by Tom Clancy
"Sir, it's direct path. My initial range estimate is between eight and twelve thousand yards."
"Set it up," the approach officer told the petty officer on the fire-control director.
"This one ain't no humpback," Laval reported three minutes later. "I have three lines on the guy now, classify Sierra-One as a definite submarine contact, operating on his electric motors." Junior told himself that Laval here had made his rep stalking HEN-class Russian subs, which were about as hard to track as an earthquake. He adjusted his headphones. "Bearing steady at two-seven-four, getting hints of a blade rate on the guy."
"Solution light," the lead fire-controlman reported. "I have a valid solution for tube three on target Sierra-One."
"Left ten-degrees rudder, come to new course one-eight-zero," Kennedy ordered next to get a crossbearing, from which would come a better range-gate on the target, and also data on the sub's course and speed. "Let's slow her down, turns for five knots."
The stalk was always the fun part.
"If you do that, you're cutting your own throat with a dull knife," Anne Quinlan said in her customarily direct way.
Kealty was sitting in his office. Ordinarily the number-two man in any organization would be in charge when number-one was away, but the miracle of modern communications meant that Roger could do everything he needed to do at midnight over Antarctica if he had to. Including putting out a press statement from his aircraft in Moscow that he was hanging his Vice President out to dry. Kealty's first instinct was to proclaim to the entire world that he knew he had the confidence of his President. That would hint broadly that the news stories were true, and muddy the waters sufficiently to give him room to maneuver, the thing he needed most of all.
"What we need to know, Ed," his chief of staff pointed out, not for the first time, "is who the hell started this." That was the one thing the story had left out, clever people that reporters were. She couldn't ask him how many of the women in his office he'd visited with his charms. For one thing he probably didn't remember, and for another, the hard part would be identifying those he hadn't.
"Whoever it was, it was somebody close to Lisa," another staffer observed. That insight made light bulbs flash inside every head in the office.
"Barbara."
"Good guess," the "Chief"—which was how Quinlan liked to be identified—thought. "We need to confirm that, and we need to settle her down some."
"Woman scorned," Kealty murmured.
"Ed, I don't want to hear any of that, okay?" the Chief warned. "When the hell are you going to learn that 'no' doesn't mean 'maybe later'? Okay, I'll go see Barbara myself, and maybe we can talk her out of this, but, god-dammit, this is the last time, okay?"
"OK!!"
18—Easter Egg
"Is this where the dresser was?" Ryan asked.
"I keep forgetting how well informed you are," Golovko observed, just to flatter his guest, since the story was actually widely known.
Jack grinned, still feeling more than a little of Alice-through-the-Looking-Glass. There was a completely ordinary door in the wall now, but until the time of Yuri Andropov, a large wooden clothes cabinet had covered it, for in the time of Beriya and the rest, the entrance to the office of Chairman of the KGB had to be hidden. There was no door off the main corridor, and none visible even in the anteroom. The melodrama of it had to have been absurd, Ryan thought, even to Lavrentiy Beriya, whose morbid fear of assassination—though hardly unreasonable—had dreamed up this obtuse security measure. It hadn't helped him avoid death at the hands of men who'd hated him even more than they'd feared him. Still and all, wasn't it bizarre enough just for the President's National Security Advisor to enter the office of the Chairman of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service? Beriya's ashes must have been stirring up somewhere, Ryan thought, in whatever sewer they'd dropped the urn. He turned to look at his host, his mind imagining the oak bureau still, and halfway wishing they'd kept the old name of KGB, Committee for State Security, just for tradition's sake.
"Sergey Nikolay'ch, has the world really changed so much in the past—God, only ten years?"
"Not even that, my friend." Golovko waved Jack to a comfortable leather chair that dated back to the building's previous incarnation as home office of the Rossiya Insurance Company. "And yet we have so far to go."
Business, Jack thought. Well, Sergey had never been bashful about that. Ryan remembered looking into the wrong end of a pistol in this man's hand. But that had all taken place before the so-called end of history.
"I'm doing everything I can, Sergey. We got you the five billion for the missiles. That was a nice scam you ran on us, by the way." Ryan checked his watch. The ceremony was scheduled for the evening. One Minuteman-III and one SS-19 left—if you didn't count the SS-19's in Japan that had been reconfigured to launch satellites.
"We have many problems, Jack."
"Fewer than a year ago," Ryan observed, wondering what the next request would be. "I know you advise President Grushavoy on more than just intelligence matters. Come on, Sergey, things are getting better. You know that."
"Nobody ever told us that democracy would be so hard."
"It's hard for us, too, pal. We rediscover it every day."
"The frustration is that we know we have everything we need to make our country prosperous. The problem is in making everything work. Yes, I advise my president on many things—"
"Sergey, if you're not one of the best-informed people in your country, I would be very surprised."
"Hmm, yes. Well, we are surveying eastern Siberia, so many things, so many resources. We have to hire Japanese to do it for us, but what they are finding…" His voice trailed off.
"You're building up to something, Sergey. What is it?"
"We think they do not tell us everything. We dug up some surveys done in the early thirties. They were in archives in the Ministry of the Interior. A deposit of gadolinium in an unlikely place. At the time there were few uses for that metal, and it was forgotten until some of my people did a detailed search of old data. Gadolinium now has many uses, and one of their survey teams camped within a few kilometers of the deposit. We know it's real. The thirties team brought back samples for assay. But it was not included in their last report."
"And?" Jack asked.
"And I find it curious that they lied to us on this," Golovko observed, taking his time. You didn't build up to a play like this all that quickly.
"How are you paying them for the work?"
"The agreement is that they will assist us in the exploitation of many of the things they find for us. The terms are generous."
"Why would they lie?" Ryan inquired.
Golovko shook his head. "I do not know. It might be important to find out. You are a student of history, are you not?"
It was one of the things that each respected about the other. Ryan might have written off Golovko's concerns as yet another example of Russian paranoia—sometimes he thought that the entire concept had been invented in this country—but that would have been unfair. Russia had fought Japan under the Czar in 1904-1905 and lost, along the way giving the Japanese Navy a landmark victory at the Battle of the Tsushima Strait. Thai war had gone a long way toward destroying the Romanovs and to elevating Japan to world-power status, which had led to their involvement in two world wars. It had also inflicted a bleeding sore on the Russian psyche that Stalin had remembered well enough to recover the lost territories. The Japanese had also been involved in post-World War I efforts to topple the Bolsheviks. They'd put a sizable army into Siberia, and hadn't been all that enthusiastic about withdrawing it. The same thing had happened again, in 1938 and 1939, with more serious consequences this time, first at the hands of Marshal Blyukher, and then a guy named Zhukov. Yes, there was much history between Russia and Japan.
"In this day and age, Sergey?" Ryan asked with a wry expression.
"You know, Jack, as bright a chap as you are, you are still an American, and your experience with invasions
is far less serious than ours. Are we panicked about this? No, of course not. Is it something worthy of close attention? Yes, Ivan Emmetovich, it is."
He was clearly building up to something, and with all the time he'd taken, it had to be something big, Ryan thought. Time to find out what it was: "Well, Sergey Nikolay'ch, I suppose I can understand your concern, but there isn't very much I can—" Golovko cut him off with a single word.
"THISTLE."
"Lyalin's old network. What about it?"
"You have recently reactivated it." The Chairman of RVS saw that Ryan had the good grace to blink in surprise. A bright, serious man, Ryan, but still not really someone who would have made a good field officer. His emotions were just too open. Perhaps, Sergey thought, he should read a book on Ireland, the better to understand the player in the ancient leather chair. Ryan had strengths and weaknesses, neither of which he completely understood.
"What gives you that idea?" the American asked as innocently as he could, knowing that he'd reacted, again, baited by this clever old pro. He saw Golovko smile at his discomfort and wondered if the liberalization of this country had allowed people to develop a better sense of humor. Before Golovko would just have stared impassively.
"Jack, we are professionals, are we not? I know this. How I know it is my concern."
"I don't know what cards you're holding, my friend, but before you go any further, we need to decide if this is a friendly game or not."
"As you know, the real Japanese counterintelligence agency is the Public Safety Investigation Division of their Justice Ministry." The expositional statement was as clear as it had to be, and was probably truthful. It also defined the terms of the discourse. This was a friendly game. Golovko had just revealed a secret of his own, though not a surprising one.
You had to admire the Russians. Their expertise in the espionage business was world-class. No, Ryan corrected himself. They were the class of the world. What better way to run agents in any foreign country than first to establish a network within the country's counterintelligence services? There was still the lingering suspicion that they had in fact controlled MI-5, Britain's Security Service, for some years, and their deep and thorough penetration of CIA's own internal-security arm was still an embarrassment to America.
"Make your play," Ryan said. Check to the dealer…
"You have two field officers in Japan covered as Russian journalists. They are reactivating the network. They are very good, and very careful, but one of their contacts is compromised by PSID. That can happen to anyone," Golovko observed fairly. He didn't even gloat, Jack saw. Well, he was too professional for that, and it was a fairly friendly game by most standards. The other side of the statement was as clear as it could be: with a simple gesture Sergey was in a position to burn Clark and Chavez, creating yet another international incident between two countries that had enough problems to settle. That was why Golovko didn't gloat. He didn't have to.
Ryan nodded. "Okay, pal. I just folded. Tell me what you want."
"We would like to know why Japan is lying to us, and anything else that in Mrs. Foley's opinion might be of interest to us. In return we are in a position to protect the network for you." He didn't add, for the time being.
"How much do they know?" Jack asked, considering the spoken offer. Golovko was suggesting that Russia cover an American intelligence operation. It was something new, totally unprecedented. They put a very high value on the information that might be developed. High as hell, Jack thought. Why?
"Enough to expel them from the country, no more." Golovko opened a drawer and handed over a sheet of paper. "This is all Foleyeva needs to know."
Jack read and pocketed it. "My country has no desire to see any sort of conflict between Russia and Japan."
"Then we are agreed?"
"Yes, Sergey. I will recommend approval of your suggestion."
"As always, Ivan Emmetovich, a pleasure to do business with you."
"Why didn't you activate it yourself?" Ryan asked, wondering how badly rolled he'd been that day.
"Lyalin held out on the information. Clever of him. We didn't have enough time to—persuade? Yes, persuade him to give it over—before we gave him to your custody."
Such a nice turn of phrase, Jack thought. Persuade. Well, Golovko had come up under the old system. It was too much to expect that he would have been entirely divorced from it. Jack managed a grin.
"You know, you were great enemies." And with Golovko's single suggestion. Jack thought behind clinically impassive eyes, perhaps now there would be the beginning of something else. Damn, how much crazier would this world get?
It was six hours later in Tokyo, and eight hours earlier in New York. The fourteen-hour differential and the International Dateline created many opportunities for confusion. It was Saturday the fourteenth in some places and Friday in others.
At three in the morning, Chuck Searls left his home for the last time. He'd rented a car the previous day—like many New Yorkers, he had never troubled himself to purchase one—for the drive to La Guardia. The Delta terminal was surprisingly full for the first flight of the day to Atlanta. He'd booked a ticket through one of the city's many travel agencies, and paid cash for the assumed name he would hereafter be using from time to time, which was not the same as the one on the passport he had also acquired a few months ago. Sitting in 2-A, a first-class seat whose wide expanse allowed him to turn slightly and lean his head back, he slept most of the way to Atlanta, where his baggage was transferred to a flight to Miami. There wasn't much, really. Two lightweight suits, some shirts, and other immediate necessities, plus his laptop computer. In Miami he'd board another flight under another name and head southeast to paradise.
George Winston, former head of the Columbus Group, was not a happy man despite the plush surroundings of his home in Aspen. A wrenched knee saw to that. Though he now had the time to indulge his newly discovered passion for skiing, he was a little too inexperienced and perhaps a little too old to use the expert slopes. It hurt like a sonuvabitch. He rose from his bed at three in the morning and limped into the bathroom for another dose of the painkiller the doctor had prescribed. Once there he found that the combination of wakefulness and lingering pain offered little hope of returning to sleep. It was just after five in New York, he thought, about the time he usually got up, always early to get a jump on the late-risers, checking his computer and the Journal and other sources of information so that he could be fully prepared for his opening moves on the market.
He missed it, Winston admitted to himself. It was a hell of a thing to say to the face in the mirror. Okay, so he'd worked too hard, alienated himself from his own family, driven himself into a state little different from drug addiction, but getting out was a…mistake?
Well, no, not exactly that, he thought, hobbling into his den as quietly as he could manage. It was just that you couldn't empty something and then attempt to fill it with nothing, could you? He couldn't sail his Cristobol all the time, not with kids in school. In fact there was only one thing in his life that he'd been able to do all the time, and that had damned near killed him, hadn't it?
Even so…
Damn, you couldn't even get the Journal out here at a decent hour. And this was civilization? Fortunately, they did have phone lines. Just for old times' sake, he switched on his computer. Winston was wired into nearly every news and financial service there was, and he selected his personal favorite. It was good to do it early in the morning. His wife would yell again if she saw him up to his old tricks, which meant that he was nowhere near as current on the Street as he liked to be, player or not. Well, okay, he had a few hours, and it wasn't as though he'd be riding a helicopter to the top of the mountain at dawn, was it? No skiing at all, the doc had told him firmly. Not for at least a week, and then he'd confine himself to the bunny slopes. It wouldn't look that bad, would it? He'd pretend to be teaching his kids…damn!
He'd gotten out too soon. No way he could have known, of course, but in
the last few weeks the market had begged aloud for a person with his talents to swoop down and make his moves. He would have moved on steel three weeks ago, made his killing, and then moved on to…Silicon Alchemy. Yeah, that was one he would have snapped up in one big hurry. They had invented a new sort of screen for laptop computers, and now with Japan's products under a cloud, the issue had exploded. Who was it who'd quarterbacked the IPO? That Ryan guy, good instincts for the business, pissing away his time in government service now. What a waste of talent, Winston told himself, feeling the ache in his leg and trying not to add that he was pissing away his time in the middle of the night at a ski resort he couldn't use for the next week at best.
Everything on the Street seemed so unnecessarily shaky, he thought, checking trend lines on stocks he considered good if stealthy bellwethers. That was one of the tricks, spotting trends and indicators before the others did. One of the tricks? Hell, the only trick. How he did it was surprisingly hard to teach. He supposed that it was the same in any field. Some people just did it, and he was one of them. Others tried to do the same by cheating, seeking out information in underhanded ways, or by falsely creating trends that they could then exploit. But that was…cheating, wasn't it? And what was the point of making money that way? Beating the others fairly and at their own game, that was the real art of trading, and at the end of the day what he liked to hear was the way others would come up and say, "You son of a bitch!" The tone of the comment made all the difference. There was no reason for the market to be so unsteady, he thought. People hadn't thought the things through, that was all.
The Hornets went off behind the first wave of Tomcats. Sanchez taxied his fighter to the starboard-side bow cat, feeling the towbar that formed part of his nosewheel gear slip into the proper slot on the shuttle. His heavily loaded fighter shuddered at full power as the deck crewmen gave the aircraft a last visual check. Satisfied, the catapult officer made the ready signal, and Sanchez fired off a salute and set his head back on the back of his ejection seat. A moment later, steam power flung him off the bow and into the air. The Hornet settled a bit, a feeling that was never entirely routine, and he climbed into the sky, retracting his landing gear and heading toward the rendezvous point, his wings heavy with fuel tanks and blue practice missiles.
