Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [219]
"Basil runs a good shop, Admiral. You know that."
"True," Greer admitted.
"So, you just wait to see what's under the Christmas tree, Mike?" Moore asked.
"I sent Santa my letter, and Santa always delivers. Everybody knows that." He was beaming at the possibilities. "What are we going to do with him when he arrives?"
"The farmhouse out at Winchester, I imagine," Moore thought out loud. "Give him a nice place to depressurize—let him travel around some on day trips."
"What stipend?" Greer inquired.
"Depends," Moore said. He was the one who controlled that out of the Agency's black budget. "If it's good information… oh, as much as a million, I imagine. And a nice place to work after we tickle all of it out of him."
"Where, I wonder?" Bostock put in.
"Oh, we let him decide that."
It was both a simple and a complex process. The arriving Rabbit family would have to learn English. New identities. They'd need new names, for starters, probably make them Norwegian immigrants to explain away the accents. CIA had the power to admit a total of one hundred new citizens every year through the Immigration and Naturalization Service (and they'd never used them all up). The Rabbits would need a set of Social Security numbers, driver's licenses—probably driving lessons beforehand, maybe for both, certainly for the wife—from the Commonwealth of Virginia. (The Agency had a cordial relationship with the state government. Richmond never asked too many questions.)
Then came the psychological help for people who'd walked away from everything they'd ever known and had to find their footing in a new and grossly different country. The Agency had a Columbia University professor of psychology on retainer to handle that. Then they'd get some older defectors to hand-walk them through the transition. None of this was ever easy on the new immigrants. For Russians, America was like a toy store for a child who'd never known such a thing as a toy store existed—it was overwhelming in every respect, with virtually no common points of comparison, almost like a different planet. They had to make it as comfortable for the defectors as possible. First, for the information, and second, to make sure they didn't want to go back—it would be almost certain death, at least for the husband, but it had happened before, so strong was the call of home for every man.
"If he likes a cold climate, send him to Minneapolis-Saint Paul," Greer suggested. "But, gentlemen, we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves."
"James, you are always the voice of sober counsel," the DCI observed with a smile.
"Somebody has to be. The eggs haven't hatched yet, people. Then we count the chicks."
And what if he doesn't know squat? Moore thought. What if he's just a guy who wants a ticket out?
God damn this business! the DCI completed the thought.
"Well, Basil will keep us posted, and we have your boy Ryan looking out for our interests."
"That's great news, Judge. Basil must be laughing into his beer about that."
"He's a good boy, Mike. Don't underestimate him. Those who did are in Maryland State Penitentiary now, waiting for the appeals process to play out," Greer said, in defense of his protégé.
"Well, yeah, he was a Marine once," Bostock conceded. "What do I tell Bob when he calls in?"
"Nothing," the DCI said at once. "Until we find out from the Rabbit what part of our comms are compromised, we are careful what goes out on a wire. Clear?"
Bostock nodded his head like a first-grader. "Yes, sir."
"I've had S and T go over our phone lines. They say they're clean. Chip Bennett is still raising hell and running in circles at Fort Meade." Moore didn't have to say that this alleged claim from the Rabbit was the scariest revelation to Washington since Pearl Harbor. But maybe they'd be able to turn it around on Ivan. Hope sprang eternal at Langley, just like everywhere else. It was unlikely that the Russians knew anything his Directorate of Science and Technology didn't, but you had to pay to see the cards.
* * *
RYAN WAS QUIETLY packing his things. Cathy was better