A young cop in a white mask needed to see Strelski's ID. Strelski showed it to him, rather than waste words. The young cop offered him a mask for himself, as if Strelski had just joined the club. After that there were photographic lights and people in coveralls to be steered around, and there was the stench, which was somehow more pungent through the mask.
And there was saying "Hi" to Scranton from Pure Intelligence, and "Hi" to Rukowski from the prosecutor's office. And there was wondering how the fuck Pure Intelligence got to arrive on the scene ahead of you. And there was saying "Hi" to anyone who looked as if he might block your path, until you somehow elbowed your way to the most brightly lit part of the auction house, which was what the crowded apartment was like, except for the stench: everyone looking at the objets d'art and making notes and calculating prices, and not a lot of attention being paid to anyone else.
And when you had reached your destination, you could see, not a likeness, or a waxwork, but the authentic originals of Dr. Paul Apostoll and his current or late mistress, both undressed, which was how Apo liked to spend his leisure hours ― always on his knees, as they used to say, and usually on his elbows ― both greatly discoloured, kneeling facing each other, their hands and heels tied and their throats cut, and their tongues pulled through the incision to make what is called a Colombian necktie.
* * *
Burr had known at the moment when Strelski took the message, long before he knew what the message said. Just the awful relaxation in Strelski's body as the message hit him was enough, and the way Strelski's eyes instinctively found Burr's and then dismissed them, preferring some other subject to fix on while he listened to the rest. The glance and the glance-away said everything. They were accusing and valedictory, both at once. They said: You did it to me, your people. And: From now on, it's a nuisance we're sitting in the same room.
While Strelski was listening, he jotted down a couple of notes, then he asked who had made the identification, and absently scribbled something else. Then he tore off the piece of paper and shoved it in his pocket, and Burr supposed it was an address and, from Strelski's stony face as he stood up, that he was going there and that it was a filthy death. Then Burr had to watch while Strelski strapped on his shoulder holster, and reflect how in the old days, in different circumstances, he would have asked Strelski why he needed a gun to visit a corpse, and Strelski would have found some supposedly Anglophobic answer, and they'd have got along.
So as Burr remembered the moment forever afterwards, he was actually being told of two deaths at once: Apostoll's, and that of their own professional companionship.
"Cops say a man's been found dead in Brother Michael's apartment up in Coconut Grove. Suspicious circumstances, I'm going to check it out."
And then the warning, given to everyone except Burr, yet directed at Burr particularly:
"Could be anyone. Could be his cook, his driver, his brother, who the fuck. Nobody moves till I say. Hear me?"
They heard him but, like Burr, knew it wasn't his cook, his driver or his brother. And now Strelski had called from the scene of the crime, and yes, it was Apostoll, and Burr was doing the things he had prepared in his mind to do as soon as the confirmation came, in the order he had planned. His first call was to Rooke, to tell him that the Limpet operation must as of now be considered compromised. And that accordingly Jonathan should be given the emergency signal for the first phase of the evacuation plan, which required him to escape from the company of Roper and his entourage and go to ground, preferably in the nearest British consulate, but, failing that, in a police station, where he should give himself up as the hunted criminal Pine as a prelude to fast-lane repatriation.
But the call was too late. By the time Burr tracked Rooke down in the passenger seat of Amato's surveillance van, the two men were admiring the Roper jet lifting into the rising sun as it took off for Panama. True to his known behaviour pattern, the Chief was flying at first light.
"Which airport in Panama, Rob?" Burr asked, pencil in hand.
"Destination to the control tower was Panama, no details. Better ask air surveillance."
Burr was already doing so, on another line.
After that Burr called the British Embassy in Panama and spoke to the economic secretary, who happened also to represent Burr's agency and had a line to the Panamanian police.
Lastly he spoke to Goodhew, explaining that there was evidence on Apostoll's body that he had been tortured before he was murdered, and that the possibility that Jonathan was blown must be regarded, for operation purposes, as a certainty.
"Oh, yes, well, I see," said Goodhew distractedly. Was he unmoved, or was he in shock?
