The Watchmen

6

The helicopter flight gave Cowley the chance to review everything he’d ordered put into place, as case officer in total charge with absolute authority and responsibility. He felt quite confident about it, with none of the first-day unreality.

He might have misunderstood, but he hadn’t detected any of the usual resentment at federal authority interference from the local police chief, sheriff, or Highway Patrol commander to whom he’d spoken in turn, not even when he’d insisted the sealed-off area remain clear until the helicopter arrival of the forensic scientists and technicians from Washington, whom he’d alerted first because they had the farthest to travel. He had, though, accepted the police chiefs offer of scene-of-crime forensic and communication vehicles and the suggestion that a sports field on the outskirts of New Rochelle, reasonably close to the coast, would be the best place for their helicopters to land. And there hadn’t been any argument against his asking for an initial media blackout, although the police commander, Steven Barr, had warned that with so many agencies involved, it might already be too late. If it was they’d ensure no one got anywhere near the boat.

“The Eschevaux was one of eight cruisers reported stolen,” reminded Bradley, beside Cowley. “What if this isn’t the right one-just burned out by joy riders when they’d finished with it?”

“Better overkill than underkill,” said Cowley. “Joy riders are more likely simply to have abandoned it.”

Bradley nodded, persuaded. “So how much forensic will be left for the scientists to find?”

“Pray to whoever your God is,” suggested Cowley, who didn’t have one.

Steven Barr’s distorted voice came on to their headsets from the already in-place communications van, promising to ferry them from the sports field to the boat. Then came the voice of Terry Osnan, the FBI agent in charge at Albany, who’d actually been working the area and reached New Rochelle by road, asking what he should do. Cowley repeated that he wanted no one anywhere near the cruiser until it had been scientifically checked for tire tracks or footprints “or for anything that might be there.” He said, “Absolutely no contamination. If there’s anything left at all it’ll be forensic.”

“Will do,” assured the man, in a Southern accent.

“How many more of our guys are coming in by road?”

“Maybe five or six. And I’m told the owner’s on his way down from Norwalk. A lawyer named Bonwitt. Harry Bonwitt. Bringing an insurance assessor with him.”

“Who the hell told him?” Their information was that the Eschevaux was a fifty-two-foot Sea Ray that had disappeared from the biggest marina at the Norwalk inlet on Sunday night, after Bonwitt had returned from that day’s sailing.

“Marina people, I guess. When the check was made on the boat’s name.”

“If Bonwitt gets there before I do, tell him the boat has been seized as a federal exhibit. Same rules for them as everyone else. Nowhere near it.”

“He won’t,” intruded the pilot, linked to the conversation. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

All the sports field nighttime lights were on, perfectly illuminating it as a landing area. There didn’t seem to be a lot of light from nearby houses. There was one helicopter, marked Highway Patrol, already droop-rotored like a sleeping insect. There were a lot of cars and three vans, mostly marked police vehicles, parked in perfect pattern on the perimeter. As they began to descend, the pilot of the inbound Washington machine patched into their circuit with an estimate of ten minutes from landing. A new voice came on insisting the area remain totally untrampled. Cowley said he knew and so did everyone within a hundred miles, and the voice said he hoped so.

The three local force commanders were waiting by an unmarked but antenna-haired communications van. All were in uniform. Steven Barr was tall, bespectacled, and spoke in a slow New England accent. John Sharpe, the sheriff, made a stark comparison, short and overweight, his belt sagging. Alan Petrich, the Highway Patrol chief, was overweight, too, and clearly asthmatic, wheezing his way through the introductions performed by Osnan, a sports-jacketed, angular-faced man.

To the three men Cowley said, “Thank you for what you’ve done.”

“Let’s hope it produces something,” said Barr, flat-voiced. “Bastards hit New York again and it goes off this time-and the wind’s in the right direction-we could be right in line.”

“You’re the one who went into the tower with the secretary-general, aren’t you?” said Sharpe admiringly. “What was it like?”

If there was a media leak he’d know who it came from, Cowley decided. “A mess. How many people walked around after the boat was found?”

“My patrolman, Wayne Mitchell,” said Petrich.

“No one else?” pressed Cowley hopefully.

“No.”

“What about the person who found it?” Bradley asked.

“Wasn’t found,” wheezed the man. “It was a phone in. Woman said she’d seen a flash fire and gave a location that didn’t check out. That’s why it took so long for us to find it.”

“We got a name for who phoned in?”

Petrich and the sheriff exchanged looks. “Phone got put down. Gal cheating on her husband, maybe.”

“Lot of that goes on in these woods,” said Sharpe.

“You run a numbers check!” demanded Cowley.

“Doing it,” said the man.

“The message recorded?”

The man extended his hand, cupping the cassette. “Every word that went between the caller and my dispatcher.” He smiled.

“The original?” Cowley demanded again.

“Didn’t think you’d want the rest.”

“A copy won’t be admissable in a federal court!” said Cowley, the anger burning through him. He kept his voice even. “I need the original. Can you arrange that now? I don’t want it overrecorded.” He didn’t respond to Bradley’s sideways look.

As the Highway Patrol commander disappeared inside the communications truck, Cowley told Osnan he wanted the man to become communications and evidence officer, handing him the copied cassette. The end of the conversation was almost drowned out by the noise of the descending Washington helicopter, a huge fore- and aftrotored Chinook. The baggage-laden scientists and technicians filed off with military precision, led by a tall and heavy black man who imperiously demanded Cowley by name, said his was Jefferson Jones and that he hoped to Christ everything had been left as is. Cowley decided that if the man had brought spare scene-of-crime coveralls, he wouldn’t be as constricted as he’d been going into the UN building in the protective space suit.

Most of the Washington group fit into a commandeered bus Cowley hadn’t seen until it approached the control center. He traveled with Jones, Bradley, and the three local men in a backup carrier, which in turn was followed by marked and unmarked police cars. It was abruptly dark out of the sports field illumination, with only isolated house lights along the streets. Cowley guessed it was a comparatively high-priced residential area. Jones said they intended to carry out the most detailed search possible on the immediate surrounding area and what was left of the boat itself but would probably bring in a Tarhe Sky Crane the following day to fly the wreck for laboratory stripping and examination in Washington.

“We know how much is left?” he asked.

“My patrolman says it’s burned down mostly to the waterline but that there’s some cabin and superstructure in places,” said the Highway Patrol chief.

“Then we’re in business.” Jones grinned. “If the bad guys really knew how much we can recover, there wouldn’t be any crime-they’d know we’ll catch them in the end.”

Cowley thought the black man looked too old still to be influenced by the confidence of the bureau training videos. They left all house lights behind very quickly, and from the widely interspersed streetlamps and heavy jolting Cowley guessed they had turned on to country side roads. Steven Barr seemed to know where they were, warning they were only about two miles away. Almost at once they came to the first road block, jointly manned by Highway Patrol and local police. They had to stop for spiked, tire-puncturing strips to be moved out of their way. Cowley was impressed. There were two more blocks-although no puncturing strips-before Cowley became aware of a growing brightness. His initial, frightened thought was that somehow the fire had again taken hold of the cruiser.

Barr said, “We’ve got every available floodlight there-ours, the patrol’s, and fire department-each with separate generator trucks.”

Cowley was about to speak when Jones said, “Seems to me you’ve done one hell of a good job. If all local forces were as efficient, we’d all spend more time at home with our wives and families.”

When he got out Cowley realized what passed for a road had narrowed to little more than a track, which the generator trucks totally blocked ahead of the arriving vehicles. To the left a sparse forest was whitened by artificial light right to the track edge, where the yellow scene-of-crime sectioning tape began. Although the line of light indicated the direction of the burned-out cruiser, it wasn’t possible to see it or the creek. There was no path leading toward it, either, although about twenty yards back in the direction from which they’d come, their lane widened into a turnoff. In it, already parked, were several vans, one another communications vehicle. Another was Wayne Mitchell’s Highway Patrol car. He stood waiting beside it, a young, fresh-faced blond whom Cowley put no older than twenty-five. He saluted his commander as they approached. Cowley led but it was Jones who again spoke first. “You wanna tell me what we got in there?”

“Top part of the boat’s mostly gone, just odd bits still there and some deck railing,” said Mitchell. “What’s left is full of water, so I guess it’s holed somewhere although I didn’t see where. The moment I saw the name I recognized it as one of the boats reported missing so I came straight back to the car and called in.”

“How come you stopped and walked into the forest at this precise point?” asked Cowley.

“Didn’t,” said the man. “The report that was phoned in put the fire about a mile down the creek, toward the bigger inlet where there’s quite a few boats. So that’s where I started. When I didn’t find anything I walked along the bank until I came to it. It’s not in the creek itself. Looks like a long time ago someone dug out a space to leave a boat: a kind of a canal. That’s where it is-kinda pulled out of the channel and left in its own space.”

“So did you walk out that way?” pressed Jones, indicating the lighted area.

“No sir,” said Mitchell. “Took myself some markers toward the road here-those three trees over there, taller than the rest-and went back along the creek to my car. And drove up here.”

“Did you go in to check once you got here?” pressed the scientist.

“Just once. Straight in, straight out.”

“What’s the ground like, underfoot?”

“Soft. I can show you my tracks.”

“This is getting better.” Jones beamed.

“What about the creek bank and the canal itself?” asked Cowley.

“Mud.”

“But the creek is navigable for something fifty-two feet long?” queried Bradley. “That’s a big boat.”

“Hardly,” said the officer. “I didn’t spend any time looking closely and the current’s washed out any marks there might be on the bottom, but you can see the bottom. And where the water doesn’t reach there’s a lot of score marks on the bank, where it obviously hit.”

Jones looked in the direction of the light again and said, “Don’t know how we’re going to get the goddamned thing out through those trees.”

“There’s some open ground by the canal itself,” offered Mitchell.

“Sufficient to get it clear of the water for the first examination?”

“I’d say so,” guessed the patrolman.

Turning to Steven Barr, the forensic leader said, “You think you could get me one of those dinky garden tractors, small enough to maneuver through those trees? I’ll want to haul the boat out of the water. Drain it and then go over it tonight and tomorrow. Depending on how we find the creek, after that I might raft it back to where there’s enough hard standing to bring in the lifting helicopter.”

“I got one of my own in the backyard,” Sheriff Sharpe said proudly. “Happy to make it available.”

“Then let’s go to work,” urged Jones to the scientific team assembled loosely behind them.

Jones did have a spare plastic anticontamination coverall, which he loaned to Cowley with the injunction not to enter the forest until there was a signal. Bradley borrowed one from another scientist approximately his size. The technical squad suited up and moved off with the military precision with which they’d disembarked from their helicopter, Wayne Mitchell going to the tree line with them to point out his route. One of the squad, another black man, immediately took a plaster cast of Mitchell’s indentation and one of the patrolman’s foot. From the way they worked Cowley guessed they were a permanent professional team. There was hardly any conversation, everyone seeming to know what to do without any instruction from Jefferson Jones. The group divided into three-man squads, each to a section that they subdivided by tape, stirring and lifting the forest debris with slim, rubber-encased sticks. Twice more footprint casts were taken. From the line, Cowley guessed they were again those of the Highway Patrol officer. Behind the main body a still photographer and a television operator maintained a constant record.

One of the turnoff trucks turned out to be a refreshment truck-which further impressed Cowley, although the coffee didn’t. He welcomed the excuse to abandon it when he was summoned, by name, to the communications van. From his communication truck back at the sports field, Osnan said Harry Bonwitt had arrived with his marine insurance assessor. He was refusing to accept the legality of what remained of the Eschevaux being a federal exhibit and was insisting on coming down to the scene to examine his property.

“Put him on.” Cowley sighed.

“You hear what I’m telling you, sir,” rasped a voice without any greeting.

“And I’d like you to hear what I’m telling you, Mr. Bonwitt,” Cowley said politely, knowing the exchange was being recorded. “This area is sealed, on my authority as a federal officer. And by that same authority I have declared what’s left of the Eschevaux to be a federal exhibit in any future prosecution. Neither you nor your assessor will be allowed to examine it until all our forensic tests are completed, which isn’t likely to be for at least another twenty-four hours. Probably longer. If you attempt to do so, you will be arrested for attempting to impede a federal investigation. If you want the appropriate statute for that, I’ll be happy to direct you toward it. Is all that clear to you, Mr. Bonwitt?”

The silence was broken only by the hiss of static. At last the man said, in a quivering voice, “Are you familiar, sir, with the law of habeas corpus?”

“Perfectly familiar,” assured Cowley. “But I don’t want this to escalate into your arrest or your need to invoke it. There is no cause for either. I’m extremely sorry what’s happened to your boat and I am not in any way trying to be obstructive. I am, in fact, asking for your cooperation. Your boat will be extensively photographed in situ and at all stages during its examination. And as soon as it’s possible I’ll make photographs available to your and your insurance examiner.”

“I shall sue,” threatened the lawyer. “I’ll sue you personally. And your director. And the bureau. For illegal detention of property.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t imperil your action or my defense by talking about it anymore?” said Cowley, depressing the cut-off switch.

Terry Osnan answered when Cowley called back almost immediately.

Osnan said, “He’s stormed off. I think he’s coming your way.”

“Any more of our guys turned up?”

“Three.”

“Send them after him. He’ll be stopped at the first roadblock. They’re to arrest him.”

“For what?”

“Willfully obstructing a federal investigation.”

Cowley got back to the refreshment truck in time to see the plastic-suited Burt Bradley moving into the forest toward the unseen boat. Some of the arc lights had been moved farther in, too. Barr said, “You’ve been given the go-ahead. Mind if Alan and I tag along?”

“Not if Jones doesn’t. But do me a favor first. Speak to your guys at the first roadblock. The owner’s probably on his way here. Tell them not to let him pass until some bureau guys catch up to arrest him. Might be an idea to leave those blowout strips down.”

The borrowed protection was slightly too large but it was still more comfortable than the space suit. The soft ground sucked underfoot as Cowley walked side by side with the Highway Patrol chief. Cowley said, “Patrolman Mitchell did well. I’ll see there’s a commendation from the bureau.”

“I wish we’d done so well at headquarters,” apologized Petrich. “I’m not sure but I think the original tape might have been overlaid.”

“When will you be sure?”

“Couple of hours.”

The forest floor shelved nearer the creek into a low, sloping bank. What Mitchell had described as a canal was, in fact, the shape of a boat long ago dug out and abandoned. The burned hulk of the Eschevaux fit snugly into it. What remained was almost completely submerged, just some fire-twisted bow and portside rail and a small section of the cockpit protruding above the water. A lot of blackened debris had collapsed below it, but Cowley didn’t think there was enough for there to have been a flying bridge. He didn’t actually know what a Sea Ray looked like. Four forensic technicians were already in the water attaching hawsers so malleable Cowley guessed they were specially manufactured for a purpose like this. Two were standing in the creek itself. As the water only came up to their thighs, Cowley decided it would be difficult to raft the cruiser down to deeper water. The two cameramen were also in the water, taking pictures. Everyone else stood around, waiting for the hulk to be pulled clear of the water. Metal mesh matting had been laid out to receive it.

Jefferson Jones saw Cowley and the Highway Patrol commander arrive at the forest lip and immediately raised a stopping hand, walking back toward them with Burt Bradley.

To Petrich the scientist said, “Here’s fine, but I don’t want you any closer without a suit, OK?”

“OK,” agreed the man.

“Although it’s probably an unnecessary precaution,” Jones added, to Cowley. “You know what we found? The bastards raked after themselves as they walked away. Didn’t leave a thing, not a goddamned thing! They won’t have left anything in the boat, either.”

“And look at the creek,” prompted Bradley. “Getting a boat that size this far would have been like Humphrey Bogart and the African Queen all over again.”

“They certainly knew what they were doing,” said Jones. “I’d have said it would have been impossible to leave ground this soft without a single impression, but that’s what they did. We get them I personally want to ask them how they did it. These guys had jungle training, for sure.”

“How’d they sink what’s left?” asked Cowley.

“Holed it twice in the bow, as far as I can make out while it’s still in the water,” said Jones. “We’ll have to be careful how we rig those hawsers so the damn thing doesn’t fall apart as we haul it out.”

They turned at an approaching noise. Sheriff Sharpe sat commandingly on his garden tractor, maneuvering it through the tree line, smiling at the flash of the official camera. “All gassed up and ready to go,” he announced.

From this direction it was easier to make out the track at which the forest stopped. Steven Barr was there, beckoning, although Cowley couldn’t hear what he was shouting. He set off back toward the policeman as Barr started toward him. Cowley walked, mentally trying to assess what he had, but perhaps more worryingly what he didn’t have. Even if the Highway Patrol’s copy tape wasn’t admissible in court and the original was lost, a voice print would still be possible if indeed the call had been made by whoever was involved and not some woman cheating on her husband. The total lack so far of a single piece of forensic evidence was the overwhelming disappointment. Jefferson Jones was right. The bastards had known exactly what they were doing, how and where they were doing it, right down to choosing the place to burn the boat and that they’d need rakes to cover their tracks. These guys had jungle training for sure echoed in Cowley’s head. And if …

Cowley stopped, numbed by the awareness, and turned. Bradley and the uniformed sheriff and Highway Patrol chief were the only people he could see, the others all hidden at the bottom of the slope where the boat lay. He heard the roar of the tractor engine being gunned and screamed, “No! Stop! No!” but the accelerating noise was too loud for them to hear. Cowley started to run back but there was a deafening, ear-blocking explosion and the three men Cowley could see were visibly lifted off the ground. He saw pieces of other bodies-certainly one unattached head-in the air before he was stopped by some invisible force that hit him so hard all the breath was driven from his body and he couldn’t suck it in again. He felt himself lifted off his feet, too, and there was total, spinning blackness. Cowley’s last conscious thought was that there wasn’t any pain and that maybe it didn’t hurt to die after all.

As they drove north, leaving the Gorki outskirts behind, Dimitri Danilov recognized that his impression from the air was confirmed on the ground. The military manufacturing plants were carefully created individual parts of an entire and composite whole, each factory separated by its perimeter fence and barriered-sometimes tower-dominated-private approach road.

It was one of several realizations, ranging from the fact that even this close the taiga through which they were driving still appeared black, not green, to the complete reversal in how he was being treated. From the one extreme of his dismissively ignored arrival there hadn’t been a waking moment when he hadn’t been in the watchful presence of either Oleg Reztsov or Gennardi Averin or both, like now. And the plainclothed presence of two men at an adjoining breakfast table that morning had been almost embarrassingly obvious. He wondered if they’d already reported his slipping the side plate knife into his pocket before asking for envelopes at the reception desk.

Identifying another of Danilov’s already reached awarenesses, Reztsov indicated a service road controlled by both barriers and a tower and said, “See what I mean about the degree of security? Nothing left of these plants that wasn’t intended to.”

“Exactly,” Danilov replied.

“I meant officially,” said the stiff-faced police chief.

“We’re already getting street rumors,” said Averin from the front seat, trying to come to his superior’s rescue. “The gangs are worried about the sudden interest we’re taking in them.”

Danilov didn’t bother to challenge the ridiculously premature claim or ask why the interest had been so sudden. “What about Viktor Nikov?”

“The most interesting of all,” said the major. “Not at his home or any of his garages. Hasn’t been seen for several days, apparently.”

“Why not, do you think?” questioned Danilov. He hadn’t told them of Pavin’s discoveries in Moscow about Nikov’s defense witnesses.

“Who knows?” Reztsov shrugged.

“The question we’ve got to answer, along with all the rest,” suggested Danilov.

According to Danilov’s separate parts-of-a-whole assessment, Plant 35 was at the very edge of the straggling installation. Beyond the barrier and tower checkpoint there were two more manned control points before they reached the gates themselves, where their identities were confirmed for a fourth time.

Professor Sergei Alexandrovich Ivanov, the director of Plant 35, was a hugely bearded, limp-haired man with the distracted demeanor of an academic and the physical appearance of a Mongol wrestler. The office was a box, like all the boxes-some empty and without lights, most of the others seemingly inactive, despite their being occupied by white-coated or protectively dressed staff-that had preceded it. Ivanov’s white coat was not newly stained but dirtily ingrained by wear. There was so little room that Averin had to remain standing. There was no hospitality prepared for the visit, which Danilov believed the scientist, whom he guessed to be well beyond seventy, had genuinely forgotten. Danilov said, “You know what happened in New York?”

There was a hesitation before the bearded man said, “Yes. Of course.”

Danilov offered the FBI photographs of the missile and said, “You recognize it?”

The frowned hesitation was longer this time, before the director said almost wistfully, “These were a very long time ago. I’d almost forgotten.”

“But they were produced here!” demanded Danilov, impatient with nostalgia.

“Before my appointment,” said the man, instantly defensive. “It was a ridiculous idea, trying to improvise a hybrid. The rocket wasn’t designed to deliver it. But in the sixties everything and everybody was paranoid: Everyone’s finger on the red button, no one thinking beyond the official line.” He frowned toward the two policemen, and Danilov identified the never-lost communist legacy of fear of informants and provocateurs.

“As long ago as that?” queried Danilov.

“The prototype was developed here in 1961. I stopped the program myself when I got here in 1975,” said Ivanov. “Absurd. Could never properly have worked without its own delivery systems.”

“How many such warheads were built?” pressed Danilov.

Ivanov gave a shrug of uncertainty. “Who knows throughout the Soviet Union?”

The disappointed Danilov said, “They weren’t only made here?”

“Of course not,” said Ivanov, as if the question were naive. “Inconceivable though it seems now-as it was then, scientifically or ballistically-this thing”-he swept a disparaging hand toward the photographs, still laid out on his desk-“this thing was to be our recovery for Khrushchev being faced down by Kennedy over Cuba. It didn’t matter that it never flew properly, or that the rockets Khrushchev put on Cuba didn’t have a guidance system that would have gotten them to Florida. Central Planning decreed they had to be produced and so they were, by the hundreds-”

“Hundreds!” broke in Danilov, in stomach-dropping despair.

Ivanov gave another empty shrug. “At least. The prototype was produced here; it proved to be totally ineffective. But what did that matter at that time? Moscow always knew better. They demanded a stockpile-set a norm which we initially met but couldn’t sustain so the production was extended.”

“To where?” Reztsov broke in.

Ivanov’s shoulders rose and fell again in what Danilov guessed to be a habitual responsibility-avoidance gesture. “Moscow, I believe. Two definitely just outside Leningrad, as it was then. And in the republics that were then part of the Union. Kiev, certainly. There was a great concentration of weaponry-nuclear, too-in the Ukraine because of its geographic position, so close to the West.”

“What about these numbers?” demanded Danilov, pointing to the print that specifically showed them on the side of each canister. “What do they signify?”

“Stock designation,” identified Ivanov.

“So they identify the manufacturing plant?” seized Danilov, suspecting an admission.

“No,” said Ivanov. “They were issued from Moscow, for Moscow’s records, not ours. The zero in both lines of numerals: That’s Moscow.”

“What about the emergency phone number?” persisted Danilov.

“Seven numerals,” the professor pointed out. “That’s Moscow again.”

“There’s a treaty. Signed in 1993. Everything should have been destroyed,” reminded Danilov.

“You can’t just pour these things down a sink, flush it away. There’s been a start.”

“This warhead didn’t work and was developed more than thirty years ago!” protested Danilov.

“Because it didn’t work it was considered the least important. We still work to Moscow’s instructions: Follow ministry guidance.”

Danilov knew he shouldn’t have been surprised at the inference of a treaty being abrogated-Washington was probably only making token gestures, as well-but he was. How many people at the emergency meeting-Sergei Gromov, from the Defense Ministry, in particular-had known about the extent of the program and Moscow’s control of it? “How many of these do you still have here at this plant?”

Ivanov groped in a desk drawer. Papers erupted at once, and he disturbed more shuffling through the lucky dip tub, finally emerging triumphantly with a three-ring binder it took him several more minutes to pick through. Still triumphant, he announced, “Fiftysix!”

“When was that count taken?”

The shrug came again. “There’s no date. It’s a program that ended a long time ago, as I said.”

“So it’s an old figure?”

“Yes,” conceded the man.

“It wasn’t verified, before our coming today?”

“No.”

“So you wouldn’t know if one-or more than one-was missing?”

“No. I don’t see how there could be, though.”

“Can I see them?”

“What!”

The question came from Reztsov, not the director. Danilov didn’t respond to the police chief. Instead he repeated to Ivanov, “Can I see them? They’re inert-harmless-in storage, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Ivanov said doubtfully.

“So we could look at them?” persisted Danilov, not knowing to what question the older man had been responding.

“I suppose so,” said Ivanov, still doubtful.

“Then I’d like to. Now.” As Danilov rose, intending to carry out his breakfast knife idea, another occurred to him. He decided to wait. The other three men followed hesitantly. They went along a different corridor from the one along which they’d approached. Some of the protectively suited and helmeted scientists in the nowoccupied offices were working with their arms and hands encased in sleeves and gloves forming permanent parts of the sealed chambers at which they stood.

Danilov said, “The process of destruction?”

“There is always a defensive need,” said Ivanov. “Parts of our country are far closer to those known to possess chemical and biological capability than we ever were to the United States of America.”

So the 1993 agreement wasn’t just being abrogated, it was being positively ignored, Danilov realized. He watched the elevator’s indicator light blink down to the fourth basement level, which he calculated from the time it took to pass the preceding three basement tiers to be at least half a mile underground. Danilov wondered how many hundreds-thousands-of germ warfare weapons were stored above and below him; there had been a fifth and sixth level on the indicator panel. There’d been no security check on their entering the elevator-Ivanov had not even used an electronically operating pass key-and there wasn’t on the level at which they emerged. The basement was simply an enormous, gouged-out cavern, the central corridor disappearing into a joined, arrowhead point of infinity at its unseen end. It remained closed despite their walking for at least five minutes toward it, to get to a numbered door, and Danilov judged that underground the chemical and biological facility of Plant 35 extended at least three times the building’s size above ground. He adjusted that estimate to five times the size when he followed Ivanov into the side chamber the far end of which he still couldn’t see.

It was stark and simple, row after row of floor-to-ceiling metal framing, each double warhead in its special, clamped pod about a meter from the one next to it. Danilov didn’t need to multiply row number by row content to know this one storage chamber alone contained at least four times Ivanov’s estimate of surviving warheads.

Obviously aware of it himself-but seeming genuinely confused-the huge, bearded man said, “Our records must be wrong. It was always difficult to be accurate, maintaining norms.”

Danilov knew it had been. But the falsification had invariably been to exaggerate the insisted-upon production figures to appear to comply with the demand, not to underestimate it. The fresh wash of frustration was wiped away almost immediately by anger. He was being treated like a fool by the local militia on one hand and suffering the chaos of norm-fulfilling, responsibility-avoiding centralized bureaucracy on the other. Just as quickly he curbed the fury, sure there was still a way he could beat both: certainly to prove whether what smashed into the UN building had come from here.

Every module in orderly lines before him was printed with the same stenciled lettering as in the American photograph, and there was similar batch numbering. None of those he saw as he passed, however, matched those in the photograph, but the designation of Plant 35 appeared to be in identical stenciling. None was dated after 1975. He continued slowly down the corridor, between the racks, isolating the break halfway down, to his left. There was a gap of three empty frames before the storage continued. None of these warheads was dated. Pointing to those beyond the separation, Danilov said, “Why the division?”

“They haven’t been filled,” said Ivanov. “That’s why they’re undated. Must mark my arrival, when I stopped the program.”

“Good!” Danilov said briskly. “I’m impounding one now under presidential authority. Have it removed from the frame for me to take it with me.”

“What …?” said Reztsov, his voice trailing. “I don’t-”

“A comparable exhibit,” said Danilov. He wasn’t looking at the other three men. Instead he went back to the lettered canisters, taking from one pocket the envelope and from another the table knife he’d picked up that morning from the hotel.

“Now what are you doing?” Reztsov demanded impatiently, as Danilov began carefully scraping both the letter and numerical paint and undercoating into an envelope.

“Forensic exhibit,” Danilov said shortly.

“For what?” asked Reztsov.

“Proof,” answered Danilov, although still concentrating on the facility director. “To whom do you report the loss or theft of materiel?”

“It doesn’t happen,” insisted Ivanov.

“It has now,” said Danilov.

“Yes,” agreed Ivanov. “I suppose it has. Moscow. That’s who has to be told. That’s who I thought you were, someone from the Defense or Science ministries.”

“I don’t envy you this investigation,” said Reztsov, on their way back into the city. “Don’t envy you at all.”

Yuri Pavin’s third anxious call came as Danilov entered the National Hotel, the canvas-wrapped missile casing under his arm. He took the call in the lobby booth.

“Is he dead?” Danilov demanded at once.

“That’s not clear,” said the colonel. “Television reports are naming him as being there; he was in charge. And they’re saying at least sixteen people died. But the bureau is refusing to name them until all the next of kin have been informed.”

The woman who answered Cowley’s extension when Danilov called Washington direct said she wasn’t authorized to give out any information but that she’d pass Danilov’s name and inquiry on and suggested that he call later. Danilov telephoned Moscow again, for Pavin to initiate the inquiries he wanted.

And then, alone in his room, Danilov spent some time on the empty warhead and the paint scrapings to complete the idea that came to him in the missile basement, pleased bad Russian workmanship and material made it comparatively easy. He’d feared he might have needed a tool, pincers or pliers, for the warhead, but he didn’t. Finally satisfied, he put the empty containers in the clothes closet.

When he located CNN on his room television, a reporter was talking to the camera from a forest track about a scene of total devastation where no devastation was visible. But then the picture changed to a helicopter shot of a crater already turned into a lake from the flowing creek, with every tree snapped or totally flattened for what the reporter said was a radius of a hundred yards. Unnecessarily, because it could be seen, the man added that although it had been extinguished, the underbrush was still smoldering from the fire that followed the explosion. The death toll had risen. It now stood at seventeen.

“Hi! Can I sit with you?”

Hollis looked up, startled, at Carole Parker standing by his otherwise empty table. “Yes … please. Of course.” He tried to get politely to his feet but she’d sat before he was able.

“Whatever was on your mind certainly wasn’t here!” she said.

“Thinking about a lot of things,” said Hollis. His determination not to receive the next contact call from the General was wavering. He knew he shouldn’t-that to do so was ridiculous-but part of him, a bit part, wanted to take it.

“Must have a lot to think about, being the manager.”

“It’s a lot of responsibility.” Why was Carole Parker, pursued by every man in the branch, choosing to sit with him?

“Surprised you haven’t been head-hunted yet by one of the bigger groups.”

“I’m happy here.” He hoped he wasn’t sweating. He had the same sort of empty-stomached feeling he’d felt on the day of the UN attack.

“You mean you wouldn’t go to somewhere like New York or Chicago if you got an offer!”

Hollis laughed, hoping his chest wouldn’t tighten up as it did sometimes when he was excited. “I’ll decide that when I get the offer.”

“I wouldn’t mind transferring to a department like yours.”

“Why don’t we talk about it sometime?”

“I’d like that.” She smiled.