In the Name of a Killer (The Cowley and Danilov Thrillers)

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘I’m afraid the information is limited,’ Hartz apologized. He recounted what had been relayed from Moscow, aware for the first time of an odd mobility of Burden’s face: the man frequently widened his eyes, as if he were constantly astonished at what he was being told, an unnerving, intimidating mannerism.

  ‘Mutilated her?’ demanded Burden, when Hartz talked of the hair.

  ‘She was shorn,’ confirmed Hartz pedantically.

  ‘What about sex?’

  ‘There’s been no report of any sexual assault,’ said Holmes, entering the conversation. The Senator really did look like the Colonel Sanders logo.

  ‘They got the bastard?’

  ‘Not as far as we know.’

  Burden looked to each of the three men. Then he said: ‘So, what are you doing about it?’ The word-biting New England accent was very pronounced.

  Both Directors looked to Hartz for a reply. The Secretary of State said: ‘At the moment, waiting for more information from Moscow.’

  Burden’s eyes widened. ‘I meant doing practically. How many investigators have you assigned? What’s the command structure? Has the President been informed?’

  Ross gestured towards the CIA chief and said, with impatient bluntness: ‘Dick and I have both taken legal advice. Neither agency has any right of investigation whatsoever.’

  Burden shook his head, seemingly incredulous. ‘I don’t believe what you’re telling me! You telling me that a sweet, innocent American girl – my niece – has been slaughtered in Moscow and that you’re not going to do a damned thing about it? Because if you are, think again, every one of you. I want that killer found and I want him tried and executed and I want it all done by Americans. You hearing me?’

  The FBI Director reddened, the restraint clearly difficult. ‘I can understand your feelings. You have my sympathy. But as it stands at the moment there is nothing we can do. There’s no way of our getting involved.’

  ‘Find a way!’ demanded Burden, loud-voiced. ‘I’m not having the murder of my niece investigated by a bunch of Russians using Stone Age techniques and methods! And I know the American public won’t have it, either.’

  Hartz recognized that Burden could get as much media attention as he wanted. Hartz said: ‘I am calling in the Russian ambassador later to demand an assurance that everything possible is being done by the Russian authorities.’

  Burden gave another head shake of disbelief, his eyes widening and contracting. ‘I asked if the President has been informed.’

  ‘I had a message sent to Camp David,’ replied Hartz. ‘He’s deeply shocked and asked me to pass on his condolences.’

  ‘That all! He didn’t talk about what we were going to do?’

  ‘He knows of this meeting. He’s asked to be kept informed.’

  ‘I’ll inform him,’ said Burden, threateningly. ‘He’ll take my call.’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ agreed Hartz. He decided to make his own contact, as well, to correct whatever slant Burden imposed in his account: it would be a very personal interpretation.

  ‘I would expect our investigative technology is more advanced than the Russians,’ offered Ross, reflectively. It was a professional remark, not offered as a defence against the Senator’s pop-eyed outrage.

  ‘I’m damned sure it is!’ said Burden, aggressively.

  ‘So?’ queried the CIA chief.

  ‘Maybe that would be the way to get in,’ suggested the Bureau Director. ‘Offer all and every access to our scientific facilities.’

  ‘Offer!’ echoed Burden, sneering. ‘Ask, you mean? Cap-in-hand?’

  Ross sighed loudly. ‘I thought the point was to become involved.’

  ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ said Hartz. ‘I’ll raise it with the ambassador.’

  ‘We sure this is a genuine murder?’ demanded Burden, with sudden suspicion. ‘Has anyone thought that this might be an official assassination?’

  Now it was the two Directors who looked incredulous: it was the unintimidated Ross who spoke for both, although still restrained. ‘What possible reason could there be for assassinating Ann Harris?’

  ‘I’m no admirer of Russia,’ admitted Burden, openly.

  Hartz was well enough aware of Burden’s conceit, but decided this verged on megalomania. ‘Everything that has come from Moscow indicates a street mugging.’

  ‘Put it to your people in Moscow,’ ordered Burden, talking to the CIA Director. ‘I want that checked out.’

  Now it was Holmes who reddened slightly. He nodded, saying nothing. Son-of-a-bitch, he thought.

  ‘Be direct with the ambassador, too,’ said Burden, continuing the instructions.

  ‘I’ll do what I consider best,’ said Hartz, finally resisting, although very weakly.

  Pinpricks of colour now registered on Burden’s face and his mouth formed into an angry line. ‘This isn’t an ordinary murder: this isn’t the killing of someone who didn’t matter. Don’t forget that.’

  ‘The Bureau doesn’t consider anyone who gets murdered to be unimportant,’ said Ross, increasingly impatient.

  ‘I want a daily briefing,’ Burden insisted to the Secretary of State. ‘I want to know the outcome of the meeting with the ambassador and I want to hear everything that comes out of Moscow …’ He hesitated, looking to the CIA Director. ‘And don’t forget, either, to check the assassination theory.’

  No one spoke in the first few moments after Burden’s departure. Then Holmes said: ‘What fucking assassination theory? Jesus Christ!’

  ‘I believe he thinks he’s Him,’ said Ross. ‘Can either of you begin to imagine what it will be like if he does become President? Thank God I’m not a Washington careerist.’

  ‘Power and influence,’ warned Hartz. ‘When he says jump, Congress jumps. All together. And Burden controls the budget like a miser worried about cash flow.’ A diplomatic negotiator on every level, Hartz added: ‘If we were allowed in, it would be the Bureau responsibility, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ross.

  ‘Would you use your man already at the Moscow embassy?’

  The Bureau Director shook his head, at once. ‘From the Bureau here.’

  ‘Why not run a feasibility, just in case?’

  Throughout the day Walter Burden made himself available to all three major television networks and every newspaper or magazine which approached him, which was a lot, not just American but foreign publications as well. He declared himself devastated by the crime. Ann Harris was a niece whom he’d loved dearly, whose life had been only just beginning. He had spoken personally with the President and had been assured that all necessary steps were being taken by the Russian authorities to arrest the killer: the full resources of American criminal investigation agencies were being offered to Moscow. In response to several questions, Burden said he might consider going to the Russian capital himself. Every television appearance was accompanied by still photographs of Ann Harris, some taken with Burden. They were all good reproductions, showing a smiling, typically American girl with brace-sculpted teeth and flowing black hair. Which was how Burden wanted people to think of her, so he said nothing about the shorn hair.

  The Ann Harris murder and Walter Burden’s interview remained the lead item through the day on Cable News Network, so William Cowley saw it several times on his office set in the FBI headquarters building. The anger at not already having been informed, which he considered he should have been as a courtesy at least, began and was just as quickly curbed. To have been informed would have been a courtesy, because his responsibility for Russian affairs was officially restricted to counter-espionage within the United States. And it was certainly not a courtesy he could have expected from the FBI agent stationed in Moscow, for altogether personal reasons.

  The old memories were inevitable, of course. He wished they hadn’t been. As he wished so much else, too late.

  William Cowley accepted that he was probably at the pinnacle of his professional career. Promotion beyond his existing
position, as director of the Russian internal desk, was invariably political: he was, in fact, lucky to have achieved this much, after the carelessness. He certainly wasn’t careless any more: didn’t really concede he had been dangerously negligent in the past. He’d never put the job at risk. And now he was unquestionably the copy-book careerist in every way: utterly dedicated, first to arrive, last to leave, FBI personified. Which, he assured himself again, was how he’d always been, professionally. Maybe that was how the personal carelessness had arisen, from the confidence of a natural-born policeman who’d been additionally lucky with the breaks: achieving G–15 grade at the age of forty, eight highest-category commendations on his personal sheet, the most exemplary for jointly controlling with an Italian prosecutor the destruction of a Mafia-backed heroin operation when he had been attached to the embassy in Rome.

  Beneficial professionally but disastrous personally, Cowley decided, coming to the bitterest reflection of all. The posting to London had been a direct result of the Rome success: London where the FBI maintained a four-man office and where one of the agents had been Barry Andrews, finger-snapping, smart-as-a-tack, good old Barry, everybody’s buddy. Cowley had regarded the man as his best friend, never suspecting he was more particularly Pauline’s friend. The bitterness was brief, because after so long he’d become objective, the most sensible acceptance of all that none of it had been Pauline’s fault. Not really Barry Andrews’s, either. If the break-up hadn’t happened in London it would have occurred elsewhere: he was neglecting her completely by then, the drinking at its worst, the womanizing open and blatant. Everything had been his fault.

  So now he had his career and his title on the door and was as lonely as hell and by the Sod’s Law of fate had the permanent mockery of Barry Andrews in the same department although not in the same division.

  Cowley made a conscious effort to slough off the reminiscence and was reaching forward for the stop button to shut off a repeat of the Burden television interview when the telephone rang.

  ‘The Director wants you,’ said Ross’s personal assistant. ‘Now.’

  Petr Yezhov walked almost every night, a regular route and late, when there weren’t many people about. There’d always been people crowded around, in the hospitals. To walk, without people, meant he was free. No walls or locked doors, keeping him in. He’d walk tonight. But not near the Intourist Hotel. There were prostitutes hanging around the Intourist Hotel. Didn’t want to meet any prostitutes.

  Chapter Six

  Danilov was later than he expected getting back to Militia headquarters. He’d let Pavin take the pool car, to get everything back to headquarters for forensic examination, and he’d delayed himself further telephoning Larissa. There was another man with Lapinsk when Danilov entered the Director’s office. Danilov instantly identified the uniform and the shoulder-boards of rank.

  ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Kir Gugin,’ introduced Lapinsk.

  ‘Formerly KGB, now of the Agency for Federal Security,’ added the man, as if his authority needed emphasis. He was fat and swarthy with the mottled red face of some physical condition, blood pressure perhaps. ‘We’ve been waiting a long time,’ he added, complaining.

  The curbs and disbandments throughout the organization after the failed coup of 1991 had done nothing to diminish the arrogance, reflected Danilov. ‘I’m involved in an investigation.’ Had Gugin waited to announce his takeover?

  ‘Anything I should know?’ demanded Lapinsk, anxiously. The General was a grey man – grey faced, grey hair, grey suited – and had the slightly tired attitude of someone gratefully declining into retirement. Danilov thought Lapinsk looked very much the grandfather he was: there were two framed photographs on the desk of Lapinsk’s daughter, with her two sons. On the wall behind the man there were larger photographs of the devastation of Stalingrad and a separate picture of a very young Lapinsk, in army uniform. The man had survived the entire siege of 1942 as a corporal in Chuikov’s 62nd Army and was justifiably proud.

  ‘She’d had sex. But she hadn’t been raped: Novikov is adamant about that. We’ve taken from her apartment a rack of kitchen knives. One that could have caused the wound that killed her is missing.’

  ‘There’s been a second, more forceful protest from the Americans claiming that you broke into the apartment,’ said Gugin. He didn’t know how, not yet, but there were very definitely some benefits to be manipulated here.

  ‘I did not break in,’ retorted Danilov. He was determined against being intimidated by the KGB officer: certainly one of lesser rank. ‘We’ve managed to conduct a reasonably thorough forensic examination, which we would not have been able to do otherwise.’

  Lapinsk sighed at the squabbling. His ulcer began to nag. ‘What’s the significance of the sex and the knife? That she knew her killer?’

  ‘I’m not attaching any special significance: merely telling you what might be important. I’m getting Novikov’s written report tomorrow. I need to compare that with the verbal account.’

  ‘Have you considered the political aspects of this?’ demanded Gugin. ‘It could mean that this woman knew a mass murderer: that he could even be American!’

  Danilov looked for guidance towards Lapinsk, who said: ‘I had to explain everything at the Ministry.’

  Danilov’s tiredness was worsening: his concentration kept ebbing and flowing so that sometimes he heard quite clearly what the other two men were saying and at other times could hardly hear them at all. ‘What else is there from the Foreign Ministry?’

  ‘The relation, the Congressman, has been in direct contact with the American ambassador, who’s sought a meeting,’ said Lapinsk. ‘The man is apparently important. We’re being inundated with demands for information from the Western media. There’s an offer from Washington of technological and scientific help …’

  ‘Which means they despise our investigatory capacity!’ Gugin broke in. After the organization’s most recent problems, it was going to be important to distance the KGB from any dangerous criticism.

  It was difficult for Danilov to hold a thought but again he wondered why the KGB officer had not by now announced KGB control. ‘What’s the official response going to be?’

  ‘Mainly political,’ Lapinsk disclosed. ‘The Minister is waiting for the meeting with the ambassador.’

  Danilov looked pointedly at Gugin. ‘There is some technical help I would appreciate from here.’

  Gugin returned the attention in apparent surprise, in reality wondering if this was going to show him the way. ‘What?’

  Danilov leaned forward, offering a slip of paper upon which he’d copied Ann Harris’s telephone number. ‘Would there have been any monitor?’

  Gugin stared steadily back at the detective for several moments. ‘I won’t know, until I check. We could never admit it.’

  ‘I don’t want to admit it. I want access to numbers she might have called. If the man she slept with isn’t her killer at least he might know why she got out of bed to walk around Moscow in the middle of the night.’

  ‘It would be extremely useful,’ encouraged Lapinsk.

  ‘I’ll inquire,’ promised Gugin. But think and plan first, he decided: there probably would have been a monitor, upon somebody so well connected politically. This really could be the way.

  The reply confused Danilov. Now they were openly inviting KGB involvement and still the man wasn’t making the control demands there should have been. ‘I’d like something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘File photographs of Ann Harris. I’d like to see who she circulated with, socially.’

  ‘She might not have been targeted. If anything came up, during, say, a normal embassy event it might have been retained.’

  ‘She was related to a prominent American politician!’ Danilov pointed out. By now he was totally confused by Gugin’s practically acquiescent attitude: it wasn’t right.

  ‘I’ll check that, too.’ Gugin was sure of an advantage now. It could be very good.
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  ‘That would be extremely helpful.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be,’ said Gugin, amusing himself. He amused himself further with the obvious surprise of the other two men when he terminated his presence by abruptly announcing he had other meetings for which he was already late. He was anxious, in fact, to consult with others back in Lubyanka.

  When they were alone Lapinsk said: ‘How are you going to take this forward?’

  ‘Routinely. Pavin’s setting up the checks on the mental institutions. It’s going to tie up a lot of personnel: possibly mean other cases will have to be put aside.’

  ‘That’s unimportant!’ declared the Director at once, anxious again. ‘There is only one priority. This case. Everyone’s frightened. The Foreign Ministry – and the Interior – are terrified of overseas newspaper and magazine stories of monsters and madmen roaming Moscow’s streets.’

  ‘There is one,’ said Danilov, unhelpfully. He jerked his head in the direction of the door through which Gugin had left. ‘I don’t understand what the Cheka are doing. Or rather, not doing!’

  ‘Neither did I, at first,’ Lapinsk confessed. ‘Then I sat through a half-hour lecture from the Foreign Minister and his advisers about the pitfalls and the Cheka attitude became entirely clear. They’ll cooperate in what we’ve asked: it makes them look willing participants. But they’re always going to be on the outside, free from any responsibility. They can’t afford or risk any more censure, can they?’

  The explanation was still hardly an expression of confidence in either him or the Militia, Danilov recognized. ‘So it begins and ends with us? With me?’ Wasn’t that what he’d wanted? Already determined to fight for?

  ‘The KGB have far more expertise at political and diplomatic manoeuvre than we have. They’ve always needed it more.’

  ‘Are there any special instructions?’ And was he going to regret his own ambition, he asked himself. He hoped not.