Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [168]
"Well, sir, if not, you can use this to start a fire on your grill with." He handed the dispatch over.
The Air Force officer inspected it. "Tell me about it. Okay." He scribbled an authorization on a pad in the corner of his desk. "Give this to the Marine."
"Aye aye, sir." The senior chief walked back to the vault, leaving the Air Force puke to wonder why the squids always talked so funny.
"Here you go, Sam," the chief said, handing over the form.
The Marine unlocked the swinging door, and the senior chief headed inside. The box the pad was in wasn't locked, presumably because anyone who could get past the seven layers of security required to get to this point was probably as trustworthy as the President's wife.
The one-time pad was a small-ring binder. The Navy chief signed for it on the way out, then went back to his desk. The Air Force sergeant joined him, and together they went through the cumbersome procedure of decrypting the dispatch.
"Damn," the young NCO observed about two-thirds of the way through. "Do we tell anybody about that?"
"That's above our pay grade, sonny. I expect the DCI will let the right people know. And forget you ever heard that," he added. But neither really would, and both knew it. With all the wickets they had to pass through to be here, the idea that their signal systems were not secure was rather like hearing that their mother was turning tricks on Sixteenth Street in DC.
"Yeah, Chief, sure," the young wing-wiper replied. "How do we deliver this one?"
"I think a courier, sonny. You want to whistle one up?"
"Aye aye, sir." The USAF sergeant took his leave with a smile.
The courier was an Army staff sergeant, driving a tan Army Plymouth Reliant, who took the sealed envelope, tucked it into the attaché case on his front seat, and drove down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the D.C. Beltway, and west on that to the George Washington Parkway, the first right off of which was CIA. At that point, the dispatch—whatever the hell it was, he didn't know—ceased being his responsibility.
The address on the envelope sent it to the Seventh Floor. Like many government agencies, CIA never really slept. On the top floor was Tom Ridley, a carded National Intelligence Officer, and the very one who handled Judge Moore's weekend briefings. It took him about three seconds to see that this one had to go to the judge right now. He lifted his STU secure phone and hit speed-dial button 1.
"This is Arthur Moore," a voice said presently.
"Judge, Tom Ridley here. Something just came in."
"Something" means it was really something.
"Now?"
"Yes, sir."
"Can you come out here?"
"Yes, sir."
"Jim Greer, too?"
"Yes, sir, and probably Mr. Bostock also."
That made it interesting. "Okay, call them and then come on out." Ridley could almost hear the Goddamn it, don't I ever get a day off! at the other end before the line went dead. It took another few minutes to call the two other senior Agency officials, and then Ridley went down to his car for the drive out, pausing only to make three Xerox copies.
* * *
IT WAS LUNCHTIME in Great Falls. Mrs. Moore, ever the perfect hostess, had lunch meats and soft drinks set out for her unexpected guests before retiring to her sitting room upstairs.
"What is it, Tommy?" Moore asked. He liked the newly appointed NIO. A graduate of Marquette University, he was a Russian expert and had been one of Greer's star analysts before fleeting up to his present post. Soon he'd be one of the guys who always accompanied the President on Air Force One.
"This came in late this morning via Fort Meade," Ridley said, handing out the copies.
Mike Bostock was the fastest reader of the group: "Oh, Lord."
"This will make Chip Bennett happy," James Greer predicted.
"Yeah, like a trip to the dentist," Moore observed last of all. "Okay, people, what does this tell us?"
Bostock took it first. "It means we want this Rabbit in our hutch in one big hurry, gentlemen."
"Through Budapest?" Moore asked, remembering his morning brief.
"Uh-oh,"