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He stared wildly around, not understanding why he couldn’t see her, but there were a lot of people and a lot of swirling steam, so he had to be in the wrong place. He dodged in and out of firemen and uniformed Militia and when he still couldn’t see her he hurried to the ambulance and demanded to be told where she was, waving his police authority again, not realising – not caring – there were others injured and killed, and that the bewildered medic didn’t know what he was talking about. When he did see the man’s confusion Danilov said Larissa’s name, over and over again, and tried to describe her: hair and chiselled nose and the way she held her head sometimes, oddly twisted, as if she was withdrawing from whoever she was talking to. When the medic shrugged and began to walk away Danilov snatched at the man to stop him, but rescuers were pulling angrily at him now. He shook them off, yelling his rank, trying to get down into the hole where men still wore safety suits and reinforced masks, to protect them from the heat.

The hands became stronger, refusing to be shrugged away, and then voices penetrated, voices he knew, Cowley’s and Pavin’s, and he turned gratefully to people he recognised. ‘Help me! She’s down there! She’s probably hurt. Can you see her? I can’t see her.’

‘Come out,’ said Cowley. ‘They’re getting her. You’re in the way. So come out.’

‘You’re sure? They’ve got her?’

‘Come out.’

Danilov scrambled up, needing their help, because he was still shaking badly and his legs were very unsteady. The other two were on either side, arms cross-linked to cocoon him, getting him away.

‘Where is she! She’ll need me to go to the hospital.’

They kept walking, not speaking. It became abruptly dark, out of the search floodlights: briefly Danilov’s vision fogged completely, a wipeout of consciousness. When he became aware again, he was on the edge of the rear seat of the Volga, his feet and legs still outside the open door.

‘She dead, Dimitri,’ said Cowley, refusing Danilov his fantasy of shock. ‘She wouldn’t have known anything. But she’s dead.’

Danilov began to cry then, knowing it was true but not wanting to know it was true, racked by great, convulsive sobs and needing the arms that still held him. They stayed that way for a long time, the three of them in a tight group, Cowley repeating Larissa was dead until finally Danilov mumbled that he knew, but softly, so that if it wasn’t true it wouldn’t matter. He became aware of where he was and of the two men supporting him: became properly aware for the first time of the full horror of the atrocity itself.

‘OK?’ asked Cowley finally.

Danilov nodded.

‘We need to talk. For you to hear things.’

Danilov nodded again.

Cowley held him tightly, very briefly, ‘I’m sorry.’

Danilov was fully conscious of what had happened and what he was doing and where he was, but he still moved and reacted dully, needing to be prompted and guided as they entered the darkened, night-staffed embassy and were led by Cowley to the FBI office: Pavin remained at the rear of the procession, a cautious hand hovering at Danilov’s shoulder.

‘I’m all right,’ insisted Danilov when they got there. ‘Thank you, but I’m all right.’ He looked questioningly between Pavin and the American. ‘How?’

Pavin said: ‘I’ve known for at least three years. It was your weakness: how you could have been attacked. I’ve never understood why you weren’t. I always tried to cover your back.’

‘Yuri telephoned, after you called him to find out from the uniformed division what had happened,’ expanded Cowley. ‘I figured you might need help.’

‘We were going to tell them tonight,’ said Danilov, not really addressing either man. ‘Olga and Yevgennie. Talk about divorce and then get married…’ He gave a shrill laugh, momentarily close to the edge. ‘We’ve got a flat. We were going to celebrate with champagne tonight.’

Just as introspectively, Cowley said: ‘Holy shit!’

‘We came here for a reason,’ reminded the pragmatic, less emotional Pavin.

Cowley straightened, reaching for the tape which had been carefully marked, so he could cut it off before the sound of the explosion.

‘ We told you to come! ’ echoed Gusovsky’s voice. ‘ When we say come, you come! ’

‘ I couldn’t. Not immediately.’ Kosov was snivelling, a trapped animal.

‘ You set us up! ’

‘ I didn’t! He cheated me, too.’

‘ You’re no good to us any more, Yevgennie Grigorevich. We can’t trust you.’

‘ No! I’ll speak to him! ’

‘ There’s nothing to speak about.’

‘ Let me try! ’

‘ No good to us any more,’ repeated Gusovsky, monotonously. ‘ He laughed at us, as fools. Did you both laugh: think we were fools? ’

‘ No!’ wailed Kosov.

‘ You’re the fool, Yevgennie Grigorevich.’

Cowley snapped off the replay button, at the warning marker. ‘They did it.’

‘I know,’ said Danilov simply.

‘It was the last conversation we recorded.’

‘I want to hear the explosion!’ demanded Danilov.

‘No you don’t,’ said Pavin, gently. ‘There’s no point.’

‘They probably brought someone in from another republic to do it,’ said Danilov, close again to personal musing. ‘They’ll never be charged, not Gusovsky or Yerin.’

‘No,’ agreed Cowley. ‘That’s the way it’s done.’

‘It’s not the way it should be,’ said Danilov.

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

The investigation was not given to the Organised Crime Bureau but to a general criminal unit, which spared Danilov from inevitable participation. When it was learned it had been the car of a Militia district commander, the newspapers speculated it was a revenge killing by someone whom Kosov had arrested: police records of all his cases were being examined, for a likely motive through which to trace the killer. Television as well as newspapers carried photographs of Kosov and Larissa. It was a good picture of her – posing in her head-tilted way – and he cut it from two different newspapers because he didn’t have a picture of her. Olga cried a lot but Danilov didn’t, not after the breakdown that first night, by the crater. He took to arriving at Petrovka by eight in the morning and not leaving until six or seven, but never later, because it was unfair to leave Olga alone.

The man from whom Pavin bought the medal on the Arbat insisted it was for bravery under fire: they were doubtful, but that was what they told Cowley on the day he left Moscow, and he was as delighted as Danilov had guessed he would be. They talked over the reunion plans that didn’t need any more discussions: there had been no reference, from either Cowley or Pavin, to Larissa’s death during the four days since they had got him away from the scene. Only at the moment of parting, at Sheremet’yevo, the last thing Cowley said was: ‘I really am sorry.’ Danilov thanked him.

Danilov hadn’t discussed with the American what he intended doing, because there was no reason for Cowley to know. He didn’t tell Pavin, either, although he guessed the man would realise later because it was Pavin he told to organise the swoop on Wernadski Prospekt, to bring in the Ostankino leader.

Yuri Yermolovich Ryzhikev was much heavier than he’d appeared in the prints, bull-chested and thick-necked, with very full black hair and the dark complexion of someone from one of the southern republics: Danilov thought occasionally there was the trace of a Georgian accent. There was a lot of gold adornment, which seemed to be the requirement of every mafioso in the city: the man came into the Petrovka suite with a camel-coloured topcoat slung cape-like around his shoulders, over a brown silk suit. The shoes were crocodile. There wasn’t the arrogance of the Chechen chieftains, but there was no apprehension over the arrest, either.

He sat where Danilov told him but asked at once if Danilov knew what the fuck he thought he was doing. Danilov quietened the attitude at once by offering across the table the copies of the original Svahbodniy Founder’s Certificate and the second certificate transferring control to Raisa Serova upon her father’s death, both of which held Ryzhikev’s name. The government had recovered the money, Danilov said. Ryzhikev had been stupid like the Chechen had been stupid, but in Ryzhikev’s case it hadn’t happened once but twice, first losing it to the Chechen and then to the Russian authorities. So he did know what the fuck he was doing. He was giving Ryzhikev a warning.