‘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.
‘What do you want?’ demanded Gusovsky. It was a contemptuous question from a man accustomed to dispensing favours to the frightened or the bribable.
Danilov allowed some silence. ‘I’m not the supplicant. You are.’
‘Don’t treat us like fools.’
Danilov thought the blind man had difficulty controlling his voice that time: they really weren’t accustomed to anything but abject respect. ‘Let’s not treat each other like fools.’
Gusovsky’s mouth tightened further, and his pallor accentuated an angry redness. ‘We were told you wanted to discuss things of mutual interest.’
‘More your interest than mine.’ Very soon now, he’d find out if Kosov really had kept the past to himself. Or whether he had offered it to ingratiate himself with these men, to arm them with the sort of pressure they always sought.
‘Why don’t you tell us what you think our interests are?’ demanded Gusovsky. He indicated the bottle at last. ‘Take some wine.’ It was an order, not an invitation.
Danilov was tempted to accept but wait for the other man to pour, but he didn’t. He had no intention of obeying the expected rules by acting cowed or subservient, even on their own territory, but there was no benefit in unnecessary antagonism. He filled the available glass and drank, but without any meaningless toast. ‘I think one major interest is in forming an association with other Mafia groups, in Italy and in America and in Latin America. I think you believe you have funds available, to finance that association. I think you’re concerned how endangered that intention is, by the arrests in Italy: you’d be stupid if you weren’t. There’s the confrontation with the Ostankino…’ He let the recital trail, waiting intently. Would they pick up on the half-intentional clue about imagined funds? He hoped not, this soon. He did not want to play every card without an indication of what they were holding, in their attempt to outplay him.
Neither responded at once. The sightless Yerin bent slightly sideways to the other man, deferring to him the right to speak first, which Gusovsky eventually did. ‘Quite a catalogue!’
‘Your shopping list, not mine.’ They were going to trap him, if he didn’t soon get what he expected thrown back at him. Make me bargain, thought Danilov desperately.
‘The Italian arrests didn’t come from here? It was American information?’ said Yerin.
Kosov the faithful conduit! thought Danilov. ‘That’s how it happened. From America.’
‘You work closely with the American?’ asked Gusovsky.
‘Yes,’ embarked Danilov, cautiously. This was the way he’d wanted it to go: the opening hand, card for card.
‘He confides in you?’ asked Yerin.
They were close to overplaying, thought Danilov: or in too much of a hurry. ‘There’s a full exchange.’
‘There are probably some things he doesn’t share with you,’ suggested Gusovsky. He smiled for the first time, pleased with himself: the dentures were too large for his mouth, as if they had been made when he was much fuller featured, or he had borrowed them from someone else.
Danilov began to revise his opinion of the man as nondescript. He was unsure whether to pre-empt them about the photographs or let them over-extend with their announcement. Give it a little longer, he decided. ‘I doubt it.’
There must have been some sort of shelf or container beneath the table and a signal between them Danilov didn’t see. Yerin knew immediately where to reach. He passed the package to the expectant Gusovsky who in turn offered it across the table. ‘Isn’t it strange, how some men get so much pleasure from screwing whores?’
Danilov refused to accept them, stranding the Mafia chief with them unlooked-at in his hand. ‘Those!’ said Danilov. ‘I thought Lena looked very pretty. Fantastic body. I’ve never considered the male motivation, until you mentioned it, but I’ve always been curious why girls as attractive as she was become prostitutes. I would have thought it would be easy for them to get grateful husbands. Perhaps it isn’t so simple, in Moscow. Or perhaps it’s just sex: that they like variety. You didn’t have to kill her, though. That was panic, after the Italian arrests. Stupid.’
Danilov’s nonchalant dismissal of the blackmailing pictures – the only part of the encounter for which he was half prepared – and the obvious fact he’d already known about something he didn’t regard as a threat, caused the greatest shock of anything he’d said or done since entering. Gusovsky remained with them in his outstretched hand for several moments before putting them on the table. For the first time Yerin was disoriented, moving his head jerkily as if he’d lost the direction from which the voices were coming. There were audible sounds of astonishment from the other table.
Danilov was savouring the moment, believing he had achieved precisely what he wanted, when Gusovksy’s remark exploded in his mind. He connected it with Pavin’s detailed account of Lena Zurov’s murder and for the briefest moment he had the physical sensation of tightness, all over his body, a ballooning of excitement. It was only a guess, he warned himself: a wild, snatch-in-the-air guess. But one he could follow and possibly prove, because as always Pavin had been meticulous. And this time it would be done right.
‘You don’t think it would be embarrassing if these photographs showing a woman later murdered with an American pistol reached newspapers here and in America?’ challenged Gusovsky.
‘Cowley will have to resign, certainly,’ agreed Danilov. ‘But he’s already decided to do that. And it will be an American embarrassment. It won’t affect what happened in Italy, or influence any prosecutions I originate here…’
‘You sure about that?’ interrupted Yerin.
They did know about his compromising past! At least he had the confirmation: could calculate from now on from knowing, not from guessing. ‘Yes, I’m sure about that,’ he lied, grateful there was no uncertainty in his voice.
Yerin dipped sideways again, once more for Gusovsky to offer a photograph, which he did by sliding it across the table. And this time, the shock was Danilov’s.
It was fortunate he was looking down, concealing any facial surprise, although he didn’t think he showed much. The glare of the camera flash had shown up the fade in Olga’s black dress. She was caught looking vaguely surprised, the smile slack, as if she were slightly drunk, which she probably had been. From his later visit there, Danilov was able to recognise the balcony of the nightclub on Tverskaya.
‘You might not recognise her with her clothes on,’ said Gusovsky. ‘The girl beside your wife is Lena Zurov.’
‘I know,’ said Danilov, looking up, sure he’d regained his control. ‘It was the night Yevgennie Kosov took her to Nightflight. I was in Washington at the time.’ Once more his casual acceptance discomposed them. Inwardly he boiled: some day, somehow, he was going to make Kosov hurt in every way possible, and he didn’t give a damn about any retribution the man might attempt against him.
‘Kosov told you!’ blurted Yerin.
‘No. My wife did. Was there any reason why she shouldn’t have done?’
‘Doesn’t that compound the embarrassment though?’ persisted Gusovsky. ‘A cocksucking whore who serviced your American partner, also at a nightclub with your wife?’
‘It will make headlines,’ agreed Danilov. He put a sneer into his voice. ‘But think about it far more sensibly than you obviously have, so far. If I brought against you, personally, the charges I can – and then a lot more against people in your organisation, which I also can – wouldn’t that show exactly what those photographs are; a cheap and clumsy blackmail which didn’t work anway? Cowley’s already decided to quit. And Olga would be shown to have been what? A guest at a nightclub, taken there by a policeman friend, innocently having her photograph taken with a woman she didn’t know was a whore…’ It was sounding far better than he’d h
oped. ‘… Balance it,’ he said, making it sound like an order. ‘Murder, extortion, massive theft and a huge drug-smuggling operation on the one hand. On the other a drunken man tricked by a whore and a naive woman, inveigled by a crooked policeman
…’ He smiled. ‘I think I’ve won, don’t you?’
‘Now let’s get…!’ began Gusovsky, outraged, but the calmer Yerin talked over the other man in his soft but clear voice.
‘From what you’ve just said it would seem so. But there’s a lot more we need to know, because so far you’ve talked in riddles. I think you’d better start discussing things properly. So we’ll all understand what we’re saying to each other.’
Danilov did not, at this stage, want to go one step further. But he needed to end everything on his terms and with them even more unsure. He hoped his luck would hold. He looked briefly to the second table, aware of the bewilderment of the three men who had never before witnessed Gusovsky or Yerin treated with such contempt. He said: ‘These others aren’t necessary. From now on the discussion will just be between the three of us. I want them out of the room.’
‘ You want them out of the room?’ boomed Gusovsky, incredulous.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, what you’re saying!’ erupted Gusovsky, his anger finally taking over, which was what Danilov had hoped. ‘Have you any idea who you are talking to? What we can do to you? You’re a little person, you hear…?’ He held out his thumb and forefinger, but in a narrowing gesture, not like Kosov’s in the hotel bar, earlier. ‘That little. That’s all. You can’t make demands, about anything. That’s what we do. So now you start showing respect! You sit there like the little person you are and you say what you think you’ve got that’s so important and you say please and you say thank you…’ The man stopped, breathlessly. He gulped, heavily. ‘You’ve annoyed me, little man. It’s not good for anyone, when I lose my temper.’
Perfect, judged Danilov. It could still fail – he wouldn’t know he’d succeeded until he was outside in the street, and not be sure even then – but he thought he’d got away with it. Why did they always defeat themselves by arrogance! ‘So you’re not going to tell them to leave?’
In front of him Gusovsky visibly trembled, the patchy redness against his normal complexion making him look ridiculous, like a painted clown. It was Yerin, again, who better suppressed his rage. ‘You’ve been told what to do.’
Here comes the test, thought Danilov. He pushed his chair back, standing. He was conscious of the three bodyguards instantly coming up, too, but he did not look at them, remaining staring down at the two Mafia chieftains. ‘ I control the Svahbodniy holding in Switzerland, not Raisa Serova! Let Kosov know when you want to talk again.’
All three guardians were barring the exit when he turned, and Danilov felt a stir of uncertainty. Without looking behind him, he said: ‘Tell them to get out of the way.’
It seemed a very long time before they moved, although later Danilov guessed it could only have been a minute or two: not even that, just seconds. It must have been a gesture, because no-one spoke behind.
Kosov was at the table by the dance floor. He rose the moment Danilov emerged, scurrying alongside as he continued towards the outer door.
‘What happened?’ demanded Kosov, anxiously.
‘I annoyed them,’ admitted Danilov.
It pleased Danilov to terrorise Kosov further by refusing to discuss the encounter, beyond saying he expected the Chechen to want another meeting. Just to drive Kosov to the edge – an edge over which he was now absolutely determined to push the bastard, for all he had done – Danilov warned Kosov they might want to talk to him, as well.
‘You told them I hadn’t misled them: that it wasn’t my fault?’
‘Of course I did,’ assured Danilov, who had forgotten.
Kosov returned him to Kirovskaya, where he remained only long enough to phone Cowley and say he was on his way to the hotel. Olga asked why he’d bothered to come home if he intended going out again so soon: Danilov said something unexpected had arisen and left her blinking uncertainly when he kissed her, as he left. He wasn’t sure why he’d done it, either.
Cowley had been drinking but wasn’t drunk when Danilov got to the Savoy. For the first time, Danilov explained in precise detail what he was trying to achieve, concluding with the wild possibility that had occurred to him during the actual encounter with the Chechen hierarchy.
‘You’ll never get it all together,’ protested the American, awkward in his gratitude. ‘I can’t believe you’re trying to do this, for me! Why should you?’
‘You were very necessary to me, in the the beginning,’ reminded Danilov. ‘And now it isn’t just for you. There’s Olga.’
‘I don’t know what…’
‘Then don’t say it,’ stopped Danilov. ‘It hasn’t worked yet.’
‘And won’t,’ insisted the impossibly depressed Cowley.
Danilov’s first instruction the following morning was for the re-arrest of Mikhail Antipov. He put Pavin in personal charge of the seizure, with specific instructions that everything necessary in a proper investigation had to be brought in this time.
He didn’t have to ask for a meeting with those in ultimate charge of the investigation. There was already a Foreign Ministry summons waiting for him.
It was not until the middle of that day that the hurriedly despatched Sergei Stupar telephoned Gusovsky at Kutbysevskij Prospekt. ‘Our lawyer made an approach, claiming it was an investment enquiry. The anstalt is frozen.’
Gusovsky replaced the telephone, looking across to the blind man. ‘The bastard was telling the truth! He does control it.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
The Justice Minister, Roman Barazin, was an addition to the group awaiting Danilov at the Foreign Ministry. Danilov guessed there had been a prior discussion, but his presence was not practically ignored, as it had been upon his return from Italy. He was, instead, the object of instant attack.
The Deputy Interior Minister, who had announced his supervision of the Organised Crime Bureau but done little to implement it, began it. ‘You’ve flagrantly ignored specific instructions, by arresting the widow of Petr Serov! And Yasev, an executive government official! They are to be released.’
‘I don’t think they should be,’ said Danilov calmly. ‘And they’re not arrested. They’re being held in protective custody. To which they agreed. It was all made clear in my overnight report.’
Vasili Oskin was at once deflated. Smolin tried to help, a lawyer wanting more facts before committing himself. ‘Why do they need protective custody?’
‘I also want to know that: I’ve not seen the overnight report,’ said Barazin. He was a fleshy, permanently red-faced man with a moustache as full as Vorobie’s: because of the man’s bulk, it suited Barazin better than the Deputy Foreign Minister.
Keeping to the sequence supplied by Raisa Serova, Danilov felt quite relaxed verbally repeating the woman’s confession. He introduced Yasev’s function in what, with the possible exception of Barazin, the government officials already knew, and set out the pivotal role of Vasili Dolya, the Director of the KGB’s First Chief Directorate, in involving not one but two Mafia Families.
‘We should still have been consulted before you attempted to interview Mrs Serova,’ insisted Oskin, trying to recover.
‘At our last conference I was authorised to continue the criminal investigation,’ reminded Danilov. ‘It was Raisa Serova who inherited the control of the Swiss corporation from her dead father. I made that quite clear, at that conference. I considered interviewing her, after her lies at our other meetings, an essential part of that criminal investigation. I did not know Oleg Yasev would be with her until I arrived at her apartment on Leninskaya.’ It was pedantic, and they might suspect he was stretching the truth to its utmost, but there was no way they could confront him. Caught by a further thought, about questions he still wanted to pu
t to the widow and her lover, Danilov said: ‘ Has Raisa Serova asked to be released? Or Oleg Yasev?’
Oskin frowned, irritated at the questioning turning upon him. Seeming reluctant, he said: ‘I was officially informed, through the Ministry.’
‘By whom?’ pressed Danilov.
Oskin’s frown deepened, but before he could speak Barazin said: ‘What importance can that have?’
‘I don’t know, not yet,’ said Danilov. He’d made a mistake, trying to get too much, but now he was enmeshed in it.
‘Well?’ demanded Barazin impatiently, but to Oskin.
The Interior Ministry official spoke looking with fixed dislike at the investigator. ‘It was a senior permanent secretary, Konstantin Utkin. Why is that important?’
I don’t know, but I’m sure it is, thought Danilov, the satisfaction stirring through him: Konstantin Vladimirovich Utkin was another of the three unexplained names in the letter Leonid Lapinsk had sent him just before committing suicide.
‘Well?’ repeated Barazin sharply, speaking this time to Danilov.
‘No,’ said Danilov, because he couldn’t explain it, ‘I don’t think it has any significance.’
‘You have untangled a very complicated situation, involving past and present members of the government,’ said Sergei Vorobie, coming into the discussion. ‘But not everyone is involved in a world-ranging conspiracy.’
‘I don’t look upon what we have so far learned as a success,’ said Danilov. ‘We still have three unsolved murders we are sure are connected, and one curious case of a prostitute killed in the same way.’ They couldn’t catch him out on that lie, either. But they would, later, unless he prevented the Chechen publishing the compromising photographs of Cowley with Lena Zurev.
‘Nothing in Mrs Serova’s confession changes the decision already made,’ insisted Vorobie. ‘The government officials who appear to have been involved will be questioned and required to resign. There will be no prosecution.’
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