Jack Ryan 3 - Red Rabbit (57 page)

“Funny, Simon.” Ryan paused. “What is this, some sort of initiation ceremony for me?”

“No, we don't do that sort of thing. The operational concept comes from your people, and the request for cooperation comes from Judge Moore himself.”

“Fuck!” Jack observed. “And they dump me in the shitter, eh?”

“Jack, the objective here is not merely to get the Rabbit out, but to do so in such a way as to make Ivan believe he's dead, not defected, along with his wife and daughter.”

Actually, the part that bothered Ryan was the corpses. What could be more distasteful than that? And he doesn't even know the nasty part yet, Simon Harding thought, glad that he'd edited that part out.

ZAITZEV WALKED INTO the administrative office on The Centre's second floor. He showed his ID to the girl and waited a few minutes before going into the supervisor's office.

“Yes?” the bureaucrat said, only half looking up.

“I wish to take my vacation days. I want to take my wife to Budapest. There's a conductor there she wants to hear—and I wish to travel there by train instead of by air.”

“When?”

“In the next few days. As soon as possible, in fact.”

“I see.” The KGB's travel office did many things, most of them totally mundane. The travel agent—what else could Zaitzev call him?—still didn't look up. “I must check the availability of space on the train.”

“I want to travel International Class, compartments, beds for three—I have a child, you see.”

“That may not be easy,” the bureaucrat noted.

“Comrade, if there are any difficulties, please contact Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy,” he said mildly.

That name caused him to look up, Zaitzev saw. The only question was whether or not he'd make the call. The average desk-sitter did not go out of his way to become known to a senior official, and, like most people in The Centre, he had a healthy fear of those on the top floor. On the one hand, he might want to see if someone were taking the colonel's name in vain. On the other hand, calling his attention to that senior officer as an officious little worm in Administration would do him little good. He looked at Zaitzev, wondering if he had authorization to invoke Rozhdestvenskiy's name and authority.

“I will see what I can do, Comrade Captain,” he promised.

“When can I call you?”

“Later today.”

“Thank you, comrade.” Zaitzev walked out and down the corridor to the elevators. So that was done, thanks to his temporary patron on the top floor. To make sure everything was all right, he had his blue striped tie folded and in his coat pocket. Back at his desk, he went back to memorizing the content of his routine message traffic. A pity, he thought, that he could not copy out of the one-time-pad books, but that was not practical, and memorizing them was a sheer impossibility even for his trained memory.

 UNDERWAY
WAS THE single word on the message from Langley, Foley saw. So they were going forward. That was good. Headquarters was hot to trot on BEATRIX, and that was probably because the Rabbit had warned them about general communications security, the one thing sure to cause a general panic on the Seventh Floor at headquarters. But could it possibly be true? No. Mike Russell didn't think so, and, as he'd already observed, were it true, some of his agents would have been swept up like confetti after a parade, and that hadn't happened… unless KGB was really being clever and had doubled his agents, operating them under Soviet control, and he'd be able to determine that, wouldn't he? Well, probably, Foley judged. Certainly they could not all be double agents. Some things were just impossible to hide, unless KGB's Second Chief Directorate had the cleverest operation in the history of espionage, and while that was theoretically possible, it was the tallest of tall orders, and something that they'd probably avoid since the quality of some information going out would have to be good—too good to let go voluntarily…

But he couldn't entirely discount that possibility. For sure, NSA would be taking steps right now to examine their KH-7 and other cipher machines, but Fort Meade had a very active Red Team whose only job was to crack their own systems, and while Russian mathematicians were pretty smart—always had been—they weren't aliens from another planet… unless they had an agent of their own deep inside Fort Meade, and that was a worry that everyone had. How much would KGB pay for that sort of information? Millions, perhaps. They didn't have all that much cash to pay their people and, in addition to being niggardly, KGB was singularly disloyal to its people, regarding them all as expendable assets. Oh, sure, they got Kim Philby out and safely ensconced in Moscow. The Western spy agencies knew where he lived and had even photographed the turncoat bastard. They even knew how much he drank—a lot, even by Russian standards. But when the Russians lost an agent to arrest, did they ever try to bargain for him, do a trade? No, not since CIA had bargained for Francis Gary Powers, the unlucky U-2 pilot whom they'd shot down in 1961 and then traded for Rudolf Abel, but Abel had been one of their own officers, a colonel and a pretty good one, operating in New York. That had to be a deterrent to any American national in the spook business who had illusions of getting rich off Mother Russia's bank account. And traitors did hard time in the federal prison system, which had to be one hell of a deterrent.

But traitors were real, however misguided they were. At least the age of the ideological spy was largely ended. Those had been the most productive and the most dedicated, back when people really had believed that communism was the leading wave of human evolution, but even Russians no longer believed in Marxism-Leninism, except for Suslov—who was just about dead—and his successor-to-be, Alexandrov. So, no, KGB agents in the West were almost entirely mercenary bastards. Not the freedom fighters Ed Foley ran on the streets of Moscow, the COS told himself. That was an illusion all CIA officers held dearly, even his wife.

And the Rabbit? He was mad about something. A murder, he said, a proposed killing. Something that offended the sense of an honorable and decent man. So, yes, the Rabbit was honorable in his motivations, and therefore worthy of CIA's attention and solicitude.

 Jesus,
Ed Foley thought, the illusions you have to have to carry on this stupid fucking business. You had to be psychiatrist, loving mother, stern father, close friend, and father confessor to the idealistic, confused, angry, or just plain greedy individuals who chose to betray their country. Some of them drank too much; some of them were so enraged that they endangered themselves by taking grotesque risks. Some were just plain mad, demented, clinically disturbed. Some became sexual deviants—hell, some started off that way and just got worse. But Ed Foley had to be their social worker, which was such an odd job description for someone who thought of himself as a warrior against the Big Ugly Bear. Well, he told himself, one thing at a time. He'd knowingly chosen a profession with barely adequate pay, virtually no credit ever to be awarded, and no recognition for the dangers, physical and psychological, that attended it, serving his country in a way that would never be appreciated by the millions of citizens he helped to protect, despised by the news media—whom he in turn despised—and never being able to defend himself with the truth of what he did. What a hell of a life.

But it did have its satisfactions, like getting the Rabbit the hell out of Dodge City.

If BEATRIX worked.

Foley told himself that now, once more, he knew what it was like to pitch in the World Series.

ISTVAN KOVACS LIVED a few blocks from the Hungarian parliamentary palace, an ornate building reminiscent of the Palace of Westminster, on the third floor of a turn-of-the-century tenement, whose four toilets were on the first floor of a singularly dreary courtyard. Hudson took the local metro over to the government palace and walked the rest of the way, making sure that he didn't have a tail. He'd called ahead—remarkably, the city's phone lines were secure, uncontrolled mainly because of the inefficiency of the local phone systems.

Kovacs was so typically Hungarian as to deserve a photo in the non existent tourist brochures: five-eight, swarthy, a mainly circular face with brown eyes and black hair. But he dressed rather better than the average citizen because of his profession. Kovacs was a smuggler. It was almost an honored livelihood in this country, since he traded across the border to a putatively Marxist country to the south, Yugoslavia, whose borders were open enough that a clever man could purchase Western goods there and sell them in Hungary and the rest of Eastern Europe. The border controls on Yugoslavia were fairly loose, especially for those who had an understanding with the border guards. Kovacs was one such person.

“Hello, Istvan,” Andy Hudson said, with a smile. “Istvan” was the local version of Steven, and “Kovacs” the local version of Smith, for its ubiquity.

“Andy, good day to you,” Kovacs replied in greeting. He opened a bottle of Tokaji, the local tawny wine made of grapes with the noble rot, which afflicted them every few years. Hudson had come to enjoy it as the local variant of sherry, with a different taste but an identical purpose.

“Thank you, Istvan.” Hudson took a sip. This was good stuff, with six baskets of nobly rotten grapes on the label, indicating the very best. “So, how is business?”

“Excellent. Our VCRs are popular with the Yugoslavs, and the tapes they sell me are popular with everyone. Oh, to have such a prick as those actors do!” He laughed.

“The women aren't bad, either,” Hudson noted. He'd seen his share of such tapes.

“How can a kurva be so beautiful?”

“The Americans pay their whores more than we do in Europe, I suppose. But, Istvan, they have no heart, those women.” Hudson had never paid for it in his life—at least not up front.

“It's not their hearts that I want.” Kovacs had himself another hearty laugh. He'd been hitting the Tokaji already this day, so he wasn't making a run tonight. Well, nobody worked all the time.

“I may have a task for you.”

“Bringing what in?”

“Nothing. Bringing something out,” Hudson clarified.

“That is simple. What trouble the határ rség give us is when we come in, and then not much.” He held up his right hand, rubbing thumb and forefinger together in the universal gesture for what the border guards wanted—money or something negotiable.

“Well, this package might be bulky,” Hudson warned.

“How bulky? A tank you want to take out?” The Hungarian army had just taken delivery of new Russian T-72s, and that had made the TV, in an attempt to buck up the fighting spirit of the troops. A waste of time, Hudson thought. “That might be hard, but it can be done, for a price.” But the Poles had already given one of those to SIS, a fact not widely known.

“No, Istvan, smaller than that. About my size, but three packages.”

“Three people?” Kovacs asked, getting a dull stare in return. He got the message. “Bah, a simple task— baszd meg? ” he concluded: Fuck it.

“I thought I could count on you, Istvan,” Hudson said with a smile. “How much?”

“For three people into Yugoslavia…” Kovacs pondered that for a moment. “Oh. Five thousand d-mark.”

 “Ez kurva drága!”
Hudson objected, or ostensibly so. It was cheap at the price, hardly a thousand quid. “Very well, you thief! I'll pay it because you are my friend—but just this one time.” He finished his drink. “You know, I could just fly the packages out,” Hudson suggested.

“But the airport is the one place where the határ rség are alert,” Kovacs pointed out. “The poor bastards are always in the light, with their senior officers about. No chance for them to be open to… negotiations.”

“I suppose that is so,” Hudson agreed. “Very well. I will call you to keep track of your schedule.”

“That is fine. You know where to find me.”

Hudson stood. “Thanks for the drink, my friend.”

“It lubricates the business,” Kovacs said, as he opened the door for his guest. Five thousand West German marks would cover a lot of obligations and buy him a lot of goods to resell in Budapest for a handsome profit.

ALL ABOARD

ZAITZEV CALLED THE TRAVEL OFFICE at 1530. He hoped that this didn't show an unusual eagerness, but everyone was interested in their vacation arrangements, he figured.

“Comrade Major, you are on the train day after tomorrow. It leaves Kiev Station at thirteen hours thirty and arrives in Budapest two days later at fourteen hours exactly. You and your family are booked into Carriage nine-oh-six in compartments A and B. You are also booked into Budapest's Hotel Astoria, Room three-oh-seven, for eleven days. The hotel is directly across the street from the Soviet Culture and Friendship House, which is, of course, a KGB operation with a liaison office, should you need any local assistance.”

“Excellent. Thank you very much for your help.” Zaitzev thought for a moment. “Is there anything I might purchase for you in Budapest?”

“Why, thank you, comrade.” His voice just lit up. “Yes, perhaps some pantyhose for my wife,” the functionary said in a furtive voice.

“What size?”

“My wife is a real Russian,” he replied, meaning decidedly not anorexic.

“Very good. I will find something—or my wife will assist me.”

“Excellent. Have a grand trip.”

“Yes, I shall,” Zaitzev promised him. With that settled, Oleg Ivan'ch left his desk and went to his watch supervisor to announce his plans for the coming two weeks.

“Isn't there some upstairs project that only you are cleared for?” the lieutenant colonel asked.

“Yes, but I asked Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy, and he said not to be concerned about it. Feel free to call him to confirm that, comrade,” Zaitzev told him.

And he did, in Zaitzev's presence. The brief call ended with a “thank you, comrade,” and then he looked up at his subordinate. “Very well, Oleg Ivan'ch, you are relieved of your duties beginning this evening. Say, while you are in Budapest…”

“Certainly, Andrey Vasili'yevich. You may pay me for them when I get back.” Andrey was a decent boss, who never screamed, and helped his people when asked. A pity he worked for an agency that murdered innocent people.