No Time for Heroes (28 page)

Danilov welcomed the dismissive gesture from Yasev, moving towards the door ahead of Cowley and Pavin. In the car – in Russian for Pavin's benefit – Danilov said: ‘That got us nowhere.'

‘It could have done,' said Cowley.

At Petrovka, on the far side of town, Metkin smiled up at his former partner. ‘All set?'

‘An apartment on Ulitza Fadajeva,' said Kabalin. He still wasn't as confident as the other man.

‘Make sure it's recorded in absolute detail.'

‘Of course.'

‘The Foreign Ministry have asked for a full explanation of what happened at the river. There's to be an enquiry.'

‘Everything in place?'

‘It will be. Antipov will complete it.'

Every official ministry and investigation branch in both Moscow and Washington was inundated by media demands after the
Washington Post
exclusive. The American State Department liaised with the Russian Foreign Ministry, each denying any knowledge of the source and each promising an enquiry to discover it. A joint, confirmatory press statement was issued in both capitals.

Cowley learned about it when Washington demanded if he had had any contact with the press – which he immediately denied – and caught Danilov at Petrovka to warn him.

‘Part of our ongoing problem with your people?' asked the American.

‘It could be. It certainly wasn't Pavin or me.'

‘Now we'll have cameras over our shoulders all the time. Fame again.'

‘Fuck fame,' said Danilov. It was a better obscenity in English.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The arrest of Mikhail Pavlovich Antipov was perfectly co-ordinated, even to the hour. It was carried out by a squad of plainclothes and uniformed Militia officers under the command of Vladimir Kabalin. They smashed their way with sledgehammers into the Ulitza Fadajeva apartment at four o'clock in the morning, when the man was in bed asleep. He was with two girls who later turned out to be mother and daughter: the daughter was fifteen years old.

The surprise was so absolute there were three officers with pistols drawn and trained upon him before Antipov properly awoke. He tensed, beginning to move his right hand behind him, but stopped when he saw the pistols: after he and the girls, without embarrassment, got nakedly out of bed one of the uniformed men found a 9mm Stetchkin pistol beneath the pillow.

‘What's this about?' demanded the man. He remained naked. The girls were also taking their time getting dressed: the fifteen-year-old giggled openly at the ogling policemen.

‘Murder,' announced Kabalin shortly.

Antipov laughed. ‘Who did I kill?'

‘Ivan Ignatsevich Ignatov,' identified Kabalin formally. One of the plainclothes officers was taking note of the exchange.

‘I didn't kill anyone.'

‘We know you did,' sighed Kabalin. ‘We've all had enough time to admire the size of your prick. Get dressed.'

Antipov started to, but slowly. Nodding to the girls, now fully clothed, he said: ‘What about them?'

The apartment block had been under surveillance from early the previous evening, which was how they'd known Antipov was there, but the girls hadn't entered with the man and Kabalin was uncertain what to do with them. ‘They're coming too.'

Antipov stopped dressing, smiling again. ‘They almost killed
me
last night: nearly fucked me to death!'

The girls laughed.

‘Remember it,' advised Kabalin. ‘Could be a long time before you get it again.'

As well as putting on clothes – a knitted sports shirt beneath a deep brown chamois jacket that matched the Gucci loafers – Antipov slipped a gold wristwatch on his left arm, a gold bracelet on his other wrist and took his time selecting rings, a platformed gold band for his left hand, a silver one with an onyx centre for the right.

‘You look beautiful,' said Kabalin.

From the main room Antipov looked at the smashed-down door. ‘Who's going to pay for that?'

‘It's all being recorded,' assured Kabalin. A photographer was already taking pictures of the interior of the apartment. Kabalin indicated his scene-of-crime officer, Aleksai Raina: the man was putting the Stechkin pistol into an exhibit bag. ‘Everything taken for examination is being recorded.'

‘Have you got the legal right to remove things?'

‘Probably not. You going to complain?'

‘Probably not.'

‘What about our time?' demanded the elder prostitute, taking her lead from Antipov. ‘Who's going to pay for that? Everyone got a good look!'

‘Think of it as advertising,' suggested Kabalin.

‘On a Militia salary, none of you could afford to buy what's on offer,' said Antipov.

‘Put your arms out,' ordered Kabalin.

‘What!' For the first time Antipov showed anger.

‘Manacles,' said Kabalin.

‘Fuck off!'

‘I don't care if you want to be chained forcibly. Suit yourself.'

Antipov extended his arms, wincing slightly when Kabalin snapped the handcuffs shut. The photographer took several exposures of the formal arrest.

At Petrovka, Kabalin let the two prostitutes share a detention cell and put Antipov in the holding cage adjoining the interview room. The arrested man had recovered his insolent disdain: he carefully removed the chamois jacket before stretching out full length on the narrow bed, hands cupped behind his head.

Kabalin telephoned Metkin from the Director's own office. ‘Perfect,' he reported.

‘I'll come,' said Metkin.

Dimitri Danilov was told by the desk officer as he walked into Petrovka to report at once to the Director: the man already had the telephone in his hand, announcing the arrival.

‘It was all done while you were asleep,' Metkin announced, as Danilov entered the suite.

He took his time recounting every detail of the arrest, even showing Danilov the already processed photographs of the chained and glowering Antipov. A full account had already been sent to both the Foreign and Interior Ministries, with the suggestion that a full press communiqué be issued both to assure the American authorities of the standard of Russian investigations, after the recent criticism, and to satisfy the media clamour after the disclosure of the link between the killing of Ignatov and the Washington murders. Danilov didn't have to bother contacting Cowley about the arrest, either: Metkin had already informed the American embassy.

‘It seems to have all worked out very satisfactorily?' offered Metkin.

‘Yes,' agreed Danilov. It was like being back at the beginning, sure about nothing, understanding nothing. ‘When was it discovered where Antipov was?'

‘Some time last night. Why?'

‘I would have expected to be told, as the officer in overall command.' It sounded like whining petulance. But he
should
have been told: taken part in the arrest.

‘Concerned about headlines, Dimitri Ivanovich?'

‘Concerned about the efficiency of the operation after the problems we've already had,' said Danilov.

Metkin tapped the photographs in front of him. ‘Everything has been done correctly …' He smiled. ‘Now all you and your American friend have to do is interrogate the man and extract the confession.'

Why, wondered Danilov, was the questioning being left to him? Was the need to include Cowley sufficient reason?

Antipov's arrest was not the only early-hours seizure in connection with the three matched killings. The Brooklyn Task Force had begun the promised, informer-concealing round-up of hookers and drug dealers the afternoon that Carla Roberts appeared before a judge to be fined $50 and released. By the end of the second day they had a surname and a description for Peter the Pole, who wasn't Polish but Ukrainian and whose full name was Petr Zubko. Records produced a rap sheet with two small-time drug-trafficking convictions and three for aggravated assault. And a mugshot.

Bradley set up a round-the-clock stakeout on the Adam and Eve bar on Columbus and got a virtually positive ID on the third night: to make sure, they followed Zubko home to the amusement arcade on Atlantic Boulevard, picking out the room above when the light went on. The Americans didn't wait as long as the Russians, three hours later and 5,000 miles away. It was only one in the morning when the SWAT team smashed in the door: the plywood was so flimsy the lead man was carried by the force of his first sledgehammer strike halfway through the hole he made. They were able to laugh about it afterwards: Zubko had already injected and was on the nod, too far gone to react. If he hadn't been shooting up he could easily have killed the spread-eagled officer with one of the two guns later found in the stinking, dishevelled squat. Neither of the guns was a Makarov.

It wasn't until mid-morning, long after the interrogation of Antipov had begun, that Zubko was fit enough to be questioned. As with Carla Roberts, Wilkes and Bradley did the questioning, with Slowen the uninvolved observer.

‘You're in shit, Peter. Deep shit,' began Bradley.

‘What you want?'

The hooker had been right, Slowen thought: the man did speak as if he had rocks in his throat. He had the neglected thinness of an addict who rarely ate, nerves tugging near his left eye and in his cheek. The shake was beginning in his hands, and he was using both to scratch away the skin irritation there sometimes was coming down from a heroin plateau.

‘To make the world a better place,' said Wilkes. ‘It's our reason for living.'

‘Don't know what you mean.'

‘We mean ridding the streets of vermin like you,' said Wilkes.

‘We're going to send you away to a very bad place and you're going to stay there for the rest of your life …' The lieutenant stopped, pretending the need to consult the man's criminal sheet. ‘Says here you're forty-three. With the shit we found stashed in that rat-hole where you live, we got ourselves a major trafficking indictment here. And you're an already convicted trafficker. A recidivist …'

‘… And there's the guns,' said Wilkes.

‘The guns!' exclaimed Bradley, tapping his forehead. ‘I forgot the guns. You know, we can't find a licence record anywhere for that Smith and Wesson and that Beretta …'

‘… You got a permit for those, Peter …?'

‘… Sure as hell won't look good if you haven't,' said Bradley. ‘The one thing judges hate more than a major drug trafficker is a major drug trafficker who goes around with a loaded piece, prepared to kill people … You kill people, Peter?'

‘… Twenty-five years, I'd guess,' came in Wilkes. ‘And there's no parole for drug convictions, so you're going to serve every one of them …'

‘… Which will make your sixty-eighth birthday pretty special,' cos that's the first one from now you're going to enjoy outside the slammer …'

‘What you talk about?'

‘Courts don't like big time, Grade A operators,' said Bradley. ‘And that's what you are. How else could you describe a trafficker with maybe more than a kilo of sixty or seventy percent shit in his room when we come calling?'

‘What you talk about?' repeated Zubko. ‘Don't have no kilo!'

‘Found it myself, under your bed,' insisted Bradley.

‘Saw him do it,' confirmed Wilkes.

‘No true!'

‘Gonna swear on oath,' said Bradley.

‘Me too.'

Slowen hadn't heard anything about a kilo of heroin until that moment.

‘You plant it!' declared Zubko.

Solemnly the two detectives looked at each other, then back at the Ukrainian. ‘That's a grave accusation,' said Bradley. ‘Courts don't like lies being told about the police.'

Zubko was scratching himself more vigorously, the shaking was worsening, and there was a patina of sweat on his face. ‘Why you do this?'

‘Tell us about Viktor Chebrakin,' demanded Bradley.

‘And Yuri Chestnoy.'

The man brought his shivering hands up to his face, as if physically to stop himself talking.

Wilkes said: ‘We're not hearing you, Peter.'

‘How about Igor Rimyans?' persisted Bradley. ‘He's pretty big on the drugs scene in Brighton Beach, isn't he?'

Zubko remained with his hands to his face, hunched over the table.

Wilkes said: ‘We're still not hearing you!'

‘Don't know these men.'

‘That's a lie,' said Bradley.

‘I'll tell the court what you did to me. Put heroin in my place.'

‘Who do you think they're going to believe? Us? Or you? Think about it,' urged Wilkes.

‘What you want?'

‘Where would I find Viktor Chebrakin or Yuri Chestnoy or Igor Rimyans …?' said Bradley.

‘… Or Valentin Yashev?' completed Wilkes.

The lowered head shook, in refusal.

‘Twenty-five years,' said Wilkes.

‘No parole,' said Bradley.

‘There's a warning,' mumbled the man.

‘We know,' said Bradley.

‘We do deal?'

‘We want addresses.
Right
addresses,' said Bradley.

‘Then you not lie, about the heroin?'

‘Names. Addresses,' insisted Wilkes.

‘Rimyans,' mumbled the man.

‘OK. Rimyans,' accepted Bradley.

‘Queens,' said the man, voice scarcely above a whisper, still refusing to look up. ‘The corner house at Junction Boulevard and Elmhurst Manor.'

‘The Jackson district!' identified Wilkes, the man with local knowledge. ‘We're a long way from Brighton Beach.'

‘Airport,' said Zubko, simply.

‘Supply points,' breathed Bradley. ‘A spit from La Guardia, not much further from Kennedy.'

‘You never tell it was me?'

‘Of course we wouldn't.'

‘And you not lie about the heroin?'

‘Let's see who we find in Jackson,' avoided Bradley.