Danilov tried to analyse what he was being told, examine it coherently. He’d been out-manoeuvred in a coup he hadn’t suspected by those who’d sneered and laughed but known what he would do if he gained control. There’d be a lot more sneering and laughing now. ‘How are we being mocked?’
Lapinsk cleared his throat. ‘Officially, I have been told that, such was your success over the American business, you are too valuable an investigator to be elevated into the administrative position of Director…’
‘So I remain senior colonel, in charge of investigations?’
Lapinsk shook his head, unable to look straight at his protege. ‘You are to be Deputy Director.’
‘There’s no such position.’
‘It’s being created.’
The outrage physically burned through Danilov. It wasn’t recognition. It was emasculation, removing him from the day-to-day work of a bureau as corrupt as the criminal organisations it was supposed to be investigating into a position where he could do nothing about it. He said: ‘It’s meaningless, professionally. There will be no power: nothing for me properly to do.’
‘There’ll be a car,’ evaded Lapinsk. ‘And a salary increase.’
‘I could refuse.’
‘They want you to,’ Lapinsk warned him. ‘If you do that, you’ll have to accept whatever alternative you’re offered. Or quit altogether.’
‘Why can’t I remain as senior investigator?’
‘Your former position has already been filled.’
Totally emasculated, Danilov accepted. Any alternative would be the most demeaning that could be found: doubtless had already been found, in expectation of his rejection. He said: ‘It’s all been cleverly worked out, hasn’t it?’
‘You have enemies,’ conceded Lapinsk.
‘Who?’ demanded Danilov. ‘Give me names! I need the names!’
‘Practically everyone here, in the Bureau.’
‘Of course. But who in the Ministries?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Who do you think are honest, then?’ asked Danilov desperately.
‘The Federal Prosecutor, Smolin, maybe. Those at the very top of the Interior Ministry: I could never get through to them. But I don’t know who stood in your way, just below them.’
Danilov felt lost, totally exposed. In sudden awareness he said: ‘A position didn’t have to be created.’
‘If you accept, you will remain in the building: people will know what you are doing. If you refuse, you could – and probably would – be downgraded on some invented disciplinary charge and relegated to the furthest Militia post, where you’d never be heard of again.’
If they wanted to know what he was doing, there had to be some apprehension about him. Despite the emptiness of the newly created position, Danilov wondered if he could use it to his advantage. It was a comforting thought. ‘I don’t have a choice, do I?’
‘No,’ admitted the outgoing Director.
He needed time to think: consider all his options. Perhaps first even to find one. ‘If you need me to say it formally, I accept.’
‘Just survive, Dimitri Ivanovich.’
‘I wanted to do more than that!’
‘You can’t. And won’t. Crime has won, here in Moscow. In the old days it was organised by the Party – Brezhnev and his gang. Now the gangs are on the streets: better organised even than then. And nobody cares, because nobody knows any other way. There is no other way.’
‘I won’t accept that.’
‘You haven’t a choice,’ echoed Lapinsk.
Chillingly, Danilov realised the older man was probably right.
The Hertz computer at Dulles airport, where the car had been rented, automatically registered the failure to return the grey Ford at the expiry of its hiring date. There was no concern, because the charges simply went on accruing against the platinum American Express card issued to Michel Paulac, of 26, Rue Calvin, Geneva, Switzerland. It was quite common for tourists to miss their return date, forgetting to advise they were keeping a car for a longer period than they’d originally intended.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Looks like you’re back on the road again,’ greeted the Director. He was lounged behind his desk on the fifth floor office of the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue, gazing up towards the Capitol building, his jacket off, tie loosened.
‘With a lot of differences,’ said Cowley. The last time he had worked mostly in Moscow with Dimitri Danilov, investigating the murder of the niece of an American senator by a serial killer. It had never been publicly disclosed that the killer had been the resident FBI man at the American embassy there, now permanently detained in a prison for the criminally insane in North Carolina. Or, by the most bizarre of all circumstances, that the man had been married to Cowley’s ex-wife.
Ross didn’t pick up upon the obvious remark. ‘There’ll be protocols to be observed, official and otherwise. The Secretary is making all the formal requests; you’ll handle all the embassy enquiries. You can have as much manpower as you need: the two DC homicide officers, naturally, are seconded to us. Everything the local forensic people collected has already been handed over. The area’s still sealed: our own people are carrying out an independent examination.’
‘What about the mouth shot?’ queried Cowley directly. He was a bull-chested, towering man only just preventing the muscle of college football years from running to fat. It would soon, he knew, as it had begun to go when he was drinking, which he wasn’t any more. Cowley wasn’t embarrassed about his size: sometimes he even intimidated people with it to gain an advantage.
‘The main concern, politically and otherwise, is a Russian Mafia connection right in their embassy,’ conceded Ross. ‘You got anything on Serov that isn’t in the record?’
Cowley shook his head. ‘I put a marker on him, after the second visa extension. Came out squeaky clean. He was popular, on the party circuit. Spoke excellent English. Had a reasonable sense of humour: used to make jokes about his wife’s name being Raisa, like Gorbachev’s.’
Ross turned to look directly at his agent. ‘You met him?’
‘Once, at a reception for Yeltsin up on the Hill. For about five minutes.’
‘Traditionalist or an advocate of the new order?’
‘He was a professional diplomat,’ said Cowley. ‘Who knows?’
‘We need to dampen the sensationalism as much as possible,’ warned Ross. ‘Information is being strictly limited, from the Bureau or through State. No leaks to friends in the media.’
‘I don’t have any friends in the media.’
‘Good.’
‘Who’s in charge of the scientific stuff?’
‘Robertson, here. There’s a lot gone down to Quantico. Medical examiner is a man named Brierly.’
‘Formal identification?’
‘Someone from the embassy. No name yet. Take a DC detective with you to all the obvious things: I don’t want any friction.’
‘Who makes the collar?’ asked Cowley.
‘Let’s find one first,’ said Ross.
The preliminary report had come with the forensic material, and Cowley read it before the two homicide detectives arrived. As a division head Cowley had a suite, with a secretary in an outer office, and Rafferty entered exchanging how-the-rich-and-famous-live glances with his partner. Johannsen returned a mocking smile. Both shook their heads to coffee; they sat with exaggerated casualness.
‘I hope we’re going to work well together,’ opened Cowley.
‘You’re the boss,’ said Rafferty. It was a challenge.