by Tom Clancy
It was very odd, Günther thought, how much that stung him. After all, he was a revolutionary. He had plotted and killed for his cause. It was absurd that he would allow himself to be enraged by the imprisonment of his wife… and the loss of his children. But. But they had Petra 's nose and eyes, and they'd smiled for him. They would not be taught to hate him, Günther knew. They'd never even be told who he and Petra had been. He'd dedicated himself to something larger and grander than mere corporeal existence. He and his colleagues had made a conscious and reasoned decision to build a better and more just world for the common man, and yet — and yet he and Petra had decided, also in a reasoned and conscious way, to bring into it children who would learn their parents' ways, to be the next generation of Bocks, to eat the fruits of their parents' heroic labor. Günther was enraged that this might not happen.
Worse still was his bewilderment. What had happened was quite impossible. Unmöglich. Unglaublich. The people, the common Volk of the DDR. had risen up like revolutionaries themselves, forsaking their nearly perfect socialist state, opting instead to merge with the exploitative monstrosity crafted by the imperialist powers. They'd been seduced by Blaupunkt appliances and Mercedes automobiles, and — what? Günther Bock genuinely did not understand. Despite his inborn intelligence, the events did not connect into a comprehensible pattern. That the people of his country had examined “scientific socialism” and decided it did not work and could never work — that was too great a leap of imagination for him to make. He'd committed too much of his life to Marxism ever to deny it. Without Marxism, after all, he was a criminal, a common murderer. Only his heroic revolutionary ethos elevated his activities above the acts of a thug. But his revolutionary ethos had been summarily rejected by his own chosen beneficiaries. That was simply impossible. Unmöglich.
It wasn't quite fair that so many impossible things piled one upon another. As he opened the paper he'd bought twenty minutes before at a kiosk seven blocks from his current residence, the photo on the front page caught his eye, as the paper's editor had fully intended.
CIA FETES KGB, the caption began.
“Was ist das denn für Quatsch?” Günther muttered.
“In yet another remarkable turn in a remarkable time, the Central Intelligence Agency hosted the First Deputy Chairman of the KGB in a conference concerning 'issues of mutual concern' to the world's two largest intelligence empires…” the story read. “Informed sources confirm that the newest area of East-West cooperation will include information-sharing on the increasingly close ties between international terrorists and the international drug trade. CIA and KGB will work together to…”
Bock set the paper down and stared out the window. He knew what it was to be a hunted animal. All revolutionaries did. It was the path he had chosen, along with Petra, and all their friends. The task was a clear one. They would test their cunning and skill against their enemies. The forces of light against the forces of darkness. Of course, it was the forces of light that had to run and hide, but that was a side issue. Sooner or later, the situation would be reversed when the common people saw the truth and sided with the revolutionaries. Except for one little problem. The common people had chosen to go another way. And the terrorist world was rapidly running out of dark places in which the forces of light might hide.
He'd come to Bulgaria for two reasons. Of all the former East Bloc countries, Bulgaria was the most backward and because of it had managed the most orderly transition from communist rule. In fact, communists still ran the country, though under different names, and the country was still politically safe, or at least neutral. The Bulgarian intelligence apparat, once the source of designated killers for KGB whose hands had finally become too clean for such activity, was still peopled with reliable friends. Reliable friends, Günther thought. But the Bulgarians were still in the thrall of their Russian masters — associates, now — and if KGB were really cooperating with CIA… The number of safe places was being reduced by one more digit.
Günther Bock should have felt a chill at the increased personal danger. Instead his face flushed and pulsed with rage. As a revolutionary he'd often enough bragged that every hand in the world was turned against him — but whenever he'd said that, it had been with the inner realization that such was not and would never be the case. Now his boast was becoming reality. There were still places to run, still contacts he could trust. But how many? How soon before trusted associates would bend to the changes in the world? The Soviets had betrayed themselves and world socialism. The Germans. The Poles. The Czechs, the Hungarians, the Romanians. Who was next?
Couldn't they see? It was all a trap, some kind of incredible conspiracy of counterrevolutionary forces. A lie. They were casting away what could be — should be — was — the perfect social order of structured freedom from want, orderly efficiency, of fairness and equality. Of…
Could that all be a lie? Could it all have been a horrible mistake? Had he and Petra killed those cowering exploiters for nothing?
But it didn't matter, did it? Not to Günther Bock, not right now. He was soon to be hunted again. One more safe patch of ground was about to become a hunting preserve for his enemies. If the Bulgarians shared their papers with the Russians, if the Russians had a few men in the right office, with the right credentials and the right access, his address and new identity could already be on its way to Washington, and from there to BND headquarters, and in a week's time he might be sharing a cell close to Petra's.
Petra, with her light brown hair and laughing blue eyes. As brave a girl as any man could want. Seemingly cold to her victims, wonderfully warm to her comrades. So fine a mother she'd been to Erika and Ursel, so superior at that task as she'd been at every other she'd ever attempted. Betrayed by supposed friends, caged like an animal, robbed of her own offspring. His beloved Petra, comrade, lover, wife, believer. Robbed of her life. And now he was being driven farther from her. There had to be a way to change things back.
But first, he had to get away.
Bock set the paper down and tidied up the kitchen. When things were clean and neat, he packed a single bag and left the apartment. The elevator had quit again, and he walked down the four flights to the street. Once there he caught a tram. In ninety minutes he was at the airport. His passport was a diplomatic one. In fact he had six of them carefully concealed in the lining of his Russian-made suitcase, and, ever the careful man, three of them were the numerical duplicates of others held by real Bulgarian diplomats, unknown to the Foreign Ministry office that kept the records. That guaranteed him free access to the most important ally of the international terrorist: air transport. Before time for lunch, his flight rotated off the tarmac, headed south.
Ryan's flight touched down at a military airport outside Rome just before noon, local time. By coincidence they rolled in right behind yet another VC-2oB of the 89th Military Airlift Wing that had arrived only a few minutes earlier from Moscow. The black limousine on the apron was waiting for both aircraft.
Deputy Secretary of State Scott Adler greeted Ryan as he stepped off with an understated smile.
“Well?” Ryan asked through the airport sounds.
“It's a go.”
“Damn,” Ryan said as he took Adler's hand. “How many more miracles can we expect this year?”
“How many do you want?” Adler was a professional diplomat who'd worked his way up the Russian side of the State Department. Fluent in their language, well-versed in their politics, past and present, he understood the Soviets as did few men in government — including Russians themselves. “You know the hard part about this?”
“Getting used to hearing da instead of nyet, right?”
“Takes all the fun out of negotiations. Diplomacy can really be a bitch when both sides are reasonable.” Adler laughed as the car pulled off.
“Well, this ought to be a new experience for both of us,” Jack observed soberly. He turned to watch “his” aircraft prepare for an immediate departure. He and Adler would be tra
veling together for the rest of the trip.
They sped towards central Rome with the usual heavy escort. The Red Brigade, so nearly exterminated a few years earlier, was back in business, and even if it hadn't been, the Italians were careful protecting foreign dignitaries. In the right-front seat was a serious-looking chap with a little Beretta squirt-gun. There were two lead cars, two chase cars, and enough cycles for a motocross race. The speedy progress down the ancient streets of Rome made Ryan wish he were back in an airplane. Every Italian driver, it seemed, had ambitions to ride in the Formula One circuit. Jack would have felt safer in a car with Clark, driving an unobtrusive vehicle on a random path, but in his current position his security arrangements were ceremonial in addition to being practical. There was one other consideration, of course…
“Nothing like a low profile,” Jack muttered to Adler.
“Don't sweat it. Every time I've come here it's been the same way. First time?”
“Yep. First time in Rome. I wonder how I've ever missed coming here — always wanted to, the history and all.”
“A lot of that,” Adler agreed. “Think we might make a little more?”
Ryan turned to look at his colleague. Making history was a new thought to him. Not to mention a dangerous one. “That's not my job, Scott.”
“If this does work, you know what'll happen.”
“Frankly, I never bothered thinking about that.”
“You ought to. No good deed ever goes unpunished.”
“You mean Secretary Talbot…?”
“No, not him. Definitely not my boss.”
Ryan looked forward to see a truck scuttle out of the way of the motorcade. The Italian police officer riding on the extreme right of the motorcycle escort hadn't flinched a millimeter.
“I'm not in this for credit. I just had an idea, is all. Now I'm just the advance man.”
Adler shook his head slightly and kept his peace. Jesus, how did you ever last this long in government service?
The striped jumpsuits of the Swiss Guards had been designed by Michaelangelo. Like the red tunics of the British guardsmen, they were anachronisms from a bygone era when it had made sense for soldiers to wear brightly-colored uniforms, and also, like the guardsmen uniforms, they were kept on more for their attractiveness to tourists than for any practical reason. The men and their weapons look so quaint. The Vatican guards carried halberds, evil-looking long-handled axes made originally for infantrymen to unhorse armored knights — as often as not by crippling the horse the enemy might be riding; horses didn't fight back very well, and war is ever a practical business. Once off his mount, an armored knight was dispatched with little more effort than that required to break up a lobster — and about as much remorse. People thought medieval weapons romantic somehow, Ryan told himself, but there was nothing romantic about what they were designed to do. A modern rifle might punch holes in some other fellow's anatomy. These were made to dismember. Both methods would kill, of course, but at least rifles made for neater burial.
The Swiss guards had rifles, too, Swiss rifles made by SIG. Not all of them wore Renaissance costumes, and since the attempt on John Paul II, many of the guards had received additional training, quietly and unobtrusively, of course, since such training did not exactly fit the image of the Vatican. Ryan wondered what Vatican policy was on the use of deadly force, whether the chief of the guards chafed at the rules imposed from on high by people who certainly did not appreciate the nature of the threat and the need for decisive protective action. But they'd do their best within their constraints, grumbling among themselves and voicing their opinions when the time seemed right, just like everyone else in that business.
A bishop met them, an Irishman named Shamus O'Toole whose thick red hair clashed horribly with his clothing. Ryan was first out of the car, and his first thought was a question: was he supposed to kiss O'Toole's ring or not? He didn't know. He hadn't met a real bishop since his confirmation — and it had been a long time since sixth grade in Baltimore. O'Toole deftly solved that problem by grasping Ryan's hand in a bearish grip.
“So many Irishmen in the world!” he said with a wide grin.
“Somebody has to keep things straight, Excellency.”
“Indeed, indeed!” O'Toole greeted Adler next. Scott was Jewish and had no intentions to kiss anyone's ring. “Would you come with me, gentlemen?”
Bishop O'Toole led them into a building whose history might have justified three scholarly volumes, plus a picture book for its art and architecture. Jack barely noticed the two metal detectors they passed through on the third floor. Leonardo da Vinci might have done the job, so skillfully were they concealed in door frames. Just like the White House. The Swiss guards didn't all wear uniforms. Some of the people prowling the halls in soft clothes were too young and too fit to be bureaucrats, but for all that the overall impression was a cross between visiting an old art museum and a cloister. The clerics wore cassocks, and the nuns — they were here in profusion also — were not wearing the semi-civilian attire adopted by their American counterparts. Ryan and Adler were parked briefly in a waiting room, more to appreciate the surroundings than to inconvenience them, Jack was sure. A Titian madonna adorned the opposite wall, and Ryan admired it while Bishop O'Toole announced the visitors.
“God, I wonder if he ever did a small painting?” Ryan muttered. Adler chuckled.
“He did know how to capture a face and a look and a moment, didn't he? Ready?”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. He felt oddly confident.
“Gentlemen!” O'Toole said from the open door. “Will you come this way, please?” They walked through yet another anteroom. This one had two secretarial desks, both unoccupied, and another set of doors that looked fourteen feet tall.
The office of Giovanni Cardinal D'Antonio would have been used in America for balls or formal occasions of state. The ceiling was frescoed, the walls covered with blue silk, and the floor in ancient hardwood accented with rugs large enough for an average living room. The furniture was probably the most recent in manufacture, and that looked to be at least two hundred years old, brocaded fabric taut over the cushions and gold leaf on the curved wooden legs. A silver coffee service told Ryan where to sit.
The cardinal came towards them from his desk, smiling in the way that a king might have done a few centuries earlier to greet a favored minister. D'Antonio was a man of short stature, and clearly one who enjoyed good food. He must have been a good forty pounds overweight. The room air reported that he was a man who smoked, something he ought to have stopped, since he was rapidly approaching seventy years of age. The old, pudgy face had an earthy dignity to it. The son of a Sicilian fisherman, D'Antonio had mischievous brown eyes to suggest a roughness of character that fifty years of service to the church had not wholly erased. Ryan knew his background and could easily see him pulling in nets at his father's side, back a very long time ago. The earthiness was also a useful disguise for a diplomat, and that's what D'Antonio was by profession, whatever his vocation might have been. A linguist like many Vatican officials, he was a man who had spent thirty years practicing his trade, and the lack of military power that had crippled his efforts at making the world change had merely taught him craftiness. In intelligence parlance he was an agent of influence, welcome in many settings, always ready to listen or offer advice. Of course, he greeted Adler first.
“So good to see you again, Scott.”
“Eminence, a pleasure as always.” Adler took the offered hand and smiled his diplomat's smile.
“And you are Dr. Ryan. We have heard so many things about you.”
“Thank you, Your Eminence.”
“Please, please.” D'Antonio waved both men to a sofa so beautiful that Ryan flinched at resting his weight on it. “Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you,” Adler said for both of them. Bishop O'Toole did the pouring, then sat down to take notes. “So good of you to allow us in at such short notice.”
“Nonsense.” Ryan watched in
no small amazement as the cardinal reached inside his cassock and pulled out a cigar holder. A tool that looked like silver, but was probably stainless steel, performed the appropriate surgery on the largish brown tube, then D'Antonio lit it with a gold lighter. There wasn't even an apology about the sins of the flesh. It was as though the cardinal had quietly flipped off the “dignity” switch to put his guests at ease. More likely, Ryan thought, he merely worked better with a cigar in his hand. Bismarck had felt the same way.
