Ryan was shopping alone. His wife’s birthday was coming up—it would happen during his next Moscow trip—and he had to get everything out of the way early. The jewelry stores were always a good place to start. Cathy still wore the heavy gold necklace he’d given her a few years before, and he was looking for earrings that would go with it. The problem was that he had trouble remembering the exact pattern . . . His hangover didn’t help, nor did his nervousness. What if they didn’t bite?
“Hello, Dr. Ryan,” a familiar voice said. Jack turned with some surprise.
“I didn’t know they let you guys come out this far.” Act II, Scene 1. Jack didn’t let his relief show. In that respect the hangover helped.
“The travel radius cuts right through Garfinckels, if you examine the map carefully,” Sergey Platonov pointed out. “Shopping for your wife?”
“I’m sure my file gave you all the necessary clues.”
“Yes, her birthday.” He looked down at the display case. “A pity that I cannot afford such things for mine . . .”
“If you were to make the appropriate overtures, the Agency could probably arrange something, Sergey Nikolay’ch.”
“But the Rodina might not understand,” Platonov said. “A problem with which you are becoming familiar, are you not?”
“You’re remarkably well informed,” Jack muttered.
“That is my function. I am also hungry. Perhaps you might use some of your fortune to buy me a sandwich?”
Ryan looked up and down the mall with professional interest.
“Not today.” Platonov chuckled. “A few of my fellow . . . a few of my comrades are busy today, more than usual, and I fear your FBI is undermanned for its surveillance task.”
“A problem the KGB does not have,” Jack observed as they moved away from the store.
“You might be surprised. Why do Americans assume that our intelligence organs are any different from yours?”
“If by that you mean screwed up, I suppose it’s a comforting thought. How does a hot dog grab you?”
“If it’s kosher,” Platonov answered, then explained. “I’m not Jewish, as you know, but I prefer the taste.”
“You’ve been here too long,” Jack said with a grin.
“But the Washington area is such a nice place.”
Jack walked into a fast-food shop that specialized in bagels and corned beef, but also served other fare. Service was quick, and the men took a white plastic table that sat by itself in the center of the mall’s corridor. Cleverly done, Jack thought. People could walk past and not hear more than a few random words. But he knew Platonov was a pro.
“I have heard that you face some rather unfortunate legal difficulties.” With every word, Platonov smiled. It was supposed to appear that they were discussing ordinary pleasantries. Jack supposed, with the added dimension that his Russian colleague was enjoying himself.
“Do you believe that little prick last night? You know, one thing I actually admire about Russia is the way you handle—”
“Antisocial behavior? Yes—five years in a camp of strict regime. Our new openness does not extend to condoning sexual perversion. Your friend Trent made an acquaintance on his last trip to the Soviet Union. The young . . . man in question is now in such a camp.” Platonov didn’t say that he had refused to cooperate with the KGB, and so earned his sentence. Why confuse the issue? he thought.
“You can have him with my blessings. We have enough of them over here,” Jack growled. He felt thoroughly awful; his eyes were pounding to escape from his head as a result of all the wine and insufficient sleep.
“So I have noticed. And may we have the SEC also?” Platonov asked.
“You know, I didn’t do anything wrong. Not a damned thing! I got a tip from a friend and I followed up on it. I didn’t go looking for it, it just happened. So I made a few bucks—so what? I write intelligence briefs for the President! I’m good at it—and they’re coming after me! After all the—” Ryan stopped and stared painfully into Platonov’s eyes. “So what the hell do you care?”
“Ever since we first met at Georgetown some years ago, frankly I have admired you. That business with the terrorists. I do not agree with your political views, as you plainly do not agree with mine. But as one man to another, you took some vermin off the street. You may choose to believe this or not, but I have argued against State support for such animals. True Marxists who want to free their peoples—yes, we should support them in any way we can—but bandits are murderers, they are mere scum who view us as a source of arms, nothing more. My country gains nothing by it. Politics aside, you are a man of courage and honor. Of course 1 respect that. It is a pity that your country does not. America only places its best men on pedestals so that lesser ones can use them as targets.”
Ryan’s wary look was replaced briefly with one of measurement. “You have that one right.”
“So, my friend—what will they do to you?”
Jack let out a long breath as he focused his eyes down the corridor. “I have to get a lawyer this week. I suppose he’ll know. I’d hoped to avoid that. I thought I could talk my way out of it, but—but this new bastard in SEC, a pansy that Trent—” Another breath. “Trent used his influence to get the job for him. How much you want to bet that the two of them . . . I find myself in agreement with you. If one must have enemies, they should at least be enemies you can respect.”
“And CIA cannot help you?”
“I don’t have many friends there—well, you know that. Moved up too fast, richest kid on the block, Greer’s fair-haired boy, my connections with the Brits. You make enemies that way, too. Sometimes I wonder if one of them might have . . . I can’t prove it, but you wouldn’t believe the computer network we have at Langley, and all my stock transactions are stored in computer systems . . . and you know what? Computer records can be changed by someone who knows how . . . But try to prove that one, pal.” Jack took two aspirins from a small tin and swallowed them.
“Ritter doesn’t like me at all, never has. I made him look bad on something a few years back, and he isn’t the sort of man to forget that sort of thing. Maybe one of his people . . . he has some good ones. The Admiral wants to help, but he’s old. The Judge is on his way out, supposed to have left a year ago, but he’s hanging on somehow—he couldn’t help me if he wanted to.”
“The President likes your work. We know that.”
“The President’s a lawyer, a prosecutor. He gets even a whiff that you might have bent a law, and—it’s amazing how quick you can get lonely. There’s a bunch in the State Department who’re after my ass, too. I don’t see things quite their way. This is a bitch of a town to be honest in.”
It’s correct, then, Platonov thought. They’d gotten the report first from Peter Henderson, code-named Cassius, who’d been feeding data to the KGB for over ten years, first as special assistant to the retired Senator Donaldson of the Senate’s intelligence committee, now an intelligence analyst for the General Accounting Office. KGB knew Ryan to be the bright, rising star of the CIA’s Intelligence Directorate. His evaluation at Moscow Center had at first called him a wealthy dilettante. That had changed a few years ago. He’d done something to earn him presidential attention, and now wrote nearly half of the special intelligence briefing papers that went to the White House. It was known from Henderson that he had assembled a massive report on the strategic-arms situation, one that had raised hackles at Foggy Bottom. Platonov had long since formed his own impression. A good judge of character, from their first meeting at Georgetown’s Galleria he’d deemed Ryan a bright opponent, and a brave one—but a man too accustomed to privilege, too easily outraged at personal attack. Sophisticated, but strangely naive. What he saw over lunch confirmed it. Fundamentally, Ryan was too American. He saw things in blacks and whites, goods and bads. But what mattered today was that Ryan had felt himself invincible, and was only now learning that this was not the case. Because of that, Ryan was an angry man.
“All that work wasted,” Jack said after a few seconds. “They’re going to trash my recommendations.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Ernest Fucking Allen has talked the President into putting SDI on the table.” It required all of Platonov’s professionalism not to react visibly to that statement. Ryan went on: “It’s all been for nothing. They’ve discredited my analysis because of this idiot stock thing. The Agency isn’t backing me up like they should. They’re throwing me to the fucking dogs. Not a damned thing I can do about it, either.” Jack finished off the hot dog.