The Bear and the Dragon

“Damn,” Ryan breathed with his first puff. He’d be getting a call from Moscow sure as hell-wouldn’t he? That depended on how quickly they digested the information, or maybe Sergey would wait for the morning to show it to President Grushavoy. Would he? In Washington, something that hot would be graded CRITIC and shoved under the President’s nose inside twenty minutes, but different countries had different rules, and he didn’t know what the Russians did. For damned sure he’d be hearing from one of them before he stepped off the plane at Warsaw. But for now … He stubbed the smoke out, reached inside his desk for the breath spray, and zapped his mouth with the acidic stuff before leaving the office and heading outside-the West Wing and the White House proper are not connected by an indoor corridor, due to some architectural oversight. In any case, inside six minutes he was on the residential level, watching the ushers organize his bags. Cathy was there, trying to supervise, under the eyes of the Secret Service as well, who acted as though they worried about having a bomb slipped in. But paranoia was their job. Ryan walked over to his wife. “You need to talk to Andrea.”

“What for?”

“Stomach trouble, she says.”

“Uh-oh.” Cathy had suffered from queasiness with Sally, but that was ages ago, and it hadn’t been severe. “Not really much you can do about it, you know.”

“So much for medical progress,” Jack commented. “She probably could use some girl-girl support anyway.”

Cathy smiled. “Oh, sure, womanly solidarity. So, you’re going to bond with Pat?”

Jack grinned back at her. “Yeah, maybe he’ll teach me to shoot a pistol better.”

“Super,” SURGEON observed dryly.

“Which dress for the big dinner?” POTUS asked FLOTUS.

“The light-blue one.”

“Slinky,” Jack said, touching her arm.

The kids showed up then, shepherded up to the bedroom level by their various detail leaders, except for Kyle, who was carried by one of his lionesses. Leaving the kids was never particularly easy, though all concerned were somewhat accustomed to it. The usual kisses and hugs took place, and then Jack took his wife’s hand and led her to the elevator.

It let them off at the ground level, with a straight walk out to the helicopter pad. The VH-3 was there, with Colonel Malloy at the controls. The Marines saluted, as they always did. The President and First Lady climbed inside and buckled into the comfortable seats, under the watchful eyes of a Marine sergeant, who then went forward to report to the pilot in the right-front seat.

Cathy enjoyed helicopter flight more than her husband did, since she flew in one twice a day. Jack was no longer afraid of it, but he did prefer driving a car, which he hadn’t been allowed to do in months. The Sikorsky lifted up gently, pivoted in the air, and headed off to Andrews. The flight took about ten minutes. The helicopter alighted close to the VC-25A, the Air Force’s version of the Boeing 747; it was just a few seconds to the stairs, with the usual TV cameras to mark the event.

“Turn and wave, honey,” Jack told Cathy at the top of the steps. “We might make the evening news.”

“Again?” Cathy grumped. Then she waved and smiled, not at people, but at cameras. With this task completed, they went inside the aircraft and forward to the presidential compartment. There they buckled in, and were observed to do so by an Air Force NCO, who then told the pilot it was okay to spool up the engines and taxi to the end of Runway Zero-one-right. Everything after that was ordinary, including the speech from the pilot, followed by the usual, stately takeoff roll of the big Boeing, and the climb out to thirty-eight thousand feet. Aft, Ryan was sure, everyone was comfortable, because the worst seat on this aircraft was as good as the best first-class seat on any airline in the world. On the whole this seemed a serious waste of the taxpayers’ money, but to the best of his knowledge no taxpayer had ever complained very loudly.

The expected happened off the coast of Maine.

“Mr. President?” a female voice asked.

“Yeah, Sarge?”

“Call for you, sir, on the STU. Where do you want to take it?”

Ryan stood. “Topside.”

The sergeant nodded and waved. “This way, sir.”

“Who is it?”

“The DCI.”

Ryan figured that made sense. “Let’s get Secretary Adler in on this, too.”

“Yes, sir,” she said as he started up the spiral stairs.

Upstairs, Ryan settled into a working-type seat vacated for him by an Air Force NCO who handed him the proper phone. “Ed?”

“Yeah, Jack. Sergey called.”

“Saying what?”

“He thinks it’s a good idea you coming to Poland. He requests a high-level meeting, on the sly if possible.”

Adler took the chair next to Ryan and caught the comment.

“Scott, feel like a hop to Moscow?”

“Can we do it quietly?” SecState asked.

“Probably.”

“Then, yes. Ed, did you field the NATO suggestion?”

“Not my turf to try that, Scott,” the Director of Central Intelligence replied.

“Fair enough. Think they’ll spring for it?”

“Three-to-one, yes.”

“I’ll agree with that,” Ryan concurred. “Golovko will like it, too.”

“Yeah, he will, once he gets over the shock,” Adler observed, with irony in his voice.

“Okay, Ed, tell Sergey that we are amenable to a covert meeting. SecState flying into Moscow for consultations. Let us know what develops.”

“Will do.”

“Okay, out.” Ryan set the handset down and turned to Adler. “Well?”

“Well, if they spring for it, China will have something to think about.” This statement was delivered with a dollop of hope.

The problem, Ryan thought once again as he stood, is that Klingons don’t think quite the same way we do.

The bugs had them all smirking. Suvorov/Koniev had picked up another expensive hooker that night, and her acting abilities had played out in the proper noises at the proper moments. Or maybe he was really that good in bed, Provalov wondered aloud, to the general skepticism of the others in the surveillance van. No, the others thought, this girl was too much of a professional to allow herself to get into it that much. They all thought that was rather sad, lovely as she was to look at. But they knew something their subject didn’t know. This girl had been a “dangle,” pre-briefed to meet Suvorov/Koniev.

Finally the noise subsided, and they heard the distinctive snap of an American Zippo lighter, and the usual postsex silence of a sated man and a (simulatedly) satisfied woman.

“So, what sort of work do you do, Vanya?” the female voice asked, showing the expected professional interest of an expensive hooker in a wealthy man she might wish to entertain again.

“Business” was the answer.

“What sort?” Again, just the right amount of interest. The good news, Provalov thought, was that she didn’t need coaching. The Sparrow School must have been fairly easy to operate, he realized. Women did this sort of thing from instinct.

“I take care of special needs for special people,” the enemy spy answered. His revelation was followed by a feminine laugh.

“I do that, too, Vanya.”

“There are foreigners who need special services which I was trained to handle under the old regime.”