No Time for Heroes

by Brian Freemantle

  The prosecutor looked between the two investigators and for a brief, stomach-dropping moment both Danilov and Cowley thought the man was going to refuse to answer. Instead Smolin said: ‘The priority has always been establishing – or perhaps confirming – confidence between governments …’ He smiled bleakly at Cowley. ‘Particularly in America, where the crimes began – or at least were thought to have begun. Washington have accepted completely there was no official Russian connivance in any organised illegality, through our embassy. That what connection there was came from the past, and from people and crime of the past, not the present …’

  Danilov thought that statement stretched the known facts but he didn’t consider interrupting with a question, wanting Smolin to talk himself out.

  ‘There is no doubt the murders of Michel Paulac and Petr Serov have been solved, and the American government know it,’ insisted Smolin. ‘We have a complete admission, together with supporting and corroborating confessions and more scientific evidence than any other murder case I have ever known. Mikhail Antipov will be properly tried and properly sentenced, under Russian law. Every legal requirement will be satisfied. Legal representatives from the Swiss and American embassies will attend, as observers.’

  ‘Then the rest must come out, publicly,’ said Gowley, risking the intrusion from which Danilov was holding back.

  Smolin shook his head. ‘The trial of Mikhail Pavlovich Antipov will be in a closed court. Statements will be issued, at the end of each day’s hearing.’

  ‘How can that be justified, legally?’ persisted Cowley.

  ‘It would unquestionably have been a matter of state security if a Mafia cell had been operated out of an accredited Russian embassy, wouldn’t it?’ demanded the prosecutor. ‘There is every justification for hearing and fully examining such evidence in camera, to prevent the sort of unsubstantiated sensationalism that followed the revelation of the Mafia names in Serov’s possession.’

  ‘And after the full examination of the evidence, it will be declared an unsubstantiated allegation?’ anticipated Danilov.

  ‘Which is the truth,’ said Smolin easily.

  ‘So how did Paulac and Serov get shot in the mouth?’ demanded Cowley. They couldn’t parcel it up like this! It would have to leak out!

  ‘We’re denying ongoing, entrenched Mafia presence,’ said Smolin patiently. ‘Not that there was any criminality. Petr Serov was involved in organised crime. But by himself, without the knowledge or assistance of anyone else in the embassy or the government. And Michel Paulac was also involved in crime. We will issue a detailed apology that a Russian diplomat was so engaged, at the end of the Antipov trial, when his sentence is announced. Which will be the truth, because we do regret it. Switzerland will do the same, which is again the truth, because they regret it. And Washington will publicly respond by welcoming our assurance that there isn’t a Mafia cell in the embassy. Which again will be the truth, because there isn’t.’

  The prosecutor stopped, for them to assimilate the explanation.

  It was possible, Cowley conceded, although still unsure there was not an oversight somewhere. As Smolin was setting it out, there were no lies, no dishonesty: just events and evidence sanitised to satisfy everyone and everything.

  They were the facts, conceded Danilov: it was the truth viewed through a reversed telescope, the proper images minimised instead of being magnified. But it worked: simply, logically, acceptably, it worked.

  It was the sceptical Cowley who tried to point out a flaw. ‘What about the Italian trial? That won’t be controlled, with the public excluded. The Italians have already publicised it as much as they can.’

  ‘Publicised what?’ returned Smolin, appearing to enjoy the debate with the two people most closely involved with the entire investigation. ‘It will be a murder trial! A murder trial which will detail the smashing of a Mafia chain that was going to span the world! That’s what all the publicity will be about. That it was a link-up to smuggle drugs will be a factor, but how it was to be financed will be a very incidental part of the prosecutor’s case: certainly there will be no mention of funds in Switzerland looted from Communist Party sources, or of people in Moscow who until very recently still had political influence being involved.’

  There had been a lot of exchanges with other governments, acknowledged Danilov. ‘What if Zimin talks about it in open court, as part of his defence?’

  ‘It doesn’t provide any defence,’ argued Smolin. Heavily he added: ‘It might affect our thinking about returning him here to serve his sentence, though.’

  ‘Which he will be told, before any public trial?’ anticipated Danilov. It was easy to understand why policemen became totally cynical if they didn’t become totally corrupt.

  ‘There will be the need for you to go to Italy again, ahead of even the preliminary hearing,’ said Smolin, answering the question without provably suggesting Danilov exert the pressure. ‘You will need to re-interview him, about the evidence he can offer here, against Antipov.’

  Danilov’s first thought was that the trip would give him the opportunity to juggle lire into dollars conveniently to help him set up home with Larissa. At once he despised himself for it. Still wanting the information he needed to bring the case to what he would personally regard as its absolute end, Danilov said: ‘We could charge a lot more people in the two Mafia Families here: badly disrupt a lot of organised crime.’

  Smolin regarded him almost irritably. ‘We have already badly disrupted organised crime. The people to whom you’re referring, in both the Chechen and the Ostankino, were involved with the stolen money. Which they did not succeed in getting. So a crime was not perpetrated: the man who did steal the money is dead, beyond punishment. We know a lot of Mafia identities, which we didn’t before. How they operate, even. That could be useful, in the future.’

  Was it solely to control government embarrassment? wondered Danilov, giving his cynicism full rein. Or were there still unknown people in places sufficiently powerful to influence these judgments and decisions? He thought the question possibly provided an answer to an earlier uncertainty. Having made their arrangements and compromises, the other members of the government with whom they’d dealt before had now retreated into the background, never to be accused of political or legal manoeuvring. It made feasible his intended manoeuvring, too, so there was no benefit in his arguing in favour of prosecuting the Chechen. Instead he said: ‘What about Metkin and Kabalin?’

  The Federal Prosecutor gave another negative head shake. ‘You took Antipov’s confession. He never identified them by name. Just that he was told to laugh at your interrogation about Ignatov: that no prosecution would be made.’

  ‘So there is to be no trial?’ asked Cowley.

  ‘They will be dismissed from the Militia, with the loss of all pensions and privileges, by a disciplinary hearing.’

  ‘Raisa Serova?’ queried Danilov. He didn’t expect there would be another opportunity, so they had to learn everything now.

  ‘America has agreed to withdraw any restriction on the anstalt. We are providing the supporting documents, as was suggested to you …’ The prosecutor looked directly at Danilov. ‘You will personally take her to Bern, to supervise her signing over the money to Russia.’

  If he were present, the one uncertainty – the danger of the timing slipping out of sequence – was removed! And he had his answer, about any further Chechen prosecutions! So he could do it! He glanced quickly at the American, to see if the man had realised, but Cowley didn’t answer the look.

  Instead Cowley said: ‘But not accused of any criminal act?’

  ‘No,’ confirmed Smolin.

  ‘Yasev?’

  ‘Dismissed, with the loss of all pensions and privileges. So is every other serving member of permanent government who’s been implicated.’

  The punishment of the old – but perhaps returning – days of Communism, thought Danilov: those not facing a court were being reduced to the status of non-
persons. ‘What’s the post-trial statement, about Ignatov and the woman?’

  Smolin shrugged, the wording both undecided and unnecessary. ‘Rival gang fights: there’s enough of that practically every day on the streets of Moscow. Whores get killed all the time. It hardly needs explaining.’

  Cowley shifted uncomfortably. ‘Washington is still your weakness,’ he insisted. ‘Why was Serov involved?’

  ‘What’s wrong with the truth again?’ asked Smolin. ‘He was the American-based liaison between the Russian gangsters living there and whose names were in his possession – and the Swiss financier whose family came from a republic of the former Soviet Union. That’s sufficient inference, for their connection. If the tie-up between Russian, Italian and American Mafias had been formed, there would have needed to be a liaison, wouldn’t there? We can even speculate they intended using the security of the diplomatic mail as a conduit between Moscow and Washington. Which is true again.’ He straightened, briskly, looking between the two investigators. ‘Anything left out?’

  ‘No,’ said Cowley.

  ‘No,’ said Danilov.

  ‘There’ll be something,’ predicted Cowley, back at Petrovka.

  ‘He was using us, like he – and the others – have been using us all along,’ contradicted Danilov. ‘We’re the closest to it all, so we had to be the first: the filter. It’ll be refined and polished and rehearsed, long before it gets to any court. By the time it does, it’ll be perfect.’

  ‘I forgot how good you guys were at fixing courts! There wasn’t any real criticism in the remark.

  ‘Which you guys were happy enough with the last time and are going along with now,’ retorted Danilov, unoffended.

  ‘And the only poor bastard wrongly accused will be Petr Aleksandrovich Serov, the messenger boy who’s going to be made out to be a diplomatic Al Capone.’

  ‘You realise I can control the timing now, don’t you?’ demanded the Russian. ‘That the one danger is out of the way.’

  ‘It’s the Mafia, Dimitri Ivanovich,’ lectured the American. ‘Danger isn’t ever going to be out of the way.’

  ‘After what we’ve been railroaded into doing!’ protested the Secretary of State. ‘You’ve got to be joking! Tell me you’re joking!’

  ‘We agreed he should get some recognition! He saved the life of an American agent, for God’s sake!’ argued Leonard Ross.

  ‘They can go piss into the wind,’ rejected Hartz.

  ‘Danilov didn’t put the pressure on us! He did his job. Bravely. We should do something,’ insisted the more reasonable FBI Director. ‘I thought it could be something unusual.’

  ‘Like what?’ said the Secretary, unimpressed.

  ‘If an FBI agent had done what Danilov did, in the line of duty, he would have got our Medal of Valour.’

  ‘We making honorary FBI agents now?’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Ross. ‘That’s all it would be: honorary. It’s in my authority to give the award, doesn’t require any special discussion or decision, and would have just the right touch, publicly.’

  ‘God protect me from a liberal, legal mind!’ said Hartz. ‘I bet you never sentenced anyone to death in your whole goddamned career.’

  ‘I did,’ corrected the Director. ‘Five, in fact. But I never condemned anyone wrongly. That’s the important thing.’

  At the end of five days the surveillance of the Ostankino had confirmed three more meeting places. Danilov had become convinced the thickset man was Yuri Ryzhikev and was frustrated he couldn’t confirm it, although realistically accepting it was a professional disappointment. The information was just for background files, after all. He told Pavin to suspend the observation after a further week.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  The detour around the Moscow streets was even more convoluted than before so Danilov guessed they were not going to Pecatnikov, the address he already knew and which would have made the precaution pointless. It was, he supposed, a sensible precaution for them to take: by now they would be frantic, not knowing if Mikhail Antipov had talked. Danilov hoped so. From Kosov’s demeanour – and stumbled demands to know about Antipov’s arrest – he certainly was. The man had insisted on three drinks before setting off, hands jerking so nervously he came close to spilling them, sweat leaking from him. He’d never properly finished anything he began saying, which wasn’t necessary because it had almost all been complaints at the way Danilov had behaved, personally, towards him.

  Danilov had enjoyed every whining protest. His determination to destroy Kosov was as strong as ever, but he was unsure when or how to submit to the Justice or Interior Ministries the dozens of tapes they now possessed from the BMW in which they were at that moment zig-zagging around the city. It couldn’t be before Cowley left: they had decided to stick to the story of the bugging as an entirely independent American operation, with the tapes being surrendered as a departing gesture. Danilov was sure he could sustain the deception of not having known.

  What he was even surer about, after the latest discussion with the Federal Prosecutor, was that Kosov would not be disgraced in a public trial, which was what Danilov had always envisaged: there would be an unpublicised disciplinary tribunal and an unpublicised dismissal, and that would be the discreet end of it all. No, he corrected at once. If they dealt with Kosov the way they had dealt with everyone else, the man would be stripped of all government privileges, so he would lose his worth to the Chechen and whoever else from whom he took bribes and favours. And he was going to lose Larissa. So Kosov would be destroyed: not publicly, perhaps, but in every other way. Danilov didn’t admire himself for the vindictive satisfaction.

  And if everything was to be resolved discreetly, maybe his own past – compensated for by what he had achieved at Petrovka – might be treated with less than an outright dismissal. His survival, at some level within the service, would be a minimal guarantee for his and Larissa’s future. Olga’s too. Recognising it as hypocritical, he decided nevertheless that he really had to remember to buy Olga some of the things she wanted when he made the trip to Switzerland. And try to convert some money into dollars, for the Tatarovo apartment. Double hypocrite, he thought.

  ‘You any idea of the pressure you put me under?’ demanded Kosov.

  ‘You told me several times.’ The man was becoming more coherent, although repetitive.

  ‘What’s Antipov said?’

  ‘There’ve been a lot of interviews.’

  ‘That isn’t an answer! I can’t work with you like this! I need to know!’

  ‘He’s talked about a lot of things. It comes down to what is presented to the authorities and what isn’t.’ Danilov liked the sound of it, believing it would be as good when he repeated it later. From the surroundings, he recognised they were coming into the district regarded as the Chechen slice of Moscow. He hoped the journey would soon end.

  ‘So he’s named names?’

  They’d undoubtedly question Kosov independently. So there was benefit at this stage in the man believing he knew just how serious it could be for his paymasters. ‘He’s named everyone he knows.’

  The only initial sound was a wheezing intake of breath. ‘This is terrible!’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you everything was taking a lot of planning?’

  ‘Did he name me? Had he heard of my connection?’

  ‘No,’ said Danilov, which was the truth.

  This time there was a relieved sigh. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Not panic,’ insisted Danilov. ‘There’s a way.’

  ‘What way?’

  ‘I need to talk it through, with the others.’

  ‘Tell me! Aren’t we working on this as partners?’

  No, thought Danilov: nor would they work as partners on anything, ever. ‘I’ve got to judge their attitude before deciding what is possible and what isn’t.’

  The hitherto unseen monitoring cars swept by, light flashing, and Danilov recognised they had arrived. He recognised where, too. The cafe
was hidden in an unexpected loop off Glovin Bol’soj, little more than an indentation in the line of houses, and was not as secure as the club to which he had been first taken. The only similarity was that it was in a basement, with a receptionist behind a small desk, this one not revealing as much cleavage.

  The same gold-bedecked man was at a table just inside the actual restaurant. He began to rise when he saw Danilov, who shook his head in warning refusal: the bull finished getting to his feet, but didn’t approach for a body search. A sign of concern, judged Danilov: they were letting him play his independence game. He was still glad he’d again refused the urging of Pavin and Cowley to wear a body microphone, which apart from risking everything would have picked up any reference to incriminating photographs.

  The guard slotted in directly behind as Danilov passed, following him through the restaurant. It was a long, corridor-style room: Danilov guessed the doors to the kitchens, creating a break halfway along, formed the division between genuine customers intentionally positioned in the front and Chechen people in the booths at the rear. A group of intruders could not, unopposed, make the sort of still unsolved firebomb attack mounted in the last week or so on the suspected Ostankino restaurant in Ulitza Moskina: innocent people, unwittingly forming a human barrier, would be hurt or maimed, but the Chechen could escape through either the kitchens or the rear, with minimal casualties.

  In the booth closest to the doors to the private dining facilities, Danilov recognised two of the men who had sat guard at the separate table at Pecatnikov. He smiled at them. They ignored him. Before he reached them, one disappeared through a central door, re-emerging almost at once and holding it open for Danilov to enter. Danilov didn’t turn to check, but he had no impression of Kosov entering behind him.

  Apart from Gusovsky and Yerin the room, set with four other tables, was empty. Again there was no evidence of any food before either man, although there was a wine bottle and two already filled glasses. As Danilov sat, Gusovsky poured wine into the third.