Red Rabbit Part 4

"No, not great ones, Yuriy. Not great ones," Alexandrov repeated himself. "But, yes, I agree, what we do in reply must be considered fully before we take the necessary action."

"What does Comrade Suslov think? Have you consulted him?"

"Misha is very ill," Alexandrov replied, without any great show of regret. That surprised Andropov. His guest owed much to his ailing senior, but these ideologues lived in their own little circ.u.mscribed world. "I fear his life is coming to its end."

That part was not a surprise. You only had to look at him at the Politburo meetings. Suslov had the desperate look you saw on the face of a man who knew that his time was running out. He wanted to make the world right before he departed from it, but he also knew that such an act was beyond his capacity, a fact that had come to him as an unwelcome surprise. Did he finally grasp the reality that Marxism-Leninism was a false path? Andropov had come to that conclusion about five years before. But that wasn't the sort of thing one talked about in the Kremlin, was it? And not with Alexandrov, either.

"He has been a good comrade these many years. If what you say is true, he will be sorely missed," the KGB Chairman noted soberly, genuflecting to the altar of Marxist theory and its dying priest.

"That is so," Alexandrov agreed, playing his role as his host did-as all Politburo members did, because it was expected . . . because it was necessary. Not because it was true, or even approximately so.

Like his guest, Yuriy Vladimirovich believed not because he believed, but because what he purported to believe was the source of the real thing: power. What, the Chairman wondered, would this man say next? Andropov needed him, and Alexandrov needed him as well, perhaps even more. Mikhail Yevgeniyevich did not have the personal power needed to become General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He was respected for his theoretical knowledge, his devotion to the state religion that Marxism-Leninism had become, but no one who sat around the table thought him a proper candidate for leaders.h.i.+p. But his support would be vital to whoever did have that ambition. As in medieval times, when the eldest son became the lord of the manor, and the second son became the bishop of the attendant diocese, so Alexandrov, like Suslov in his time, had to provide the spiritual-was that the proper word?-justification for his ascension to power. The system of checks and balances remained, just more perversely than before.

"You will, of course, take his place when the time comes," Andropov offered as the promise of an alliance.

Alexandrov demurred, of course . . . or pretended to: "There are many good men in the Party Secretariat."

The Chairman of the Committee for State Security waved his hand dismissively. "You are the most senior and the most trusted."

Which Alexandrov well knew. "You are kind to say so, Yuriy. So, what will we do about this foolish Pole?"

And that, so baldly stated, would be the cost of the alliance. To get Alexandrov's support for the General Secretarys.h.i.+p, Andropov would have to make the ideologue's blanket a little thicker by . . . well, by doing something he was already thinking about anyway. That was painless, wasn't it?

The KGB Chairman adopted a clinical, businesslike tone of voice: "Misha, to undertake an operation of this sort is not a trivial or a simple exercise. It must be planned very carefully, prepared with the greatest caution and thoroughness, and then the Politburo must approve it with open eyes."

"You must have something in mind. . . ."

"I have many things in mind, but a daydream is not a plan. To move forward requires some in-depth thinking and planning merely to see if such a thing is possible. One cautious step at a time," Andropov warned. "Even then, there are no guarantees or promises to be made. This is not something for a movie production. The real world, Misha, is complex." It was as close as he could come to telling Alexandrov not to stray too far from his sandbox of theories and toys and into the real world of blood and consequences.

"Well, you are a good Party man. You know what the stakes in this game are." With those words, Alexandrov told his host what was expected by the Secretariat. For Mikhail Yevgeniyevich, the Party and its beliefs were the State-and the KGB was the Sword and s.h.i.+eld of the Party.

Oddly, Andropov realized, this Polish Pope surely felt the same about his beliefs and his view of the world. But those beliefs weren't, strictly speaking, an ideology, were they? Well, for these purposes, they might as well be, Yuriy Vladimirovich told himself.

"My people will look at this carefully. We cannot do the impossible, Misha, but-"

"But what is impossible for this agency of the Soviet state?" A rhetorical question with a b.l.o.o.d.y answer. And a dangerous one, more dangerous than this academician realized.

How alike they were, the KGB Chairman realized. This one, comfortably sipping his brown Starka, believed absolutely in an ideology that could not be proven. And he desired the death of a man who also believed things that could not be proved. What a curious state of affairs. A battle of ideas, both sets of which feared the other. Feared? What did Karol fear? Not death, certainly. His letter to Warsaw proclaimed that without words. Indeed, he cried aloud for death. He sought martyrs.h.i.+p. Why would a man seek that? the Chairman wondered briefly. To use his life or death as a weapon against his enemy. Surely he regarded both Russia and communism as enemies, one for nationalistic reasons, the other for reasons of his religious conviction.... But did he fear that enemy?

No, probably not, Yuriy Vladimirovich admitted to himself. That made his task harder. His was an agency that needed fear to get its way. Fear was its source of power, and a man lacking fear was a man he could not manipulate. . . .

But those whom he could not manipulate could always be killed. Who, after all, remembered much about Leon Trotsky?

"Few things are truly impossible. Merely difficult," the Chairman belatedly agreed.

"So, you will look into the possibilities?"

He nodded cautiously. "Yes, starting in the morning." And so the processes began.

CHAPTER 3.

EXPLORATIONS.

"WELL, JACK'S GOT HIS DESK in London," Greer told his colleagues on the Seventh Floor.

"Glad to hear it," Bob Ritter observed. "Think he knows what to do with it?"

"Bob, what is it with you and Ryan?" the DDI asked.

"Your fair-haired boy is moving up the ladder too fast. He's going to fall off someday and it's going to be a mess."

"You want me to turn him into just one more ordinary desk-weenie?" James Greer had often enough fended off Ritter's beefs about the size and consequent power of the Intelligence Directorate. "You have some burgeoning stars in your shop, too. This kid's got possibilities, and I'm going to let him run until he hits the wall."

"Yeah, I can hear the splat now," the DDO grumbled. "Okay, which one of the crown jewels does he want to hand over to our British cousins?"

"Nothing much. The appraisal of Mikhail Suslov that the doctors up at Johns Hopkins did when they flew over to fix his eyes."

"They don't have that already?" Judge Moore asked. It wasn't as though it were a super-sensitive doc.u.ment.

"I guess they never asked. h.e.l.l, Suslov won't be around much longer anyway, from what we've been seeing."

The CIA had many ways to determine the health of senior Soviet officials. The most commonly used was photographs or, better yet, motionpicture coverage of the people in question. The Agency employed physicians-most often full professors at major medical schools-to look at the photos and diagnose their ills without getting within four thousand miles of them. It wasn't good medicine, but it was better than nothing. Also, the American Amba.s.sador, every time he went into the Kremlin, came back to the emba.s.sy and dictated his impressions of everything he saw, however small and insignificant it might seem. Often enough, people had lobbied for putting a physician in the post of amba.s.sador, but it had never happened. More often, direct DO operations had been aimed at collecting urine samples of important foreign statesmen, since urine was a good diagnostic source of information. It made for some unusual plumbing arrangements at Blair House, across the street from the White House, where foreign dignitaries were often quartered, plus the odd attempt to break into doctors' offices all over the world. And gossip, there was always gossip, especially over there. All of this came from the fact that a man's health played a role in his thinking and decision-making. All three men in this office had joked about hiring a gypsy or two and observed, rightly, that it would have produced results no less accurate than they got from wellpaid professional intelligence officers. At Fort Meade, Maryland, was yet another operation, code-named STARGATE, where the Agency employed people who were well to the left of gypsies; it had been started mainly because the Soviets also employed such people.

"How sick is he?" Moore asked.

"From what I saw three days ago, he won't make Christmas. Acute coronary insufficiency, they say. We have a shot of him popping what looks like a nitroglycerine pill, not a good sign for Red Mike," James Greer concluded with Suslov's in-house nickname.

"And Alexandrov replaces him? Some bargain," Ritter observed tersely. "I think the gypsies switched them at birth-another True Believer in the Great G.o.d Marx."

"We can't all be Baptists, Robert," Arthur Moore pointed out.

"This came in two hours ago on the secure fax from London," Greer said, pa.s.sing the sheets around. He'd saved the best for last. "Might be important," the DDI added.

Bob Ritter was a multilingual speed-reader: "Jesus!"

Judge Moore took his time. As a judge should, he thought. About twenty seconds later than the DDO: "My goodness." A pause. "Nothing about this from our sources?"

Ritter s.h.i.+fted in his chair. "Takes time, Arthur, and the Foleys are still settling in."

"I presume we'll hear about this from CARDINAL." They didn't often invoke that agent's code name. In the pantheon of CIA crown jewels, he was the Cullinan Diamond.

"We should, if Ustinov talks about it, as I expect he will. If they do something about it-"

"Will they, gentlemen?" the DCI asked.

"They'll sure as h.e.l.l think about it," Ritter opined at once.

"It's a big step to take," Greer thought more soberly. "You suppose His Holiness is courting it? Not too many men walk up to the tiger, open the cage door, and then make faces at him."

"I'll have to show this to the President tomorrow." Moore paused for a moment's thought. His weekly meeting at the White House was set for 10:00 the following morning. "The Papal Nuncio is out of town, isn't he?" It turned out that the others didn't know. He'd have to have that one checked out.

"What would you say to him, anyway?" This was Ritter. "You have to figure that the other guys in Rome tried to talk him out of this."

"James?"

"Kinda takes us back to Nero, doesn't it? It's almost as though he's threatening the Russians with his own death.... d.a.m.n, do people really think that way?"

"Forty years ago, you put your life on the line, James." Greer had served his time on fleet boats in the Second World War, and often wore a miniature of his gold dolphins on the lapel of his suit coat.

"Arthur, I took my chances, along with everybody else on the boat. I did not tell Tojo where I was in a personal letter."

"The man has some serious cojones, guys," Ritter breathed. "We have seen this sort of thing before. Dr. King never took a step back in his life, did he?"

"And I suppose the KKK was as dangerous to him as the KGB is to the Pope," Moore completed the thought. "Men of the cloth have a different way of looking at the world. It's called 'virtue,' I think." He sat forward. "Okay, when the President asks me about this-and for d.a.m.ned sure he will-what the h.e.l.l do I tell him?"

"Our Russian friends might just decide that His Holiness has lived long enough," Ritter answered.

"That's a h.e.l.l of a big and dangerous step to take," Greer objected. "Not the sort of thing a committee does."

"This committee might," the DDO told the DDI.

"There would be h.e.l.l to pay, Bob. They know that. These men are chess players, not gamblers."

"This letter backs them into a corner." Ritter turned. "Judge, I think the Pope's life might be in danger."

"It's much too early to say that," Greer objected.

"Not when you remember who's running KGB. Andropov is a Party man. What loyalty he has is to that inst.i.tution, d.a.m.ned sure not to anything we would recognize as a principle. If this frightens, or merely worries them, they will think about it. The Pope has hurled down his gauntlet at their feet, gentlemen," the Deputy Director (Operations) told the others. "They just might pick it up."

"Has any Pope ever done this?" Moore asked.

"Resign his post? Not that I can remember," Greer admitted. "I don't even know if there's a mechanism for this. I grant you it's one h.e.l.l of a gesture. We have to a.s.sume he means it. I don't see this as a bluff."

"No," Judge Moore agreed. "It can't be that."

"He's loyal to his people. He has to be. He was a parish priest once upon a time. He's christened babies, officiated at weddings. He knows these people. Not as an amorphous ma.s.s-he's been there to baptize and bury them. They are his people. He probably thinks of all Poland as his own parish. Will he be loyal to them, even at the peril of his life? How can he not be?" Ritter leaned forward. "It's not just a question of personal courage. If he doesn't do it, the Catholic Church loses face. No, guys, he's serious as h.e.l.l, and he isn't bluffing. Question is, what the h.e.l.l can we do about it?"

"Warn the Russians off?" Moore wondered aloud.

"No chance," Ritter shot back. "You know better than that, Arthur. If they set up an operation, it'll have more cutouts than anything the Mafia's ever done. How good do you suppose security is around him?"

"Not a clue," the DCI admitted. "I know the Swiss Guards exist, with their pretty uniforms and pikes.... Didn't they fight once?"

"I think so," Greer observed. "Somebody tried to kill him, and they fought a rear-guard action while he skipped town. Most of them got killed, I think."

"Now they mostly pose for pictures and tell people where the bathroom is, probably," Ritter thought out loud. "But there has to be something to what they do. The Pope is too prominent a figure not to attract the odd nutcase. The Vatican is technically a sovereign state. It has to have some of the mechanisms of a country. I suppose we could warn them-"

"Only when we have something to warn them about. Which we don't have, do we?" Greer pointed out. "He knew when he sent this off that he'd be rattling a few cages. What protection he does have must be alerted already."

"This will get the President's attention, too. He's going to want to know more, and he's going to want options. Jesus, people, ever since he made that Evil Empire speech, there's been trouble across the river. If they really do something, even if we can't pin it on them, he's going to erupt like Mount Saint Helens. There's d.a.m.ned near a hundred million Catholics right here in America, and a lot of them voted for him."

For his part, James Greer wondered how far out of control this might spin. "Gentlemen, all we have to this point is a fax of a photocopy of a letter delivered to the government in Warsaw. We do not know for certain that it's gone to Moscow yet. We have no sign of any reaction to this from Moscow. Now, we can't tell the Russians we know about it. So we can't warn them off. We can't tip our hand in any way. We can't tell the Pope that we're concerned, for the same reason. If Ivan's going to react, hopefully one of Bob's people will get us the word, and the Vatican has its own intelligence service, and we know that's pretty good. So, for the moment, all we have is an interesting bit of information that is probably true, but even that is not yet confirmed."

"So, for the moment, you think we just sit on this and think it through?" Moore asked.

"There's nothing else we can do, Arthur. Ivan won't act very fast. He never does-not on something with this degree of political import. Bob?"

"Yeah, you're probably right," the DDI agreed. "Still, the President needs to hear about it."

"It's a little thin for that," Greer cautioned. "But, yes, I suppose so." Mainly he knew that not telling the President, and then having something dire happen, would cause all of them to seek new employment. "If it goes further in Moscow, we ought to hear about it before anything drastic happens."

"Fine, I can tell him that," Judge Moore agreed. Mr. President, we're taking a very close look at this. That sort of thing usually worked. Moore rang his secretary and asked for some coffee to be sent in. Tomorrow at ten, they'd brief the President in the Oval Office, and then after lunch would be his weekly sit-down with the chiefs of the other services, DIA and NSA, to see what interesting things they had happening. The order should have been reversed, but that's just how things were usually scheduled.

HIS FIRST DAY at work had lingered quite a bit longer than expected before he'd been able to leave. Ed Foley was impressed by the Moscow Metro. The decorator must have been the same madman who'd designed Moscow State University's wedding-cake stonework-evidently beloved of Joe Stalin, whose personal aesthetic had run the gamut from Y to Z. It was strangely reminiscent of the czarist palaces, as interpreted by a terminal alcoholic. That said, the metro was superbly engineered, if somewhat clunky. More to the point, the crush of people was very agreeable to the spook. Making a brush-pa.s.s or other sort of pickup from an agent would not be overly trying, so long as he kept to his training, and that was something Edward Francis Foley was good at. Mary Pat would love it here, he was sure now. The milieu for her would be like Disney World was for Eddie. The crush of people, all speaking Russian. His Russian was pretty good. Hers was literary, having learned it at her grandfather's knee, though she'd have to de-tune it, lest she be made out as someone whose language skills were a little too good to be merely those of the wife of a minor emba.s.sy official.

The subway worked well for him. With one station only a couple of blocks from the emba.s.sy, and the other practically at their apartment house's doorstep, even the most paranoid Directorate Two shadow would not find his use of it terribly suspicious, despite the well-known American love for cars. He didn't look around any more than a tourist would, and thought that maybe he'd made one tail. There'd probably be more than that for the moment. He was a new emba.s.sy employee, and the Russians would want to see if he wiggled like a CIA spook. He decided to act like an innocent American abroad, which might or might not be the same thing to them. It depended on how experienced his current shadow was, and there was no telling that. For certain, he'd have a tail for a couple weeks. That was an expected annoyance. So would Mary Pat. So, probably, would Eddie. The Soviets were a paranoid bunch, but then, he could hardly complain about that, could he? Not hardly. It was his job to crack into the deepest secrets of their country. He was the new Chief of Station, but he was supposed to be a stealthy one. This was one of Bob Ritter's new and more creative ideas. Typically, the ident.i.ty of the boss spook in an emba.s.sy wasn't expected to be a secret. Sooner or later, everyone got burned one way or another, either ID'd by a false-flag operation or through an operational error, and that was like losing one's virginity. Once gone, it never came back. But the Agency only rarely used a husband-wife team in the field, and he'd spent years building his cover. A graduate of New York's Fordham University, Ed Foley had been recruited fairly young, vetted by an FBI background check, and then gone to work for The New York Times as a reporter on a general beat. He'd turned in a few interesting stories, but not too many, and had eventually been told that, while the Times wasn't going to fire him, it might be better for him to seek employment with a smaller newspaper where he might blossom better on his own. He'd taken the hint and gotten a job with the State Department as a Press Attache, a job that paid a decent bureaucratic wage, though without a supergrade's destiny. His official job at the emba.s.sy would be to schmooze the elite foreign corespondents of the great American papers and TV networks, granting them access to the amba.s.sador and other emba.s.sy officials, and then keeping out of the way while they filed their important stories.

His most important job was to appear competent, but little more. Already the local Times correspondent was telling his colleagues that Foley hadn't had the right stuff to make it big as a journalist at America's Foremost Newspaper, and since he wasn't old enough to teach yet-the other resting place for incompetent reporters-he was doing the next worst thing, being a government puke. It was his job to foster that arrogance, knowing that the KGB would have its people ping on the American press corps for their evaluation of the emba.s.sy personnel. The best cover of all for a spook was to be regarded as dull and dim, because the dull and the dim weren't smart enough to be spies. For that, he thanked Ian Fleming and the movies he'd inspired. James Bond was a clever boy. Not Ed Foley. No, Ed Foley was a functionary. The crazy part was that the Soviets, whose entire country was governed by dull functionaries, more often than not fell for this story just as readily as if they were someone fresh off the pig farm in Iowa.

There is nothing predictable about the espionage business . . . except here, the Station Chief told himself. The one thing you could depend on with the Russians was predictability. Everything was written down in some huge book, and everybody here played the game by the book.

Foley got aboard the subway car, looking around at his fellow pa.s.sengers, seeing how they looked at him. His clothing marked him as a foreigner as clearly as a glowing halo marked a saint in a Renaissance painting.

"Who are you?" a neutral voice asked, rather to Foley's surprise.

"Excuse me?" Foley replied in badly accented Russian.

"Ah, you are American."

"Da, that is so. I work at American emba.s.sy. My first day. I am new in Moscow." Shadow or not, he knew that the only sensible thing was to play this straight.

"How do you like it here?" the inquisitor asked. He looked like a bureaucrat, maybe a KGB counterespionage spook or a stringer. Or maybe just some officer-sitter for some government-run business who suffered from curiosity. There were some of those. Would an ordinary citizen approach him? Probably not, Foley judged. The atmosphere tended to limit curiosity to the s.p.a.ce between a person's ears . . . except that Russians were curious as h.e.l.l about Americans of every stripe. Told to disdain or even to hate Americans, the Russians frequently regarded them as Eve had regarded the apple.

"The metro is very impressive," Foley answered, looking around as artlessly as he could.

"Where in America do you come from?" was the next question.

"New York City."

"You play ice hockey in America?"

"Oh, yes! I've been a fan of the New York Rangers since I was a child. I want to see the hockey here." Which was entirely truthful. The Russian skate-and-pa.s.s game was the closest thing to Mozart in the world of sports. "The emba.s.sy has good tickets, they told me today. Central Army," he added.