Jack Ryan 3 - Red Rabbit (55 page)

So he shuffled his papers, perhaps more slowly than usual, but not greatly so, he thought. There were few really hard workers, even in KGB. The cynical adage in the Soviet Union was “As long as they pretend to pay us, we will pretend to work,” and the principle applied here as well. If you exceeded your quota, they'd just increase it the following year without any improvement in your working conditions—and so, few worked hard enough to be noticed as Heroes of Socialist Labor.

Just after 11:00, Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy appeared in the comms room. Zaitzev caught his eye and waved him over.

“Yes, Comrade Major?” the colonel asked.

“Comrade Colonel,” he said quietly, “there have been no recent communications about six-six-six. Is there anything I need to know?”

The question took Rozhdestvenskiy aback. “Why do you ask?”

“Comrade Colonel,” Zaitzev went on humbly, “it was my understand ing that this operation is important and that I am the only communicator cleared for it. Have I acted improperly in any way?”

“Ah.” Rozhdestvenskiy relaxed. “No, Comrade Colonel, we have no complaints with your activities. The operation no longer requires communications of this type.”

“I see. Thank you, Comrade Colonel.”

“You look tired, Major Zaitzev. Is anything the matter?”

“No, comrade. I suppose I could use a vacation. I didn't get to go anywhere during the summer. A week or two off duty would be a blessing, before the winter hits.”

“Very well. If you have any difficulties, let me know, and I'll try to smooth things out for you.”

Zaitzev managed a grateful smile. “Why, thank you, Comrade Colonel.”

“You do good work down here, Zaitzev. We're all entitled to some time off, even State Security people.”

“Thank you again, Comrade Colonel. I serve the Soviet Union.” Rozhdestvenskiy nodded and took his leave. As he walked out the door, Zaitzev took a long breath and went back to work memorizing dispatches… but not for the Soviet Union. So, he thought, -666 was being handled by courier now. He'd learn no more about it, but he'd just learned that it was going forward on a high-priority basis. They were really going to do it. He wondered if the Americans would get him out quickly enough to forestall it. The information was in his hands, but the ability to do anything about it was not. It was like being Cassandra of old, daughter of King Priam of Troy, knowing what was going to happen, but unable to get anyone to do anything about it. Cassandra had angered the gods somehow or other and received that curse as a result, but what had he done to deserve it? Zaitzev wondered, suddenly angry at CIA's inefficiency. But he couldn't just board a Pan American flight out of Sheremetyevo International Airport, could he?

PROCUREMENTS AND ARRANGEMENTS

THE SECOND FACE-TO-FACE meeting was back at GUM department store, where a certain Little Bunny needed some fall/winter clothing, which her father wanted to get her—which was something of a surprise for Irina Bogdanova, but a pleasant one. Mary Pat, the supreme expert on shopping in the Foley family, wandered about looking at the various items on sale, surprised to see that they weren't all Soviet schlock. Some were even attractive… though not quite attractive enough to buy. She dawdled again in the fur department—the furs here might have sold fairly well in New York, though they were not quite on a par with Fendi. There weren't enough Italian designers in Russia. But the quality of the furs—that is, the animal skins themselves—wasn't too shabby. The Soviets just didn't know how to sew them together properly. That was too bad, really, she thought. The saddest thing about the Soviet Union was how the government of that gray country prevented its citizens from actually accomplishing much. There was so little originality here. The best things to buy were all old, pre-revolutionary art works, usually small ones, almost always religious pieces, sold at impromptu flea markets to raise needed money for some family or other. She'd already purchased several pieces, trying not to feel like a thief in doing so. To assuage her conscience, she never haggled, almost always paying the price asked instead of trying to chisel it down by a few percent. That would have been like armed robbery, she thought, and her ultimate mission in Moscow—this was a core belief for her—was to help these people, though in a way they could hardly have understood or approved. But, for the most part, Muscovites liked her American smile and friendliness. And certainly they liked the blue-stripe certificate rubles she paid with, cash money that would give them access to luxury items or, almost as good, cash that they could exchange at a rate of three or four to one.

She wandered about for half an hour, then saw her target in the children's clothing area. She maneuvered that way, taking time to lift and examine various items before coming up behind him.

“Good evening, Oleg Ivan'ch,” she said quietly, handling a parka meant for a girl of three or four.

“Mary, is it?”

“That is correct. Tell me, do you have any vacation days available to you?”

“Yes, I do. Two weeks of it, in fact.”

“And you told me that your wife likes classical music?”

“That is also correct.”

“There is a fine conductor. His name is Jozsef Rozsa. He will start performing in the main concert hall in Budapest on Sunday evening. The best hotel for you to check in to is the Astoria. It is a short distance from the train station, and is popular with Soviet guests. Tell all your friends what you are doing. Arrange to buy them things in Budapest. Do everything that a Soviet citizen does. We will handle the rest,” she assured him.

“All of us,” Zaitzev reminded her. “All of us come out?”

“Of course, Oleg. Your little zaichik will see many wonders in America, and the winters are not so fierce as they are here,” MP added.

“We Russians enjoy our winters,” he pointed out, with a little amour propre.

“In that case, you will be able to live in an area as cold as Moscow. And if you desire warm weather in February, you can drive or fly to Florida and relax on a sunny beach.”

“You are tourist agent, Mary?” the Rabbit asked.

“For you, Oleg, I am just that. Are you comfortable passing information to my husband on the metro?”

“Yes.”

 You shouldn't be
, Mary Pat thought. “What is your best necktie?”

“A blue one with red stripes.”

“Very well, wear that one two days before you take the train to Budapest. Bump into him and apologize, and we will know. Two days before you leave Moscow, wear your blue-striped tie and bump into him on the metro,” she repeated. You had to be careful doing this. People could make the goddamnedest mistakes in the simplest of matters, even when—no, especially when—their lives were on the line. That was why she was making it as easy as possible. Only one thing to remember. Only one thing to do.

“ Da , I can do that easily.”

 Optimistic bastard, aren't you?
“Excellent. Please be very careful, Oleg Ivan'ch.” And with that, she went on her way. But then she stopped five or six meters away and turned. In her purse was a Minox camera. She shot five frames, and then walked away.

“WELL, DIDN'T YOU see anything worth getting?” her husband asked, out in their used Mercedes 280.

“No, nothing really worthwhile. Maybe we should try a trip up to Helsinki to get some winter stuff,” she suggested. “You know, take the train, like. Ought to be fun to do it that way. Eddie should like it.”

The Station Chief's eyebrow went up. Probably better to take the train, he thought. Doesn't look rushed or forced. Carry lots of suitcases, half of them empty to bring back all the shit you'll buy there with your Comecon rubles, Ed Foley thought. Except you don't come back… and if Langley and London get their shit together, maybe we can make it a real home-run ball…

“Home, honey?” Foley asked. Wouldn't it be a hoot if KGB didn't have their home and car bugged, and they were doing all this secret-agent crap for no reason at all? he thought idly. Well, at worst, it was good practice, wasn't it?

“Yeah, we've done enough for one day.”

“BLOODY HELL,” Basil Charleston breathed. He lifted his phone and punched three buttons.

“Yes, sir?” Kingshot asked, coming into the room.

“This.” C handed the dispatch across.

“Shit,” Kingshot breathed.

Sir Basil managed a smile. “It's always the obvious, simple things, isn't it?”

“Yes, sir. Even so, does make one feel rather thick,” he admitted. “A house fire. Works better than what we originally thought.”

“Well, something to remember. How many house fires do we have in London, Alan?”

“Sir Basil, I have not a clue,” the most senior field spook in the SIS admitted. “But find out I shall.”

“Get this to your friend Nolan as well.”

“Tomorrow morning, sir,” Kingshot promised. “At least it improves our chances. Are CIA working on this as well?”

“Yes.”

AS WAS THE FBI. Director Emil Jacobs had heard his share of oddball requests from the folks on “the other side of the river,” as CIA was sometimes called in official Washington. But this was positively gruesome. He lifted his phone and punched his direct line to the DCL

“There's a good reason for this, I presume, Arthur?” he asked without preamble.

“Not over the phone, Emil, but yes.”

“Three Caucasians, one male in his early thirties, one female same age, and a little girl age three or four,” Jacobs said, reading it off the hand-delivered note from Langley. “My field agents will think the Director's slipped a major gear, Arthur. We'd probably be better off asking local police forces for assistance—”

“But—”

“Yes, I know, it would leak too quickly. Okay, I can send a message to all my SACs and have them check their morning papers, but it won't be easy to keep something like this from leaking out. ”

“Emil, I understand that. We're trying to get help from the Brits on this as well. Not the sort of thing you can just whistle up, I know. All I can say is that it's very important, Emil.”

“You due on The Hill anytime soon?”

“House Intelligence Committee tomorrow at ten. Budget stuff,” Moore explained. Congress was always going after that information, and Moore always had to defend his agency from people on The Hill, who would just as soon cut CIA off at the ankles—so that they could complain about “intelligence failures” later on, of course.

“Okay, can you stop off here on the way? I gotta hear this cock-and-bull story,” Jacobs announced.

“Eight-forty or so?”

“Works for me, Arthur.”

“See you then,” Moore promised.

Director Jacobs replaced his phone, wondering what could be so goddamned important as to request the Federal Bureau of Investigation to play grave robber.

ON THE METRO HOME, after buying his little zaichik a white parka with red and green flowers on it, Zaitzev thought over his strategy. When would he tell Irina about their impromptu vacation? If he sprang it on her as a surprise, there would be one sort of problem—Irina would worry about her accounting job at GUM, but the office was, by her account, so loosely run that they'd hardly notice a missing body. But if he did give her too much warning, there would be another problem—she'd try to micromanage everything, like every wife in the known world, since, in her mind, he was unfitted to figure out anything. That was rather musing, Oleg Ivan'ch thought, given the current circumstances.

So, then, no, he would not tell her ahead of time, but instead spring this trip on her as a surprise, and use this Hungarian conductor as the excuse. Then the big surprise would come in Budapest. He wondered how she'd react to that piece of news. Perhaps not well, but she was a Russian wife, trained and educated to accept the orders of her man, which, all Russian men thought, was as it should be.

Svetlana loved riding the metro. That was the thing with little children, Oleg had learned. To them everything was an adventure to take in with their wide children's eyes, even something as routine as riding the underground train. She didn't walk or run. She pranced, like a puppy—or like a bunny, her father thought, smiling down at her. Would his little zaichik find better adventures in the West?

 Probably so
… if I get her there alive, Zaitzev reminded himself. There was danger involved, but somehow his fear was not for himself, but for his daughter. How odd that was. Or was it? He didn't know anymore. He knew that he had a mission of sorts, and that was all that he actually saw before him. The rest of it was just a collection of intermediate steps, but at the end of the steps was a bright, shining light, and that was all he could really see. It was very strange how the light had grown brighter and brighter since his first doubts about Operation -666 until now, when it occupied all his mental eyes could see. Like a moth drawn to a light, he kept circling in closer and closer, and all he could really hope was that the light was not a flame that would kill him.

“Here, Papa!” Svetlana said, recognizing their stop, taking his hand, and dragging him forward to the sliding doors. A minute later, she jumped on the moving steps of the escalator, excited by that ride as well. His child was like an American adult—or how Russians supposed them to be, always seeing opportunities and possibilities and the fun to be had, instead of the dangers and threats that careful, sober Soviet citizens saw everywhere. But if Americans were so foolish, why were Soviets always trying—and failing—to catch up with them? Was America really right where the USSR was so often wrong? It was a deeper question that he'd scarcely considered. All he knew of America was the obvious propaganda he saw every night on television or read about in the official State newspapers. He knew that had to be wrong, but his knowledge was unbalanced, since he did not really know true information. And so his leap to the West was fundamentally a leap of faith. If his country was so wrong, then the alternative superpower had to be right. It was a big, long, and dangerous leap, he thought, walking down the sidewalk and holding his little girl's hand. He told himself that he ought to be more fearful.

But it was too late to be frightened, and turning back would have been as harmful to him as going forward. Above everything else, it was a question of who would destroy him—his country or himself—if he failed to carry out his mission. And on the other side, would America reward him for trying to do what he deemed the right thing? It seemed that he was like Lenin and the other revolutionary heroes: He saw something that was objectively wrong, and he was going to try to prevent it. Why? Because he had to. He had to trust that his country's enemies would see right and wrong as he did. Would they? While the American President had denounced his nation as the focus of all the evil in the world, his country said much the same thing of America. Who was right? Who was wrong? But it was his country and his employer that was conspiring to murder an innocent man, and that was as far as he could see into the right/wrong question.