The Deceiver

highest clear­ance.”

“So do you,” said McCready. The Russian smiled.

“Of course. No accounting for taste. I will find out what I can about him. Why does he interest you?”

“Nothing concrete,” said McCready. “As you said, an odor on the wind. The manner of his coming, giving Joe Roth no time to check. For a sailor jumping ship, it’s normal. For a colonel of the KGB, it’s odd. He could have done a better deal.”

“I agree,” said the Russian. “I’ll do what I can.”

The Russian’s position inside the embassy was so delicate that face-to-face meetings were hazardous, therefore infre­quent. The next was set up at a small and seedy cafй in Shoreditch, London’s East End. Early in the following month, May.

At the end of April, the Director of Central Intelligence had a meeting in the White House with the President. Nothing unusual in that; they met extremely regularly, either with others in the National Security Council or in private. But on this occasion the President was unusually flattering about the CIA. The gratitude that a number of agencies and depart­ments had directed toward the Agency as a result of informa­tion stemming from the Ranch in southern Virginia had reached as high as the Oval Office.

The DCI was a hard man whose career went back to the days of the OSS in the Second World War, and he was a devoted colleague of Ronald Reagan. He was also a fair man and saw no reason to withhold the general praise from the Head of Special Projects responsible for bringing in Colonel Orlov. When he returned to Langley, he summoned Calvin Bailey.

Bailey found the Director at the picture windows that occupy almost one side of the DCI’s office on top of the CIA headquarters building. He was staring out toward the valley, where the wash of green trees in spring leaf had finally obscured the winter view of the Potomac River. When Bailey entered, he turned with an expansive smile.

“What can I say? Congratulations are in order, Cal. The Navy Department loves it, says keep it coming. The Mexicans are delighted; they just wrapped up a network of seventeen agents, cameras, communication radios, the works.”

“Thank you,” said Calvin Bailey carefully. He was known as a cautious man, not given to overt displays of human warmth.

“Fact is,” said the DCI, “we all know Frank Wright is retiring at the end of the year. I’m going to need a new DDO. Maybe, Calvin, just maybe I think I know who it ought to be.”

Bailey’s morose shrouded gaze flashed into a rare smile. In the CIA the Director himself is always a political appointment and has been for three decades. Under him come the two main divisions of the Agency: Operations, headed by the Deputy Director Ops (DDO), and Intelligence (analysis), headed by the Deputy Director Intel (DDI). These two posts are the highest to which a professional can reasonably aspire. The DDO is in charge of the entire information gathering side of the Agency, while the DDI is in charge of analyzing the raw information into presentable and usable intelligence.

Having delivered his bouquet, the DCI turned to more mundane matters. “Look, it’s about the Brits. As you know, Margaret Thatcher was over.”

Calvin Bailey nodded. The close friendship between the British Prime Minister and the U.S. President was known to all.

“She brought with her Sir Christopher. ...” The DCI mentioned the name of the then chief of the British SIS. “We had several good sessions. He gave us some really good product. We owe them, Cal. Just a favor. I’d like to clean the slate. They have two beefs. They say they’re very grateful for all the Minstrel product we’ve been sending over, but they point out that as regards Soviet agents being run in England, so far it’s useful material but all code-names. Can Minstrel recall any actual names, or offices held—something to identify a hostile agent in their own pond?”

Bailey thought it over.

“He’s been asked before,” he said. “We’ve sent the Brits everything that remotely concerns them. I’ll ask him again, have Joe Roth see if he can remember a real name. Okay.”

“Fine, fine,” said the DCI. “One last thing. They keep asking for access. Over there. This time around, I’m prepared to indulge them. I think we can go that far.”

“I’d prefer to keep him over here. He’s safe here.”

“We can keep him safe over there. Look, we can put him on an American air base. Upper Heyford, Lakenheath, Alconbury. Whatever. They can see him, talk to him under super­vision, then we bring him back.”

“I don’t like it,” said Bailey.

“Cal—” there was a hint of steel in the DCI’s voice—“I’ve agreed to it. Just see to it.”

Calvin Bailey drove down to the Ranch for a personal talk with Joe Roth. They talked in Roth’s suite of rooms above the central portico of the Ranch house. Bailey found his subordi­nate tired and drawn. Debriefing a defector is a tiring busi­ness, involving long hours with the defector followed by long nights spent working through the next day’s line of question­ing. Relaxing is not usually on the menu, and when, as often happens, the defector has established a personal relationship with his chief debriefing officer, it is not easy to give that officer time off and replace him with a substitute.

“Washington is pleased,” Bailey told him. “More than pleased—delighted. Everything he says checks out. Soviet Army, Navy, and Air Force deployments, confirmed by other sources of satellite coverage. Weapons levels, readiness states, the Afghan mess—Pentagon loves it all. You’ve done well, Joe. Very well.”

“There’s still a long way to go,” said Roth. “Lots more still to come. There must be. The man’s an encyclopedia. Phenomenal memory. Sometimes stuck for a detail, but usu­ally recalls it sooner or later. But ...”

“But what? Look, Joe, he’s pulling apart years of patient KGB work in Central and South America. Our friends down there are closing down network after network. It’s okay. I know you’re tired. Just keep at it.”

He went on to tell Roth of the hint the DCI had given him about the forthcoming vacancy as Deputy Director Opera­tions. He was not usually a confiding man, but he saw no reason not to give his subordinate the same kind of boost the DCI had given him.

“If it goes through, Joe, there’ll be a second vacancy, head of Special Projects. My recommendation will count for a lot. It’ll be for you, Joe. I wanted you to know that.”

Roth was grateful but not ecstatic. He seemed more than tired. There was something else on his mind.

“Is he causing problems?” asked Bailey. “Has he got everything he wants? Does he need female company? Do you? It’s isolated down here. It’s been a month. These things can be arranged.”

He knew Roth was divorced and single. The Agency has a legendary divorce rate. As they say at Langley, it comes with the territory.

“No, I’ve offered him that. He just shook his head. We work out together. It helps. Run through the woods until we can hardly stand. I’ve never been in such good shape. He’s older, but he’s fitter. That’s one of the things that worries me, Calvin. He’s got no flaws, no weaknesses. If he got drunk, screwed around, got maudlin for thinking about his homeland, lost his temper—”

“You’ve tried to provoke him?” asked Bailey. Provoking a defector into a rage, an outburst of pent-up emotions, can sometimes work as a release, a therapy. According to the in-house psychiatrists, anyway.

“Yes. I’ve taunted him with being a rat, a turncoat. Noth­ing. He just ran me into the ground and laughed at me. Then he got on with what he calls “the job.” Blowing away KGB assets worldwide. He’s a total pro.”

“That’s why he’s the best we’ve ever had, Joe. Don’t knock it. Be grateful.”

“Calvin, that’s not the main reason he bugs me. As a guy, I like him. I even respect him. I never thought I would respect a defector. But there’s something else. He’s holding some­thing back.”

Calvin Bailey went very quiet and very still. “The poly­graph tests don’t say so.”

“No, they don’t. That’s why I can’t be sure I’m right. I just feel it. There’s something he’s not saying.”

Bailey leaned across and stared hard into Roth’s face. An awful lot hung on the question he was about to ask.

“Joe, could there be any chance, in your considered view, that despite all the tests, he might still be a phony, a KGB plant?”