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His deadpan remark drew a smile from Hood.

The men leaned close to the monitor and read the "Eyes Only" notation on the photograph. It indicated that the picture had been turned over to Gorbachev by the U.S. Ambassador.

Rodgers sat back. "Dogin must have had a hell of a lot of support to stay in power after Gorby found out about that."

"Absolutely," said Hood. "The kind of support you nurture over the years and build into a network. The kind of support that lets you slip a government right out from under a duly elected president."

The intercom outside the door beeped. "Chief, it's Bob Herbert."

Hood pressed a button on the side of his desk and the lock clicked open. The door swung in and an agitated Bob Herbert wheeled over. He dropped a diskette on the desk. Whenever Herbert was upset or puzzled, his Mississippi accent thickened. It was very thick now.

"Somethin' happened at eight P.M., local time," Herbert said. "Somethin' big."

Hood glanced down at Herbert's diskette. "What happened?"

"All of a sudden, Russians are every-goddamn-where." He pointed at the disk. "Run it. G'wan."

Hood downloaded the data and saw that Herbert wasn't exaggerating. Pilots and planes from Orenburg were being transferred to the Ukrainian border. The Baltic Fleet was on a low-level alert, ostensibly as a drill. And the battery of four Hawk satellites usually used to monitor the West had been diverted to potential Russian targets in Poland.

"Moscow's paying special attention to Kiev and Warsaw," Rodgers said as he studied the satellite coordinates.

Herbert said, "What's interestin' about the Hawks is that the downlink station in Baikonur went silent at eight P.M., local time."

"Just the station?" Rodgers asked. "Not the satellite dishes?"

"Not the dishes," Herbert said.

"Then where's the data going?" Hood asked.

Herbert said, "We're not sure-- though here's where it gets real curious. We detected increased electrical activity in St. Petersburg at exactly eight P.M., local time. Now, that happens to have been when the TV station in the Hermitage began broadcasting, so it could have been coincidental."

"But you wouldn't bet the Ponderosa on it," Hood said.

Herbert shook his head.

"This is what Eival Ekdol promised us," Rodgers said, still studying the deployment. "Something military. And it's being done very cleverly. If you take each of these events individually, they're all pretty routine except for the change in the Hawk targets. Matériel is moved from the port at Vladivostok on a regular basis. Maneuvers are held on the Ukrainian border twice a year, and it's time for that now. The Baltic Fleet frequently drills close to shore so that isn't unexpected."

"What you're saying," Hood said, "is that unless somebody had the big picture, it would seem as though nothing were amiss."

"Right," Rodgers said.

"But what I don't understand," said Hood, "is if Zhanin isn't behind whatever's going on, how could an operation of this magnitude be kept from him? He'd have to be aware that something's going on."

"You know better than anyone that a leader's only as good as his intelligence," Rodgers said.

"I also know that if you tell two people something in Washington, it's no longer a secret," Hood said. "That's got to be true in the Kremlin as well."

"It isn't," said Herbert. "If only one person knows something over there, it's no longer a secret."

"You're forgetting something," said Rodgers. "Shovich. A man like that can use threats and money to shut down the information pipeline pretty effectively. Besides, though he may not have the big picture, Zhanin probably knows about some of what's going on. Dogin or Kosigan may have gone to him right after the election and convinced him to authorize a few of the maneuvers and troop transfers to keep the military happy and busy."

"Dogin would benefit from that as well," Herbert pointed out. "If at some point any of this goes wrong, Zhanin's autograph is on several of the orders. There's mud on everyone."

Hood nodded, then cleared the screen. "So Dogin's the probable