Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [164]
"The British changed their cipher machines about four months ago. We have as yet had no success in cracking them. That I know. Exactly which of your signals are compromised, I do not know, but I do know that some are fully penetrated. Please keep this in mind."
"That I will do, Oleg Ivan'ch." This guy had information that CIA needed—big-time. Cracked communications were the most dangerous things that could happen to any covert agency. Wars had been won and lost over such things as that. The Russians lacked American computer technology, but they did have some of the world's finest mathematicians, and the brain between a person's ears was the most dangerous instrument of all, and a damned site more competent than the ones that sat on a desk or a floor. Did Mike Russell have any of the old one-time pads at the embassy? CIA had used them once upon a time, but their cumbersome nature had caused them to be discarded. NSA told everybody who'd listen that on his best day, Seymour Cray couldn't brute-force their ciphers, even with his brand-new CRAY-2 supercomputer on amphetamines. If they were wrong, it could hurt America in ways too vast to comprehend. But there were many cipher systems, and those who cracked one could not necessarily crack another. Or so everybody said… but communications security was not her area of expertise. Even she had to trust someone and something once in a while. But this was like being shot in the back by the starting gun in a hundred-meter race and having to run for the tape anyway. Damn.
"It is an inconvenience, but we will do what is necessary to protect you. You want to be taken out soon."
"This week would be very helpful—not so much for my needs as for the needs of a man whose life is in danger."
"I see," she said, not quite seeing. This guy might be laying a line on her, but if so, he was doing it like a real pro, and she wasn't getting that signal from this guy. No, he didn't read like an experienced field spook. He was a player, but not her kind of player.
"Very well. When you get to work tomorrow, make a contact report," she told him.
That one surprised him: "Are you serious?"
"Of course. Tell your supervisor that you met an American, the wife of a minor embassy official. Describe me and my son—"
"And tell them you are a pretty but shallow American female who has a handsome and polite little boy," he surmised. "And your Russian needs a little work, shall we say?"
"You learn quickly, Oleg Ivan'ch. I bet you play a good game of chess."
"Not good enough. I will never be a Grand Master."
"We all have our limitations, but in America you will find them far more distant than they are in the Soviet Union."
"By the end of the week?"
"When my husband wears his bright red tie, you set the time and place for a meeting. Possibly by tomorrow afternoon you will get your signal, and we will make the arrangements."
"Good day to you, then. Where did you learn your Russian?"
"My grandfather was equerry to Aleksey Nikolayevich Romanov," she explained. "In my childhood, he told me many stories about the young man and his untimely death."
"So, your hatred for the Soviet Union runs deep, eh?"
"Only for your government, Oleg. Not for the people of this country. I would see you free."
"Someday, perhaps, but not soon."
"History, Oleg Ivan'ch, is made not of a few big things but of many small things." That was one of her core beliefs. Again, for the cameras that might be there or not, she shook his hand and called her son. They walked around the park for another hour before heading back home for lunch.
But for lunch instead they all drove to the embassy, talking on the way about nothing more sensitive than the admirably clear weather. Once there, they all had hot dogs in the embassy canteen, and then Eddie went to the day-care room. Ed and Mary