious with signs around their necks.’ Danilov was surprised how easy he found it to force the arrogance.

  There was a fresh shuffle of movement from the adjoining table, at the introduction of the KGB colonel’s name and the personal sneer at two of the men sitting there. Gusovsky’s mouth tightened just very slightly, at the unprecedented lack of respect. ‘So they did talk, in Rome?’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that, can you?’ He had to be extremely careful not to connect source to fact: everything had to confuse them, worry them as much as they had to be worried, to allow him this close, this quickly. He breathed in, readying himself. A lot had been known before – and then afterwards – by the KGB who were now spread among all the Families in the city, hadn’t it? he said. Neither replied, listening like statues. They shouldn’t forget, he suggested, that it was virtually instinctive for the KGB, even disbanded, to infiltrate organisations to gain control. Had they thought about that, being overthrown not by rival gangs but by recruits they thought loyal? And then there was America. A lot had come out there. And Switzerland.

  Opposite him Gusovsky and Yerin remained impassive, not drinking, not interrupting, not doing anything.

  One by one, Danilov enumerated the Chechen names he had obtained in Rome, but which could have come from many other leaks. He threw in, quite superfluously, a lot of Genovese and Italian Mafia identities, to thicken the smokescreen. How much did Gusovsky think the Genovese consiglierie and the Liccio clan had to pass on? How certain would Gusovksy be there wasn’t an informant here in Moscow, deep in their own organisation? Sure he’d created sufficient obscurity, Danilov concluded: ‘You couldn’t plug all the leaks even if you knew where they were.’ He didn’t want, this early, to introduce the Geneva anstalt and the attempted Chechen take-over.

  ‘So we know what you’ve got,’ accepted Yerin. The man spoke softly but with precise pronunciation, for every word to be heard.

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ further lured Danilov.