Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [286]
"Oh, yeah? Try us," Ritter thought out loud.
"Indeed, Bob. When do we get him over here?" Admiral Greer asked.
"Basil asked for two more days to get him over. Say, Thursday afternoon. I'm having the Air Force send a VC-137 over. Might as well do it first class," the Judge observed generously. It wasn't his money, after all. "Basil's alerted his people in Rome, by the way, just in case KGB is running fast on their operation to whack the Pope."
"They're not that efficient," Ritter said with some confidence.
"I'd be careful about that, Bob," the DDI thought out loud. "Yuriy Vladimirovich isn't noted for his patience." Greer was not the first man to make that observation.
"I know, but their system grinds slower than ours."
"What about the Bulgarians?" Moore asked. "They think the shooter is a guy named Strokov, Boris Strokov. He's probably the guy who killed Georgiy Markov on Westminster Bridge. Experienced assassin, Basil thinks."
"It figures they'd use the Bulgars," Ritter observed. "They're the Eastern Bloc's Murder Incorporated, but they're still communists, and they're chess players, not high-noon types. But we still haven't figured out how to warn the Vatican. Can we talk to the Nuncio about this?"
They'd all had a little time to think through that question, and now it was time to face it again. The Papal Nuncio was the Vatican's ambassador to the United States, Giovanni Cardinal Sabatino. Sabatino was a longtime member of the Pope's own diplomatic service and was well regarded by the State Department's career foreign-service officers, both for his sagacity and his discretion.
"Can we do it in such a way as not to compromise the source?" Greer wondered.
"We can say some Bulgarian talked too much—"
"Pick that fictional source carefully, Judge," Ritter warned. "Remember, the DS has that special subunit. It reports directly to their Politburo, and they don't write much down, according to what sources we have over there. Kinda like the commie version of Albert Anastasia. This Strokov guy is one of them, or so we have heard."
"We could say their party chairman talked to a mistress. He has a few," Greer suggested. The Director of Intelligence had all manner of information on the intimate habits of world leaders, and the Bulgarian party boss was a man of the people in the most immediate of senses. Of course, if this ever leaked, life might get difficult for the women in question, but adultery had its price, and the Bulgarian chairman was such a copious drinker that he might not remember to whom he'd (never) said what would be attributed to him. That might serve to salve their consciences a little. "Sounds plausible," Ritter opined. "When could we see the Nuncio?" Moore asked. "Middle of the week, maybe?" Ritter suggested again. They all had a full week before them. The Judge would be on The Hill doing budget business until Wednesday morning.
"Where?" They couldn't bring him here, after all. The churchman wouldn't come. Too much potential unpleasantness if anyone noticed. And Judge Moore couldn't go to the Nuncio. His face, also, was too well known by the Washington establishment.
"Foggy Bottom," Greer thought out loud. Moore went to see the Secretary of State often enough, and the Nuncio wasn't exactly a stranger there.
"That'll work," the DCI decided. "Let's get it set up." Moore stretched. He hated having to do work on a Sunday. Even a judge of the appeals court got weekends off.
"There's still the issue of what they can actually do with the information," Ritter warned them. "What is Basil doing?"
"He's got his Rome Station rooting around, only five of them, but he's going to send some more troops from London tomorrow just in case they try to make their hit on Wednesday—that's when His Holiness appears in public. I gather he has a pretty busy work schedule, too."
"Shame he can't call off the ride around the plaza, but I guess he wouldn't listen if anybody asked."
"Not hardly," Moore agreed. He didn't bring up the word from Sir Basil