No Time for Heroes

CHAPTER TWELVE

The media manipulation was perfectly orchestrated. The State Department leaks stopped short of giving a reason for the meeting between the Russian ambassador and Henry Hartz, which built up speculation. The suggestion of Moscow being invited to join the investigation was given to selected journalists by the publicity-conscious mayor, Elliott Jones, after a detailed briefing from Hartz. The campaign got the name and photograph of Dimitri Ivanovich Danilov in every newspaper and news agency report and on every television screen. The State Department and FBI both refused to comment, but after letting the stories develop their own momentum the Bureau promised a press conference in which William Cowley would take part.

There was a totally unexpected fillip to the manipulation from the Russians themselves. The day before the Washington conference, the Interior Ministry in Moscow made an ideally low-key statement that the ambassador’s summons to the State Department had been to discuss the murder of Petr Aleksandrovich Serov. What had been discussed was being considered.

That night Cowley considered going for another walk to Crystal City, but didn’t. He hadn’t suffered from a hangover after the previous occasion – one of the problems of the past was that no matter how much he’d drunk, he’d never felt ill the following day – but he thought it was better not to drink at all. The ease of the decision pleased him, as further proof he had everything under total control.

Cowley travelled to the State Department, where the conference was to be staged, in the Director’s car: to achieve maximum effect they got out at the main entrance, picking their way through a white dazzle of camera lights. In an anteroom Elliott Jones was being powdered down by a make-up girl to prevent skin shine.

The FBI Director led the way into the conference room, the mayor following. Lights burst on and the noise began and Cowley had a feeling of an event re-creating itself: it was practically a mirror image of the murder press conference in Moscow, insisted upon by Senator Burden. Cowley had detested it then, and he was detesting it today. He felt his skin flush in the heat of the lights and thought maybe he should have had make-up after all.

Ross gestured for quiet, which he got almost at once. He talked in measured, even tones: Cowley decided the man must have been an impressive judge. Until that moment, the make of the murder weapon and the fact that the bullets had been of Russian manufacture had not been released. Ross made the prepared announcement, to guarantee the headlines, waving down the eruption of questions that followed. Once again he quickly regained command. Because the crime appeared to have those Russian links as well as to involve a Russian diplomat, it had been decided to invite Russian representation, just as Russia had invited the FBI involvement in an earlier case with which they were all familiar. As the Director of the FBI, he sincerely hoped Moscow would accept the offer. There were essential enquiries to be made in Moscow, but a Russian investigator would also be welcome in the United States and shown every assistance, just as William Cowley had been given all possible help when he had gone to Moscow.

The snowstorm of questions ranged over every possible theory, speculation and rumour, to hardly any of which they provided positive answers. The most concerted query revolved, in every conceivable way and manner, around the Mafia. Ross acknowledged there was a Mafia, even by that title, in Russia, but refused to postulate any connection yet with organised crime in either America or Sicily. They did not yet know why a Swiss financier had travelled from Geneva to meet a Russian attache: that was one of the questions a Russian investigation might answer.

When his turn came to be questioned, Cowley accepted the circumstances were coincidental to the earlier Moscow case. He had enjoyed working there, and was sure the level and extent of the co-operation he’d known then could be repeated in this case were he to be reunited with Dimitri Danilov. Here Cowley looked sideways, to Ross, and said he had officially praised the Russian’s ability in written reports to the Director, at the conclusion of the earlier murder enquiry. If there were no Russian participation the case might be impossible to solve. He was sure the Russian authorities did not wish the investigation to fail and would do whatever they could to prevent that happening.

Cowley’s only potential awkwardness came with a series of persistent questions about whether he thought an accredited diplomat at a foreign embassy was involved in criminal activities. Cowley’s only reply, which echoed hollowly when he gave it, was that he had no reason to connect Petr Serov with any crime. The Director repeated it, for emphasis. That denial sounded hollow, too.

Back in the anteroom, afterwards, Rafferty said: ‘The only way left to get Danilov here if that fails is to send in a SWAT team to kidnap him!’

‘If they do respond but send a stooge, I guess we’ve got part of our answer, about collusion,’ said Ross, reflectively.

‘Then where are we?’ asked Cowley.

‘The same place as we are at the moment,’ said the Director. ‘Nowhere.’

The media coverage in Moscow was restricted in comparison to Washington only by the limitations of television channels and newspapers. The television at the Kirovskaya apartment faded halfway through the item, with Danilov’s face filling the screen, sending Olga into a screaming rage. The following morning Danilov stopped and bought all the papers, as he had when the murder of Serov occurred; on this occasion he was featured on all the front pages. He stored them in the boot, for Olga to read that night. When he got to Petrovka there were no mockery-intended copies on his cluttered desk. He’d been there an hour when the summons came from Metkin.

‘You have been ordered to the Interior Ministry,’ announced the Director. ‘We both have.’ The man stopped, rehearsing what he had to say. ‘Leonid Lapinsk committed suicide last night. Shot himself with his service revolver, which he hadn’t surrendered.’ Another pause. ‘Through the mouth: blew his head off.’