The Cardinal of the Kremlin

  16.

  Damage Assessment

  “IT says a lot about the man that the first thing he did was to get to the embassy and send the telex,” Ritter said at last. The Ambassador delivered his protest note to their Foreign Ministry before they went public on the arrest ‘for conduct incompatible with diplomatic status.’ ”

  “Some consolation,” Greer noted gloomily.

  “We ought to have her back in a day or less,” Ritter went on. “They’re already PNG’d, and they’re going on the next Pan Am flight out.”

  Ryan squirmed in his chair. What about CARDINAL? he wondered. Jesus, they tell me about this superagent, and a week later ... They sure as hell don’t have a Supreme Court over there that makes it hard to execute people.

  “Any chance we can do a trade for him?” Jack asked.

  “You are kidding, boy.” Ritter rose and walked to the window. At three in the morning, the CIA parking lot was nearly empty, only a loose handful of cars sitting among the piles of plowed snow. “We don’t even have anybody big enough to trade for a mitigation of sentence. No way in hell they’ll let him out, even for a chief of station, which we don’t have.”

  “So he’s dead and the data is lost with him.”

  “That’s what the man’s saying,” Judge Moore agreed.

  “Help from the allies?” Ryan asked. “Sir Basil might have something hopping that can help us.”

  “Ryan, there is nothing we can do to save the man.” Ritter turned to take out his anger on the nearest target of opportunity. “He’s dead—sure, he’s still breathing, but he’s dead all the same. A month, or two, or three from now, the announcement will be made, and we’ll confirm it through other assets, and then we’ll pry open a bottle and have a few to his memory.”

  “What about Dallas?” Greer asked.

  “Huh?” Ryan turned.

  “You don’t need to know about that,” Ritter said, now grateful to have a target. “Give her back to the Navy.”

  “Okay.” Greer nodded. “This is likely to have some serious consequences.” That earned the Admiral a baleful look from Judge Moore. He now had to go to the President.

  “What about it, Ryan?”

  “On the arms-control talks?” Jack shrugged. “Depends on how they handle it. They have a wide range of options, and anybody who tells you he can predict which one they’ll choose is a liar.”

  “Nothing like an expert opinion,” Ritter observed.

  “Sir Basil thinks Gerasimov wants to make a move on the top spot. He could conceivably use this toward that end,” Ryan said coolly, “but I think Narmonov has too much political clout now that he has that fourth man on the Politburo. He can, therefore, choose to go forward toward the agreement and show the Party how strong he is by moving forward for peace, or if he senses more political vulnerability than I see in the picture, he can consolidate his hold on the Party by trashing us as the incorrigible enemies of Socialism. If there’s a way to put a probability assessment on that choice that’s anything more than a wild-ass guess, I haven’t seen it yet. ”

  “Get to work on it,” Judge Moore ordered. “The President’ ll want something hard enough to grab hold of before Ernie Allen starts talking about putting SDI on the table again.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jack stood. “Judge, do we expect the Sovs to go public on CARDINAL’s arrest?”

  “There’s a question,” Ritter said.

  Ryan headed for the door and stopped again. “Wait a minute.”

  “What is it?” Ritter asked.

  “You said that the Ambassador delivered his protest before their Foreign Ministry said anything, right?”

  “Yeah, Foley worked real fast to beat them to the punch.”

  “With all due respect to Mr. Foley, nobody’s that fast,” Ryan said. “They should have had their press release already printed before they made the pickup.”

  “So?” Admiral Greer asked.

  Jack walked back toward the other three. “So the Foreign Minister is Narmonov’s man, isn’t he? So’s Yazov at the Defense Ministry. They didn’t know,” Ryan said. “They were as surprised as we were.”

  “No chance,” Ritter snorted. “They don’t do things like that.”

  “Assumption on your part, sir.” Jack stood his ground. “What evidence backs up that statement?”

  Greer smiled. “None that we know of right now.”

  “Damn it, James, I know he’s—”

  “Keep going, Dr. Ryan,” Judge Moore said.

  “If those two ministers didn’t know what was going down, it puts a different spin on this case, doesn’t it?” Jack sat on the back of a chair. “Okay, I can see cutting Yazov out—CARDINAL was his senior aide—but why cut out the Foreign Minister? This sort of thing, you want to move fast, catch the newsies with the breaking story—for damned sure you don’t want the other side to get the word out first.”

  “Bob?” the DCI asked.

  The Deputy Director for Operations never had liked Ryan very much—he thought that he’d come too far too fast—but, for all that, Bob Ritter was an honest man. The DDO sat back down and sipped at his coffee for a moment. “Boy may have a point. We’ll have to confirm a few details, but if they check out ... then it’s as much a political operation as a simple ‘Two’ case.”

  “James?”

  The Deputy Director for Intelligence nodded agreement. “Scary.”

  “We may not be talking about just losing a good source,” Ryan went on, speculating as he spoke. “KGB might be using this for political ends. What I don’t see is his power base. The Alexandrov faction has three solid members. Narmonov now has four, counting the new guy, Vaneyev—”

  “Shit!” This was Ritter. “We assumed that when his daughter was picked up and let go that they either didn’t break her—hell, they say she looks okay—or her father was too important for them to—”

  “Blackmail.” Now it was Judge Moore’s turn. “You were right, Bob. And Narmonov doesn’t know. You have to hand it to Gerasimov, the bastard has some beautiful moves ... If all this is true, Narmonov is outnumbered and doesn’t know it.” He paused for a frown. “We’re speculating like a bunch of amateurs.”

  “Well, it makes for one hell of a scenario.” Ryan almost smiled until he reached the logical conclusion. “We may have brought down the first Soviet government in thirty years that wanted to liberalize their own country.” What will the papers make of that? Jack asked himself. And you know that it’ll get out. Something like this is too juicy to stay secret long ...

  “We know what you’ve been doing, and we know how long you’ve been doing it. Here is the evidence.” He tossed the photographs onto the table.

  “Nice pictures,” Mary Pat said. “Where’s the man from my embassy?”

  “We don’t have to let anyone talk with you. We can keep you here as long as we wish. Years, if necessary,” he added ominously.

  “Look, mister, I’m an American, okay? My husband is a diplomat. He has diplomatic immunity and so do I. Just because you think I’m a dumb American housewife, you think you can push me around and scare me into signing that damned-fool confession that I’m some kind of idiot spy. Well, I’m not, and I won’t, and my government will protect me. So as far as I’m concerned you can take that confession and spread mustard on it and eat it. God knows the food over here is so bad you could use the fiber in your diet,” she observed. “And you’re saying that that nice old man I was taking the picture to was arrested too, eh? Well, I think you’re just crazy.”

  “We know that you have met him many times.”

  “Twice. I saw him at a game last year, too—no, excuse me, I met him at a diplomatic reception a few weeks ago. That’s three times, but only the hockey matters. That’s why I brought the picture. The boys on the team think he’s good luck for them—ask them, they all signed the picture, didn’t they? Both times he came, we won big games and my son scored a couple of goals. And you think he’s a spy just because he went to a junior-l
eague hockey game? My God, you guys must think American spies are under every bed.”

  She was actually enjoying herself. They treated her carefully. Nothing like a threatened pregnancy, Mary Pat told herself, as she broke yet another time-honored rule in the spy business: Don’t say anything. She jabbered on, as would any outraged private citizen—with the shield of diplomatic immunity, of course—at the rank stupidity of the Russians. She watched her interrogator closely for a reaction. If there was anything Russians hated, it was to be looked down on, and most of all by the Americans, to whom they had a terminal inferiority complex.

  “I used to think the security people at the embassy were a pain,” she huffed after a moment. “Don’t do this, don’t do that, be careful taking pictures of things. I wasn’t taking a picture, I was giving him a picture! And the kids in it are Russian kids—except for Eddie.” She turned away, looking into the mirror. Mary Pat wondered if the Russians had thought that touch up themselves or if they had gotten the idea from American cop shows.

  “Whoever trained that one knew his business,” Vatutin observed, looking through the mirror from the next room. “She knows we’re here but doesn’t let on. When are we turning her loose?”

  “Late this afternoon,” the head of the Second Chief Directorate answered. “Holding her isn’t worth the effort. Her husband is already packing up the apartment. You should have waited a few more seconds,” the General added.

  “I know.” There was no point in explaining the faulty door lock. The KGB didn’t accept excuses, even from colonels. That was beside the point in any case, Vatutin and his boss knew. They’d caught Filitov—not quite in the act, but he was still caught. That was the objective of the case, at least so far as they were concerned. Both men knew the other parts of it, but treated them as though they didn’t exist. It was the smartest course for both.

  “Where is my man!” Yazov demanded.

  “He is in Lefortovo Prison, of course,” Gerasimov answered.

  “I want to see him. At once.” The Defense Minister hadn’t even paused to take off his cap, standing there in his calf-length greatcoat, his cheeks still pink from the chilly February air—or perhaps with anger, Gerasimov thought. Maybe even with fear ...

  “This is not a place to make demands, Dmitri Timofeyevich. I, too, am a Politburo member. I, too, sit on the Defense Council. And it may be that you are implicated in this investigation.” Gerasimov’s fingers played with a file on the desktop.

  That changed Yazov’s complexion. He went pale, definitely not from fear. Gerasimov was surprised that the soldier didn’t lose control, but the Marshal made a supreme effort and spoke as though to a new draftee:

  “Show me your evidence here and now if you have the balls for it!”

  “Very well.” The KGB Chairman flipped open the folder and removed a series of photographs, handing them over.

  “You had me under surveillance?”

  “No, we’ve been watching Filitov. You just happened to be there.”

  Yazov tossed the prints back with contempt. “So what? Misha was invited to a hockey game. I accompanied him. It was a good game. There is an American boy on the team—I met the mother at some reception or other—oh, yes, it was in George Hall when the American negotiators were last over. She was at this game, and we said hello. She is an amusing woman, in an empty-headed sort of way. The next morning I filled out a contact report. So did Misha.”

  “If she is so empty-headed, why did you bother?” Gerasimov inquired.

  “Because she is an American, and her husband is a diplomat of some kind or other, and I was foolish enough to allow her to touch me, as you see. The contact report is on file. I will send you a copy of mine, and Colonel Filitov’s.” Yazov was speaking with more confidence now. Gerasimov had miscalculated somewhat.

  “She is an agent of the American CIA.”

  “Then I am confident that Socialism will prevail, Nikolay Borissovich. I didn’t think that you employed such foots—not until today, that is.”

  Defense Minister Yazov allowed himself to calm down. Though new to the Moscow scene—until very recently he’d been commander of the Far East Military District, where Narmonov had spotted him—he knew what the real struggle here was all about. He did not, could not believe that Filitov was a traitor—did not believe because of the man’s record; could not believe because the scandal would destroy one of the most carefully planned careers in the Soviet Army. His.

  “If you have real evidence against my man, I want my own security people to review it. You, Nikolay Borissovich, are playing a political game with my Ministry. I will not have KGB interference in the way I run my Army. Someone from GRU will be here this afternoon. You will cooperate with him or I will take this to the Politburo myself.”

  Gerasimov showed no reaction at all as the Defense Minister left the room, but realized that he’d made an error of his own. He’d overplayed his hand—no, he told himself, you played it a day too soon. You expected Yazov to collapse, to bend to the pressure, to accept a proposal not yet made.

  And all because that fool Vatutin hadn’t gotten positive evidence. Why couldn’t he have waited one more second!

  Well, the only thing to do is to get a full confession from Filitov.

  Colin McClintock’s official job was in the commercial office at Her Britannic Majesty’s Embassy, just across the Moscow River from the Kremlin, a location that predated the revolution and had annoyed the Soviet leadership since Stalin’s time. But he, too, was a player in the Great Game. He was, in fact, the case officer who “ran” Svetlana Vaneyeva and had seconded her to the CIA for a purpose which had never been explained, but the orders for which had come direct from London’s Century House, the headquarters of the SIS. At the moment, he was taking a group of British businessmen through GOSPLAN, introducing them to some of the bureaucrats with whom they’d have to negotiate the contracts for whatever they hoped to sell to the local barbarians, McClintock thought. An “Islander” from Whalsay off the Scottish coast, he regarded anyone from south of Aberdeen as a barbarian, but worked for the Secret Intelligence Service anyway. When he spoke in English, he used a lilting accent laced with words spoken only in Northern Scotland, and his Russian was barely comprehensible, but he was a man who could turn accents on and off as though with a switch. And his ears had no accent at all. People invariably think that a person who has trouble speaking a language also has trouble hearing it. It was an impression that McClintock assiduously cultivated.

  He’d met Svetlana this way, had reported her to London as a possible target for recruitment, and a senior SIS officer had done just that in the second-floor dining room of Langan’s Brasserie on Stratton Street. Since then McClintock had seen her only on business, only with other British subjects and Russians around. Other SIS officers in Moscow handled her dead-drops, though he was actually responsible for her operations. The data that she’d gotten out was disappointing but occasionally useful in a commercial sense. With intelligence agents you tended to take what you got, and she did forward insider gossip that she picked up from her father.

  But something had gone wrong with Svetlana Vaneyeva. She’d disappeared from her desk, then returned, probably after interrogation at Lefortovo, the CIA had said. That made little sense to McClintock. Once they got you into Lefortovo, they had you for more than a day or two. Something very strange had happened, and he’d waited for a week to figure a way to find out exactly what it might have been. Her drops were untouched now, of course. Nobody from SIS would ever go near them except to see if they’d been disturbed, from a discreet distance.

  Now, however, he had his chance, taking his trade delegation across the room that held the textile section of the planning agency. She looked up and saw the foreigners walking by. McClintock gave the routine interrogation signal. He didn’t know which reply he’d get, nor what the reply would really mean. He had to assume that she’d been broken, totally compromised, but she had to react some way. He gave the signal, a
brush of his hands against his hair as natural as breathing, as all such signals were. Her reply was to open a desk drawer and extract either a pencil or a pen. The former was the “all clear” signal, the latter a warning. She did neither, and merely returned to the document she was reading. It almost surprised the young intelligence officer enough to stare, but he remembered who and where he was, and turned away, scanning other faces in the room as his hands fluttered nervously about, doing various things that could have meant anything to whoever was watching.

  What stuck in his mind was the look on her face. What had once been animated was now blank. What had once been lively was now as emotionless as any face on a Moscow street. The person who’d once been the privileged daughter of a very senior Party man was different now. It wasn’t an act. He was sure of it; she didn’t have the skill for that.

  They got to her, McClintock told himself. They got to her and let her go. He didn’t have a clue why they’d let her go, but that wasn’t his concern. An hour later he drove the businessmen back to their hotel and returned to his office. The report he dashed off to London was only three pages long. He had no idea of the firestorm it would ignite. Nor did he know that another SIS officer had sent another report the same day, in the same pouch.

  “Hello, Arthur,” the voice on the phone said.

  “’Morning—excuse me, good afternoon, Basil. How’s the weather in London?”

  “Cold, wet, and miserable. Thought I might come over to your side of the pond and get some sun.”

  “Be sure to stop over to the shop.”

  “I planned to do that. First thing in the morning?”

  “I always have room on the calendar for you.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.”

  “Great. See ya.” Judge Moore hung up.

  That was some day, the Director of Central Intelligence thought. First we lose CARDINAL, now Sir Basil Charleston wants to come over here with something he can’t talk about over the most secure phone system NSA and GCHQ ever came up with! It was still before noon and he’d already been in his office for nine hours. What the hell else is going wrong?