by Tom Clancy
“Yes, of course, comrade. If you need anything, please call for me. Supper is at eighteen hours, and the dining car is the next one forward.” He pointed the way.
“How is the food?” Irina decided to ask. Surely, being the wife of a KGB officer had its advantages. . . .
“It is not bad, comrade,” the conductor answered politely. “I eat there myself,” he added, which said something, Oleg and Irina both thought.
“Thank you, comrade.”
“Enjoy your trip with us,” he said, and he took his leave.
Oleg and Irina both took out books. Svetlana pressed her nose to the window to watch the world passing by, and so the trip began, with only one of them knowing the final destination. Western Russia is mostly a region of rolling plains and distant horizons, not unlike Kansas or eastern Colorado. It was boring to everyone but their zaichik, for whom everything was new and exciting, especially the cattle that were mainly munching on grass. Cows, she thought, are pretty cool.
BACK IN MOSCOW, Nigel Haydock thanked the bureaucrat from the Transport Ministry for his splendid help, along with Paul Matthews, and then they made their way off to the British Embassy. The embassy had a photo lab, and the photographer went that way, while Matthews followed Nigel to his office.
“So, Paul, is there a useful story in that?”
“I suppose there might be. Is it important that there should be?”
“Well, it’s valuable to me that the Sovs should think I can bring attention to the glory of their country,” Haydock explained with a chuckle.
You are a -6 chap, aren’t you? Matthews thought without voicing his suspicion. “I suppose I can generate something. God knows British Rail needs a boost. Maybe this will encourage the exchequer to send some more money their way.”
“Not a bad idea at all,” Nigel agreed. It was clear that his guest had his suspicions but had the good grace to keep them quiet, perhaps until a later day, when Nigel was back at a desk in Century House, and they were at a Fleet Street pub.
“You want to see our photos?”
“Would you mind?”
“Not at all. We throw most of them away, as you know.”
“Excellent,” Haydock announced. Then he reached into the credenza behind his desk. “Drink, Paul?”
“Thank you, Nigel. Yes, a sherry would be nice.”
Two sherries later, the photographer came in with a folder full of prints. Haydock took it and leafed through them. “You do excellent work. You know, when I use my Nikon, I never quite get the light right. . . .” he said. There, a nice family shot of the Rabbit—and, most important, Mrs. Rabbit. There were three, each one better than the last. He slid them into his drawer and handed the folder back. Matthews took his cue.
“Well, must get back to my office and write this story up. Thanks for the lead, Nigel.”
“My pleasure, Paul. See your own way out?”
“Not a problem, old man.” And Matthews and his photographer disappeared into the corridor. Haydock returned his attention to the photos. Mrs. Rabbit was typically Russian, with her round, Slavic face—she could have had a million identical sisters throughout the Soviet Union. She needed to lose a few pounds and get a makeover in the West . . . if they make it that far, he cautioned himself. Height, about five feet four or so; weight, about a hundred forty pounds, not at all unpleasant. The child, he saw, was darling with her lively blue eyes and happy expression—too young to learn to hide her feelings behind a blank mask, as nearly all the adults here did. No, children were the same everywhere in their innocence and insatiable curiosity. But, most important, they now had high-quality photos of the Rabbit family.
The courier was on the top floor, near the office of the Ambassador, Sir John Kenny. Haydock passed him a manila envelope sealed by metal clasp, glue, and wax over the flap. The address on the front designated the Foreign Office box that went straight to Century House across the Thames from Whitehall. The courier’s bag was an expensive leather attaché case with the coat of arms of the Royal House of Windsor embossed on both sides. There was also a pair of handcuffs for him to secure it to his wrist, despite the stern rules of the Vienna Convention. The Queen’s Messenger had a car waiting to take him to Sheremetyevo International Airport for the British Airways 737 afternoon return flight to Heathrow. The photos would be in Sir Basil’s hand before he went home for the evening, and surely some Century House experts would be staying late that night to go over them. That would be the last official check to see if the Rabbit was genuine. His face would be compared with those of known KGB field and security officers—and if there was a hit, then Ed and Mary Foley were in for a bad time. But Haydock didn’t expect that to happen. He agreed with his CIA counterparts. This one looked and felt real. But then, so did good Directorate Two people, didn’t they? His last stop was at Communications to get a quick message off to SIS Headquarters that an important message was en route via courier on Operation BEATRIX. That would perk up everyone’s eyeballs, and an SIS man would be waiting at the mailroom in Whitehall for this particular envelope. As laggardly as a government bureaucracy could be, Haydock thought, when you had something important to do, it usually got done quickly, at least in the SIS.
THE FLIGHT TOOK two hours and twenty minutes—a little late due to adverse winds—before arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal Three. There, a Foreign Office representative whisked the courier off to downtown London in a black Jaguar saloon car, and the Queen’s Messenger made his delivery and went off to his own office. Before he even got there, an SIS officer had taken the package and hustled down to Westminster Bridge and across the Thames.
“You have it?” Sir Basil asked.
“Here, sir.” The messenger passed over the envelope. Charleston checked the closures and, satisfied that it had not been tampered with, slit it open with his paper knife. Then, for the first time, he saw what the Rabbit looked like. Three minutes later, Alan Kingshot walked in. C handed over the color prints.
Kingshot took the top photo and gave it a long look. “So, this is our Rabbit, is it?”
“Correct, Alan,” Sir Basil confirmed.
“He looks ordinary enough. His wife, as well. The little girl is rather cute,” the senior field spook thought out loud. “On the way to Budapest now, are they?”
“Left Kiev Station five and a half hours ago.”
“Fast work from Nigel.” Kingshot gave the faces a closer look, wondering what information lay in the brain behind the man’s face, and whether or not they’d get to use it. “So, BEATRIX goes forward. Do we have the bodies?”
“The male from York is close enough. We’ll need to burn his face off, I’m afraid,” C observed distastefully.
“No surprise there, sir,” Kingshot agreed. “What about the other two?”
“Two candidates from America. Mother and daughter killed in a house fire in Boston, I believe. The FBI is working on that as we speak. We need to get this photo to them at once to make sure the bodies match up properly.”
“I’ll take care of that now if you wish, sir.”
“Yes, Alan, please do that.”
The machine downstairs was a color-photo transmitter like the one used by newspapers—relatively new and, its operator told Kingshot, very easy to use. He gave the photo only a cursory look. Transmission to an identical machine made by Xerox and located at Langley took less than two minutes. Kingshot took the photo back and returned to C’s office.
“Done, sir.” Sir Basil waved him to a seat.
Charleston checked his watch, giving it five minutes because CIA headquarters was a large building, and the communications people were in the basement. Then he called Judge Arthur Moore on the secure, dedicated line.
“Afternoon, Basil,” Moore’s voice said over the digitized circuit.
“Hello, Arthur. You have the photo?”
“Just got here. Looks like a nice little family,” the DCI observed. “This is from the train station?”
“Yes, Arthur, they are en ro
ute as we speak. They will arrive in Budapest in about twenty—no, nineteen hours.”
“Okay. Ready at your end, Basil?”
“We soon will be. There is the matter of those unfortunate people from Boston, however. We have the male body. It appears on first inspection that it will serve our needs quite well.”
“Okay, I’ll have the FBI expedite things here,” Moore replied. He’d have to get this photo to the Hoover Building ASAP. Might as well share this grisly business with Emil, he thought.
“Very good, Arthur. I shall keep you posted.”
“Great, Bas. See you.”
“Excellent.” Charleston hung up his phone, then looked over at Kingshot. “Have our people prepare the body for transport to Budapest.”
“Timing, sir?”
“Three days should be about right,” Sir Basil thought out loud.
“Right.” Kingshot left the room.
C thought for a moment and decided it was time to warn the American. He punched another button on his phone. This took only a minute and a half.
“Yes, sir,” Ryan said, entering his office.
“Your trip to Budapest, three days from today—perhaps four, but more likely three.”
“Where do I leave from?”
“There’s a morning British Airways flight from Heathrow. You can leave from here, or just take a taxi from Victoria Station. You’ll be accompanied on the flight by one of our people, and met in Budapest by Andy Hudson, he’s our Chief of Station there. Good man. Runs a good little station.”
“Yes, sir,” Ryan said, not knowing what the hell else to say in preparation for his first field mission as a spook. Then it was time for a question. “What, exactly, is going to happen, sir?”
“I’m not sure yet, but Andy has good connections with local smugglers. I would expect him to arrange a crossing into Yugoslavia, and then home from there by commercial aircraft.”
Great. More fucking airplanes, Ryan thought. Couldn’t we take the train? But ex-Marines weren’t supposed to show fear. “Okay, I guess that works.”
“You may speak with our Rabbit—discreetly,” Charleston warned. “And then you’ll be allowed to sit in on our initial debriefing out in Somerset. Finally, I rather expect you’ll be one of the chaps to escort him back to the States, probably on U.S. Air Force transport out of RAF Bentwaters.”
Better and better, Jack thought. His hatred for flying was something he’d have to get over, and intellectually he knew that sooner or later he’d do it. It was just that he hadn’t quite gotten over it yet. Well, at least he wouldn’t be flying anywhere in a CH-46 with a fluky transmission. He drew the line there.
“My total time away from home?” And sleeping apart from my wife, Ryan thought.
“Four days, perhaps as many as seven. It depends on how things work out in Budapest,” C replied. “That is difficult to predict.”
NONE OF THEM had ever eaten at sixty miles per hour. The adventure for their little girl just got better and better. Dinner was adequate. The beef was about average for the Soviet Union, and so they could not be disappointed by it, along with potatoes and greens, and, of course, a carafe of vodka, one of the better brands, to erase the pain of travel. They were heading into the setting sun, now in country used exclusively for farming. Irina leaned across the table to cut the zaichik’s meat for her, watching their little angel eat her dinner, like the big girl she proclaimed herself to be, along with a glass of cold milk.
“So, looking forward to the trip now, my dear?” Oleg asked his wife.
“Yes, especially the shopping.” Of course.
Part of Oleg Ivan’ch was calm—in fact, the calmest he’d been in weeks. It was really happening. His treason—part of his consciousness thought of it that way—was under way. How many of his countrymen, he wondered—indeed, how many of his coworkers at The Centre—would take the chance if they had the courage to do so? You couldn’t know. He lived in a country and worked at an office where everyone concealed their inner thoughts. And at KGB, even the Russian custom of sanctifying especially close friendships by speaking things that could put you in prison, trusting that a true friend would never denounce you—no, a KGB officer didn’t do such things. KGB was founded on the dichotomous balance of loyalty and betrayal. Loyalty to the state and its principles, and betrayal of any who violated them. But since he didn’t believe in those principles anymore, he had turned to treason to save his soul.
And now the treason was under way. If the Second Chief Directorate knew of his plans, they would have been mad to allow him on this train. He could leave it at any intermediate stop—or just jump off the train when it slowed, approaching some preplanned point—and escape to Western hands, which could be waiting anywhere for him. No, he was safe, at least as long as he was on this train. And so he could be calm for now, and he’d let the days come as they would and see what happened. He kept telling himself that he was doing the right thing, and from that knowledge came his feeling, however illusory, of personal safety. If there were a God, surely He would protect a man on the run from evil.
DINNER IN THE Ryan house was spaghetti again. Cathy had a particularly good recipe for sauce—from her mom, who didn’t have a single drop of Italian blood in her veins—and her husband loved it, especially with good Italian bread, which Cathy had found at a local bakery in downtown Chatham. No surgery tomorrow, so they had wine with dinner. Time to tell her.
“Honey, I have to travel in a few days.”
“The NATO thing?”
“ ’Fraid so, babe. Looks like three or four days—maybe a little more.”
“What’s it about, can you say?”
“Nope, not allowed.”
“Spook business?”
“Yep.” He was allowed to say that.
“What’s a spook?” Sally asked.
“It’s what daddy does,” Cathy said, without thinking.
“Spook, like in the Wizzerdaboz?” Sally went on.
“What?” her father asked.
“The Cowardly Lion says he believes in spooks, remember?” Sally pointed out.
“Oh, you mean the Wizard of Oz.” It was her favorite movie so far this year.
“That’s what I said, Daddy.” How could her daddy be so stupid?
“Well, no, Daddy isn’t one of those,” Jack told his daughter.
“Then why did Mommy say so?” Sally persisted. She has the makings of a good FBI agent, Jack thought at that moment.
It was Cathy’s turn. “Sally, Mommy was just making a joke.”
“Oh.” Sally went back to work on her pisghetti. Jack gave his wife a look. They couldn’t talk about his work in front of his daughter—not ever. Kids never kept secrets for more than five minutes, did they? So, he’d learned, never say anything in front of a kid that you didn’t want on the first page of The Washington Post. Everyone on Grizedale Close thought that John Patrick Ryan worked at the U.S. Embassy and was lucky enough to be married to a surgeon. They didn’t need to know that he was an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. Too much curiosity. Too many jokes.
“Three or four days?” Cathy asked.
“That’s what they tell me. Maybe a little longer, but not too much, I think.”
“Important?” Sally had gotten her inquisitive nature from her mother, Jack figured . . . and maybe a little bit from himself.
“Important enough that they’re throwing my ass on an airplane, yeah.” That actually worked. Cathy knew of her husband’s hatred for air travel.
“Well, you have your Valium prescription. Want a beta-blocker, too?”
“No thanks, babe, not this time.”
“You know, if you got airsick, it would be easier to understand.” And easier to treat, she didn’t have to add.
“Babe, you were there when my back went out, remember? I have some bad memories from flying. Maybe when we go home, we can take the boat,” he added, with some hope in his voice. But, no, it wouldn’t work out that way. It never did in the re
al world.
“Flying is fun,” Sally protested. She definitely got that from her mother.
TRAVEL IS INEVITABLY TIRING, and so the Zaitzev family was agreeably surprised to see their beds turned out when they got back to their compartments. Irina got her daughter changed into her little yellow nightgown with flowers on what would have been the bodice. She gave her parents the usual good-night kiss and climbed onto her bed all by herself—she insisted on doing that—and slid under the covers. Instead of sleeping, she propped her head on the pillow and looked out the window at the darkened countryside passing by. Just a few lights from buildings on the collective farms but, for all that, fascinating to the little girl.
Her mother and father left the connecting door partly open, lest she have a nightmare or other sudden need to get a reassuring hug. Before going to bed, Svetlana had looked under the bed to see if there might be a hiding place for a big black bear, and she was satisfied that no such hiding place existed. Oleg and Irina opened books and gradually nodded off to the rocking of the train.
“BEATRIX IS RUNNING,” Moore told Admiral Greer. “The Rabbit and his family are on the train, probably crossing into the Ukraine right about now.”
“I hate waiting like this,” the DDI observed. It was easier for him to admit it. He’d never gone into the field on an intelligence mission. No, his job had always been at a desk, looking over important information. It was times like this that reminded him of the simple pleasures of standing watch on a ship of war—mainly submarines, in his case—where you could look at wind and wave, feel the breeze on your face and, merely by speaking a few words, change the course and speed of your ship instead of waiting to see what the ocean and distant enemy might do to you. You had the illusion there of being master of your fate.