‘Depends how it develops,’ said Ross, refilling his cup. Too much coffee was something else he intended to give up. ‘I’m not having an army, running around and getting in each other’s way.’

‘You going to appoint Cowley supervisor?’ asked Hartz, expectantly.

‘Head of the Russian Division at the Bureau is an administrative position,’ reminded Ross.

‘Horses for courses,’ cliched Hartz. Very occasionally the German birth and education that had ceased at the age of ten, when his family had come to America, still sounded in some word; it was evident now.

‘I guess it’s got to be him,’ agreed Ross. ‘The media will make a lot of comparisons about that, too.’ He wondered if the contacts William Cowley had made in Moscow the previous year, on a combined Russian-American investigation ironically into the murder of an American diplomat at the US embassy there, would be of use this time.

‘I’ve told the President,’ disclosed Hartz. ‘He doesn’t like the Mafia connotation one little bit.’

‘You think I do!’

‘If we’ve got an organised crime connection in the middle of the Russian embassy, we’ve got ourselves one great big can of worms.’

‘That’s going to be the speculation,’ predicted Ross.

‘That’s why I want the control to be between the two of us, to prevent it becoming a media circus.’

‘How are the DC guys going to feel about that?’

‘Maybe they’ll be glad to get rid of it,’ suggested Hartz.

The local police were, but the mayor was not so enthusiastic when, on their arrival, the Secretary of State announced the responsibility for the investigation would legally be that of the FBI.

‘We’ll cooperate in every possible way,’ guaranteed John Brine, the police chief, with obvious relief. ‘I’m sure we’re going to work just fine together.’

‘This is going to bring a lot of heat,’ intruded the mayor, Elliott Jones. ‘Washington, the murder capital of the World: that sort of nonsense.’ Jones was a second term civic leader, with ambitions for national office. In several interviews he’d admitted a willingness to be considered for the first black Vice President. He was still waiting for an approach from the Democrats.