The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [119]
"For the moment, reliability is graded B+ "Mary Pat answered. "We expect to upgrade that later on. The problem is that we dont grade A or higher without outside confirmation, and this stuff is so deep inside that we have no other asset to verify what we have here."
"Oops," Jackson observed. "So it could all be a false flag. Pretty one, I admit, but false even so."
"Perhaps, but unlikely. Theres stuff here that is awfully sensitive to let out voluntarily, even for a major sting operation."
"So I see," Ryan partially agreed. "But I remember what Jim Greer used to say: Aint nothing too crazy to be true. Our fundamental problem with these guys is that their culture is so different in so many ways that they might as well be Klingons."
"Well, they dont display much love for us in this," Ben Goodley observed, flipping halfway through the briefing folder. "Jesus, this is interesting material. We going to show it to Scott Adler?"
"Thats our recommendation," the DCI agreed. "Adler is pretty good at figuring people out and his take on some of this—especially page five—will be very interesting. Tony Bretano, too."
"Okay, thats EAGLE and THUNDER. Who else?" Ryan asked.
"Thats all for now," Ed Foley said, with a nod from his wife. "Mr. Pres—"
Ryans eyes flared a little. "My name is … "
The DCI held up his hand. "Okay. Jack, lets keep this one real close for a while. Well figure a way to launder the information so that some others can know what weve learned. But not how. Not ever that. SONGBIRDS too precious an asset to lose."
"This is potentially right up there with CARDINAL, isnt it?"
"Maybe even better, Jack," Mary Pat said. "This is like having a bug in the boardroom, and weve streamlined our methods on this one. Were being very, very careful with this source."
"Okay, what about analysts?" Ben Goodley asked. "Our best guy with the PRC is Professor Weaver up at Brown University. You know him, Ed."
Foley nodded. "Yeah, I know him, but lets hold off for a while. We have a pretty good guy in-house. Let me see what he can develop for us before we start farming things out. By the way, were looking at something like a total of fifteen hundred printed pages from this source, plus daily information from now on."
Ryan looked up at that one. Daily information. How the hell had they arranged that? Back to business, he told himself. "Okay, for one thing, I want an evaluation of the Zhang Han San character," Ryan said. "Ive seen this bastards name before. He started two wars we got pulled into. What the hell is he all about?"
"We have a psychiatrist on staff to work on that," Mary Foley replied. After she didnt say, we scrub this information clean of source-related material. "He does our profiling."
"Okay, yeah, I remember him." Ryan nodded agreement on this point. "Anything else?"
"Just the usual," Ed Foley said as he stood. "Dont leave these documents on your desk, okay?"
They all nodded agreement. They all had personal safes for that purpose, and every one was wired into the Secret Service command center, and was on round-the-clock TV surveillance. The White House was a good place to store documents, and besides, the secretaries were cleared higher than God. Mary Pat left the office with a special spring in her step. Ryan waved for his Vice President to stay as the rest walked toward the West Entrance.
"What do you think?" SWORDSMAN asked TOMCAT.
"This looks pretty damned hot, Jack. Jesus, boy, how the hell do they get stuff like this?"
"If they ever get around to telling me, I cant tell you, Rob, and Im not sure I want to know. It isnt always pretty."
The retired fighter pilot agreed. "I believe it. Not quite the same as catapulting off the boat and shooting the bastard in the lips, is it?"
"But just as important."
"Hey, Jack, I know. Battle of Midway, like. Joe Rochefort and his band of merry men at FRUPAC back in 42 saved our country a lot of hassles with our little yellow friends in WestPac when they told Nimitz what was coming."
"Yeah, Robby, well, looks like we have more of the same sort of friends. If