That rattled him, Jack saw. For the briefest fraction of a second, Golovko thought that he was serious. The GRU/KGB officer recovered his composure in a moment, and even Jack barely noticed the lapse. The smile was hardly interrupted, but while the expression remained fixed around the mouth, it faded momentarily about the man’s eyes, then returned. Jack didn’t know the gravity of the mistake he had just made.
You should be very nervous, Ivan Emmetovich, but you an not. Why? You were before. You were so tense at the reception the other night that I thought you would explode. And yesterday when you passed the note, I could feel the sweat on your palm. But today, you make jokes. You try to unnerve me with your banter. Why the difference, Ryan? You are not a field officer. Your earlier nervousness proved that, but now you art acting like one. Why? he asked himself as everyone filed back into the conference room. Everyone sat for the next round of monologues, and Golovko kept an eye on his American counterpart.
Ryan wasn’t fidgeting now, he noted with some surprise. On Monday and Tuesday he had been. He merely looked bored, no more uncomfortable than that. You should be uncomfortable, Ryan, Golovko thought.
Why did you need to meet with Gerasimov? Why twice? Why were you nervous before and after the first . . . and before but not after the second?
It didn’t make much sense. Golovko listened to the droning words in his earpiece—it was the American’s turn to ramble on about things that had already been decided—but his mind was elsewhere. His mind was in Ryan’s KGB file. Ryan, John Patrick. Son of Emmet William Ryan and Catherine Burke Ryan, both deceased. Married, two children. Degrees in economics and history. Wealthy. Brief service in U.S. Marine Corps. Former stockbroker and history teacher. Joined CIA on a part-time basis four years before, after a consulting job the year before that. Soon thereafter became a full-time officer-analyst. Never trained at the CIA’s field school at Camp Peary, Virginia. Ryan had been involved in two violent incidents, and in both cases deported himself well—the Marine training, Golovko supposed, plus his innate qualities as a man, which the Russian respected. Very bright, brave when he had to be: a dangerous enemy. Ryan worked directly for the DDI, and was known to have prepared numerous special intelligence evaluations . . . but a special intelligence mission . . . ? He had no training for that. He was probably the wrong sort of personality. Too open, Golovko thought; there was little guile in the man. When he was hiding something, you would never know what, but you would know that he was hiding something . . .
You were hiding something before, but not now, are you?
And what does that mean, Ivan Emmetovich? What the hell kind of name is Emmet? Golovko wondered irrelevantly.
Jack saw the man looking at him and saw the question in his eyes. The man was no dummy, Jack told himself, as Ernest Allen spoke on about some technical issue or other. We thought he was GRU, and he really turned out to be KGB—or so it would seem, Jack corrected himself. Is there something else about him that we don’t know?
At parking position number nine at Sheremetyevo Airport, Colonel von Eich was standing at the aft passenger door of his aircraft. In front of him, a sergeant was fiddling with the door seal, an impressive array of tools spread out before him. Like most airliner doors, it opened outward only after opening inward, allowing the airtight seal to unseat itself and slide out of the way so that it would not be damaged. Faulty door seals had killed aircraft before, the most spectacular being the DC-10 crash outside Paris a decade before. Below them, a uniformed KGB guard stood with loaded rifle outside the aircraft. His own flight crew had to pass security checks. All Russians took security very seriously indeed, and the KGB were outright fanatics on the subject.
“I don’t know why you’re getting the warning light, Colonel,” the sergeant said after twenty minutes. “The seal’s perfect, the switch that goes to the light seems to be in good shape—anyway, the door is fine, sir. I’ll check the panel up front next.”
You get that? Paul von Eich wanted to ask the KGB guard fifteen feet below, but couldn’t.
His crew was already readying the plane for its return trip. They’d had a couple of days to see the sights. This time it had been an old monastery about forty miles outside the city—the last ten miles of which had been over roads that were probably dirt in summertime but were a mixture of mud and snow now. They’d had their guided, guarded tour of Moscow, and now the airmen were ready to go home. He hadn’t briefed his men on what Ryan had told him yet. The time for that would come tomorrow evening. He wondered how they would react.
The session ended on schedule, with a hint from the Soviets that they’d be willing to talk over inspection times tomorrow. They’d have to talk fast, Ryan thought, because the delegation would be leaving tomorrow night, and they had to have something to take back home from this round of talks. After all, the summit meeting was already scheduled informally. This one would be in Moscow. Moscow in the spring, Jack thought. I wonder if they’ll bring me along for the signing ceremony? I wonder if there’ll be a treaty to sign? There had better be, Ryan concluded.
Golovko watched the Americans leave, then waved for his own car, which took him to KGB headquarters. He walked directly to the Chairman’s office.
“So what did our diplomats give away today?” Gerasimov asked without preamble.
“I think tomorrow we’ll make our amended proposal for inspection timing.” He paused before going on. “I spoke with Ryan today. He seems to have changed somewhat and I thought I should report it.”
“Go on,” the Chairman said.
“Comrade Chairman, I do not know what the two of you discussed, but the change in his demeanor is such that I thought you should know of it.” Golovko went on to explain what he’d seen.
“Ah, yes. I cannot discuss our conversations because you are not cleared for that compartment, but I would not be concerned, Colonel. I am handling this matter personally. Your observation is noted. Ryan will have to learn to control his emotions better. Perhaps he is not Russian enough.” Gerasimov was not a man who made jokes, but this was an exception. “Anything else on the negotiations?”
“My notes will be written up and on your desk tomorrow morning.”
“Good. Dismissed.” Gerasimov watched the man leave. His face didn’t change until the door clicked shut. Bad enough to lose, he thought, and to lose to a nonprofessional . . . But he had lost, and, he reminded himself, he wasn’t a professional either, merely the Party man who gave them orders. That decision was behind him. It was too bad about his officers in—wherever the place was—but they had failed, and earned their fates. He lifted his phone and ordered his private secretary to arrange for his wife and daughter to fly the following morning to Talinn, the capital of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Yes, they would need a car and a driver also. No, just one. The driver would double as their security guard. Not many people knew who his wife was, and the trip was unscheduled, just to see old friends. Very good. Gerasimov hung up his phone and looked around his office. He’d miss it. Not so much the office itself: the power. But he knew that he’d miss his life more.
“And this Colonel Bondarenko?” Vatutin asked.
“A fine young officer. Very bright. He’ll make a good general when the time comes.”
Vatutin wondered how his final report would handle that issue. There was no suspicion about that man, except for his association with Filitov. But there had been no suspicion about Filitov, despite his connection with Oleg Penkovskiy. Colonel Vatutin shook his head in amazement. That fact would be talked about in security classes for a generation. Why didn’t they see? the young officer-trainees would demand. How could anyone be so stupid? Because only the most trusted people can be spies—you don’t give classified information to someone you cannot trust. The lesson was as it had always been: Trust no one. Coming back to Bondarenko, he wondered what would happen to him. If he were the loyal and exceptional officer he seemed to be, then he should not be tainted by this affair. But—there was always a but, wasn’t there?—there were also some additional questions to ask, and Vatutin went to the bottom of his list. His initial interrogation report was due on Gerasimov’s desk the following day.
The climb took all night in total darkness. The clouds that had swept in from the south covered both moon and stars, and the only illumination was from the perimeter lights of their objective, reflected off the clouds. Now they were within easy sight of it. Still a sizable march, they were close enough that the individual units could be briefed on their tasks, and could see what they had to do. The Archer picked for himself a high spot and rested his binoculars on a rock to steady them as he surveyed the site. There seemed to be three encampments. Only two of them were fenced, though at the third he could make out piles of posts and fencing material near an orange-white light atop the sort of pole used in cities to illuminate the streets. The extent of the construction surprised him. To do all this—on the top of a mountain! How important could such a place be to deserve all the effort, all the expense. Something that sent a laser beam into the sky . . . to what end? The Americans had asked him if he’d seen what the light-beam had hit. They knew it had hit something, then? Something in the sky. Whatever it was, it had frightened the Americans, had frightened the same people who made the missiles with which he had killed so many Russian pilots . . . What could frighten people so clever as that? The Archer could see the place, but did not see anything more frightening than the guard towers that held machine guns. One of those buildings held armed soldiers who would have heavy weapons. That was something to be frightened about. Which building? He had to know that, because that building had to be attacked first. His mortars would put their shells on that one first of all. But which one was it?