The safe house was palatial, the country home of somebody with both money and taste, built in the previous century by the look of it, with stucco and the sort of heavy oaken timbers used to build ships like HMS
Victory once upon a time. But landlocked, it was about as far from blue water as one could get on this island kingdom.
Evidently, Alan Kingshot knew it well enough, since he drove them there and then got them settled inside. The two-person staff that ran the place looked like cops to Ryan, probably married and retired from the Police Force of the Metropolis, as the London Constabulary was officially known. They kindly escorted their new guests to a rather nice suite of rooms. Irina Zaitzev's eyes were agog at the accommodations, which were impressive even by Ryan's standards. All Oleg Ivanovich did was set his shaving kit in the bathroom, strip off his clothes, and collapse onto the bed, where alcohol-aided sleep proved to be less than five minutes away.
Word got TO Judge Moore just before midnight that the package was safely ensconced in a very secure location, and with that information he also went to bed. All that remained was to tell the Air Force to get a KC-135 or a similar aircraft ready to fly the package home, and that would take a mere telephone call to an officer in the Pentagon. He wondered what the Rabbit would say, but he could wait for that. Patience, once the dangerous stuff was behind, was not all that difficult for the Director of Central Intelligence. It was like Christmas Eve, and while he wasn't exactly sure what would be under the tree, he could be confident that it wouldn't be anything bad.
For Sir Basil Charleston at his Belgravia house, the news came before breakfast, when a messenger from Century House arrived with the word. An altogether pleasant way to start a working day, he thought, certainly better than some others he'd had. He left home for the office just before seven A.M., ready for his morning brief to outline the success of Operation BEATRIX.
Ryan was awakened by traffic noise. Whoever had built this magnificent country home hadn't anticipated the construction of a motorway just three hundred yards away, but somehow Ryan had avoided a hangover from all the drinks on the flight in, and the lingering excitement of the moment had gotten him fully awake after a mere six and a half hours of slumber. He washed up and made his way to the pleasant not-so-little breakfast room. Alan Kingshot was there, working on his morning tea.
"Probably coffee for you, eh?"
"If you have any."
"Only instant," Kingshot warned.
Jack stifled his disappointment. "Better than no coffee at all."
"Eggs Benedict?" the retired woman cop asked.
"Ma'am, for that I will forgive the absence of Starbucks," Jack replied, with a smile. Then he saw the morning papers, and he thought that reality and normality had finally returned to his life. Well, almost.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thompson run this house for us," Kingshot explained. "Nick was a homicide detective with the Yard, and Emma was in administration."
"That's what my dad used to do," Ryan observed. "How did you guys get working for SIS?"
"Nick worked on the Markov case," Mrs. Thompson answered.
"And did a damned good job of it, too," Kingshot told Ryan. "He would have been a fine field officer for us."
"Bond, James Bond?" Nick Thompson said, walking into the kitchen. "I think not. Our guests are moving about. It sounds as though the little girl got them up."
"Yeah," Jack observed. "Kids will do that. So, we do the debrief here or somewhere else?"
"We were planning to do it in Somerset, but I decided last night not to drive them around too much. Why stress them out?" Kingshot asked rhetorically. "We just took title to this house last year, and it's as comfortable a place as any. The one in Somerset-near Taunton-is a touch more isolated, but these people ought not to bolt, you think?"
"If he goes home, he's one dead Rabbit," Ryan thought out loud. "He has to know that. On the plane, he was worried that we were KGB and this was all an elaborate maskirovka setup, I think. His wife did a lot of shopping in Budapest. Maybe we have somebody take her shopping around here?" the American wondered. "Then we can talk to him in comfort. His English seems okay. Do we have anybody here with good Russian?"
"My job," Kingshot told Ryan.
"First thing we want to know, why the hell did he decide to skip town?"
"Obviously, but then, what's all this lot about compromised communications?"
"Yeah." Ryan took a deep breath. "I imagine people are jumping out windows about that one."
"Too bloody right," Kingshot confirmed.
"So, Al, you've worked Moscow?"
The Brit nodded. "Twice. Good sport it was, but rather tense the whole time I was there."
"Where else?"
"Warsaw and Bucharest. I speak all the languages. Tell me, how was Andy Hudson?"
"He's a star, Al. Very smooth and confident all the way-knows his turf, good contacts. He took pretty good care of me."
"Here's your coffee, Sir John," Mrs. Thompson said, bringing his cup of Taster's Choice. The Brits were good people, and their food, Ryan thought, was wrongly maligned, but they didn't know beans about coffee, and that was that. But it was still better than tea.
The Eggs Benedict arrived shortly thereafter, and at that dish, Mrs. Thompson could have given lessons. Ryan opened his paper-it was the Times-and relaxed to get reacquainted with the world. He'd call Cathy in about an hour when he was at work. With luck, he might even see her in a couple days. In a perfect world, he'd have a copy of an American paper, or maybe the International Tribune, but the world was not yet perfect. There was no sense asking how the World Series was going. It was going to start tomorrow, wasn't it? How good were the Phillies this year? Well, as usual, you played the games to find out.
"So, how was the trip, Jack?" Kingshot asked.
"Alan, those field officers earn every nickel they make. How you deal with the constant tension, I do not understand."
"Like everything else, Jack, you get used to it. Your wife is a surgeon. The idea of cutting people open with a knife is not at all appealing to me."
Jack barked a short laugh. "Yeah, me too, pal. And she does eyeballs. Nothing important, right?"
Kingshot shuddered visibly at the thought, and Ryan reminded himself that working in Moscow, running agents-and probably arranging rescue missions like they'd done for the Rabbit-could not have been much more fun than a heart transplant.
"Ah, Mr. Somerset," Ryan heard Mrs. Thompson say. "Good morning, and welcome."
"Spasiba" Oleg Ivan'ch replied in a sleepy voice. Kids could get you up at the goddamnedest hours, with their smiling faces and lovely dispositions. "That is my new name?"
"We'll figure something more permanent later," Ryan told him. "Again, welcome."
"This is England?" the Rabbit asked.
"We're eight miles from Manchester," the British intelligence officer replied. "Good morning. In case you don't remember, my name is Alan Kingshot. This is Mrs. Emma Thompson, and Nick will be back in a few minutes." Handshakes were exchanged.
"My wife be here soon. She see to zaichik" he explained.
"How are you feeling, Vanya?" Kingshot asked.
"Much travel, much fear, but I am safe now, yes?"
"Yes, you are entirely safe," Kingshot assured him.
"And what would you like for breakfast?" Mrs. Thompson asked.
"Try this," Jack suggested, pointing at his plate. "It's great."
"Yes, I will-what is called?"
"Eggs Benedict," Jack told him. "Mrs. Thompson, this hollandaise sauce is just perfect. My wife needs your recipe, if I may impose." And maybe Cathy could teach her about proper coffee. That would be an equitable trade, Ryan thought.
"Why, certainly, Sir John," she replied with a beaming smile. No woman in all the world objects to praise for her cooking.
"For me also, then," Zaitzev decided.
"Tea or coffee?" she asked her guest.
"You have English Breakfast tea?" the Rabbit asked.
"Of course," she answered.
"Please for me, then."
"Certainly." And she disappeared back into the kitchen.
It was still a lot for Zaitzev to take. Here he was, in the breakfast room of a manor house fit for a member of the old nobility, surrounded by a green lawn such as one might see at Augusta National, with monstrous oak trees planted two hundred years before, a carriage house, and stables in the distance. It was something he might have imagined as worthy of Peter the Great, the things of books and museums, and he was in it as an honored guest?
"Nice house, isn't it?" Ryan asked, finishing off the Eggs Benny.
"Is amazing," Zaitzev responded, wide eyes sweeping around.
"Belonged to a ducal family, bought by a textiles manufacturer a hundred years ago, but his business fell on hard times, and the government bought it last year. We use it for conferences and as a safe house. The heating system is a little primitive," Kingshot reported. "But that is not a problem at the moment. We've had a very pleasant summer, and the fall looks promising as well."
"At home, there'd be a golf course around this place," Jack said, looking out the windows. "A big one."
"Yes," Alan agreed. "It would be splendid for that."
"When I go America?" the Rabbit asked.
"Oh, three or four days," Kingshot answered. "We would like to talk with you a little, if you don't mind."
"When do we start?"
"After breakfast. Take your time, Mr. Zaitzev. You are no longer in the Soviet Union. We shall not pressure you at all," Alan promised.
My ass, Ryan thought. Buddy, they're going to suck your brain out of your head and strain it for your thoughts one molecule at a time. But the Rabbit had just gotten a free ride out of Mother Russia, with the prospect of a comfortable life for him and his family in the West, and everything in life had its price.
He loved his tea. Then the rest of the family came out and, over the next twenty minutes, Mrs. Thompson nearly ran out of Hollandaise sauce, while the arriving Russians ensured steady employment for the local egg farmers.
Irina left the breakfast room to tour the house and was gready excited to see a concert grand Bosendorfer piano, turning like a kid at Christmas to ask if she might tickle the keys. She was years out of practice, but the look on her face was like a return of childhood as she struggled through "On the Bridge at Avignon," which had been her favorite exercise tune many years before-and which she still remembered.
"A friend of mine plays professionally," Jack said, with a smile. It was hard not to appreciate her joy of the moment.
"Who? Where?" Oleg asked.
"Sissy-actually, Cecilia Jackson. Her husband and I are friends. He's a fighter pilot for the U.S. Navy. She is number-two piano soloist at the Washington Symphony. My wife plays, too, but Sissy is really good."
"You are good to us," Oleg Ivan'ch said.
"We try to take decent care of our guests," Kingshot told him. "Shall we talk in the library?" He pointed the way.
The chairs were comfortable. The library was another stellar example of nineteenth-century woodwork, with thousands of books and three rolling ladders-it isn't a proper English library without a ladder. The chairs were plush. Mrs. Thompson brought in a tray of ice water and glasses, and business began.
"So, Mr. Zaitzev, can you begin to tell us about yourself?" Kingshot asked. He was rewarded by name, ancestry, place of birth, and education.
"No military service?" Ryan asked.
Zaitzev shook his head. "No, KGB spot me and they protect me from army time."
"And that was in university?" Kingshot asked for clarity. A total of three tape recorders were turning.
"Yes, that is correct. My first year they speak to me for first time."
"And when did you join KGB?"
"Immediately I leave Moscow State University. They take me into communications department."
"And how long there?"
"Since, well, for nine and half years in total, set aside my time in academy and other training."
"And where do you work now?" Kingshot led him on.
"I work in Central Communications in basement of Moscow Centre."
"And what exactly did you do there?" Alan finally asked.
"During my watch, all dispatches come in from field to my desk. My job is to maintain security, to be sure proper procedures followed, and then I forward to action officers upstairs. Or to United States-Canada Institute sometimes," Oleg said, gesturing to Ryan.
Jack did his best not to let his mouth fall open. This guy really was an escapee from the Soviet counterpart to CIA's MERCURY. This guy saw it all. Everything, or damned near. He'd just helped a gold mine escape from behind the wire. Son of a bitch!
Kingshot did a somewhat better job of concealing his feelings, but he let his eyes slip over to Ryan's, and that expression said it all.
Bloody hell.
"So, do you know the names of your field officers and their agents?" Kingshot asked.
"KGB officer names-I know many names. Agents, the names I know very few, but I know code names. In Britain, our best agent is code-named MINISTER. He give us high-value diplomatic and political intelligence for many years-twenty years, I think, perhaps more."
"You said KGB has compromised our communications," Ryan observed.
"Yes, somewhat. That is agent NEPTUNE. How much he give, I am not sure, but I know KGB read much of American naval communications."
"What about other communications?" Jack asked immediately.
"Naval communications, that I am sure. Others, I am not sure, but you use same cipher machines for all, yes?"
"Actually not," Alan told him. "So, you say British communications are secure?"
"If broken, I do not know it," Zaitzev replied. "Most American diplomatic and intelligence information we get come from Agent CASSIUS. He is aide to senior politician in Washington. He give us good information on what CIA do and what CIA learn from us."
"But you said he's not part of CIA?" Ryan asked.
"No, I think he is politician aide, helper, member of staff-like that," Zaitzev said rather positively.
"Good." Ryan lit up a smoke and offered one to Zaitzev, who took it at once.
"I run out of my Krasnopresnenskiye," he explained.
"I should give you all of mine. My wife wants me to quit. She's a doctor," Jack explained.
"Bah," the Rabbit responded.
"So, why did you decide to leave?" Kingshot asked, taking a sip of tea. The reply nearly made him drop the cup.
"KGB want to kill Pope."
"You're serious?" It was the more experienced man who asked that question, not Ryan.
"Serious? I risk my life, my wife life, my daughter life. Da, I am serious," Oleg Ivanovich assured his interlocutors with an edge on his voice.
"Fuck," Ryan breathed. "Oleg, we need to know about this."
"It start in August. Fifteen August it start," Zaitzev told them, spinning out his tale without interruption for five or six minutes.
"No name for the operation?" Jack asked when he stopped.
"No name, just dispatch number fifteen-eight-eighty-two-six-six-six. That is date of first message from Andropov to rezidentura Rome, and number of message, yes? Yuriy Vladimirovich ask how get close to Pope. Rome say bad idea. Then Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy-he is main assistant to chairman, yes?-he send signal to rezidentura Sofia. Operation go from Sofia. So, operation -six-six-six probably run for KGB by Dirzhavna Sugurnost. I think officer name is Strokov, Boris Andreyevich."
Kingshot had a thought and rose, leaving the room. He came back with Nick Thompson, a former detective superintendent of the Metropolitan Police.
"Nick, does the name Boris Andreyevich Strokov mean anything to you?"
The former cop blinked hard. "Indeed it does, Alan. He's the chappie we think killed Georgiy Markov on Westminster Bridge. We had him under surveillance, but he flew out of the country before we had enough cause to pick him up for questioning."
"Wasn't he under diplomatic cover?" Ryan asked, and was surprised by Thompson's answer.
"Actually not. He came in undocumented and left the same way. I saw him myself at Heathrow. But we didn't put the pieces together quickly enough. Dreadful case it was. The poison they gave Markov was horrific stuff."
"You eyeballed this Strokov guy?"
Thompson nodded. "Oh, yes. He might have noticed me. I wasn't being all that careful under the circumstances. He's the one who killed Markov. I'd stake my life on it."
"How can you be sure?"
"I chased murderers for near on twenty years, Sir John. You get to know them in all that time. And that's what he was, a murderer," Thompson said with total confidence. Ryan could remember his father being like this, even on frustrating cases when he knew what he needed but couldn't quite prove it to a jury.
"The Bulgarians have a sort of contract with the Soviets," Kingshot explained. "Back in 1964 or so, they agreed to handle all the 'necessary' eliminations for the KGB. In return, they get various perks, mostly political."
"Strokov, yes, I've heard that name before. Did you get a photo of the chap, Nick?"
"Fifty or more, Alan," Thompson assured him. "I'll never forget that face. He has the eyes of a corpse-no life in them at all, like a doll's eyes."
"How good is he?" Ryan asked.
"As an assassin? Quite good, Sir John. Very good indeed. His elimination of Markov on the bridge was expertly done-it was the third attempt. The first two would-be assassins bungled the job, and they called Strokov in to get it right. And that he did. Had things gone just a little differently, we would not have realized it was a murder at all."
"We think he's worked elsewhere in the West," Kingshot said. "But very little good information. Just gossip really. Jack, this is a dangerous development. I need to get this information to Basil soonest." And with that, Alan left the room to get to a secure phone. Ryan turned back to Zaitzev.
"And that's why you decided to leave?"
"KGB want kill innocent man, Ryan. I see plot grow. Andropov himself say do this. I handle the messages. How can man stop KGB?" he asked. "I cannot stop KGB, but I will not help KGB kill priest-he is innocent man, yes?"
Ryan's eyes looked down at the floor. "Yes, Oleg Ivan'ch, he is." Dear God in heaven. He checked his watch. He had to get this information out PDQ, but nobody was awake at Langley yet.
"Bloody hell," Sir Basil Charleston said into his secure phone. "Is this reliable information, Alan?"
"Yes, sir, I believe it to be entirely truthful. Our Rabbit seems a decent chap, and a rather clever one. He seems to be motivated exclusively by his conscience." Next, Kingshot told him about the first revelation of the morning, MINISTER.
"We need to get 'five' looking into that." The British Security Service-once known as MI-5-was the counterespionage arm of their government. They'd need a little more specific information to run that putative traitor down, but they already had a starting point. Twenty years, was it?
What a productive traitor that fellow had to be, Sir Basil thought. Time for him to see Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. Charleston had spent years cleaning up his own shop, once a playground for the KGB. But no more, and never bloody again, the Knight Commander of the Bath swore to himself.
Whom do i tell? Ryan wondered. Basil would doubtless call Langley-Jack would make sure of that, but Sir Basil was a supremely reliable guy. Next came a more difficult question: What the hell can I/we do about this?
Ryan lit another smoke to consider that one. It was more police work than intelligence work…
And the central issue would be classification.
Yeah, that's going to be the problem. If we tell anybody, the word will get out somehow, and then somebody will know we have the Rabbit-and guess what, Jack? The Rabbit is now more important to the CIA than the life of the Pope.
Oh, shit, Ryan thought. It was like a trick of jujitsu, like a sudden reversal of polarity on the dial of a compass. North was now south. Inside was now outside. And the needs of American intelligence might now supersede the life of the Bishop of Rome. His face must have betrayed what he was thinking.
"What is amiss, Ryan?" the Rabbit asked. It seemed to Jack a strange word for him to know.
"The information you just gave us. We've been worrying about the safety of the Pope for a couple of months, but we had no specific information to make us believe his life was actually at risk. Now you have given that information to us, and someone must decide what to do with it. Do you know anything at all about the operation?"
"No, almost nothing. In Sofia the action officer is the rezident, Colonel Bubovoy, Ilya Fedorovich. Senior colonel, he is-Ambassador, can I say? To Bulgarian DS. This Colonel Strokov, this name I know from old cases. He is officer assassin for DS. He do other things, too, yes, but when man need bullet, Strokov deliver bullet, yes?"
This struck Ryan as something from a bad movie, except that in the movies the big, bad CIA was the one with a special assassination department, like a cupboard with vampire bats inside. When the director needed somebody killed, he'd open the door, and one of the bats flew out and made its kill, then flew back docilely to the cupboard and hung upside down until the next man needed killing. Sure, Wilbur. Hollywood had everything figured out, except that government bureaucracies all ran on paper-nothing happened without a written order of some sort, because only a piece of white paper with black ink on it would cover somebody's ass when things went bad-and if somebody really needed killing, someone inside the system had to sign the order, and who would sign that kind of order? That sort of thing became a permanent record of something bad, and so the signature blank would be bucked all the way to the Oval Office, and once there it just wasn't the sort of paper that would find its way into the Presidential Library that memorialized the person known inside the security community as National Command Authority. And nobody in between would sign the order, because government employees never stuck their necks out-that wasn't the way they were trained.
Except me, Ryan thought. But he wouldn't kill someone in cold blood. He hadn't even killed Sean Miller in very hot blood, and while that was a strange thing to be proud of, it beat the hell out of the alternative.
But Jack wasn't afraid of sticking it out. The loss of his government paycheck would be a net profit for John Patrick Ryan. He could go back to teaching, perhaps at a nice private university that paid halfway decently, and he'd be able to dabble with the stock market on the side, something with which his current job interfered rather badly…
What the hell am I going to do? The worst part of all was that Ryan considered himself to be a Catholic. Maybe he didn't make it to mass every week. Maybe they'd never name a church after him, but, God damn it, the Pope was someone he was compelled by his lengthy education-Catholic schools all the way, including almost twelve years of Jesuits-to respect. And added to that was something equally important-the education he'd received at the gentle hands of the United States Marine Corps at Quantico's Basic School. They'd taught him that when you saw something that needed doing, you damned well did it, and you hoped that your senior officers would bless it afterward, because decisive action had saved the day more than once in the history of the Corps. "It's a lot easier to get forgiveness than permission" was what the major who'd taught that particular class had said, then added with a smile, "But don't you people ever quote me on that." You just had to apply judgment to your action, and such judgment came with experience-but experience often came from bad decisions.
You're over thirty now, Jack, and you've had experience that you never wanted to get, but be damned if you haven't learned a hell of a lot from it. He would have been at least a captain by now, Jack thought. Maybe even a junior major, like Billy Tucker, who'd taught that class. Just then, Kingshot walked back into the room.
"Al, we have a problem," Ryan told him.
"I know, Jack. I just told Sir Basil. He's thinking about it."
"You're a field spook. What do you think?"
"Jack, this is well over my level of expertise and command."
"You turn your brain off, Al?" Ryan asked sharply.
"Jack, we cannot compromise our source, can we?" Kingshot shot back. "That is the paramount consideration here and now."
"Al, we know that somebody is going to try to whack the head of my church. We know his name, and Nick has a photo album on the fucker, remember?" Ryan took a deep breath before going on. "I am not going to sit here and do nothing about it," Ryan concluded, entirely forgetting the presence of the Rabbit for the moment.
"You do nothing? I risk my life for this and you do nothing?" Zaitzev demanded, catching on to the rapid-fire English exchanged in front of him. His face showed both outrage and puzzlement.
Al Kingshot handled the answer. "That is not for us to say. We cannot compromise our source-you, Oleg. We must protect you as well."
"Fuck!" Ryan stood and walked out of the room. But what the hell could he actually do? Jack asked himself. Then he went looking for the secure phone and dialed a number from memory.
"Murray," a voice said after the STUs married up.
"Dan, it's Jack."
"Where you been? I called two nights ago and Cathy said you were in Germany on NATO business. I wanted to-" Ryan just cut him off.
"Stick it, Dan. I was somewhere else doing something else. Listen up. I need some information and I need it in a hurry," Jack announced, lapsing briefly back into the voice of an officer of Marines.
"Shoot," Murray replied.
"I need to know the Pope's schedule for the next week or so." It was Friday. Ryan hoped the Bishop of Rome didn't have anything hopping for the weekend.
"What?" The FBI official's voice communicated predictable puzzlement.
"You heard me."
"What the hell for?"
"Can't tell you-oh, shit," Ryan swore, and then went on. "Dan, we have reason to believe there's a contract out on the Pope."
"Who?" Murray asked.
"It ain't the Knights of Columbus," was all Ryan felt comfortable saying.
"Shit, Jack. Are you serious?"
"What the hell do you think?" Ryan demanded.
"Okay, okay. Let me make some phone calls. What exactly am I free to say?"
That question stopped Ryan cold in his tracks. Think, boy, think. "Okay, you're a private citizen and a friend of yours is going to Rome and he wants to eyeball His Holiness. You want to know what's the best way to accomplish that mission. Fair enough?"
"What's Langley say about this?"
"Dan, frankly, I don't care a rat's ass right now, okay? Please, get me that information. I'll call back in an hour. Okay?"
"Roger that, Jack. One hour." Murray hung up. Ryan knew he could trust Murray. He was himself a Jesuit product, like so many FBI agents, in his case a Boston College alum, just like Ryan, and so whatever additional loyalties he had would work in Ryan's favor. Breathing a little easier, Ryan returned to the ducal library.
"Whom did you call, Jack?" Kingshot asked.
"Dan Murray at the embassy, the FBI rep. You ought to know him."
"The Legal Attache-yes, I do. Okay, what did you ask?"
"The Pope's schedule for the coming week."
"But we don't know anything yet," Kingshot objected.
"Does that make you feel any better, Al?" Jack inquired delicately.
"You did not compro-"
"Compromise our source? You think I'm that stupid?"
The Brit spook nodded to the logic of the moment. "Very well. No harm done, I expect."
The next hour of the first interview returned to routine things. Zaitzev fleshed out for the Brits what he knew about MINISTER. It was sufficiently juicy to give them a good start on IDing the guy. It was immediately clear that Kingshot wanted his hide on the barn door. There was no telling how much good information KGB was getting from him-it was definitely a him, Zaitzev made clear, and "him" was probably a senior civil servant in Whitehall, and soon his residence would be provided by Her Majesty's Government for the indefinite future-"at the Queen's pleasure" was the official phrase. But Jack had more pressing concerns. At 2:20 in the afternoon, he went back to the STU in the next room.
"Dan, it's Jack."
The Legal Attache spoke without preamble. "He has a busy week ahead, the embassy in Rome tells me, but the Pope is always in the open on Wednesday afternoons. He parades around in his white jeep in St. Peter's Square, right in front of the cathedral, for the people to see him and take his blessing. It's an open car, and, if you want to pop a cap, that sounds to me like a good time to try-unless they have a shooter infiltrated all the way inside. Maybe a cleaning man, plumber, electrician, hard to say, but you have to assume that the inside staff is pretty loyal, and that people keep an eye on them."
Sure, Jack thought, but those are the guys best suited to do something like this. Only the people you trust can really fuck you. Damn. The best people to look into this were with the Secret Service, but he didn't know anybody in there, and even if he did, getting them into the Vatican bureaucracy-the world's oldest-would require divine intervention.
"Thanks, pal. I owe you one."
"Semper fi, bud. Will you be able to tell me more? This sounds like a major case you're working on."
"Probably not, but it's not for me to say, Dan. Gotta run. Later, man." Ryan hung up and reentered the library.
The sun was over the yardarm, and a wine bottle had just appeared, a French white from the Loire Valley, probably a nice old one. There was dust on the bottle. It had been there for a while, and the cellar downstairs would not be stocked with Thunderbird and Wild Irish Rose.
"Zaitzev here has all manner of good information on this MINISTER chap." Just a matter of dredging it up, Kingshot didn't add. But tomorrow they'd have skilled psychologists sitting in, using their pshrink skills to massage his memories-maybe even hypnosis. Ryan didn't know if that actually worked or not; though some police forces believed in the technique, a lot of defense lawyers foamed at the mouth over it, and Jack didn't know who was right on that issue. On the whole, it was a shame that the Rabbit wasn't able to come out with photos taken of KGB files, but it would have been asking a lot to request that the guy place his neck not so much on the block as inside the guillotine head-holder and shout for the operator to come over. And so far, Zaitzev had impressed Ryan with his memory.
Might he be a plant, a false defector sent West to give the Agency and others false information? It was possible, but the proof of that pudding would lie in the quality of the agents he identified to the Western counter-intelligence services. If MINISTER was really giving out good information, the quality of it would tell the Security Service if he were that valuable an agent. The Russians were never the least bit loyal to their agents-they'd never, not once, tried to bargain for an American or British traitor rotting away in prison, as America had often done, sometimes successfully. No, the Russians considered them expendable assets, and such assets were… expended, with little more than a covert decoration that would never be worn by its "honored" recipient. It struck Ryan as very strange. The KGB was the most professional of services in so many ways-didn't they know that showing loyalty to an agent would help make other agents willing to take greater chances? Perhaps it was a case of national philosophy overruling common sense. A lot of that went on in the USSR.
By 4:00 local time, Jack could be sure that somebody would be at work at Langley. He asked one more question of the Rabbit.
"Oleg Ivan'ch, do you know if KGB can crack our secure phone systems?"
"I think not. I am not sure, but I know that we have an agent in Washington-code name CRICKET-whom we have asked to get information on your STU telephones for us. As yet he has not been able to provide what our communications people wish. We are afraid that you can read our telephone traffic, however, and so we mainly avoid using telephones for important traffic."
"Thanks." And Ryan went back to the STU in the next room. The next number was another he had memorized.
"This is James Greer."
"Admiral, this is Jack."
"I am told the Rabbit is in his new hutch," the DDI said by way of a greeting.
"That is correct, sir, and the good news is that he believes our comms are secure, including this one. The earlier fears appear to have been exaggerated or misinterpreted."
"Is there bad news?" the DDI asked warily.
"Yes, sir. Yuriy Andropov wants to kill the Pope."
"How reliable is that assertion?" James Greer asked at once.
"Sir, that's the reason he skipped. I'll have chapter and verse to you in a day or two at most, but it's official, there is a no-shit KGB operation to assassinate the Bishop of Rome.We even have the operation designator. You will want to let the Judge in on that, and probably NCA will want to know as well."
"I see," Vice Admiral Greer said from thirty-four hundred miles away. "That's going to be a problem."
"Damned straight it is." Ryan took a breath. "What can we do about it?"
"That's the problem, my boy," the DDI said next. "First, can we do anything about it? Second, do we want to do anything about it?"
"Admiral, why would we not want to do something about it?" Ryan asked, trying to keep his voice short of insubordinate. He respected Greer as a boss and as a man.
"Back up, son. Think it all the way through. First, our mission in life is to protect the United States of America, and no one else-well, allies, too, of course," Greer added for the tape recorders that had to be on this line. "But our primary duty is to our flag, not to any religious figure. We will try to help him if we can, but if we cannot, then we cannot."
"Very well," Ryan responded through gritted teeth. What about right and wrong? He wanted to ask, but that would have to wait a few moments.
"We do not ordinarily give away classified information, and you can imagine how tightly held this defection is going to be," Greer went on.
"Yes, sir." But at least it wasn't going to be NoForn-not for distribution to foreigners. The Brits were foreigners, and they already knew all about BEATRIX and the Rabbit, but the Brits weren't big on sharing, except, sometimes, with America, and usually with a big quid pro quo tacked onto it. It was just how things worked. Similarly, Ryan wasn't allowed to discuss a single thing about some operations he was cleared into. TALENT KEYHOLE was the code name: the reconnaissance satellites, though CIA and the Pentagon had fallen all over themselves giving the raw data to the British during the Falklands War, plus every intercept the National Security Agency had from South America. Blood was still thicker than water. "Admiral, how will it look in the papers if it becomes known that the Central Intelligence Agency had data on the threat to the Pope and we just sat on our hands?"
"Is that a-"
"Threat? No, sir, not from me. I play by the rules, sir, and you know it. But somebody there will leak the information just because he's pissed about it, and you know that, and when that happens, there'll be hell to pay."
"Point taken," Greer agreed. "Are you proposing anything?"
"That's above my pay grade, sir, but we have to think hard about possible action of some sort."
"What else are we getting from our new friend?"
"We have the code names of three major leaks. One is MINISTER, sounds like a political and foreign policy leak in Whitehall. Two for our side of the ocean: NEPTUNE sounds naval, and that's the source of our communications insecurity. Somebody in Redland is reading the Navy's mail, sir. And there's one in D.C. called CASSIUS. Sounds like a leaker on The Hill, top-drawer political intelligence, plus stuff about our operations."
"Our-you mean CIA?" the DDI asked, with sudden concern in his voice. No matter how old a player you were, no matter how much experience you had, the idea that your parent agency might be compromised scared the living hell out of you.
"Correct," Ryan answered. He didn't need to press that button very hard. Nobody at Langley was entirely comfortable with all the information that went to the "select" intelligence committees in the House and Senate. Politicians talked for a living, after all. Hell, there were few things harder than making a political figure keep his mouth shut. "Sir, this guy is a fantastically valuable source. We'll get him cut loose from over here in three days or so. I think the debriefing process will take months. I've met his wife and daughter. They seem nice enough-the little girl is Sally's age. I think this guy's the real deal, sir, and there's gold in them thar hills."
"How comfortable is he?"
"Well, they're all probably in sensory overload at the moment. I'd think hard about getting a pshrink assigned to them to help with the transition. Maybe more than one. We want to keep him settled down-we want him confident in his new life. That might not be easy, but it'll damned sure pay off for us."
"We have a couple of guys for that. They know how to talk them through the transition part. Is the Rabbit a flight risk?"
"Sir, I see nothing to suggest that, but we have to remember that he's made one hell of a broad jump, and the stuff he landed in isn't exactly what he's used to."
"Noted. Good call, Jack. What else?"
"That's all for the moment. We've only been talking to the guy about five and a half hours, just preliminary stuff so far, but the waters look pretty deep."
"Okay. Arthur is on the phone with Basil right now. I'm going to head over that way and give him your read. Oh, Bob Ritter just got back from Korea-jet-lagged all to hell and gone. We're going to tell him about your adventure in the field. If he tries to bite your head off, it's our fault, mine and the Judge's."
Ryan took a long look down at the carpet. He didn't quite understand why Ritter disliked him, but they didn't swap Christmas cards, and that was a fact. "Gee, thanks, sir."
"Don't sweat it. From what I understand, it sounds like you acquitted yourself pretty well."
"Thanks, Admiral. I didn't trip over my own feet. That's all I'm going to claim, if that's okay with you."
"Fair enough, my boy. Get your write-up completed and fax it to me PDQ."
In Moscow, the secure fax went into the office of Mike Russell. Oddly, it was a graphic, the first-edition cover of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. The address on the cover sheet told him who was supposed to get it. And on the page was a handwritten message: "Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail have moved to a new hutch."
So, Russell thought, they did have a Rabbit case, and it had been successfully run. Nothing he could claim to know for certain, but he knew the language spoken in the community. He walked down to Ed Foley's office and knocked on the door.
"Come," Foley's voice called.
"This just came in from Washington, Ed." Russell handed the fax across.
"Well, that's good news," the COS observed. He folded the signal into his jacket pocket for Mary Pat. "There's an additional message in this fax, Mike," Foley said.
"What's that?"
"Our comms are secure, pal. Otherwise it would not have come in this way."
"Well, thank the Good Lord for that," Russell said.