Smolin shrugged, the wording both undecided and unnecessary. ‘Rival gang fights: there’s enough of that practically every day on the streets of Moscow. Whores get killed all the time. It hardly needs explaining.’
Cowley shifted uncomfortably. ‘Washington is still your weakness,’ he insisted. ‘ Why was Serov involved?’
‘What’s wrong with the truth again?’ asked Smolin. ‘He was the American-based liaison between the Russian gangsters living there and whose names were in his possession – and the Swiss financier whose family came from a republic of the former Soviet Union. That’s sufficient inference, for their connection. If the tie-up between Russian, Italian and American Mafias had been formed, there would have needed to be a liaison, wouldn’t there? We can even speculate they intended using the security of the diplomatic mail as a conduit between Moscow and Washington. Which is true again.’ He straightened, briskly, looking between the two investigators. ‘Anything left out?’
‘No,’ said Cowley.
‘No,’ said Danilov.
‘There’ll be something,’ predicted Cowley, back at Petrovka.
‘He was using us, like he – and the others – have been using us all along,’ contradicted Danilov. ‘We’re the closest to it all, so we had to be the first: the filter. It’ll be refined and polished and rehearsed, long before it gets to any court. By the time it does, it’ll be perfect.’
‘I forgot how good you guys were at fixing courts! There wasn’t any real criticism in the remark.
‘Which you guys were happy enough with the last time and are going along with now,’ retorted Danilov, unoffended.
‘And the only poor bastard wrongly accused will be Petr Aleksandrovich Serov, the messenger boy who’s going to be made out to be a diplomatic Al Capone.’
‘You realise I can control the timing now, don’t you?’ demanded the Russian. ‘That the one danger is out of the way.’
‘It’s the Mafia, Dimitri Ivanovich,’ lectured the American. ‘Danger isn’t ever going to be out of the way.’
‘After what we’ve been railroaded into doing!’ protested the Secretary of State. ‘You’ve got to be joking! Tell me you’re joking!’
‘We agreed he should get some recognition! He saved the life of an American agent, for God’s sake!’ argued Leonard Ross.
‘They can go piss into the wind,’ rejected Hartz.
‘Danilov didn’t put the pressure on us! He did his job. Bravely. We should do something,’ insisted the more reasonable FBI Director. ‘I thought it could be something unusual.’
‘Like what?’ said the Secretary, unimpressed.
‘If an FBI agent had done what Danilov did, in the line of duty, he would have got our Medal of Valour.’
‘We making honorary FBI agents now?’
‘Why not?’ asked Ross. ‘That’s all it would be: honorary. It’s in my authority to give the award, doesn’t require any special discussion or decision, and would have just the right touch, publicly.’
‘God protect me from a liberal, legal mind!’ said Hartz. ‘I bet you never sentenced anyone to death in your whole goddamned career.’
‘I did,’ corrected the Director. ‘Five, in fact. But I never condemned anyone wrongly. That’s the important thing.’
At the end of five days the surveillance of the Ostankino had confirmed three more meeting places. Danilov had become convinced the thickset man was Yuri Ryzhikev and was frustrated he couldn’t confirm it, although realistically accepting it was a professional disappointment. The information was just for background files, after all. He told Pavin to suspend the observation after a further week.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The detour around the Moscow streets was even more convoluted than before so Danilov guessed they were not going to Pecatnikov, the address he already knew and which would have made the precaution pointless. It was, he supposed, a sensible precaution for them to take: by now they would be frantic, not knowing if Mikhail Antipov had talked. Danilov hoped so. From Kosov’s demeanour – and stumbled demands to know about Antipov’s arrest – he certainly was. The man had insisted on three drinks before setting off, hands jerking so nervously he came close to spilling them, sweat leaking from him. He’d never properly finished anything he began saying, which wasn’t necessary because it had almost all been complaints at the way Danilov had behaved, personally, towards him.
Danilov had enjoyed every whining protest. His determination to destroy Kosov was as strong as ever, but he was unsure when or how to submit to the Justice or Interior Ministries the dozens of tapes they now possessed from the BMW in which they were at that moment zig-zagging around the city. It couldn’t be before Cowley left: they had decided to stick to the story of the bugging as an entirely independent American operation, with the tapes being surrendered as a departing gesture. Danilov was sure he could sustain the deception of not having known.
What he was even surer about, after the latest discussion with the Federal Prosecutor, was that Kosov would not be disgraced in a public trial, which was what Danilov had always envisaged: there would be an unpublicised disciplinary tribunal and an unpublicised dismissal, and that would be the discreet end of it all. No, he corrected at once. If they dealt with Kosov the way they had dealt with everyone else, the man would be stripped of all government privileges, so he would lose his worth to the Chechen and whoever else from whom he took bribes and favours. And he was going to lose Larissa. So Kosov would be destroyed: not publicly, perhaps, but in every other way. Danilov didn’t admire himself for the vindictive satisfaction.
And if everything was to be resolved discreetly, maybe his own past – compensated for by what he had achieved at Petrovka – might be treated with less than an outright dismissal. His survival, at some level within the service, would be a minimal guarantee for his and Larissa’s future. Olga’s too. Recognising it as hypocritical, he decided nevertheless that he really had to remember to buy Olga some of the things she wanted when he made the trip to Switzerland. And try to convert some money into dollars, for the Tatarovo apartment. Double hypocrite, he thought.
‘You any idea of the pressure you put me under?’ demanded Kosov.
‘You told me several times.’ The man was becoming more coherent, although repetitive.
‘What’s Antipov said?’
‘There’ve been a lot of interviews.’
‘That isn’t an answer! I can’t work with you like this! I need to know!’
‘He’s talked about a lot of things. It comes down to what is presented to the authorities and what isn’t.’ Danilov liked the sound of it, believing it would be as good when he repeated it later. From the surroundings, he recognised they were coming into the district regarded as the Chechen slice of Moscow. He hoped the journey would soon end.
‘So he’s named names?’
They’d undoubtedly question Kosov independently. So there was benefit at this stage in the man believing he knew just how serious it could be for his paymasters. ‘He’s named everyone he knows.’
The only initial sound was a wheezing intake of breath. ‘This is terrible!’
‘Didn’t I tell you everything was taking a lot of planning?’
‘Did he name me? Had he heard of my connection?’
‘No,’ said Danilov, which was the truth.
This time there was a relieved sigh. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘Not panic,’ insisted Danilov. ‘There’s a way.’
‘What way?’
‘I need to talk it through, with the others.’
‘Tell me! Aren’t we working on this as partners?’
No, thought Danilov: nor would they work as partners on anything, ever. ‘I’ve got to judge their attitude before deciding what is possible and what isn’t.’
The hitherto unseen monitoring cars swept by, light flashing, and Danilov recognised they had arrived. He recognised where, too. The cafe was hidden in an unexpected loop off Glovin Bol’soj, little more than an indentation in the line of houses, and was not as secure as the club to which he had been first taken. The only similarity was that it was in a basement, with a receptionist behind a small desk, this one not revealing as much cleavage.