Next he printed up his list of missing women. He'd want to examine all the paper files, including the photos, with the two FBI agents. Both Pretloe and Bannister had brown hair of roughly the same length, and maybe that was enough of a commonality for a serial killer-but, no, Bannister was still alive, or so the e-mail letter suggested… unless the serial killer was the kind of sick person who wanted to taunt the families of his victims. D'Allessandro had never come across one of those before, but serial killers were seriously sick bastards, and you could never really predict the things they might do for personal amusement. If one of those fucks were loose in New York, then it wasn't just the FBI who'd want his ass. Good thing the state of New York finally had a death-penalty statute…
'Yes, I've seen him,' Popov told his boss.
'Really?' John Brightling asked. 'How close?'
'About as close as we are, sir,' the Russian replied. 'It was not intentional, but it happened. He's a large, powerful man. His wife is a nurse at the local community hospital, and his daughter is a medical doctor, married to one of the other team members, working at the same hospital. She is Dr. Patricia Chavez. Her husband is Domingo Chavez, also a CIA field officer, now assigned to this Rainbow group, probably as a commando leader. Both Clark and Chavez are CIA field officers. Clark was involved in the rescue of the former KGB chairman's wife and daughter from Soviet territory some years ago-you'll recall the story made the press recently. Well, Clark was the officer who got them out. He was also involved in the conflict with Japan, and the death of Mahmoud Hagi Daryaei in Iran. He and Chavez are highly experienced and very capable intelligence officers. It would be very dangerous to underestimate either of them,' Popov concluded.
'Okay, what does that tell us?'
'It tells us that Rainbow is what it appears to be, a multinational counterterror group whose activities spread all across Europe. Spain is a NATO member, but Austria and Switzerland are not, you will recall. Could they expand their operations to other countries? Certainly, yes. They are a very serious threat to any terrorist operation. It is not,' Popov went on, 'an organization I would like to have in the field against me. Their expertise in actual 'combat' operations we have seen on television. Behind that will be excellent technical and intelligence support as well. The one cannot exist without the other.'
'Okay. So we know about them. Is it possible that they know about us?' Dr. Brightling asked.
'Possible, but unlikely,' Popov thought. 'If that were the case, then you would have agents of your FBI in here to arrest you - and me - for criminal conspiracy. I am not being tracked or followed - well, I do not think that I am. I know what to look for, and I have seen nothing of the sort, but, I must also admit, it is possible that a very careful and expert effort could probably follow me without my noticing it. That is difficult - I have been trained in counter surveillance - but theoretically possible.'
That shook his employer somewhat, Popov saw. He'd just made an admission that he was not perfect. His former supervisors in KGB would have known it beforehand and accepted it as a normal risk of the intelligence trade… but those people never had to worry about being arrested and losing their billions of dollars of personal worth.
'What are the risks?'
'If you mean what methods can be used against you?…' He got a nod. 'That means that your telephones could be tapped, and-'
'My phones are encrypted. The system is supposed to be break-proof. My consultants on that tell me-'
Popov cut him off with a raised hand. 'Sir, do you really think that your government allows the manufacture of encryption systems that it cannot itself break?' he asked, as though explaining something to a child. 'The National Security Agency at Fort Meade has some of the brightest mathematicians in the world, and the world's most powerful computers, and if you ever wonder how hard they work, you need only look at the parking lots.'
'Huh? What do you mean?'
'If the parking lots are filled at seven in the evening, that means they are hard at work on something. Everyone has a car in your country, and parking lots are generally too large to be enclosed and protected from even casual view. It's an easy way for an intelligence officer to see how active one of your government agencies is.' And if you were really interested, you found out a few names and addresses, so as to know the car types and tag numbers. The KGB had tracked the head of NSA's 'Z' group - the people tasked both to crack and to create encryption systems and codes - that way for over a decade, and the reborn RVS was doubtless doing the same. Popov shook his head. 'No, I would not trust a commercially available encoding system. I have my doubts about the systems used by the Russian government. Your people are very clever at cracking cipher systems. They've been so for over sixty years, well before World War Two, and they are allied with the British, who also have a tradition of excellence in that area of expertise. Has no one told you this?' Popov asked in surprise.
'Well… no, I've been told that this system I have here could not be broken because it is a 128-bit-'
'Ah, yes, the STU-3 standard. That system has been around in your government for about twenty years. Your people have changed to STU-4. Do you think they made that change merely because they wanted to spend money, Dr. Brightling? Or might there have been another reason? When I was in the field for KGB, I only used one-time pads. That is an encryption system only used one time, composed of random transpositions. It cannot be broken, but it is tedious to use. To send a single message that way could take hours. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to use for verbal communications. Your government has a system called TAPDANCE, which is similar in concept, but we never managed to copy it.'
'So, you mean people could be listening in on every phone call I make?'
Popov nodded. 'Of course. Why do you suppose all of our substantive conversations have been made face-to- face?' Now he was really shaken, Dmitriy Arkadeyevich saw. The genius was a babe-in-the-woods. 'Now, perhaps, is the time for you to tell me why I have undertaken these missions for you?'
'Yes, Minister… excellent… thank you,' Bob Aukland said into his cellular phone. He thumbed the END button and put the phone back in his pocket, then turned to Bill Henriksen. 'Good news. We'll have that Rainbow group down to consult on our security as well.'
'Oh?' Bill observed. 'Well, I guess it can't hurt all that much.'
'Nose a little out of joint?' the cop asked.
'Not really,' Henriksen lied. 'I probably know a few of them, and they know me.'
'And your fee will remain the same, Bill,' the Aussie said. They headed off to his car, and from there they'd drive to a pub for a few pints before he drove the American off to the airport.
Oh, shit, the American thought. Once more the Law of Unintended Consequences had risen up to bite him in the ass. His mind went briefly into overdrive, but then persuaded itself that it didn't really matter all that much as long as he did his job right. It might even help, he told himself, almost believing it.
He couldn't tell Popov, Brightling knew. He trusted him in many ways - hell, what Popov knew could put him in federal prison, even on death row - but to tell him what this was really all about? No, he couldn't risk that. He didn't know Popov's views on the Environment and Nature. So he couldn't predict the Russian's reaction to the project. Popov was dangerous to him in many ways, like a falcon trained to the fist, but still a free agent, willing to kill a quail or a rabbit, perhaps, but never entirely his, always able to fly off and reclaim his previous free life… and if he was free to do that, he was also free to give information to others. Not for the first time, Brightling thought about having Bill Henriksen take care of this potential problem. He'd know how. Surely, the former FBI agent knew how to investigate a murder, and thus how to befuddle the investigators as well, and this little problem would go away.
Assets, Brightling thought next. What other things could he do to make his position and his Project more secure? If this Rainbow was a problem, would it be possible to strike at it directly? To destroy it at best, or at worst, distract it, force it to focus in another direction?
'I have to think that one through first, Dmitriy,' he said finally.
Popov nodded soberly, wondering what thoughts had gone through his employer's mind in the fifteen seconds he'd taken to consider the question. Now it was his turn to be concerned. He'd just informed John Brightling of the operational dangers involved in using him, Popov, to set up the terrorist incidents, and especially of the flaws in his communications security. The latter, especially, had frightened the man. Perhaps he ought to have warned him earlier, but somehow the subject had never arisen, and Dmitriy Arkadeyevich now realized that it had been a serious error on his part. Well, perhaps not that great an error. Operational security was not all that bad. Only two people knew what was happening… well, probably that Henriksen fellow as well. But Bill Henriksen was former FBI, and if he were an informer, then they'd all be in jail now. The FBI would have all the evidence it needed for a major
