pariah among his peers. Or he could be a navigation officer and advance to his own command. Or he could be shunted into a specialty in which he would gain rank and pay — but never command. Thus a chief engineer on a Soviet naval vessel could outrank his commanding officer and still be his subordinate.
Ramius looked around the table at his officers. Most had not been allowed to pursue their own career goals despite their proficiency and despite their party membership. The minor infractions of youth — in one case an act committed at age eight — prevented two from ever being trusted again. With the missile officer, it was because he was a Jew; though his parents had always been committed, believing Communists, neither they nor their son was ever trusted. Another officer’s elder brother had demonstrated against the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and disgraced his whole family. Melekhin, the chief engineer and Ramius’ equal in rank, had never been allowed the route to command simply because his superiors wanted him to be an engineer. Borodin, who was ready for his own command, had once accused a
“And what if they locate us?” Kamarov speculated.
“I doubt that even the Americans can find us when the caterpillar is operating. I am certain that our own submarines cannot. Comrades, I helped design this ship,” Ramius said.
“What will become of us?” the missile officer muttered.
“First we must accomplish the task at hand. An officer who looks too far ahead stumbles over his own boots.”
“They will be looking for us,” Borodin said.
“Of course,” Ramius smiled, “but they will not know where to look until it is too late. Our mission, comrades, is to avoid detection. And so we shall.”
THE FOURTH DAY
Ryan walked down the corridor on the top floor of the Langley, Virginia, headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. He had already passed through three separate security checks, none of which had required him to open his locked briefcase, now draped under the folds of his buff-colored toggle coat, a gift from an officer in the Royal Navy.
What he had on was mostly his wife’s fault, an expensive suit bought on Savile Row. It was English cut, neither conservative nor on the leading edge of contemporary fashion. He had a number of suits like this arranged neatly in his closet by colors, which he wore with white shirts and striped ties. His only jewelry was a wedding band and a university ring, plus an expensive but accurate digital watch on a more expensive gold band. Ryan was not a man who placed a great deal of value in appearances. Indeed, his job was to see through these in the search for hard truth.
He was physically unremarkable, an inch over six feet, and his average build suffered a little at the waist from a lack of exercise enforced by the miserable English weather. His blue eyes had a deceptively vacant look; he was often lost in thought, his face on autopilot as his mind puzzled through data or research material for his current book. The only people Ryan needed to impress were those who knew him; he cared little for the rest. He had no ambition to celebrity. His life, he judged, was already as complicated as it needed to be — quite a bit more complicated than most would guess. It included a wife he loved and two children he doted on, a job that tested his intellect, and sufficient financial independence to choose his own path. The path Jack Ryan had chosen was in the CIA. The agency’s official motto was, The truth shall make you free. The trick, he told himself at least once a day, was finding that truth, and while he doubted that he would ever reach this sublime state of grace, he took quiet pride in his ability to pick at it, one small fragment at a time.
The office of the deputy director for intelligence occupied a whole corner of the top floor, overlooking the tree-covered Potomac Valley. Ryan had one more security check to pass.
“Good morning, Dr. Ryan.”
“Hi, Nancy.” Ryan smiled at her. Nancy Cummings had held her secretarial job for twenty years, had served eight DDIs, and if the truth were known she probably had as good a feel for the intelligence business as the political appointees in the adjacent office. It was the same as with any large business — the bosses came and went, but the good executive secretaries lasted forever.
“How’s the family, Doctor? Looking forward to Christmas?”
“You bet — except my Sally’s a little worried. She’s not sure Santa knows that we’ve moved, and she’s afraid he won’t make it to England for her. He will,” Ryan confided.
“It’s so nice when they’re that little.” She pressed a hidden button. “You can go right in, Dr. Ryan.”
“Thanks, Nancy.” Ryan twisted the electronically protected knob and walked into the DDI’s office.
Vice Admiral James Greer was reclining in his high-backed judge’s chair reading through a folder. His oversized mahogany desk was covered with neat piles of folders whose edges were bordered with red tape and whose covers bore various code words.
“Hiya, Jack!” he called across the room. “Coffee?”
“Yes, thank you, sir.”
James Greer was sixty-six, a naval officer past retirement age who kept working through brute competence, much as Hyman Rickover had, though Greer was a far easier man to work for. He was a “mustang,” a man who had entered the naval service as an enlisted man, earned his way into the Naval Academy, and spent forty years working his way to a three-star flag, first commanding submarines, then as a full-time intelligence specialist. Greer was a demanding boss, but one who took care of those who pleased him. Ryan was one of these.
Somewhat to Nancy’s chagrin, Greer liked to make his own coffee with a West Bend drip machine on the credenza behind his desk, where he could just turn around to reach it. Ryan poured himself a cup — actually a navy-style handleless mug. It was traditional navy coffee, brewed strong, with a pinch of salt.
“You hungry, Jack?” Greer pulled a pastry box from a desk drawer. “I got some sticky buns here.”
“Why, thanks, sir. I didn’t eat much on the plane.” Ryan took one, along with a paper napkin.
“Still don’t like to fly?” Greer was amused.
Ryan sat down in the chair opposite his boss. “I suppose I ought to be getting used to it. I like the Concorde better than the wide-bodies. You only have to be terrified half as long.”
“How’s the family?”
“Fine, thank you, sir. Sally’s in first grade — loves it. And little Jack is toddling around the house. These buns are pretty good.”
“New bakery just opened up a few blocks from my place. I pass it on the way in every morning.” The admiral sat upright in his chair. “So, what brings you over today?”
“Photographs of the new Soviet missile boat,
“Oh, and what do our British cousins want in return?” Greer asked suspiciously.
“They want a peek at Barry Somers’ new enhancement gadgets. Not the machines themselves — at first — just the finished product. I think it’s a fair bargain, sir.” Ryan knew the CIA didn’t have any shots of the new sub. The operations directorate did not have a man at the building yard at Severodvinsk or a reliable man at the Polyarnyy submarine base. Worse, the rows of “boat barns” built to shelter the missile submarines, modeled on World War II German submarine pens, made satellite photography impossible. “We have ten frames, low obliques, five each bow and stern, and one from each perspective is undeveloped so that Somers can work on them fresh. We are not committed, sir, but I told Sir Basil that you’d think it over.”
The admiral grunted. Sir Basil Charleston, chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service, was a master of the quid pro quo, occasionally offering to share sources with his wealthier cousins and a month later asking for something in return. The intelligence game was often like a primitive marketplace. “To use the new system, Jack, we need the camera used to take the shots.”
“I know.” Ryan pulled the camera from his coat pocket. “It’s a modified Kodak disk camera. Sir Basil says it’s
