The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [333]
"Good point. It'll be some, but intelligence calls it a thin-line array like ours probably not all that much. Even so, we're getting a good profile on this bird, aren't we?" Ricks asked rhetorically. He'd get a gold star in his copybook for this.
"So, what do you think, MP?" Jack asked Mrs Foley. He held the translation in his hand. She'd opted for the original Russian-language document.
"Hey, I recruited him, Jack. He's my boy."
Ryan checked his watch; it was just about time. Sir Basil Charleston was nothing if not punctual. His secure direct-line phone rang right on the hour.
"Ryan."
"Bas here."
"What gives, man?"
"That thing we talked out, we had our chap look into it. Nothing at all, my boy."
"Not even that our impressions were incorrect?" Jack asked, his eyes screwed tightly shut, as though to keep the news out.
"Correct, Jack, not even that. I admit I find that slightly curious, but it is plausible, if not likely, that our chap should not know this."
"Thanks for trying, pal. We owe you one."
"Sorry we could not be of help." The line went dead.
It was the worst possible news, Ryan thought. He stared briefly at the ceiling.
"The Brits have been unable to confirm or deny SPINNAKER'S allegations," Jack announced. "What's that leave us with?"
"It's really like this?" Ben Goodley asked. "It all comes down to opinion!"
"Ben, if we were really that smart at reading fortunes, we'd be making fortunes in the stock market," Ryan said gruffly.
"But you did!" Goodley pointed out.
"I got lucky on a few hot issues." Ryan dismissed the observation. "Mary Pat, what do you think?"
Mrs Foley looked tired, but then she had an infant to worry about. Jack thought he should tell her to take it easier. "I have to back up my agent, Jack. You know that. He's our best source of political intelligence. He gets in to see Narmonov alone. That's why he's so valuable, and that's why his stuff has always been hard to back up - but it's never been wrong, has it?"
"The scary part is that he's starting to convince me."
"Why scary, Dr Ryan?"
Jack lit a cigarette.
" 'Cause I know Narmonov. That man could have made me disappear one cold night outside o' Moscow. We cut a deal, shook on it, and that was that. Takes a very confident man to do something like that. If he has lost that confidence, then then the whole thing could come apart, rapidly and unpredictably. Can you think of anything scarier than that?" Ryan's eyes swept the room.
"Not hardly," agreed the head of the Intelligence Directorate's Russian Department. "I think we have to go with it."
"So do I," Mary Pat agreed.
"Ben?" Jack asked. "You believed this guy from the beginning. What he says backs up your position from up at Harvard."
Dr Benjamin Goodley didn't like being cornered like that. He had learned a hard but important lesson in his months in CIA: it was one thing to form an opinion in an academic community, to discuss options around the lunch tables in the Harvard faculty club, but it was different here. From these opinions national policy was made. And that, he realized, was what being captured by the system actually meant.
"I hate to say this, but I've changed my mind. There may be a dynamic here we haven't examined."
"What might that be?" the head of the Russian Department asked.
"Just consider this abstractly. If Narmonov goes down, who replaces him?"
"Kadishev is one of the possibilities, say one chance in three or so," Mary Pat answered.
"In academia - hell, anywhere - isn't that a conflict of interest?"
"MP?" Ryan asked, shifting his eyes.
"Okay, so what? When has he ever lied to us before?"
Goodley decided to run with it, pretending this was an academic discussion. "Mrs Foley, I was detailed to look for indications that SPINNAKER was wrong. I've checked everything I've had access to. The only thing I've found is a slight change in the tone of his reports over the last few months. The way he uses language is subtly different. His statements