Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [69]
Foley had an appointment with both of them—ostensibly, to talk over relations with the American news correspondents. Even his internal embassy business needed a cover in this station.
"How's your son adjusting?" Fuller asked.
"He misses his cartoons. Before we came over, I bought one of those new tape machines—you know, the Betamax thing—and some tapes, but those only last so long, and they cost an arm and a leg."
"There's a local version of Roadrunner-Coyote," General Dalton told him. "It's called Wait a Moment, something like that. It's not as good as Warner Brothers, but better than that damned exercise show in the morning. The gal on that could whip a command sergeant-major."
"I noticed that yesterday morning. Is she part of their Olympic weight-lifting squad?" Foley joked. "Anyway…"
"First impressions—any surprises?" Fuller asked.
Foley shook his head. "About what I was briefed to expect. Looks like everywhere I go, I have company. How long you suppose that will last?"
"Maybe a week or so. Take a walk around—better yet, watch Ron Fielding when he takes a walk. He does his job pretty well."
"Anything major under way?" Ambassador Fuller asked.
"No, sir. Just routine operations at the moment. But the Russians have something very large happening at home."
"What's that?" Fuller asked.
"They call it Operation RYAN. Their acronym for Surprise Nuclear Attack on the Motherland. They're worried that the President might want to nuke them, and they have officers running around back home trying to get a feel for his mental state."
"You're serious?" Fuller asked.
"As a heart attack. I guess they took the campaign rhetoric a little too seriously."
"I have had a few odd questions from their foreign ministry," the Ambassador said. "But I just wrote it off to small talk."
"Sir, we're investing a lot of money in the military, and that makes them nervous."
"Whereas, when they buy ten thousand new tanks, it's normal?" General Dalton observed.
"Exactly," Foley agreed. "A gun in my hand is a defensive weapon, but a gun in your hand is an offensive weapon. It's a matter of outlook, I suppose."
"Have you seen this?" Fuller asked, handing across a fax from Foggy Bottom.
Foley scanned it. "Uh-oh."
"I told Washington it would worry the Soviets a good deal. What do you think?"
"I concur, sir. In several ways. Most important will be the potential unrest in Poland, which could spread throughout their empire. That's the one area in which they think long-term. Political stability is their sine qua non. What are they saying in Washington?"
"The Agency just showed it to the President, and he handed it off to the Secretary of State, and he faxed it to me for comment. Can you rattle any bushes, see if they're talking about it in the Politburo?"
Foley thought for a moment and nodded. "I can try." It made him slightly uncomfortable, but that was his job, wasn't it? It meant getting a message to one or more of his agents, but that was what they were for. The troubling part was that it meant exposing his wife. Mary Pat would not object—hell, she loved the spy game in the field—but it always bothered her husband to expose her to danger. He supposed it was chauvinism. "What's the priority on this?"
"Washington is very interested," Fuller said. That made it important, but not quite an emergency tasking.
"Okay, I'll get on it, sir."
"I don't know what assets you're running here in Moscow—and I don't want to know. It's dangerous to them?"
"They shoot traitors over here, sir."
"This is rougher than the car business, Foley. I do understand that."
"Hell, it wasn't this rough in the Central Highlands," General Dalton noted. "Ivan plays pretty mean. You know, I've been asked about the President, too, usually over drinks by senior officers. They're really that worried about him, eh?"
"It sure looks that way," Foley confirmed.
"Good. Never hurts to rattle the other