It was a full half an hour before the leader of the physiological analyzing team invited Schumann and Charlie to go through the identification with him, putting the height, weight and body dimensions calculated by the Washington photographic examiners against the just-recorded detailed measurements of the arrested five.
‘No doubt about any of them,’ declared the man, matching the Polaroid prints to the satellite images. ‘Three positive identifications with the shootings…’ His finger jabbed out at three different prints on the separated murder-proving pinboard. ‘… Here, here and here… Each showing someone at the moment of their being shot
…’ He referred to the identity sheets to which the Polaroids were attached. ‘… Yuri Dedov, here…’ he said, picking out the small fat man actually standing over his victim as he fired. The analyst attached a photograph of the averagely tall blond-haired man to another satellite print. ‘This is Valeri Federov firing an Uzi at two guards emerging from the train. And this…’ He pinned a picture of the man of middle height to another satellite print ‘… is Vladimir Okulov shooting in the back a guard who appears to be running away.’ There were six positive identifications of Fedor Mitrov, in two of which the man was seen to be breaking open storage canisters, and four of the fifth man, Ivan Raina, helping him do it.
Schumann carried the matched photographs across to the five, all of whom were fidgeting and foot-shuffling with the exception of Mitrov, although a nerve had begun to pull at the corner of the man’s mouth. The German dealt out his selection in front of each man and said; ‘Everything witnessed, in provable detail, from a satellite…’ He looked to the three killers, in turn, ‘And there you are, caught in the actual act of murder. That’s going to make your trial unique.’
On cue Charlie crossed to the bank of tape machines, still held by the excitement that had swept through him minutes before. The audio tapes had been synched by both Washington and London to the millisecond to the times of the satellite images and the German analyst had just identified Fedor Mitrov as the man who had joked about akrashena as he’d smashed open the plutonium containers. Which was the first segment Charlie had chosen to replay, never believing it would have the significance it now did. The transmission had been cleaned of static and the voice echoed clearly into the room, the sound so good they could even hear Raina’s laugh, after the remark. Schumann and Charlie had decided against the actual interrogations being communal and Charlie snapped the machine off after a short while.
‘Voice prints can be proven as accurately as fingerprints,’ he said. ‘That’s why you were questioned earlier: to get your voices positively recorded against your names. In a few days we’ll have every word each of you spoke, all the time you were at Pizhma: a complete transcript.’
The finger-gnawing Dedov said, ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything,’ said Schumann.
The fast-winking German was so euphoric by the second day that he commuted overnight to the Wiesbaden headquarters to brief the alerted Bundeskriminalamt hierarchy that they were getting sufficient for a sensational international trial as well as the chance to target a major Russian Mafia Family domiciled in Berlin.
They carried out their questioning in the stage-set conference room, one man at a time after that first resistance-breaking group encounter, each Russian constantly reminded of the evidence of his guilt. An early conclusion was that apart from Mitrov, the other four were foot soldiers, fetch-and-carry gofers who pointed guns and pressed triggers at people at whom they were told to point guns and press triggers, without asking why.
They questioned the anxious-to-confess Dedov first and the subsequent cross-examination of the other three provided little more than elaboration of what the diminutive fat man told them. They were the Dolgoprudnaya, the leading Moscow Family. Stanislav Georgevich Silin was the boss of bosses of six subsidiary clans which he ruled American Mafia style, through a controlling Commission with himself as chairman. The organization was a pyramid structure run military fashion, even to military designations and titles. They never saw or dealt with Silin direct, always through corps commanders or clan bosses. Mitrov had been their corps commander for the Pizhma robbery. They’d not been involved in any planning: they’d taken their instructions from Mitrov, who had told them where the nuclear train was to be stopped and that the guards and the escorting soldiers all had to be killed, to leave no witnesses. Mitrov hadn’t told them why some containers had to be broken open. After the robbery they’d driven further south, to Uren, where the majority of the twenty-two canisters had been transferred: only six were left in the original trucks. None of them knew where those trucks or the six canisters had been taken. They didn’t know, either, where the other ten canisters had gone. They’d been loaded into three Mercedes and one BMW and they’d all travelled in convoy for the remainder of that day. They’d split northeast of Moscow, at Kalinin. Of course they’d heard of the Agayans and Shelapin Families, even of the territory dispute at Bykovo, but knew nothing about either being involved in a nuclear robbery. They were small time: punks. They certainly hadn’t been at Pizhma: that had been entirely Dolgoprudnaya. None of them knew a Yatisyna organization. They’d stayed at the Zajazd Karczma longer than they’d intended because Mitrov had difficulty making contact from a public kiosk. And then been further delayed by the Volkswagen breakdown in getting to Cottbus, where they’d been told to go, and their buyers hadn’t been waiting, as arranged. Okulov had caused the witnessed pavement argument by accusing Mitrov of screwing up and stranding them with a load of nuclear stuff they couldn’t get rid of. It was Raina who had enquired about Berlin trains, intending to go the following day to make contact with the Dolgoprudnaya group permanently established there. Their middle-of-the-night arrest had come before Mitrov had given him the Dolgoprudnaya’s Berlin address but Raina thought it was somewhere in the Marzahn district, in the old communist-controlled east of the city.
Charlie and Schumann began early on the fifth day with Fedor Alekseevich Mitrov but it was still well into the afternoon before they began a proper interrogation because the morning was occupied playing back the most incriminating parts of the other Russians’ testimonies. Because Charlie had explained what he wanted – and because Schumann had already obtained so much to German satisfaction from the earlier interrogations – Charlie led the questioning. Mitrov started well, fervently denying any position of authority and even more fervently giving any murder orders. But the rejection was eggshell thin and Charlie moved quickly to shatter it.
‘ Akrashena,’ he declared, simply.
Schumann looked incomprehensibly at Charlie and the Russian appeared confused too, although Charlie knew it wasn’t from lack of understanding.
‘ Akrashena ’ repeated Charlie. ‘Explain that to me.’
The tall Russian sniggered in what was supposed to be ridicule. ‘Wet paint.’
‘I know what it means,’ said Charlie. ‘Like I know it was the code name for the militarily planned prevention of a nuclear robbery at Kirs.’
‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Mitrov.
‘You do!’ insisted Charlie, starting the satellite tape at its prepared section. ‘That’s your voice. We’ve had it scientifically and provably matched. That’s you speaking at the scene of a successful robbery about one that was being militarily stopped elsewhere by an operation named Akrashena. So you tell us how you knew that. And how the Shelapin Family – Shelapin himself – came to be in possession of nuclear material from a robbery he wasn’t connected with. And what’s happened to the ten containers still missing. And who your customers were, for the six canisters you smuggled into Germany. And when you’ve told us all that you can tell us a lot more. Like how well-established the Dolgoprudnaya are here in Berlin and exactly where they are in the Marzahn district.’