“I know that,” Ryan agreed. “What I’m looking for is . . . flavor, I guess. I’m trying to get a feel for how he thinks. It would also be nice to know who’s bankrolling him.” Ryan paused, and something else leaped into his mind. “What are the chances that he has people inside the PIRA?”
“What do you mean?”
“He runs for his life when he finds out that the PIRA leadership is out for his ass. Two years later, he’s back in business with his own organization. Where did the troops come from?”
“Some pals from inside the PIRA, obviously,” Cantor said.
“Sure.” Jack nodded. “People he knew to be reliable. But we also know that he’s a counterintelligence type, right?”
“What do you mean?” Cantor hadn’t been down this road yet.
“Who’s the main threat to O’Donnell?”
“Everybody wants him –”
“Who wants to kill him?” Jack refocused the question. “The Brits don’t have capital punishment — but the PIRA does.”
“So?”
“So if you were O’Donnell, and you recruited people from inside the PIRA, and you knew that the PIRA was interested in having your head on a wall plaque, you think you’d leave people inside to cue you in?”
“Makes sense,” Cantor said thoughtfully.
“Next, who is the ULA’s political target?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Don’t give me that crap, Marty!” Ryan snapped. “Most of the information in these documents comes from inside the Proves, doesn’t it? How the hell do these people know what the ULA is up to? How does the data get to them?”
“You’re pushing, Jack,” Cantor warned. “I’ve seen the data, too. It’s mainly negative. The Proves who had the information sweated out of them mainly said that certain operations weren’t theirs. The conclusion that ULA did ’em is inferential — circumstantial. I don’t think that this stuff is as clear as you do.”
“No, the two guys who did this report make a good case for putting the ULA fingerprint on these ops. What the ULA has is its own style, Marty! We can identify that, can’t we?”
“You’ve constructed a circular argument,” Cantor pointed out. “O’Donnell comes from the Proves, therefore he must have recruited from there, therefore he must have people in there, et cetera. Your basic arguments are logical, but try to remember that they’re based on a very shaky foundation. What if the ULA really is a special-action group of the Provisionals? Isn’t it in their interest to have something like that?” Cantor was a splendid devil’s advocate, one of the reasons he was Greer’s executive assistant.
“Okay, there is some truth to that,” Ryan admitted. “Still, everything I say makes sense, assuming that the ULA is real.”
“Granted that it’s logical. But not proven.”
“So it’s the first logical thing we have for these characters. What else does that tell us?”
Cantor grinned. “Let me know when you figure it out.”
“Can I talk to anybody about this?”
“Like who — I just want to ask before I say no.”
“The Legal Attache in London — Dan Murray,” Ryan said. “He’s supposed to be cleared all the way on this material, isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he is, and he works with our people, too. Okay, you can talk with him. That keeps it in the family.”
“Thanks.”
Five minutes later Cantor was sitting across from Admiral Greer’s desk. “He really knows how to ask the right questions.”
“So what did he tumble to?” the Admiral asked.
“The same questions that Emil Jacobs and his team have been asking: What’s O’Donnell up to? Does he have the PIRA infiltrated? If so, why?”
“And Jack says . . .?”
“Same as Jacobs and the FBI evaluation: O’Donnell is a counterintelligence type by training. The Proves want his hide on the barn door, and the best way to keep his hide where it belongs is to have people inside to warn him if they get too close.”
The Admiral nodded agreement, then looked away for a moment. That was only part of an answer, his instincts told him. There had to be more. “Anything else?”
“The training stuff. He hasn’t sifted through all the data yet. I think we should give him some time. But you were right, sir. He’s pretty sharp.”
Murray lifted his phone and pushed the right button without paying much attention. “Yeah?”
“Dan? This is Jack Ryan,” the voice on the phone said.
“How’s it going, teacher?”
“Not bad. Something I want to talk over with you.”
“Shoot.”
“I think the ULA has the PIRA infiltrated.”
“What?” Murray snapped upright in his chair. “Hey, ace, I can’t –” He looked at the telephone. The line he was talking on was — “What the hell are you doing on a secure line?”
“Let’s say that I’m back in government service,” Ryan replied coyly.
“Nobody told me.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think it’s a possibility. Jimmy came up with the idea about three months back. The Bureau agrees that it makes sense. There is no objective evidence to support the theory, but everybody thinks it’s a logical — I mean, it would be a smart thing for our friend Kevin to do, if he can. Remember that the PIRA has very good internal security, Jack.”
“You told me that most of what we know about the ULA comes from PIRA sources. How do they get the info?” Ryan asked rapidly.
“What? You lost me.”
“How does the PIRA find out what the ULA is doing?”
“Oh, okay. That we don’t know.” It was something that bothered Murray, and James Owens, but cops deal all the time with anonymous information sources.
“Why would they be doing that?”
“Telling the Proves what they’re up to? We have no idea. If you have a suggestion, I’m open to it.”
“How about recruiting new members for his team?” Ryan asked.
“Why don’t you think that one over for a few seconds,” Murray replied immediately. Ryan had just rediscovered the flat earth theory.
There was a moment of silence. “Oh — then he’d risk being infiltrated by the Provisionals.”
“Very good, ace. If O’Donnell’s got them infiltrated as a security measure to protect himself, why invite members of the group that wants his ass into his own fold? If you want to kill yourself, there’re simpler ways. Jack.” Murray had to laugh. He could hear Ryan deflate over the phone.
“Okay, I guess I had that coming. Thanks.”
“Sorry to rain on your parade, but we buried that idea a couple of months ago.”
“But he must have recruited his people from the Provisionals to begin with,” Ryan objected belatedly. He cursed himself for being so slow, but remembered that Murray had been an expert on this subject for years.
“Yeah, I’ll buy that, but he kept the numbers very low,” Murray said. “The bigger the organization gets, the greater the risk that the Proves will infiltrate — and destroy — him. Hey, they really want his ass on a platter. Jack.” Murray stopped short of revealing the deal David Ashley had cut with the PIRA. CIA didn’t know about that yet.
“How’s the family?” he asked, changing the subject.
“Fine.”
“Bill Shaw says he talked to you last week . . . ” Murray said.
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here now. You’ve got me looking over my shoulder, Dan. Anything else that you’ve cued in on?”
It was Murray’s turn to deflate. “The more I think about it, the more it looks like I got worried over nothing. No evidence at all, Jack. It was just instinct, you know, like from an old woman. Sorry. I think I just overreacted to something Jimmy said. Hope I didn’t worry you too much.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Jack replied. “Well, I have to clear out of here. See ya.”
“Yeah. ‘Bye, Jack.” Murray replaced the phone in the holder and went back to his paperwork.
Ryan did much the same. He had to leave by noon in order to make his first class of the day. The messenger came back with his cart and took the files away, along with Jack’s notes, which, of course, were also classified. He left the building a few minutes later, his mind still sifting through the data he’d read.
What Jack didn’t know was that in the new annex to the CIA headquarters building was the headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office. This was a joint CIA — Air Force agency that managed the data from satellites and, to a lesser degree, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.
The new generation of satellites used television-type scanning cameras instead of photographic film. One consequence of this was that they could be used almost continuously instead of husbanding their film for coverage of the Soviet Union and its satellites. This allowed the NRO to assemble a much better data base on world trends and events, and had generated scores of new projects for hundreds of new analysts — explaining the newly built annex behind the original CIA building.