“Think like a politician This could easily be a sign of some sort of power-play within their government. Our involvement would then be merely incidental.”
Golovko thought about that. “We have heard that there is — that Ryan, their deputy director, is unloved by Fowler…”
“Ryan, ah, yes, I remember him. A worthy adversary, Sergey Nikolay'ch?”
“He is that”
Definitely something a politician would remember, Golovko thought.
“Why are they unhappy with him?” Narmonov asked.
“Reportedly a clash of personalities.”
“That I can believe. Fowler and his vanity.” Narmonov held up his hands. “There you have it. Perhaps I might have made a good intelligence analyst?”
“The finest,” Golovko agreed. He had to agree, of course. Moreover, his President had said something that his own people had not examined fully. He left the august presence of his chief of state with a troubled expression. The defection of RGB Chairman Gerasimov a few years ago — an event that Ryan had himself engineered, if Golovko read the signs correctly — had inevitably crippled KGB's overseas operations. Six complete networks in America had collapsed, along with eight more in Western Europe. Replacement networks were only now beginning to take their place. That left major holes in KGB's ability to penetrate American government operations. The only good news was that they were starting to read a noteworthy fraction of American diplomatic and military communications — as much as four or five percent in a good month. But code-breaking was no substitute for penetration agents. There was something very strange going on here. Golovko didn't know what it was. Perhaps his President was right. Perhaps this was merely the ripples from an internal power-play. But it could also have been something else. The fact that Golovko didn't know what it was did not help matters.
“Just made it back in time,” Clark said. “Did they sweep the wheels today?”
“If it's Wednesday…” Jack replied. Every week, his official car was examined for possible electronic bugs.
“Can we talk about it, then?”
“Yes.”
“Chavez was right. It's easy, just a matter of dropping a nice little mordida on the right guy. The regular maintenance man will be taken sick that day, the two of us get tapped to service the 747. I get to play maid, scrub the sinks and the crappers, replenish the bar, the whole thing. You'll have the official evaluation on your desk tomorrow, but the short version is, yeah, we can do it, and the likelihood of discovery is minimal.”
“You know the downside?”
“Oh, yeah. Major International Incident. I get early retirement. That's okay, Jack. I can retire whenever I want. It would be a shame for Ding, though. That kid is showing real promise.”
“And if you're discovered?”
“I say in my best Spanish that some Japanese reporter asked me to do it, and paid me a lot of pesos to do it. That's the hook, Jack. They won't make a big deal about it if they think it's one of their own. Looks too bad, loss of face and all that.”
“John, you're a tricky, underhanded son of a bitch.”
“Just want to serve my country, sir.” Clark started laughing. A few minutes later, he took the turn. “Hope we're not too late.”
“It was a long one at the office.”
“I saw that thing in the paper. What are we doing about it?”
“The White House will be talking to Holtzman, telling him to lay off.”
“Somebody dipping his pen in the company ink-well?”
“Not that we know about, same with the FBI.”
“Camouflage for the real story, eh?”
“Looks that way.”
“What bullshit,” Clark observed as he pulled into the parking place.
It turned out that Carol was in her home, cleaning up after dinner. The Zimmer family Christmas tree was up. Clark began ferrying the presents in. Jack had picked some of them up in England; Clark and Nancy Cummings had helped to wrap them — Ryan was hopeless at wrapping presents. Unfortunately, they'd walked into the house just in time to hear crying.
“No problem, Dr. Ryan,” one of the kids told him in the kitchen, “Jackie had a little accident. Mom's in the bathroom.”
“Okay.” Ryan walked that way, careful to announce his presence.
“Okay, okay, come in,” Carol said.
Jack saw Carol leaning over the bathtub. Jacqueline was crying in the piteous monotone of a child who knows that she has misbehaved. There was a pile of kid's clothes on the tile floor, and the air positively reeked of crushed flowers. “What happened?”
“Jackie think my perfume is same as her toy perfume, pour whole bottle.” Carol looked up from scrubbing.
Ryan lifted the little girl's shirt. “You're not kidding.”
“Whole bottle — expensive! Bad girl!”
Jacqueline's crying increased in pitch. She'd probably had her backside smacked already. Ryan was just as happy not to have seen that. He disciplined his own kids as necessary, but didn't like to see other people smack theirs. That was one of several weak spots in his character. Even after Carol lifted her youngest out of the tub, the smell had not gone away.
“Wow, it is pretty strong, isn't it?” Jack picked Jackie up, which didn't mute her crying very much.
“Eighty dollar!” Carol said, but her anger was now gone. She had ample experience with small children, and knew that they were expected to do mischief. Jack carried the little one out to the living room. Her attitude changed when she saw the stack of presents.
“You too nice,” her mother noted.
“Hey, I just happened to be doing some shopping, okay?”
“You no come here Christmas, you have you own family.”
“I know, Carol, but I can't let Christmas go by without stopping in.” Clark came in with a final pile. These were his, Jack saw. Good man, Clark.
“We have nothing for you,” Carol Zimmer said.
“Sure you do. Jackie gave me a good hug.”
“What about me?” John asked.
Jack handed Jackie over. It was funny. Quite a few men were wary of John Clark on the basis of looks alone, but the Zimmer kids thought of him as a big teddy bear. A few minutes later, they drove away.
“Nice of you to do that, John,” Ryan said as they drove off.
“No big deal. Hey, man, you know how much fun it was to shop for little kids? Who the hell wants to buy his kid a Bali bra — that's what Maggie wanted, put it on her list — a sexy bra, for Christ's sake. How the hell can a father walk into a department store and buy something like that for his own daughter?”
“They get a little big for Barbie dolls.”
“More's the pity, Doc, more's the pity.”
Jack turned and chuckled. “That bra—”
“Yeah, Jack, if I ever find out, he's dog meat.”
Ryan had to laugh at that, but he knew he could afford to laugh. His little girl wasn't dating yet. That would be hard, watching her leave with someone else, beyond his protective reach. Harder still for a man like John Clark.
“Regular time tomorrow?”
“Yep.”
“See ya' then, Doc.”
Ryan walked into his house at 8:55. His dinner was in its usual place. He poured his usual glass of wine, took a sip, then removed his coat and hung it in the closet before walking upstairs to change clothes. He caught Cathy
