Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [210]
* * *
"NOT GOING TO work today?" Irina asked her husband. He ought to have left for the office by now, surely.
"No, and I have a surprise for you," Oleg announced.
"What is that?"
"We're going to Budapest tomorrow."
That snapped her head around. "What?"
"I decided to take my vacation days, and there's a new conductor in Budapest now, Jozsef Rozsa. I knew you liked classical music, and I decided to take you and zaichik there, dear."
"Oh," was all she had to say. "But what about my job at GUM?"
"Can't you get free of that?"
"Well, yes, I suppose," Irina admitted. "But why Budapest?"
"Well, the music, and we can buy some things there. I have a list of items to get for people at The Centre," he told her.
"Ah, yes… we can get some nice things for Svetlana," she thought out loud on reflection. Working at GUM, she knew what was available in Hungary that she'd never get in Moscow, even in the "closed" stores. "Who is this Rozsa, anyway?"
"He's a young Hungarian conductor touring Eastern Europe. He has a fine reputation, darling. The program is supposed to be Brahms and Bach, I think—one of the Hungarian state orchestras and," he added, "a lot of good shopping." There wasn't a woman in all the world who wouldn't respond favorably to that opportunity, Oleg judged. He waited patiently for the next objection:
"I don't have anything to wear."
"My dear, that is why we're going to Budapest. You will be able to buy anything you need there."
"Well…"
"And remember to pack everything you need in one bag. We'll take empty bags for all the things we're buying for ourselves and our friends."
"But—"
"Irina, think of Budapest as one big consumer-goods store. Hungarian VCRs, Western jeans and pantyhose, real perfume. You will be the envy of your office at GUM," he promised her.
"Well…"
"I thought so. My darling, we are going on vacation!" he told her, a little manly force in his voice.
"If you say so," she responded, with the hint of an avaricious smile. "I will call in to the office later and let them know. I suppose they won't miss me too, badly."
"The only people they miss in Moscow are the Politburo members, and they only miss them for the day and a half it takes to replace them," he announced.
And so that was settled. They were taking the train to Hungary. Irina started thinking about what to pack. Oleg would leave that to her. Inside a week or ten days, we will all have much better clothes, the KGB communications officer told himself. And maybe in a month or two, they would go to that Disney Planet place in the American province of Florida…
He wondered if CIA knew how much trust he was putting in them, and he prayed—an unusual activity for a KGB officer—that they would perform as well as he hoped.
* * *
"GOOD MORNING, JACK."
"Hey, Simon. What's new in the world?" Jack set his coffee down before taking his coat off.
"Suslov died last night," Harding announced. "It will be in their afternoon papers."
"What a pity. Another bat found his way back into hell, eh?" At least he died with good eyesight, thanks to Bernie Katz and the guys from Johns Hopkins, Ryan thought. "Complications of diabetes?"
Harding shrugged. "Plus being old, I should imagine. Heart attack, our sources tell us. Amazing that the nasty old bugger actually had a heart. In any case, his replacement will be Mikhail Yevgeniyevich Alexandrov."
"And he's not exactly a day at the beach. When will they plant Suslov?"
"He's a senior Politburo member. I would expect a full state funeral, marching band, the lot, then cremation and a slot in the Kremlin wall."
"You know, I've always wondered, what does a real communist think about when he knows he's dying? You suppose they wonder if it was all a great big fucking mistake?"
"I have no idea. But Suslov