Rainbow Six

CHAPTER 18

Popov boarded the morning Concorde flight. He'd never flown the Concorde before, and found the interior of the aircraft cramped, though the legroom was all right. He settled into seat 4C. Meanwhile, at another terminal, 13 Henriksen was in a first-class seat in an American DC for his trip to Los Angeles.

William Henriksen, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov thought. Formerly of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Teams: and an expert on counter-terrorism, president of an international security-consulting company now headed oft Australia to seek a consulting contract for the next Olympics… How did that factor into what Popov had been doing for John Brightling's Horizon Corporation? What, exactly, was he doing-more properly, what idea was he serving? What task? He was certainly being paid top dollar-he hadn't even raised the money issue over dinner, because he was sure he'd get whatever he asked for. He was thinking in terms of $250,000 for this job alone, even though it held few dangers, aside from driving an automobile in British traffic. $250,000? Maybe more, Popov told himself. After all, this mission seemed pretty important to them.

How did an expert on the mission side of terrorism and an expert on counterterrorism factor into the same plan? Why had they so rapidly seized on his discovery that there was a new international counterterror organization? It was important to them but why? What the hell were they up to? He shook his head. He was so smart, yet he didn't have a clue. And he wanted to know, now more than ever.

Again, it was the not-knowing that worried him. Worried? Yes, he was worried now. The KGB had never encouraged curiosity, but even they knew that you had to tell intelligent people something and so with mission orders had usually come some kind of explanation - and at the least he'd always known that he was serving the interests of his country. Whatever information he'd gathered, whatever foreign national he'd recruited, it had all been aimed at making his nation more secure, more knowledgeable, more strong. That the entire effort had failed was not his fault. The KGB had never failed the State. It had been the State that had failed the KGB. He'd been part of the world's finest intelligence service, and he remained proud of its abilities and his own.

But he didn't know what he was doing now. He was supposed to gather information, and it was quite easy for him, but he still didn't know why. The things he'd learned at dinner the night before had merely opened another door into another mystery. It seemed so like some Hollywood movie of conspiracy or some detective book whose ending he could not yet discern. He'd take the money and do the job, but for the first time he was uneasy, and the feeling was not a pleasant one, as the aircraft raced down the runway and took off into the rising sun for London Heathrow.

"Any progress, Bill?"

Tawney leaned back in his chair. "Not much. The Spanish have identified two of the terrorists as Basque separatists, and the French think they have a line on another of their citizens at the park, but that's all. I suppose we could ask Carlos for some information, but it's rather doubtful that he'd cooperate-and who's to say that he even knew the buggers in the first place?"

"True." Clark took a seat. "You know, Ding's right - One of these incidents was probably to be expected, but three all in the brief time we've been here seems like a lot. Is it possible that somebody is setting them loose somehow, Bill?"

"I suppose it's possible, but who would do it - and why would he do it?" Tawney asked.

"Back up. Stay with the 'who' part first. Who has the ability?"

"Someone who had access to them back in the seventies and eighties-that means someone well inside the movement or someone who controlled them, 'influenced' them, from the outside. That would mean a KGB type. Notionally this chap would be known to them, would have means to contact them, and thus the ability to activate them."

"All three groups have been heavily ideological…"

"That's why the contact would have to be former-or maybe active?-KGB. He'd have to be someone they trust - more than that, a person with the kind of authority they would recognize and respect." Tawney sipped at his tea. "That has to mean an intelligence officer, perhaps a fairly senior one with whom they'd worked back in the old days, someone who interfaced with them for their training and support in the old East Bloc."

"German, Czech, Russian?"

"Russian," Tawney said. "Remember that KGB let the other Bloc countries support them only under their close direction - the standoff nature of the arrangement was always paper-thin, John. It was meant more for their own comfort than for anyone else's. `Progressive elements,' and all that rubbish. They were usually trained outside of Moscow, and then quartered in safe houses in Eastern Europe, mainly East Germany. We got a good deal of material from the old East German Stasi when the DDR collapsed. I have some colleagues at Century House going back over the information right now. That will take time. It was, unfortunately, never computerized or even properly cross-referenced. Funding problems," Tawney explained.

"Why not go straight to KGB? Hell, I've met Golovko."

Tawney didn't know that. "You're kidding."

"How do you think Ding and I got into Iran so quick with a Russian cover? You think CIA can pull off an operation that fast? I wish, Bill. No, Golovko set it up, and Ding and I were in his office before we flew down."

"Well, then, if you can, why not give it a try?"

"I'd have to get authorization from Langley."

"Will Sergey actually cooperate?"

"Not sure," John admitted. "Even money at best. But before I do, such a thing, I'd need a good idea of exactly what I want. It can't be a fishing expedition. It has to be well directed."

"I can see what we might have on the name of an intelligence officer who worked with them… Problem is, it won't be a real name, will it?"

Clark nodded. "Probably not. You know, we have to try harder to get one of these people alive. Kinda hard to interrogate a corpse."

"That opportunity hasn't presented itself yet," Tawney pointed out.

"Maybe," Clark thought. And even if you got one alive, who was to say that he'd know what was needed? But you had to start somewhere.

"Bern was a bank robbery. Vienna was an attempted kidnapping, and from what Herr Ostermann said, the subjects were after something that doesn't exist-private, insider computer codes into the international trading system. The most recent incident was something right out of the seventies."

"Okay, two out of three were about money," Clark agreed. "But the terrorists in both those cases were supposed to be ideological, right?"

"Correct."

"Why the interest in money? In the first one, okay, maybe it was a straight robbery. But the second one was more sophisticated well, both sophisticated and dumb, 'cuz they were after something that doesn't exist, but as ideological operators they would not have known that. Bill, somebody told them to go after it. They didn't start that one by themselves, did they?"

"I agree, your supposition is likely," the spook said. "Very likely, perhaps."

"So, in that case we have two ideological operators, technically fairly competent, but going after something that doesn't really exist. The combination of operational cleverness and objective stupidity just seems to cry out to us, doesn't it?"

"But what of Worldpark?"

Clark shrugged. "Maybe Carlos knows something they need. Maybe he has a stash somewhere that they want, or information, or contact numbers, maybe even cash-there's no telling, is there?"

"And I think it unlikely that he can be persuaded to cooperate with us."

Clark grunted. "Damned skippy."

"What I can do is talk with the chaps at `Five,' too. Perhaps this Russian shadow fellow worked with the PIRA. Let me do some nosing around, John.",

"Okay, Bill, and I'll talk things over with Langley." Clark stood, wandered out of the room, and headed back to his own, still groping for the idea he needed before he could do something useful.

It didn't start well, and Popov nearly laughed about it. On reaching his rental car he opened the left-side door instead of the right side. But he figured it out in as few seconds as it took him to load his luggage into the trunk - boot - and get in the driver's side. From that point he opened the map book he'd purchased in the terminal and made his way away from Heathrow's Terminal Four onto the motorway that would lead him to Hereford.

"So, how does this thing work, Tim?" Noonan moved his hand away, but the pointer stayed right on Chavez. "Damn, this is slick. It's supposed to track the electromagnetic field generated by the human heart. It's a unique low-frequency signal… doesn't even get confused by gorillas and animals…"

The gadget looked like a ray-gun pistol from a '30s science fiction movie, with a slim antenna wire out the front and a pistol grip underneath. It swung on a frictionless bearing, drawn to the signal it received. Noonan moved away from Chavez and Covington, and headed for the wall. There was a secretary sitting right… there. The gadget locked on her. As he walked, it stayed pointed at her, through the blank wall.

"It's like a bloody divining rod," Peter observed, no small amount of wonder in his voice. "Like finding water…"

"Does look that way, doesn't it? Damn, no wonder the Army wants this baby. Forget about being ambushed. This thing's supposed to find people underground, behind trees, in the rain - whenever they're there, this thing'll pick them up."

Chavez thought about that. He thought especially about his operation in Colombia so many years before, walking point in the weeds, looking and listening for people who might have worried his ten-man team. Now this thing replaced all the skills he'd learned in the 7th Light. As a defensive tool, it could put the ninjas out of business. As an offensive tool, it could tell you where the bad guys were long before you could see or hear them, and allow you to get close enough to…

"What's it for - what's the manufacturer say, I mean?"

"Search and rescue - firemen in a burning building, avalanche victims, lots of things, Ding. As a counter intruder tool, this puppy's going to be hard to beat. They've been playing with it at Fort Bragg for a couple of weeks. The Delta Guys have fallen in love with it. Still a little hard to use, and it can't tell range yet, but all they have to do is modify the antenna for greater gain, then link two of the detectors with GPS, and triangulate… The ultimate range this thing can achieve hasn't been determined yet. They say this one can lock onto a person at five hundred meters."

"Bloody hell," Covington observed. But the instrument still looked like some sort of an expensive small-boy's toy.

"What good will it be for us? It can't tell a hostage from a terrorist," Chavez pointed out.

"Ding you never know, do you? Damned sure it can tell you where the bad guys are not, " Noonan pointed out. He'd be playing with this thing all day, getting a feel for how to use it effectively. He hadn't felt like a kid with a new toy in quite a while, but this gadget was so new and so unexpected that it should have arrived under a decorated pine tree.

The Brown Stallion was the name of the pub right next door to his motel. It was only half a kilometer from the main gate at Hereford, and seemed like a good place to start, and better yet to have a beer. Popov ordered a pint of Guinness and sipped at it, surveying the room. A television was on, carrying a soccer match-live or taped, he couldn't tell at the moment-between Manchester United and Rangers from up in Scotland, and that attracted the attention of the pub's patrons, and the barman, as it turned out. Popov watched as well, sipping at his pint and listening to the chitchat around the room. He was trained to be patient, and knew from experience that patience was usually rewarded in the business of intelligence, all the more so in this culture, where people came to their regular pub every night to chat with their friends, and Popov had unusually good hearing.

The football game ended in a 1-1 tie around the time Popov ordered a second pint.

"Tie, bloody tie," one man observed at the bar seat next to Popov's.

"That's sport for you, Tommy. At least the chaps down the road never tie, and never bloody lose."

"How are the Yanks fitting in, Frank?"

"Good bunch, that lot, very polite. I had to fix the sink for one of the houses today. The wife is very nice indeed, tried to give me a tip. Amazing people, the Americans. Think they have to give you money for everything." The plumber finished off his pint of lager and called for another.

"You work on the base?" Popov asked.

"Yes, have for twelve years, plumbing and such."

"Good lot of men, the SAS. I like how they sort the IRA buggers out," the Russian offered, in his best British blue-collar accent.

"That they do," the plumber agreed. "So, some Americans are based there now, eh?"

"Yes, about ten of them, and their families." He laughed. "One of the wives nearly killed me in her car last week, driving on the wrong side of the bloody road. You do have to be careful around them, especially in your car."

"I may know one of them, chap name of Clark, I think," Popov offered as a somewhat dangerous ploy.

"Oh? He's the boss. Wife's a nurse in the local hospital. Haven't met him, but they say he's a very serious chappie must be to command that lot. Scariest people I've ever met, not the sort you'd like to find in a dark alley - very polite of course, but you only have to look at them to know. Always out running and such, keeping fit, practicing with their weapons, looking dangerous as bloody lions."

"Were they involved in the show down in Spain last week?"

"Well, they don't tell us any of that, see, but" - the man smiled - "I saw a Hercules fly out of the airstrip the very day it happened, and they were back in their club late that night, Andy told me, looking very chuffed with themselves, he said. Good lads, dealing with those bastards."

"Oh, yes. What sort of swine would kill a sick child? Bahst'ds, " Popov went on.

"Yes, indeed. Wish I could have seen them. Carpenter I work with, George Wilton, sees them practice their shooting from time to time. George says they're like something from a film, magical stuff, he says."

"Were you a soldier?"

"Long time ago, Queen's Regiment, made corporal. That's how I got this job." He sipped at his beer while the TV screen changed over to cricket, a game for which Popov had no understanding at all. "You?"

Popov shook his head. "No, never. Thought about it, but decided not to."

"Not a bad life, really, for a few years anyway," the plumber said, reaching for the bar peanuts.

Popov drained his glass and paid the bill. It had been a pretty good night for him, and he didn't want to press his luck. So, the wife of John Clark was a nurse at the local hospital, eh? He'd have to check that out.

"Yeah, Patsy, I did," Ding told his wife, reading the morning paper a few hours late. Press coverage on the Worldpark job was still on page one, though below the fold this time. Fortunately, nobody in the media had a clue yet about Rainbow, he saw. The reporters had bought the story about the well-trained special-action group of the Spanish Civil Guard.

"Ding, I - well, you know, I-"

"Yeah, baby, I know. You're a doc, and your job is saving lives. So's mine, remember? They had thirty-some kids in there, and they murdered one… I didn't tell you. I was less than a hundred feet away when they did it. I saw that little girl die, Pats. Worst damned thing I ever saw, and I couldn't do a damned thing about it," he said darkly. He'd have dreams about that for a few more weeks, Chavez knew.

"Oh?" She turned her head. "Why?"

"'Cuz we didn't - I mean we couldn't, because there was still a bunch of others inside with guns on them, and we'd just got there, and we weren't ready to hit the bastards yet, and they wanted to show us how serious and dedicated they were - and that's how people like that show their resolve, I suppose. They kill a hostage so we'll know how tough they are." Ding set his paper down, thinking about it. He'd been brought up with a particular code of honor even before the United States Army had taught him the Code of Arms: you never, ever hurt an innocent person. To do so forever placed you beyond the pale, irredeemably cursed among men as a murderer, unworthy to wear a uniform or accept a salute. But these terrorists seemed to revel in it. What the hell was wrong with them? He'd read all of Paul Bellow's books, but somehow the message had not gotten through. Bright as he was, his mind could not make that intellectual leap. Well, maybe all you really needed to know about these people was how to put steel on target. That always worked, didn't it?

"What's with them?"

"Hell, baby, I don't know. Dr. Bellow says they believe in their ideas so much that they can step away from their humanity, but I just don't get it. I can't see myself doing that. Okay, sure, I've dropped the hammer on people, but never for kicks, and never for abstract ideas. There has to be a good reason for it, something that my society says is important, or because somebody broke the law that we're all supposed to follow. It's not nice. and it's not fun, but it is important, and that's why we do it. Your father's the same way."

"You really like Daddy," Patsy Chavez, M.D., observed.

"He's a good man. He's done a lot for me, and we've had some interesting times in the field. He's smart, smarter than the people at CIA ever knew - well, maybe Mary Pat knew. She really gets it, though she's something of a cowgirl."

"Who? Mary who?"

"Mary Patricia Foley. She's DO, head of the field spooks at the Agency. Great gal, in her mid-forties now, really knows her stuff. Good boss, looks out for us worker bees."

"Are you still in the CIA, Ding?" Patsy Clark Chavez asked.

"Technically yes." Her husband nodded. "Not sure how the administrative chain works, but as long as the checks keep coming"-he smiled-"I'm not going to worry about it. So, how's life at the hospital?"

"Well, Mom's doing fine. She's charge nurse for her shift in the ER now, and I'm rotating to ER, too, next week."

"Deliver enough babies?" Ding asked.

"Just one more this year, Domingo," Patsy replied. patting her belly. "Have to start the classes soon, assuming you're going to be there."

"Honey, I will be there," he assured her. You ain't having my kid without my help."

"Daddy was never there. I don't think it was allowed back then. Prepared childbirth wasn't fashionable yet."

"Who wants to read magazines at a time like that?" Chavez shook his head. "Well, I guess times change, eh? Baby, I will be there, unless some terrorist jerk gets us called out of town, and then he better watch his ass, 'cuz this boy's going to be seriously pissed if that happens."

"I know I can depend on you." She sat down next to him, and as usual he took her hand and kissed it. "Boy or girl?"

"Didn't get the sonogram, remember? If it's a boy-

"He'll be a spook, like his father and grandfather," Ding observed with a twinkle. "We'll start him on languages real early."

"What if he wants to be something else?"

"He won't," Domingo Chavez assured her. "He'll see what fine men his antecedents are, and want to emulate them. It's a Latino thing, babe"-he kissed her with a smile-"following in the honorable footsteps of your father." He couldn't say that he hadn't done so himself. His father had died at too early an age for his son to be properly imprinted. Just as well. Domingo's father, Esteban Chavez, had driven a delivery truck. Too dull, Domingo thought.

"What about the Irish? I thought it was their `thing,' too."

"Pretty much." Chavez grinned. "That's why there are so many paddies in the FBI."

"Remember Bill Henriksen?" Augustus Werner asked Dan Murray.

"Used to work for you on HRT, bit of a nut, wasn't he?"

"Well, he was heavily into the environmental stuff, hugging trees and all that crap, but he knew the job at Quantico. He laid a good one on me for Rainbow."

"Oh?" The FBI Director looked up and instantly focused at the use of the codeword.

"In Spain they were using an Air Force chopper. The media hasn't caught on to it, but it's there on the videotapes if anyone cares to notice. Bill said it wasn't real bright. He's got a point."

"Maybe," the FBI Director allowed. "But as a practical matter"

"I know, Dan, there are the practical considerations, but it is a real problem."

"Yeah, well, Clark's thinking about maybe going a little public on Rainbow. One of his people brought it up, he tells me. If you want to deter terrorism, you might want to let the word get out there's a new sheriff in town, he said. Anyway, he hasn't made any decision for an official recommendation to the Agency, but evidently he's kicking the idea around."

"Interesting," Gus Werner said. "I can see the point, especially after three successful operations. Hey, if I were one of those idiots, I'd think twice before having the Wrath of God descend on me. But they don't think like normal people, do they?"

"Not exactly, but deterrence is deterrence, and John has me thinking about it now. We could leak the data at several levels, let the word out that there's a secret multinational counterterror team now operating." Murray paused. "Not take them black to white, but maybe black to gray."

"What will the Agency say?" Werner asked.

"Probably no, with an exclamation point behind it," the Director admitted. "But like I said, John has me thinking about it a little."

"I can see his point, Dan. If the world knows about it, maybe people will think twice, but then people will start to ask questions, and reporters show up, and pretty soon you have people's faces on the front page of USA Today, along with articles about how they screwed up on a job, written by somebody who can't even put a clip in a gun the right way."

"They can put a D-Notice on stories in England," Murray reminded him. "At least they won't make the local papers."

"Fine, so then they come out in the Washington Post, and nobody reads that, right?" Werner snorted. And he well knew the problems that the FBI's HRT had gotten into with Waco and Ruby Ridge after his tenure as commander of the unit. The media had screwed up the reporting of events in both cases-as usual, he thought, but that was the media for you. "How many people are into Rainbow?"

"About a hundred… pretty big number for a black outfit. I mean, their security hasn't been broken yet that we know of, but-"

"But as Bill Henriksen said, anybody who knows the difference 'tween a Huey and a Black Hawk knows that there was something odd about the Worldpark job. Hard to keep secrets, isn't it?"

"Sure as hell, Gus. Anyway, give the idea some thought, will you?"

"Will do. Anything else?"

"Yeah, also from Clark-does anybody think three terrorist incidents since Rainbow set up is a big number? Might somebody be activating cells of bad guys and turning them loose? If so, who, and if so, what for?"

"Christ, Dan, we get our European intelligence from them, remember? Who's the guy they have working the spook side?"

"Bill Tawney's his chief analyst. `Six' guy, pretty good as a matter of fact-I know him from when I was the legal attach+й in London a few years ago. He doesn't know, either. They're wondering if some old KGB guy or something like that might be traveling around, telling the sleeping vampires to wake up and suck some blood."

Werner considered that for about half a second or so before speaking. "If so, he hasn't been a raving success. The operations have some of the earmarks of professionalism, but not enough of it to matter. Hell, Dan, you know the drill. If the bad guys are in the same place for more than an hour, we descend on them and take them out the instant they screw up. Professional terrorists or not, they are not well-trained people, they don't have anything like our resources, and they surrender the initiative to us sooner or later. All we need to know is where they are, remember? After that, the thunderbolt is in our hands."

"Yeah, and you have zapped a few, Gus. And that's why we need better intelligence, to zap them before they show up on the radarscope of their own accord."

"Well, one thing I can't do is their intel for them. They're closer to the sources than we are," Werner said, "and I bet they don't send us everything they have anyway."

They can't. Too much of it to fax back and forth."

"Okay, yes, three hard incidents looks like a lot, but we can't tell if it's just coincidence or part of a plan unless we have people to ask. Like a live terrorist. Clark's boys haven't taken anyone alive yet, have they?"

"Hope," Murray agreed. "That's not part of their mission statement."

"So tell them that if they want hard intel, they have to have somebody with a live brain and a mouth after the shooting stops." But Werner knew that that wasn't easy under the best of circumstances. Just as taking tigers alive was far harder than taking them dead, it was difficult to capture someone possessing a loaded submachine gun and the will to use it. Even the HRT shooters, who were trained to bring them in alive in order to toss them in front of a Federal District Court judge for proper sentencing and caging at Marion, Illinois, hadn't done well in that area. And Rainbow was made up of soldiers for whom the niceties of law were somewhat foreign. The Hague Convention established rules for war that were looser than anything found in the United States Constitution. You couldn't kill prisoners, but you had to capture them alive before they were prisoners, and that was something armies generally didn't emphasize.

"Does our friend Mr. Clark require any more guidance from us?" Werner asked.

"Hey, he's on our side, remember?"

"He's a good guy, yes. Hell, Dan, I met with him while they were setting Rainbow up, and I let him have one of our best troops in Timmy Noonan, and I'll grant you he's done a great job-three of them so far. But he's not one of us, Dan. He doesn't think like a cop, but if he wants better intel, that's what he has to do. Tell him that, will ya?"

"I will, Gus," Murray promised. Then they moved on to other things.

"So what are we supposed to do?" Stanley asked. "Shoot the bloody guns out of their hands? That only happens in the cinema, John."

"Weber did exactly that, remember?"

"Yes, and that was against policy, and we damned well can't encourage it," Alistair replied.

"Come on, Al, if we want better intelligence information, we have to capture some alive, don't we?"

"Fine, if possible, which it rarely will be, John. Blood rarely."

"I know," Rainbow Six conceded. "But can we at least get the boys to think about it?"

"It's possible, but to make that sort of decision on the fly is difficult at best."

"We need the intel, Al," Clark persisted.

"True, but not at the cost of death or injury to one of our men."

"All things in life are a compromise of some sort," Rainbow Six observed. "Would you like to have some hard intelligence information on these people?"

"Of course, but-"

"'But,' my ass. If we need it, let's figure a way to get it," Clark persisted.

"We're not police constables, John. That is not part of our mission."

"Then we're going to change the mission. If it becomes possible to take a subject alive, then we'll give it a try. You can always shoot'em in the head if it's not. The guy Homer took with that gut shot. We could have taken him alive, Al. He wasn't a direct threat to anyone. Okay, he deserved it, and he was standing out in the open with a weapon, and our training said kill, and sure enough, Johnston took the shot, and decided to make a statement of his own because he wanted to-but it would have been just as easy to take out his kneecap, in which case we'd have somebody to talk to now, and maybe he would have sung like most of them do, and then maybe we'd know something we'd sure as hell like to know now, wouldn't we?"

"Quite so, John," Stanley conceded. Arguing with Clark wasn't easy. He'd come to Rainbow with the reputation of a CIA knuckle dragger, but that's not what he was at all, the Brit reminded himself.

"We just don't know enough, and I don't like not knowing enough about the environment. I think Ding's right. Somebody's setting these bastards loose. If we can figure out a little about that, then maybe we can locate the guy and have the local cops put the bag on him wherever he is, and then maybe we can have a friendly little chat and maybe the ultimate result will be fewer incidents to go out and take risks on." The ultimate goal of Rainbow was an odd one, after all: to train for missions that rarely-if ever-came, to be the fire department in a town with no fires.

"Very well, John. We should talk with Peter and Domingo about it first of all, I think."

"Tomorrow morning, then." Clark stood from his desk. "How about a beer at the club?"

"Dmitriy Arkadeyevich, I haven't seen you in quite some time," the man said.

"Four years," Popov confirmed. They were in London, at a pub three blocks from the Russian Embassy. He'd taken the train here just on the off chance that one of his former colleagues might show up, and so one had, I van Petrovich Kirilenko. Ivan Petrovich had been a rising star, a few years younger than Popov, a skilled field officer who'd made full colonel at the age of thirty-eight. Now, he was probably

"You are the rezident for Station London now?"

"I am not allowed to say such things, Dmitriy." Kirilenko smiled and nodded even so. He'd come very far and very fast in a downsized agency of the Russian government, and was doubtless still actively pursuing political and other intelligence, or rather, had a goodly staff of people to do it for him. Russia was worried about NATO expansion; the alliance once so threatening to the Soviet Union was now advancing eastward toward his country's borders, and some in Moscow worried, as they were paid to worry, that this could be the precursor to an attack on the Motherland. Kirilenko knew this was rubbish, as did Popov, but even so he was paid to make sure of it. and the new rezident was doing his job as instructed. "So, what are you doing now?"

"I am not permitted to say." Which was the obvious reply. It could mean anything, but in the context of their former organization, it meant that Popov was still a player of some sort. What sort, Kirilenko didn't know, though lied heard that Dmitriy Arkadeyevich had been RIF'd from the organization. That had been a surprise to him.

Popov still enjoyed an excellent service reputation as a field spook. "I am living between worlds now, Vanya. I work for a commercial business, but I perform other duties as well," he allowed. The truth was so often a useful tool, in the service of lies.

"You did not appear here by accident," Kirilenko pointed out.

"True. I hoped to see a colleague here." The pub was too close to the Embassy on Palace Green, Kensington, for serious work, but it was a comfortable place, for casual meets, and besides, Kirilenko believed his status as rezident to be entirely secret. Showing up in a place like this enhanced that. No real spook, everybody knew, would take the chance. "I need some help with something."

"What might that be?" the intelligence officer asked, over a sip of bitter.

"A report on a CIA officer who is probably known to us."

"The name?"

"John Clark."

"Why?"

"He is now, I believe, the leader of a black operation based here in England. I would like to offer the information I have on the man in return for whatever information you might have. I can perhaps add a few things to that dossier. I believe my information will be of interest," Popov concluded mildly. In context, it was a large promise.

"John Clark," Kirilenko repeated. "I will see what I can do for you. You have my number?"

Popov slipped a piece of paper on the bar unseen. "Here is my number. No. Do You have a card?"

"Certainly." The Russian pocketed the scrap of paper and pulled out his wallet and handed the card over. I. P. Kirilenko, it said, Third Secretary, Russian Embassy, London. 0181-567-9008, with -9009 as the fax number. Popov pocketed the card. "Well, I must get back. Good to see you, Dmitriy." The rezident set his glass down and walked out onto the street.

"Get the picture?" one "Five" man said to the other on the way out the door, about forty seconds behind their surveillance target.

"Well not good enough for the National Portrait Gallery, but…" The problem with covert cameras was that the lenses were too small to make a really good photo. They were usually good enough for identification purposes, however, and he'd gotten eleven exposures, which. combined with computer-enhancement, should be entirely adequate. Kirilenko, they knew, thought his cover to be adequate. He didn't and couldn't know that "Five," once called MI5, and now officially called the Security Service. had its own source inside the Russian Embassy. The Great Game was still ongoing in London and elsewhere, new world order or not. They hadn't caught Kirilenko in a compromising act yet, but he was the rezident, after all, and therefore not given to such action. But you tracked such people anyway, because you knew who they were, and sooner or later, you got something on them, or from them. Like the chap he'd just had a beer with. Not a regular for this pub-they knew who they were. No name. Just some photos that would be compared with the library of photos at "Five's" new headquarters building, Thames House, right on the river near Lambeth Bridge.

Popov stepped outside, turned left, and walked past Kensington Palace to catch a cab to the train station. Now, if only Kirilenko could get him something of use. He should be able to. He'd offered something juicy in return.