Red Rabbit Part 17

Soon the doorbell rang, and it was Margaret van der Beek, soon followed by Ed Beaverton, which allowed the parents to escape off to work. At Victoria Station, Cathy kissed her husband good-bye and headed for the tube station for the ride to Moorefields, while Jack took a different train to Century House, and the day was about to start for real.

"Good morning, Sir John."

"Hey, Bert." Ryan paused. Bert Canderton had "army" written all over him, and it was time to ask. "What regiment were you?"

"I was Regimental Sergeant Major of the Royal Green Jackets, sir."

"Infantry?"

"Correct, sir."

"I thought you guys wore red coats," Ryan observed.

"Well, that's your fault-you Yanks, that is. In your revolutionary war, my regiment took so many casualties from your riflemen that the colonel of the regiment decided a green tunic might be safer. It's been that way ever since."

"How did you end up here?"

"I'm waiting for an opening at the Tower to be a Yeoman Warder, sir. Should have a new red coat in a month or so, they tell me."

Canderton's rent-a-cop blouse had some service ribbons on it, probably not for brus.h.i.+ng and flossing his teeth, and a regimental sergeant major in the British army was somebody, like a master gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps.

"I've been there, been to the club they have," said Ryan. "Good bunch of troops."

"Indeed. I have a friend there, Mick Truelove. He was in the Queen's Regiment."

"Well, sar-major, keep the bad guys out," Ryan said, as he worked his card into the electronic slot that controlled the entry gate.

"I will do that, sir," Canderton promised.

Harding was at his desk when Ryan came in. Jack hung his jacket on the tree.

"Come in early, Simon?"

"Your Judge Moore sent a fax to Bas last night-just after midnight, as a matter of fact. Here." He handed it across.

Ryan scanned it. "The Pope, eh?"

"Your President is interested, and so is the PM, as it happens," Harding said, relighting his pipe. "Basil called us in early to go over what data we have."

"Okay, what do we have?"

"Not much," Harding admitted. "I can't talk to you about our sources-"

"Simon, I'm not dumb. You have somebody in close, either a confidante of a Politburo member or someone in the Party Secretariat. He's not telling you anything?" Ryan had seen some very interesting "take" in here, and it had to have come from somebody inside the big red tent.

"I can't confirm your suspicion," Harding cautioned, "but no, none of our sources have given us anything, not even that the Warsaw Letter has arrived in Moscow, though we know it must have."

"So, we don't know jacks.h.i.+t?"

Simon nodded soberly. "Correct."

"Amazing how often that happens."

"It's just a part of the job, Jack."

"And the PM has her panties in a wad?"

Harding hadn't heard that Americanism before, and it caused him to blink twice. "So it would seem."

"So, what are we supposed to tell her? She d.a.m.ned sure doesn't want to hear that we don't know."

"No, our political leaders do not like to hear that sort of thing."

Neither do ours, Ryan admitted to himself. "So, how good is Basil at a song-and-dance number?"

"Quite good, actually. In this case, he can say that your chaps do not have very much, either."

"Ask other NATO services?"

Harding shook his head. "No. It might leak out to the opposition-first, that we're interested, and second, that we don't know enough."

"How good are our friends?"

"Depends. The French SDECE occasionally turns good information, but they do not like to share. Neither do our Israeli friends. The Germans are thoroughly compromised. That Markus Wolf chap in East Germany is a b.l.o.o.d.y genius at this business-perhaps the best in the world, and under Soviet control. The Italians have some talented people, but they, too, have problems with penetration. You know, the best service on the continent might well be the Vatican itself. But if Ivan is doing anything at the moment, he's covering it nicely. Ivan is quite good at that, you know."

"So I've heard," Ryan agreed. "When does Basil have to go to Downing Street?"

"After lunch-three this afternoon, I understand."

"And what will we be able to give him?"

"Not very much, I'm afraid-worse, Basil might want me with him."

Ryan grunted. "That ought to be fun. Met her before?"

"No, but the PM has seen my a.n.a.lyses. Bas says she wants to meet me." He shuddered. "It'd be much better if I had something substantive to tell her."

"Well, let's see if we can come up with a threat a.n.a.lysis, okay?" Jack sat down. "What exactly do we know?"

Harding handed a sheaf of doc.u.ments across. Ryan leaned back in his chair to pick through them.

"You got the Warsaw Letter from a Polish source, right?"

Harding hesitated, but it was clear he had to answer this one: "That is correct."

"So nothing from Moscow itself?" Jack asked.

He shook his head. "No. We know the letter was forwarded to Moscow, but that's all."

"We're really in the dark, then. You might want to have a beer before you go across the river."

Harding looked up from his notes. "Why, thank you, Jack. I really needed to hear that bit of encouragement."

They were silent for a moment.

"I work better on a computer," Ryan said. "How hard is it to get one in here?"

"Not easy. They have to be tempest-checked to make sure someone outside the building cannot read the keystrokes electronically. You can call administration about it."

But not today, Ryan didn't say aloud. He'd learned that the bureaucracy at Century House was at least as bad as the one at Langley, and after a few years of working in the private sector, it could drive him to distraction. Okay, he'd try to come up with some ideas to save Simon from getting a new a.s.shole installed in his guts. The Prime Minister was a lady, but in terms of demands, Father Tim at Georgetown had nothing on her.

OLEG IVAN'CH got back from lunch at the KGB cafeteria and faced facts. Very soon, he would have to decide what to say to his American, and how to say it.

If he was a regular emba.s.sy employee, he would have pa.s.sed the first note along to the CIA chief in the emba.s.sy-there had to be one, he knew, an American rezident whose job it was to spy on the Soviet Union, just as Russians spied on everyone in the world. The big question was whether they were spying on him. Could he have been "doubled" by the Second Chief Directorate, whose reputation would frighten the devil in h.e.l.l himself? Or could this ostensible American have been a Russian bearing a "false-flag"?

So, first of all, Oleg had to make d.a.m.ned sure he was dealing with the real thing. How to do that . . . ?

Then it came to him. Yes, he thought. That was something KGB could never bring off. That would ensure that he was dealing with someone able to do what he needed done. No one could fake that. In celebration, Zaitzev lit up another cigarette and went back into the morning dispatches from the Was.h.i.+ngton rezidentura.

IT WAS HARD to like Tony Prince. The New York Times correspondent in Moscow was well-regarded by the Russians, and, as far as Ed Foley was concerned, that spoke to a weakness in his character.

"So, how do you like the new job, Ed?" Prince asked.

"Still settling in. Dealing with the Russian press is kind of interesting. They're predictable, but unpredictably so."

"How can people be unpredictably predictable?" the Times correspondent inquired, with a crooked smile.

"Well, Tony, you know what they're going to say, just not how they're going to ask it." And half of them are spooks or at least stringers, anyway, in case you haven't noticed.

Prince affected a laugh. He felt himself to be the intellectual superior. Foley had failed as a general-beat reporter in New York, whereas Prince had parlayed his political savvy to one of the top jobs in American journalism. He had some good contacts in the Soviet government, and he cultivated them a.s.siduously, frequently sympathizing with them over the boorish, nekulturniy behavior of the current regime in Was.h.i.+ngton, which he occasionally tried to explain to his Russian friends, often pointing out that he hadn't voted for this d.a.m.ned actor, and neither had anyone in his New York office.

"Have you met the new guy, Alexandrov, yet?"

"No, but one of my contacts knows him, says he's a reasonable sort, talks like he's in favor of peaceful coexistence. More liberal than Suslov. I hear he's pretty sick."

"I've heard that, too, but I'm not sure what's wrong with him."

"He's diabetic, didn't you hear? That's why the Baltimore docs came over to work on his eyes. Diabetic retinopathy," Prince explained, speaking the word slowly so that Foley could comprehend it.

"I'll have to ask the emba.s.sy doc what that means," Foley observed, making an obvious note on his pad. "So, this Alexandrov guy is more liberal, you think?" "Liberal" was a word that meant "good guy" to Prince.

"Well, I haven't met him myself, but that's what my sources think. They also think that when Suslov departs from this life, Mikhail Yevgeniyevich will take his place."

"Really? I'll have to drop that on the amba.s.sador."

"And the Station Chief?"

"You know who that is? I don't," Foley said.

An eye roll. "Ron Fielding. h.e.l.l, everybody knows that."

"No, he isn't," Ed protested as sharply as his acting talent allowed. "He's the senior consular officer, not a spook."

Prince smiled, thinking, You never could figure things out, could you? His Russian contacts had fingered Fielding to him, and he knew they wouldn't lie to him. "Well, that's just a guess, of course," the reporter went on.

And if you thought it was me, you'd blurt it right out, wouldn't you? Foley thought right back at him. You officious a.s.s. "Well, I'm cleared for some things, as you know, but not that one."

"I know who does know," Prince offered.

"Yeah, but I'm not going to ask the Amba.s.sador, Tony. He'd rip my face off."

"He's just a political appointment, Ed-nothing special. This ought to be a posting for somebody who knows diplomacy, but the President didn't ask me for advice."

Thank G.o.d, the Station Chief commented inwardly.

"Fielding sees him a lot, doesn't he?" Prince went on.

"A consular officer works directly with the Amba.s.sador, Tony. You know that."

"Yeah. Convenient, isn't it? How much do you see him?"

"The boss, you mean? Once a day, usually," Foley answered.

"And Fielding?"

"More. Maybe two or three times."

"There you have it," Prince concluded grandly. "You can always tell."

"You read too many James Bond books," Foley said dismissively. "Or maybe Matt Helm."

"Get real, Ed," Prince bristled with elegant gentleness.

"If Fielding is the head spook, who are his underlings? d.a.m.ned if I know."

"Well, those are always pretty covert," Prince admitted. "No, on that I don't have a clue."

"Pity. That's one of the games you play in the emba.s.sy-who are the spooks."

"Well, I can't help you."

"It's not something I need to know anyway, I guess," Foley admitted.

You never were curious enough to be a good reporter, Prince thought, with a casual, pleasant smile. "So, does this keep you busy?"

"It's not a ball-breaker. Anyway, can we make a deal?"

"Sure," Prince replied. "What is it?"