"I patched you up last winter," she reminded him.
"Did I ever thank you for that?" he asked. Then he kissed her. "Thanks, babe."
"I have to talk to Professor Byrd about it."
"Honey, when in doubt, do what you think is right. That's why we have a conscience, to remind us what the right thing is."
"They won't like me for it."
"So? Cathy, you have to like you. Nobody else. Well, me, of course," Jack added.
"Do you?"
A very supportive smile: "Lady Ryan, I worship your dirty drawers."
And finally she relaxed. "Why, thank you, Sir John."
"Let me go upstairs and change." He stopped in the doorway. "Should I wear my formal sword for dinner?"
"No, just the regular one." And now she could smile, too. "So, what's happening in your office?"
"A lot of learning the things we don't know."
"You mean finding out new stuff?"
"No, I mean realizing all the stuff we don't know that we should know. It never stops."
"Don't feel bad. Same in my business."
And Jack realized that the similarity between both businesses was that if you screwed up, people might die. And that was no fun at all.
He reappeared in the kitchen. By now Cathy was feeding Little Jack. Sally was watching TV, that great child pacifier, this time some local show instead of a Roadrunner-Coyote tape. Dinner was cooking. Why an assistant professor of ophthalmology insisted on cooking dinner herself like a truck driver's wife baffled her husband, but he didn't object-she was good at it. Had they had cooking lessons at Bennington? He picked a kitchen chair and poured himself a glass of white wine.
"I hope this is okay with the professor."
"Not doing surgery tomorrow, right?"
"Nothing scheduled, Lady Ryan."
"Then it's okay." The little guy went to her shoulder for a burp, which he delivered with great gusto.
"Damn, Junior. Your father is impressed."
"Yeah." She took the edge of the cloth diaper on her shoulder to wipe his mouth. "Okay, how about a little more?"
John Patrick Ryan, Jr. did not object to the offer.
"What things don't you know? Still worried about that guy's wife?" Cathy asked, cooled down somewhat.
"No news on that front," Jack admitted. "We're worried what they might do on something."
"Can't say what it is?" she asked.
"Can't say what it is," he confirmed. "The Russians, as my buddy Simon says, are a rum bunch."
"So are the Brits," Cathy observed.
"Dear God, I married Carrie Nation." Jack took a sip. It was Pinot Grigio, a particularly good Italian white that the local liquor stores carried.
"Only when I cut somebody open with a knife." She liked saying it that way, because it always gave her husband chills.
He held up his glass. "Want one?"
"When I'm finished, maybe." She paused. "Nothing you can talk about?"
"Sorry, babe. It's the rules."
"And you never break them?"
"Bad habit to get into. Better not to start."
"What about when some Russian decides to work for us?"
"That's different. Then he's working for the forces of Truth and Beauty in the world. We," Ryan emphasized, "are the Good Guys."
"What do they think?"
"They think they are. But so did a guy named Adolf," he reminded her. "And he wouldn't have liked Bernie very much."
"But he's long dead."
"Not everybody like him is, babe. Trust me on that one."
"You're worried about something, Jack. I can see it. Can't say, eh?"
"Yes. And no, I can't."
"Okay." She nodded. Intelligence information didn't interest her beyond her abstract desire to learn what was going on in the world. But as a physician there were many things she really wanted to know-like the cure for cancer-but didn't, and, reluctantly, she'd come to accept that. But medicine didn't allow much in the way of secrets. When you found something that helped patients, you published your discovery in your favorite medical journal so the whole world could know about it right away. Damned sure CIA didn't do that very often, and part of that offended her. Another tack, then. "Okay, when you do find out something important, what happens then?"
"We kick it upstairs. Here, it goes right to Sir Basil, and I call it in to Admiral Greer. Usually a phone call over the secure phone."
"Like the one upstairs?"
"Yep. Then we send it over by secure fax or, if it's really hot, it goes by diplomatic courier out of the embassy, when we don't want to trust the encryption systems."
"How often does that happen?"
"Not since I've been here, but I don't make those decisions. What the hell, the diplomatic bag goes over in eight or nine hours. Damned sight faster than it used to happen."
"I thought that phone thingee upstairs was unbreakable?"
"Well, some things you do are nearly perfect, too, but you still take extra care with them, right? Same with us."
"What would that be for? Theoretically speaking, that is." She smiled at her cleverness.
"Babe, you know how to phrase a question. Let's say we got something, oh, on their nuclear arsenal, something from an agent way the hell inside, and it's really good stuff, but losing it might ID the agent for the opposition. That is what you send via the bag. The name of the game is protecting the source."
"Because if they ID the guy-"
"He's dead, maybe in a very unpleasant way. There's a story that once they loaded a guy into a crematorium alive and then turned on the gas-and they made a film of it, pour encourager les autres, as Voltaire put it."
"Nobody does that anymore!" Cathy objected immediately.
"There's a guy at Langley who claims to have seen the film. The poor bastard's name was Popov, a GRU officer who worked for us. His bosses were very displeased with him."
"You're serious?" Cathy persisted.
"As a heart attack. Supposedly, they used to show the film to people in the GRU Academy as a warning about not crossing the line-it strikes me as bad psychology but, like I said, I've met a guy who says he saw the film. Anyway, that's one of the reasons we try to protect our sources."
"That's a little hard to believe."
"Oh, really? You mean, like a surgeon breaking for lunch and having a beer?"
"Well… yes."
"It's an imperfect world we live in, babe." He'd let things go. She'd have all weekend to think things over, and he'd get some work done on his Halsey book.
Back in Moscow, fingers were flying. How u gonna tell Lan[gley], she asked.
N[ot] sure, he replied.
Cour[ier], she suggested. This could be re[ally] hot.
Ed nodded agreement. Rit[ter] will be exci[ted].
D[amn] st[raight], she agreed. Want m[e] 2 han[dle] the me[et]? she asked.
Y[our] Russian] is pre[etty] g[ood], he agreed.
This time she nodded. She spoke an elegant literary Russian reserved to the well-educated over here, Ed knew. The average Soviet couldn't believe that a foreigner spoke his language that well. When walking the street or conversing with a shop clerk, she never let that skill slip, instead stumbling over complex phrases. To do otherwise would have been noticed at once, and so avoiding it was an important part of her cover, even more than her blond hair and American mannerisms. It would finger her immediately to their new agent.
When? she asked next.
Iv[an] sez tom[orrow]. Up 4 it? he responded.
She patted his hip and gave a cute, playful smile, which translated to bet your ass.
Foley loved his wife as fully as a man could, and part of that was his respect for her love of the game they both played. Paramount Central Casting could not have given him a better wife. They'd be making love tonight. The rule in boxing might be no sex before a fight, but for Mary Pat the rule was the reverse, and if the microphones In the walls noticed, well, fuck 'em, the Chief of Station Moscow thought, with a sly smile of his own.