“When?”
“It doesn’t say that. That’ll be the next message.”
“I think it’s time you tell me how this thing goes,” the Captain observed.
“Not here,” Clark said quietly.
“My stateroom is this way.” Mancuso waved. They went forward past the submarine turbine engines, then through the reactor compartment with its annoyingly noisy door, and finally through the Attack Center and into Mancuso’s cabin. It was about as far as anyone could walk on a submarine. The Captain tossed Clark a towel to wipe the sweat from his face.
“I hope you didn’t wear yourself out,” he said.
“It’s the boredom. All your people have jobs to do. Me, I just sit around and wait. Waiting is a bitch. Where’s Captain Ramius?”
“Asleep, He doesn’t have to be in on the thing this soon, does he?”
“No,” Clark agreed.
“What exactly is the job? Can you tell me now?”
“I’m bringing two people out,” Clark replied simply.
“Two Russians? You’re not picking up a thing? Two people?”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re going to say that you do it all the time?” Mancuso asked.
“Not exactly all the time,” Clark admitted. “I did one three years ago, another one a year before that. Two others never came off, and I never found out why. ‘Need-to-know,’ you know.”
“I’ve heard the phrase before.”
“It’s funny,” Clark mused. “I bet the people who make those decisions have never had their ass hanging out in the breeze . . .”
“The people you’re picking up—do they know?”
“Nope. They know to be at a certain place at a certain time. My worry is that they’re going to be surrounded by the KGB version of a SWAT team.” Clark lifted a radio. “Your end is real easy. I don’t say the right thing in the right way, on the right schedule, you and your boat get the hell out of here.”
“Leave you behind.” It wasn’t a question.
“Unless you’d prefer to join me at Lefortovo Prison. Along with the rest of the crew, of course. It might look bad in the papers, Captain.”
“You struck me as a sensible man, too.”
Clark laughed. “It’s a real long story.”
“Colonel Eich?”
“Von Eich,” the pilot corrected Jack. “My ancestors were Prussians. You’re Dr. Ryan, right? What can I do for you?” Jack took a seat. They were sitting in the Defense Attaché’s office. The attaché, an Air Force general, was letting them use it.
“You know who I work for?”
“I seem to recall you’re one of the intel guys, but I’m just your driver, remember? I leave the important stuff to the folks in soft clothes,” the Colonel said.
“Not anymore. I have a job for you.”
“What do you mean, a job?”
“You’ll love it.” Jack was wrong. He didn’t.
It was hard to keep his mind on his official job. Part of that was the mind-numbing boredom of the negotiating process, but the largest part was the heady wine of his unofficial job, and his mind was locked on that while he fiddled with his earpiece to get all of the simultaneous translation of the Soviet negotiator’s second rendition of his current speech. The hint of the previous day, that on-site inspections would be more limited than previously agreed, was gone now. Instead they were asking for broader authority to inspect American sites. That would make the Pentagon happy, Jack thought with a concealed smile. Russian intelligence officers climbing over factories and descending into silos to get looks at American missiles, all under the watchful eyes of American counterintel officers and Strategic Air Command guards—who’d be fingering their new Beretta pistols all the while. And the submarine boys, who often regarded the rest of their own Navy as potential enemies, what would they think of having Russians aboard? It sounded as though they wouldn’t get any further than standing on the deck while the technicians inside opened the tube doors under the watchful eyes of the boats’ crews and the Marines who guarded the boomer bases. The same would happen on the Soviet side. Every officer sent to be on the inspection teams would be a spook, perhaps with the odd line-officer thrown in to take note of things that only an operator would notice. It was amazing. After thirty years of U.S. demands, the Soviets had finally accepted the idea that both sides should allow officially recognized spying. When that happened, during the previous round of talks on intermediate weapons, the American reaction had been stunned suspicion—Why were the Russians agreeing to our terms? Why did they say yes? What are they really trying to do?
But it was progress, once you got used to the idea. Both sides would have a way of knowing what the other did and what the other had. Neither side would trust the other. Both intelligence communities would see to that. Spies would still be prowling about, looking for indications that the other side was cheating, assembling missiles at a secret location, hiding them in odd places for a surprise attack. They’d find such indications, write interim warning reports, and try to run the information down. Institutional paranoia would last longer than the weapons themselves. Treaties wouldn’t change that, despite all the euphoria in the papers. Jack shifted his eyes to the Soviet who was doing the talking.
Why? Why did you guys change your mind? Do you know what I said in my National Intelligence Estimate? It hasn’t made the papers yet, but you might have seen it. I said that you finally realized (1) how much the goddamned things cost, (2) that ten thousand warheads was enough to fry all of America eight times over when three or four times was probably enough, and (3) that you’d save money by eliminating all your old missiles, the ones that you can’t maintain very well anymore. It’s just business, I told them, not a change in your outlook. Oh, yes: (4) it’s very good public relations, and you still love to play PR games, even though you screw it up every time.
Not that we mind, of course.
Once the agreement went through—and Jack thought it would—both sides would save about three percent of their defense outlays; maybe as much as five percent for the Russians because of their more diverse missile systems, but it was hard to be sure. A small fraction of total defense outlays, it would be enough for the Russians to finance a few new factories, or maybe build some roads, which was what they really needed. How would they reallocate their savings? For that matter, how would America? Jack was supposed to make an assessment of that, too, another Special National Intelligence Estimate. Rather a high-sounding title for what was, after all, nothing more than an official guess, and at the moment, Ryan didn’t have a clue.
The Russian speech concluded, and it was time for a coffee break. Ryan closed his leather-bound folder and trooped out of the room with everyone else. He selected a cup of tea, just to be different, and decorated his saucer with finger food.
“So, Ryan, what do you think?” It was Golovko.
“Is this business or socializing?” Jack asked.
“The latter, if you wish.”
Jack walked to the nearest window and looked out. One of these days, he promised himself, I will see something of Moscow. They must have something here that’s worth snapping a few pictures. Maybe peace will break out someday and I’ll be able to bring the family over . . . He turned. But not today, not this year, nor the year after that. Too bad.
“Sergey Nikolayevich, if the world made sense, people like you and me would sit down and hammer all this crap out in two or three days. Hell, you and I know that both sides want to cut inventories by half. The issue we’ve been fighting over all week is how many hours of notice there’ll be before the surprise-inspection team arrives, but because neither side can get its act together on the answer, we’re talking about stuff that we’ve already come to terms on instead of getting on with it. If it was just between you and me, I’d say one hour, and you’d say eight, and we’d eventually talk down to three or four—”
“Four or five.” Golovko laughed.
“Four, then.” Jack did, too. “You see? We’d settle the son of a bitch, wouldn’t we?”
“But we are not diplomats,” Golovko pointed out. “We know how to strike bargains, but not in the accepted way, We are too direct, you and I, too practical. Ah, Ivan Emmetovich, we will make a Russian of you yet.” He’d just Russianized Jack’s name. Ivan Emmetovich. John, son of Emmet.
Business time again, Ryan thought. He changed gears and decided to yank the other man’s chain in turn, “No, I don’t think so. It gets a little too cool here. Tell you what, you go to your chief talker, and I’ll go to Uncle Ernie, and we’ll tell them what we decided on inspection-warning time—four hours. Right now. How ’bout it?”