No Time for Heroes by Brian Freemantle Page B

Mafia. ‘What about casing marks?’
    â€˜Pretty as a picture,’ promised Robertson.
    â€˜So if we get a suspect weapon, we could make a match?’
    â€˜We’d testify right up to the Supreme Court,’ assured the co-ordinating expert.
    â€˜The effects list mentioned a notepad being tested for impression from previous writing?’ Cowley reminded.
    â€˜A blank,’ said Robertson. ‘We put it through every test, chemical as well as electronic. Not a register.’
    â€˜It was a new pad?’
    â€˜Half used.’
    â€˜Why didn’t something show?’
    â€˜Because careful Mr Serov did not use a single piece at a time. The only way to keep the unused pages as clean as they are would have been to remove three or four leaves every time from beneath whatever he wrote.’
    Which could also have been the action of an intelligence officer, accepted Cowley. ‘Anything else?’
    â€˜We’re taking the clothes apart, for alien fibres, dust, whatever we might find. And we scoured the ground cleaner than it’s ever been: it’ll take a while to go through that. We’re not looking for anything specific, after all. Just something that shouldn’t be there.’
    â€˜You still want that area sealed?’
    Robertson shook his head. ‘What we haven’t got now we ain’t never going to get.’
    Cowley remembered the blood-gouted shape of Serov’s body: before the covering tent was dismantled he’d advise the DC highway authority to clean it up, to prevent a macabre photograph appearing somewhere. ‘Thanks for identifying the weapon.’
    â€˜Hope it helps,’ said the huge man.
    â€˜So do I,’ said Cowley, sincerely. For the moment, it compounded the problem.
    Leonard Ross sat hunched forward over a yellow legal pad, making notes like the trial judge he had once been, not interrupting Cowley’s briefing. Only when it finished did he say: ‘You think we’ve finally got to face it’s Russian Mafia?’
    â€˜I don’t see how we can avoid it.’
    â€˜What about defections and spying?’
    â€˜I don’t buy it.’
    â€˜Why not?’
    â€˜Instinct. Which is fallible and why we’ll have to take it as far as we can.’
    â€˜Isn’t there a significance in Redin being present at the meeting?’
    â€˜It was his job to be there, since the security changes.’
    Ross nodded, accepting the qualification. ‘I’ll personally ask the CIA Director,’ he decided. ‘He’ll still lie if he wants to – and he probably will if it’s a cross-over that went wrong.’
    â€˜I’d hoped you would,’ said Cowley honestly. The Director had a better chance than he did of being told something like the truth, if there was anything to tell.
    â€˜We’ll give it another twenty-four hours before we make the Mafia connection,’ decided Ross. ‘And then only to Hartz. I don’t want anything to go public, making it official, so don’t mention it to the DC people in case it leaks.’
    â€˜From what’s being published so far, the media don’t need any official confirmation of it being Mafia.’
    â€˜Give me an opinion about the meeting with Pavlenko,’ insisted Ross. ‘Strict diplomatic formality? Or obstruction?’
    Cowley hesitated, wanting to get the answer right. ‘Bordering on obstruction.’
    â€˜You want me to bring pressure through the State Department for access to the embassy and Massachusetts Avenue?’
    â€˜That was my initial intention: why I wanted to speak to you before I got back to Pavlenko and tried for access at my level,’ said Cowley. ‘But I’m not sure it would achieve any practical purpose. They’ll lie and conceal anything they don’t want to come out and I won’t have any authority to challenge them. And pressure from State wouldn’t cut much