Read Online No Time for Heroes by Brian Freemantle - Free Book Online Page A

door, was a hutch of a room, misted in cigarette smoke and with used stubs smouldering in an ashtray. Borodin, who was bent over a magazine displaying melon-breasted, splay-legged women, didn’t look up.
    â€˜I’m looking for the manager,’ announced Danilov. ‘I want a car. That Volga outside looks good.’
    Borodin, a dumpy man with grease-encrusted fingernails, snorted a laugh, bringing his head up from the pornography. ‘ I allocate cars. Where’s your authorisation docket?’
    â€˜You’ve had a memorandum from the Director …’ Danilov stretched his copy across the desk, in front of the other man.
    Borodin blinked down at it, then smiled up. ‘So you’re the new Deputy Director! Your having a car depends upon availability, I’m afraid. Everything out there is committed. Sorry.’
    The instructions how he should be treated had permeated throughout every floor, literally from the top to the bottom, realised Danilov. ‘You’ve also seen this?’ asked Danilov, extending Metkin’s order making him responsible for the supplies and facilities throughout the building.
    Borodin nodded, not bothering to reply.
    How well had he remembered the what’s-in-it-for-me approach, wondered Danilov. ‘The car pool, this garage, is a listed facility. All vehicle spares, petrol, the purchasing of new cars and the disposal of old vehicles is categorised under supplies. You are no longer allowed to order in your own name and under your own authority any parts, for any car. Nor will you be permitted to order a new car or dispose of an old one without reference and approval from me. All petrol purchasing will in future be by me. I will also want, weekly, details of all mechanics’ work sheets and all overtime claims. I have also been appointed overall controller of finance: no money will be paid on any overtime claim unless I have countersigned it. I want all authorisation dockets, at the end of every week, detailing use on official police business.’
    Borodin’s mouth hung open almost as wide as the legs of the naked women he had been studying. ‘I don’t … I mean …’ stumbled the man who had just heard the threat of every bribe-accepting, price-inflating racket being taken from him.
    At a conservative estimate, Danilov reckoned Borodin stood to lose about twenty times his official salary: probably more. He waved the handful of instructions from Anatoli Metkin, because it was important the cause of the catastrophe be identified from the outset. ‘The new Director is determined upon great change.’
    â€˜I don’t want to get our relationship off on a bad footing,’ said Borodin anxiously.
    â€˜Neither do I,’ assured Danilov.
    â€˜You know anything about running garages? Cars?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ admitted Danilov. ‘I’ll learn, in time.’
    â€˜It would be easier if we worked together.’
    A motto that should be enshrined in stone over every official Russian door.
    â€˜I wouldn’t want it any other way.’ Danilov waved an arm towards the garage. ‘Perhaps you’d let me have the order sheets, so I can see who those are going out to?’
    Borodin made a half gesture of looking through the rat’s nest of a drawer in his desk. ‘I don’t seem to have made one up yet. But I’m not sure, upon reflection, the Volga is committed. I think I could rearrange things to make it available.’
    â€˜I’d regard that as a favour,’ said Danilov. ‘Why don’t you get it cleaned and valeted for me to pick up tonight?’
    â€˜It’ll be waiting,’ promised Borodin eagerly.
    He hadn’t forgotten a thing about how the system worked, decided Danilov happily. His meeting with the initially dismissive manager of stores and maintenance was a repeat performance; it took less than fifteen minutes to make clear to the man the benefits he