The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [359]
"I must make my connection to Mexico. Can you book me through another city?" Ghosn asked.
"We have one leaving for Miami, same departure time as your flight to Dallas. I can book you a connecting flight in Miami " the ticket agent tapped the data into her terminal. "There's a one-hour layover. Oh, okay, it's only a fifteen-minute difference into Mexico City."
"Could you do that, please? I must make my connection."
"Both tickets?"
"Yes, excuse me."
"No problem." The young lady smiled at her computer. Ghosn wondered if she'd survive the event. The huge glass windows faced the stadium and even at this distance the blast wave maybe, he thought, if she ducked fast enough. But she'd already be blinded from the flash. Such pretty dark eyes, too. A pity. "Here you go. I'll make sure they switch the bags over," she promised him. That Ghosn took with a grain of salt.
"Thank you."
"The gate is that way." She pointed.
"Thank you once more."
The ticket agent watched them head off. The young one was pretty cute, she thought, but his big brother - or boss? she wondered - looked like a sourpuss. Maybe he didn't like to fly.
"Well?" Qati asked.
"The connecting flight roughly duplicates our schedule. We've lost a quarter hour buffer time in Mexico. The weather problem is localized. There should be no further difficulty."
The terminal was very nearly empty. Those people who wished to leave Denver were evidently waiting for later flights so that they might watch the game on TV, and the same appeared to be true of arriving flights, Ibrahim saw. There were scarcely twenty people in the departure lounge.
"Okay, I can't reconcile the schedules here either," Goodley said. "In fact, I'd almost say we have a smoking gun."
"How so?" Ryan asked.
"Narmonov was only in Moscow two days last week, Monday and Friday. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday he was in Latvia, Lithuania, the Western Ukraine, and then a trip down to Volgograd for some local politicking. Friday's out because of when the message came over, right? But Monday, our friend was in the Congress building practically all day. I don't think they met last week, but the letter implies that they did. I think we got a lie here."
"Show me," Jack said.
Goodley spread his data out on Ryan's desk. Together they went over the dates and itineraries.
"Well, isn't that interesting," Jack said after a few minutes. "That son-of-a-bitch."
"Persuasive?" Goodley wanted to know.
"Completely?" The Deputy Director shook his head. "No."
"Why not?"
"It's possible that our data is incorrect. It's possible that they met on the sly, maybe last Sunday when Andrey Il'ych was out at his dacha. One swallow doesn't make a spring," Jack said with a nod towards the snow outside. "We need to make a detailed check on this before it goes any farther, but what you've uncovered here is very, very interesting, Ben."
"But, damn it -"
"Ben, you go slow on stuff like this," Jack explained. "You don't toss out the work of a valuable agent on the basis of equivocal data, and this is equivocal, isn't it?"
"Technically, yes. You think he's been turned?"
"Doubled, you mean?" Ryan grinned. "You're picking up on the jargon, Dr Goodley.. You answer the question for me."
"Well, if he'd been doubled on us, no, he wouldn't send this sort of data. They wouldn't want to send us this kind of signal, unless elements within the KGB -"
"Think it through, Ben," Jack cautioned.
"Oh, yeah. It compromises them, too, doesn't it? You're right, it's not likely. If he'd been turned, the data should be different."
"Exactly. If you're right, and if he's been misleading us, the most likely explanation is