The Cardinal of the Kremlin - Tom Clancy [147]
"We ought to have her back in a day or less," Ritter went on. "They're already PNG'd, and they're going on the next Pan Am flight out."
Ryan squirmed in his chair. What about CARDINAL? he wondered. Jesus, they tell me about this superagent, and a week later They sure as hell don't have a Supreme Court over there that makes it hard to execute people.
"Any chance we can do a trade for him?" Jack asked.
"You are kidding, boy." Ritter rose and walked to the window. At three in the morning, the CIA parking lot was nearly empty, only a loose handful of cars sitting among the piles of plowed snow. "We don't even have anybody big enough to trade for a mitigation of sentence. No way in hell they'll let him out, even for a chief of station, which we don't have."
"So he's dead and the data is lost with him."
"That's what the man's saying," Judge Moore agreed.
"Help from the allies?" Ryan asked. "Sir Basil might have something hopping that can help us."
"Ryan, there is nothing we can do to save the man." Ritter turned to take out his anger on the nearest target of opportunity. "He's dead-sure, he's still breathing, but he's dead all the same. A month, or two, or three from now, the announcement will be made, and we'll confirm it through other assets, and then we'll pry open a bottle and have a few to his memory."
"What about Dallas?" Greer asked. "Huh?" Ryan turned.
"You don't need to know about that," Ritter said, now grateful to have a target. "Give her back to the Navy."
"Okay." Greer nodded. "This is likely to have some serious consequences." That earned the Admiral a baleful look from Judge Moore. He now had to go to the President. "What about it, Ryan?"
"On the arms-control talks?" Jack shrugged. "Depends on how they handle it. They have a wide range of options, and anybody who tells you he can predict which one they'll choose is a liar."
"Nothing like an expert opinion," Ritter observed. "Sir Basil thinks Gerasimov wants to make a move on the top spot. He could conceivably use this toward that end," Ryan said coolly, "but I think Narmonov has too much political clout now that he has that fourth man on the Politburo. He can, therefore, choose to go forward toward the agreement and show the Party how strong he is by moving forward for peace, or if he senses more political vulnerability than I see in the picture, he can consolidate his hold on the Party by trashing us as the incorrigible enemies of Socialism. If there's a way to put a probability assessment on that choice that's anything more than a wild-ass guess, I haven't seen it yet."
"Get to work on it," Judge Moore ordered. "The President'll want something hard enough to grab hold of before Ernie Alien starts talking about putting SDI on the table again."
"Yes, sir." Jack stood. "Judge, do we expect the Sovs to go public on CARDINAL'S arrest?"
"There's a question," Ritter said.
Ryan headed for the door and stopped again. "Wait a minute."
"What is it?" Ritter asked.
"You said that the Ambassador delivered his protest before their Foreign Ministry said anything, right?"
"Yeah, Foley worked real fast to beat them to the punch."
"With all due respect to Mr. Foley, nobody's that fast," Ryan said. "They should have had their press release already printed before they made the pickup."
"So?" Admiral Greer asked.
Jack walked back toward the other three. "So the Foreign Minister is Narmonov's man, isn't he? So's Yazov at the Defense Ministry. They didn't know," Ryan said. "They were as surprised as we were."
"No chance," Ritter snorted. "They don't do things like that."
"Assumption on your part, sir." Jack stood his ground. "What evidence backs up that statement?"
Greer smiled. "None that we know of right now."
"Damn it, James, I know he's-"
"Keep going, Dr. Ryan," Judge Moore said.
"If those two ministers didn't know what was going down, it puts a different spin on this case, doesn't it?" Jack sat on the back of a chair. "Okay, I can see cutting Yazov out-CARDINAL was his senior aide-but why cut out the Foreign Minister? This sort of thing, you want to