The Sum of All Fears

25 RESOLUTION

“So, what's the story on the things?” the Second Officer asked, looking down at the cargo deck.

“Supposed to be the roof beams for a temple. Small one, I guess,” the First Officer noted. “How much more will these seas build…?”

“I wish we could slow down, Pete.”

“I've talked to him twice about it. Captain says he has a schedule to meet.”

“Tell that to the fuckin' ocean.”

“Haven't tried that. Who do you call?”

The Second Officer, who had the watch, snorted. The First Officer — the ship's second in command — was on the bridge to keep an eye on things. That was actually the Captain's job, but the ship's Master was asleep in his bed.

MV George McReady was pounding through thirty-foot waves, trying to maintain twenty knots, but failing, despite full cruising power on her engines. The sky was overcast, with occasional breaks in the clouds for the full moon to peek through. The storm was actually breaking up, but the wind was holding steady at sixty knots and the seas were still increasing somewhat. It was a typical North Pacific storm, both officers had already decided. Nothing about it made any sense. The air temperature was a balmy 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and the flying spray was freezing to ice that impacted the bridge windows like birdshot in duck season. The only good news was that the seas were right on the bow. George M was a freighter, not a cruise liner, and lacked antiroll stabilizers. In fact, the ride wasn't bad at all. The superstructure was set on the after portion of the ship, and that damped out most of the pitching motion associated with heavy seas. It also had the effect of reducing the officers' awareness of events at the forward end of the ship, a fact further accentuated by the reduced visibility from flying spray.

The ride also had a few interesting characteristics. When the bow plowed into an especially high wave, the ship slowed down. But the size of the ship meant that the bow slowed quicker than the stern, and as the deceleration forces fought to reduce the ship's speed, the hull rebelled by shuddering. In fact, the hull actually bent a few inches, something difficult to believe until it was seen.

“I served on a carrier once. They flex more than a foot in the middle. Once we were—”

“Look dead ahead, sir!” the helmsman called.

“Oh shit!” the Second Officer shouted. “Rogue wave!”

Suddenly there it was, a fifty footer just a hundred yards from the George M's blunt bow. The event was not unexpected. Two waves would meet and add their heights for a few moments, then diverge… The bow rose on the medium-size crest, then dropped before the onrushing green wall.

“Here we go!”

There wasn't time for the bow to climb over this one. The green water simply stepped over the bow as though it had never been there and kept rolling aft the five hundred feet to the superstructure. Both officers watched in detached fascination. There was no real danger to the ship — at least, they both told themselves, no immediate danger. The solid green mass came past the heavy cargo-handling masts and equipment, advancing at a speed of thirty miles per hour. The ship was already shuddering again, the bow having hit the lower portion of the wave, slowing the ship. In fact, the bow was still under water, since this wave was far broader than it was high, but the top portion was about to hit a white-painted steel cliff that was perpendicular to its axis of advance.

“Brace!” the Second Officer told the helmsman.

The crest of the wave didn't quite make the level of the bridge, but it did hit the windows of the senior officers' cabins. Instantly, there was a white vertical curtain of spray that blotted out the entire world. The single second it lasted seemed to stretch into a minute, then it cleared, and the ship's deck was exactly where it was supposed to be, though covered with seawater that was struggling to drain out the scuppers. George M took a 15-degree roll, then settled back down.

“Drop speed to sixteen knots, my authority,” the First Officer said.

“Aye,” the helmsman acknowledged.

“We're not going to break this ship while I'm on the bridge,” the senior officer announced.

“Makes sense to me, Pete.” The Second Officer was on his way to the trouble board, looking for an indicator light for flooding or other problems. The board was clear. The ship was designed to handle seas far worse than this, but safety at sea demanded vigilance. “Okay here, Pete.”

The growler phone rang. “Bridge, First Officer here.”

“What the hell was that?” the Chief Engineer demanded.

“Well, it was sorta a big wave, ChEng,” Pete answered laconically. “Any problems?”

“No kidding. It really clobbered the forward bulkhead. I thought I was gonna eat my window — looks like a porthole is cracked. I really think we might want to slow down some. I hate getting wet in bed, y'know?”

“I already ordered that.”

“Good.” The line clicked off.

“What gives?” It was the Captain in pajamas and bathrobe. He managed to see the last of the seawater draining off the main deck.

“Fifty-sixty-footer. I've dropped speed to sixteen. Twenty's too much for the conditions.”

“Guess you're right,” the Captain grumbled. Every extra hour alongside the dock meant fifteen thousand dollars, and the owners did not like extra expenses. “Build it back up soon as you can.” The captain withdrew before his bare feet got too cold.

“Will do,” Pete told the empty doorway.

“Speed fifteen point eight,” the helmsman reported.

“Very well.” Both officers settled back down and sipped at their coffee. It wasn't really frightening, just somewhat exciting, and the moonlit spray flying off the bow was actually rather beautiful to see. The First Officer looked down at the deck. It took a moment for him to realize.

“Hit the lights.”

“What's the problem?” The Second Officer moved two steps to the panel and flipped on the deck floods.

“Well, we still have one of them.”

“One of—” the junior officer looked down. “Oh. The other three…”

The First Officer shook his head. How could you describe the power of mere water? That's strong chain, too, the wave snapped it like yarn. Impressive."

The Second Officer picked up the phone and punched a button. “Bosun, our deck cargo just got swept over the side. I need a damage check on the front of the superstructure.” He didn't have to say that the check should be done from inside the structure.

An hour later, it was clear that they'd been lucky. The single strike from the deck cargo had landed right on a portion of the superstructure backed by sturdy steel beams. Damage was minor, some welding and painting to be done. That didn't change the fact that someone would have to cut down a new tree. Three of the four logs were gone, and that Japanese temple would have to wait.

The three logs, still chained together, were already well aft of the George M. They were still green, and started soaking up sea water, making them heavier still.

Cathy Ryan watched her husband's car pull out of the driveway. She was now past the stage of feeling bad for him. Now she was hurt. He wouldn't talk about it — that is, he didn't try to explain himself, didn't apologize, tried to pretend that… what? And then part of the time he said he didn't feel well, was too tired. Cathy wanted to talk it over, but didn't know how to begin. The male ego was a fragile thing, Dr. Caroline Ryan knew, and this had to be its most fragile spot. It had to be a combination of stress and fatigue and booze. Jack wasn't a machine. He was wearing down. She'd seen the symptoms months earlier. As much the commute as anything else. Two and a half, sometimes three hours every day in the car. The fact that he had a driver was something, but not much. Three more hours a day that he was away, thinking, working, not home where he belonged.

Am I helping or hurting? she asked herself. Is part of it my fault?

Cathy walked into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Okay, she wasn't a pink-cheeked kid anymore. There were worry lines around her mouth and squint lines around her eyes. She should have her spectacle prescription looked at. She was starting to get headaches during procedures, and she knew it could be a problem with her eyes — she was, after all, an ophthalmic surgeon — but like everyone else she was short of time and was putting off having her eyes looked at by another member of the Wilmer Eye Institute staff. Which was pretty dumb, she admitted to herself. She still had rather pretty eyes. At least the color didn't change, even though their refractive error might suffer from all the close work that her job mandated.

She was still quite slim. Wouldn't hurt to sweat off three or four pounds — better yet, to transfer that weight into her breasts. She was a small-breasted woman from a small-breasted family in a world that rewarded women for having udders to rival Elsie the Borden cow. Her usual joke that bust size was inversely proportional to brain size was a defense mechanism. She craved larger ones as a man always wanted a larger penis, but God or the gene pool had not chosen to give her those, and she would not submit to the vain ignominy of surgery — besides which she didn't like the numbers on that kind of surgery. Too many silicon implant cases developed complications.

The rest of her… her hair, of course, was always a mess, but surgical discipline absolutely prevented her from paying great attention to that. It was still blonde and short and very fine, and when Jack took the time to notice, he liked her hair. Her face was still pretty, despite the squint lines and worry lines. Her legs had always been pretty nice, and with all the walking she did at Hopkins/Wilmer, they had actually firmed up slightly. Cathy concluded that her looks were not the sort to make dogs bark when she passed. She was, in fact, still rather attractive. At least the other docs at the hospital thought so. Some of her senior medical students positively swooned over her, she liked to think. Certainly no one fought to escape her rounds.

She was also a good mother. Though Sally and Little Jack were still asleep, she never failed to look after them. Especially with Jack gone so much, Cathy filled in, even to the point of playing catch with her son during T-ball season (that was something that made her husband uncomfortably guilty whenever he learned of it). She cooked good meals when she had the time. Whatever the house needed, she either did herself or “contracted out”—Jack's phrase — to others.

She still loved her husband, and she let him know it. She had a good sense of humor, Cathy thought. She didn't let most things bother her. She never failed to touch Jack whenever the opportunity presented itself; she was a doctor, with a delicate touch. She talked to him, asked what he thought of something or other, let him know that she cared about him, cared about his opinions on things. There could be no doubt in his mind that he was still her man in every way. In fact, she loved him in every way a wife could. Cathy concluded that she wasn't doing anything wrong.

So, why didn't he — couldn't he…?

The face in the mirror was more puzzled than hurt, she thought. What else can I do? she asked it.

Nothing.

Cathy tried to set that aside. A new day was beginning. She had to get the kids ready for school. That meant setting breakfast up before they awoke. This part of life wasn't fair, of course. She was a surgeon, a professor of surgery, as a matter of fact, but the simple facts of life also said she was a mother, with mother's duties that her husband did not share, at least not on the early morning of a work day. So much for women's lib. She got into her robe and walked down to the kitchen. It could have been worse. Both kids liked oatmeal, and actually preferred the flavored instant kind. She boiled the water for it, then turned the range to low heat while she walked back to wake the little ones up. Ten minutes later, Sally and Little Jack were washed and dressed on their way to the kitchen. Sally arrived first, setting the TV to the Disney Channel in time for Mousercise. Cathy took her ten minutes of peace to look at the morning paper and drink her coffee.

On the bottom right-hand side of the front page was an article about Russia. Well, maybe that's one of the things that's bothering Jack. She decided to read it. Maybe she could talk to him, find out why he was so… distracted? Was it just that, maybe?

“… disappointed with the ability of CIA to deliver data on the problem. There are further rumors of an underway investigation. An administration official confirms the rumors that a senior CIA official is suspected of financial misconduct and also of sexual improprieties. The name of this official has not been revealed, but he is reportedly very senior and responsible for coordinating information for the administration…”

Sexual improprieties? What did that mean? Who was it?

He.

Very senior and responsible for…

That was Jack. That was her husband. That was the phrase they used for someone at his level. In a quiet moment of total clarity, she knew that it had to be.

Jack… playing around? My Jack?

It wasn't possible.

Was it?

His inability to perform, his tiredness, the drinking, the distraction? Was it possible that the reason he didn't… someone else was exciting him?

It wasn't possible. Not Jack. Not her Jack.

But why else…? She was still attractive — everyone thought so. She was still a good wife — there was no doubt of that? Jack wasn't ill. She would have caught any gross symptoms; she was a doctor, and a good one, and she knew she would not have missed anything important. She went out of her way to be nice to Jack, to talk to him, to let him know that she loved him, and…

Perhaps it wasn't likely, but was it possible?

Yes.

No. Cathy set the paper down and sipped at her coffee. Not possible. Not her Jack.

It was the last hour of the last leg in the manufacturing process. Ghosn and Fromm watched the lathe with what looked like detachment, but was in both cases barely controlled excitement. The Freon liquid being sprayed on the rotating metal prevented their seeing the product whose final manufacture was underway. That didn't help, even though both knew that seeing would not have helped in the least. The part of the plutonium mass being machined was hidden from their sight by other metal, and even if that had been otherwise, they both knew that their eyes were too coarse an instrument to detect imperfections. Both watched the machine read-out of the computer systems. Tolerances indicated by the machine were well within the twelve angstroms specified by Herr Doktor Fromm. They had to believe the computer, didn't they?

“Just a few more centimeters,” Ghosn said, as Bock and Qati joined them.

“You've never explained the Secondary part of the unit,” the Commander said. He'd taken to calling the bomb “the unit”.

Fromm turned, not really grateful for the distraction, though he knew he should be. “What do you wish to know?”

“I understand how the Primary works, but not the Secondary,” Qati said, simply and reasonably.

“Very well. The theoretical side of this is quite straightforward, once you understand the principle. That was the difficult part, you see, discovering the principle. It was thought at first that making the Secondary work was simply a matter of temperature — that is what distinguishes the center of a star, ja? Actually it is not, the first theoreticians overlooked the matter of pressure. That is rather strange in retrospect, but pioneering work is often that way. The key to making the Secondary work is managing the energy in such a way as to convert energy into pressure at the same time as you use its vast heat, and also to change its direction by ninety degrees. That is no small task when you are talking about redirecting seventy kilotons of energy,” Fromm said smugly. “However, the belief that to make the Secondary function is a matter of great theoretical difficulty, that is a fiction. The real insight Ulam and Teller had was a simple one, as most great insights are. Pressure is temperature. What they discovered — the secret — is that there is no secret. Once you understand the principles involved, what remains is just a question of engineering. Making the bomb work is computationally, not technically, demanding. The difficult part is to make the weapon portable. That is pure engineering,” Fromm said again.

“Soda straws?” Bock asked, knowing that his countryman wanted to be asked about that. He was a smug bastard.

“I cannot know for sure, but I believe this to be my personal innovation. The material is perfect. It is light, it is hollow, and it is easily twisted into the proper configuration.” Fromm walked over to the assembly table and returned with one. “The base material is polyethylene, and as you see, we have coated the outside with copper and the inside with rhodium. The length of the 'straw' is sixty centimeters, and the inside diameter is just under three millimeters. Many thousands of them surround the Secondary, in bundles twisted one hundred eighty degrees into a geometric shape called a helix. A helix is a useful shape. It can direct energy while retaining its ability to radiate heat in all directions.”

Inside every engineer, Qati thought, was a frustrated teacher. “But what do they do?”

“Also… the first emission off the Primary is massive gamma radiation. Just behind that are the X-rays. In both cases, we are talking about high-energy photons, quantum particles which carry energy but which have no mass—”

“Light waves,” Bock said, remembering his Gymnasium physics. Fromm nodded.

“Correct. Extremely energetic light waves of a different — higher — frequency. Now, we have this vast amount of energy radiating from the Primary. Some we can reflect or warp towards the Secondary by use of the channels we have built. Most is lost, of course, but the fact is that we will have so much energy at our fingertips that we need only a small fraction of it. The X-rays sweep down the straws. Much of their energy is absorbed by the metallic coatings, while the oblique surfaces reflect some further down, allowing further energy absorption. The polyethylene also absorbs a good deal of energy. And what do you suppose happens?”

“Absorb that much energy, and it must explode, of course,” Bock said, before Qati could.

“Very good, Herr Bock. When the straws explode — actually they convert into plasma, but having split straws, we will not split hairs, eh? — the plasma expands radially to their axes, thus converting the axial energy from the Primary into radial energy imploding on the Secondary.”

The lightbulb went on in Qati's head. “Brilliant, but you lose half of the energy, that part expanding outward.”

“Yes and no. It still makes an energy barrier, and that is what we need. Next, the uranium fins around the body of the Secondary are also converted to plasma — from the same energy flux, but more slowly than the straws due to their mass. This plasma has far greater density, and is pressed inward. Within the actual Secondary casing, there is two centimeters of vacuum, since that space will be evacuated. So, we have a 'running start' for the plasma that is racing inward.”

“So, you use the energy from the Primary, redirected into a right-angle turn to perform the same function on the Secondary that is first done by chemical explosives?” Qati saw.

“Excellent, Commander!” Fromm replied, just patronizingly enough to be noticed. “We now have a relatively heavy mass of plasma pressing inward. The vacuum gap gives it room to accelerate before slamming into the Secondary. This compresses the Secondary. The secondary assembly is lithium-deuteride and lithium-hydride, both doped with tritium, surrounded by uranium 238. This assembly is crushed violently by the imploding plasma. It is also being bombarded by neutrons from the Primary, of course. The combination of heat, pressure, and neutron bombardment causes the lithium to fission into tritium. The tritium immediately begins the fusion process, generating vast quantities of high-energy neutrons along with the liberated energy. The neutrons attack the U238, causing a fast-fission reaction, adding to the overall Secondary yield.”

“The key, as Herr Fromm said,” Ghosn explained, “is managing the energy.”

“Straws,” Bock noted.

“Yes, I said the same thing,” Ghosn said. “It is truly brilliant. Like building a bridge from paper.”

“And the yield from the Secondary?” Qati asked. He didn't really understand the physics, but he did understand the final number.

“The Primary will generate approximately seventy kilotons. The Secondary will generate roughly four hundred sixty-five kilotons. The numbers are approximate because of possible irregularities within the weapon, and also because we cannot test to measure actual effects.”

“How confident are you in the performance of the weapon?”

“Totally,” Fromm said.

“But without testing, you said…”

“Commander, I knew from the beginning that a proper test program was not possible. That is the same problem we had in the DDR. For that reason the design is over-engineered, in some cases by a factor of forty percent, in others by a factor of more than one hundred. You must understand that an American, British, French, or even Soviet weapon of the same yield would not be a fifth the size of our 'unit.' Such refinements of size and efficiency can only come from extensive testing. The physics of the device are entirely straightforward. Engineering refinements come only from practice. As Herr Ghosn said, building a bridge. The Roman bridges of antiquity were very inefficient structures. By modern standards they use far too much stone, and as a result far too much labor to build them, ja? Over the years we have learned to build bridges more efficiently, using fewer materials and less labor to perform the same task. But do not forget that some Roman bridges still stand. They are still bridges, even if they are inefficient. This bomb design, though inefficient and wasteful of materials, is still a bomb, and it will work as I say.”

Heads turned, as the beeper on the lathe went off. An indicator light blinked green. The task was finished. Fromm walked over, telling the technicians to flush the Freon out of the system. Five minutes later, the object of so much loving care was visible. The manipulator arm brought it into view. It was finished.

“Excellent,” Fromm said. “We will carefully examine the plutonium, and then we will commence assembly. Meine Herren, the difficult part is behind us.” He thought that called for a beer, and made another mental note that he hadn't gotten the palladium yet. Details, details. But that's what engineering was.

“What gives, Dan?” Ryan asked, over his secure phone. He had missed the morning paper at home, only to find the offending article waiting on his desk as part of The Bird.

“It sure as hell didn't come from here, Jack. It must be in your house.”

“Well, I just tore our security director a brand-new asshole. He says he doesn't have anything going. What the hell does a 'very senior' official mean?”

“It means that this Holtzman guy got carried away with his adjectives. Look, Jack, I've already gone too far. I'm not supposed to discuss ongoing investigations, remember?”

“I'm not concerned about that. Somebody just leaked material that comes from a closely held source. If the world made any sense, we'd bring Holtzman in for questioning!” Ryan snarled into the phone.

“You want to rein in a little, boy?”

The DDCI looked up from the phone and commanded himself to take a deep breath. It wasn't Holtzman's fault, was it? “Okay, I just simmered down.”

“Whatever investigation is underway, it isn't the Bureau running it.”

“No shit?”

“You have my word on it,” Murray said.

“That's fair enough, Dan.” Ryan calmed down further. If it wasn't the FBI and it wasn't his own in-house security arm, then that part of the story was probably fiction.

“Who could have leaked it?”

Jack barked out a laugh. “Could have? Ten or fifteen people on the Hill. Maybe five in the White House, twenty — maybe forty here.”

“So the other part could just be camouflage, or somebody who wants a score settled.” Murray did not make it a question. He figured at least a third of all press leaks were aimed at settling grudges in one way or another. “The source is sensitive?”

“This phone isn't all that secure, remember?”

“Gotcha. Look, I can approach Holtzman quietly and informally. He's a good guy, responsible, a pro. We can talk to him off the record and let him know that he may be endangering people and methods.”

“I have to go to Marcus for that.”

“And I have to talk to Bill, but Bill will play ball.”

“Okay, I'll talk to my Director. I'll be back.” Ryan hung up and walked again to the Director's office.

“I've seen it,” Director Cabot said.

“The Bureau doesn't know about this investigation, and neither do our people. From that we can surmise that the scandal part of the story is pure bull, but somebody's been leaking the take from SPINNAKER, and that sort of thing gets agents killed.”

“What do you suggest?” the DCI asked.

“Dan Murray and I approach Holtzman informally and let him know that he's stepping on sensitive toes. We ask him to back off.”

“Ask?”

“Ask. You don't give orders to reporters. Not unless you sign their paychecks, anyway,” Jack corrected himself. “I've never actually done this, but Dan has. It was his idea.”

“I have to go upstairs on this,” Cabot said.

“God damn it, Marcus, we are upstairs!”

“Dealing with the press — it has to be decided elsewhere.”

“Super — get in your car and drive down and make sure you ask very nicely.” Ryan turned and stormed out before Cabot had a chance to flush at the insult.

By the time he'd walked the few yards to his private office, Jack's hands were quivering. Can't he back me up on anything? Nothing was going right lately. Jack pounded once on his desk, and the pain brought things back under control. Clark 's little operation, that seemed to be heading in the right direction. That was one thing, and one thing was better than nothing.

Not much better. Jack looked at the photo of his wife and kids.

“God damn it,” he swore to himself. He couldn't get that guy to back him up on anything, he'd become a lousy father to his kids, and sure as hell he was no great shakes as a husband lately.

Liz Elliot read the front-page article with no small degree of satisfaction. Holtzman had delivered exactly what she had expected. Reporters were so easy to manipulate. It opened a whole new world for her, she had belatedly realized. With Marcus Cabot being so weak, and no one within the CIA bureaucracy to back him up, she would have effective control of that, as well. Wasn't that something?

Removing Ryan from his post was now more than a mere exercise in spite, as desirable as so simple a motive might have been. Ryan was the one who had said no to a few White House requests, who occasionally went directly to Congress on internal matters… who prevented her from having closer contact with the Agency. With him out of the way, she could give orders — couched as “suggestions”—to Cabot, who would then carry them out with a total absence of resistance. Dennis Bunker would still have Defense and his dumb football team. Brent Talbot would have the State Department. Elizabeth Elliot would have control of the National Security apparatus — because she also had the ear, and all the other important parts, of the President. Her phone beeped.

“Director Cabot is here.”

“Send him in,” Liz said She stood and walked towards the door. “Good morning, Marcus.”

“Hello, Dr. Elliot.”

“What brings you down?” she asked, waving him to a seat on the couch.

“This newspaper article.”

“I saw it,” the National Security Advisor said sympathetically.

“Whoever leaked this might have endangered a valuable source.”

“I know. Somebody at your end? I mean, what's this about an in-house investigation?”

“It isn't us.”

“Really?” Dr. Elliot leaned back and played with her blue silk cravat. “Who, then?”

“We don't know, Liz.” Cabot looked even more uncomfortable than she had expected. Maybe, she thought playfully, he thought he was the target of the investigation…? There was an interesting idea. “We want to talk to Holtzman.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we and the FBI talk to him, informally of course, to let him know that he may be doing something irresponsible.”

“Who came up with that, Marcus?”

“Ryan and Murray.”

“Really?” She paused, as though considering the matter. “I don't think that's a good idea. You know how reporters are. If you have to stroke them, you have to stroke them properly… hmm. I can handle that if you wish.”

“This really is serious. SPINNAKER is very important to us.” Cabot tended to repeat himself when he got excited.

“I know it. Ryan was pretty clear in his briefing, back when you were ill. You still haven't confirmed his reports?”

Cabot shook his head. “No. Jack went off to England to ask the Brits to nose around, but we don't expect anything for a while.”

“What do you want me to tell Holtzman?”

“Tell him that he may be jeopardizing a highly important source. The man could die over this, and the political fallout might be very serious,” Cabot concluded.

“Yes, it could have undesired effects on their political scene, couldn't it?”

“If SPINNAKER is right, then they're in for a huge political shakeup. Revealing that we know what we know could jeopardize him. Remember that—”

Elliot interrupted. “That Kadishev is our main fallback position. Yes. And if he gets 'burned,' then we might have no fallback position. You've made yourself very clear, Marcus. Thank you. I'll work on this myself.”

“That should be quite satisfactory,” Cabot said, after a moment's pause.

“Fine. Anything else I need to know this morning?”

“No, that's why I came down.”

“I think it's time to show you something. Something we've been working on here. Pretty sensitive,” she added. Marcus got the message.

“What is it?” the DCI asked guardedly.

“This is absolutely confidential.” Elliot pulled a large manila envelope from her desk. “I mean absolutely, Marcus. It doesn't leave the building, okay?”

“Agreed.” The DCI was already interested.

Liz opened the envelope and handed over some photographs. Cabot looked them over.

“Who”s the woman?"

“Carol Zimmer, she's the widow of an Air Force crewman who got himself killed somehow or other.” Elliot filled in some additional details.

“Ryan, screwing around? I'll be damned.”

“Any chance we could get more information from inside the Agency?”

“If you mean accomplishing that without any suspicion on his part, it would be very difficult.” Cabot shook his head. “His two SPOs, Clark and Chavez, no way. They're very tight. Good friends, I mean.”

“Ryan's friendly with bodyguards? You serious?” Elliot was surprised. It was like being solicitous towards furniture.

“ Clark 's an old field officer. Chavez is a new kid, working as an SPO while he finishes his college degree, looking to be a field officer. I've seen the files. Clark 'll retire in a few more years, and keeping him around as an SPO is just a matter of being decent. He's done some really interesting things. Good man, good officer.”

Elliot didn't like that, but from what Cabot said, it seemed that it couldn't be helped. “We want Ryan eased out.”

“That might not be easy. They really like him on the Hill.”

“You just said he's insubordinate.”

“It won't wash on the Hill. You know that. You want him fired, the President just has to ask for his resignation.”

But that wouldn't wash on the Hill either, Liz thought, and it seemed immediately clear that Marcus Cabot wouldn't be much help. She hadn't really expected that he would be. Cabot was too soft.

“We can handle it entirely from this end, if you want.”

“Probably a good idea. If it became known at Langley that I had a hand in this, it might look like spite. Can't have that,” Cabot demurred. “Bad for morale.”

“Okay.” Liz stood, and so did Cabot. “Thanks for coming down.”

Two minutes later, she was back in her chair, her feet propped up on a drawer. This was going so well. Exactly as planned. I'm getting good at this…

“So?”

“This was published in a Washington paper today,” Golovko said. It was seven in the evening in Moscow, the sky outside dark and cold as only Moscow could get cold. That he had to report on something in an American newspaper did not warm the night very much.

Andrey Il'ych Narmonov took the translation from the First Deputy Chairman and read through it. Finished, he tossed the two pages contemptuously onto his desktop. “What rubbish is this?”

“Holtzman is a very important Washington reporter. He has access to very senior officials in the Fowler Administration.”

“And he probably writes a good deal of fiction, just as our reporters do.”

“We think not. We think the tone of the report indicates that he was given the data by someone in the White House.”

“Indeed?” Narmonov pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose, cursing the cold that the sudden weather change had brought with it. If there was anything for which he did not have time, it was an illness, even a minor one. “I don't believe it. I've told Fowler personally about the difficulty with the missile destruction, and the rest of this political twaddle is just that. You know that I've had to deal with uniformed hotheads — those fools who went off on their own in the Baltic region. So do the Americans. It's incredible to me that they should take such nonsense seriously. Surely their intelligence services tell them the truth — and the truth is what I've told Fowler myself!”

“Comrade President.” Golovko paused for a beat. Comrade was too hard a habit to break. “Just as we have political elements who distrust the Americans, so they have elements who continue to hate and distrust us. Changes between us have come and gone very rapidly. Too rapidly for many to assimilate I find it plausible that there might be American political officials who believe this report”

“Fowler is vain, he is far weaker as a man than he would like people to know, he is personally insecure — but he is not a fool, and only a fool would believe this, particularly after meeting me and talking with me.” Narmonov handed the translation back to Golovko.

“My analysts believe otherwise We think it possible that the Americans really believe this.”

“Thank them for their opinion I disagree.”

“If the Americans are getting a report saying this, it means that they have a spy within our government.”

“I have no doubt that they have such people — after all, we do also, do we not? — but I do not believe it in this case The reason is simple, no spy could have reported something which I did not say, correct? I have not said this to anyone. It is not true What do you do to a spy who lies to us?”

“My President, it is not something we look upon kindly,” Golovko assured him.

That is doubtless true of the Americans also.“ Narmonov paused for a moment, then smiled. ”Do you know what this could be?"

“We are always open to ideas.”

“Think like a politician This could easily be a sign of some sort of power-play within their government. Our involvement would then be merely incidental.”

Golovko thought about that. “We have heard that there is — that Ryan, their deputy director, is unloved by Fowler…”

“Ryan, ah, yes, I remember him. A worthy adversary, Sergey Nikolay'ch?”

“He is that”

Definitely something a politician would remember, Golovko thought.

“Why are they unhappy with him?” Narmonov asked.

“Reportedly a clash of personalities.”

“That I can believe. Fowler and his vanity.” Narmonov held up his hands. “There you have it. Perhaps I might have made a good intelligence analyst?”

“The finest,” Golovko agreed. He had to agree, of course. Moreover, his President had said something that his own people had not examined fully. He left the august presence of his chief of state with a troubled expression. The defection of RGB Chairman Gerasimov a few years ago — an event that Ryan had himself engineered, if Golovko read the signs correctly — had inevitably crippled KGB's overseas operations. Six complete networks in America had collapsed, along with eight more in Western Europe. Replacement networks were only now beginning to take their place. That left major holes in KGB's ability to penetrate American government operations. The only good news was that they were starting to read a noteworthy fraction of American diplomatic and military communications — as much as four or five percent in a good month. But code-breaking was no substitute for penetration agents. There was something very strange going on here. Golovko didn't know what it was. Perhaps his President was right. Perhaps this was merely the ripples from an internal power-play. But it could also have been something else. The fact that Golovko didn't know what it was did not help matters.

“Just made it back in time,” Clark said. “Did they sweep the wheels today?”

“If it's Wednesday…” Jack replied. Every week, his official car was examined for possible electronic bugs.

“Can we talk about it, then?”

“Yes.”

“Chavez was right. It's easy, just a matter of dropping a nice little mordida on the right guy. The regular maintenance man will be taken sick that day, the two of us get tapped to service the 747. I get to play maid, scrub the sinks and the crappers, replenish the bar, the whole thing. You'll have the official evaluation on your desk tomorrow, but the short version is, yeah, we can do it, and the likelihood of discovery is minimal.”

“You know the downside?”

“Oh, yeah. Major International Incident. I get early retirement. That's okay, Jack. I can retire whenever I want. It would be a shame for Ding, though. That kid is showing real promise.”

“And if you're discovered?”

“I say in my best Spanish that some Japanese reporter asked me to do it, and paid me a lot of pesos to do it. That's the hook, Jack. They won't make a big deal about it if they think it's one of their own. Looks too bad, loss of face and all that.”

“John, you're a tricky, underhanded son of a bitch.”

“Just want to serve my country, sir.” Clark started laughing. A few minutes later, he took the turn. “Hope we're not too late.”

“It was a long one at the office.”

“I saw that thing in the paper. What are we doing about it?”

“The White House will be talking to Holtzman, telling him to lay off.”

“Somebody dipping his pen in the company ink-well?”

“Not that we know about, same with the FBI.”

“Camouflage for the real story, eh?”

“Looks that way.”

“What bullshit,” Clark observed as he pulled into the parking place.

It turned out that Carol was in her home, cleaning up after dinner. The Zimmer family Christmas tree was up. Clark began ferrying the presents in. Jack had picked some of them up in England; Clark and Nancy Cummings had helped to wrap them — Ryan was hopeless at wrapping presents. Unfortunately, they'd walked into the house just in time to hear crying.

“No problem, Dr. Ryan,” one of the kids told him in the kitchen, “Jackie had a little accident. Mom's in the bathroom.”

“Okay.” Ryan walked that way, careful to announce his presence.

“Okay, okay, come in,” Carol said.

Jack saw Carol leaning over the bathtub. Jacqueline was crying in the piteous monotone of a child who knows that she has misbehaved. There was a pile of kid's clothes on the tile floor, and the air positively reeked of crushed flowers. “What happened?”

“Jackie think my perfume is same as her toy perfume, pour whole bottle.” Carol looked up from scrubbing.

Ryan lifted the little girl's shirt. “You're not kidding.”

“Whole bottle — expensive! Bad girl!”

Jacqueline's crying increased in pitch. She'd probably had her backside smacked already. Ryan was just as happy not to have seen that. He disciplined his own kids as necessary, but didn't like to see other people smack theirs. That was one of several weak spots in his character. Even after Carol lifted her youngest out of the tub, the smell had not gone away.

“Wow, it is pretty strong, isn't it?” Jack picked Jackie up, which didn't mute her crying very much.

“Eighty dollar!” Carol said, but her anger was now gone. She had ample experience with small children, and knew that they were expected to do mischief. Jack carried the little one out to the living room. Her attitude changed when she saw the stack of presents.

“You too nice,” her mother noted.

“Hey, I just happened to be doing some shopping, okay?”

“You no come here Christmas, you have you own family.”

“I know, Carol, but I can't let Christmas go by without stopping in.” Clark came in with a final pile. These were his, Jack saw. Good man, Clark.

“We have nothing for you,” Carol Zimmer said.

“Sure you do. Jackie gave me a good hug.”

“What about me?” John asked.

Jack handed Jackie over. It was funny. Quite a few men were wary of John Clark on the basis of looks alone, but the Zimmer kids thought of him as a big teddy bear. A few minutes later, they drove away.

“Nice of you to do that, John,” Ryan said as they drove off.

“No big deal. Hey, man, you know how much fun it was to shop for little kids? Who the hell wants to buy his kid a Bali bra — that's what Maggie wanted, put it on her list — a sexy bra, for Christ's sake. How the hell can a father walk into a department store and buy something like that for his own daughter?”

“They get a little big for Barbie dolls.”

“More's the pity, Doc, more's the pity.”

Jack turned and chuckled. “That bra—”

“Yeah, Jack, if I ever find out, he's dog meat.”

Ryan had to laugh at that, but he knew he could afford to laugh. His little girl wasn't dating yet. That would be hard, watching her leave with someone else, beyond his protective reach. Harder still for a man like John Clark.

“Regular time tomorrow?”

“Yep.”

“See ya' then, Doc.”

Ryan walked into his house at 8:55. His dinner was in its usual place. He poured his usual glass of wine, took a sip, then removed his coat and hung it in the closet before walking upstairs to change clothes. He caught Cathy going the other way and smiled at her. He didn't kiss her. He was just too tired. That was the problem. If he could only get time to relax. Clark was right, just a few days off to unwind. That's all he needed, Jack told himself as he changed.

Cathy opened the closet door to get some medical files she'd left in her own topcoat. She almost turned away when she noticed something. Not sure what it was, Cathy Ryan leaned in, puzzled, then caught it. Where was it? Her nose searched left and right in a way that might have appeared comical except for the look on her face when she found it. Jack's camel-hair coat, the expensive one she'd gotten for him last year.

It wasn't her perfume.