The Cardinal of the Kremlin - Tom Clancy [184]
But now she's giving herself to that thing. He's probably doing it already. That geek doesn't have the first idea of taking his time and showing real love and sensitivity. I bet he just does it, drooling and giggling like some punk fifteen-year-old football jock. How can she!
"Oh, Candace." Bea's voice broke. She was swept with nausea, and had to fight to control herself. She succeeded, and sat alone in her car for twenty minutes of silent tears before she managed to drive on.
"What do you make of that?"
"I think she's a lesbian," Agent Jennings said after a moment.
"Nothing like that in her file, Peggy," Will Perkins observed.
"The way she looks at Dr. Long, the way she acts around Gregory that's my gut feeling."
"But-"
"Yeah, but what the hell can we do about that?" Margaret Jennings noted as she drove away. She toyed briefly with the idea of going after Taussig, but the day had been long enough already. "No evidence, and if we got it, and acted on it, there'd be hell to pay."
"You suppose the three of them ?"
"Will, you've been reading those magazines again." Jennings laughed, breaking the spell for a moment. Perkins was a Mormon, and had never been seen to touch pornographic material. "Those two are so much in love they don't have the first idea of what's going on around them-except work. I bet their pillow talk is classified. What's happening, Will, is that Taussig is being cut out of her friend's life and she's unhappy about it. Tough."
"So how do we write this one up?"
"Zip. A whole lot of nothing." Their assignment for the evening had been to follow up a report that strange cars were occasionally seen at the Gregory-Long residence. It had probably originated, Agent Jennings thought, from a local prude who didn't like the idea of the two young people living together without the appropriate paperwork. She was a little old-fashioned about that herself, but it didn't make either one of them a security risk. On the other hand-
"I think we ought to check out Taussig next."
"She lives alone."
"I'm sure." It would take time to look at every senior staffer at Tea Clipper, but you couldn't rush this kind of investigation.
"You shouldn't have come here," Tania observed at once. Bisyarina's face didn't show her rage. She took Taussig's hand and brought her inside. "Ann, it's just so awful!"
"Come sit down. Were you followed?" Idiot! Pervert! She'd just gotten out of the shower, and was dressed in a bathrobe, with a towel over her hair. "No, I watched all the way." Sure, Bisyarina thought. She would have been surprised to learn that it was true. Despite the lax security at Tea Clipper-it allowed someone like this inside!-her agent had broken every rule there was in coming here.
"You cannot stay long."
"I know." She blew her nose. "They've about finished the first draft of the new program. The Geek has cut it down by eighty thousand lines of code-taking out all that AI stuff really made a difference. You know, I think he has the new stuff memorized-I know, I know, that's impossible, even for that."
"When will you be able-"
"I don't know." Taussig smiled for a second. "You ought to have him working for you. I think he's the only one who really understands the whole program-I mean, the whole project."
Unfortunately all we have is you, Bisyarina didn't say. What she did was very hard. She reached out and took Taussig's hand.
The tears started again. Beatrice nearly leaped into Tania's arms. The Russian officer held her close, trying to feel sympathy for her agent. There had been many lessons at the KGB school, all of them intended to help her in handling agents. You had to have a mixture of sympathy and discipline. You had to treat them like spoiled children, mixing favors and scoldings to make them perform. And Agent Livia was more important than most.
It was still hard to turn her face toward the head on her shoulder and kiss the cheek that was salty with tears both old and new. Bisyarina breathed easier at the realization that she