by Tom Clancy
“Not known at this time, Comrade,” Major Shelepin replied. “The militia are working on it.”
“Who is running the case?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Shablikov, Comrade Chairman.”
“Yefim Konstantinovich—yes, I know him. Good man,” Golovko allowed. “I suppose he’ll need his time, eh?”
“It does require time,” Shelepin agreed.
More than it took for Rasputin to meet his end, Golovko thought. Life was such a strange thing, so permanent when one had it, so fleeting when it was lost—and those who lost it could never tell you what it was like, could they? Not unless you believed in ghosts or God or an afterlife, things which had somehow been overlooked in Golovko’s childhood. So, yet another great mystery, the spymaster told himself. It had come so close, for the first time in his life. It was disquieting, but on reflection, not so frightening as he would have imagined. The Chairman wondered if this was something he might call courage. He’d never thought of himself as a brave man, for the simple reason that he’d never faced immediate physical danger. It was not that he had avoided it, only that it had never come close until today, and after the outrage had passed, he found himself not so much bemused as curious. Why had this happened? Who had done it? Those were the questions he had to answer, lest it happen again. To be courageous once was enough, Golovko thought.
Dr. Benjamin Goodley arrived at Langley at 5:40, five minutes earlier than his customary time. His job largely denied him much of a social life, which hardly seemed fair to the National Intelligence Officer. Was he not of marriageable age, possessed of good looks, a man with good prospects both in the professional and business sense? Perhaps not the latter, Goodley thought, parking his car in a VIP slot by the cement canopy of the Old Headquarters Building. He drove a Ford Explorer because it was a nice car for driving in the snow, and there would be snow soon. At least winter was coming, and winter in the D.C. area was wholly unpredictable, especially now that some of the econuts were saying that global warming would cause an unusually cold winter this year. The logic of that escaped him. Maybe he’d have a chat with the President’s Science Adviser to see if that made any sense talking with someone who could explain things. The new one was pretty good, and knew how to use single-syllable words.
Goodley made his way through the pass-gate and into the elevator. He walked into the Operations Room at 5:50 A.M.
“Hey, Ben,” one said.
“Morning, Charlie. Anything interesting happening?”
“You’re gonna love this one, Ben,” Charlie Roberts promised. “A big day in Mother Russia.”
“Oh?” Narrowed eyes. Goodley had his worries about Russia, and so did his boss. “What’s that?”
“No big deal. Just somebody tried to whack Sergey Nikolay’ch.”
His head snapped around like an owl’s. “What?”
“You heard me, Ben, but they hit the wrong car with the RPG and took out somebody else we know—well, used to know,” Roberts corrected himself.
“Start from the beginning.”
“Peggy, roll the videotape,” Roberts commanded his watch officer with a theatrical wave of the arm.
“Whoa!” Goodley said after the first five seconds. “So, who was it really?”
“Would you believe Gregoriy Filipovich Avseyenko?”
“I don’t know that name,” Goodley admitted.
“Here.” The watch officer handed over a manila folder. “What we had on the guy when he was KGB. A real sweet-heart,” she observed, in the woman’s neutral voice of distaste.
“Rasputin?” Goodley said, scanning the first page. “Oh, okay, I have heard something about this one.”
“So has the Boss, I bet.”
“I’ll know in two hours,” Goodley imagined aloud. “What’s Station Moscow saying?”
“The station chief is in St. Pete’s for a trade conference, part of his cover duties. What we have is from his XO. The best bet to this point is that either Avseyenko made a big enemy in the Russian Mafia, or maybe Golovko was the real target, and they hit the wrong car. No telling which at this point.” Followed by the usual NIO damned-if-I-know shrug.
“Who would want to take Golovko out?”
“Their Mafia? Somebody got himself an RPG, and they don’t sell them in hardware stores, do they? So, that means somebody deeply into their criminal empire, probably, made the hit—but who was the real target? Avseyenko must have had some serious enemies along the way, but Golovko must have enemies or rivals, too.” She shrugged again. “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”
“The Boss likes to have better information,” Goodley warned.
“So do I, Ben,” Peggy Hunter replied. “But that’s all I got, and even the fuckin’ Russians don’t have better at this point.”
“Any way we can look into their investigation?”
“The Legal Attaché, Mike Reilly, is supposed to be pretty tight with their cops. He got a bunch of them admitted to the FBI’s National Academy post-grad cop courses down at Quantico.”
“Maybe have the FBI tell him to nose around?”
Mrs. Hunter shrugged again. “Can’t hurt. Worst thing anybody can say is no, and we’re already there, right?”
Goodley nodded. “Okay, I’ll recommend that.” He got up. “Well,” he observed on his way out the door, “the Boss won’t bitch about how boring the world is today.” He took the CNN tape with him and headed back to his SUV.
The sun was struggling to rise now. Traffic on the George Washington Parkway was picking up with eager-beaver types heading into their desks early, probably Pentagon people, most of them, Goodley thought, as he crossed over the Key Bridge, past Teddy Roosevelt Island. The Potomac was calm and flat, almost oily, like the pond behind a mill dam. The outside temperature, his dashboard said, was forty-four, and the forecast for the day was a high in the upper fifties, a few clouds, and calm winds. An altogether pleasant day for late fall, though he’d be stuck in his office for all of it, pleasant or not.
Things were starting early at The House, he saw on pulling in. The Blackhawk helicopter was just lifting off as he pulled into his reserved parking place, and the motorcade had already formed up at the West Entrance. It was enough to make him check his watch. No, he wasn’t late. He hustled out of his car, bundling the papers and cassette into his arms as he hurried inside.
“Morning, Dr. Goodley,” a uniformed guard said in greeting.
“Hi, Chuck.” Regular or not, he had to pass through the metal detector. The papers and cassette were inspected by hand—as though he’d try to bring a gun in, Ben thought in passing irritation. Well, there had been a few scares, hadn’t there? And these people were trained not to trust anybody.
Having passed the daily security test, he turned left, sprinted up the stairs, then left again to his office, where some helpful soul—he didn’t know if it was one of the clerical staff or maybe one of the Service people—had his office coffee machine turning out some Gloria Jean’s French Hazelnut. He poured himself a cup and sat down at his desk to organize his papers and his thoughts. He managed to down half of the cup before bundling it all up again for the ninety-foot walk. The Boss was already there.
“Morning, Ben.”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” replied the National Security Adviser.
“Okay, what’s new in the world?” POTUS asked.
“It looks as though somebody might have tried to assassinate Sergey Golovko this morning.”
“Oh?” President Ryan asked, looking up from his coffee. Goodley filled him in, then inserted the cassette in the Oval Office VCR and punched PLAY.
“Jeez,” Ryan observed. What had been an expensive car was now fit only for the crushing machine. “Who’d they get instead?”
“One Gregoriy Filipovich Avseyenko, age fifty-two—”
“I know that name. Where from?”
“He’s more widely known as Rasputin. He used to run the KGB Sparrow School.”
Ryan’s
eyes went a little wider. “That cocksucker! Okay, what’s the story on him?”
“He got RIF’d back in ’93 or so, and evidently set himself up in the same business, and it would seem he’s made some money at it, judging by his car, anyway. There was evidently a young woman in with him when he was killed, plus a driver. They were all killed.”
Ryan nodded. The Sparrow School had been where for years the Soviets had trained attractive young women to be prostitutes in the service of their country both at home and abroad, because, since time immemorial, men with a certain weakness for women had often found their tongues loosened by the right sort of lubrication. Not a few secrets had been conveyed to the KGB by this method, and the women had also been useful in recruiting various foreign nationals for the KGB officers to exploit. So, on having his official office shut down, Rasputin—so called by the Soviets for his ability to get women to bend to his will—had simply plied his trade in the new free-enterprise environment.
“So, Avseyenko might have had ‘business’ enemies angry enough to take him out, and Golovko might not have been the target at all?”
“Correct, Mr. President. The possibility exists, but we don’t have any supporting data one way or the other.”
“How do we get it?”
“The Legal Attaché at the embassy is well connected with the Russian police,” the National Security Adviser offered.
“Okay, call Dan Murray at FBI and have his man nose around,” Ryan said. He’d already considered calling Golovko directly—they’d known each other for more than ten years, though one of their initial contacts had involved Golovko’s pistol right in Jack’s face on one of the runways of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport—and decided against it. He couldn’t show that much immediate interest, though later, if they had a private moment together, he’d be able to ask a casual question about the incident. “Same for Ed and MP at CIA.”
“Right.” Goodley made a note.
“Next?”
Goodley turned the page. “Indonesia is doing some naval exercises that have the Aussies a little interested....” Ben went on with the morning briefing for twenty more minutes, mainly covering political rather than military matters, because that’s what national security had become in recent years. Even the international arms trade had diminished to the point that quite a few countries were treating their national military establishments as boutiques rather than serious instruments of statecraft.
“So, the world’s in good shape today?” the President summarized.
“Except for the pothole in Moscow, it would seem so, sir.”
The National Security Adviser departed, and Ryan looked at his schedule for the day. As usual, he had very little in the way of free time. About the only moments on his plan-of-the-day without someone in the office with him were those in which he’d have to read over briefing documents for the next meeting, many of which were planned literally weeks in advance. He took off his reading glasses—he hated them—and rubbed his eyes, already anticipating the morning headache that would come in about thirty minutes. A quick re-scan of the page showed no light moments today. No troop of Eagle Scouts from Wyoming, nor current World Series champs, nor Miss Plum Tomato from California’s Imperial Valley to give him something to smile about. No. Today would be all work.
Shit, he thought.
The nature of the Presidency was a series of interlocking contradictions. The Most Powerful Man in the World was quite unable to use his power except under the most adverse circumstances, which he was supposed to avoid rather than to engage. In reality, the Presidency was about negotiations, more with the Congress than anyone else; it was a process for which Ryan had been unsuited until given a crash course by his chief of staff, Arnold van Damm. Fortunately, Arnie did a lot of the negotiations himself, then came into the Oval Office to tell the President what his (Ryan’s) decision and/or position was on an issue, so that he (van Damm) could then do a press release or a statement in the Press Room. Ryan supposed that a lawyer treated his client that way much of the time, looking after his interests as best he could while not telling him what those interests were until they were already decided. The President, Arnie told everyone, had to be protected from direct negotiations with everyone—especially Congress. And, Jack reminded himself, he had a fairly tame Congress. What had it been like for presidents dealing with contentious ones?
And what the hell, he wondered, not for the first time, was he doing here?
The election process had been the purest form of hell—despite the fact that he’d had what Arnie invariably had called a cakewalk. Never less than five speeches per day, more often as many as nine, in as many different places before as many diverse groups—but always the same speech, delivered off file cards he kept in his pocket, changed only in minor local details by a frantic staff on the Presidential aircraft, trying to keep track of the flight plan. The amazing thing was that they’d never made a mistake that he’d caught. For variety, the President would alter the order of the cards. But the utility of that had faded in about three days.
Yes, if there were a hell in creation, a political campaign was its most tangible form, listening to yourself saying the same things over and over until your brain started rebelling and you started wanting to make random, crazy changes, which might amuse yourself, but it would make you appear crazy to the audience, and you couldn’t do that, because a presidential candidate was expected to be a perfect automaton rather than a fallible man.
There had been an upside to it. Ryan had bathed in a sea of love for the ten weeks of the endurance race. The deafening cheers of the crowds, whether in a parking lot outside a Xenia, Ohio, shopping mall, or in Madison Square Garden in New York City, or Honolulu, or Fargo, or Los Angeles—it had all been the same. Huge crowds of ordinary citizens who both denied and celebrated the fact that John Patrick Ryan was one of them ... kind of, sort of, something like that—but something else, too. From his first formal speech in Indianapolis, soon after his traumatic accession to the Presidency, he’d realized just how strong a narcotic that sort of adulation was, and sure enough, his continued exposure to it had given him the same sort of rush that a controlled substance might. With it came a desire to be perfect for them, to deliver his lines properly, to seem sincere—as indeed he was, but it would have been far easier doing it once or twice instead of three hundred and eleven times, as the final count had been reckoned.
The news media in every place asked the same questions, written down or taped the same answers, and printed them as new news in every local paper. In every city and town, the editorials had praised Ryan, and worried loudly that this election wasn’t really an election at all, except on the congressional level, and there Ryan had stirred the pot by giving his blessing to people of both major parties, the better to retain his independent status, and therefore to risk offending everyone.
The love hadn’t quite been universal, of course. There were those who’d protested, who got their heads on the nightly commentary shows, citing his professional background, criticizing his drastic actions to stop the terrorist-caused Ebola plague that had threatened the nation so desperately in those dark days—“Yes, it worked in this particular case, but ... !”—and especially to criticize his politics, which, Jack said in his speeches, weren’t politics at all, but plain common sense.
During all of this, Arnie had been a godsend, preselecting a response to every single objection. Ryan was wealthy, some said. “My father was a police officer” had been the answer. “I’ve earned every penny I have—and besides [going on with an engaging smile], now my wife makes a lot more money than I do.”
Ryan knew nothing about politics: “Politics is one of those fields in which everybody knows what it is, but nobody can make it work. Well, maybe I don’t know what it is, but I am going to make it work!”
Ryan had packed the Supreme Court: “I’m not a lawyer, either, sorry,” he’d said to the annual meeting of the American Bar Association. “But I know the difference betwee
n right and wrong, and so do the justices.”
Between the strategic advice of Arnie and the preplanned words of Callie Weston, he’d managed to parry every serious blow, and strike back with what was usually a soft and humorous reply of his own—leavened with strong words delivered with the fierce but quiet conviction of someone who had little left to prove. Mainly, with proper coaching and endless hours of preparation, he’d managed to present himself as Jack Ryan, regular guy.
Remarkably, his most politically astute move had been made entirely without outside expertise.
Morning, Jack,” the Vice President said, opening the door unannounced.
“Hey, Robby.” Ryan looked up from his desk with a smile. He still looked a little awkward in suits, Jack saw. Some people were born to wear uniforms, and Robert Jefferson Jackson was one of them, though the lapel of every suit jacket he owned sported a miniature of his Navy Wings of Gold.
“There’s some trouble in Moscow,” Ryan said, explaining on for a few seconds.
“That’s a little worrisome,” Robby observed.
“Get Ben to give you a complete brief-in on this. What’s your day look like?” the President asked.
“Sierra-square, Delta-square.” It was their personal code: SSDD—same shit, different day. “I have a meeting of the Space Council across the street in twenty minutes. Then tonight I have to fly down to Mississippi for a speech tomorrow morning at Ole Miss.”
“You taking the wheel?” Ryan asked.
“Hey, Jack, the one good thing about this damned job is that I get to fly again.” Jackson had insisted on getting rated on the VC-20B that he most often flew around the country on official trips under the code name “Air Force Two.” It looked very good in the media, and it was also the best possible therapy for a fighter pilot who missed being in control of his aircraft, though it must have annoyed the Air Force flight crew. “But it’s always to shit details you don’t want,” he added with a wink.
“It’s the only way I could get you a pay raise, Robby. And nice quarters, too,” he reminded his friend.
