The Cardinal of the Kremlin - Tom Clancy [190]
"Coffee, sir?" the wardroom attendant asked. He got a nod and brought out a pot and cups.
"You sure this is close enough?" Mancuso asked Clark.
"Yeah, I can get in and out."
"It won't be much fun," the Captain observed.
Clark smirked. "That's why they pay me so much. I-"
Conversation stopped for a moment. The submarine's hull creaked as it settled on the bottom, and the boat took on a slight list. Mancuso looked at the coffee in his cup and figured it for six or seven degrees. Submariner machismo prevented him from showing any reaction, but he'd never done this, at least not with Dallas. A handful of submarines in the U.S. Navy were specially designed for these missions. Insiders could identify them at a glance from the arrangement of a few hull fittings, but Dallas wasn't one of them.
"I wonder how long this is going to take?" Mancuso asked the overhead.
"May not happen at all," Clark observed. "Almost half of them don't. The longest I've ever had to sit like this was twelve days, I think. Seemed like an awfully long time. That one didn't come off."
"Can you say how many?" Ramius asked.
"Sorry, sir." Clark shook his head.
Ramius spoke wistfully. "You know, when I was a boy, I fished here-right here many times. We never knew that you Americans came here to fish also."
"It's a crazy world," Clark agreed. "How's the fishing?"
"In the summer, very good. Old Sasha took me out on his boat. This is where I learned the sea, where I learned to be a sailor."
"What about the local patrols?" Mancuso asked, getting everyone back to business.
"There will be a low state of readiness. You have diplomats in Moscow, so the chance of war is slight. The surface patrol ships are mainly KGB. They guard against smugglers-and spies." He pointed to Clark. "Not so good against submarines, but this was changing when I left. They were increasing their ASW practice in Northern Fleet, and, I hear, in Baltic Fleet also. But this is bad place for submarine detection. There is much fresh water from the rivers, and the ice overhead-all makes for difficult sonar conditions."
That's good to hear, Mancuso thought. His ship was in an increased state of readiness. The sonar equipment was fully manned and would remain so indefinitely. He could get Dallas moving in a matter of two minutes, and that should be ample, he thought.
Gerasimov was thinking, too. He was alone in his office. A man who controlled his emotions even more than most Russians, his face displayed nothing out of the way, even though there was no one else in the room to notice. In most people that would have been remarkable, for few can contemplate their own destruction with objectivity.
The Chairman of the Committee for State Security assessed his position as thoroughly and dispassionately as he examined any aspect of his official duties. Red October. It all flowed out from that. He had used the Red October incident to his advantage, first suborning Gorshkov, then disposing of him; he'd also used it to strengthen the position of his Third Directorate arm. The military had begun to manage its own internal security-but Gerasimov had seized upon his report from Agent Cassius to convince the Politburo that the KGB alone could ensure the loyalty and security of the Soviet military. That had earned him resentment. He'd reported, again via Cassius, that Red October had been destroyed. Cassius had told KGB that Ryan was under criminal suspicion, and-And we-I!-walked into the trap.
How could he explain that to the Politburo? One of his best agents had been doubled-but when? They'd ask that, and he didn't know the answer; therefore all the reports received from Cassius would become suspect. Despite the fact that much good data had come from the agent,