The Sum of all Fears Part 74

"Well?" he asked the man from the communications-intelligence watch staff.

"We got lucky. This doc.u.ment was sent by facsimile printer from the U.S. Emba.s.sy Tokyo to Was.h.i.+ngton." He handed the sheet over.

The slick thermal paper was covered mainly with gibberish, some discrete but disordered letters, and even more black-and-white hash from the random noise, but perhaps as much as twenty percent was legible English, including two complete sentences and one full paragraph.

"Well?" Golovko asked again.

"When I delivered it to the j.a.panese section for comment, they handed me this." Another doc.u.ment was pa.s.sed. "I've marked the paragraph."

Golovko read the Russian-language paragraph, then compared it to the English- "It's a f.u.c.king translation. How was our doc.u.ment sent in?"

"By emba.s.sy courier. It wasn't transmitted because two of the crypto machines in Tokyo were being repaired, and the Rezident Rezident decided it was unimportant enough to wait. It ended up in the emba.s.sy bag. So they are not reading our ciphers, but they got this anyway." decided it was unimportant enough to wait. It ended up in the emba.s.sy bag. So they are not reading our ciphers, but they got this anyway."

"Who's working this case? Lyalin? Yes," Golovko said, almost to himself. He next called the senior watch officer for the First Chief Directorate. "Colonel, this is Golovko. I want a Flash-priority to Rezident Rezident Tokyo. Lyalin to report to Moscow immediately." Tokyo. Lyalin to report to Moscow immediately."

"What's the problem?"

"The problem is we have another leak."

"Lyalin is a very effective officer. I know the material he's sending back."

"So do the Americans. Get that message off at once. Then I want everything we have from THISTLE on my desk." Golovko hung up and looked at the Major standing in front of his desk. "That mathematician who figured this all out-good G.o.d, I wish we'd had him five years ago!"

"He spent ten years devising this theory on ordering chaos. If it's ever made public, he'll win the Planck Medal. He took the work of Mandelbrot at Harvard University in America and MacKenzie at Cambridge, and-"

"I will take your word for it, Major. The last time you tried to explain this witchcraft to me I merely got a headache. How is the work going?"

"We grow stronger every day. The only thing we cannot break is the new CIA system that's starting to come on line. It seems to use a new principle. We're working on it."

President Fowler boarded the Marine VH-3 helicopter before the snow got too bad. Painted a s.h.i.+ny olive-drab on the bottom, with white on top, and little else in the way of markings, it was his personal bird, with the call sign Marine-One. Elizabeth Elliot boarded just behind him, the press corps noted. Pretty soon they'd have to break the story on the two, some thought. Or maybe the President would do the job for them by marrying the b.i.t.c.h.

The pilot, a Marine lieutenant colonel, brought the twin-turbine engines to full power, then eased up on the collective, rising slowly and turning northwest. He was almost instantly on instruments, which he didn't like. Flying blind and on instruments didn't trouble him. Flying blind and on instruments with the President aboard did. Flying in snow was about the worst thing there was. All external visual references were gone. Staring out the winds.h.i.+eld could turn the most seasoned airman into a disoriented and airsick feather-merchant in a matter of seconds. As a result, he spent far more time scanning his instruments. The chopper had all manner of safety features, including collision-avoidance radar, plus having the undivided attention of two senior air-traffic controllers. In some perverse ways, this was a safe way to fly. In clear air some lunatic with a Cessna might just try to perform a midair with Marine-One, and maneuvering to avoid such things was a regular drill for the Colonel, both in the air and in the aircraft simulator at Anacostia Naval Air Station.

"Wind's picking up faster than I 'spected," the copilot, a major, observed.

"May get a little b.u.mpy when we hit the mountains."

"Should have left a little sooner."

The pilot switched settings on his intercom box, linking him with the two Secret Service agents in back. "May want to make sure everybody's strapped in tight. Picking up a little chop."

"Okay, thanks," Pete Connor replied. He looked to see that everyone's seat belt was securely fastened. Everyone aboard was too seasoned a flyer to be the least bit concerned, but he preferred a smooth ride as much as the next person. The President, he saw, was fully relaxed, reading over a folder that had just arrived a few minutes before they'd left. Connor settled back also. Connor and D'Agustino loved Camp David. A company of hand-picked Marine riflemen provided perimeter security. They were backed up and augmented by the best electronic surveillance systems America had ever built. Backing everyone up were the usual Secret Service agents. n.o.body was scheduled to come in or out of the place this weekend, except possibly one CIA messenger who would drive. Everyone could relax, including the President and his lady friend, Connor thought.

"This is getting bad. Better tell the weather pukes to stick their head out the window."

"They said eight inches."

"I got a buck says more than a foot."

"I never bet against you on weather," the copilot reminded the Colonel.

"Smart man, Scotty."

"Supposed to clear tomorrow night."

"I'll believe that when I see it, too."

"Temp's supposed to drop to zero, too, maybe a touch under."

"That I believe," the Colonel said, checking his alt.i.tude, compa.s.s, and artificial horizon. His eyes went outboard again, seeing only snowflakes being churned by the downwash of the rotor tips. "What do you call visibility?" I believe," the Colonel said, checking his alt.i.tude, compa.s.s, and artificial horizon. His eyes went outboard again, seeing only snowflakes being churned by the downwash of the rotor tips. "What do you call visibility?"

"Oh, in a clear spot ... maybe a hundred feet ... maybe one-fifty...." The Major turned to grin at the Colonel. The grin stopped when he started thinking about the ice that might build up on the airframe. "What's the outside temp?" he murmured to himself.

"Minus 12 centigrade," the Colonel said before he could look at the thermometer.

"Coming up?"

"Yeah. Let's take her down a little, ought to be colder."

"G.o.dd.a.m.ned D.C. weather."

Thirty minutes later they circled over Camp David. Strobe lights told them where the landing pad was-you could see down better than in any other direction. The copilot looked aft to check the fairing over the landing gear. "We got a little ice now, Colonel. Let's get this beast down before something scary happens. Wind is thirty knots at three-zero-zero."

"Starting to feel a touch heavy." The VH-3 could pick up as much as four hundred pounds of ice per minute under the right-wrong-weather conditions. "f.u.c.kin' weather weenies. Okay, I got the LZ in sight."

"Two hundred feet, airspeed thirty," the Major read off the instruments. "One fifty at twenty-five ... one hundred at under twenty ... looking good ... fifty feet and zero ground-speed...."

The pilot eased down on the collective. The snow on the ground started blowing up from the rotor-wash. It created a vile condition called a white-out. The visual references which had just reappeared-vanished instantly. The flight crew felt themselves to be inside a Ping-Pong ball. Then a gust of wind swung the helicopter around to the left, tilting it also. The pilot's eyes immediately flicked down to the artificial horizon. He saw it tilt, knowing that the danger that had appeared was as severe as it was unexpected. He moved the cyclic to level the aircraft and dropped the collective to the floor. Better a hard landing than catching a rotor in the trees he couldn't see. The helicopter dropped like a stone-exactly three feet. Before people aboard realized that something was wrong, the helicopter was down and safe.

"And that's why they let you fly the Boss," the Major said over the intercom. "Nice one, Colonel."

"I think I broke something."

"I think you're right."

The pilot keyed the intercom. "Sorry about that. We caught a gust over the pad. Everybody okay back there?"

The President was already up, leaning into the c.o.c.kpit. "You were right, Colonel. We should have left sooner. My mistake," Fowler said graciously. What the h.e.l.l, he thought, he wanted this weekend.

The Camp David detachment opened the chopper's door. An enclosed HMMWV pulled up to it so that the President and his party didn't have to get too cold. The flight crew watched them pull away, then checked for damage.

"Thought so."

"Metering pin?" The Major bent down to look. "Sure enough." The landing had just been hard enough to snap the pin that controlled the hydraulic shock-absorber on the right-side landing gear. It would have to be fixed.

"I'll go check to see if we have a spare," the crew chief said. Ten minutes later he was surprised to learn that they didn't. That was annoying. He placed a phone call to the helicopter base at the old Anacostia Naval Air Station to have a few driven up. Until it arrived, there was nothing that could be done. The aircraft could still be flown in an emergency, of course. A fire team of Marine riflemen stood close guard on the helicopter, as always, while another squad walked perimeter guard in the woods around the landing-pad area.

"What is it, Ben?"

"Does this place have a dorm?" Goodley asked.

Jack shook his head. "You can use the couch in Nancy's office if you want. How's your paper coming?"

"I'm going to be up all night anyway. I just thought of something."

"What's that?"

"Going to sound a little crazy-n.o.body ever checked to make sure that our friend Kadishev actually met with Narmonov."

"What do you mean?"

"Narmonov was out of town most of last week. If there was no meet, then the guy was lying to us, wasn't he?"

Jack closed his eyes and c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "Not bad, Dr. Goodley, not bad."

"We have Narmonov's itinerary. I have people checking on Kadishev's now. I'm going all the way back to last August. If we're going to do a check, it might as well be a comprehensive one. My position piece might be a little late, but this. .h.i.t me last-this morning, actually. I've been chasing it down most of the day. It's harder than I thought."

Jack motioned to the storm outside. "Looks like I'm going to be stuck here awhile. Want some help?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Let's get some dinner first."

Oleg Yurievich Lyalin boarded his flight to Moscow with mixed feelings. The summons was not all that irregular. It was troublesome that it had come so soon after his meeting with the CIA Director, but that was probably happenstance. More likely it had to do with the information he'd been delivering to Moscow about the j.a.panese Prime Minister's trip to America. One surprise he had not told CIA concerned j.a.panese overtures to the Soviet Union to trade high technology for oil and lumber. That deal would have upset the Americans greatly only a few years earlier, and marked the culmination of a five-year project that Lyalin had worked on. He settled into his airline seat and allowed himself to relax. He had never betrayed his country, after all, had he?

The satellite uplink trucks were in two batches. There were eleven network vehicles, all parked just at the stadium wall. Two hundred meters away were thirty-one more, smaller Ku-band uplinks for what looked like regional TV stations, as opposed to the bigger networks' vans. The first storm had pa.s.sed, and what looked like a tank division's worth of heavy equipment was sweeping up the snow from the stadium's enormous parking lot.

There was the spot, Ghosn thought, right next to the ABC "A" unit. There was a good twenty meters of open s.p.a.ce. The absence of security astounded him. He counted only three police cars, just enough to keep drunks away from men trying to get their work done. So secure the Americans felt. They'd tamed the Russians, crushed Iraq, intimidated Iran, pacified his own people, and now they were as totally relaxed as a people could be. They must love their comforts, Ibrahim told himself. Even their stadia had roofs and heat to keep the elements out.

"Gonna knock those things over like dominoes," Marvin observed from the driver's seat.

"Indeed we will," Ghosn agreed.

"See what I told you about security?"

"I was wrong to doubt you, my friend."

"Never hurts to be careful." Russell started another drive around the perimeter. "We'll come in this gate right here, and just drive right up." The headlights of the van illuminated the few flakes of this second storm. It was too cold to snow a lot, Russell had explained. This Canadian air ma.s.s was heading south. It would warm up as it hit Texas, dropping its moisture there instead of on Denver, which had half a meter, Ghosn estimated. The men who cleared the roads were quite efficient. As with everything else, the Americans liked their conveniences. Cold weather-build a stadium with a roof. Snow on the highways-get rid of it. Palestinians-buy them off. Though his face didn't show it, he had never hated America more than at this moment. Their power and their arrogance showed in everything they did. They protected themselves against everything, no matter how big or small, knew that they did, and proclaimed it to themselves and the whole world.

Oh, G.o.d, to bring them down!

The fire was agreeably warm. The President's cabin at Camp David was in the cla.s.sic American pattern, heavy logs laid one atop the other, though on the inside, they were reinforced with Kevlar fiber, and the windows were made of rugged polycarbonate to stop a bullet. The furniture was an even more curious mix of ultramodern and old-comfortable. Before the couch he sat on were three printers for the major news services because his predecessors liked to see the wire copy, and there were three full-sized televisions, one of which was usually tuned to CNN. But not tonight. Tonight it was on Cinemax. Half a mile away was a discreetly-sited antenna farm that tracked all of the commercial satellites, along with most of the military ones, a benefit of which was access to every commercial satellite channel-even the X-rated ones, which Fowler didn't bother with-creating the world's most expensive and exclusive cable system.

Fowler poured himself a beer. It was a bottle of Dortmunder Union, a popular German brew that the Air Force flew over-being President did carry some useful and unofficial perks. Liz Elliot drank a French white while the President's left hand toyed with her hair.

The movie was a sappy comedic romance that appealed to Bob Fowler. The female lead, in fact, reminded him of Liz in looks and mannerisms. A little too snappy, a little too domineering, but not without redeeming social value. Now that Ryan was gone-well, on the way to be gone-maybe things would settle down.

"We've certainly done well, haven't we?"

"Yes, we have, Bob." She paused for a sip of wine. "You were right about Ryan. Better to let him go honorably." So long as he's gone, along with that little shrew he married. So long as he's gone, along with that little shrew he married.

"I'm glad to hear you say that. He's not a bad guy, just old-fas.h.i.+oned. Out of date."

"Obsolete," Liz added.

"Yeah," the President agreed. "Why are we talking about him?"

"I can think of better things." She turned her face into his hand and kissed it.

"So can I," the President murmured as he set his gla.s.s down.

"The roads are covered," Cathy reported. "I think you made the right decision."

"Yeah, there was just a bad one on the Parkway just outside the gate. I'll be home tomorrow night. I can always steal one of the four-by-fours they have downstairs."

"Where's John?"

"He's not here right now."

"Oh," Cathy observed. And what might he be up to? And what might he be up to?

"While I'm here, I might as well get some work done. Call you in the morning."

"Okay, 'bye."

"That's one aspect of this place that I won't miss," Jack told Goodley. "Okay, what have you developed?"

"We've been able to verify all the meetings through September."

"You look like you're ready to drop. How long have you been up?"

"Since yesterday, I guess."