The Sum of All Fears

33 PASSAGES

It was nice to wake up at a decent hour— eight o'clock — at home on a Saturday. Without a headache. That was something he hadn't done in months. He fully planned to spend the day at home doing precisely nothing more than shave, and he planned that only because he'd be going to Mass that evening. Ryan soon learned that on Saturday mornings his children were glued to the TV set, watching various cartoons, including something concerning turtles that he'd heard about but never seen. On reflection, he decided to pass on it this morning also.

“How are you this morning?” he asked Cathy, on his way into the kitchen.

“Not bad at all. I — oh, damn!”

The noise she heard was the distinctive trilling of the secure phone. Jack ran into the library to catch it.

“Yeah?”

“Dr. Ryan, this is the ops room. Swordsman,” the watch officer said.

“Okay.” Jack hung up. “Damn.”

“What's the matter?” Cathy asked from the doorway.

“I have to go in. By the way, I have to be in tomorrow, too.”

“Jack, come on—”

“Look, babe, there are a couple of things I have to do before I leave. One's happening right about now — and you can forget that, okay? — and I have to be in on it.”

“Where do you have to go this time?”

“Just into the office. I don't have any overseas stuff planned at all, as a matter of fact.”

“Supposed to snow tonight, maybe a big one.”

“Great. Well, I can always stay over.”

“I'm going to be so happy when you leave that goddamned place for good.”

“Can you stick with me just a couple of months more?”

“'Couple of months'?”

“April first, I'm out of there. Deal?”

“Jack, it's not that I don't like what you do, just that—”

“Yeah, the hours. Me, too. I'm used to the idea of leaving now, turning into a normal person again. I gotta change.”

Cathy bowed to the inevitable and went back to the kitchen. Jack dressed casually. On weekends you didn't have to wear a suit. He decided that he could even dispense with a tie, and also that he'd drive himself. Thirty minutes later, he was on the road.

It was a gloriously clear afternoon over the Straits of Gibraltar. Europe to the north, Africa to the south. The narrow passage had once been a mountain range, the geologists said, and the Mediterranean a dry basin until the Atlantic had broken in. This would have been the perfect place to watch from, too, thirty thousand feet up.

And best of all, he would not have bad to worry about commercial air traffic back then. Now he had to listen to the guard circuit make sure some airliner didn't blunder into his path. Or the other way around, which was actually more honest.

“There's our company,” Robby Jackson observed.

“Never seen her before, sir,” Lieutenant Walters said.

“Her” was the Soviet carrier Kuznetzov, the first real carrier in the Russian fleet. Sixty-five thousand tons, thirty fixed-wing aircraft, ten or so helicopters. Escorting her were the cruisers Slava and Marshal Ustinov, plus what looked like one Sovremenny- and two Udaloy-class destroyers. They were coming east in a compressed tactical formation, and were two hundred forty miles behind the TR battlegroup. Half a day back, Robby thought, or half an hour, depending on how you looked at it.

“We give 'em a fly-by?” Walters asked.

“Nope, why piss 'em off?”

“Looks like they're in a hurry…” the RIO said, looking through a pair of binoculars. I'd say about twenty-five knots."

“Maybe they're just trying to clear the strait as quick as they can.”

“I doubt that, skipper. What do you suppose they're here for?”

“Same as us, according to intel. Train, show the flag, make friends and influence people.”

“Didn't you have a run-in once…?”

“Yeah, a Forger put a heat-seeker up my ass a few years back. Got my Tom back all right, though.” Robby paused for a moment. “They said it was an accident, supposedly the pilot was punished.”

“Believe it?”

Jackson gave the Russian battlegroup a last look. “Yeah, as a matter of fact.”

“First time I saw a picture of that thing I said to myself, there's a Navy Cross that hasn't happened yet.”

“Chill out, Shredder. Okay, we seen 'em. Let's head back.” Robby moved the stick to turn back east. This he did in a leisurely maneuver rather than the hard bank and pull a younger fighter jock might try. Why stress the airframe unnecessarily? Jackson would have thought if he'd bothered to think about it. In the back seat, Lieutenant Henry “Shredder” Walters thought the CAG was just turning into an old guy.

Not that old. Captain Jackson was as alert as ever. His seat was jacked up about as far as it would go, because Robby was on the short side. This gave him a good field of view. His eyes swept in a constant pattern left-right, up-down, and in to look at his instruments about once a minute. His main concern was commercial air traffic, and also private planes, since this was a weekend, and people liked to orbit the Rock to take pictures. A civilian in a Lear Jet, Robby thought, could be more dangerous than a loose Sidewinder…

“Jesus! Coming up at nine!”

Captain Jackson's head snapped to the left. Fifty feet away was a MiG-29 Fulcrum-N, the new naval variant of the Russian air-superiority fighter. The visored face of the pilot was staring at him. Robby saw that four missiles were hanging on the wings. The Tomcat only had two at the moment.

“Came up from underneath,” Shredder reported.

“Clever of him.” Robby took the news with equanimity. The Russian pilot waved. Robby returned the gesture.

“Damn, if he wanted to—”

“Shredder, will you cool it? I've been playing games with Ivan for almost twenty years. I've intercepted more Bears than you've had pussy. We're not tactical. I just wanted to fly back here and get a look at their formation. Ivan over there decided to come up to look at us. He's being neighborly about it.” Robby edged his stick forward, taking his aircraft down a few feet. He wanted to eyeball the Russian's underside. No extra fuel tanks, just the four missiles, AA-11 “Archers,” NATO called them. The tail hook looked flimsier than the one the Americans had on their planes, and he remembered reports of landing problems the Russians had experienced. Well, carrier aviation was new to them, wasn't it? They'd spend years learning all the lessons. Other than that, the aircraft looked impressive. Newly painted, the pleasant gray the Russians used instead of the high-tech infra-red-suppressive gray that the US Navy had adopted a few years ago. The Russian version was prettier; the USN paint was more effective in concealment, though it did give the planes a painfully leprous appearance. He memorized the tail number to report to the wing intelligence troops. He couldn't see any of the pilot. The helmet and visor covered his face, and he wore gloves. Fifty-foot closure was a little tight, but not that big a deal. Probably the Russian was trying to show him that he was good, but not crazy. That was fair enough. Robby came back up level and waved to thank the Russian for holding a steady line. Again the gesture was returned.

What's your name, boy! Robby thought. He also wondered what the Russian thought about the victory flag painted under the cockpit, under which was printed in small letters, MiG-29, 17-1-91. Let's not get too cocky over there.

The 747 landed after its long trans-Pacific flight, much to the relief of the flight crew, Clark was sure. Twelve-hour flights must have been a bitch, the CIA officer was sure, especially flying into a smog-filled bowl at the end of it. The aircraft taxied out, then turned and finally stopped at a space marked by a military band, several rows of soldiers and civilians, and the customary red carpet.

“You know, after that much time in an airplane I'm too dogshit to do anything intelligent,” Chavez observed quietly.

“So remember never to run for President,” Clark replied.

“Right, Mr. C.”

The stairs were rolled up, and presently the door opened. The band struck up something or other — the two CIA officers were too far away to hear it clearly. The normal TV crews flitted about. The arriving Japanese Prime Minister was met by the Mexican foreign minister, listened to a brief speech, made a brief one of his own, walked past the troops who'd been standing in place for ninety minutes, then did the first sensible thing of the day. He got into a limo and drove off to his embassy for a shower — or more likely, Clark thought, a hot bath. The way the Japs did it was probably the perfect cure for air travel, a long soak in hundred-plus-degree water. It was sure to take the wrinkles out of the skin and the stiffness out of the muscles, John thought. Pity that Americans hadn't learned that one. Ten minutes after the last dignitary left, and the troops marched off, and the carpet was rolled back up, the maintenance people were summoned to the aircraft.

The pilot spoke briefly with the head mechanic. One of the big Pratt and Whitney engines was running just a hair warm. Other than that he had no beefs at all. Then the flight crew departed for a rest. Three security people took station around the outside of the aircraft. Two more paced the interior. Clark and Chavez entered, showing their passes to Mexican and Japanese officials, and went to work. Ding started in the washrooms, taking his time because he'd been told the Japanese were particular about having spotless latrines. It required only one sniff of the air inside the airplane to note that Japanese citizens were allowed to smoke. Each ashtray had to be checked, and more than half of those required emptying and cleaning. Newspapers and magazines were collected. Other cleaning staff handled the vacuuming.

Forward, Clark checked the booze locker. Half the people aboard must have arrived with hangovers, he decided. There were some serious drinkers aboard. He was also gratified to see that the technical people at Langley had guessed right on the brand of scotch that JAL liked to serve. Finally he went up to the lounge area behind the cockpit. It exactly matched the computer mock-up he'd examined for hours prior to coming down. By the time he'd finished his cleaning duties, he was sure that bringing this one off would be a snap. He helped Ding with the trash bags and left the aircraft in time to catch a dinner. On the way out to his car, he passed a note to a CIA officer from Station Mexico.

“God damn it!” Ryan swore. “This came in through State?”

“Correct, sir. Director Cabot's orders to use a fax line. He wanted to save transcription time.”

“Didn't Sam Yamata bother to explain about date-lines and time-zones?”

“'Fraid not,”

There was no sense swearing further at the man from the Japan Department. Ryan read through the pages again. “Well, what do you think?”

“I think the Prime Minister is walking into an ambush.”

“Isn't that too damned bad?” Ryan observed. “Messenger this down to the White House. The President's going to want it PDQ.”

“Right.” The man left. Ryan dialed up operations next. “How's Clark doing?” Jack asked, without preamble.

“Okay, he says. He's ready to make the plant. The monitor aircraft are all standing by. We know of no changes in the PM's schedule.”

“Thanks.”

“How long are you going to be in?”

Jack looked outside. The snow had already started. “Maybe all night.”

It was developing into a big one. The eastbound cold-weather storm from the Midwest was linking into a low-pressure area coming up the coast. The really big snow storms in the D.C. area always came in from the south, and the National Weather Service was saying six-to-eight inches. That prediction was up from two-to-four only a few hours earlier. He could leave work right now, then try to fight his way back in the morning, or he could stay. Staying, unfortunately, looked like the best option.

Golovko was also in his office, though the time in Moscow was eight hours ahead of Washington. That fact did not contribute to Sergey's humor, which was poor.

“Well?” he asked the man from the communications-intelligence watch staff.

“We got lucky. This document was sent by facsimile printer from the U.S. Embassy Tokyo to Washington.” He handed the sheet over.

The slick thermal paper was covered mainly with gibberish, some discrete but disordered letters, and even more black-and-white hash from the random noise, but perhaps as much as twenty percent was legible English, including two complete sentences and one full paragraph.

“Well?” Golovko asked again.

“When I delivered it to the Japanese section for comment, they handed me this.” Another document was passed. “I've marked the paragraph.”

Golovko read the Russian-language paragraph, then compared it to the English—

“It's a fucking translation. How was our document sent in?”

“By embassy courier. It wasn't transmitted because two of the crypto machines in Tokyo were being repaired, and the Rezident decided it was unimportant enough to wait. It ended up in the embassy bag. So, they are not reading our ciphers, but they got this anyway.”

“Who's working this case…? Lyalin? Yes.” Golovko said, almost to himself. He next called the senior watch officer for the First Chief Directorate. “Colonel, this is Golovko. I want a Flash-priority to Rezident Tokyo. Lyalin to report to Moscow immediately.”

“What's the problem?”

“The problem is, we have another leak.”

“Lyalin is a very effective officer. I know the material he's sending back.”

“So do the Americans. Get that message off at once. Then, I want everything we have from THISTLE on my desk.” Golovko hung up and looked at the major standing in front of his desk. “That mathematician who figured this all out — good God, I wish we'd had him five years ago!”

“He spent ten years devising this theory on ordering chaos. If it's ever made public, he'll win the Planck Medal. He took the work of Mandelbrot at Harvard University in America and MacKenzie at Cambridge, and—”

“I will take your word for it, Major. The last time you tried to explain this witchcraft to me I merely got a headache. How is the work going?”

“We grow stronger every day. The only thing we cannot break is the new CIA system that's starting to come on line. It seems to use a new principle. We're working on it.”

President Fowler boarded the Marine VH-3 helicopter before the snow got too bad. Painted a shiny olive-drab on the bottom, with white on top, and little else in the way of markings, it was his personal bird, with the call-sign Marine-One. Elizabeth Elliot boarded just behind him, the press corps noted. Pretty soon they'd have to break the story on the two, some thought. Or maybe the President would do the job for them by marrying the bitch.

The pilot, a Marine lieutenant-colonel, brought the twin turbine engines to full power, then eased up on the collective, rising slowly and turning northwest. He was almost instantly on instruments, which he didn't like. Flying blind and on instruments didn't trouble him. Flying blind and on instruments with the President aboard did. Flying in snow was about the worst thing there was. All external visual references were gone. Staring out the windshield could turn the most seasoned airman into a disoriented and airsick feather-merchant in a matter of seconds. As a result, he spent far more time scanning his instruments. The chopper had all manner of safety features, including collision-avoidance radar, plus having the undivided attention of two senior air-traffic controllers. In some perverse ways, this was a safe way to fly. In clear air, some lunatic with a Cessna might just try to perform a mid-air with Marine-One, and maneuvering to avoid such things was a regular drill for the colonel, both in the air and in the aircraft simulator at Anacostia Naval Air Station.

“Wind's picking up faster than I 'spected,” the co-pilot, a major, observed.

“May get a little bumpy when we hit the mountains.”

“Should have left a little sooner.”

The pilot switched settings on his intercom box, linking him with the two Secret Service agents in back. “May want to make sure everybody's strapped in tight. Picking up a little chop.”

“Okay, thanks,” Pete Connor replied. He looked to see that everyone's seatbelt was securely fastened. Everyone aboard was too seasoned a flyer to be the least bit concerned, but he preferred a smooth ride as much as the next person. The President, he saw, was fully relaxed, reading over a folder that had just arrived a few minutes before they'd left. Connor settled back also. Connor and D'Agustino loved Camp David. A company of hand-picked Marine riflemen provided perimeter security. They were backed up and augmented by the best electronic surveillance systems America had ever built. Backing everyone up were the usual Secret Service agents. Nobody was scheduled to come in or out of the place this weekend, except, possibly, one CIA messenger who would drive. Everyone could relax, including the President and his lady friend, Connor thought.

“This is getting bad. Better tell the weather pukes to stick their head out the window.”

“They said eight inches.”

“I got a buck says more than a foot.”

“I never bet against you on weather,” the co-pilot reminded the colonel.

“Smart man, Scotty.”

“Supposed to clear tomorrow night.”

“I'll believe that when I see it, too.”

“Temp's supposed to drop to zero, too, maybe a touch under.”

“That I believe,” the colonel said, checking his altitude, compass, and artificial horizon. His eyes went outboard again, seeing only snowflakes being churned by the downwash of the rotor tips. “What do you call visibility?”

“Oh, in a clear spot… maybe a hundred feet… maybe one-fifty… ” The major turned to grin at the colonel. The grin stopped when he started thinking about the ice that might build up on the airframe. “What's the outside temp?” he murmured to himself.

“Minus 12 centigrade,” the colonel said, before he could look at the thermometer.

“Coming up?”

“Yeah. Let's take her down a little, ought to be colder.”

“Goddamned D.C. weather.”

Thirty minutes later, they circled over Camp David. Strobe lights told them where the landing pad was — you could see down better than in any other direction. The co-pilot looked aft to check the fairing over the landing gear. “We got a little ice now, Colonel. Let's get this beast down before something scary happens. Wind is thirty knots at three-zero-zero.”

“Starting to feel a touch heavy.” The VH-3 could pick up as much as four hundred pounds of ice per minute under the right — wrong — weather conditions. “Fuckin' weather weenies. Okay, I got the LZ in sight.”

“Two hundred feet, airspeed thirty,” the major read off the instruments. “ One fifty at twenty-five… one hundred at under twenty… looking good… fifty feet and zero ground-speed… ”

The pilot eased down on the collective. The snow on the ground started blowing up from the rotor-wash. It created a vile condition called a white-out. The visual references which had just reappeared — vanished instantly. The flight crew felt themselves to be inside a ping-pong ball. Then a gust of wind swung the helicopter around to the left, tilting it also. The pilot's eyes immediately flicked down to the artificial horizon. He saw it tilt, knowing that the danger that had appeared was as severe as it was unexpected. He moved the cyclic to level the aircraft, and dropped the collective to the floor. Better a hard landing than catching a rotor in the trees he couldn't see. The helicopter dropped like a stone — exactly three feet. Before people aboard realized that something was wrong, the helicopter was down and safe.

“And that's why they let you fly the Boss,” the major said over the intercom. “Nice one, Colonel.”

“I think I broke something.”

“I think you're right.”

The pilot keyed the intercom. “Sorry about that. We caught a gust over the pad. Everybody okay back there?”

The President was already up, leaning into the cockpit. “You were right, Colonel. We should have left sooner. My mistake,” Fowler said graciously. What the hell, he thought, he wanted this weekend.

The Camp David detachment opened the chopper's door. An enclosed HMMWV pulled up to it so that the President and his party didn't have to get too cold. The flight crew watched them pull away, then checked for damage.

“Thought so.”

“Metering pin?” The major bent down to look. “Sure enough.” The landing had just been hard enough to snap the pin that controlled the hydraulic shock-absorber on the right-side landing gear. It would have to be fixed.

“I'll go check to see if we have a spare,” the crew chief said. Ten minutes later, he was surprised to learn that they didn't. That was annoying. He placed a phone call to the helicopter base at the old Anacostia Naval Air Station to have a few driven up. Until it arrived, there was nothing that could be done. The aircraft could still be flown in an emergency, of course. A fire-team of Marine riflemen stood close guard on the helicopter, as always, while another squad walked perimeter guard in the woods around the landing pad area.

“What is it, Ben?”

“Does this place have a dorm?” Goodley asked.

Jack shook his head. “You can use the couch in Nancy's office if you want. How's your paper coming?”

“I'm going to be up all night anyway. I just thought of something.”

“What's that?”

“Going to sound a little crazy — nobody ever checked to make sure that our friend Kadishev actually met with Narmonov.”

“What do you mean?”

“Narmonov was out of town most of last week. If there was no meet, then the guy was lying to us, wasn't he?”

Jack closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side. “Not bad, Dr. Goodley, not bad.”

“We have Narmonov's itinerary. I have people checking on Kadishev's now. I'm going all the way back to last August. If we're going to do a check, it might as well be a comprehensive one. My position piece might be a little late, but this hit me last — this morning, actually. I've been chasing it down most of the day. It's harder than I thought.”

Jack motioned to the storm outside. “Looks like I'm going to be stuck here a while. Want some help?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Let's get some dinner first.”

Oleg Yurievich Lyalin boarded his flight to Moscow with mixed feelings. The summons was not all that irregular.

It was troublesome that it had come so soon after his meeting with the CIA Director, but that was probably happenstance. More likely, it had to do with the information he'd been delivering to Moscow about the Japanese Prime Minister's trip to America. One surprise he had not told CIA concerned Japanese overtures to the Soviet Union to trade high-technology for oil and lumber. That deal would have upset the Americans greatly only a few years earlier, and marked the culmination of a five-year project that Lyalin had worked on. He settled into his airline seat and allowed himself to relax. He had never betrayed his country, after all, had he?

The satellite up-link trucks were in two batches. There were eleven network vehicles, all parked just at the stadium wall. Two hundred meters away were thirty-one more, smaller Ku-band up-links for what looked like regional TV stations, as opposed to the bigger network vans. The first storm had passed, and what looked like a tank division's worth of heavy equipment was sweeping up the snow from the stadium's enormous parking lot.

There was the spot, Ghosn thought, right next to the ABC “A” unit. There was a good twenty meters of open space. The absence of security astounded him. He counted only three police cars, just enough to keep drunks away from men trying to get their work done. The Americans felt so secure. They'd tamed the Russians, crushed Iraq, intimidated Iran, pacified his own people, and now they were as totally relaxed as a people could be. They must love their comforts, Ibrahim told himself. Even their stadia had roofs and heat to keep the elements out.

“Gonna knock those things over like dominos,” Marvin observed from the driver's seat.

“Indeed we will,” Ghosn agreed.

“See what I told you about security?”

“I was wrong to doubt you, my friend.”

“Never hurts to be careful.” Russell started another drive around the perimeter. “We'll come in this gate right here, and just drive right up.” The headlights of the van illuminated the few flakes of this second storm. It was too cold to snow a lot, Russell had explained. This Canadian air mass was heading south. It would warm up as it hit Texas, dropping its moisture there instead of on Denver, which had half a meter, Ghosn estimated. The men who cleared the roads were quite efficient. As with everything else, the Americans liked their conveniences. Cold weather — build a stadium with a roof. Snow on the highways — get rid of it. Palestinians — buy them off. Though his face didn't show it, he had never hated America more than at this moment. Their power and their arrogance showed in everything they did. They protected themselves against everything, no matter how big or small, knew that they did, and proclaimed it to themselves and the whole world.

Oh, God, to bring them down!

The fire was agreeably warm. The President's cabin at Camp David was in the classic American pattern, heavy logs laid one atop the other, though on the inside they were reinforced with Kevlar fiber, and the windows were made of rugged polycarbonate to stop a bullet. The furniture was an even more curious mix of ultra-modern and old-comfortable. Before the couch he sat on were three printers for the major news services, because his predecessors liked to see the wire copy, and there were three full-sized televisions, one of which was usually tuned to CNN. But not tonight. Tonight it was on Cinemax. Half a mile away was a discreetly-sited antenna farm that tracked all of the commercial satellites, along with most of the military ones, a benefit of which was access to every commercial satellite channel — even the X-rated ones, which Fowler didn't bother with — creating the world's most expensive and exclusive cable system.

Fowler poured himself a beer. It was a bottle of Dortmunder Union, a popular German brew that the Air Force flew over — being President did carry some useful and unofficial perks. Liz Elliot drank a French white, while the President's left hand toyed with her hair.

The movie was a sappy comedic romance that appealed to Bob Fowler. The female lead, in fact, reminded him of Liz in looks and mannerisms. A little too snappy, a little too domineering, but not without redeeming social value. Now that Ryan was gone — well, on the way to being gone — maybe things would settle down.

“We've certainly done well, haven't we?”

“Yes, we have, Bob.” She paused for a sip of wine. “You were right about Ryan. Better to let him go honorably.” So long as he's gone, along with that little shrew he married.

“I'm glad to hear you say that. He's not a bad guy, just old-fashioned. Out of date.”

“Obsolete,” Liz added.

“Yeah,” the President agreed. “Why are we talking about him?”

“I can think of better things.” She turned her face into his hand and kissed it.

“So can I,” the President murmured as he set his glass down.

“The roads are covered,” Cathy reported. “I think you made the right decision.”

“Yeah, there was just a bad one on the Parkway just outside the gate. I'll be home tomorrow night. I can always steal one of the four-by-fours they have downstairs.”

“Where's John?”

“He's not here right now.”

“Oh,” Cathy observed. And what might he be up to!

“While I'm here, I might as well get some work done. Call you in the morning.”

“Okay, bye.”

“That's one aspect of this place that I won't miss,” Jack told Goodley. “Okay, what have you developed?”

“We've been able to verify all the meetings through September.”

“You look like you're ready to drop. How long have you been up?”

“Since yesterday, I guess.”

“Must be nice to be still in your twenties. Crab a piece of the couch outside,” Ryan ordered.

“What about you?”

“I want to read over this stuff again.” Jack tapped the file on his desk. “You're not into this one yet. Go get some Z's.”

“See you in the morning.”

The door closed behind Goodley. Jack started to read through the NIITAKA documents, but soon lost concentration. He locked the file in his desk and found a piece of his own couch, but sleep wouldn't come. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling, Ryan decided that he might as well stare at something less boring. He switched on the TV. Jack worked the controller to catch a news broadcast, but he hit the wrong button and found himself staring at the tail end of a commercial on Channel 20, an independent Washington station. He almost corrected the mistake when the movie came back. It took a moment. Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner… black and white… Australia.

“Oh yeah,” Ryan said to himself. It was On the Beach. He hadn't seen that in years, a Cold War classic from… Nevil Shute, wasn't it? A Gregory Peck movie was always worth the trouble. Fred Astaire, too.

The aftermath of a nuclear war. Jack was surprised at how tired he was. He'd been getting his rest lately, and…

… he went to sleep, but not all the way. As sometimes happened to him, the movie entered his mind, though the dream was in color, and that was better than the black-and-white print on the TV, his mind decided, then decided further to watch the movie in its entirety. From the inside. Jack Ryan began to take over various roles. He drove Fred Astaire's Ferrari in the bloody and last Australian Grand Prix. He sailed to San Francisco in the USS Sawfish, SSN-623 (except, part of his mind objected, that 623 was the number of a different submarine, USS Nathan Hale, wasn't it?). And the Morse signal, the Coke bottle on the windowshade, that wasn't very funny at all, because it meant that he and his wife would have to have that cup of tea, and he really didn't want to do that because it meant he had to put the pill in the baby's formula so that he could be sure that the baby would die and his wife wasn't up to it — understandable, his doctor was a wife — and he had to take the responsibility because he was the one who always did and wasn't it a shame that he had to leave Ava Gardner on the beach watching him sail so that he and his men could die at home if they made it which they probably wouldn't and the streets were so empty now. Cathy and Sally and Little Jack were all dead and it was all his fault because he made them take their pills so that they wouldn't die of something else that was even worse but that was still dumb and wrong even though there wasn't much of a choice was there so instead why not use a gun to do it and—

“What the fuck!” Jack snapped upright as though driven by a steel spring. He looked at his hands, which were shaking rather badly, until they realized that his mind was under conscious control now. "You just had a nightmare, boy, and this one wasn't the helicopter with Buck and John.

“It was worse.”

Ryan reached for his cigarettes and lit one, standing up after he did so. The snow was still coming down. The scrapers weren't keeping pace with it, down on the parking lot. It took time to shake one of these off, watching his family die like that. So many of the goddamned things. I've gotta get away from this place! There were just too many memories, and not all of them were good. The wrong call he'd made before the attack on his family, the time in the submarine, being left on the runway at Sheremetyevo Airport and looking at good old Sergey Nikolayevich from the wrong side of a pistol, and worst of all that helicopter ride out of Colombia. It was just too much. It was time to leave. Fowler and even Liz Elliot were doing him a favor, weren't they?

Whether they knew it or not.

Such a nice world lay out there. He'd done his part. He'd made parts of it a little better, and had helped others to do more. The movie he'd just lived in, hell, it might have come to pass in one way or another. But not now. It was clean and white out there, the lights over the parking lot just illuminating it enough, so much better than it usually looked. He'd done his part. Now it was someone else's turn to try his or her hand at the easier stuff.

“Yeah.” Jack blew his smoke out at the window. First, he'd have to break this habit again. Cathy would insist. And then? Then an extended vacation, this coming summer, maybe go back to England — maybe by ship instead of flying? Take the time to drive around Europe, maybe blow the whole summer. Be a free man again. Walk the beach. But then he'd have to get a job, do something. Annapolis — no, that was out. Some private group? Maybe teach? Georgetown, maybe?

“Espionage 101,” he chuckled to himself. That was it, he'd teach how to do all the illegal stuff.

“How the hell did James Greer ever last so long in this crummy racket?” How had he handled the stress? That was one lesson he'd never passed on.

“You still need sleep, man,” he reminded himself. This time he made sure the TV was off.