Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

haps that was the most worrying part of all.

“What plans do you have?”

“Right now? None,” Ryan said. “Their ambassador is due here in less

than an hour.”

“Splendid timing on his part,” the Russian commented. “They’ve done

this to you before, if memory serves. ‘ ‘

“And to you,” Ryan said, remembering how the Russo-Japanese War

had begun. They do like their surprises.

“Yes, Ryan, and to us.” And that, Jack knew, was why Sergey had made

the call, and why his voice showed genuine concern. Fear of the unknown

wasn’t limited to children, after all, was it? “Can you tell me what sort of

assets you have in place to deal with the crisis?”

“I’m not sure at the moment, Sergey,” Ryan lied. “If your Washington

rezidentura is up to speed, you know I just got in. I need time to get caught

up. Mary Pat is on her way down to my office now.”

“Ah,” Jack heard over the line. Well, it was an obvious lie he’d told, and

Sergey was a wise old pro, wise enough to know. “You were very foolish

not to have activated THISTLE sooner, my friend.”

“This is an open line, Sergey Nikolay’ch.” Which was partially true. The

phone call was routed through the American Embassy in Moscow on a se-

cure circuit, but from there on it was a standard commercial line, probably,

and therefore subject to possible bugging.

“You need not be overly concerned, Ivan Emmetovich. Do you recall our

conversation in my office?”

Oh, yeah. Maybe the Russians really did have the Japanese counterintelli-

gence chief under their control. If so, he was in a position to know if the

phone call was secure or not. And if so, there were some other cards in his

hand. Nice ones. Was he offering Ryan a peek?

Think fast, Jack, Ryan commanded himself. Okay, the Russians have an-

other network up and running . . .

“Sergey, this is important: you did not have any warning?”

‘ ‘Jack, on my honor as a spy”-Ryan could almost hear the twisted smile

that must be framing the answer-‘ ‘I just had to tell my President that I was

caught with my fly unbuttoned, and the embarrassment to me is even greater

than what-”

Jack didn’t bother listening to the embroidery. Okay. The Russians did

have another spy network operating in Japan, but they had probably not re-

ceived any warning either, had they? No, the danger from that sort of dou-

ble-dealing was just too great. Next fact: their second network was inside the

Japanese government itself; had to be if they had PSID penetrated. But THIS-

TLE was mainly a commercial spy net-always had been-and Sergey had

just told him that the U.S. had been foolish not to have activated it sooner.

The novelty of what he knew distracted Jack from a more subtle implication

surrounding the admission of fault from Moscow.

“Sergey Nikolay’ch, I’m short of time here. You are building to some-

thing. What is it?”

“I propose cooperation between us. I have the approval of President Gru-

shavoy to make the offer.” He didn’t say full cooperation, Jack noted, but

the offer was startling even so.

Never, not ever, not once except in bad movies had KGB and CIA really

cooperated on anything important. Sure, the world had changed plenty, but

KGB, even in its new incarnation, still worked to penetrate American institu-

tions and remained \>ood at it. Thai was wh\ \u ilidn’i lei ilit-in in Hut //