What would Kosov do? Totally unpredictable. Danilov didn’t think the man, who had all the bombast and pretensions of a coward, would be physically violent. He’d shout and rage – maybe even threaten to fight – but it would be in other, already feared ways the man would try to get his retribution.
Danilov wasn’t as apprehensive now as he had been. He supposed it was the comparative ease with which the confrontation with the Chechen leaders had gone, being able to match threat for threat. He knew he could do precisely that, if Kosov started talking of the past. Go as far as playing the incriminating tapes, as tangible proof. There’d been the unreasoning fury when he’d learned how Kosov entrapped Olga, but although it was still with him the anger was colder now, not so all-consuming. Kosov would have lost his wife and his prestige with his paymasters and know there was never a possibility of their working together as partners at Petrovka. So did he need to go any further, to drive the man entirely from the Militia, which had been one of the first of the several unthinking resolutions he’d made?
Danilov did have to concentrate to prepare the evidence edited in the way the Federal Prosecutor decreed for the limited arraignment that had been decided, accepting as he did so the ultimate irony that he was doing precisely what he had promised the Mafia bosses, although not for the reasons they believed. Nikolai Smolin’s decision, not his, reflected Danilov, so Smolin could be the final arbiter of what was included. Accordingly Danilov set out to prepare what, in effect, was a precis of a statement or evidence account, attaching markers to events and facts Smolin might want either to add or omit. Because he respected the man’s ability, he frequently consulted the meticulous Pavin, so it was a time-consuming operation which he guessed would take him a further week to complete: maybe even longer. Danilov stopped earlier than he would normally have done on an initial preparation day, not wanting his personal distraction to affect his professional judgement.
He talked with Pavin about what they could buy Cowley. Pavin couldn’t think of anything in Moscow to compare in either quality or price with what Cowley had given them, but didn’t think that was necessary anyway: taking their lead from Danilov’s medal, why didn’t they go to the Arbat souvenir precinct and buy the American one of the dozens of genuine military decorations discarded by the greatly diminished army, and stage a valour presentation of their own? Danilov thought it was an idea that would appeal to Cowley.
Olga had tried very hard. She’d prepared hors d’oeuvres and set out bottles. In the forefront the FBI medal was on show, the presentation box open and propped up, for it to be displayed.
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ he protested gently. ‘It looks far too boastful.’
‘They’ll want to see it!’ she said, disappointed.
Danilov closed the box and took it from the table. As he walked towards the bedroom, he said: ‘If they ask we’ll show them. But not until they ask.’ He tossed it casually into his bedside drawer.
‘Yevgennie would show it off, if he had one,’ she said petulantly, when he returned to the living room.
‘Yevgennie and I do things differently,’ he said. There was already a mark on Olga’s new skirt.
‘Where are we going tonight, after the drinks?’
‘Why don’t we talk about it when they get here?’ He’d have to be the person to say something, first. Larissa and I have something to tell you, he thought. That wasn’t right. It transferred the announcement to Larissa. I have something to say. About Larissa and me. We’re in love – have been for a long time – and we’re going to get married. That was it, wasn’t it? He’d spent all day – and a lot of days before that – trying to wrap the declaration up in soft words and phrases, but there weren’t any soft words or phrases to make easier what they had to say. So he’d come out with it like that, bluntly, brutally. Olga or Kosov would say something then – Kosov, most probably – and then would come the tears and the arguments about divorce. And the last thing that would interest any of them would be an American medal. He had to remember to take it, he realised, suddenly. He hadn’t thought of packing anything yet – wouldn’t have been able to pack anything yet, without Olga asking what he was doing – but his clothes were all conveniently arranged, the shirts still folded suitcase size, from the trips abroad. He’d try to do it tonight, if Olga wasn’t too distressed or angry: make the break abrupt and clean. If he couldn’t he’d still take the medal, at least.
‘What time did you say?’
Danilov looked unnecessarily at his new watch. ‘Six.’ It was five-thirty. If they were going to be on time they’d be leaving now, to make allowances for the rush hour.
‘Do I look all right?’
‘Fine. But there’s a mark on your skirt.’
Olga look down, surprised, hurrying into the bathroom. Danilov heard the taps running. He poured vodka to the rim of the glass. Stage-effect, he thought. The dampness, where she’d tried to sponge it, made the spot look much worse when Olga emerged. He hoped it would dry before the others arrived, for Olga’s sake.
‘It’s going to be a good evening!’ predicted Olga brightly. ‘I know it is!’
Danilov jumped at the sound of the telephone, close to spilling his drink. He hurried to it, knowing it would be Larissa.
But it wasn’t.
‘I think something’s happened,’ announced Cowley.
‘What!’
‘The tape has just recorded the biggest goddamned noise I’ve ever heard. Now it’s dead.’
So were a great many people, one in particular. And within thirty minutes of the telephone call, briefly, inside, a blindly deranged man who loved her and wouldn’t let her go, even though Larissa wasn’t there any more – wasn’t anywhere any more – to be held and loved and protected, like he was going to protect her forever.
It was to take a week to establish that eight people had been killed and twenty more injured, two seriously. There were insufficient remains to identify Yevgennie Kosov or his wife Larissa, who had been sitting literally on top of at least four pounds of Semtex that exploded the moment the BMW ignition was fired. By a quirk – as obscene as the quirk that threw David Patton’s gun, still in David Patton’s hand, aside in the Sicilian shoot-out – Kosov’s ornately-jewelled watch was thrown clear by the blast: it was still working when it was found, close to the apartment wall. It was not attached to a wrist. Its discovery was officially logged in Militia records; it had disappeared when an identity-check search was made, three days after the atrocity.
Every window of the block was shattered, and the ground and first floors so badly imploded the entire section was declared dangerously unsafe and fifteen familes evacuated. The crater in Nastasiskij Prospekt was three metres deep and extended the entire width of the street.
The fire brigade were still dowsing the blazing wreckage of the car when Danilov got there. The heat of the explosion was so fierce the metal had burned, like paper: only the chassis suggested it might have been a car, and that was uncertain. What had survived was red, like blood, a cruel effect of water upon white-hot metal. It hissed and smoked, whitely, like awakening ghosts.
Danilov took it all in yet saw nothing. He trembled, like someone naked in the snow, but he was so hot his skin felt tight. He waved his police identity like a flag to get through the barriers to the very edge to the crater, staring down, knowing it was going to be all right because it had to be all right, and that she would be down there: injured, obviously, but still alive, able to recognise him when he got to her and went with her in the ambulance wedged between two fire trucks. He’d tell her it wasn’t important about Tatarovo and the wine tonight. They’d do it when she was better.