In the Name of a Killer

Chapter Five

Power in Washington is layered, and those layers are divided again, between publicly known influence and private, behind-the-scenes importance. Senator Walter Burden, who did not welcome the political cartoonists’ impression of him as a living version of Kentucky Fried Chicken’s Colonel Sanders, although the physical similarity was remarkable, enjoyed both. And expertly used both, to the public and private promotion of Senator Walter Burden. One day — a day of his choosing — he intended to occupy the White House. Which some pundits considered inevitable. And which was why, within twenty-four hours of the alert from Moscow, a conference was convened by Secretary of State Henry Hartz with the Directors of both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Hartz’s seventh-floor office at the State Department, in that incongruously named part of the city called Foggy Bottom.

Hartz, who but for his German birth, which constitutionally precluded his seeking the office, considered himself a Presidential candidate, stood at the window overlooking the unseen, sunken memorial to the Vietnam war dead, his mind completely occupied by the news from Russia. Even before a moment’s examination of all the implications, it was obviously going to be hell: sheer and utter hell. Which worried him. Denied his presidential aspirations by the mischance of his birthplace, Hartz believed he had achieved the next best thing. His periods as Secretary of State had been times of unmarred diplomatic success, properly acknowledged by the incoming President who had asked him to remain in office, after succeeding the previous White House incumbent. Hartz had seen the request continuing under Burden. Ahead of any discussion of additional information from Moscow, he knew that expectation could be jeopardized if Burden were not handled like the prima donna he was. Hell, Hartz decided again.

The intercom warned him of the arrival of the two Directors and Hartz was at the door when they entered. Richard Holmes, head of the CIA, was a tall, dark-haired man with a sun-bed tan and the attitude of think-twice caution of a Washington survivor. He neither smoked nor drank and had been an intelligence professional all his life. There were outstanding offers, all in excess of $1,000,000, from three New York publishing houses for his memoirs. Holmes was a happy, contented man.

He entered ahead of the FBI chief. Leonard Ross had believed his political ambitions fulfilled the previous year with his appointment to head of the Bureau. But no longer. In just one year he had become first disillusioned and then sickened by the shadow-watching political intrigue of the capital until now he yearned to return to the New York State bench where he had served with distinction as its senior judge.

There were handshakes and greetings and Hartz led the group towards the couches and easy chairs in that corner of the office furthest from the windows and their hotchpotch view. Hartz said: ‘I thought we might benefit from some conversation ahead of Burden getting here.’

‘How’s he taking it?’ asked Holmes. He was pleased with the Agency’s legal advice that there was no way the CIA could become involved. He’d already wired the Moscow station to stay clear.

‘Predictably,’ said Hartz. ‘He’s already phoned our ambassador in Moscow direct. Asked me what the President was doing about it. He’s demanding investigation, from both of you. Actually told me he wants the bastard — his word — who did it brought back for trial in this country.’

The FBI Director shook his head in cynical bemusement. Washington at its best — or worst — he thought. ‘He can forget it.’

Apprehension settled heavily on Hartz. ‘What, precisely, is the legal guidance?’

‘The CIA doesn’t have any jurisdiction or authority,’ said Holmes, quickly. He wished the relief hadn’t sounded so obvious.

‘The Bureau has a criminal investigation capacity but again no jurisdiction or authority in the Russian Commonwealth,’ said Ross.

‘Burden expects there to be both.’

‘I don’t give a damn what Burden expects,’ said Ross, who in addition to his disillusionment also had the financial independence to speak his mind. ‘I’m stating the legal reality.’

‘The Russians are behaving arrogantly,’ said Hartz. ‘I don’t think they should have entered her apartment as they did.’

‘What are you doing about that?’ asked Holmes.

‘There’s been a complaint, from the embassy. I’m calling the Russian ambassador here, to emphasize it.’

‘I don’t know the diplomatic protocol, but the Russians are investigating a murder,’ Ross pointed out, mildly.

‘You approve what they did?’ asked Hartz.

‘If the situation were reversed and it had happened here in Washington I wouldn’t have censored any of my people for doing the same. And there’s not a lot of practical purpose in complaining after the event, is there?’

The desk buzzer gave another warning, but Senator Walter Burden was already through the door before the Secretary of State reached it for a personal welcome. Burden nodded in recognition to both Directors and said in advance of sitting down: ‘I want to know everything that’s happened! All the developments!’ The man was immaculate in a broad-striped suit and pink shirt: the tie and pocket handkerchief formed a matching combination. He sat on the edge of his seat, leaning towards them intently: for no obvious reason he put on heavy reading glasses. He nodded, as if giving everyone in the room permission to speak.

‘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.