Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [194]
Is that what you're doing, Jack? he asked himself, as the train pulled into Victoria Station.
"What deep thoughts this morning?" his wife asked.
"Huh?" Jack responded.
"I know the look, honey," she pointed out. "You're chewing over something important."
"Cathy, are you an eye cutter or a pshrink?"
"With you, I'm a pshrink," she replied, with a playful smile.
Jack stood and opened the compartment door. "Okay, my lady. You have eyeballs to regulate, and I have secrets to figure out." He waved his wife out the door. "What new things did you learn from The Asshole and Armpit Monthly Gazette on the way in?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Probably," Jack conceded, heading off to the cabstand. They took a robin's-egg-blue one instead of the usual black.
"Hammersmith Hospital," Ryan told the driver, "and then One Hundred Westminster Bridge Road."
"Mi-Six, is it, sir?"
"Excuse me?" Ryan replied innocently.
"Universal Export, sir, where James Bond used to work." He chuckled and pulled off.
Well, Ryan reflected, the CIA exit off the George Washington Parkway wasn't marked NATIONAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION anymore. Cathy thought it was pretty funny. There was no keeping secrets from London cabdrivers. Cathy hopped out in the large underpass at Hammersmith, and the driver U-turned and went the last few blocks to Century House. Ryan went through the door, past Sergeant Major Canderton, and up to his office.
Coming in the door, he dropped the Telegraph on Simon's desk before doffing his raincoat.
"I saw it, Jack," Harding said at once.
"Who's talking?"
"Not sure. Foreign Office, probably. They've been briefed in on this. Or perhaps someone from the PM's office. Sir Basil is not pleased," Harding assured him.
"Nobody called the paper?"
"No. We didn't know about this until it was published this morning."
"I thought the local papers had a more cordial relationship with the government over here."
"Generally, they do, which leads me to believe it was the PM's office that did the leak." Harding's face was innocent enough, but Jack found himself trying to read it. That was something his wife was far better at. He had the feeling that Harding was not being entirely truthful, but he had no real reason to complain about that, did he?
"Anything new from the overnights?"
Harding shook his head. "Nothing of great interest. Nothing on this BEATRIX operation, either. Tell your wife about your impending trip?"
"Yeah, and I didn't tell you that she's pretty good at reading my mind."
"Most wives can, Jack." Harding had a good laugh at that.
* * *
ZAITZEV HAD THE same desk and the same pile of message traffic, always different in exact details, but always the same really: reports from field officers transmitting data from foreign nationals on all manner of subjects. He had hundreds of operation names memorized, and untold thousands of details resident between his ears, including the actual names of some of the agents and the code names of many, many others.
As on the previous workdays, he took his time, reading over all the morning traffic before sending it upstairs, trusting his trained memory to record and file away all of the important details.
Some, of course, contained information that was hidden in multiple ways. There was probably a penetration agent within CIA, for example, but his code name—TRUMPET—was all Zaitzev knew. Even the data he transmitted were concealed by the use of layered super-encryption, including a one-time pad. But the data went to a colonel on the sixth floor who specialized in CIA investigations and worked closely with the Second Chief Directorate—so, by implication, TRUMPET was giving KGB something in which the Second Directorate was interested, and that meant agents operating for CIA right here in