Was that all this was? Zaitzev asked himself. Were they killing the Pope just because it was more convenient?
Oleg Ivan'ch poured himself another portion of vodka from the nearby bottle and took another swallow.
There were many inconveniences in his life. It was too long a walk from his desk to the water cooler. There were people at work whom he didn't like-Stefan Yevgeniyevich Ivanov, for example, a more senior major in communications. How he'd managed to get promoted four years ago was a mystery to everyone in the section. He was disregarded by the more senior people as a drone who was unable to do any useful work. Zaitzev supposed every business had one such person, an embarrassment to the office, but not easily removed because… because he was just there and that was all there was to it. Were Ivanov out of the way, Oleg could be promoted-if not in rank, then in status to chief of the section. Every single breath Ivanov took was an inconvenience to Oleg Ivan'ch, but that didn't give him the right to kill the more senior communicator, did it?
No, he'd be arrested and prosecuted, and perhaps even executed for murder. Because it was forbidden by law. Because it was wrong. The law, the Party, and his own conscience told him that.
But Andropov wanted to kill Father Karol, and his conscience didn't say nay. Would some other conscience do so? Another swallow of vodka. Another snort. A conscience, on the Politburo?
Even in the KGB, there were no ruminations. No debates. No open discussion. Just action messages and notices of completion or failure. Evaluations of foreigners, of course, discussions of the thinking of foreigners, real agents, or mere agents of influence-called "useful fools" in the KGB lexicon. Never had a field officer written back about an order and said, "No, comrade, we ought not to do that because it would be morally wrong." Goderenko in Rome had come closest, posing the observation that killing Karol might have adverse consequences on operations. Did that mean that Ruslan Borissovich had a troubled conscience as well? No. Goderenko had three sons-one in the Soviet navy; another, he'd heard, at the KGB's own academy out on the Ring Road; and the third in Moscow State University. If Ruslan Borissovich had any difficulties with the KGB, any action could mean, if not death, then at least serious embarrassment for his children, and few men took action like that.
So, was his the only conscience in KGB? Zaitzev took a swallow to ponder that one. Probably not. There were thousands of men in The Centre, and thousands more elsewhere, and just the laws of statistics made it likely that there were plenty of "good" men (however one defined that), but how did one identify them? It was certain death-or lengthy imprisonment-to try to go looking for them. That was the baseline problem he had. There was no one in whom he could confide his doubts. No one with whom he could discuss his worries-not a doctor, not a priest… not even his wife, Irina…
No, he had only his vodka bottle, and though it helped him think, after a fashion, it wasn't much of a companion. Russian men were not averse to shedding tears, but they wouldn't have helped either. Irina might ask a question, and he wouldn't be able to answer to anyone's satisfaction. All he had was sleep. It would not help, he was sure, and in this he was right.
Another hour and two more slugs of the vodka at least drugged him into sleepiness. His wife was dozing in front of the TV-the Red Amy had won the Battle of Kursk, again, and the movie ended at the beginning of a long march that would lead to the Reichstag in Berlin, full of hope and enthusiasm for the bloody task. Zaitzev chuckled to himself. It was more than he had at the moment. He carried his empty glass to the kitchen, then roused his wife for the trip to the bedroom. He hoped that sleep would come quickly. The quarter-liter of alcohol in his belly should help. And so it did.
"You know, Arthur, there are a lot of things we don't know about him," Jim Greer said.
"Andropov, you mean?"
"We don't even know if the bastard's married," the DDI continued.
"Well, Robert, that's your department," the DCI observed, with a look at Bob Ritter.
"We think he is, but he's never brought his wife, if any, to an official function. That's usually how we find out," the DDO had to admit. "They often hide their families, like Mafia dons. They're so anal about hiding everything over there. And, yeah, we're not all that good about digging the information up, because it's not operationally important."
"How he treats his wife and kids, if any," Greer pointed out, "can be useful in profiling the guy."
"So you want me to task CARDINAL on something like that? He could do it, I'm sure, but why waste his time that way?"
"Is it a waste? If he's a wife-beater, it tells us something. If he's a doting father, it tells us something else," the DDI persisted.
"He's a thug. You can look at his photo and see that. Look how his staff acts around him. They're stiff, like you'd have expected from Hitler's staff, " Ritter responded. A few months before, a gaggle of American state governors had flown to Moscow for some sub-rosa diplomacy. The governor of Maryland, a liberal Democrat, had reported back that when Andropov had entered the reception room, he'd spotted him at once as a thug, then learned that it was Yuriy Vladimirovich, Chairman of the Committee for State Security. The Marylander had possessed a good eye for reading people, and that evaluation had gone into the Andropov file at Langley.
"Well, he wouldn't have been much of a judge," Arthur Moore observed. He'd read the file, too. "At least not at the appeals level. Too interested in hanging the poor son of a bitch just to see if the rope breaks or not." Not that Texas hadn't had a few judges like that, once upon a time, but it was much more civilized now. There were fewer horses that needed stealing than men who needed killing, after all. "Okay, Robert, what can we do to flesh him out a little? Looks like he's going to be their next General Secretary, after all. Strikes me as a good idea."
"I can rattle some cages. Why not ask Sir Basil what he can do? They're better at the social stuff than we are, and it takes the heat off our people."
"I like Bas, but I don't like having him hold that many markers for us," Judge Moore answered.
"Well, James, your protege is over there. Have him ask the question. You get him an STU at home yet?"
"Ought to have gotten there today, yes."
"So call your lad and have him ask, nice and casual-like."
Greer's eyes went to the Judge. "Arthur?"
"Approved. Lowercase this, though. Tell Ryan that it's for his personal interest, not ours."
The Admiral checked his watch. "Okay, I can do that before I head home."
"Now, Bob, any progress on MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH?" the DCI asked with amusement, just to close down the afternoon meeting. It was a fun idea, but not a very serious one.
"Arthur, let's not discount it too much, shall we? They are vulnerable to the right sort of bullet, once we load it in the gun."
"Don't talk that way in front of Congress. They might foul their panties," Greer warned, with a laugh. "We're supposed to enjoy peaceful coexistence with them."
"That didn't work very well with Hitler. Stalin and Chamberlain both tried to make nice with the son of a bitch. Where did it get them? They are our enemies, gentlemen, and the sad truth is that we can't have a real peace with them, like it or not. Their ideas and ours are too out of sync for that." He held up his hands. "Yeah, I know, we're not supposed to think that way, but thank God the President does, and we still work for him."
They didn't have to comment on that. All three had voted for the current President, despite the institutional joke that the two things one never found at Langley were communists and… Republicans. No, the new President had a little iron in his spine and a fox's instinct for opportunity. It especially appealed to Ritter, who was the cowboy of the three, if also the most abrasive.