The Watchmen

32

It was a feel-good (and for some, later, feel-bad) night of what turned out to be premature celebration, little sleep, some work, early-hour telephone calls, and a lot of political maneuvering. There were also, again later, some more overheard conversations and one that wasn’t.

The most immediate result of the early-hour telephoning was the agreement by both White Houses that Dimitri Danilov be included in the sort of satellite link-up that had first been established for the American secretary of state when Hartz had been in Moscow. The Russian acceptance was reached while Danilov was still with Georgi Chelyag, whom he’d earlier alerted at home and who didn’t bother to conceal his satisfaction at the embassy-developed photographs of the Nikitskij garage arsenal. The chief of staff absented himself for only fifteen minutes to get higher approval for Danilov’s participation. With it came the politicking. Chelyag ordered Danilov to return immediately to brief the president before he made another call to Washington later in the day. Chelyag was going to bypass the Foreign Ministry to liaise directly with Henry Hartz.

Danilov had suggested that Cowley’s celebration be in the security of the embassy mess rather than in the Savoy Hotel, and he’d strictly limited himself, determined against another hangover. Cowley hadn’t-neither had most of the others-but showed no sign of suffering. Both Paul Lambert and Barry Martlew did, gray-faced and pouch-eyed.

“It’s worth it, having something like this after so long,” insisted the forensic team leader. After the party he’d had to supervise what could be done at the embassy-the development, enhancement, and wiring to Washington of the pictures-and what had to be packaged, with instructions, for Washington scientific tests.

The four of them made up the Moscow contingent. In Washington it was Frank Norton, Leonard Ross, and Pamela Darnley. Norton’s opening to Moscow was: “You’ve done well there-damned well. We’re getting a handle on things at last.”

“There wasn’t a warhead,” Cowley cautioned at once. He, like Danilov, had begun to put the garage findings into perspective.

“We’ve got everything else,” insisted Norton.

“Have we?” Danilov asked rhetorically, raising the uncertainty he’d already talked through with Chelyag. “We’ve no way of knowing that’s their only stockpile-that this is even the weaponry they intend selling through Orlenko and Guzov.”

“Whatever the intention, they’re not getting this lot,” said Norton. Addressing Danilov, he said, “You’ve got some official guidance on this?”

“It can be seized whenever it’s decided, by our SWAT equivalent.” Danilov looked sideways to Cowley.

“And of course we’ve got the garage under permanent surveillance. We won’t lose it,” said the American.

“You can’t guarantee that: No one could,” Ross objected at once. “It’s too dangerous, leaving it there.”

“We can’t touch it,” insisted Cowley, equally quickly, the euphoria all gone. “Finding it, like we have, still leaves us with as many problems as before, with the additional one that Dimitri’s just pointed out.”

An unformed idea, like a shadow in the dark, began nagging in Danilov’s mind but refused to harden.

“We know what they intended to do with their Pentagon access,” argued Norton. “It was Challenger, and we’ve got all the time in the world to correct it. We’re safe back here.”

“I’m not sure that we are,” said Pamela, pleased that her success had been acknowledged without her having to prompt the reference. “Remember what the woman says on the Chicago intercept:”more surprises than they can ever guess.” Surprises. Plural, not singular. I’m not convinced that we’ve got rid of the danger here by finding the Challenger interference. I’ve told Ashton to go on looking.”

“You’re surely not suggesting we do nothing about the Moscow cache!” Norton demanded incredulously.

“I’m reminding everyone that if we move too soon in Moscow-before we’ve got positive leads and identification here-we risk their triggering something we can’t anticipate or stop,” said Pamela. There was no hesitation, no deferring to rank or authority, and no one seemed to expect it.

“I agree,” said Cowley.

“So do I. And it’s the argument I’ve already put here, since we discovered what’s in the garage,” said Danilov. What was it that wouldn’t come to him!

Pamela filled the silence from Washington. “Something might be moving. From what we overheard from Bay View Road, Orlenko made contact last night. The new number is the public phone at the River Cafe below the Brooklyn Bridge: the one with the view of the Manhattan skyline. We’re putting a tap on it, of course. But the pattern is for him to speak to Moscow after hearing from whoever he talks to.”

“It’ll be about the money,” remembered Cowley. “Any progress on that?”

“No,” said Ross. “What did you get out of the Oldsmobile?”

“I’m hoping we’ll get more from what we put in,” said Lambert. “We wired it, two separate microphones, one inside the radio, one inside the pod on the turning indicator arm. We’ve lifted five different fingerprint sets: There’s a match to the one print on the trigger guard of the launcher discarded after the embassy attack. We’ve got a lot of human hair and one cigarette butt from a filled ashtray on the front dash. We can pick up saliva from that for DNA-as well as from the hair-if we need a match. There’s clothes fibers, too. There’s some paint flakes from the trunk carpeting that could be from both the warhead and the missile that was fired at the embassy here. It’s all already on its way back to the laboratory.”

“I’m having the prints run through criminal records and against our ex-intelligence officer files,” said Danilov. “We’ve already shown last night’s photographs of the car to the embassy guard. He says it’s definitely the one used in the attack.”

“And you’re telling me that we still can’t move on it!” said the exasperated presidential aide. “I know the arguments, but we’ve really got to think this thing through. Do something!”

“From the photographs it looks to me as if there’s more explosives than were put in the Lincoln Memorial,” said Ross. “I know the reasoning for leaving it alone-have gone along with it until now-but I’m not so sure anymore. I don’t see how we can.”

The shadow in Danilov’s mind became a positive thought, literally like a shaft of light. “We don’t have to!” he announced.

The three men in the room turned to him, frowning. The same expression registered on the faces in Washington. “Naina Karpov and Yevgenni Leanov-and those we know about there, in America-aren’t ballistics experts. They’re stealing and selling. They won’t know if the stuff is armed-operational-or not. We can get back in to where they’re storing it-more easily than last night, because we know their security and booby traps now-and simply disarm everything. Remove firing mechanisms, sabotage the timers and detonators. The Watchmen would imagine its failure to be for the same reason as the UN missile: bad Russian manufacture. The last time they thought that, they came all the way from America to teach their suppliers a lesson.”

There were slow, nodded smiles of understanding from inside the room and from Washington. Pamela said, “How do you make the warhead inoperative if they get it and we find it? After last time they’ll check the detonating mechanism. That’s what the newspapers and television said had failed.”

The smiles went, but only briefly. Cowley said, “We won’t have to try. We’ve got two empty warheads of our own, one from each source. We bring them back from Washington and simply swop.”

“You haven’t found the warhead,” reminded Pamela.

“We’ll go ahead with the switch with what’s already there,” declared Norton, making the decision that should have been Leonard Ross’s.

“My people handle ballistics after their use,” reminded Lambert.

“Why don’t the Fort Detrick specialists come over? And bring the empty warheads just in case?” suggested Ross. “I want to be sure nothing can go off, no matter what’s done with it if we’ve got to let it come here.”

Danilov suspected that Georgi Chelyag used their second encounter as a planning rehearsal. The man seized the American sabotaging of the weaponry as a further distancing of Russian presidential responsibility. He insisted their agreement could be phrased as a favor to an America deeply embarrassed by the terrorists’ Pentagon penetration.

“We’ll have to be horrified at what could have been a space shuttle disaster involving our astronauts,” said Chelyag, almost to himself.

“I am!” said Danilov, still uncomfortable with the other man’s total political cynicism.

“And they still think there could be something more?” queried the chief of staff.

“Yes.” They hadn’t discussed it after the satellite closedown, but Danilov had been as conscious as Cowley of Pamela’s aggressiveness.

“Maybe we should put all our early-warning systems on standby?”

“I thought there’d been an assurance that nothing is directed toward us?”

“There has. And according to you it was Challenger’s directional system that had been tampered with. What’s to stop something being put back on course?”

“It would become public knowledge that we’d done it.”

Chelyag smiled. “Of course it would. It’s a presidential decision, and the president would be failing in his responsibilities to the Russian people if he didn’t take the precaution, after what we’ve just learned. That can all be made clear in today’s conversation with Washington, with the assurance that there will be no leak from this end that what was done to the space shuttle is the reason for our doing it. Which it won’t, not even to the Duma as they prepare their censure vote. It might, of course, give them cause to pause and reflect, not having the slightest idea what’s going on.”

Danilov wondered how many situations there had ever been that Chelyag hadn’t manipulated 180 degrees to his or a superior’s advantage. Danilov suddenly decided the sewer life in which he lived and worked was preferable to what Chelyag inhabited and that he’d never again feel guilty at his own long-ago toe dip into what, by comparison, was perfumed corruption. He said, “I don’t think there’s anything else.”

Chelyag said, “The investigation is producing far more here than it is in America, isn’t it?”

“Because of American participation,” insisted Danilov.

“That’s a matter of interpretation,” said Chelyag, smiling again.

“More names,” announced a satisfied Yuri Pavin. “And we know which one fired the missile at the embassy.’

There were three names, all from the now-completed list of former intelligence personnel and all positively identified from fingerprints lifted from inside the Oldsmobile. One was a former spetznaz-seconded major. It was his print on the launcher trigger guard.

“He’d have had all the military training,” Pavin pointed out.

“What about the Lasin murder?”

“Everything fed to Mizin, as ordered,” responded the colonel formally. He smiled. “He said our thoughts were in line with what he was thinking.”

“Let’s hope”-started Danilov before his telephone rang.

“Leanov’s picking up the Oldsmobile,” announced Cowley.

The music went with the car, Billie Holiday in good voice, before the heroin took control. A tape, Cowley guessed. Leanov hummed along badly, obviously not knowing her tune rifts. There was no distortion on the tapes. The first bug was in the radio, not the speakers. From the frequent horn blasts, Nikitskij Boulevard was congested. Cowley looked up and nodded at Danilov’s arrival. “He’s alone. Got a voice like shit.”

Danilov said, “We’ve got a name for who fired the bazooka: a spetznaz officer. Two other names, as well. Probably the attack group that Naina Karpov sneered at for needing transport.”

“Spetznaz fits,” said the American.

“A piece at a time,” agreed Danilov.

“We got two cars behind but they’re staying loose. Don’t want to spook him.”

The Billie Holiday tape was turned down in the middle of “Love for Sale,” and Leanov stopped trying to sing along. Cowley strained forward at another faint noise and said, “Dialing out: the car didn’t have a phone so it’ll be a cell phone.”

Lambert said, “Every digit’s got a different tone. I can get a number from that.”

“On my way,” said Leanov. Then: “Good.” A pause, for something from whoever he was talking. “We would have liked two.” Another gap. “I didn’t think the military was a problem?” A laugh. “Pay them the fucking money then; you’re getting yours.” The longest break yet. “I’m fifteen minutes away …. Stop worrying.” There was the bleep of the phone going off.

At once the tape was turned up. The song was “Strange Fruit.” Over a separate speaker an American voice said, “We’re getting pushed apart by the traffic. You want us to close up, not to lose him?”

“Not if it risks his making you,” said Cowley, into his handset. “We’re hearing him loud and clear.”

There was an interruption of the Billie Holiday tape while it reversed itself.

Cowley said, “Where’d you get the shooter’s name?”

“Old KGB files. His unit was attached.”

“Address?”

“Spetznaz barracks.”

“Didn’t expect it to be all easy.”

“We’re on the M10,” reported one of the American pursuers.

“Which becomes the M11 and leads right up to Tushino,” said Danilov.

“It’s Plant 43,” accepted Cowley.

“Turning off,” came an American voice.

“Losing our traffic cover,” came the second voice.

“Dropping back,” said the first. Then: “We’re almost at once in the boondocks: open as hell.”

“Second car abort,” ordered Cowley.

“There’s a sign,” said the observer from the first car. “Timiryazev.”

“It’s all country. A huge park,” identified Danilov.

“Only one car between us on the road,” came the warning. “I think he’s slowing.”

“Abort,” ordered Cowley, for the second time. “Let him go.”

“Sorry,” said the observer.

“Nobody’s fault,” said Cowley. “Don’t try to pick up on the return journey.”

Inside the car Leanov turned off the tape. There was a faintly discernible sound they couldn’t recognize but the noise of the engine seemingly revved intermittently. Lambert said, “We’re hearing rough ground. He’s turned off, driving over bumps. Ruts.”

The engine died, the click of a door opening, Leanov’s voice shouting a greeting. Then the mumble of conversation they couldn’t hear.

Martlew said, “Shit! They’re outside the car.”

Lambert said, “We can probably enhance what they’re saying. Not here, though. Washington.”

Two, maybe three doors slammed. There was the more solid sound of a trunk lid going down. A click, some more unheard talk, then a closer whump.

“Something’s gone into the Oldsmobile trunk,” said Cowley.

“So we know where it’s going back to,” said Danilov.

Words floated from the monitoring speaker like leaves in a wind: “Idiots … as much as … told you … no worry … dollars … soon …” The door opening, closer, the squash of Leanov sitting and for the first time the clear sound of his saying good-bye and a reply, in a man’s voice.

Ella Fitzgerald sang all the way back to Moscow, ruined by Leanov’s backing. The surveillance reported his arrival back at the garage. Leanov lowered the up-and-over door after him when he put the car away and didn’t emerge for thirty minutes. He was carrying nothing when he did.

Cowley said, “Jimmy Schnecker and his guys arrive in three hours.”

“What about the empty warheads?” asked Danilov.

“Diplomatic baggage, coming to the embassy separately.”

Pamela Darnley read for the fourth time the official notification from the director of her second commendation, which had come with the equally formal confirmation of her appointment as permanent head of the antiterrorist unit. The satisfaction was a warm, comforting feeling.

“Congratulations,” said Terry Osnan.

Pamela had told him not to boast, although there had been an element of that, but because the promotion wouldn’t be circulated throughout the bureau until the end of the month, and he would have thought it odd if she’d kept it to herself until then. She was looking forward to telling Cowley. She realized abruptly that she would have liked to have done it personally rather than over a five-thousand-mile telephone link and was surprised at the awareness. “I had a lot of help, you at the top of the list,” she said. She could afford to be magnanimous.

“I’d put Bill and Dimitri higher,” said the man, who’d just listened with her to the Oldsmobile trip that had been relayed from Moscow. “It’s happening fast there.”

Which meant she had to work faster, Pamela accepted. Nothing of which she was in charge or controlled was going to end inconclusively, most certainly not that part of an investigation with which she was so personally identified. In two weeks’ time everyone in the bureau would know she headed antiterrorism. Which would only be a start. Pamela wanted everyone else to know it, too. And they would when she emerged the principal witness in a prosecution in what would be one of the most sensational trials in American legal history.

It was, of course, too much to fantasize about breaking the tradition of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation always having to be male-they were invariably outside political appointments anyway-but she didn’t see any reason in these days of sexual equality why the immediate deputy couldn’t be female. Not something to discuss with anyone else.

Nor, by the same token, getting ahead of herself by thinking about it too much. Back to earth time. The River Cafe, at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, was the obvious new focus. The tap was already in place, but it wouldn’t produce until Arseni Orlenko made another outing. And there was no way she could tighten the surveillance on Orlenko’s two Russian landlords in New Jersey, whose existence seemed ordinary to the point of boredom. Would Carl Ashton and his sweepers be working with the same intensity after locating the Challenger tampering? Their success-or failure-would be her success or failure.

The new contact number was in a mall again, out on the Cohoes Road. As he drove Patrick Hollis wondered how the General obtained them. It wasn’t important. Not a system he’d copy when his intended changes occurred. Not necessary, if you knew how to use a computer like he did. That’s what his were going to be, a computer army. Enough of them available. Hundreds. Thousands. All out there on the war game sites, combat ready, awaiting recruitment.

Hollis managed to park conveniently close to the buildings, to avoid his having to walk too far. Didn’t want to be breathless: might give the impression of nervousness. It had begun to rain, and he hunched deeper into his coat as he walked the last few yards, hands in his pockets, the pad and pens ready. Although he expected it, Hollis still jumped when the phone rang.

“Quartermaster?”

“Sir!” Hollis felt again the vague embarrassment when the accepted hacking terms were spoken aloud.

“You obeyed orders?” the rasping voice demanded at once.

“I’m here,” said Hollis.

“That isn’t the answer. What about account numbers?”

Hollis took a breath, preparing himself. “You’ve done it wrong. I told you not to take too much. The FBI has got teams in tracing you. It’s not safe anymore.”

Hollis felt warmed, close to being aroused, by the silence from the other end. At last the voice said, “What are they doing? How?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it’s happening. I’m breaking contact.”

“No! Wait! You’ve got a new assignment. Intelligence. You’ve got to find out.”

This was orgasmic! He hadn’t expect the concern-the panic-like this. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You can do it! You have to do it! It’s an order!”

“Just stop. Abort.” He couldn’t appear to capitulate too quickly.

“No! Everything goes ahead.”

“Not like this,” demanded Hollis. “I’ve got to have a way of contacting you immediately. Warning you.”

Silence again. Hollis could hear the man breathing heavily from the other end. “You got something to write with?”

“Yes.”

The website address was dictated slowly. “Read it back.”

Hollis did so. Wonderful! A telephone number would have been much more difficult. “Name?”

“You know my rank. Eleven o’clock every morning. I want to talk about money now. The amount I want-”

Hollis didn’t need to hear any more so he replaced the receiver. Even better than wonderful! The stealing would go on, making it all perfect.

He was the commanding officer now. It was a good feeling.

James Schnecker tapped the photographs back into their neat order, offering them across the desk to Cowley. With him, from the United Nations entry team, he’d brought Neil Hamish, Richard Pointdexter, and Hank Burgess.

Schnecker said, “And you think you might have to let them run to lead you back to America?”

“Yes,” said Cowley. “Can you make everything safe?”

Schnecker shook his head. “Take three or four days to defuse that much.”

“What then?” demanded Danilov.

“The word you used,” said the expert. “Sabotage.”

“So that they couldn’t be used for another attack,” pressed Cowley.

“Guaranteed,” promised Hamish. “We’re the best in the business to ensure that things don’t go off.”

“Not the way they’re expected,” added Pointdexter.

“If you lose them you’ll want to find them again, won’t you?” asked Schnecker.

“The whole point, if we let it all run, is to find who they’re going to,” said Cowley.

“We’ll see that you do,” promised Schnecker.

“Leanov’s on the move,” reported the man on the Nikitskij alley surveillance. “Naina’s with him.”

“Our cue?” suggested Schnecker.

“From the direction we’re going, it looks like Pereulok Vorotnikovskij and the Golden Hussar,” said the observer in the pursuit car.

“If it’s for a telephone call from Brooklyn, it could be a busy night,” said Barry Martlew.

It was.