The Bear and the Dragon

CHAPTER 15

“What's this mean, Ben?” Ryan asked, seeing a change in his morning schedule.

“Ed and Mary Pat want to talk something over with you. They didn’t say what it was,” Goodley replied. “The Vice President can be here, too, and me, but that’s it, they requested.”

“Some new kind of toilet paper in the Kremlin, I suppose,” POTUS said. It was a long-standing CIA joke from Ryan’s time in the Bad Old Days of the Cold War. He stirred his coffee and leaned back in his comfortable chair. “Okay, what else is happening in the world, Ben?”

“So, this is mao-tai?” Cardinal DiMilo asked. He didn’t add that he’d been given to understand that Baptists didn’t drink alcoholic beverages. Odd, considering that Jesus’ first public miracle had been to change water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana. But Christianity had many faces. In any case, the mao-tai was vile, worse than the cheapest grappa. With advancing years, the Cardinal preferred gentler drinks. It was much easier on the stomach.

“I should not drink this,” Yu admitted, “but it is part of my heritage.”

“I know of no passage in Holy Scripture that prohibits this particular human weakness,” the Catholic said. And besides, wine was part of the Catholic liturgy. He saw that his Chinese host barely sipped at his tiny cup. Probably better for his stomach, too, the Italian reasoned.

He’d have to get used to the food, too. A gourmet like many Italians, Renato Cardinal DiMilo found that the food in Beijing was not as good as he’d experienced in Rome’s numerous Chinese restaurants. The problem, he thought, was the quality of the ingredients rather than the cook. In this case, the Reverand Yu’s wife was away in Taiwan to see her sick mother, he’d said, apologizing on the Catholic’s arrival. Monsignor Schepke had taken over the serving, rather like a young lieutenant-aide serving the needs of his general, Yu had thought, watching ‘the drama play out with some amusement. The Catholics certainly had their bureaucratic ways. But this Renato fellow was a decent sort, clearly an educated man, and a trained diplomat from whom Yu realized he might learn much.

“So, you cook for yourself. How did you learn?”

“Most Chinese men know how. We learn from our parents as children.”

DiMilo smiled. “I, as well, but I have not cooked for myself in years. The older I get the less they allow me to do for myself, eh, Franz?”

“I have my duties also, Eminence,” the German answered. He was drinking the mao-tai with a little more gusto. Must be nice to have a young stomach lining, both the older men thought.

“So, how do you find Beijing?” Yu asked.

“Truly fascinating. We Romans think that our city is ancient and redolent with history, but Chinese culture was old before the Romans set one stone upon another. And the art we saw yesterday…

“The jade mountain,” Schepke explained. “I spoke with the guide, but she didn’t know about the artists involved, or the time required to carve it.”

“The names of artisans and the time they needed-these were not matters of importance to the emperors of old. There was much beauty then, yes, but much cruelty as well.”

“And today?” Renato asked.

“Today as well, as you know, Eminence,” Yu confirmed with a long sigh. They spoke in English, and Yu’s Oklahoma accent fascinated his visitors. “The government lacks the respect for human life, which you and I would prefer.”

“Changing that will not be simple,” Monsignor Schepke added. The problem wasn’t limited to the communist PRC government. Cruelty had long been part of Chinese culture, to the point that someone had once said that China was too vast to be governed with kindness, an aphorism picked up with indecent haste by the left wings of the world, ignoring the explicit racism in such a statement. Perhaps the problem was that China had always been crowded, and in crowds came anger, and in anger came a callous disregard for others. Nor had religion helped. Confucius, the closest thing China had developed to a great religious leader, preached conformity as a person’s best action. While the Judeo-Christian tradition talked of transcendent values of right and wrong, and the human rights that devolved from them, China saw authority as Society, not God. For that reason, Cardinal DiMilo thought, communism had taken root here. Both societal models were alike in their absence of an absolute rule of right and wrong. And that was dangerous. In relativism lay man’s downfall, because, ultimately, if there were no absolute values, what difference was there between a man and a dog? And if there were no such difference, where was man’s fundamental dignity? Even a thinking atheist could mark religion’s greatest gift to human society: human dignity, the value placed on a single human life, the simple idea that man was more than an animal. That was the foundation of all human progress, because without it, human life was doomed to Thomas Hobbes’s model, “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Christianity-and Judaism, and Islam, which were also religions of The Book-required merely that man believe in that which was self-evident: There was order in the universe, and that order came from a source, and that source was called God. Christianity didn’t even require that a man believe in that idea-not anymore, anyway-just that he accept the sense of it, and the result of it, which was human dignity and human progress. Was that so hard?

It was for some. Marxism, in condemning religion as “the opiate of the people,” merely prescribed another, less effective drug-”the radiant future,” the Russians had called it, but it was a future they’d never been able to deliver. In China, the Marxists had shown the good sense to adopt some of the forms of capitalism to save their country s economy, but not to adopt the principle of human freedom that usually came along with it. That had worked to this point, DiMilo thought, only because Chinese culture had a preexisting model of conformity and acceptance of authority from above. But how long would that last? And how long could China prosper without some idea of the difference between what was right and what was wrong? Without that information, China and the Chinese were doomed to perdition. Someone had to bring the Good News of Jesus to the Chinese, because with that came not only eternal salvation, but temporal happiness as well. Such a fine bargain, and yet there were those too stupid and too blind to accept it. Mao had been one. He’d rejected all forms of religion, even Confucius and the Lord Buddha. But when he’d lain dying in his bed, what had Chairman Mao thought? To what Radiant Future had he looked forward then? What did a communist think on his deathbed? The answer to that question was something none of the three clergymen wanted to know, or to face.

“I was disappointed to see the small number of Catholics here-not counting foreigners and diplomats, of course. How bad is the persecution?”

Yu shrugged. “It depends on where you are, and the political climate, and the personality of the local party leadership. Sometimes they leave us alone-especially when foreigners are here, with their TV cameras. Sometimes they can become very strict, and sometimes they can harass us directly. I have been questioned many times, and been subjected to political counseling.” He looked up and smiled. “It’s like having a dog bark at you, Eminence. You need not answer back. Of course, you will be spared any of that,” the Baptist pointed out, noting DiMilo’s diplomatic status, and his resulting personal inviolability.

The cardinal caught that reference, somewhat to his discomfort. He didn’t see his life as any more valuable than anyone else’s. Nor did he wish his faith to appear less sincere than this Chinese Protestant’s, who’d been educated at some pretentious pseudo-university in the American prairie, whereas he had acquired his knowledge in some of the most ancient and honored institutions of higher learning on the planet, whose antecedents went back to the Roman empire, and beyond that, to the chambers of Aristotle himself. If there was one vanity Renato Cardinal DiMilo possessed, it was in his education. He’d been superbly educated, and he knew it. He could discuss Plato’s Republic in Attic Greek, or the law cases of Marcus Tullius Cicero in Imperial Latin. He could debate a committed Marxist on the attributes of that political philosophy in the same language the German Marx himself had spoken-and win, because Marx had left a lot of unfilled holes in the walls of his political theories. He’d forgotten more about human nature than some psychologists knew. He was in the Vatican’s diplomatic service because he could read minds-better than that, he could read the minds of politicians and diplomats highly skilled in concealing their thoughts. He could have been a gambler of talent and riches with these skills, but instead he applied them for the Greater Glory of God.

His only failing was that, like all men, he could not predict the future, and thus could not see the world war that this meeting would ultimately bring about.

“So, does the government harass you?” the Cardinal asked his host.

A shrug. “Occasionally. I propose to hold a prayer service in public to test their willingness to interfere with my human rights. There is some danger involved, of course.”

It was a challenge skillfully delivered, and the elderly Catholic cleric rose to it: “Keep Franz and me informed, if you would.”

“SONGBIRD?” Ryan asked. “What can you tell me about him?”

“Do you really want to know, Jack?” Ed Foley asked, somewhat pointedly.

“You telling me I ought not to know?” Ryan responded. Then he realized that Robby Jackson and Ben Goodley were here as well, and he could know things which they could not. Even at this level, there were rules of classification. The President nodded. “Okay, we’ll let that one go for now.”

“The overall operation is called SORGE. That’ll change periodically,” Mary Pat told the assembled audience. Unusually, the Secret Service had been hustled out of the Oval Office for this briefing-which told the USSS a lot more than CIA would have liked-and also a special jamming system had been switched on. It would interfere with any electronic device in the room. You could see that from the TV set to the left of the President’s desk, tuned to CNN. The screen was now full of snow, but with the sound turned all the way down, there was no annoying noise to disturb the meeting. The possibility of a bug in this most secure of rooms was slight, but so great was the value of SORGE that this card was being played as well. The briefing folders had already been passed out. Robby looked up from his.

“Notes from the Chinese Politburo? Lordy,” Vice President Jackson breathed. “Okay, no sources and methods. That’s cool with me, guys. Now, how reliable is it?”

“For the moment, reliability is graded ‘B+’ “Mary Pat answered. “We expect to upgrade that later on. The problem is that we don’t grade ‘A’ or higher without outside confirmation, and this stuff is so deep inside that we have no other asset to verify what we have here.”

“Oops,” Jackson observed. “So it could all be a false flag. Pretty one, I admit, but false even so.”

“Perhaps, but unlikely. There’s stuff here that is awfully sensitive to let out voluntarily, even for a major sting operation.”

“So I see,” Ryan partially agreed. “But I remember what Jim Greer used to say: Ain’t nothing too crazy to be true. Our fundamental problem with these guys is that their culture is so different in so many ways that they might as well be Klingons.”

“Well, they don’t display much love for us in this,” Ben Goodley observed, flipping halfway through the briefing folder. “Jesus, this is interesting material. We going to show it to Scott Adler?”

“That’s our recommendation,” the DCI agreed. “Adler is pretty good at figuring people out and his take on some of this-especially page five-will be very interesting. Tony Bretano, too.”

“Okay, that’s EAGLE and THUNDER. Who else?” Ryan asked.

“That’s all for now,” Ed Foley said, with a nod from his wife. “Mr. Pres-”

Ryan’s eyes flared a little. “My name is…

The DCI held up his hand. “Okay. Jack, let’s keep this one real close for a while. We’ll figure a way to launder the information so that some others can know what we’ve learned. But not how. Not ever that. SONGBIRD’S too precious an asset to lose.”

“This is potentially right up there with CARDINAL, isn’t it?”

“Maybe even better, Jack,” Mary Pat said. “This is like having a bug in the boardroom, and we’ve streamlined our methods on this one. We’re being very, very careful with this source."

“Okay, what about analysts?” Ben Goodley asked. “Our best guy with the PRC is Professor Weaver up at Brown University. You know him, Ed.”

Foley nodded. “Yeah, I know him, but let’s hold off for a while. We have a pretty good guy in-house. Let me see what he can develop for us before we start farming things out. By the way, we’re looking at something like a total of fifteen hundred printed pages from this source, plus daily information from now on.”

Ryan looked up at that one. Daily information. How the hell had they arranged that? Back to business, he told himself. “Okay, for one thing, I want an evaluation of the Zhang Han San character,” Ryan said. “I’ve seen this bastard’s name before. He started two wars we got pulled into. What the hell is he all about?”

“We have a psychiatrist on staff to work on that,” Mary Foley replied. After she didn’t say, we scrub this information clean of source-related material. “He does our profiling.”

“Okay, yeah, I remember him.” Ryan nodded agreement on this point. “Anything else?”

“Just the usual,” Ed Foley said as he stood. “Don’t leave these documents on your desk, okay?”

They all nodded agreement. They all had personal safes for that purpose, and every one was wired into the Secret Service command center, and was on round-the-clock TV surveillance. The White House was a good place to store documents, and besides, the secretaries were cleared higher than God. Mary Pat left the office with a special spring in her step. Ryan waved for his Vice President to stay as the rest walked toward the West Entrance.

“What do you think?” SWORDSMAN asked TOMCAT.

“This looks pretty damned hot, Jack. Jesus, boy, how the hell do they get stuff like this?”

“If they ever get around to telling me, I can’t tell you, Rob, and I’m not sure I want to know. It isn’t always pretty.”

The retired fighter pilot agreed. “I believe it. Not quite the same as catapulting off the boat and shooting the bastard in the lips, is it?”

“But just as important.”

“Hey, Jack, I know. Battle of Midway, like. Joe Rochefort and his band of merry men at FRUPAC back in ‘42 saved our country a lot of hassles with our little yellow friends in WestPac when they told Nimitz what was coming.”

“Yeah, Robby, well, looks like we have more of the same sort of friends. If there’s operational stuff in here, I want your opinion of it.”

“I can do that already. Their army and what passes for a navy are talking in the open about how they take us on, how to counter carriers and stuff like that. It’s mostly pipe dreams and self-delusion, but my question is, why the hell are they putting this in the open? Maybe to impress the unwashed of the world-reporters and the other idiots who don’t know shit about war at sea-and maybe to impress their own people with how smart and how tough they are. Maybe to put more heat on the ROC government on Taiwan, but if they want to invade, they have something to do first, like building a real navy with real amphibious capability. But that would take ten years, and we’d probably notice all the big gray canoes in the water. They’ve got some submarines, and the Russians, of all people, are selling them hardware-just forked over a Sovremenny-class DDG, complete with Sunburn missiles, supposedly. Exactly what they want to do with them, I have no idea. It’s not the way I’d build up a navy, but they didn’t ask me for advice. What freaks me is, the Russians sold them the hardware, and they’re selling some other stuff, too. Crazy,” the Vice President concluded.

“Tell me why,” POTUS commanded.

“Because once upon a time a guy named Genghis Khan rode all the way to the Baltic Sea-like, all the way across Russia. The Russkies have a good sense of history, Jack. They ain’t forgot that. If I’m a Russian, what enemies do I have to worry about? NATO? The Poles? Romania? I don’t think so. But off to my southeast is a great big country with a shitload of people, a nice large collection of weapons, and a long history of killing Russians. But I was just an operations guy, and sometimes I get a little paranoid about what my counterparts in other countries might be thinking.” Robby didn’t have to add that the Russians had invented paranoia once upon a time.

“This is madness!” Bondarenko swore. “There are many ways to prove Lenin was right, but this is not the one I would choose!” Vladimir Il’ych Ulyanov had once said that the time would come when the capitalist countries would bid among themselves to sell to the Soviet Union the rope with which the Soviet Union would later hang them. He hadn’t anticipated the death of the country he’d founded, and certainly not that the next Russia might be the one doing what he had predicted.

Golovko could not disagree with his guest. He’d made a similar argument, though with fewer decibels, in the office of President Grushavoy. “Our country needs the hard currency, Gennady Iosifovich.”

“Indeed. And perhaps someday we will also need the oil fields and the gold mines of Siberia. What will we do when the Chinks take those away from us?” Bondarenko demanded.

“The Foreign Ministry discounts that possibility’ Sergey Nikolay’ch replied.

“Fine. Will those foreign-service pansies take up arms if they are proven wrong, or will they wring their hands and say it isn’t their fault? I am spread too thin for this. I cannot stop a Chinese attack, and so now we sell them the T-99 tank design…

“It will take them five years to bring about series production, and by that time we will have the T-10 in production at Chelyabinsk, will we not?”

That the People’s Liberation Army had four thousand of the Russian-designed T-80/90 tanks was not discussed. That had happened years earlier. But the Chinese had not used the Russian-designed 115-mm gun, opting instead for the 105-mm rifled gun sold to them by Israel Defense Industries, known to America as the M-68. They came complete with three million rounds of ammunition made to American specifications, down to the depleted uranium projectiles, probably made with uranium depleted by the same reactors that made plutonium for their nuclear devices. What was it about politicians? Bondarenko wondered. You could talk and talk and talk to them, but they never listened! It had to be a Russian phenomenon, the general thought, rather than a political one. Stalin had executed the intelligence officer who’d predicted-correctly, as it turned out-the German attack of June 1941 on the Soviet Union. And that one had come within sight of Moscow. Executed him, why? Because his prediction was less pleasing than that of Levrenti Beriya, who’d had the good sense to say what Stalin had wanted to hear. And Beriya had survived being completely wrong. So much for the rewards of patriotism.

“If we have the money for it, and if Chelyabinsk hasn’t been retooled to make fucking washing machines!” Russia had cannibalized its defense infrastructure even more quickly than America had. Now there was talk of converting the MiG airplane plants to automobile production.

Would this never stop? Bondarenko thought. He had a potentially hostile nation next door, and he was years away from rebuilding the Russian Army into the shape he wished. But to do that meant asking President Grushavoy for something that he knew he couldn’t have. To build a proper army, he had to pay the soldiers a living wage, enough to attract the patriotic and adventurous boys who wanted to wear their country’s uniform for a few years, and most particularly those who found that they enjoyed uniformed life enough to make a career of it, to become sergeants, the middle-level professional soldiers without whom an army simply could not function, the sinews that held the muscles to the bone. To make that happen, a good platoon sergeant had to make almost as much money as a skilled factory worker, which was only fair, since the demands of such a man were on the same intellectual level. The rewards of a uniformed career could not be duplicated in a television plant. The comradeship, and the sheer joy of soldiering, was something to which a special sort of man responded. The Americans had such men, as did the British and the Germans, but these priceless professionals had been denied the Russian Army since the time of Lenin, the first of many Soviet leaders who’d sacrificed military efficiency in favor of the political purity the Soviet Union had insisted upon. Or something like that, Bondarenko thought. It all seemed so distant now, even to one who’d grown up within the misbegotten system.

“General, please remember that I am your friend in the government,” Golovko reminded him. Which was just as well. The Defense Minister was-well, he spoke the right words, but he wasn’t really able to think the right thoughts. He could repeat what others told him, and that was about it. In that sense, he was the perfect politician.

“Thank you, Sergey Nikolay’ch.” The general inclined his head with the proper respect. “Does that mean that I can count upon some of these riches that Fate has dropped into our lap?”

“At the proper time I will make the proper recommendation to the president.”

By that time, I will be retired, writing my memoirs, or whatever the hell a Russian general is supposed to do, Bondarenko told himself. But at least I can try to get the necessary programs drafted for my successors, and perhaps help choose the right man to follow me into the operations directorate. He didn’t expect to go any further than he already had. He was chief of operations (which included training) for his army, and that was as fine a goal as any man could ask for his career.

“Thank you, Comrade Minister. I know your job is also difficult. So, is there anything I need to know about the Chinese?”

Minister Golovko wished he could tell this general that SVR didn’t have a decent pipeline into the PRC anymore. Their man, a second-deputy minister, long in the employ of the KGB, had retired on grounds of ill health.

But he could not make the admission that the last Russian source inside the Forbidden City was no longer operational, and with him had gone all the insights they needed to evaluate the PRC’s long-term plans and intentions. Well, there was still the Russian ambassador in Beijing, and he was no one’s fool, but a diplomat saw mainly what the host government wanted him to see. The same was true of the military, naval, and air attaches, trained intelligence officers all, but also limited to what the Chinese military wished them to see, and even that had to be reciprocated every step of the way in Moscow, as though in some elegant international waltz. No, there was no substitute for a trained intelligence officer running agents who looked inside the other government, so that he, Golovko, could know exactly what was going on and report on it to his president. It wasn’t often that Golovko had to report that he did not know enough, but it had happened in this ease, and he would not confess his shortcomings to this soldier, senior one or not.

“No, Gennady Iosifovich, I have nothing to indicate that the Chinese seek to threaten us.”

“Comrade Minister, the discoveries in Siberia are too vast for them not to consider the advantage to be had from seizing them. In their place, I would draw up the necessary plans. They import oil, and these new fields would obviate that necessity, and make them rich in the foreign exchange they seek. And the gold, Comrade, speaks for itself, does it not?”

“Perhaps.” Golovko nodded. “But their economy seems healthy at the moment, and wars are not begun by those already rich.”

“Hitler was prosperous enough in 1941. That did not prevent him from driving his army to within sight of this building,” the chief of operations for the Russian army pointed out. “If your neighbor has an apple tree, sometimes you will pick an apple even if your belly is full. Just for the taste, perhaps,” Bondarenko suggested.

Golovko couldn’t deny the logic of that. “Gennady Josifovich, we are of a kind. We both look out for dangers even when they are not obvious. You would have made a fine intelligence officer.”

“Thank you, Comrade Minister.” The three-star toasted his host with his almost empty vodka glass. “Before I leave my office, it is my hope to lay before my successor a plan, the accomplishment of which will make our country invulnerable to attack from any country. I know I will not be able myself to make that happen, but I will be grateful for the ability to set a firm plan in place, if our political leadership can see the merit of our ideas.” And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? The Russian army might be able to deal with external enemies. It was the internal ones which formed the really intractable problem. You usually knew where your enemy stood, because you faced them. Where your friends stood was more difficult, because they were usually behind you.

“I will make sure you present the case yourself to the cabinet. But”-Golovko held up his hand-”you must wait for the right moment.”

“I understand, and let us hope the Chinese allow us the time for that moment.” Golovko tossed off the last of his drink and rose. “Thanks for letting me come in to bare my heart to you, Comrade Chairman.”

“So, where is he?” Provalov demanded.

“I do not know,” Abramov replied tiredly. “We’ve identified one person who claims to know him, but our informant has no idea where he lives.”

“Very well. What do you know?” Moscow asked St. Petersburg.

“Our informant says that Suvorov is former KGB, RIF’d in 1996 or so, that he lives, probably, in St. Petersburg-but if that is true, he does so under an assumed name and false documents, or ‘Suvorov’ is itself a false name. I have a description. Male, fifty or so, average height and build. Thinning blond hair. Regular features. Blue eyes. Physically fit. Unmarried. Thought to frequent prostitutes. I have some people asking around those women for more information. Nothing yet,” the St. Petersburg investigator replied.

This is amazing, Lieutenant Provalov thought. All the resources we have, and we can‘t develop a single reliable piece of information. Was he chasing ghosts? Well, he had five of those already. Avseyenko, Maria Ivanovna Sablin, a driver whose name he couldn’t remember at the moment, and the two putative Spetsnaz killers, Pyotr Alekseyevich Amalrik and Pavel Borissovich Zimyanin. Three blown up spectacularly during a morning rush hour, and two murdered in St. Petersburg after having done the job-but killed for succeeding or failing?

“Well, let me know when you develop anything.”

“I will do that, Oleg Gregoriyevich,” Abramov promised.

The militia lieutenant hung up his phone and cleared his desk, putting all his “hot” files into the locked drawer, then he walked downstairs to his official car and drove to his favorite bar. Reilly was inside, and waved when he came through the door. Provalov hung up his coat on a hook and walked over to shake hands. He saw that a drink was waiting for him.

“You are a true comrade, Mishka,” the Russian said to his American friend as he took his first slug.

“Hey, I know the problem, pal,” the FBI agent said sympathetically.

“It is this way for you as well.”

“Hell, when I was a brand-new brick agent, I started working the Gotti case. We busted our asses bagging that lowlife. Took three juries to put him in Marion. He’s never coming back. Marion is a particularly nasty prison.” Though “nasty” in American terms was different from the Russian. Russian prisons didn’t really bear thinking about, though Reilly didn’t worry much about that. People who broke the law in any society knew about the possible consequences going in, and what happened when they got caught was their problem, not his. “So, what’s the story?”

“This Suvorov. We can’t find him. Mishka, it is as if he doesn’t exist.”

“Really?” It both was and was not a surprise to Reilly. The former, because Russia, like many European societies, kept track of people in ways that would have started a Second American Revolution. The cops here were supposed to know where everybody lived, a carryover from the Bad Old Days when KGB had kept a third of the population as informers on the other two-thirds. It was an uncommon situation for the local cops not to be able to find someone.

The situation was not surprising, however, because if this Suvorov mutt really was a former KGB officer, then he’d been expertly trained to disappear, and that sort of adversary didn’t just die of the dumbs, like most American and Russian hoods did. Nor would he die from talking too much. Your average criminals acted-well, like criminals. They bragged too much, and to the wrong people, other criminals for the most part, who had the loyalty of rattlesnakes and would sell out a “friend” as readily as taking a piss. No, this Suvorov guy, if he was who and what the informants said he was, was a pro, and they made interesting game for interesting hunts, and usually long hunts at that.

But you always got them in the end, because the cops never stopped looking, and sooner or later, he’d make a mistake, maybe not a big one, but big enough. He wouldn’t be hanging with his former buds in KGB, people who would help keep him hidden, and would only talk among themselves and then not much. No, he was in a different milieu now, not a friendly one, not a safe one, and that was just too damned bad. Reilly had occasionally felt a certain sympathy for a criminal, but never for a killer. There were some lines you just couldn’t cross.

“He has dived into a hole and then covered it up from inside,” the Russian said, with some frustration.

“Okay, what do we know about him?”

Provalov related what he’d just learned. “They say they will be asking whores if they might know him.”

“Good call.” Reilly nodded. “I bet he likes the high-end ones. Like our Miss Tanya, maybe. You know, Oleg, maybe he knew Avseyenko. Maybe he knows some of his girls.”

“That is possible. I can have my men check them out as well.”

“Can’t hurt,” the FBI agent agreed, waving to the bartender for a couple of refills. “You know, buddy, you’ve got yourself a real investigation happening here. I kinda' wish I was on your force to help out.”

“You enjoy this?”

“Bet your ass, Oleg. The harder the case, the more thrilling the chase. And it feels real good at the end when you bag the bastards. When we convicted Gotti, damn if we didn’t have one big party in Manhattan. The Teflon Don,” Reilly said, hoisting his glass, and telling the air, “Hope you like it in Marion, boy.”

“This Gotti, he killed people, yes?” Provalov asked.

“Oh, yeah, some himself, and others he gave the orders. His number one boy, Salvatore Gravano-Sammy the Bull, they called him-turned government witness and helped make the case for us. So then we put Sammy in the witness-protection program, and the mutt starts dealing drugs again down in Arizona. So, Sammy’s back inside. The dummy.”

“They all are, as you say, criminals,” Provalov pointed out.

“Yeah, Oleg, they are. They’re too stupid to go straight. They think they can outsmart us. And y’know, for a while they do. But sooner or later…“ Reilly took a sip and shook his head.

“Even this Suvorov, you think?”

Reilly smiled for his new friend. “Oleg, do you ever make a mistake?”

The Russian grunted. “At least once a day.”

“So, why do you think they’re any smarter than you are?” the FBI agent asked. “Everybody makes mistakes. I don’t care if he’s driving a garbage truck or President of the fucking United States. We all fuck up every so often. It’s just part of being human. Thing is, if you recognize that fact, you can make it a lot further. Maybe this guy’s been well trained, but we all have weaknesses, and we’re not all smart enough to acknowledge them, and the smarter we are, the less likely we are to acknowledge them.”

“You are a philosopher,” Provalov said with a grin. He liked this American. They were of a kind, as though the gypsies had switched babies at birth or something.

“Maybe, but you know the difference between a wise man and a fool?”

“I am sure you will tell me.” Provalov knew how to spot pontification half a block away, and the one approaching had flashing red lights on the roof.

“The difference between a wise man and a fool is the magnitude of his mistakes. You don’t trust a fool with anything important.” The vodka was making him wax rhapsodic, Reilly thought. “But a wise man you do, and so the fool doesn’t have the chance to make a big screw up, while a wise man does. Oleg, a private can’t lose a battle, but a general can. Generals are smart, right? You have to be real smart to be a doc, but docs kill people by accident all the time. It is the nature of man to make mistakes, and brains and training don’t matter a rat-fuck. I make ‘em. You make ‘em.” Reilly hoisted his glass again. “And so does Comrade Suvorov.” It’ll be his dick, Reilly thought. If he likes to play with hookers, it’ll be his dick that does him in. Tough luck, bro. But he wouldn’t be the first to follow his dick into trouble, Reilly knew. He probably wouldn’t be the last, either.

“So did it all work?” Ming asked.

“Hhhhhh?” Nomuri responded. This was strange. She was supposed to be in the afterglow period, his arm still around her, while they both smoked the usual after-sex cigarette.

“I did what you wished with my computer. Did it work?”

“I’m not sure,” Nomuri tried as a reply. “I haven’t checked.”

“I do not believe that!” Ming responded, laughing. “I have thought about this. You have made me a spy!” she said, followed by a giggle.

“I did what?”

“You want me to make my computer accessible to you, so you can read all my notes, yes?”

“Do you care?” He’d asked her that once before, and gotten the right answer. Would it be true now? She’d sure as hell seen through his cover story. Well, that was no particular surprise, was it? If she weren’t smart, she’d be useless as a penetration agent. But knowing what she was…, how patriotic was she? Had he read her character right? He didn’t let his body tense next to hers, remarkably enough. Nomuri congratulated himself for mastering another lesson in the duplicity business.

A moment’s contemplation, then: “No.”

Nomuri tried not to let his breath out in too obvious an expression of relief.

“Well, then you need not concern yourself. From now on, you will do nothing at all.”

“Except this?” she asked with yet another giggle.

“As long as I continue to please you, I suppose!”

“Master Sausage!”

“Huh?”

“Your sausage pleases me greatly,” Ming explained, resting her head on his chest.

And that, Chester Nomuri thought, was sufficient to the moment.