Jack Ryan 5 - The Cardinal of the Kremlin (41 page)

What would they do?

What if this . . .?

Gerasimov smiled and looked out the window. He'd miss this place. He'd miss the game. Every fact had at least three sides, and every thought had six. No, if he were to believe that, then he had to believe that Cassius was under CIA

control, and that this had all been planned before Filitov had been arrested. That was plainly impossible.

The Chairman of the Committee for State Security checked his calendar to see when the Americans were coming over. There would be more social affairs this time. If the Americans had really decided to put their Star Wars systems on the table—it would make General Secretary Narmonov look good, but how many Politburo votes would that sway? Not many, so long as I can keep Alexandrov's obstinacy in control. And if I can show that I've recruited an agent of our own that high in CIA . . . if I can predict that the Americans will trade away their defense programs, then I can steal a march on Narmonov's peace initiative myself. . .

The decision was made.

But Gerasimov was not an impulsive man. He sent a signal to Platonov to verify some details through Agent Cassius. This signal he could send via satellite.

That signal arrived in
Washington
an hour later. It was duly copied from the Soviet Raduga-19 communications bird both by the Soviet Embassy and by the American National Security Agency, which put it on a computer tape along with thousands of other Russian signals that the Agency worked round the clock to decipher.

It was easier for the Soviets. The signal was taken to a secure section of the embassy, where a KGB lieutenant converted the scrambled letters into clear text. Then it was locked up in a guarded safe until Platonov arrived in the morning.

That happened at
6:30
. The usual newspapers were on his desk. The American press was very useful to the KGB, he thought. The idea of a free press was so alien to him that he never even considered its true function. But other things came first. The night-watch officer came in at
6:45
and briefed him on the events of the previous night, and also delivered messages from
Moscow
, where it was already after lunch. At the top of the message list was a notice of an eyes-only-rezident. Platonov knew what that had to be, and walked to the safe at once. The young KGB officer who guarded this part of the embassy checked Platonov's ID scrupulously—his predecessor had lost his job by being so bold as to assume that he knew Platonov by sight after a mere nine months. The message, properly labeled in a sealed envelope, was in its proper cubbyhole, and Platonov tucked it in his pocket before closing and locking the door.

The KGB's Washington station was larger than that of CIA in Moscow, though not large enough to suit Platonov, since the number of people in the mission had been reduced to numerical equivalence with the American Embassy staff in the Soviet Union, something the Americans had taken years to do. He usually summoned his section chiefs at 7:30 for their morning conference, but today he called one of his officers early.

“Good morning, Comrade Colonel,” the man said correctly. The KGB is not known for its pleasantries.

“I need you to get some information from Cassius on this Ryan business. It is imperative that we confirm his current legal difficulties as quickly as possible. That means today if you can manage it.”

“Today?” the man asked in some discomfort as he took the written instructions. “There is risk in moving so rapidly.”

“The Chairman is aware of that,” Platonov observed dryly.

“Today,” the man nodded.

The rezident smiled inwardly as his man left. That was as much emotion as he'd shown in a month. This one had a real future.

“There's Butch,” an FBI agent observed as the man came out of the embassy compound. They knew his real name, of course, but the first agent who'd shadowed him had noted that he looked like a Butch, and the name had stuck, His normal morning routine was ostensibly to unlock a few embassy offices, then to run errands before the senior diplomatic personnel appeared at nine. That involved catching breakfast at a nearby coffee shop, buying several newspapers and magazines . . . and frequently leaving a mark or two in one of several places. As with most counterintelligence operations, the really hard part was getting the first break. After that it was straight police work. They'd gotten the first break on Butch eighteen months before.

He walked the four blocks to the shop, well dressed for the cold—he probably found Washington winters pretty mild, they all agreed—and turned into the place right on schedule. As with most coffee shops, this one had a regular trade. Three of them were FBI agents. One was dressed like a businesswoman, always reading her Wall Street Journal by herself in a corner booth. Two wore the tool belts of carpenters, and swaggered to the counter either before or after Butch entered. Today they were waiting for him. They were not always there, of course. The woman, Special Agent Hazel Loomis, coordinated her schedule with a real business, careful to miss work holidays. It was a risk, but a close surveillance, no matter how carefully planned, could not be too regular. Similarly, they appeared at the café on days when they knew Butch was away, never altering their routine to show that their interest was in their subject.

Agent Loomis noted his arrival time on the margin of an article—she was always scribbling on the paper—and the carpenters watched him in the mirrored wall behind the counter as they savaged their way through their hash-browns and traded a few boisterous jokes. As usual, Butch had gotten four different papers from a newsstand right outside the coffee shop. The magazines he got all hit the stands on Tuesdays. The waitress poured his coffee without being asked. Butch lit his customary cigarette—an American Marlboro, the favorite of the Russians—and drank his first cup of coffee as he scanned the first page of the Washington Post, which was his usual paper.

Refills were free here, and his arrived on schedule. He took a scant six minutes, which was about right, everyone noted. Finished, he picked up his papers and left some money on the table. When he moved away from the plate, they could all see that he'd crumpled his paper napkin to a ball and set it in the saucer next to the empty coffee cup.

Business
, Loomis noted at once. Butch took his bill to the register at the end of the counter, paid it, and left. He was good, Loomis noted yet again. She knew where and how he made the drop, but still she rarely caught him planting it.

Another regular came in. He was a cabdriver who usually got a cup of coffee before beginning his day, and sat alone at the end of the counter. He opened his paper to the sports page, looking around the café as he usually did. He could see the napkin on the saucer. He wasn't quite as good as Butch. Setting the paper in his lap, he reached under the counter and retrieved the message, tucking it in the Style section.

After that, it was pretty easy. Loomis paid her bill and left, hopping into her Ford Escort and driving to the Watergate apartments. She had a key to
Henderson
's apartment.

“You're getting a message today from Butch,” she told Agent Cassius.

“Okay.”
Henderson
looked up from his breakfast. He didn't at all enjoy having this girl “running” him as a double agent. He especially didn't like the fact that she was on the case because of her looks, that the “cover” for their association was a supposed affair which, of course, was pure fiction. For all her sweetness, her syrupy Southern accent—and her stunning good looks! he grumped—
Henderson
knew all too well that Loomis viewed him as half a step above a microbe. “Just remember,” she'd told him once, “there's a room waiting for you.” She was referring to the United States Penitentiary—not “correctional facility”—at Marion, Illinois, the one that had replaced Alcatraz as the home of the worst offenders. No place for a Harvard man. But she'd only done that once, and otherwise treated him politely, even occasionally grabbing his arm in public. That only made it worse.

“You want some good news?” Loomis asked.

“Sure.”

“If this one goes through the way we hope, you might be clear. All the way out.” She'd never said that before.

“What gives?” Agent Cassius asked with interest.

“There's a CIA officer named Ryan—”

“Yeah, I heard the SEC's checking him out—well, they did, a few months back. You let me tell the Russians about that . . .”

“He's dirty. Broke the rules, made half a million dollars on insider information, and there's a grand jury meeting in two weeks that's going to burn his ass, big-time.” Her profanity was all the more vivid from the sweet, Southern-Belle smile. “The Agency's going to hang him out to dry. No help from anybody. Ritter hates his guts. You don't know why, but you heard it from Senator Fredenburg's aide. You get the impression that's he's a sacrificial goat for something that went wrong, but you don't know what. Something a few months back in
Central Europe
, maybe, but that's all you heard. Some of it you tell right off. Some you make them wait till this afternoon. One more thing—you've heard a rumor that SDI may actually be on the table. You think it's bad information, but you heard a senator say something about it. Got it?”

“Yeah.” Henderson nodded.

“Okay.” Loomis walked off to the bathroom. Butch's favorite coffee shop was too greasy for her system.

Henderson
went to his bedroom and selected a tie. Out? he wondered as he knotted it partway, then changed his mind. If that were true—he had to admit that she'd never lied to him. Treated me like scum, but never lied to me, he thought. Then I can get out. . . ? Then what? he asked himself. Does it matter?

It mattered, but it mattered more that he'd get out.

“I like the red one better,” Loomis observed from the door. She smiled sweetly. “A 'power' tie for today, I think.”

Henderson dutifully reached for the red one. It never occurred to him to object. “Can you tell me ... ?”

“I don't know—and you know better. But they wouldn't let me say this unless everybody figured that you paid some back, Mr. Henderson.”

“Can't you call me Peter, just once?” he asked.

“My father was the twenty-ninth pilot shot down over
North Vietnam
. They got him alive—there were pictures of him, alive—but he never came out.”

“I didn't know.”

She spoke as evenly as though discussing the weather. “You didn't know a lot of things, Mr. Henderson. They won't let me fly airplanes like Daddy did, but in the Bureau I make life as hard on the bastards as I can. They let me do that. I just hope that it hurts 'em like they've hurt me.” She smiled again. “That's not very professional, is it?”

“I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't know what else to say.”

“Sure you do. You'll tell your contact what I told you to say.” She tossed him a miniature tape recorder. It had a special computerized timer and an antitamper device. While in the taxicab, he'd be under intermittent surveillance. If he tried to warn his contact in any way, there was a chance—how great or small he did not know—that he'd be detected. They didn't like him and they didn't trust him. He knew that he'd never earn affection or trust, but
Henderson
would settle for getting out.

He left his apartment a few minutes later and walked downstairs. There was the usual number of cabs circulating about. He didn't gesture, but waited for one to come to him. They didn't start talking until it pulled into the traffic on Virginia Avenue.

The cab took him to the General Accounting Office headquarters on
G Street, Northwest
. Inside the building, he handed the tape recorder over to another FBI agent.
Henderson
suspected that it was a radio as well, though actually it was not. The recorder went to the
Hoover
Building
. Loomis was waiting when it got there. The tape was rewound and played.

“CIA got it right for once,” she observed to her supervisor. Someone even more senior was here. This was more important than she'd thought, Loomis knew at once.

“It figures. A source like Ryan doesn't come along real often. Henderson got his lines down pretty good.”

“I told him that this may be his ticket out.” Her voice said more than that.

“You don't approve?” the Assistant Director asked. He ran all of the FBI's counterintel operations.

“He hasn't paid enough, not for what he did.”

“Miss Loomis, after this is all over, I'll explain to you why you're wrong. Put that aside, okay? You've done a beautiful job handling this case. Don't blow it now.”

“What'll happen to him?” she asked.

“The usual, into the witness-protection program. He may end up running the Wendy's in
Billings
,
Montana
, for all I know.” The AD shrugged. “You're getting promoted and sent to the New York Field Office. We have another one we think you're ready for. There's a diplomat attached to the UN who needs a good handler.”

“Okay.” The smile this time was not forced.

“They bit. They bit hard,” Ritter told Ryan. “I just hope you're up to it, sonny boy.”

“No danger involved.” Jack spread his hands. “This ought to be real civilized.”

Only the parts you know about.
“Ryan, you are still an amateur so far as field ops are concerned. Remember that.”

“I have to be for this to work,” Jack pointed out.

“Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud,” the DDO said.

“That's not the way Sophocles said it.” Jack grinned.

“My way's better. I even had a sign put up at the Farm that quotes me.”

Ryan's idea for the mission had been a simple one—too simple, and Ritter's people had refined it over a period of ten hours into a real operation. Simple in concept, it would have its complications. They all did, but Ritter didn't like that fact.

Bart Mancuso had long since gotten used to the idea that sleeping wasn't included in the list of things that submarine skippers were expected to do, but what he especially hated was a knock on the door fifteen minutes after he was able to lie down,

“Come!” And die! he didn't say.

“F
LASH
traffic, eyes-only-captain,” the Lieutenant said apologetically.