by Tom Clancy
All manner of signals came into Fort Meade, from all over the world, and one such source included GCHQ, Britain’s General Communications Headquarters at Cheltenham, NSA’s sister service in England. The British knew what phones were whose in the Russian Embassy—they hadn’t changed the numbers, even with the demise of the USSR—and this one was on the desk of the rezident. The sound quality wasn’t good enough for a voice-print, since the Russian version of the STU system digitized signals less efficiently than the American version, but once the encryption was defeated, the words were easily recognizable. The decrypted signal was cross-loaded to yet another computer, which translated the Russian conversation to English with a fair degree of reliability. Since the signal was from the London rezident to Moscow, it was placed on the top of the electronic pile, and cracked, translated, and printed less than an hour after it had been made. That done, it was transmitted to Cheltenham immediately, and at Fort Meade routed to a signals officer whose job it was to send intercepts to the people interested in the content. In this case, it was routed straight to the Director of Central Intelligence and, because it evidently discussed the identity of a field spook, to the Deputy Director (Operations), since all the field spooks worked for her. The former was a busier person than the latter, but that didn’t matter, since the latter was married to the former.
“Ed?” his wife’s voice said.
“Yeah, honey?” Foley replied.
“Somebody’s trying to ID John Clark over in U.K.”
Ed Foley’s eyes went fully open at that news. “Really? Who?”
“The station chief in London talked with his desk officer in Moscow, and we intercepted it. The message ought to be in your IN pile, Eddie.”
“Okay.” Foley lifted the pile and leafed through it. “Got it. Hmmm,” he said over the phone. “The guy who wants the information, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich Popov, former Colonel in—a terrorism guy, eh? I thought they were all RIF’d . . . Okay, they were, at least he was.”
“Yeah, Eddie, a terrorism guy is interested in Rainbow Six. Isn’t that interesting?”
“I’d say so. Get this out to John?”
“Bet your sweet little tushie,” the DO replied at once.
“Anything on Popov?”
“I ran the name through the computer. Zip,” his wife responded. “I’m starting a new file on the name. Maybe the Brits have something.”
“Want me to call Basil about it?” the DCI asked.
“Let’s see what we develop first. Get the fax off to John right away, though.”
“It’ll go out soon as I get the cover note done,” Mary Pat Foley promised.
“Hockey game tonight.” The Washington Capitals were closing in on the playoffs, and tonight was a grudge match with the Flyers.
“I haven’t forgotten. Later, honey-bunny.”
“Bill,” John said over the office phone forty minutes later. “You want to come into my office?”
“On the way, John.” He walked through the door in about two minutes. “What’s the news?”
“Check this out, pal.” Clark handed over the four pages of transcript.
“Bloody hell,” the intelligence officer said, as soon as he got to page two. “Popov, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich. Doesn’t ring a bell—oh, I see, they don’t know the name at Langley either. Well, one cannot know them all. Call Century House about it?”
“I think we cross-index our files with yours, but it can’t hurt. It would appear that Ding was right on this one. How much you want to bet that this is our guy? Who’s your best friend in the Security Service?”
“Cyril Holt,” Tawney said at once. “Deputy Director. I’ve known Cyril back to Rugby. He was a year behind me there. Outstanding chap.” He didn’t have to explain to Clark that old school ties were still a major part of British culture.
“Want to get him into this?”
“Bloody right, John.”
“Okay, let’s make the call. If we decide to go public, I want us to make the decision, not the fucking Russians.”
“They know your name, then?”
“More than that. I’ve met Chairman Golovko. He’s the guy who got Ding and me into Tehran last year. I’ve run a couple of cooperative operations with ’em, Bill. They know everything down to my dick size.”
Tawney didn’t react. He was learning how Americans talked, and it was often very entertaining. “You know, John, we ought not to get too excited about this information.”
“Bill, you’ve been in the field as much as I have, maybe a little more. If this doesn’t make your nose twitch, get something to clean your sinuses out, will you?” Clark paused for a second. “We got somebody who knows me by name, and is hinting that he can tell the Russians what I’m doing now. He’s gotta know, man. He picked the London rezident to tell, not the one in Caracas. A terrorism guy, maybe a guy who knows names and numbers, and we’ve had three incidents since we got here, and we’ve agreed that’s a lot for so short a time, and now this guy comes up on the scope, asking about me. Bill, I think it’s time to get a little excited, okay?”
“Quite so, John. I’ll get Cyril on the phone.” Tawney left the room.
“Fuck,” John breathed, when the door closed. That was the problem with black operations. Sooner or later, some bastard flipped the light switch, and it was generally somebody you didn’t even want in the room. How the hell has this one leaked? His face darkened as he looked down at his desk, acquiring an expression that those who knew it considered very dangerous indeed.
“Shit,” Director Murray said at his desk in FBI Headquarters.
“Yeah, Dan, that about covers it,” Ed Foley agreed from his seventh-floor office in Langley. “How the hell did this leak?”
“Beats the hell out of me, man. You have anything on this Popov that I don’t know about?”
“I can check with Intelligence and Terrorism divisions, but we cross-deck everything to you. What about the Brits?”
“If I know John, he’s already on the phone to ‘Five’ and ‘Six.’ His intel guy is Bill Tawney, and Bill’s top-drawer in any outfit. Know him?”
“Rings a vague bell, but I can’t put a face on it. What’s Basil think of him?”
“Says he’s one of his best analysts, and was a primo field-spook until a few years ago. He’s got a good nose,” the DCI told Murray.
“How big a threat is this?”
“Can’t tell yet. The Russians know John pretty well from Tokyo and Tehran. Golovko knows him personally—called me about the Tehran job to compliment him on the job he and Chavez pulled off. I gather they hit it off, but this is business, not personal, y’know?”
“I hear you, Don Corleone. Okay, what do you want me to do?”
“Well, there’s a leak somewhere. I haven’t got a clue yet where it might be. The only talk I’ve heard about Rainbow has been people with codeword clearance. They’re supposed to know about keeping their mouths shut.”
“Right.” Murray snorted. The only people able to leak stuff like this were the people you trusted, people who’d passed a serious background check done by special agents of the FBI. Only a trusted and checked-out person could really betray his country, and unfortunately the FBI hadn’t yet learned to look inside a person’s brain and heart. And what if it had been an inadvertent leak? You could interview the person who’d done it, and even he or she couldn’t reply that it had happened. Security and counterespionage were two of the hardest tasks in the known universe. Thank God, he thought, for the cryppies at NSA, as always the most trusted and productive of his country’s intelligence services.
“Bill, we have a two-man team on Kirilenko almost continuously. They just photographed him having a pint with a chap at his usual pub last night,” Cyril Holt told his “Six” colleague.
“That may well be our man,” Tawney said.
“Quite possible. I need to see your intercepts. Want me to drive out?”
“Yes, as quickly as you can.”
“Fine. Give me tw
o hours, old man. I still have a few things on my desk to attend to.”
“Excellent.”
The good news was that they knew this phone was secure in two different ways. The STU-4 encryption system could be beaten, but only by technology that only the Americans had—or so they thought. Better still, the phone lines used were computer-generated. One advantage to the fact that the British telephone system was essentially owned by the government was that the computers controlling the switching systems could randomize the routings and deny anyone the chance to tap into a call, unless there was a hard-wire connection at the point of origin or reception. For that bit of security, they relied on technicians who checked the lines on a monthly basis—unless one of them was working for someone else as well, Tawney reminded himself. You couldn’t prevent everything, and while maintaining telephone silence could deny information to a potential enemy, it also had the effect of stopping the transfer of information within the government—thus causing that institution to grind to an immediate, smoking halt.
“Go ahead, say it,” Clark told Chavez.
“Easy, Mr. C, not like I predicted the outcome of the next World Series. It was pretty obvious stuff.”
“Maybe so, Domingo, but you still said it first.”
Chavez nodded. “Problem is, what the hell do we do about it? John, if he knows your name, he either already knows or can easily find out your location—and that means us. Hell, all he needs is a pal in the phone company, and he starts staking us out. Probably has a photo of you, or a description. Then he gets a tag number and starts following you around.”
“We should be so lucky. I know about countersurveillance, and I have a shoe-phone everywhere I go. I’d love for somebody to try that on me. I’d have you and some of your boys come out to the country, do a pick-and-roll, bag the fucker, and then we could have a friendly little chat with him.” That generated a thin smile. John Clark knew how to extract information from people, though his techniques for doing so didn’t exactly fit guidelines given to the average police departments.
“I suppose, John. But for now there’s not a damned thing we can do ’cept to keep our eyes open and wait for someone else to generate some information for us.”
“I’ve never been a target like this before. I don’t like it.”
“I hear you, man, but we live in an imperfect world. What’s Bill Tawney say?”
“He has a ‘Five’ guy coming out later today.”
“Well, they’re the pros from Dover on this. Let ’em do their thing,” Ding advised. He knew it was good advice—indeed, the only possible advice—and knew that John knew that, and he also knew that John would hate it. His boss liked doing things himself, not waiting for others to do things for him. If Mr. C had a weakness, that was it. He could be patient while working, but not while waiting for things to happen beyond his purview. Well, nobody was perfect.
“Yeah, I know” was the reply. “How are your troops?”
“Riding the crest of the wave, man, right in the curl and looking down the pipeline. I have never seen morale this good, John. The Worldpark job just lit everybody up. I think we can conquer the whole world if the bad guys line up properly.”
“The eagle looks pretty good in the club, doesn’t it?”
“Bet your sweet ass, Mr. C. Ain’t no nightmares from this one . . . well, except for the little girl. That wasn’t fun to watch, even if she was dying anyway, you know? But we got the bastards, and Mr. Carlos is still in his cage. I don’t figure anybody else is going to try to spring his sorry ass.”
“And he knows it, the French tell me.”
Chavez stood. “Good. I gotta get back. Keep me in the loop on this, okay?”
“Sure will, Domingo,” Rainbow Six promised.
“So what sort of work do you do?” the plumber asked.
“I sell plumbing supplies,” Popov said. “Wrenches and so forth, wholesale to distributors and retailers.”
“Indeed. Anything useful?”
“Rigid pipe wrenches, the American brand. They’re the best in the world, and they have a lifetime guarantee. If one breaks, we replace it free, even twenty years from now. Various other things as well, but Rigid wrenches are my best product.”
“Really? I’ve heard about them, but I’ve never used them.”
“The adjustment mechanism is a little steadier than the English Stilson spanner. Other than that, the only real advantage is the replacement policy. You know, I’ve been selling these things for . . . what? Fourteen years, I think. I’ve had one break from all the thousands I’ve sold.”
“Hmph. I broke a wrench last year,” the plumber said.
“Anything unusual about work on the base?”
“Not really. Plumbing is plumbing. Some of the things I work on are rather old—the watercoolers, for example. Getting parts for the bloody things can be troublesome, and they can’t make the decision to get new ones. Bloody government bureaucrats. They must spend thousands a week for bullets for their bloody machine guns, but purchase some new watercoolers that people will use every day? Not bloody likely!” The man had a good laugh and sipped at his lager.
“What sort of people are they?”
“The SAS team? Good blokes, very polite chaps. They make no trouble for me and my mates at all.”
“What about the Americans?” Popov asked. “I’ve never really known any, but you hear stories about how they do things their own way and—”
“Not in my experience. Well, I mean, only lately have we had any at the base, but the two or three I’ve worked for are just like our chaps—and remember I told you, they try to tip us! Bloody Yanks! But friendly chaps. Most of them have kids, and the children are lovely. Learning to play proper football now, some of them. So, what are you doing around here?”
“Meeting with the local ironmongers, trying to get them to carry my brands of tools, and also the local distributor.”
“Lee and Dopkin?” The plumber shook his head. “Both are old buggers, they won’t change very much. You’ll do better with the little shops than with them, I’m afraid.”
“Well, how about your shop? Can I sell you some of my tools?”
“I don’t have much of a budget—but, well, I’ll look at your wrenches.”
“When can I come in?”
“Security, mate, is rather tight here. I doubt they’ll allow me to drive you onto the base . . . but, well, I could bring you in with me—say, tomorrow afternoon?”
“I’d like that. When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon? I could pick you up here.”
“Yes,” Popov said. “I’d like that.”
“Excellent. We can have a ploughman’s lunch here and then I’ll take you in myself.”
“I’ll be here at noon,” Popov promised. “With my tools.”
Cyril Holt was over fifty, and had the tired look of a senior British civil servant. Well dressed in a finely tailored suit and an expensive tie—clothing over there, Clark knew, was excellent, but not exactly cheap—he shook hands all around and took his seat in John’s office.
“So,” Holt said. “I gather we have a problem here.”
“You’ve read the intercept?”
“Yes.” Holt nodded. “Good work by your NSA chaps.” He didn’t have to add that it was good work by his chaps as well, identifying the line used by the rezident.
“Tell me about Kirilenko,” Clark said.
“Competent chap. He has a staff of eleven field officers, and perhaps a few other off-the-books helpers to do pickups and such. Those are all ‘legals’ with diplomatic cover. He has illegals as well who report to him, of course. We know two of them, both covered as businessmen who do real business in addition to espionage. We’ve been building up this book for some time. In any case, Vanya is a competent, capable chap. He’s covered as the embassy’s third secretary, does his diplomatic duties like a genuine diplomat, and is well liked by the people with whom he comes into contact. Bright, witty, good chap to have a pint with
. Drinks beer more than vodka, oddly enough. He seems to like it in London. Married, two children, no bad habits that have come to our attention. His wife doesn’t work at all, but we haven’t seen anything covert on her part. Just a housewife, so far as we can discern. Also well liked in the diplomatic community.” Holt passed across photographs of both. “Now,” he went on, “just yesterday our friend was having a friendly pint in his favorite pub. It’s a few blocks from the embassy in Kensington, close to the palace—the embassy dates back to the Czars, just like the one you have in Washington—and this pub is rather upscale. Here’s the enhanced photo of the chap he had his beer with.” Another photo was passed across.
The face, Clark and Tawney saw, was grossly ordinary. The man had brown hair and eyes, regular features, and was about as distinctive as a steel garbage can in an alley. In the photo, he was dressed in jacket and tie. The expression on his face was unremarkable. They might have been discussing football, the weather, or how to kill someone they both didn’t like—there was no telling.
“I don’t suppose he has a regular seat?” Tawney asked.
“No, usually sits at the bar, but sometimes in a booth, and rarely in the same seat twice in a row. We’ve thought about placing a bug,” Holt told them, “but it’s technically difficult, it would let the publican know we’re up to something, and it’s very doubtful that we’d get anything useful from it. His English is superb, by the way. The publican seems to think he’s a Briton from the North Country.”
“Does he know you’re following him?” Tawney asked, before Clark could.
Holt shook his head. “Hard to say, but we do not think so. The surveillance teams switch off, and they’re some of my best people. They go to this pub regularly, even when he’s not there, in case he has a chap of his own there to do countersurveillance. The buildings in the area allow us to track him fairly easily by camera. We’ve seen a few possible brush-passes, but you both know the drill on that. We all bump into people on a crowded sidewalk, don’t we? They’re not all brush-passes. That’s why we teach our field officers to do it. Especially when the streets are crowded, you can have a dozen cameras on your subject and not see it being done.”