“And they’re the ones who control the guns,” van Damm noted.
“Roger that, Arnie,” Jackson confirmed.
“So, how can we ease them the right way?” Ryan asked, to center the conversation once more.
“We stick to it. We tell them we want reciprocal trade access, or they will face reciprocal trade barriers. We tell them that this little flare-up with the Nuncio makes any concessions on our part impossible, and that’s just how things are. If they want to trade with us, they have to back off,” Adler spelled out. “They don’t like being told such things, but it’s the real world, and they have to acknowledge objective reality. They do understand that, for the most part,” SecState concluded.
Ryan looked around the room and got nods. “Okay, make sure Rutledge understands what the message is,” he told EAGLE.
“Yes, sir,” SecState agreed, with a nod. People stood and started filing out. Vice President Jackson allowed himself to be the last in the line of departure.
“Hey, Rob,” Ryan said to his old friend.
“Funny thing, watched some TV last night for a change, caught an old movie I hadn’t seen since I was a kid.”
“Which one?”
“Billy Budd, Melville’s story about the poor dumb sailor who gets himself hanged. I’d forgot the name of Billy’s ship.”
“Yeah?” So had Ryan.
“It was The Rights of Man. Kind of a noble name for a ship. I imagine Melville made that up with malice aforethought, like writers do, but that’s what we fight for, isn’t it? Even the Royal Navy, they just didn’t fight as well as we did back then. The Rights of Man, ” Jackson repeated. “It is a noble sentiment.”
“How does it apply to the current problem, Rob?”
“Jack, the first rule of war is the mission: First, why the hell are you out there, and then what are you proposing to do about it. The Rights of Man makes a pretty good starting point, doesn’t it? By the way, CNN’s going to be at Pap’s church tomorrow and at Gerry Patterson’s. They’re switching off, preaching in each other’s pulpit for the memorial ceremonies, and CNN decided to cover it as a news event in and of itself. Good call, I think,” Jackson editorialized. “Wasn’t like that in Mississippi back when I was a boy.”
“It’s going to be like you said?”
“I’m only guessing,” Robby admitted, “but I don’t see either one of them playing it cool. It’s too good an opportunity to teach a good lesson about how the Lord doesn’t care a rat’s ass what color we are, and how all men of faith should stand together. They’ll both probably fold in the abortion thing—Pap ain’t real keen on abortion rights, and neither’s Patterson—but mainly it’ll be about justice and equality and how two good men went to see God after doing the right thing.”
“Your dad’s pretty good with a sermon, eh?”
“If they gave out Pulitzers for preaching, he’d have a wall covered in the things, Jack, and Gerry Patterson ain’t too bad for a white boy either.”
“Ah,” Yefremov observed. He was in the building perch instead of one of the vehicles. It was more comfortable, and he was senior enough to deserve and appreciate the comforts. There was Suvorov/Koniev, sitting back on the bench, an afternoon newspaper in his hands. They didn’t have to watch, but watch they did, just to be sure. Of course, there were thousands of park benches in Moscow, and the probability that their subject would sit in the same one this many times was genuinely astronomical. That’s what they would argue to the judge when the time came for the trial… depending on what was in the subject’s right hand. (His KGB file said that he was right-handed, and it seemed to be the case.) He was so skillful that you could hardly see what he did, but it was done, and it was seen. His right hand left the paper, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out something metallic. Then the hand paused briefly, and as he turned pages in the paper—the fluttering of the paper was a fine distraction to anyone who might be watching, since the human eye is always drawn to movement—the right hand slid down and affixed the metal transfer case to the magnetic holder, then returned for the paper, all in one smooth motion, done so quickly as to be invisible. Well, almost, Yefremov thought. He’d caught spies before—four of them, in fact, which explained his promotion to a supervisory position—and every one had a thrill attached to it, because he was chasing and catching the most elusive of game. And this one was Russian-trained, the most elusive of all. He’d never bagged one of them before, and there was the extra thrill of catching not just a spy but a traitor as well. . . and perhaps a traitor guilty of murder? he wondered. That was another first. Never in his experience had espionage involved the violation of that law. No, an intelligence operation was about the transfer of information, which was dangerous enough. The inclusion of murder was an additional hazard that was not calculated to please a trained spy. It made noise, as they said, and noise was something a spy avoided as much as a cat burglar, and for much the same reason.
“Call Provalov,” Yefremov told his subordinate. Two reasons for that. First, he rather owed it to the militia lieutenant, who’d presented him with both the case and the subject. Second, the civilian cop might know something useful to his part of this case. They continued to watch Suvorov/Koniev for another ten minutes. Finally, he stood and walked back to his car for the drive back to his apartment, during which he was duly followed by the ever-changing surveillance team. After the requisite fifteen minutes, one of Yefremov’s people crossed the street and retrieved the case from the bench. It was the locked one again, which told them that the item inside was perhaps more important. You had to get past the anti-tamper device to keep the contents from being destroyed, but the FSS had people well skilled in that, and the key for this transfer case had already been struck. That was confirmed twenty minutes later, when the case was opened and the contents extracted, unfolded, photographed, refolded, reinserted, and, finally, relocked in the container, which was immediately driven back to the bench.
Back at FSS headquarters, the decryption team typed the message into a computer into which the one-time-pad had already been inputted. After that, it was a matter of mere seconds before the computer performed a function not unlike sliding a document over a printed template. The clear-text message was, agreeably, in Russian. The content of the message was something else.
“Yob tvoyu maht!” the technician breathed, in one of his language’s more repulsive imprecations: Fuck your mother. Then he handed the page to one of the supervising inspectors, whose reaction was little different. Then he walked to the phone and dialed Yefremov’s number.
“Pavel Georgeyevich, you need to see this.”
Provalov was there when the chief of the decryption section walked in. The printout was in a manila folder, which the head cryppie handed over without a word.
“Well, Pasha?” the homicide investigator asked.
“Well, we have answered our first question.”
The motorcar was even purchased at the same dealership in central Moscow, the sheet read. There is no fault to be found here. The men who performed the mission are both dead in St. P. Before I can make another attempt, I need an indication from you on the timeline, and also on the payment to my contractors.
“Golovko was the target, then,” Provalov observed. And the head of our country’s intelligence service owes his life to a pimp.
“So it would appear,” Yefremov agreed. “Note that he doesn’t ask payment for himself. I would imagine he’s somewhat embarrassed at having missed his target on the first attempt.”
“But he’s working for the Chinese?”
“So that would appear as well,” the FSS man observed, with an inward chill. Why, he asked himself, would the Chinese wish to do such a thing? Isn’t that nearly an act of war? He sat back in his chair and lit up a smoke, looking into the eyes of his police colleague. Neither man knew what to say at the moment, and both kept silent. It would all soon be out of and far beyond their hands. With that decided, both men headed home for dinner.
The morning broke more brightly than usual in Beijing. Mrs. Yu had slept deeply and well, and though she awoke with a slight headache, she was grateful for Wen’s insistence on a couple of drinks before retiring. Then she remembered why she was in Beijing, and any good feelings departed from her mind. Breakfast was mainly green tea and was spent looking down, remembering the sound of her husband’s voice in the bleak acceptance of the fact that she’d never hear it again. He’d always been in a good mood over breakfast, never forgetting, as she had just done, to say grace over the morning meal and thank God for another day in which to serve Him. No more. No more would he do that, she reminded herself. But she had duties of her own to perform.