“Yes, sir,” Galan said, and the general dismissed him.
At the door the general recalled him. “Kirk Mcgarvey is a dangerous man. But he is not an enemy of France. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
“Perfectly, man General.”
EIGHT
Deputy Director of Operations Howard Ryan was a man who believed in isometrics. Walking into his third floor conference room at 7:30 a.m. sharp and taking his place at the head of the long table he knew that every man seated there hated him because he pushed. It was exactly as it should be, he thought with smug satisfaction. Hate generated energy. And energy was exactly what the Company had been lacking for many years.
Besides his assistant, Thomas Moore, the others he’d called to the briefing included the assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence, Chris Vizanko, whom Ryan considered to be little more than a street thug who didn’t belong here, and the heavyset Director of Technical Services, Jared Kraus, who was a steady if sometimes ponderous presence.
Each man had brought his own “experts,” something Ryan always insisted on. He told his people repeatedly that if they were not willing to bet
their lives on the facts then they’d better surround themselves with experts. His staff called it “Ryan’s insulation factor.” If something went wrong, the more underlings around you to absorb the blame the better you’d come out.
But Ryan had pressures from above, as he was fond of reminding them. His came from the big leagues; the Director of Central Intelligence, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the President’s National Security Adviser and the President himself.
“Gentlemen, the Director is scheduled to brief the President at ten, and in turn he expects me to brief him at nine. It gives us less than a half-hour to come up with a consensus on the facts so that I’ll have time to prepare my recommendations,” Ryan began.
“If Boris Yeltsin died of a heart attack, he did so in mid-air,” Vizanko said.
Ryan, who’d started out as an attorney for a prestigious New York law firm, did not like levity of any kind, and he shot the assistant DDI a sharp look of disapproval. “What do you have for me?”
“Jim Rayn’s people managed to come up with blood and tissue samples from Red Square. The DNA in several of” them was definitely Yeltsin’s.” Rayn was the Chief of Moscow Station.
“It’s been more than forty-eight hours, what took so long?” Ryan demanded. He always wore three-piece suits. He took his ornate pocket watch out and looked at the time as if to make his point. It was a “Ryan” gesture, pretentious as hell.
“That’s normally a two-week procedure, Mr. Ryan,” Kraus said from his end of the table. “Rayn must have lit a fire under somebody to get it that fast.”
“He got it from the Russians themselves. And those guys are definitely motivated right now,” Vizanko said. “He also came up with a rumor that a body will be ready for display later today. The operative word is ‘a’ body, not Yeltsin’s.”
There was more deadwood yet to be cleared ut of the Agency, Ryan thought. “Russian science and shaky rumors. This is what the world’s best intelligence agency has managed to come up with?”
“With no reliable eyewitnesses who actually saw Yeltsin in the back seat of the limo that took the hit, I think it’s the best we can do under the circumstances,” Vizanko said. “It’s Mr. Doyle’s opinion that if Yeltsin had actually died of a heart attack, his body would have been placed on display within twenty-four hours. They just wouldn’t have waited so long.” Tom Doyle was Deputy Director of Intelligence. “His bodyguards don’t carry that kind of explosives in any event,” Kraus said. “We think the device was Semtex. Rayn’s people found evidence supporting that.”
“What evidence?” Ryan shot back. He didn’t like this at all. It was way too loose.
“Certain chemical compounds consistent with the plastic explosive were detected in the human tissue samples.”
“Just what compounds? Specifically.”
Kraus shrugged, and opened a file folder. He passed a report down the table to Ryan. “As you can see, Mr. Ryan, page three and four outline the results of mass spectrograph tests on the material. The third and fifth sets of complex hydrocarbons, which you can see, do not match human blood or tissue, and in fact can be identified as —”
“I can read,” Ryan said harshly. The graphs, columns and rows of numbers, and diagrams of what appeared to be a complex series of spikes and sawtooth patterns made no sense to him. He did not have a science background. But the material looked impressive as hell. It would make for a damn good presentation.
He ran his finger down several rows of figures, flipped to page four, and studied the graphs.
“I concur,” he said, looking up. “Do we have any sense of how much
Semtex was used?” He liked to toss in an unanswerable question now and then. It kept his people on their toes.
“That’s on the bottom of page five, sir,” Kraus said. “It was a radio-controlled package weighing in the neighborhood of six kilos. Probably placed inside the car, beneath the rear seat. The body armor would have effectively focused the blast upward.”
Ryan looked at Kraus and the others to make sure they weren’t having a laugh at his expense, then flipped to the next page. “I see it here,” he-said. “Good work.”
“I don’t think there’s any question who pulled it off or why,” Vizanko said. He passed down a thick folder. “Yevgenni Tarankov. They call him the Tarantula, and for good reason it looks like.”
“Save me from wading through this, Chris. Do we have hard intelligence to support that speculation?”
Vizanko sat back, insolently. “Tarankov hit their Riga Nuclear Power Station in the Moscow suburb of Dzerzhinskiy the day before. You’ve already seen that report, and damage estimates. We think that Yeltsin finally got off his duff and ordered Tarankov’s arrest.” Vizanko spread his hands. “The Tarantula retaliated. Sure as hell sent the Kremlin a clear message.”
“What’s that?” Ryan asked coldly.
“Tarankov is going to take over in the June elections, if not sooner.”
“By force?”
“It’s a possibility that should be considered’.”
“I see,” Ryan said. He turned to his assistant, Tom Moore. “Do you concur?”
Moore, “Sir Thomas” behind his back, even more staid and pedantic than his boss, took his pipe out of his mouth and studied the contents of the bowl. “I’d have to study the reports at length, Howard. But on the surface of it the possibility has enough merit to be kicked upstairs.”
“Very well—”
“But of course I would advise caution. Meddling in Russia’s internal affairs at this moment is fraught with danger, the least of which is our considerable dollar investment over there.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Ryan said.
“Won’t matter much if Tarankov takes power,” Vizanko said. “That bastard will nationalize everything, and there’ll be very little that we could do to stop him. Half the Russian Strategic Rocket Force officers are on his side. We’ve already seen the analysis of those numbers. It’d take no leap of imagination to envision him scrapping SALT, and reprogramming his ICBMs.”
“He doesn’t have the money.”
“I think he could get it, Mr. Ryan,” Vizanko said. He shrugged again. “Anyway, it’s a thought.”
“Any other comments?” Ryan asked after a few moments. There were none. “Thank you for your help this morning,” he said.
Ryan was in the DCI’s office a minute before nine with two copies of his lengthy report, one of them in a leather folder for the President. He’d scanned the Directorate of Intelligence report and the Technical Services
