The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [269]
"I figured. When?"
"The next time they catch you in front of a camera, Jack."
And he had as much chance of ducking a camera as the leadoff hitter at opening day at Yankee Stadium, the President knew. Cameras at the White House were as numerous as shotguns during duck season, and there was no bag limit here.
"Christ, Oleg!" It took a lot to make Reilly gasp, but this one crossed the threshold. "Are you serious?"
"So it would appear, Mishka," Provalov answered.
"And why are you telling me?" the American asked. Information like this was a state secret equivalent to the inner thoughts of President Grushavoy.
"There is no hiding it from you. I assume you tell everything we do together to Washington, and it was you who identified the Chinese diplomat, for which I and my country are in your debt."
The amusing part of that was that Reilly had darted off to track Suvorov/Koniev without a thought, just as a cop thing, to help out a brother cop. Only afterward—about a nanosecond afterward, of course—had he thought of the political implications. And he'd thought this far ahead, but only as speculation, not quite believing that it could possibly have gone this far forward.
"Well, yes, I have to keep the Bureau informed of my operations here," the legal attaché admitted, not that it was an earthshaking revelation.
"I know that, Mishka."
"The Chinese wanted to kill Golovko," Reilly whispered into his vodka. "Fuck."
"My word exactly," Provalov told his American friend. "The question is—"
"Two questions, Oleg. First, why? Second, now what?"
"Third, who is Suvorov, and what is he up to?"
Which was obvious, Reilly thought. Was Suvorov merely a paid agent of a foreign country? Or was he part of the KGB wing of the Russian Mafia being paid by the Chinese to do something—but what, and to what purpose?
"You know, I've been hunting OC guys for a long time, but it never got anywhere near this big. This is right up there with all those bullshit stories about who 'really' killed Kennedy."
Provalov's eyes looked up. "You're not saying … "
"No, Oleg. The Mafia isn't that crazy. You don't go around looking to make enemies that big. You can't predict the consequences, and it isn't good for business. The Mafia is a business, Oleg. They try to make money for themselves. Even their political protection is aimed only at that, and that has limits, and they know what the limits are."
"So, if Suvorov is Mafia, then he is only trying to make money?"
"Here it's a little different," Reilly said slowly, trying to help his brain keep up with his mouth. "Here your OC guys think more politically than they do in New York." And the reason for that was that the KGB types had all grown up in an intensely political environment. Here politics really was power in a more direct sense than it had ever been in America, where politics and commerce had always been somewhat separate, the former protecting the latter (for a fee) but also controlled by it. Here it had always been, and still remained, the other way around. Business needed to rule politics because business was the source of prosperity, from which the citizens of a country derived their comforts. Russia had never prospered, because the cart kept trying to pull the horse. The recipient of the wealth had always tried to generate that wealth—and political figures are always pretty hopeless in that department. They are only good at squandering it. Politicians live by their political theories. Businessmen use reality and have to perform in a world defined by reality, not theory. That was why even in America they understood one another poorly, and never really trusted one another.
"What makes Golovko a target? What's the profit in killing him?" Reilly asked aloud.
"He is the chief adviser to President Grushavoy. He's never wanted to be an elected official, and therefore cannot be a minister per se, but he has the president's ear because he is both intelligent and honest—and he's a patriot in the true sense."
Despite his background, Reilly didn't add. Golovko was KGB, formerly a deadly