No Time for Heroes

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘The bastard said …’ blurted Dolya, no longer thinking before he spoke, trying too late to bite the words back.

  Danilov let the virtual admission hang in the air between them for several moments. ‘He lied. So whose order was it? Gusovsky? Yerin? Zimin?’

  The awareness of the names further disoriented the man. ‘A message, through Visco.’ mumbled Dolya.

  ‘Your former KGB officer?’

  Dolya nodded without replying, so Danilov repeated the question, making him say ‘Yes’ for the record. Having spoken, Dolya hurried on: ‘I didn’t know what it was for. I was just told to send it to Redin, at the embassy. That it would be collected.’

  Danilov was thankful he’d excluded Cowley. Nikolai Redin, the still-serving security officer in Washington, had to be got out before his link in the murders was known by the FBI. Danilov accepted the most important part of the confession was yet to come. ‘Who did collect it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Danilov loudly. ‘You expect us to believe your officer was simply going to hand over a gun to a complete stranger, without any identification?’

  ‘Someone from the Chechen,’ said Dolya, still trying to avoid an answer.

  ‘Who, from the Chechen? I want a name!’

  ‘Antipov,’ said the man, mumbling again. ‘Mikhail Pavlovich Antipov.’

  ‘How?’ persisted Danilov remorselessly.

  ‘They met, somewhere near the embassy. A park.’

  ‘Lafayette Park?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Danilov knew he could take any risk now. ‘And Redin had to show Antipov a photograph, didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of whom?’

  ‘Petr Aleksandrovich Serov.’

  He’d got it! There was a sweep of lightheadedness, at the final success, but Danilov’s satisfaction was at once tempered by reality. Cowley would have to know he had been cheated, which could damage their relationship. And although they could bring Redin home from Washington to avoid an immediate diplomatic confrontation, Danilov didn’t see how Dolya – or Redin, for that matter – could be kept out of any eventual prosecution against Antipov, which in turn would be necessary legally to resolve a double murder committed on American soil. So the inevitable government embarrassment was merely being postponed, not avoided. Not my concern, Danilov told himself. Then – sneering at his own irony – he thought, I am only obeying orders.

  The Federal Prosecutor accepted his call without Danilov having to persuade aides it was a matter of priority.

  ‘We’ll bring Redin out tonight,’ agreed Smolin instantly, not needing to consult the other ministers. ‘You’re detaining Dolya?’

  ‘Pending any decision you and the Justice Minister make.’

  ‘What about Switzerland?’

  ‘There’s a comparatively easy way to get the money back,’ disclosed Danilov. He gave a brief explanation, promising a fuller written report overnight.

  ‘Raisa Serova will need to be properly detained now.’

  ‘I’ve already issued the order,’ disclosed Danilov. ‘Against Yasev, too.’

  ‘Anything?’ asked Cowley, when Danilov telephoned.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Danilov. All the other lies, to trick people into admissions and confessions, had been easy. This one stuck in his throat, close to being a physical discomfort.

  ‘Sons of bitches!’ exclaimed Henry Hartz. He’d summoned the FBI Director directly after the departure of the Russian ambassador, who had requested the meeting to talk of the wrongly-detained Russian mental patient showing signs of recovery.

  ‘He make the threat openly?’ queried Leonard Ross. He’d already alerted the Secretary of State to the possibility of the approach, after Cowley’s warning. Hartz had said he wouldn’t believe it until it was formally made. Now he did believe it.

  ‘He didn’t need to, did he!’ said the outraged Secretary of State. ‘Said his government felt they should bring it to our notice and that they would welcome our views.’

  ‘There’s going to be another request, shortly,’ said Ross, who had two hours earlier received Cowley’s account of the Swiss conference.

  ‘Does that give us anything to bargain with?’ wondered Hartz, when Ross explained.

  ‘We could be difficult about it, I suppose: give them a bad time,’ said Ross. ‘But it ends with the same decision for us: can we have it made public that an insane Bureau agent was a serial killer, with a senator’s niece as one of his victims? And that we did a deal to cover it up from everyone, including the senator?’

  ‘Of course we can’t!’ accepted Hartz, exasperated. ‘And they damn well know it. How about the killings here, in the current investigation?’

  ‘Forensic are doing what they can.’

  ‘I’m not going to do anything about getting their thirty million back until we get an acceptable prosecution!’ insisted Hartz.

  ‘At the moment there’s no way of knowing we’re going to get that,’ warned Ross realistically.

  ‘So we’ll have to deal, in the end?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ross bluntly. A fair-minded man, he added: ‘But they did it the last time. And we’d do exactly the same as the Russians, if we were in their position.’

  ‘I like making the demands,’ said Hartz, in matching honesty. ‘Not having demands imposed upon me.’

  The photographic surveillance of Wernadski Prospekt revealed a large house partially hidden behind a protective wall. There always appeared to be a large number of Mercedes parked around it. A total of twelve men were repeatedly pictured, who were assumed to be staff or bodyguards. Women came and went; none were thought to live there permanently. The written reports, linked to the photographs, talked of a very definite attitude of respect towards one particular man, a thickset, hunched figure who always appeared to move head down, sure a path would be cleared ahead of him.

  ‘Yuri Yermolovich Ryzhikev?’ queried Danilov.

  ‘There’s no comparison picture in our records,’ said Pavin.

  ‘There’s bugger all in our records!’ reminded Danilov.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  The protective custody had necessarily meant their separation in male and female facilities, and Raisa Serova’s first interest on entering Danilov’s self-appointed director’s suite was in Yasev, as his was in her. She came through the door a few moments after the man, who at once felt for her hand, smiling. Neither showed any awkwardness about the open affection, but then they hadn’t at the moment of discovery, at Leninskaya. Raisa, as always, was immaculate, perfectly made-up, perfectly coiffured, despite having spent the past three days in near-jail conditions. They both appeared relaxed and confident. It wouldn’t last, after he announced their formal detention, but Danilov guessed they would eventually be released, because of the government decision already made, and their sanitised version would be the one officially accepted. There should be some satisfaction, he supposed, in telling them they’d failed.

  As Yasev helped Raisa into her chair the man noticed Pavin, waiting in his notetaking corner of the room and frowned, although only slightly. The same look encompassed Cowley, close to the window. Danilov looked, too, nervous of what was likely to emerge during the questioning: should he lie to the American, to preserve their relationship? Or retain his integrity and tell the truth?

  ‘You’ve arrested them?’ demanded Raisa at once. ‘Is it all over?’

  ‘It’s all over,’ said Danilov, which was not an answer to her question.

  Yasev smiled at her again, more widely this time. ‘So it’s safe for us to leave?’

  ‘You’re no longer in danger, you mean?’ came in Cowley, from the window.

  Yasev looked uncertain. ‘That was the point of our agreeing to come into custody, wasn’t it? For protection?’

  ‘We’ve been reconsidering some aspects of the case since our last meeting,’ said Cowley. He was having to make a determined effort to concentrate: Washington’s o
vernight message was that no decision had been reached on whether to agree to the Russian pressure. Which meant Pauline was still at risk.

  The woman shook her head, bewildered. ‘What aspects? What’s going on?’

  ‘The search for the absolute truth,’ said Danilov, answering literally. ‘You see, we don’t think you’ve been totally honest with us. Everything’s there, perhaps. It’s just the order in which you’ve told it that’s wrong.’

  She made another head movement. ‘You have the truth! We came voluntarily into your protection. We no longer need it. We will go now.’ She started to rise, followed by Yasev.

  ‘I agreed that it was all over,’ said Danilov, stopping both of them. ‘Not that the Chechen leadership is in custody. So far, the only one arrested is the man in Italy.’

  ‘Tell us,’ urged Cowley, ‘did you still think there was a way to get the money?’

  The woman and her lover slowly regained their seats. Raisa said: ‘I was trying to find a way to return the money and get rid of the pressure. And protect my father’s name. That’s the truth.’

  ‘No,’ refuted Danilov. ‘We’ve had the Swiss company incorporation rules explained to us. Where did you learn about the transfer of an anstalt Founder’s Certificate? From your father? Or from Paulac? Maybe both: we know you would have had to go through the process when your father signed over the beneficiary agreement.’

  ‘I don’t know of the transfer regulations,’ insisted Raisa.

  With both possible sources dead, that denial was beyond challenge. Danilov said: ‘Just one thing didn’t fit, from the beginning. Just imagine, if it had worked! A perfect double murder and a thirty-million-dollar fortune …!’

  ‘… On which to live happily ever after,’ Cowley finished. He no longer had any doubt about this supposition of Danilov’s, although there could never be sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution. He wondered why Danilov wanted to go through the charade.

  Yasev reached out for Raisa’s hand again: Danilov got the impression it was a warning more than a gesture of affection. At the same time, the ministry official looked directly at Pavin, industriously recording every word.

  ‘That was the idea, wasn’t it?’ persisted Danilov. ‘Getting the money and disposing of Petr Aleksandrovich?’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ persisted Yasev.

  ‘The one thing that always worried me – that I couldn’t reconcile, however much I tried – was how the Chechen hitman who killed your husband and Michel Paulac knew the precise date and place where they would be meeting in Washington,’ said Danilov. ‘It couldn’t have come from Paulac, could it? His loyalty was to a rival gang. And Petr Aleksandrovich was a clerk, standing in for you …’ He looked between the man and the woman, hoping one of them might speak. Neither did. ‘… There was only one other person from whom the information could possibly have come. You, Raisa Ilyavich! You who always made the ongoing plans with the financier, at the conclusion of every conference. Finding you two together at Leninskaya helped us towards understanding: realising you were having an affair and weren’t after all the grieving widow. And that affair has been going on for a long time, hasn’t it? Ever since Paris. We’ve become very good at tracing immigration records: entries and exits from countries. We know just how many times you two shuttled back and forth, between Moscow and Washington … and we know, Oleg Yaklovich, that you hold an exit visa valid over the next month …’

  ‘This is fantasy,’ broke in Yasev. ‘Total and utter fantasy …’

  ‘But so logical,’ took up Cowley. ‘Paulac knew how violent these Moscow gangs are: you told us how he warned you. Called them killers. But you weren’t frightened of the Chechen takeover. It was perfect for you. You could get rid of an unwanted husband and the financier close enough to have interfered. And you knew the money was safe because it remained yours until you’d legally sworn the necessary Swiss authority, quite irrespective of any transfer document you might sign here, supposedly giving everything to the Chechen. But they wouldn’t know that: probably still don’t …’

  ‘… Who was there to stop you?’ resumed Danilov. ‘No-one connected with the 1991 coup could complain if the money disappeared. They would have incriminated themselves. And by the time the Chechen learned how you’d cheated them, you would have cleaned out the anstalt and been living as far away from Russia as you could. A thirty-million-dollar fortune was worth the risk of their trying to find you, wasn’t it? And with that amount of money you could have easily got new identities, couldn’t you?’

  ‘If the Chechen hadn’t tried to expand internationally as quickly as they did – and had a treaty not existed between Switzerland and America under which the account could be sealed – it would have all worked,’ said Cowley. He pinched his thumb and forefinger together. ‘That close!’

  Directly addressing the woman, Danilov said: ‘You didn’t want the Chechen to get it wrong, did you? You even provided a picture of Petr Aleksandrovich, so the killer would know what he looked like.’ Danilov detected a stir of movement from the window behind him, from Cowley.

  ‘You’re talking nonsense!’

  ‘Dolya’s confessed.’ He was opening the way to lie later, to Cowley, he realised.

  ‘I did not identify my husband to anyone!’

  Yasev’s warning hand reached sideways again. ‘Fantasy,’ he repeated. ‘It’s all utterly without foundation. Any of it.’

  ‘Why have you a visa to travel out of the country?’ demanded Danilov, of Yasev.

  ‘We told you at Leninskaya, I was trying to find an acceptable way to return the money. If I could devise something, I was going to travel to Switzerland with Raisa Ilyavich, to help arrange for the transfer back here, to Russia.’ The man told the blatant lie staring unblinkingly across the desk at the two investigators.

  ‘But you hadn’t found an acceptable way?’ said Cowley, close to mockery.

  ‘I no longer had to, after our last meeting. The anstalt was officially known about, along with Ilya Nishin’s part in it: he couldn’t be protected any more. It became a simple matter of repatriating assets I didn’t have to concern myself with.’

  It was Yasev and Raisa Serova who were really mocking them, Danilov decided: Yasev had certainly recognised the inconsistencies weren’t sufficient for any prosecution. So what had they achieved, arranging this confrontation? The satisfaction of letting the couple know it hadn’t, after all, been a foolproof scheme, he thought again. It seemed a doubtful victory now, no more than a sop to his own pride.

  ‘No,’ he agreed, stressing the sarcasm. ‘It isn’t something you’ve got to concern yourself with any more …’ Turning to the woman, he said: ‘And you are going to get your wish to give the money back. Every cent of it. That will please you, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said tightly.

  Still not much of a victory, decided Danilov. ‘Upon the authority of the Federal Prosecutor, you are both now being formally arrested, pending further enquiries.’

  Yasev tried to bluster, demanding access to the Foreign Ministry and then a lawyer. Raisa’s face closed like a mask and she said nothing. Yasev’s parting words, as he was led away, came in a shout. ‘You have no proof!’

  ‘He’s right,’ said the American, from the window.

  ‘And he knows it,’ agreed Danilov. ‘At least where they’re going to be held now won’t be as comfortable as the last two or three days.’

  Cowley put himself directly opposite, on the other side of the desk. ‘Dolya confessed?’ he echoed.

  ‘It was …’ started Danilov, then stopped. He wouldn’t do it! He could claim the confession was made to someone else – to an official in the Interior or Security Ministries – but he wouldn’t do it. ‘There had to be some way a Russian pistol got to America. Airport security is too tight for it simply to be carried on and off planes.’

  ‘Redin, the Washington security man?’ Cowley’s voice was dull, not outraged. He should have thought of it himself: might have done
, if he hadn’t been awash with alcohol and remorse.

  Recognising the cliché before he uttered it, Danilov said: ‘He was obeying orders. Dolya was, too. From the Chechen, not from the government. He told me about the gun and he told me about the identification.’

  ‘Redin’s back, out of American jurisdiction?’ said Cowley, in further dull acceptance.

  ‘Overnight,’ confirmed Danilov. ‘He would probably have been beyond your jurisdiction, under diplomatic immunity, anyway.’

  ‘What made you realise?’

  ‘Italy,’ admitted Danilov. ‘Just before we went into Villalba, and Melega realised neither you nor I were armed. I started thinking how we couldn’t have been, unless we’d got special dispensation from the airlines. Our embassies were the only other way.’

  ‘Another guess that turned out right,’ said Cowley.

  ‘We agreed at the beginning there might have to be a limit on the co-operation, for obvious reasons,’ reminded the Russian. ‘This was one of them.’

  ‘I know.’

  Danilov had expected more disappointment from the other man. ‘And there’s no way Washington need ever find out how it really happened: the recall could have been unknown to either of us.’

  ‘I know that, too.’ He’d have done it himself, Cowley acknowledged: had done things very similar during the serial-killing investigation the Russians were now using for diplomatic blackmail.

  ‘No hard feelings?’ pressed Danilov hopefully.

  ‘No hard feelings,’ assured Cowley. Objectively, he said: ‘We’re too close to the end for it to become a problem again.’

  They realised just how close when Stephen Snow telephoned Cowley from the embassy: there was a positive DNA comparison, and forensic had also made a provable match with clothing fibre from the grey Ford. The evidence was on its way, in the following morning’s diplomatic pouch.

  ‘Which takes care of your two murders,’ Danilov said. More pointedly, he added: ‘And that of Lena Zurov.’

  ‘How the hell can it ever be separated, for any effective cover-up?’ asked Cowley.