18
PROGRESS
Wellington had three men working for him. Each was an experienced investigator, accustomed to politically sensitive cases which demanded the utmost discretion. His job was to identify likely areas of field investigation, then to examine and correlate the information they returned to his office in the Justice Department. The tricky part was to gather the information without notice going back to the target of the probe, and Wellington correctly thought that that part of the task would be particularly difficult with a target like Ryan. The DDCI was nothing if not perceptive. His previous job had qualified him as a man who could hear the grass grow and read tea leaves with the best of them. That meant going slow ... but not too slow. It also seemed likely to the young attorney that the purpose of his investigation was not to produce data suitable for a grand jury, which gave him quite a bit more leeway than he might otherwise have had. He doubted that Ryan could have been so foolish as to have actually broken any law. The SEC rules had been grazed, perhaps bent, but on inspection of the SEC investigation documents, it was clear that Ryan’s action had, arguably, been made in good faith and full expectation that he had not violated any statute. That judgment might have been technical on Ryan’s part, but the law was technical. The Securities and Exchange Commission could have pushed, and might even have gotten an indictment, but they would never have gotten a conviction ... maybe they could have muscled him into a settlement and/or a consent decree, but Wellington doubted that also. They’d suggested it as a sign of good faith and he had answered with a flat no. Ryan was not a man to tolerate being pushed around. This man had killed people. That didn’t frighten Wellington in any way. It was merely an indicator of the man’s strength of character. Ryan was a tough, formidable son of a bitch who met things head-on when he had to.
That’s his weakness, Wellington told himself.
He prefers to meet things head-on. He lacks subtlety. It was a common failing of the honest, and a grievous weakness in a political environment.
Ryan had political protectors, however. Trent and Fellows were nothing if not canny political craftsmen.
What an interesting tactical problem....
Wellington saw his task as twofold: to get something that could be used against Ryan, and something that would also neutralize his political allies.
Carol Zimmer. Wellington closed one file and opened another.
There was a photograph from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. That one was years old—she’d been a child-bride in the most literal sense of the word when she’d first come to America, a tiny little thing with a doll’s face. A more recent photo taken by his field investigator showed a mature woman still short of forty, her face now showing some lines where once there had been the smoothness of china. If anything she was more beautiful than before. The timid, almost hunted look in the first photo--understandable, since it had been taken after her escape from Laos—had been replaced by that of a woman secure in her life. She had a cute smile, Wellington told himself.
The lawyer remembered a classmate in law school, Cynthia Yu. Damn, hadn’t she been quite a lay ... same sort of eyes, almost, the Oriental coquette....
Might that be it?
Something that simple?
Ryan was married: Wife, Caroline Muller Ryan, M.D., eye surgeon. Photo: a quintessential Wasp, except that she was Catholic, slender and attractive, mother of two.
Well, just because a man has a pretty wife ...
Ryan had established an educational trust fund.... Wellington opened another file. In it was a Xerox copy of the document.
Ryan, he saw, had done it alone, through a lawyer—not his regular lawyer! A D.C. guy. And Caroline Ryan had not signed the papers ... did she even know about it? The information on his desk suggested that she did not.
Wellington next checked the birth records on the newest Zimmer child. Her husband had been killed in a “routine training accident” ... the timing was equivocal. She might have gotten pregnant the very week her husband had been killed. Then again, she might not have. It was her seventh child—eighth? You couldn’t tell with those, could you? Gestation could be nine months, or less. First kids were usually late. Later kids, as often as not, were early. Birth weight of the child ... five pounds seven ounces ... less than average, but she was an Asian, and they were small ... did they have smaller-than-normal babies? Wellington made his notes, recognizing that he had a series of maybes and not a single fact.
But, hell, was he really looking for facts?
The two punks. Ryan’s bodyguards, Clark and Chavez, had mangled one of them. His investigator had checked that out with the Anne Arundel County Police Department. The local cops had signed off on Clark’s story. The punks in question had long but minor records, a few summary probations, a few sessions with youth counselors. The cops were delighted at the way things had turned out. “Okay with me if he’d shot that worthless little fucker,” a police sergeant had said with a laugh recorded on the investigator’s tape cassette. “That Clark guy looked like one very serious dude. His sidekick ain’t much different. If those punks were dumb enough to hassle them, hey, it’s a tough world, y’know? Two other gang members confirmed the story the way the good guys told it, and that’s a closed case, man.”
But why had Ryan set his two bodyguards on them?
He’s killed to protect his family, hasn’t he? This is not a guy who tolerates danger to his ... friends ... family ... lovers?
It is possible.
“Hmm ...” Wellington observed to himself. The DDCI is getting a little on the side. Nothing illegal, just unsavory. Also out of character for the saintly Dr. John Patrick Ryan. When his lover is annoyed by some local gang members, he simply sics his bodyguards on them, like a mafia capo might do, as a lordly public service that no cop would ever bother fooling with.
Might that be enough?
No.
He needed something more. Evidence, some sort of evidence. Not good enough for a grand jury ... but good enough for—what? To launch an official investigation. Of course. Such investigations were never really secret, were they? A few whispers, a few rumors. Easily done. But first Wellington needed something to hang his hat on.
“There are those who say this could be a preview of the Super Bowl: Three weeks into the NFL season, the Metrodome. Both teams are two and oh. Both teams look like the class of their respective conferences. The San Diego Chargers take on the Minnesota Vikings.”
“You know, Tony Wills’s rookie season has started even more spectacularly than his college career. Only two games, and he has three hundred six yards rushing in forty-six carries—that’s six-point-seven yards every time he touches the ball, and he did that against the Bears and the Falcons, two fine rushing defenses,” the color man observed. “Can anybody stop Tony Wills?”
“And a hundred twenty-five yards in his nine pass receptions. It’s no wonder that they call this kid the Franchise.”
“Plus his doctorate from Oxford University.” The color man laughed. “Academic All-American, Rhodes Scholar, the man who singlehandedly put Northwestern University back on the map with two trips to the Rose Bowl. You suppose he’s faster than a speeding bullet?”
“We’ll find out. That rookie middle linebacker for the Chargers, Maxim Bradley, is the best thing I’ve seen since Dick Butkus came out of Illinois, the best middle linebacker Alabama ever turned out—and that’s the school of Leroy Jordan, Cornelius Bennett, and quite a few other all-pros. They don’t call him the Secretary of Defense for nothing.” It was already the biggest joke in the NFL, referring to the team owner, Dennis Bunker, the real SecDef.
“Tim, I think we got us a ball game!”
“I should be there,” Brent Talbot observed. “Dennis is.”
“If I tried to keep him away from his games, he’d resign,” President Fowler said. “Besides, he used his own plane.” Dennis Bunker owned his own small jet, and though he allowed others to fly him around, he still maintained a current commercial pilot’s license. It was one of the reasons the military respected him. He could try his hand at almost anything that flew, having once been a distinguished combat flyer.
“What’s the spread on this one?”
“Vikings by three,” the President answered. “That’s just because of the home field. The teams are pretty even. I saw Wills against the Falcons last week. He’s some kid.”
“Tony’s all of that. A wonderful boy. Smart, marvelous attitude, spends a lot of time with kids.”
“How about we get him to be a spokesman for the antidrug campaign?”
“He already does that in Chicago. I can call him if you want.”
Fowler turned. “Do it, Brent.”
Behind them Pete Connor and Helen D’Agustino relaxed on a couch. President Fowler knew them both to be football fans, and the President’s TV room was large and comfortable.
“Anybody want a beer?” Fowler asked. He could not watch a ball game without a beer.
“I’ll get it,” D’Agustino said, heading for the refrigerator in the next room. It was the most curious thing about this most complex of men, “Daga” thought to herself. The man looked, dressed, walked, and acted like a patrician. He was a genuine intellectual, with the arrogance to match. But in front of a TV watching a football game—Fowler watched baseball only when his presidential duties required it—he was Joe Six-Pack, with a bowl of popcorn and a glass of beer, or two, or three. Of course, even here, his “anybody want a beer?” was a command. His bodyguards could not drink on duty, and Talbot never touched the stuff. Daga got herself a Diet Coke.
“Thank you,” Fowler said when she handed the glass to her President. He was even more polite at football games. Perhaps, D’Agustino thought, because it was something he and his wife had done. She hoped that was true. It gave the man the humanity that he needed above all things.
“Wow! Bradley hit Wills hard enough that we heard it up here.” On the screen, both men got up and traded what looked like an emotional exchange but was probably a mutual laugh.
“Might as well get acquainted fast, Tim. They’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Second and seven from the thirty-one, both teams just getting loosened up. That Bradley’s a smart linebacker. He played off the center and filled the hole like he knew what was coming.”
“He certainly reads his keys well for a rook, and that Viking center made the Pro Bowl last year,” the color guy pointed out.
“Great ass on that Bradley kid,” Daga pointed out quietly.
“This women’s lib stuff is going too far, Helen,” Pete said with a grin. He shifted positions on the couch to get his service revolver out of his kidney.
Günther Bock and Marvin Russell stood on the sidewalk just outside the White House grounds among a crowd of a hundred or so tourists, most of whom aimed cameras at the executive mansion. They’d arrived in the city the previous evening, and tomorrow they’d tour the Capitol. Both wore ballcaps to protect them from what still felt like a summer sun. Bock had a camera draped around his neck on a Mickey Mouse strap. He snapped a few photos, mainly to blend in with the rest of the tourists. The real observations came from his trained eye. This was a much harder target than people realized. The buildings around the White House were all large enough that sharpshooters were provided with excellent perches concealed by the stonework. He knew that he was probably under surveillance right now, but they couldn’t have the time or money to compare his likeness to every photo they had on their books, and he’d taken the trouble to alter his appearance enough to dispense with that worry.
The President’s helicopter flew in and landed only a hundred meters from where he stood. A man with a man-portable SAM might stand a good chance of taking it out—except for the practical considerations. To be there at the right time was much harder than it seemed. The ideal way would be to have a small truck, perhaps one with a hole cut in the roof so that the missileer could stand, fire, and attempt his escape. Except for the riflemen who certainly perched on the surrounding buildings, and Bock had no illusions that such snipers would miss their targets. Americans had invented sharpshooting, and their President would have the services of the best. Doubtless some of the people in this crowd of tourists were also Secret Service agents, and it was unlikely that he’d spot them.
The bomb could be driven here and detonated in a truck ... depending on the protective measures that Ghosn had warned him about. Similarly, he might be able to deliver the weapon by truck to the immediate vicinity of the Capitol Building, perhaps at the time of the President’s State of the Union Address ... if the weapon were ready on time. That they weren’t sure of, and there was also the question of shipping it here—three weeks it would take. Latakia to Rotterdam, then transshipment to an American port. Baltimore was the closest major port. Norfolk/Newport News was next. Both handled lots of containerized shipping. They could fly it in, but airborne cargo was often X-rayed, and they could not risk that.
The idea was to catch the President on a weekend. It almost had to be a weekend for everything else to work. Everything else. Bock knew that he was violating one of his most important operational precepts—simplicity. But for this to have a chance of working, he had to arrange more than one incident, and he had to do it on a weekend. But the American President was in the White House only about half the time on weekends, and his movements between Washington, Ohio, and other places were unpredictable. The simplest security measure available to the President of the United States was the one they used: his movement schedule, as well known as it might have been, was irregular and its precise details were often closely held. Bock needed at least a week’s lead-time to set up his other arrangements—and that was optimistic—but it would be nearly impossible to get that seven days. It would actually have been simpler to plan a simple assassination with conventional weapons. A small aircraft, for example, might be armed with SA-7 missiles ... probably not. The President’s helicopter undoubtedly had the best infrared jammers available....
One chance. You get only one chance.
What if we are patient? What if we simply sit on the bomb for a year and bring it into the country for the next State of the Union speech? Getting the bomb close enough to the Capitol Building to destroy it and everyone in it should not be hard. He’d heard—and would see tomorrow—that the Capitol was a building of classical construction—lots of stone, but little structural ironwork ... perhaps all they needed was patience.
But that wouldn’t happen. Qati would not allow it. There was both the question of security and the more important consideration that Qati thought himself a dying man, and dying men were not known for their patience.
And would it work in any case? How well did the Americans guard the areas where the President’s presence was predictable well in advance? Were their radiological sensors in the area?
You’d put them there, wouldn’t you?
Only one chance. You’ll never be able to repeat this.
At least one week’s advance notice or you’ll never achieve anything beyond mass murder.
Must be a place without the likely presence of radiological sensors. That eliminated Washington.
Bock started walking away from the black iron fence. His face did not betray the anger he felt.
“Back to the hotel?” Russell asked.
“Yes, why not?” Both men were still tired from their traveling anyway.
“Good, wanted to catch the ball game. You know, that’s about the only thing Fowler and I see eye to eye on?”
“Hmph? What’s that?”
“Football.” Russell laughed. “You know? Football. Okay, I’ll teach it t’ya.”
Fifteen minutes later they were in their room. Russell switched the TV to the local NBC channel.
“That was some drive, Tom. The Vikings had to convert six third-downs, and two of them required measurements.”
“And one was a bad spot,” President Fowler said.
“Ref didn’t think so.” Talbot chuckled.
“They’re holding Tony Wills to barely three yards a carry, and one of those was his twenty-yard break on the reverse that caught the Chargers napping.”
“A lot of work for three points, Tim, but they did get the three.”
“And now the Chargers get their chance at offense. The Vikings defense is a little iffy, with two of their starters out with minor injuries. I bet they’re sorry to miss this one.”
The Chargers’ quarterback took his first snap, faded back five steps, and hurled the ball toward his flanker, slanting across the middle, but a hand tipped the ball and it ended up in the surprised face of the Vikings’ free safety, who pulled it in and fell at the forty.
Bock found the game exciting in a distant sort of way, but almost totally incomprehensible. Russell tried to explain, but it didn’t really help very much. Günther consoled himself with a beer, stretching out on the bed while his mind rolled over what he’d seen. Bock knew what he wanted his plan to accomplish, but the exact details—especially here in America—were looking harder than expected. If only—
“What was that they said?”
“The Secretary of Defense,” Russell answered.
“A joke?”
Marvin turned. “Sort of a joke. That’s what they call the middle linebacker, Maxim Bradley, from the University of Alabama. But the real one owns the team. Dennis Bunker—there he is.” The camera showed Bunker in one of the stadium’s sky-boxes.
How remarkable, Bock thought.
“What is this Super Bowl they talked about?”
“That’s the championship game. They have a playoff series of the most successful teams, and the last one is called the Super Bowl.”
“Like the World Cup, you mean?”
“Yeah, something like that. ’Cept we do it every year. This year—actually next year, end of January—it’s in the new stadium they built at Denver. The Skydome, I think they call it.”
“They expect these two teams to go there?”
Russell shrugged. “That’s the talk. The regular season is sixteen weeks, man, then three weeks of playoffs, then another week wait for the Super Bowl.”
“Who goes to this last game?”
“Lots of people. Hey, man, it’s the game. Everybody wants to go to it. Getting tickets is a mother. These two teams are the best bet to go all the way, but it’s real unpredictable, y’know?”
“President Fowler is a football enthusiast?”
“That’s what they say. He’s supposed to go to a lot of Redskin games right here in D.C.”
“What about security?” Bock asked.
“It’s tough. They put him in one of the special boxes. Figure they have it rigged with bulletproof glass or something.”
How very foolish, Bock thought. Of course, a stadium was easier to secure than it might seem to the casual observer. A heavy crew-served weapon could be fired only from an entrance ramp, and watching those was relatively easy. On the other hand ...
Bock closed his eyes. He was thinking in an unorganized way, vacillating between conventional and unconventional approaches to the problem. He was also allowing himself to focus on the wrong thing. Killing the American President was desirable but not essential. What was essential was to kill the largest possible number of people in the most spectacular way imaginable, then to coordinate with other activities in order to foment ...
Think! Concentrate on the real mission.
“The television coverage for these games is most impressive,” Bock observed after a minute.
“Yeah, they make a big deal of that. Satellite vans, all that stuff.” Russell was concentrating on the game. The Vikings had scored something called a touchdown, and the score was now ten to nothing, but it seemed now that the other team was moving rapidly in the other direction.
“Has the game ever been seriously disrupted?”
Marvin turned. “Huh? Oh, during the war with Iraq, they had really tight security—and you remember the movie, right?”
“Movie?” Bock asked.
“Black Sunday, I think it was—some Middle East guys tried to blow up the place.” Russell laughed. “Already been done, man. In Hollywood, anyway. They used a blimp. Anyway, during the Super Bowl when we were fighting Iraq, they wouldn’t let the TV blimp come near the place.”
“Is there a game at Denver today?”
“No, that’s tomorrow night, Broncos and the Seahawks. Won’t be much of a game. The Broncos are rebuilding this year.”
“I see.” Bock left the room and arranged for the concierge to get them tickets to Denver in the morning.
Cathy got up to see him off. She even fixed breakfast. Her solicitude over the past few days had not made her husband feel any better. Quite the reverse. But he couldn’t say anything about it, could he? Even the way she overdid it, straightening his tie and kissing him on the way out the door. The smile, the loving look, all for a husband who couldn’t get it up, Jack thought on his way out to the car. The same sort of smothering attention you might give to some poor bastard in a wheelchair.
“Morning, doc.”
“Hello, John.”
“Catch the Vikings-Chargers game yesterday?”
“No, I, uh, took my son to see the Orioles. They lost six to one.” Success was following Jack everywhere, but at least he’d kept his word to his son. That was something, wasn’t it?
“Twenty-four to twenty-one in overtime. God, that Wills kid is incredible. They held him to ninety-six yards, but when he had to deliver, he popped it for twenty yards and set up the field goal,” Clark reported.
“You have money on the game?”
“Five bucks at the office, but it was a three-point spread. The education fund won that one.”
It gave Ryan something to chuckle about. Gambling was as illegal at CIA as it was in every other government office, but a serious attempt to enforce a ban on football betting might have started a revolution—the same was true at the FBI, Jack was sure, which enforced interstate gambling statutes—and the semiofficial system was that half-point betting spreads were not allowed. All “pushes” (odds-caused ties) forfeited into the Agency’s in-house charity, the Education Aid Fund. It was something that even the Agency’s own Inspector General winked at—in fact, he liked to lay money on games as much as the next guy.
“Looks like you at least got some sleep, Jack,” Clark noted as they made their way toward Route 50.
“Eight hours,” Jack said. He’d wanted another chance the previous night, but Cathy had said no. You’re too tired, Jack. That’s all it is. You’re working too hard, and I want you to take it easy, okay?
Like I’m a goddamned stud horse that’s been overworked.
“Good for you,” Clark said. “Or maybe your wife insisted, eh?”
Ryan stared ahead at the road. “Where’s the box?”
“Here.”
Ryan unlocked it and started looking at the weekend’s dispatches.
They caught an early direct flight from Washington National to Denver’s Stapleton International. It was a clear day most of the way across the country. Bock got a window seat and looked at the country, his first time in America. As were most Europeans, he was surprised, almost awed by the sheer size and diversity. The wooded hills of Appalachia; the flat farmlands of Kansas, speckled with the immense circular signature of the traveling irrigation systems; the stunning way the plains ended and the Rockies began within easy sight of Denver. No doubt Marvin would say something when they arrived about how this had all been property of his people. What rubbish. They’d been nomadic barbarians, following the herds of bison, or whatever had once been there before civilization arrived. America might be his enemy, but it was a civilized country, and all the more dangerous for it. By the time the aircraft landed, he was squirming with his need for a smoke. Ten minutes after landing they’d rented a car and were examining a map. Bock’s head was dizzy from the lack of oxygen here. Nearly fifteen hundred meters of altitude, he realized. It was a wonder that people could play American football here.
They’d landed behind the morning rush hour, and driving to the stadium was simple. Southwest of the city, the new Skydome was a distinctive structure located on an immense plot of ground to allow ample room for parking. He parked the car close to a ticket window and decided that the simple approach would be best.
“Can I get two tickets for tonight’s match?” he asked the attendant.
“Sure, we have a few hundred left. Where do you want them?”
“I don’t know the stadium at all, I’m afraid.”
“You must be new here,” the lady observed with a friendly smile. “All we got’s in the upper deck, Section Sixty-six and Sixty-eight.”
“Two, please. Is cash all right?”
“Sure is. Where are you from?”
“Denmark,” Bock replied.
“Really? Well, welcome to Denver! Hope you enjoy the game.”
“Can I look around to see where my seat is?”
“Technically, no, but nobody really minds.”
“Thank you.” Bock smiled back at the simpering fool.
“They had seats for tonight?” Marvin Russell asked. “I’ll be damned.”
“Come, we will see where they are.”
Bock walked through the nearest open gate, just a few meters from the big ABC vans that carried the satellite equipment for the evening broadcast. He took the time to notice that the stadium was hard-wired for the equipment. So the TV vans would always be in the same place, just by Gate 5. Inside, he saw a team of technicians setting up their equipment, then he headed up the nearest ramp, deliberately heading in the wrong direction.
The stadium had to seat sixty thousand people, perhaps a little more. It had three primary levels, called lower, mezzanine, and upper, plus two complete ranks of enclosed boxes, some of which looked quite luxurious. Structurally it was quite impressive. Massive reinforced-concrete construction, all the upper decks were cantilevered. There were no pillars to block a spectator’s view. A fine stadium. A superb target. Beyond the parking lot to the north were endless hectares of low-rise apartment buildings. To the east was a government office center. The stadium was not in the city center, but that couldn’t be helped. Bock found and took his seat, orienting himself with the compass and the TV equipment. The latter was quite easy. An ABC banner was being hung below one of the press boxes.
“Hey!”
“Yes?” Bock looked down at a security guard.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Sorry.” He held up his tickets. “I just bought them, and I wanted to see where my seats were so that I would know where to park. I’ve never seen an American football game,” he added, heavy on the accent. Americans, he’d heard, were always nice to people with European accents.
“You want to park in Area A or B. Try to arrive early, like before five. You want to beat the rush-hour traffic. It can be a bear out there.”
Günther bobbed his head. “Thank you. I’ll be leaving now.”
“No problem, sir. It’s no big deal. I mean, it’s the insurance, y’know? You have people wandering around, they might get hurt and sue.”
Bock and Russell left. They circled the bottom level, just so that Günther could be sure he had the configuration memorized. Then that became unnecessary when he found a stadium diagram printed on a small card.
“Seen what you wanted?” Marvin asked when they got back to the car.
“Yes, possibly.”
“You know, that’s pretty subtle,” the American mused aloud.
“What do you mean?”
“Dickin’ with the TV. The really dumb thing about revolutionaries is that they overlook the psychological stuff. You don’t have to kill a lot of people, just pissin’ them off, scarin’ them, that’s enough, isn’t it?”
Bock stopped at the parking-lot exit and looked at his companion. “You have learned much, my friend.”
“This is pretty hot stuff,” Ryan said, leafing through the pages.
“I didn’t know it was that bad,” Mary Patricia Foley agreed.
“How are you feeling?”
The senior field officer’s eyes twinkled. “Clyde has dropped. Waiting for my water to break.”
Jack looked up. “Clyde?”
“That’s what I’m calling him—her—whatever.”
“Doing your exercises?”
“Rocky Balboa should be in the shape I’m in. Ed’s got the nursery all painted up. The crib is put back together. All ready, Jack.”
“How much time will you be taking off?”
“Four weeks, maybe six.”
“I may want you to go over some of this at home,” Ryan said, lingering on page two.
“Long as you pay me.” Mary Pat laughed.
“What do you think, MP?”
“I think SPINNAKER is the best source we have. If he says it, it’s probably true.”
“We haven’t caught a whiff of this anywhere else....”
“That’s why you recruit good penetration agents.”
“True,” Ryan had to agree.
The report from Agent SPINNAKER wasn’t quite earthshaking, but it was like the first rumble that got people worrying about a major quake. Since the Russians had taken the cork out of the bottle, the Soviet Union had developed an instant case of political schizophrenia. Wrong term, Ryan reflected. Multiple-personality disorder, perhaps. There were five identifiable political areas: the true-believing communists, who thought that any divergence from the True Path was a mistake (the Forward-to-the-Past crowd, some called them); the progressive socialists, who wanted to create socialism with a human face (something that had singularly failed in Massachusetts, Jack thought wryly); the middle-of-the-roaders, who wanted some free-market capitalism backed up with a solid safety net (or craved the worst of both worlds, as any economist could say); the reformists, who wanted a thin net and a lot of capitalism (but no one knew what capitalism was yet, except for a rapidly expanding criminal sector); and on the far right, those who wanted a right-wing authoritarian government (which was what had put communism in place over seventy years before). The groups on the extreme ends of the spectrum had perhaps ten percent in the Congress of People’s Deputies. The remaining eighty percent of the votes were fairly evenly split among the three vaguely centrist positions. Naturally enough, various issues scrambled allegiances—environmentalism was particularly hot and divisive—and the biggest wild card was the incipient breakup of the republics that had always chafed under Russian rule, all the more so because of the political coda imposed from Moscow. Finally, each of the five groupings had its own political subsets. For example, there was currently a lot of talk from the political right of inviting the most likely Romanov heir-presumptive back to Moscow—not to take over, but merely to accept a semiofficial apology for the murder of his ancestors. Or so the cover story went. Whoever had come up with that idea, Jack thought, was either the most naive son of a bitch since Alice went down the rabbit hole or a politician with a dangerously simplistic mind-set. The good news, CIA’s Station Paris reported, was that the Prince of all the Russias had a better feel for politics and his own safety than his sponsors did.
The bad news was that the political and economic situation in the Soviet Union looked utterly hopeless. SPINNAKER’S report merely made it look more ominous. Andrey Il’ych Narmonov was desperate, running out of options, running out of allies, running out of ideas, running out of time, and running out of maneuvering room. He was, the report said, overly concerned with his waffling on the nationalities problem, to the point that he was trying to strengthen his hold on the security apparatus—MVD, KGB, and the military—so that he could keep the empire together by force. But the military, SPINNAKER said, was both unhappy with that mission, and unhappy with the halfhearted way Narmonov planned to implement it.
There had been speculation about the Soviet military and its supposed political ambitions since the time of Lenin. It wasn’t new. Stalin had taken a scythe through his officer corps in the late 1930s; it was generally agreed that Marshal Tukhashevskiy had not really posed a political threat, that it had been yet another case of Stalin’s malignant paranoia. Khrushchev had done the same in the late ’50s, but without the mass executions; that had been done because Khrushchev had wanted to save money on tanks and depend on nuclear arms instead. Narmonov had retired quite a few generals and colonels also; in this case, the move had been exclusively one of economizing on military expense across the board. But this time also, the military reductions had been accompanied by a political renaissance. For the first time there was a true political opposition movement in the country, and the fact of the matter was that the Soviet Army had all the guns. To counter that worrisome possibility, the KGB’s Third Chief Directorate had existed for generations—KGB officers who wore military uniforms and whose mission it was to keep an eye on everything. But the Third Chief Directorate was a mere shadow of what it had been. The military had persuaded Narmonov to remove it as a precondition to its own goal of a truly professional force, loyal to the country and the new constitution.
Historians invariably deemed the age in which they lived to be one of transition. For once they were right, Jack thought. If this were not an age of transition, then it was hard to imagine what the hell was. In the case of the Soviets, they were poised between two political and economic worlds, teetering, not quite balanced, not quite sure which way they would go. And that made their political situation dangerously vulnerable to ... what? Jack asked himself.
Damned near anything.
SPINNAKER said Narmonov was being pressured to make a deal with the military, which, he said, was part of the Forward-to-the-Past mob. Group One. The danger existed, he said, that the Soviet Union would revert to a quasi-military state that repressed its progressive elements; that Narmonov had lost his nerve.
“He says he’s had one-on-one meetings with Andrey Il’ych,” Mary Pat pointed out. “Intel doesn’t come any better than that.”
“Also true,” Jack replied. “It is worrisome, isn’t it?”
“I’m not really concerned about a reversion to Marxist rule. ... What worries me—”
“Yeah, I know. Civil war.” Civil war in a country with thirty thousand nuclear warheads. There’s a cheery thought.
“Our position has been to cut Narmonov as much slack as he needs, but if our guy is right, that might be the wrong policy.”
“What’s Ed think?”
“Same as me. We trust Kadishev. I recruited him. Ed and I have seen every report he’s ever sent in. He delivers. He’s smart, well placed, very perceptive, ballsy son of a gun. When’s the last time he gave us bad stuff?”
“I don’t know that he ever has,” Jack replied.
“Neither do I, Jack.”
Ryan leaned back in his chair. “Christ, I just love these easy calls.... I don’t know, MP. The time I met Narmonov ... that is one tough, smart, agile son of a bitch. He’s got real brass ones.” Jack stopped. More than you can say for yourself, boy.
“We all have our limitations. Even the brass ones go soft.” Mrs. Foley smiled. “Oops, wrong metaphor. People run out of steam. Stress, hours, time in the saddle. Reality grinds us all down. Why do you think I’m taking time off? Being pregnant gives me a great excuse. Having a newborn isn’t exactly a picnic, but I get a month or so off the fundamentals, real-life instead of the stuff we do here every day. That’s one advantage we have over men, doc. You guys can’t break away like we women can. That may be Andrey Il’ych’s problem. Who can he turn to for advice? Where can he go for help? He’s been there a long time. He’s dealing with a deteriorating situation, and he’s running out of gas. That’s what SPINNAKER tells us, and it is consistent with the facts.”
“Except that we haven’t heard anything like this from anyone else.”
“But he’s our best guy for the inside stuff.”
“Which completes the circularity of the argument, Mary Pat.”
“Doc, you have the report, and you have my opinion,” Mrs. Foley pointed out.
“Yes, ma’am.” Jack set the document on his desk.
“What are you going to tell them?” “Them” was the top row of the executive branch: Fowler, Elliot, Talbot.
“I guess I go with your evaluation. I’m not entirely comfortable with it, but I don’t have anything to counter your position with. Besides, the last time I went against you, turned out I was the one who blew the call.”
“You know, you’re a pretty good boss.”
“And you’re pretty good at letting me down easy.”
“We all have bad days,” Mrs. Foley said as she got awkwardly to her feet. “Let me waddle back to my office.”
Jack rose also and walked to open the door for her. “When are you due?”
She smiled back at him. “October thirty-first—Halloween, but I’m always late, and they’re always big ones.”
“You take care of yourself.” Jack watched her leave, then walked in to see the Director.
“You’d better look this over.”
“Narmonov? I heard another SPINNAKER came in.”
“You heard right, sir.”
“Who’s doing the writeup?”
“I will,” Jack said. “I want to do some cross-checking first, though.”
“I go down tomorrow. I’d like to have it then.”
“I’ll have it done tonight.”
“Good. Thanks, Jack.”
This is the place, Günther told himself halfway into the first quarter. The stadium accommodated sixty-two thousand seven hundred twenty paying fans. Bock figured another thousand or so people selling snacks and beverages. The game was not supposed to be an important one, but it was clear that Americans were as serious about their football as Europeans were. There was a surprising number of people with multicolored paint on their faces—the local team colors, of course. Several were actually stripped to the waist and had their chests painted up like football sweaters, complete with the huge numbers the Americans used. Various exhortatory banners hung from the rails at the front of the upper decks. There were women on the playing field selected for their dancing ability and other physical attributes, leading the fans in cheers. Bock learned about a curious kind of demonstration called The Wave.
He also learned about the sovereignty of American television. This large raucous crowd meekly accepted stoppage of the game so that ABC could intersperse the play with commercials—that would have started a riot in the most civilized European soccer crowd. TV was even used to regulate play. The field was littered with referees in striped shirts, and even they were supervised by cameras and, Russell pointed out, another official whose job it was to look at videotape recordings of every play and rule on the rightness or wrongness of every official ruling on the field. And to supervise that, two enormous TV screens made the same replays visible to the crowd. If all that had been tried in Europe, there would have been dead officials and fans at every game. The combination of riotous enthusiasm and meek civilization here was remarkable to Bock. The game was less interesting, though he saw Russell genuinely enjoyed it. The ferocious violence of American football was broken by long periods of inactivity. The occasional flaring of tempers was muted by the fact that each player wore enough protective equipment as to require a pistol to inflict genuine harm. And so big they were. There could hardly be a man down there under a hundred kilos. It would have been easy to call them oafish and awkward, but the running backs and others demonstrated speed and agility that one might never have guessed. For all that, the rules of the game were incomprehensible. Bock had never been one to enjoy sporting contests anyway. He’d played soccer as a boy, but that was far in his past.
Günther returned his attention to the stadium. It was a massive and impressive structure with its arching steel roof. The seats had rudimentary cushions. There was an adequate number of toilets, and a massive collection of concession stands, most serving weak American beer. A total of sixty-five thousand people here, counting police, concessionaires, TV technicians. Nearby apartments.... He realized that he’d have to educate himself on the effects of nuclear weapons to come up with a proper estimate of expected casualties. Certainly a hundred thousand. Probably more. Enough. He wondered how many of these people would be here. Most, perhaps. Sitting in their comfortable chairs, drinking their cold, weak beer, devouring their hot dogs and peanuts. Bock had been involved in two aircraft incidents. One airliner blown out of the sky, another attempted hijacking that had not gone well at all. He’d fantasized at the time about the victims, sitting in comfortable chairs, eating their mediocre meals, watching their in-flight movie, not knowing that their lives were completely in the control of others whom they did not know. Not knowing. That was the beauty of it, how he could know and they could not. To have such control over human life. It was like being God, Bock thought, his eyes surveying the crowd. A particularly cruel and unfeeling God, to be sure, but history was cruel and unfeeling, wasn’t it?
Yes, this was the place.