“Couldn’t sleep after I woke up.”
The rib strapping made it difficult for Cowley to lean forward sufficiently to wash his beard-rasped face over the toilet washbasin. He did so frowning at his own reflection in the mirror. He did look like shit on a plate. Worse. He’d always had a heavy beard, and the unshaven growth made a black-and-white comparison against his deathly pallor. His eyes were sunk into his head and black rimmed, and the clothes he’d hurriedly grabbed-a sweatshirt and jeans-hung on him, sweat-wrinkled and baggy. Two cups of cafeteria coffee didn’t give him the lift he’d hoped for, but they made swallowing the Tylenol easier.
The hastily arranged conference room-normally the biggest lecture hall in the building-was already filling. He was curious at what had been discovered forensically so quickly for Paul Lambert to be already there. The Pentagon general wore his uniform, complete with the name plate identifying himself as Sinclair J. Smith. There was a thin, nervous civilian with him. The bureau director’s assistant bustled around the table, seating everyone, putting Cowley and Pamela together. From the arrangement Cowley saw that on FBI territory Leonard Ross was assuming the chairmanship.
Pamela leaned close and said, “We stink.”
Cowley said, “That’s what all the papers say. You want to bat first?” She smelled and looked early-morning fresh, not like someone who’d been up all night.
She turned more fully toward him. “You feel all right?” A genuine offer of a place center stage or a curve she couldn’t see?
“You know as much about it as I do. I’ll pick up as we go along.” Cowley wanted to listen, hear what other people said, still searching for the trigger.
Leonard Ross was the last to enter, with the secretary of state and Frank Norton, the president’s chief of staff. Al Hinton, the fat and balding public affairs chief, was in attendance, shepherding the three men ahead of him. Cowley realized gratefully that today’s media coverage was limited to a press pool of one television and one still photographer and a solitary reporter. Cowley was conscious, too, of far less-in fact, scarcely none-posturing than before. The identification of Cowley was even quicker this time and the concentration on him just as immediate, but again he refused all questions beyond saying he’d recovered more than sufficiently to resume as case officer. As Hinton led the pool away, Norton said it was good to see him back and Cowley thanked him, conscious of the director’s frown.
Leonard Ross showed no surprise, though, when Pamela responded to the update request, which Cowley at once decided she did brilliantly. She smoothly took everyone through a selection of still photographs of the scene inside the monument, even itemizing the electrical circuits and boxes that the disposal team had initially cleared, but stressed that the examination was continuing.
“And we’ve drawn a total blank on any protest or radical group calling itself the Watchmen. We’ve already asked friendly services-England and Israel-to check. Nothing back yet.”
She looked invitingly at Cowley, who remained silent, although he was conscious of another frown from the director.
It was the president’s chief of staff who spoke. Frank Norton said, “You got anything to tell us about this computer intrusion, General?”
“Too soon,” said the soldier, who had a shaved marine haircut and a face that looked as if it had been carved from something very hard. He nodded to the civilian beside him. “Maybe you’d better hear from Carl.”
“I’m head of Pentagon computer security, Carl Ashton,” the man introduced himself uncomfortably. “We’ve got more than a thousand computers, terminals, and VDU stations, all at various levels of security, purpose, and program. If someone infects a system with a virus-the most common is one that replicates information until the file is totally filled, when it jams-then the problem’s obvious. But if someone gets in a back door simply to use our machines and our servers as a conduit-giving themselves their own entry code and password-it’ll take time to find them. It’s possible we never will.”
“Have I correctly heard what you’ve just said?” demanded Norton, spacing his words in incredulity. “A bunch of terrorists have gotten into the communications system of the military headquarters of the United States of America actually to attack us, and we’re not going to be able to find them! Is that what the Pentagon is going to tell the president and the people of this country?”
“I think I should explain more fully-” tried Ashton.
“I really think you should,” cut in Henry Hartz. “I don’t like what I’m hearing at all, after last year. Neither will the American people.” Irritation made the secretary of state’s Germanic accent more pronounced.
Ashton’s color rose and his hands fluttered nervously over the table. “No computer system can be declared totally beyond intrusion. There’s always a back door, either left there by the installer for his personal gratification and amusement …” The man paused at the looks of fresh astonishment around the table. “Yes,” he insisted, “even at the level of people who install at the Pentagon. More so, even: At the highest level of computer expertise a universal arrogance exists: they’re Captain Kirks with their own Enterprise space ships, able to go where no man has gone before. There are websites-clubs-on the Internet where such people gather. Not physically or using their own names-pseudonyms by which one recognizes the other. Entry codes and passwords are swopped. All it would have needed in this case is for a disgruntled Pentagon employee to belong to such a club and the door’s open.”
“There’s a check there!” interrupted the CIA’s John Butterworth. “We need a list-”
“Which we keep, of every Pentagon employee who is dismissed or who leaves in circumstances considered likely to create resentment.”
“This is absurd!” protested Butterworth. “Why don’t we hit these cockamamie clubs, round the bastards up?”
Ashton, embarrassed, looked sideways to the low-profile general, who shrugged. The computer security man said, “Sir, these aren’t places-buildings. They’re websites. They only exist in what you’ve heard described as cyberspace: They have no actuality. We don’t know where they are-how to access them. And if we did, we’d be committing a federal offense under the terms of the U.S. data protection legislation.”
Stunned silence spread throughout the room. The pragmatic Leonard Ross said, “So far you’ve told us what you can’t do. What can-are-you doing?”
“I talked about various levels of security,” reminded Ashton. “At its lowest administrative level we’ve got a lot of terminals without either a hard or floppy disk. They’re VDUs operated from a central server. They’re the most likely to have been breached. Those are the servers we’re sweeping now: If our terrorists are there, we’ll find them. Find the intrusion, at least. But we’re assuming that these guys are good, professionals, if that’s an acceptable description. They won’t just have broken in and established their own little cave. They will have established their own burglar alarm when a trace is locked on them. They won’t have come straight into the Pentagon. There’ll be several cutouts in other systems-systems that might be on the far side of the world-and there will quite literally be a burglar alarm that might even ring a bell they can hear. And when they do-before we get close-they’ll close down. That’s what I meant by saying we’ll probably never find them, not from putting on tracers.”
“This is terrifying,” said Hartz, almost to himself. “And I thought I had already used up all the terror I could feel.”
“It’s modern technology, Mr. Secretary,” said General Smith, judging the moment safe to come back into the discussion. “It terrifies me, too.”
“That’s the lowest level of security,” persisted Norton. “What else is there?”
“Machines with their own hard disks, their own programs. They’re all swept, automatically, every month-in the most sensitive areas, every week-but we’ve already overridden that time frame. We’re already sweeping every machine down to the war room itself. But even if we pick them up, they will ha
ve alarmed themselves, as I’ve just explained.”
“Jesus H. Christ!” said Norton, exasperated. “Anyone here realize what the reaction would be from the American public if they knew this?”
“Probably close to the reaction they’re showing at the moment to every other example of our helplessness,” said Hartz.
“Bill,” Leonard Ross said unexpectedly, “you got any point you’d like to make? Or would you like to sit this one out? You’re really not looking at all well.”
It was only then that Cowley realized he’d slumped down in his chair, even allowing his eyes to close as they’d been closed when the director spoke, although he’d heard everything. He said, “I was thinking-or trying to think-about something else.”
“That’s obvious,” said Ross. “And for the case officer that’s pretty worrying, as far as I am concerned. You’ve had a long day already. Why don’t you rest a little?”
“I don’t think the Pentagon break-in is our immediate consideration,” declared Cowley.
He felt Pamela’s hand on his sleeve and Ross said, “I think you’d better call it a day, Bill. My mistake, your mistake.”
Cowley shook his head in refusal. To Paul Lambert he said, “You must have found something obvious to be able to be here this soon?”
“It was Semtex,” said the bespectacled, crew-cut forensic scientiest. “Simplest thing imaginable: wrapped around a timer preset for one A.M. We’re still checking for prints, obviously. Source is either the Czech or Slovakian republics: Czechoslovakia is the only country in the world still producing the stuff. We’ll identify the timer before the day’s out. But if the bomb squad doesn’t find anything else, we’re not going to be able to help you very much beyond this.”
“They’re taking it slowly,” said Cowley. “Tibbert’s talking of another two days-there might even be something intact.”
“Two days!” protested David Frost, the diminutive police commissioner, sitting between two other uniformed officers. “It’s going to become impossible! The city’s already virtually gridlocked by that central area being closed just today. Even before I came in for this meeting I was getting reports of people coming in just to stand and look. If it goes on for two more days the city will have to close down, there’ll be so many tourists.”
“I don’t think traffic control is very high on our list of priorities at the moment, Commissioner,” said Ross.
“It is,” said Cowley, softly at first. Then, more loudly: “Jesus, of course it is!”
Everyone looked in bewildered astonishment.
To the forensic chief Cowley said, “The charge! How big was the charge?”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe half a pound. Less, perhaps.”
“Easily carried? And timed to explode when there wouldn’t be anyone there to get hurt?”
“Sure.”
“Wouldn’t it have fit easily into a shopping bag or backpack?”
“Yes.”
“And easily fixed?”
“Sure,” Lambert agreed again. “Semtex is gray, same color as the steps. It was just slipped down the sides, against the outer wall.
“Bill-” Ross began sympathetically.
“Please!” demanded Cowley, remembering the stairwell gaps he’d looked at until his eyes ached earlier that day. “The gap between the stairs and the outer edge could have hidden much more than half a pound of Semtex, couldn’t it?”
Lambert shrugged his shoulders in another helpless gesture. “If they’d wanted to plant more …”
“That’s just it!” said Cowley, looking urgently to Leonard Ross. “They didn’t want to plant any more. This isn’t their speed, their way! They wanted to kill hundreds, certainly, with the warhead. Suckered us into the ambush at New Rochelle. Which is what this is! A decoy.” He stopped, remembering the thick, solid line of people around the Mall. Trying to control his rising panic, Cowley leaned toward the police commissioner. “There’s got to be a thousand people out there, all around the Mall. Two thousand. And there’s another bomb, another device. Get it cleared! Get the Mall, all the roads, clear of people. Don’t funnel them into the Smithsonian Metro. Close that. Just get everyone away as quickly as you can. Otherwise there’s going to be another massacre.”
No one moved. No one spoke.
Cowley looked imploringly at Leonard Ross. “Please!” he said. “I’m right. I know I’m right. This time they really do intend killing hundreds.”
“Anne! We’re talking seven bucks!” protested the Albany detective to whom Clarence Snelling had first complained.
“And forty-nine cents,” she reminded.
“And forty-nine cents. I thought you guys were kinda occupied by something else?”
“So what have you done?”
The man spread his hands without replying.
“Not spoken to the bank?”
“No,” said the detective. “I haven’t spoken to the fucking bank! When I arrest the son of a bitch who killed the Seven-Eleven night man with a sawed-off twelve-gauge to steal maybe twenty bucks and then catch the bastard who raped the twelve-year-old on the Saratoga Road turnoff I’ll really put my mind to Clarence Snelling’s precious fucking seven bucks and forty-nine cents.”
“So you wouldn’t mind me doing it meanwhile?”
“Honey, if I hadn’t seen your fucking shield you know what I’d do. I’d arrest you for impersonating an FBI agent.”
“Don’t worry,” said Anne Stovey. “I won’t arrest you for impersonating a New York State detective. Or for not knowing your criminal history.”
12
It had become routine since the beginning of the investigation for Dimitri Danilov to keep his office television on and tuned permanently to CNN, so he learned of the Washington Monument bomb within seconds of arriving at Petrovka, for once earlier than Pavin. Danilov had slept badly on the couch and left the apartment before six, to avoid encountering Olga. She’d been snoring when he eased the door closed behind him. He put a call in to Cowley but was told both he and Pamela Darnley were in conference.
There was an overnight log note that Anatoli Sergeevich Lasin, one of the two men who had provided the alibi for the murdered mobster, had been arrested during the night at his last known address, an apartment on Pereulok Ucebyi, in bed with a boy of fifteen. Both were being held, separately, in basement cells.
Danilov at once saw the advantage, which was why he decided to leave them there, wanting first to read the case file of the Osipov mafia brigade to which Anatoli Lasin belonged. It had become instinctive to look for names that would personally mean something to him from Larissa’s murder, but very quickly, sighing in weary professional recognition, he saw the obvious tampering and accepted the pointlessness. The last criminal records photograph of the godfather-the brigadier himself, Mikhail Vasilevich Osipov-had been taken twelve years earlier, when he’d been bearded and heavily mustached. There wasn’t any explanation for there being no updated picture to accompany the two subsequent arrests. The beard and mustache would have long gone, and Osipov would be unrecognizable from the only image they had on file. There had been insufficient evidence-due to loss, also unexplained-to prosecute on either subsequent arrest, and there was even an assessment, unsigned, that the brigade was fragmenting under pressure from other, more powerful mafia families upon whom more attention should be focused. From which Danilov at once knew it wasn’t breaking up at all but that after the territory wars to which Pavin had referred-quoted in the assessment as evidence of the family’s demise-it had probably emerged one of the strongest in the city.
Who, wondered Danilov, was the well- but discreetly paid officer within his Organized Crime Bureau ensuring that the Osipov family remained protected from any irritating official intrusion? He was at once annoyed-embarrassed-at asking himself the question. Shouldn’t he know? It was his department, and he’d taken up the appointment as its director after exposing the corruption of the previous commanders with the burnished shield and sworn d
etermination to cleanse it from the bottom as effectively as he’d cleansed it from the top. And done what? Gotten rid of two of the most obviously bribed inspectors, earned the obstructive animosity of practically every other one, and after Larissa, in his swamp of selfpity and disinterest, allowed everything to go on-get worse, maybe-as it had before.
What about the other self-imposed determination, his supposedly always being honest with himself? The so-far avoided question. Which it was time to confront. His unease wasn’t at his failure to correct the crookedness of others. It was at the thought-the vaguest, seductive wisp of an idea-of the only way he could maintain two homes and support Olga if she carried out her threat, which he had little doubt she would vindictively do.
But how could he? Danilov demanded of himself. Everything was totally different now from how it had been when he’d gone along with the accepted system. Which (excuse-seeking, he at once accused himself) in his case had not been dealing with the organized crime families. The reverse. He’d protected the small shopkeepers and businesses and independent entrepreneurs in the district he’d commanded as a uniformed militia colonel, facing down-arresting and prosecuting-the gangs who’d tried to extort protection money. For which those shopkeepers and businessmen and entrepreneurs had been grateful. He’d never exacted a levy or asked for any tribute. Whatever had been given had been offered freely: not once had he treated differently someone who had never given him a gift from someone who had.
But he wasn’t any longer a uniformed militia officer with a comparatively small suburb of the city to administer, no longer the policeman who could take an offered apple from the stall. He was at the absolute center now-and at the pinnacle. What would his worth be to the brigade whose file was on the table in front of him or any of the other mafia groups who’d sliced the Moscow cake between them? Incalculable. Whatever car he demanded, whatever retainer he suggested, whatever rent-free apartment he chose.
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