Everyone goes for compromise, accepted Danilov. ‘He’s more than a conduit: messengers don’t drive brand new German cars. At the least, he might be withholding information about a murder.’ So Kosov would have to be arrested and charged, unless it were stopped by higher authority. Wasn’t it obvious Kosov would try to bargain with accusations about his own past? And it wasn’t just the criminal investigation. What would Kosov do when he and Larissa made their announcement? The euphoria Danilov had felt began to leak away.
‘It’s going to seem a long time until Friday,’ said Cowley, more to himself than to the Russian.
But it didn’t.
The first intriguing – although still inconclusive – development confirmed Pavin’s prediction that the undiscovered name had more significance than the others in Petr Serov’s belongings.
With an approximate date to put through their computerised immigration records, the Swiss authorities traced an entry into Geneva of an Ilya Iosifovich Nishin on 22 May 1991. American immigration located the arrival of Nishin at Dulles airport five days later, on 28 May. Michel Paulac’s passport – and another immigration check – showed Paulac on the same flight. Both men, on their visa forms, gave the Mayflower Hotel as their Washington DC address. FBI records did not have Nishin criminally listed.
In the same diplomatic pouch with that information Cowley received from the FBI’s Psychological Behavioral Unit at Quantico, to which he had sent every tape of the Mikhail Antipov interrogation, confirmation that their approach to the man had been the right one. Detailed analysis of the tapes had failed to detect any stress peaks, which was inconceivable confronted with the irrefutable evidence, at that time, of the murder weapon.
‘He knew the gun would disappear,’ said Cowley.
‘Thanks for going to the trouble, but I didn’t need a psychologist to tell me that,’ said Danilov.
It wasn’t the end of the name discoveries. On the Thursday, Danilov finally received a reply from Oleg Yasev to his query about the identities of the three unknown mourners at Petr Serov’s funeral. One, Valentin Lvov, had known the murdered diplomat from their joint posting at the Paris embassy. The other two, Ivan Churmak and Gennardi Fedorov, had officially represented the government.
‘Fedorov!’ identified Pavin at once.
Danilov had already recognised the name as one of the three on Lapinsk’s list. It took an hour to identify him as the senior representative on the permanent Interior Ministry executive.
‘And there’s another link,’ disclosed Pavin. ‘Oleg Yasev also served in Paris during the same period as Petr Serov.’
‘You haven’t given me these names before,’ accused Cowley.
‘I didn’t think they had any part in the case,’ said Danilov. ‘I thought they were given to me as a personal warning.’
‘It’s a hell of a coincidence, isn’t it?’ questioned Cowley.
‘They represented the government,’ reminded Pavin.
‘Which is concerned over potential embarrassment about a criminally-linked diplomat,’ completed Danilov.
‘Kosov bullshits,’ decided the blind man. ‘We should go ahead, not wait to see if he can deliver Danilov.’
‘I’m the one who’ll be exposed,’ protested Zimin.
‘Frightened?’ goaded Yerin.
‘For the success of an operation that is going to make this Family one of the most powerful in the world: certainly in Russia!’ returned the indulgently fat man.
Gusovsky was concerned the animosity between the two men was going to end in disaster. Objectively, he thought again, it would have to be Zimin who was removed. ‘We already know we have to wait. But we don’t need to produce the money. So we can get the control transferred at our leisure.’
‘Do we go ahead?’ persisted Yerin.
‘No,’ decided Gusovsky. ‘We wait a little longer to see if Kosov can get Danilov. It’s worth the delay.’
‘It would be a double bonus if he does. It would mean we were back where we were before with the Organised Crime Bureau,’ pointed out Zimin.
‘The man won’t produce,’ insisted Yerin emphatically.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The American equipment arrived with specific installation and reception instructions. There were several microphones, of different shapes and sizes – some little larger than a pinhead – and with a surprising variety of attachments, together with suggestions of how and where they could best be concealed. The monitoring equipment was more elaborate than Danilov had expected. That, too, could be used in different ways, either manually operated or voice activated, without the need for an operator.
They devoted a substantial part of the Friday, in advance of that evening’s outing, testing everything as realistically as possible. They tried the bugs out in various positions in the Volga and drove throughout Moscow to assess the standard of reception and learn what sort of conditions risked the worst interference. They did a lot of the experimentation in and around Kosov’s Militia district. Only then did Danilov realise the area Kosov commanded – and of which he himself had once been in charge – was convenient to two of the city’s four airports, the operating territory of the Chechen Family. It should have occurred to him before.
Body pressure and movement overlaid conversation if a microphone was attached to the fabric of a seat. Aware of the impressive tape and radio deck in the BMW, they both worried that the music would drown anything less than a shouted exchange, reassuring themselves that if Kosov had the sort of discussion they hoped, he was unlikely to play music. Bridges and underpasses – even the tunnel quite close to the American embassy, where the receiving equipment was installed – made talk inaudible.
By mid-afternoon they had decided to plant two microphones, both in the front of the BMW on the logical assumption Kosov would always be driving: neither could recall sufficient detail about the interior layout to choose a precise location. They agreed to arrange themselves as before, giving Danilov the front passenger seat and the responsibility for fixing the devices.
‘Let’s hope it’ll work,’ said Danilov. He was disappointed there wasn’t better clarity on the tape, which they’d further agreed should be voice activated and therefore live at all times of day and night.
‘Let’s hope,’ echoed Cowley, with anything but hope in his voice, although Danilov missed it. The reluctance was introspective. A week or a fortnight or a month? he wondered again.
Cowley’s entry into the Savoy bar, leading the rest of them, was his first since his entrapment, although he’d looked in from the lobby every night in the desperately empty hope of locating Lena, all the time knowing she would not be there. He forlornly searched for her that night, at last deciding he should stop making himself look stupid in his own eyes if not those of everyone else in the hotel.
Kosov quickly tried to impose himself – waving away Cowley’s intention to reciprocate Danilov’s earlier hospitality – and Danilov and Cowley made only a token protest, content to let him play the grandiose host any way he wanted.
Everything worked to choreographed perfection, with an additional advantage they hadn’t expected. Danilov’s making directly to the front of the BMW ensured the intended seating arrangements, and as he settled Kosov apologised for the restricted leg-room caused by the car phone, intentionally to draw attention to the new addition to the vehicle. Danilov allowed himself to be overly impressed, unclipping the instrument from its dashboard holder to examine it. He fumbled replacing it.
Kosov had clearly put a lot of thought and effort into the evening, even taking account of Cowley’s stated preference for ethnic restaurants. They went to the traditionally Georgian U Pirosmani, with its spectacular view from Novodevichy Proyezd of the sixteenth-century convent on the other side of the river. There were violin music and Georgian specialities, but not as many questions from Kosov about the investigation as either Danilov or Cowley had expected. They were careful to be as vague as they’d always been about those he did ask, because it would have been a mistake to have responded differently.