Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [172]
"So, somebody they don't know."
"Yep." Moore nodded as he took a bite of his sandwich and reached for some chips. "He won't have to do very much, just let the Brits know he's there. Keep 'em honest, like."
"Basil's going to want to interview this guy."
"No avoiding that," Moore agreed. "And he's entitled to dip his beak, too." That was a line he had picked up as a judge on a rare organized-crime appeals case. He and his fellow jurists in Austin, Texas, had laughed about it for weeks, after rejecting the appeal, 5-0.
"We'll want one of our people in for that, too."
"Bet your bippy, James," Moore agreed again.
"And better that our guy is based over there. Timing might get a little tough."
"You bet."
"How about Ryan?" Greer asked. "He's way the hell under the radar. Nobody knows who he is—he's one of mine, right? He doesn't even look like a field officer."
"His face has been in the papers," Moore objected.
"You think KGB reads the society page? At most they might have noticed him as a rich wannabe writer, and if he has a file, it's in some sub-basement at The Centre. That ought not to be a problem."
"You think so?" Moore wondered. For sure, this would give Bob Ritter a bellyache. But that wasn't entirely a bad thing. Bob had visions of taking over all CIA operations, and, good man that he was, he would never be DCI, for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that Congress didn't much like spooks with Napoleonic complexes. "Is he up to it?"
"The boy's an ex-Marine and he knows how to think on his feet, remember?"
"He has paid his dues, James. He doesn't take a leak sitting down," the DCI conceded.
"And all he has to do is keep an eye on our friends, not play spook on enemy soil."
"Bob will have a conniption fit."
"It won't hurt our purposes to keep Bob in his place, Arthur." Especially, he didn't add, if this works out. And work out it should. Once out of Moscow, it ought to be a fairly routine operation. Tense, of course, but routine.
"What if he screws things up?"
"Arthur, Jimmy Szell dropped the ball in Budapest, and he's an experienced field officer. I know, probably not even his fault, probably just bad luck, but it proves the point. A lot of this racket is just luck. The Brits will be doing all the real work, and I'm sure Basil will pick a good team."
Moore weighed the thought quietly. Ryan was very new at CIA, but he was a rising star. What helped was his adventure, not yet a year old, where twice he'd faced loaded guns and gotten it done anyway. One nice thing about the Marine Corps, they didn't turn out many pussies. Ryan could think and act on his feet, and that was a nice thing to have in your pocket. Better yet, the Brits liked him. He'd seen the comments from Sir Basil Charleston on Ryan's tenure at Century House—he was taking quite a liking to the young American analyst. So this was a chance to bring a new talent along, and though he wasn't a graduate of The Farm, that didn't mean he was a babe in the woods. Ryan had been through the woods, and he'd killed himself a couple of wolves along the way, hadn't he?
"James, it's a little outside the box, but I won't say no for that reason. Okay, cut him loose. I hope your boy doesn't wet his pants."
"What did Foley call this operation?"
"BEATRIX, he said. You know, like Peter Rabbit."
"Foley, that boy is going places, Arthur, and his wife, Mary Patricia, she is a real piece of work."
"There we surely agree, James. She'd make a great rodeo rider, and he'd be a pretty good town marshal west of the Pecos," the DCI said. He liked to see some of the young talent the Agency was producing. Where they all came from—well, they came from a lot of different places, but they all seemed to have the same fire in the belly that he'd had thirty years before, working with Hans Tofte. They weren't terribly different from the Texas Rangers he'd learned