Russell reached for his coat and gloves. “Hey, man, it’s our place, y’know?”
“Do you really expect to find him?” the Starpom asked.
“I think we have a fine chance,” Dubinin replied, leaning over the chart. “He’ll be somewhere in here, well away from the coastal waters—too many fishermen with nets there—and north of this area.”
“Excellent, Captain, only two million square kilometers to search.”
“And we will cover only two-thirds of that. I said a fine chance, not a certainty. In three or four more years, we’ll have the RPV the designers are working on, and we can send our sonar receptors down into the deep sound channel.” Dubinin referred to the next step in submarine technology, a robot minisub which would be controlled from the mother ship by a fiber-optic cable. It would carry both sensors and weapons, and by diving very deep it could find out if sonar conditions in the thousand-to-two-thousand-meter regime were really as good as the theorists suggested. That would change the game radically.
“Anything on the turbulence sensors?”
“Negative, Captain,” a lieutenant answered.
“I wonder if those things are worth the trouble,” the executive officer groused.
“They worked the last time.”
“We had calm seas overhead then. How often are the seas calm in the North Pacific in winter?”
“It could still tell us something. We must use every trick we have. Why are you not optimistic?”
“Even Ramius only tracked an Ohio once, and that was on builder’s trials, when they had the shaft problem. And even then, he only held the contact for—what? Seventy minutes.”
“We had this one before.”
“True enough, Captain.” The Starpom tapped a pencil on the chart.
Dubinin thought about his intelligence briefing on the enemy—old habits were hard to break. Harrison Sharpe Ricks, Captain, Naval Academy, in his second missile-submarine command, reportedly a brilliant engineer and technician, a likely candidate for higher command. A hard and demanding taskmaster, highly regarded in his Navy. He’d made a mistake before, and was unlikely to make another, Dubinin told himself.
“Fifty thousand yards, exactly,” Ensign Shaw reported.
“This guy’s not doing any Crazy Ivans,” Claggett thought for the first time.
“He’s not expecting to be hunted himself, is he?” Ricks asked.
“I guess not, but his tail’s not as good as he thinks it is.” The Akula was doing a ladder-search pattern. The long legs were on a roughly southwest-to-northeast vector, and at the end of each he shifted down southeast to the next leg, with an interval between search legs of about fifty thousand yards, twenty-five nautical miles. That gave a notional range of about thirteen miles to the Russian’s towed-array sonar. At least, Claggett thought, that’s what the intelligence guys would have said.
“You know, I think we’ll hold at fifty-K yards, just to play it on the safe side,” Ricks announced after a moment’s reflection. “This guy is a lot quieter than I expected.”
“Plant noises are down quite a bit, aren’t they? If this guy was creeping instead of trying to cover ground....” Claggett was pleased that his Captain was speaking like his conservative-engineer self again. He wasn’t especially surprised. When push came to shove, Ricks reverted to type, but that was all right with the XO, who didn’t think it was especially prudent to play fast-attack with a billion-dollar boomer.
“We could still hold him at forty, thirty-five tops.”
“Think so? How much will his tail’s performance improve with a slower speed?”
“Good point. It’ll be some, but intelligence calls it a thin-line array like ours ... probably not all that much. Even so, we’re getting a good profile on this bird, aren’t we?” Ricks asked rhetorically. He’d get a gold star in his copybook for this.
“So, what do you think, MP?” Jack asked Mrs. Foley. He held the translation in his hand. She’d opted for the original Russian-language document.
“Hey, I recruited him, Jack. He’s my boy.”
Ryan checked his watch; it was just about time. Sir Basil Charleston was nothing if not punctual. His secure direct-line phone rang right on the hour.
“Ryan.”
“Bas here.”
“What gives, man?”
“That thing we talked out, we had our chap look into it. Nothing at all, my boy.”
“Not even that our impressions were incorrect?” Jack asked, his eyes screwed tightly shut as though to keep the news out.
“Correct, Jack, not even that. I admit I find that slightly curious, but it is plausible, if not likely, that our chap should not know this.”
“Thanks for trying, pal. We owe you one.”
“Sorry we could not be of help.” The line went dead.
It was the worst possible news, Ryan thought. He stared briefly at the ceiling.
“The Brits have been unable to confirm or deny SPINNAKER’S allegations,” Jack announced. “What’s that leave us with?”
“It’s really like this?” Ben Goodley asked. “It all comes down to opinion?”
“Ben, if we were really that smart at reading fortunes, we’d be making fortunes in the stock market,” Ryan said gruffly.
“But you did!” Goodley pointed out.
“I got lucky on a few hot issues.” Ryan dismissed the observation. “Mary Pat, what do you think?”
Mrs. Foley looked tired, but then she had an infant to worry about. Jack thought he should tell her to take it easier. “I have to back up my agent, Jack. You know that. He’s our best source of political intelligence. He gets in to see Narmonov alone. That’s why he’s so valuable, and that’s why his stuff has always been hard to back up—but it’s never been wrong, has it?”
“The scary part is that he’s starting to convince me.”
“Why scary, Dr. Ryan?”
Jack lit a cigarette. “’Cause I know Narmonov. That man could have made me disappear one cold night outside o’ Moscow. We cut a deal, shook on it, and that was that. Takes a very confident man to do something like that. If he has lost that confidence, then ... then the whole thing could come apart, rapidly and unpredictably. Can you think of anything scarier than that?” Ryan’s eyes swept the room.
“Not hardly,” agreed the head of the Intelligence Directorate’s Russian Department. “I think we have to go with it.”
“So do I,” Mary Pat agreed.
“Ben?” Jack asked. “You believed this guy from the beginning. What he says backs up your position from up at Harvard.”
Dr. Benjamin Goodley didn’t like being cornered like that. He had learned a hard but important lesson in his months in CIA: it was one thing to form an opinion in an academic community, to discuss options around the lunch tables in the Harvard faculty club, but it was different here. From these opinions national policy was made. And that, he realized, was what being captured by the system actually meant.
“I hate to say this, but I’ve changed my mind. There may be a dynamic here we haven’t examined.”
“What might that be?” the head of the Russian Department asked.
“Just consider this abstractly. If Narmonov goes down, who replaces him?”
“Kadishev is one of the possibilities, say one chance in three or so,” Mary Pat answered.
“In academia—hell, anywhere—isn’t that a conflict of interest?”
“M.P.?” Ryan asked, shifting his eyes.
“Okay, so what? When has he ever lied to us before?”
Goodley decided to run with it, pretending this was an academic discussion. “Mrs. Foley, I was detailed to look for indications that SPINNAKER was wrong. I’ve checked everything I’ve had access to. The only thing I’ve found is a slight change in the tone of his reports over the last few months. The way he uses language is subtly different. His statements are more positive, less speculative in some areas. Now, that may fit his reports—the content of them, I mean—but... but ther
e may be some meaning in that.”
“You’re basing your evaluation on how he dots his i’s?” the Russian expert demanded with a snort. “Kid, we don’t do that sort of work here.”
“Well, I have to take this one downtown,” Ryan said. “I have to tell the President that we think he’s right. I want to get Andrews and Kantrowitz in here to backstop us—objections?” There were none. “Okay, thank you. Ben, could you stay for a moment? Mary Pat, take a long weekend. That’s an order.”
“She’s colicky, and I haven’t been getting much sleep,” Mrs. Foley explained.
“So have Ed take the night duty,” Jack suggested.
“Ed doesn’t have tits. I nurse, remember?”
“M.P., has it ever occurred to you that nursing is a conspiracy of lazy men?” Ryan asked with a grin.
The baleful look in her eyes concealed her good humor. “Yeah, at about two every morning. See you Monday.”
Goodley got back in his chair after the other two left. “Okay, you can yell at me now.”
Jack waved for him to light up. “What do you mean?”
“For bringing up a dumb idea.”
“Dumb idea, my ass. You were the first to suggest it. You’ve been doing good work.”
“I haven’t found beans,” the Harvard scholar grumbled.
“No, but you’ve been looking in all the right places.”
“If this stuff was for-real, how likely is it that you’d be able to confirm through other sources?” Goodley asked.
“A little better than even money, maybe sixty percent, tops. Mary Pat was right. This guy’s been giving us stuff we can’t always get somewhere else. But you’re also correct: he stands to profit from being right. I have to run this one down to the White House before the weekend starts. Then I’m going to call Jake Kantrowitz and Eric Andrews and get them to fly in here for a look-see next week. Got any particular plans for the weekend?” Jack asked.
“No.”
“You do now. I want you to sweep through all your notes and do us a position paper, a good one.” Ryan tapped his desk. “I want it here Monday morning.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re intellectually honest, Ben. When you look at something, you really look.”
“But you never agree with my conclusions!” Goodley objected.
“Not very often, but your supporting data is first-rate. Nobody’s right all the time. Nobody’s wrong all the time, either. The process is important, the intellectual discipline, and you have that locked down pretty tight, Dr. Goodley. I hope you like living in Washington. I’m going to offer you a permanent position here. We’re setting up a special group in the DI. Their mission will be to take contrarian positions, an in-house Team-B that reports directly to the DDI. You’ll be the number-two man in the Russian Section. Think you can handle it? Think carefully, Ben,” Jack added hastily. “You’ll take a lot of heat from the A-Team. Long hours, mediocre pay, and not a hell of a lot of satisfaction at the end of the day. But you’ll see a lot of good stuff, and every so often someone’s going to pay attention to you. Anyway, the position paper I want will be your entrance exam—if you’re interested. I don’t give a good goddamn what your conclusions are, but I want something I can contrast with what I’m going to get from everybody else. You game or not?”
Goodley squirmed in his seat and hesitated before talking. Christ, was this going to abort his career? But he couldn’t not say it, could he? He let out his breath, and spoke. “There’s something you should know.”
“Okay.”
“When Dr. Elliot sent me here—”
“You were supposed to critique me. I know.” Ryan was very amused. “I did a pretty good job of seduction, didn’t I?”
“Jack, there was more to it than that ... she wanted me to do a personal check ... to look for stuff that she could use against you.”
Ryan’s face went very cold. “And?”
Goodley flushed, but went on rapidly. “And I delivered. I checked your file for the SEC investigation, and passed on some things about other financial dealings—the Zimmer family, stuff like that.” He paused. “I’m pretty ashamed of myself.”
“Learn anything?”
“About you? You’re a good boss. Marcus is a lazy asshole, looks good in a suit. Liz Elliot is a prissy, mean-spirited bitch; she really likes manipulating people. She used me like a bird dog. I learned something, all right. I’ll never, ever do that again. Sir, I’ve never apologized like this to anyone before, but you ought to know. You have a right to know.”
Ryan stared into the young man’s eyes for more than a minute, wondering if he’d flinch, wondering what sort of stuff was in there. Finally he stubbed out his cigarette. “Make sure it’s a good position paper, Ben.”
“You’ll get the best I have.” “I think I already have, Dr. Goodley.”
“Well?” President Fowler asked.
“Mr. President, SPINNAKER reports that there is definitely a number of tactical nuclear weapons missing from Soviet Army inventories, and that the KGB is conducting a frantic search for them.”
“Where?”
“All over Europe, including inside the Soviet Union itself. Supposedly, KGB is loyal to Narmonov, at least most of it, Narmonov thinks—our man says he’s not so sure. The Soviet military is definitely not; he says that a coup is a serious possibility, but Narmonov is not taking strong-enough action to deal with it. The possibility of blackmail is quite real. If this report is correct, there is the possibility of a rapid power shift over there whose consequences are impossible to estimate.”
“And what do you think?” Dennis Bunker asked soberly.
“The consensus at Langley is that this may be reliable information. We’re beginning a careful check of all relevant data. The two best outside consultants are at Princeton and Berkeley. I’ll have them in the office Monday to look over our data.”
“When will you have a firm estimate?” Secretary Talbot asked.
“Depends on what you mean by firm. End of next week, we’ll have a preliminary estimate. ‘Firm’ is going to take a while. I’ve tried getting this confirmed by our British colleagues, but they came up blank.”
“Where could those things show up?” Liz Elliot asked.
“Russia’s a big country,” Ryan replied.
“It’s a big world,” Bunker said. “What’s your worst-case estimate?”
“We haven’t started that process yet,” Jack answered. “When you’re talking about missing nuclear weapons, worst-cases can be pretty bad.”
“Is there any reason to suspect a threat directed against us?” Fowler asked.
“No, Mr. President. The Soviet military is rational, and that would be an act of lunacy.”
“Your faith in the uniformed mentality is touching,” Liz Elliot noted. “You really think theirs are more intelligent than ours?”
“They deliver when we ask them to,” Dennis Bunker said sharply. “I wish you would have just a little respect for them, Dr. Elliot.”
“We will save that for another day,” Fowler observed. “What could they possibly gain from threatening us?”
“Nothing, Mr. President,” Ryan answered.
“Agreed,” Brent Talbot said.
“I’ll feel better when those SS-18s are gone,” Bunker noted, “but Ryan’s right.”
“I want an estimate on that, too,” Elliot said. “I want it fast.”
“You’ll get it,” Jack promised.
“What about the Mexico operation?”
“Mr. President, the assets are in place.”
“What is this?” the Secretary of State asked.
“Brent, I think it’s time you got briefed in on this. Ryan, commence.”
Jack ran through the background information and the operational concept. It took several minutes.
“I can’t believe they’d do such a thing: it’s outrageous,” Talbot said.
“Is this why you’re not coming out to the game?” Bunker asked w
ith a smile. “Brent, I can believe it. How quickly will you have the transcripts from the aircraft?”
“Given his ETA into Washington, plus processing time ... say around ten that night.”
“You can still come out to the game then, Bob,” Bunker said. It was the first time Ryan had ever seen someone address the President that way.
Fowler shook his head. “I’ll catch it at Camp David. I want to be bright-eyed for this meet. Besides, the storm that just hit Denver might be here Sunday. Getting back into town could be tough, and the Secret Service spent a couple hours explaining how bad football games are for me—meaning them, of course.”
“Going to be a good one,” Talbot said.
“What’s the point spread?” Fowler asked.
Jesus! Ryan thought.
“Vikings by three,” Bunker said. “I’ll take all of that action I can get.”
“We’re flying out together,” Talbot said. “Just so Dennis doesn’t drive the airplane.”
“Leaving me up in the hills of Maryland. Well, somebody has to mind the government.” Fowler smiled. He had an odd smile, Jack thought. “Back to business. Ryan: you said this is not a threat to us?”
“Let me backtrack, sir. First, I must emphasize that the SPINNAKER report remains totally unconfirmed.”
“You said the CIA backs it.”
“There is a consensus of opinion that it is probably reliable. We’re checking that very hard right now. That’s the whole point of what I said earlier.”
“Okay,” Fowler said. “If it’s not true, there is nothing for us to worry about, correct?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And if it is?”
“Then the risk is one of political blackmail in the Soviet Union, worst-case, a civil war with the use of nuclear weapons.”
“Which is not good news—possible threats to us?”
“No direct threat to us is likely.”
Fowler leaned back in his chair. “That makes sense, I suppose. But I want a really, really good estimate of that just as fast as you can get it to me.”
“Yes, sir. Believe me, Mr. President, we’re checking every aspect of this development.”