The Sum of all Fears Part 55

"No, that's why I came down."

"I think it's time to show you something. Something we've been working on here. Pretty sensitive," she added. Marcus got the message.

"What is it?" the DCI asked guardedly.

"This is absolutely confidential." Elliot pulled a large manila envelope from her desk. "I mean absolutely, Marcus. It doesn't leave the building, okay?"

"Agreed." The DCI was already interested.

Liz opened the envelope and handed over some photographs. Cabot looked them over.

"Who's the woman?"

"Carol Zimmer. She's the widow of an Air Force crewman who got himself killed somehow or other." Elliot filled in some additional details.

"Ryan, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around? I'll be d.a.m.ned."

"Any chance we could get more information from inside the Agency?"

"If you mean accomplis.h.i.+ng that without any suspicion on his part, it would be very difficult." Cabot shook his head. "His two SPOs, Clark and Chavez, no way. They're very tight. Good friends, I mean."

"Ryan's friendly with bodyguards? You serious?" Elliot was surprised. It was like being solicitous toward furniture.

"Clark's an old field officer. Chavez is a new kid, working as a SPO while he finishes his college degree, looking to be a field officer. I've seen the files. Clark'll retire in a few more years, and keeping him around as a SPO is just a matter of being decent. He's done some really interesting things. Good man, good officer."

Elliot didn't like that, but from what Cabot said, it seemed that it couldn't be helped. "We want Ryan eased out."

"That might not be easy. They really like him on the Hill."

"You just said he's insubordinate."

"It won't wash on the Hill. You know that. You want him fired, the President just has to ask for his resignation."

But that wouldn't wash on the Hill either, Liz thought, and it seemed immediately clear that Marcus Cabot wouldn't be much help. She hadn't really expected that he would be. Cabot was too soft.

"We can handle it entirely from this end if you want."

"Probably a good idea. If it became known at Langley that I had a hand in this, it might look like spite. Can't have that," Cabot demurred. "Bad for morale."

"Okay." Liz stood, and so did Cabot. "Thanks for coming down."

Two minutes later she was back in her chair, her feet propped up on a drawer. This was going so well. Exactly as planned. I'm getting good at this.... I'm getting good at this....

"So?"

"This was published in a Was.h.i.+ngton paper today," Golovko said. It was seven in the evening in Moscow, the sky outside dark and cold as only Moscow could get cold. That he had to report on something in an American newspaper did not warm the night very much.

Andrey Il'ych Narmonov took the translation from the First Deputy Chairman and read through it. Finished, he tossed the two pages contemptuously onto his desk top. "What rubbish is this?"

"Holtzman is a very important Was.h.i.+ngton reporter. He has access to very senior officials in the Fowler Administration."

"And he probably writes a good deal of fiction, just as our reporters do."

"We think not. We think the tone of the report indicates that he was given the data by someone in the White House."

"Indeed?" Narmonov pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose, cursing the cold that the sudden weather change had brought with it. If there was anything for which he did not have time, it was an illness, even a minor one. "I don't believe it. I've told Fowler personally about the difficulty with the missile destruction, and the rest of this political twaddle is just that. You know that I've had to deal with uniformed hotheads-those fools who went off on their own in the Baltic region. So do the Americans. It's incredible to me that they should take such nonsense seriously. Surely their intelligence services tell them the truth-and the truth is what I've told Fowler myself!"

"Comrade President." Golovko paused for a beat. Comrade Comrade was too hard a habit to break. "Just as we have political elements who distrust the Americans, so they have elements who continue to hate and distrust us. Changes between us have come and gone very rapidly. Too rapidly for many to a.s.similate. I find it plausible that there might be American political officials who believe this report." was too hard a habit to break. "Just as we have political elements who distrust the Americans, so they have elements who continue to hate and distrust us. Changes between us have come and gone very rapidly. Too rapidly for many to a.s.similate. I find it plausible that there might be American political officials who believe this report."

"Fowler is vain, he is far weaker as a man than he would like people to know, he is personally insecure-but he is not a fool, and only a fool would believe this, particularly after meeting me and talking with me." Narmonov handed the translation back to Golovko.

"My a.n.a.lysts believe otherwise. We think it possible that the Americans really believe this."

"Thank them for their opinion. I disagree."

"If the Americans are getting a report saying this, it means that they have a spy within our government."

"I have no doubt that they have such people-after all, we do also, do we not?-but I do not believe it in this case. The reason is simple, no spy could have reported something which I did not say, correct? I have not said this to anyone. It is not true. What do you do to a spy who lies to us?"

"My President, it is not something we look upon kindly," Golovko a.s.sured him.

"That is doubtless true of the Americans also." Narmonov paused for a moment, then smiled. "Do you know what this could be?"

"We are always open to ideas."

"Think like a politician. This could easily be a sign of some sort of power play within their government. Our involvement would then be merely incidental. "We have heard that there Golovko thought about that. "We have heard that there is-that Ryan, their Deputy Director, is unloved by Fowler. . . ."

"Ryan, ah, yes, I remember him. A worthy adversary, Sergey Nikolay'ch?"

"He is that."

"And an honorable one. He gave his word to me that one time, and he kept his word."

Definitely something a politician would remember, Golovko thought. Golovko thought.

"Why are they unhappy with him?" Narmonov asked.

"Reportedly a clash of personalities."

"That I can believe. Fowler and his vanity." Narmonov held up his hands. "There you have it. Perhaps I might have made a good intelligence a.n.a.lyst?"

"The finest," Golovko agreed. He had to agree, of course. Moreover, his President had said something that his own people had not examined fully. He left the august presence of his chief of state with a troubled expression. The defection of KGB Chairman Gerasimov a few years ago-an event that Ryan had himself engineered, if Golovko read the signs correctly-had inevitably crippled KGB's overseas operations. Six complete networks in America had collapsed, along with eight more in Western Europe. Replacement networks were only now beginning to take their place. That left major holes in KGB's ability to penetrate American government operations. The only good news was that they were starting to read a noteworthy fraction of American diplomatic and military communications-as much as four or five percent in a good month. But code-breaking was no subst.i.tute for penetration agents. There was something very strange going on here. Golovko didn't know what it was. Perhaps his President was right. Perhaps this was merely the ripples from an internal power-play. But it could also have been something else. The fact that Golovko didn't know what it was did not help matters.

"Just made it back in time," Clark said. "Did they sweep the wheels today?"

"If it's Wednesday. . . ." Jack replied. Every week his official car was examined for possible electronic bugs.

"Can we talk about it, then?"

"Yes."

"Chavez was right. It's easy, just a matter of dropping a nice little mordida mordida on the right guy. The regular maintenance man will be taken sick that day, the two of us get tapped to service the 747. I get to play maid, scrub the sinks and the c.r.a.ppers, replenish the bar, the whole thing. You'll have the official evaluation on your desk tomorrow, but the short version is, yeah, we can do it, and the likelihood of discovery is minimal." on the right guy. The regular maintenance man will be taken sick that day, the two of us get tapped to service the 747. I get to play maid, scrub the sinks and the c.r.a.ppers, replenish the bar, the whole thing. You'll have the official evaluation on your desk tomorrow, but the short version is, yeah, we can do it, and the likelihood of discovery is minimal."

"You know the downside?"

"Oh, yeah. Major International Incident. I get early retirement. That's okay, Jack. I can retire whenever I want. It would be a shame for Ding, though. That kid is showing real promise."

"And if you're discovered?"

"I say in my best Spanish that some j.a.panese reporter asked me to do it, and paid me a lot of pesos to do it. That's the hook, Jack. They won't make a big deal about it if they think it's one of their own. Looks too bad, loss of face and all that."

"John, you're a tricky, underhanded son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"Just want to serve my country, sir." Clark started laughing. A few minutes later he took the turn. "Hope we're not too late."

"It was a long one at the office."

"I saw that thing in the paper. What are we doing about it?"

"The White House will be talking to Holtzman, telling him to lay off."

"Somebody dipping his pen in the company inkwell?"

"Not that we know about, same with the FBI."

"Camouflage for the real story, eh?"

"Looks that way."

"What bulls.h.i.+t," Clark observed as he pulled into the parking place.

It turned out that Carol was in her home, cleaning up after dinner. The Zimmer family Christmas tree was up. Clark began ferrying the presents in. Jack had picked some of them up in England; Clark and Nancy c.u.mmings had helped to wrap them-Ryan was hopeless at wrapping presents. Unfortunately, they'd walked into the house just in time to hear crying.

"No problem, Dr. Ryan," one of the kids told him in the kitchen. "Jackie had a little accident. Mom's in the bathroom."

"Okay." Ryan walked that way, careful to announce his presence.

"Okay, okay, come in," Carol said.

Jack saw Carol leaning over the bathtub. Jacqueline was crying in the piteous monotone of a child who knows that she has misbehaved. There was a pile of kids' clothes on the tile floor, and the air positively reeked of crushed flowers. "What happened?"

"Jackie think my perfume is same as her toy perfume, pour whole bottle." Carol looked up from scrubbing.

Ryan lifted the little girl's s.h.i.+rt. "You're not kidding."

"Whole bottle-expensive! Bad girl!"

Jacqueline's crying increased in pitch. She'd probably had her backside smacked already. Ryan was just as happy not to have seen that. He disciplined his own kids as necessary, but didn't like to see other people smack theirs. That was one of several weak spots in his character. Even after Carol lifted her youngest out of the tub, the smell had not gone away.

"Wow, it is pretty strong, isn't it?" Jack picked Jackie up, which didn't mute her crying very much.

"Eighty dollar!" Carol said, but her anger was now gone. She had ample experience with small children, and knew that they were expected to do mischief. Jack carried the little one out to the living room. Her att.i.tude changed when she saw the stack of presents.

"You too nice," her mother noted.

"Hey, I just happened to be doing some shopping, okay?"

"You no come here Christmas, you have you own family."

"I know, Carol, but I can't let Christmas go by without stopping in." Clark came in with a final pile. These were his, Jack saw. Good man, Clark.

"We have nothing for you," Carol Zimmer said.

"Sure you do. Jackie gave me a good hug."

"What about me?" John asked.

Jack handed Jackie over. It was funny. Quite a few men were wary of John Clark on the basis of looks alone, but the Zimmer kids thought of him as a big teddy bear. A few minutes later they drove away.

"Nice of you to do that, John," Ryan said as they drove off.

"No big deal. Hey, man, you know how much fun it was to shop for little kids? Who the h.e.l.l wants to buy his kid a Bali bra-that's what Maggie wanted, put it on her list-a s.e.xy bra, for Christ's sake. How the h.e.l.l can a father walk into a department store and buy something like that for his own daughter?"

"They get a little big for Barbie Dolls."

"More's the pity, doc, more's the pity."

Jack turned and chuckled. "That bra-"

"Yeah, Jack, if I ever find out, he's dog meat."

Ryan had to laugh at that, but he knew he could afford to laugh. His little girl wasn't dating yet. That would be hard, watching her leave with someone else, beyond his protective reach. Harder still for a man like John Clark.

"Regular time tomorrow?"

"Yep."

"See ya' then, doc."

Ryan walked into his house at 8:55. His dinner was in its usual place. He poured his usual gla.s.s of wine, took a sip, then removed his coat and hung it in the closet before walking upstairs to change clothes. He caught Cathy going the other way and smiled at her. He didn't kiss her. He was just too tired. That was the problem. If he could only get time to relax. Clark was right, just a few days off to unwind. That's all he needed, Jack told himself as he changed.