Moving targets, p.8
Moving Targets, page 8
After giving them his blessings for their endeavor, which seemed to please them immensely, Kaplin wandered down to the Kremlin, where he looked in at a couple of the museums before crossing Red Square to GUM, the big department store where there were definitely more people than goods.
Slipping out a side door, he hurried up to the Metro station on Revolution Square and rode the train to Gor’kiy Park.
At noon, certain that he had not been followed, Kaplin entered the apartment building and trudged upstairs. On the second floor a slightly built blond woman, several packages at her feet, was fumbling with the door lock to the apartment below his. Sweeney had said it was empty.
“Hello, then, little girl, are you a housebreaker?” he asked, startling her.
She looked up, dropping her keys, her eyes wide and her nostrils flared in fright. “Oh,” she said, and tears immediately came to her eyes.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Kaplin immediately apologized. He was bemused. The girl was young, perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties, and was quite pretty. “Do I look like that much of an ogre?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that I …”
“This apartment was empty, did you just move in?”
“Yes,” the girl said, relieved. “Yes, I did, just this morning, but I can’t get this lock to work, there’s no electricity whatsoever in my flat, and there was no sausage in the store. Only bread.”
“Ah, but you must be from the country,” Kaplin said, picking up the keys. She stepped aside for him as he tried the lock.
“Petrozavodsk,” she said.
The door opened, and Kaplin held out the key for her. “See, it was just stuck a little from disuse. And I’m sure that if you talk to the babushka downstairs, she will turn on your electricity.”
She took the key. “Thank you very much …”
“Anatoli Kaplin. And you? What are you doing so far from home all alone?” Sweeney had probably sent her to watch over things here. It was a safe bet the KGB wouldn’t have sent someone like this.
“I am Larissa Dolya, and I’ve got a job at GUM, only I fell and hurt my ribs, and besides, there was nothing in my department to sell so they sent me home for a few days, or maybe a week. But I don’t know what there is to eat now. And …” Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“All right, all right, cut out the waterworks, little Lara, and I’ll read you a poem while you fix us our supper.”
“But I have only bread and pickles.”
“Perfect,” Kaplin said, clapping his big hands together. “You will bring your bread and pickles upstairs to my little nest, where I have sausages and cheese and even some sweet wine.”
She looked doubtful.
“What do you say?” he asked. “If you are a good little girl, I will even tell your fortune. As you can plainly see by my hair and my beard, I was raised by Gypsies, and my grandfather as a boy even knew the great Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. Now, what do you think about that?”
Nancy Perigorde shivered as she got out of her car and used the phone booth at the side of the road. She’d driven almost all the way into Washington before she was convinced that she wasn’t being followed.
As always the number she called was answered on the first ring by a man she only knew as Dr. Hamilton. “Hello.”
“He’s made a breakthrough,” she said.
“Did you get in with him?”
“Yes. He used a ten-digit numerical sequence to get past the rose, and then he asked for something called Payment Green Grass, but he was denied access.”
“Christ, we’re actually inside the KGB’s fucking Finance Directorate computer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long can you continue to screen your entry?”
“From us or them?”
“Us,” the man answered after a brief pause.
“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “A little longer, but not so long.” She was being paid a lot of money. On the first of every month an envelope containing five thousand dollars in cash was placed on the front seat of her car while she was at work. It never mattered if her car was locked or unlocked, the envelope always appeared.
But she was getting frightened now. She didn’t know how long she could keep it up. She wanted one hundred thousand dollars. So far she’d been paid half that. But ten more months seemed like an impossibly long time.
“Can you stick with it?” Dr. Hamilton asked.
“Yes, for a while. But we’re talking about the unauthorized use of a NSA ELINT satellite. If I’m caught I’ll go to jail for a very long time.”
“You’ll be rewarded.”
“I don’t know …”
“Very well rewarded. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said after a pause. It was starting to snow. All she could think of these days was sun and warmth and the blue water of the Caribbean.
“Tell me what else our little friend in Moscow has learned.”
Kelly Pool and his wife, Jeanne, maintained an apartment in the embassy. Just now she was back in the States. She’d gone home after the coup. Sweeney knocked at his door and Pool answered it almost immediately, as if he had been standing there waiting.
“Good of you to drop by,” Pool said.
Sweeney had been up here often, but each time he was struck by how much larger the Pools’ apartment was than his own, and how well furnished in the American style it was. “I can only stay a few minutes.”
“Are you done … with the questions for Kaplin?” Pool asked, mouthing the last five words silently.
“Just about.”
Pool’s eyes were narrow. Something was wrong. “Have you had your lunch yet? Would you like a bite to eat?”
“I had a sandwich and soup in the canteen around noon.”
“Care for a drink?” Pool asked, nodding toward his study.
“Fine,” Sweeney said, following Pool into his small, windowless study. His “thinking closet,” as he called it, had actually been a pantry off a large kitchen once upon a time. It was furnished with a small desk and chair, an overstuffed easy chair, a small globe on a stand, and two walls of books. Some of the books had been taken off the shelves and were packed into cardboard boxes. The room was free of microphones.
Pool poured them both a drink. “Forgive the mess,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
Pool handed him his drink, then picked a message flimsy off his desk and gave that to him. “I’ve been relieved. As of this moment you are the new Moscow chief of station.”
Sweeney was flabbergasted. The message was very short and to the point, relieving Pool immediately as COS, appointing Sweeney as acting COS until further notice, and ordering Pool to return to Langley by “the most expeditious means.” The last paragraph dealt with instructions to follow by book cable for Sweeney.
“Your cable should be here later this afternoon. I’d like you to remain in the embassy at least until then.” Pool smiled deprecatingly. “I’ll be out of here within twenty-four hours if you and Katherine would care to move in.”
“Not yet,” Sweeney said in a daze. “I don’t want to upset the status quo here. If we can keep them guessing for a little while, it’ll help.” He shook his head.
“Not totally unexpected under the circumstances.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was due to be relieved in any event, but my objections to MOHAWK apparently struck a nerve. Adkins called me this morning, just before this came in, and explained everything. Said he had complete confidence in you … an opinion which I seconded … and that I was needed on the Russian desk.”
“You’re being transferred to Intelligence?”
“I started out there after college,” Pool said. “It’ll be like old home week. Not as exciting as Ops, but the work is steady, and Jeanne will like it.”
“Shit,” Sweeney said after a beat.
“Yeah.” Pool motioned Sweeney to the easy chair as he sat down behind his desk. “You’re in for a tough haul here, Dick, and that’s not sour grapes talking.”
“The job has never been easy. But … hell, I never wanted it like this.”
“Save the sentiment. If there’s any pity to be dispensed, give it to yourself, you’ll need it from time to time. Adkins will be keeping a very close watch on what you do here.”
“Your replacement should be here soon …”
“Forget it,” Pool said. “You’ll be given ninety days either to prove or hang yourself. It’s up to you. But at the end of that time your appointment will either become permanent or you’ll be ordered home.”
“I don’t want the job. I’ve already told Adkins no. Katherine and I are returning home in a year.”
“That’s a long time, Dick. In the interim you’re in the hot seat. You made a big impression in Washington, and they’re calling you the pivotal man.”
Sweeney just looked at him.
“We’re at the turning point here,” Pool said. “Your lecture. On the left hand is, or was, the cold war, and on the right is, or will be, anybody’s guess. In the meantime no one has a clue which way this will rebound. You made sense back home, so they’re willing to take your lead for the moment. It’s going to turn on what happens here.”
“MOHAWK.”
“Seems like it.”
“The project wasn’t even my idea.”
“Maybe not, but you’re the one implementing it.”
Sweeney sat back and drank his cognac. It was good.
“More?” Pool asked, rising and getting the bottle.
“I don’t think so, Kelly.”
Pool poured him a drink anyway and freshened his own. “One piece of advice: Never trust anyone out here.”
“Maybe that’s what got us into trouble with each other in the first place.”
“No. The Russians are different, and don’t forget it. They’ve got eleven hundred years of history, versus our two hundred; they’ve lived under the rule of czars, we haven’t; they’ve lived under the rule of dictators, we have not; and more recently they lost twenty million people in the war, and we didn’t lose a fraction of that. They’ve not forgotten. They cannot.”
“You may be right,” Sweeney said.
“Damned right I am, just as I’m right about Clark, the little spy the administration sent out here to make sure we were doing our jobs correctly.”
“What did Adkins say about him?”
“Nothing, except that we were to cooperate,” Pool said. “But I’d bet anything that Langley had no idea he would show up here.” Pool shook his head bitterly. “You’ve got your hands full, Dick. Watch yourself.”
“I would like to meet with Kaplin,” Clark said. “This evening if possible.”
Sweeney had just come down from Pool’s apartment, and was in no mood for any sort of a confrontation. The White House man had been waiting for him in the conference room and had stepped out into the corridor as Sweeney passed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Clark, but that won’t be possible,” Sweeney said, entering his office. Clark followed him in.
“Why not?”
“Because the situation here is very delicate. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I would. I worked for the Company.”
Sweeney was exasperated, but he held his temper in check. “When was that?”
“Some years ago,” Clark replied mildly. Sweeney decided that the man was deceptive.
“In what capacity?”
“I was special assistant to Mr. Tyson during his tenure as deputy director of intelligence.”
“Then you can understand why I cannot allow you to approach one of my sources. Especially this one at this time.”
“He’s special?”
“The entire operation is special, Clark. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here snooping around, getting into everyone’s way.”
“I’ll talk with Mr. Pool,” Clark said.
“Go home,” Sweeney snapped. “Pool can’t help you here. He’s been relieved. I’m the new COS. This is my station now.”
“Then I suggest you call the White House for verification …”
“Bullshit. I’ll leave the ass kissing and power brokering up to you. You want to see Kaplin, it’ll be after my resignation.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, it is,” Sweeney said. “Now, get the hell out of my office, I’ve got work to do.”
Clark closed the door and came over and sat down. “Let me tell you why I’m here, Mr. Sweeney. Maybe I can change your mind about me and my mission.”
For just a brief moment Sweeney entertained the notion of physically throwing Clark out of his office, savoring for just that instant the little thrill of pleasure. But then he went around behind his desk and sat down. “I can give you five minutes.”
“It won’t take that long,” Clark said. “The President read the MOHAWK report. He and his national security adviser agree that the project is worthwhile but dangerous. Should something go wrong, it would place our government in a bad light, and it would severely damage our relations with the Kremlin and the Russian Parliament. I was sent here to evaluate your progress as well as your chances of success.”
“Fair enough. You attended this morning’s briefing. You tell me what are our chances of success.”
“With Mr. Pool gone and you in charge, your chances have improved.”
Sweeney bridled. “I’m not going to listen to that …”
“You asked for my opinion, I gave it,” Clark said impassively.
“Then why do you want to see Kaplin?”
“He’s another link in the chain. Next to yourself, the most important. If he is involved in a KGB disinformation plot, not out of the question, then it would be us walking into a dangerous trap.”
“Which is why I’ve sent Larissa Dolya into the operation.”
“Yes,” Clark said. “Will you arrange a meeting between me and Kaplin?”
“No,” Sweeney said. “You were instructed to come here and evaluate us. I’m sure that you were also instructed not to be intrusive. No one wants you to upset the applecart, which is exactly what you would be risking by meeting with Kaplin. He may already be under suspicion by the KGB, and he may be watched. I’ve set up a safe house for him, but there’s no telling how long that will remain secure. Certainly no time at all if you insert yourself into the situation. No matter how good you are, you’re here as an American diplomat. You have no legend.”
“You’re right, of course,” Clark agreed, a faint hint of amusement evident at the corners of his mouth. He got up.
“I’m glad you see it my way,” Sweeney said. “When will you be returning to Washington?”
“Not quite yet,” Clark said, and he left.
The assassin had begun to think of himself as Vincent Privet from Milwaukee.
“When you are in the field, you must blend completely with the background, by actually becoming your cover identity,” they’d taught him at School One.
Become a chameleon and survive. Remain a redbreast and die. It was simple, and he was very efficient at it.
He looked up from his menu at the Rive Gauche Restaurant to his attentive waiter and ordered a light salad, a cup of clam chowder, a grilled sole, with extra lemon, and to accompany his meal an excellent imported Riesling.
“Very good, sir,” the waiter said. “Would you care for another cocktail first?”
“No, I’ll just have my wine now, if you please. Good and cold.”
“Of course, sir.”
What he was doing out like this was dangerous, but in his estimation, based on experience, necessary. He had easily ditched Radchenko and his driver, and so far as he had been able to determine, no one else in this city seemed in the least bit interested in him. Yet there was a feeling of tension here, just like there was in any world capital.
And just like any other foreign city, Washington had its own ground rules: about traffic, about the police, about restaurants and public buildings, about walking down a street alone at night. There were a thousand little differences from one place to another. So many so that it was impossible to totally blend into a place that wasn’t your home. But with a little study enough of the differences could be mastered so that you could become unnoticeable, or nearly so.
Privet had been ordered to Washington to kill someone. Before he actually performed that act, and subsequently made his escape, he wanted to be prepared.
It was homework he was doing here like this. But in the doing there was no reason he couldn’t enjoy himself. It was myth that intelligence agents did not enjoy themselves; at least it was myth for this agent.
Charles Gleason was one of the brightest men in the United States. He had two Ph.D.’s, one in political science and the other in economics, though his true love was the philosophy of leadership. Gleason was also an agent for the KGB, and had been since his student days in Boston and Cambridge, and then in Washington, where he had helped work out the political and economic ramifications of SDI.
For the past two years he had headed a special think tank in Reston, Virginia, to which he had lured some of the best minds in the country to work on only two projects: getting the United States out of its increasingly horrible economic jam, and somehow bringing Russia economically into the twentieth century.
“Two cusps of the same issue,” he was fond of saying.
At two in the afternoon he drove to a small coffee shop about three miles from his office, where his contact, Donald Hamilton, was waiting for him. He slid into the booth, and when the waitress came, ordered tea with a slice of lemon.
“I was surprised to hear from you, Don. Trouble?”
“I think we’re going to have to up our timetable,” Hamilton (which was not his real name) said. He was a much larger man than Gleason, and fairer of complexion. “We’re getting a few rumbles from our friends.”
“Homeward Bound?”
Hamilton nodded. “What do you think, Charlie? Can you pull it off this early?” They’d worked together as agent and handler for more than ten years. The duration of their relationship was nearly unprecedented in this business.
Slipping out a side door, he hurried up to the Metro station on Revolution Square and rode the train to Gor’kiy Park.
At noon, certain that he had not been followed, Kaplin entered the apartment building and trudged upstairs. On the second floor a slightly built blond woman, several packages at her feet, was fumbling with the door lock to the apartment below his. Sweeney had said it was empty.
“Hello, then, little girl, are you a housebreaker?” he asked, startling her.
She looked up, dropping her keys, her eyes wide and her nostrils flared in fright. “Oh,” she said, and tears immediately came to her eyes.
“I’m sorry I frightened you,” Kaplin immediately apologized. He was bemused. The girl was young, perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties, and was quite pretty. “Do I look like that much of an ogre?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that I …”
“This apartment was empty, did you just move in?”
“Yes,” the girl said, relieved. “Yes, I did, just this morning, but I can’t get this lock to work, there’s no electricity whatsoever in my flat, and there was no sausage in the store. Only bread.”
“Ah, but you must be from the country,” Kaplin said, picking up the keys. She stepped aside for him as he tried the lock.
“Petrozavodsk,” she said.
The door opened, and Kaplin held out the key for her. “See, it was just stuck a little from disuse. And I’m sure that if you talk to the babushka downstairs, she will turn on your electricity.”
She took the key. “Thank you very much …”
“Anatoli Kaplin. And you? What are you doing so far from home all alone?” Sweeney had probably sent her to watch over things here. It was a safe bet the KGB wouldn’t have sent someone like this.
“I am Larissa Dolya, and I’ve got a job at GUM, only I fell and hurt my ribs, and besides, there was nothing in my department to sell so they sent me home for a few days, or maybe a week. But I don’t know what there is to eat now. And …” Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
“All right, all right, cut out the waterworks, little Lara, and I’ll read you a poem while you fix us our supper.”
“But I have only bread and pickles.”
“Perfect,” Kaplin said, clapping his big hands together. “You will bring your bread and pickles upstairs to my little nest, where I have sausages and cheese and even some sweet wine.”
She looked doubtful.
“What do you say?” he asked. “If you are a good little girl, I will even tell your fortune. As you can plainly see by my hair and my beard, I was raised by Gypsies, and my grandfather as a boy even knew the great Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. Now, what do you think about that?”
Nancy Perigorde shivered as she got out of her car and used the phone booth at the side of the road. She’d driven almost all the way into Washington before she was convinced that she wasn’t being followed.
As always the number she called was answered on the first ring by a man she only knew as Dr. Hamilton. “Hello.”
“He’s made a breakthrough,” she said.
“Did you get in with him?”
“Yes. He used a ten-digit numerical sequence to get past the rose, and then he asked for something called Payment Green Grass, but he was denied access.”
“Christ, we’re actually inside the KGB’s fucking Finance Directorate computer?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How long can you continue to screen your entry?”
“From us or them?”
“Us,” the man answered after a brief pause.
“I don’t know,” Nancy said. “A little longer, but not so long.” She was being paid a lot of money. On the first of every month an envelope containing five thousand dollars in cash was placed on the front seat of her car while she was at work. It never mattered if her car was locked or unlocked, the envelope always appeared.
But she was getting frightened now. She didn’t know how long she could keep it up. She wanted one hundred thousand dollars. So far she’d been paid half that. But ten more months seemed like an impossibly long time.
“Can you stick with it?” Dr. Hamilton asked.
“Yes, for a while. But we’re talking about the unauthorized use of a NSA ELINT satellite. If I’m caught I’ll go to jail for a very long time.”
“You’ll be rewarded.”
“I don’t know …”
“Very well rewarded. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said after a pause. It was starting to snow. All she could think of these days was sun and warmth and the blue water of the Caribbean.
“Tell me what else our little friend in Moscow has learned.”
Kelly Pool and his wife, Jeanne, maintained an apartment in the embassy. Just now she was back in the States. She’d gone home after the coup. Sweeney knocked at his door and Pool answered it almost immediately, as if he had been standing there waiting.
“Good of you to drop by,” Pool said.
Sweeney had been up here often, but each time he was struck by how much larger the Pools’ apartment was than his own, and how well furnished in the American style it was. “I can only stay a few minutes.”
“Are you done … with the questions for Kaplin?” Pool asked, mouthing the last five words silently.
“Just about.”
Pool’s eyes were narrow. Something was wrong. “Have you had your lunch yet? Would you like a bite to eat?”
“I had a sandwich and soup in the canteen around noon.”
“Care for a drink?” Pool asked, nodding toward his study.
“Fine,” Sweeney said, following Pool into his small, windowless study. His “thinking closet,” as he called it, had actually been a pantry off a large kitchen once upon a time. It was furnished with a small desk and chair, an overstuffed easy chair, a small globe on a stand, and two walls of books. Some of the books had been taken off the shelves and were packed into cardboard boxes. The room was free of microphones.
Pool poured them both a drink. “Forgive the mess,” he said.
“What’s going on?”
Pool handed him his drink, then picked a message flimsy off his desk and gave that to him. “I’ve been relieved. As of this moment you are the new Moscow chief of station.”
Sweeney was flabbergasted. The message was very short and to the point, relieving Pool immediately as COS, appointing Sweeney as acting COS until further notice, and ordering Pool to return to Langley by “the most expeditious means.” The last paragraph dealt with instructions to follow by book cable for Sweeney.
“Your cable should be here later this afternoon. I’d like you to remain in the embassy at least until then.” Pool smiled deprecatingly. “I’ll be out of here within twenty-four hours if you and Katherine would care to move in.”
“Not yet,” Sweeney said in a daze. “I don’t want to upset the status quo here. If we can keep them guessing for a little while, it’ll help.” He shook his head.
“Not totally unexpected under the circumstances.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was due to be relieved in any event, but my objections to MOHAWK apparently struck a nerve. Adkins called me this morning, just before this came in, and explained everything. Said he had complete confidence in you … an opinion which I seconded … and that I was needed on the Russian desk.”
“You’re being transferred to Intelligence?”
“I started out there after college,” Pool said. “It’ll be like old home week. Not as exciting as Ops, but the work is steady, and Jeanne will like it.”
“Shit,” Sweeney said after a beat.
“Yeah.” Pool motioned Sweeney to the easy chair as he sat down behind his desk. “You’re in for a tough haul here, Dick, and that’s not sour grapes talking.”
“The job has never been easy. But … hell, I never wanted it like this.”
“Save the sentiment. If there’s any pity to be dispensed, give it to yourself, you’ll need it from time to time. Adkins will be keeping a very close watch on what you do here.”
“Your replacement should be here soon …”
“Forget it,” Pool said. “You’ll be given ninety days either to prove or hang yourself. It’s up to you. But at the end of that time your appointment will either become permanent or you’ll be ordered home.”
“I don’t want the job. I’ve already told Adkins no. Katherine and I are returning home in a year.”
“That’s a long time, Dick. In the interim you’re in the hot seat. You made a big impression in Washington, and they’re calling you the pivotal man.”
Sweeney just looked at him.
“We’re at the turning point here,” Pool said. “Your lecture. On the left hand is, or was, the cold war, and on the right is, or will be, anybody’s guess. In the meantime no one has a clue which way this will rebound. You made sense back home, so they’re willing to take your lead for the moment. It’s going to turn on what happens here.”
“MOHAWK.”
“Seems like it.”
“The project wasn’t even my idea.”
“Maybe not, but you’re the one implementing it.”
Sweeney sat back and drank his cognac. It was good.
“More?” Pool asked, rising and getting the bottle.
“I don’t think so, Kelly.”
Pool poured him a drink anyway and freshened his own. “One piece of advice: Never trust anyone out here.”
“Maybe that’s what got us into trouble with each other in the first place.”
“No. The Russians are different, and don’t forget it. They’ve got eleven hundred years of history, versus our two hundred; they’ve lived under the rule of czars, we haven’t; they’ve lived under the rule of dictators, we have not; and more recently they lost twenty million people in the war, and we didn’t lose a fraction of that. They’ve not forgotten. They cannot.”
“You may be right,” Sweeney said.
“Damned right I am, just as I’m right about Clark, the little spy the administration sent out here to make sure we were doing our jobs correctly.”
“What did Adkins say about him?”
“Nothing, except that we were to cooperate,” Pool said. “But I’d bet anything that Langley had no idea he would show up here.” Pool shook his head bitterly. “You’ve got your hands full, Dick. Watch yourself.”
“I would like to meet with Kaplin,” Clark said. “This evening if possible.”
Sweeney had just come down from Pool’s apartment, and was in no mood for any sort of a confrontation. The White House man had been waiting for him in the conference room and had stepped out into the corridor as Sweeney passed.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Clark, but that won’t be possible,” Sweeney said, entering his office. Clark followed him in.
“Why not?”
“Because the situation here is very delicate. You wouldn’t understand.”
“I think I would. I worked for the Company.”
Sweeney was exasperated, but he held his temper in check. “When was that?”
“Some years ago,” Clark replied mildly. Sweeney decided that the man was deceptive.
“In what capacity?”
“I was special assistant to Mr. Tyson during his tenure as deputy director of intelligence.”
“Then you can understand why I cannot allow you to approach one of my sources. Especially this one at this time.”
“He’s special?”
“The entire operation is special, Clark. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here snooping around, getting into everyone’s way.”
“I’ll talk with Mr. Pool,” Clark said.
“Go home,” Sweeney snapped. “Pool can’t help you here. He’s been relieved. I’m the new COS. This is my station now.”
“Then I suggest you call the White House for verification …”
“Bullshit. I’ll leave the ass kissing and power brokering up to you. You want to see Kaplin, it’ll be after my resignation.”
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes, it is,” Sweeney said. “Now, get the hell out of my office, I’ve got work to do.”
Clark closed the door and came over and sat down. “Let me tell you why I’m here, Mr. Sweeney. Maybe I can change your mind about me and my mission.”
For just a brief moment Sweeney entertained the notion of physically throwing Clark out of his office, savoring for just that instant the little thrill of pleasure. But then he went around behind his desk and sat down. “I can give you five minutes.”
“It won’t take that long,” Clark said. “The President read the MOHAWK report. He and his national security adviser agree that the project is worthwhile but dangerous. Should something go wrong, it would place our government in a bad light, and it would severely damage our relations with the Kremlin and the Russian Parliament. I was sent here to evaluate your progress as well as your chances of success.”
“Fair enough. You attended this morning’s briefing. You tell me what are our chances of success.”
“With Mr. Pool gone and you in charge, your chances have improved.”
Sweeney bridled. “I’m not going to listen to that …”
“You asked for my opinion, I gave it,” Clark said impassively.
“Then why do you want to see Kaplin?”
“He’s another link in the chain. Next to yourself, the most important. If he is involved in a KGB disinformation plot, not out of the question, then it would be us walking into a dangerous trap.”
“Which is why I’ve sent Larissa Dolya into the operation.”
“Yes,” Clark said. “Will you arrange a meeting between me and Kaplin?”
“No,” Sweeney said. “You were instructed to come here and evaluate us. I’m sure that you were also instructed not to be intrusive. No one wants you to upset the applecart, which is exactly what you would be risking by meeting with Kaplin. He may already be under suspicion by the KGB, and he may be watched. I’ve set up a safe house for him, but there’s no telling how long that will remain secure. Certainly no time at all if you insert yourself into the situation. No matter how good you are, you’re here as an American diplomat. You have no legend.”
“You’re right, of course,” Clark agreed, a faint hint of amusement evident at the corners of his mouth. He got up.
“I’m glad you see it my way,” Sweeney said. “When will you be returning to Washington?”
“Not quite yet,” Clark said, and he left.
The assassin had begun to think of himself as Vincent Privet from Milwaukee.
“When you are in the field, you must blend completely with the background, by actually becoming your cover identity,” they’d taught him at School One.
Become a chameleon and survive. Remain a redbreast and die. It was simple, and he was very efficient at it.
He looked up from his menu at the Rive Gauche Restaurant to his attentive waiter and ordered a light salad, a cup of clam chowder, a grilled sole, with extra lemon, and to accompany his meal an excellent imported Riesling.
“Very good, sir,” the waiter said. “Would you care for another cocktail first?”
“No, I’ll just have my wine now, if you please. Good and cold.”
“Of course, sir.”
What he was doing out like this was dangerous, but in his estimation, based on experience, necessary. He had easily ditched Radchenko and his driver, and so far as he had been able to determine, no one else in this city seemed in the least bit interested in him. Yet there was a feeling of tension here, just like there was in any world capital.
And just like any other foreign city, Washington had its own ground rules: about traffic, about the police, about restaurants and public buildings, about walking down a street alone at night. There were a thousand little differences from one place to another. So many so that it was impossible to totally blend into a place that wasn’t your home. But with a little study enough of the differences could be mastered so that you could become unnoticeable, or nearly so.
Privet had been ordered to Washington to kill someone. Before he actually performed that act, and subsequently made his escape, he wanted to be prepared.
It was homework he was doing here like this. But in the doing there was no reason he couldn’t enjoy himself. It was myth that intelligence agents did not enjoy themselves; at least it was myth for this agent.
Charles Gleason was one of the brightest men in the United States. He had two Ph.D.’s, one in political science and the other in economics, though his true love was the philosophy of leadership. Gleason was also an agent for the KGB, and had been since his student days in Boston and Cambridge, and then in Washington, where he had helped work out the political and economic ramifications of SDI.
For the past two years he had headed a special think tank in Reston, Virginia, to which he had lured some of the best minds in the country to work on only two projects: getting the United States out of its increasingly horrible economic jam, and somehow bringing Russia economically into the twentieth century.
“Two cusps of the same issue,” he was fond of saying.
At two in the afternoon he drove to a small coffee shop about three miles from his office, where his contact, Donald Hamilton, was waiting for him. He slid into the booth, and when the waitress came, ordered tea with a slice of lemon.
“I was surprised to hear from you, Don. Trouble?”
“I think we’re going to have to up our timetable,” Hamilton (which was not his real name) said. He was a much larger man than Gleason, and fairer of complexion. “We’re getting a few rumbles from our friends.”
“Homeward Bound?”
Hamilton nodded. “What do you think, Charlie? Can you pull it off this early?” They’d worked together as agent and handler for more than ten years. The duration of their relationship was nearly unprecedented in this business.
