“And the recent incident…?”
“The Indians? That merely illustrates my case. Those ”revolutionaries“ were dealing drugs to make money. They're going to turn on you, the people you used to fund. In a few years, they're going to be more of a problem for you than they ever were for us.” That was entirely correct, of course, and both men knew it. The terrorist-drug connection was something the Soviets were starting to worry about. Free enterprise was starting most rapidly of all in Russia 's criminal sector. That was as troubling to Ryan as to Golovko. “What do you say?”
Golovko inclined his head to the side. “I will discuss it with the Chairman. He will approve.”
“Remember what I said over in Moscow a couple of years back? Who needs diplomats to handle negotiations when you have real people to settle things?”
“I expected a quote from Kipling or something similarly poetic,” the Russian observed dryly. “So, how do you deal with your Congress?”
Jack chuckled. “Short version is, you tell them the truth.”
“I needed to fly eleven thousand kilometers to hear you say that?”
“You select a handful of people in your parliament you can trust to keep their mouths shut, and whom the rest of parliament trust to be completely honest — that's the hard part — and you brief them into everything they need to know. You have to set up ground rules—”
“Ground rules?”
“A baseball term, Sergey. It means the special rules that apply to a specific playing field.”
Golovko's eyes lit up. “Ah, yes, that is a useful term.”
“Everyone has to agree on the rules, and you may never, ever break them.” Ryan paused. He was talking like a college lecturer again, and it wasn't fair to speak that way to a fellow professional.
Golovko frowned. That was the hard part, of course: never, ever breaking the rules. The intelligence business wasn't often that cut and dried. And conspiracy was part of the Russian soul.
“It's worked for us,” Ryan added.
Or has it? Ryan wondered. Sergey knows if it has or not… well, he knows some things that I don't. He could tell me if we've had major leaks on The Hill, since Peter Henderson… but at the same time he knows that we've penetrated so many of their operations despite their manic passion for the utmost secrecy. Even the Soviets had admitted it publicly: the hemorrhage of defectors from KGB over the years had gutted scores of exquisitely-planned operations against America and the West. In the Soviet Union as in America, secrecy was designed to shield failure as well as success.
“What it comes down to is trust,” Ryan said after another moment. “The people in your parliament are patriots. If they didn't love their country, why would they put up with all the bullshit aspects of public life? It's the same here.”
“Power,” Golovko responded at once.
“No, not the smart ones, not the ones you will be dealing with. Oh, there'll be a few idiots. We have them here. They are not an endangered species. But there are always those who're smart enough to know that the power that comes with government service is an illusion. The duty that comes along with it is always greater in magnitude. No, Sergey, for the most part you'll be dealing with people as smart and honest as you are.”
Golovko's head jerked at the compliment, one professional to another. He'd guessed right a few minutes earlier, Ryan was getting good at this. He started to think that he and Ryan were not really enemies any longer. Competitors, perhaps, but not enemies. There was more than professional respect between them now.
Ryan looked benignly at his visitor, smiling inwardly at having surprised him. And hoping that one of the people Golovko would select for oversight would be Oleg Kirilovich Kadishev, code-name SPINNAKER. Known in the media as one of the most brilliant Soviet parliamentarians in a bumptious legislative body struggling to build a new country, his reputation for intelligence and integrity belied the fact that he'd been on the CIA payroll for several years, the best of all the agents recruited by Mary Pat Foley. The game goes on, Ryan thought. The rules were different. The world was different. But the game went on. Probably always would, Jack thought, vaguely sorry it was true. But, hell, America even spied on Israel — it was called “keeping an eye on things”; it was never called “running an operation.” The oversight people in Congress would have leaked that in a minute. Oh, Sergey, do you have a lot of new things to learn about!
Lunch followed. Ryan took his guest to the executive dining room, where Golovko found the food somewhat better than KGB standards — something Ryan would not have believed. He also found that the top CIA executives wanted to meet him. The Directorate chiefs and their principal deputies all stood in line to shake his hand and be photographed. Finally there was a group photo before Golovko had taken the executive elevator back to his car. Then the people from Science and Technology, and security, had swept every inch of every corridor and room Golovko and his bodyguard had traveled. Finding nothing, they had swept again. And again. And once more, until it was decided that he had not availed himself of the opportunity to play his own games. One of the S&.T people had lamented the fact that it just wasn't the same anymore.
Ryan smiled, remembering the remark. Things were happening so goddamned fast. He settled back into the chair and tightened his seatbelt. The VC-2O was approaching the Alps, and the air might be bumpy there.
“Want a paper, sir?” the attendant asked. It was a girl for a change, and a pretty one. Also married and pregnant. A pregnant staff sergeant. It made Ryan uneasy to be served by someone like that.
“What d'you have?”
“International Trib.”
“Great!” Ryan took the paper — and nearly gasped. There it was, right on the front page. Some bonehead had leaked one of the photos. Golovko, Ryan, the directors of S&.T, Ops, Admin, Records, and Intelligence, plunging through their lunches. None of the American identities were secret, of course, but even so…
“Not a real good picture, sir,” the sergeant noted with a grin. Ryan was unable to be unhappy.
“When are you due, Sarge?”
“Five more months, sir.”
“Well, you'll be bringing your child into a much better world than the one either one of us was stuck with. Why don't you sit down and relax? I'm not liberated enough to be waited on by a pregnant lady.”
The International Herald Tribune is a joint venture of the New York Times and the Washington Post. The one sure way for Americans traveling in Europe to keep track of the ball scores and important comic strips, it had already broadened its distribution into what had been the Eastern Bloc, to serve American businessmen and tourists who were flooding the former communist nations. The locals also used it, both as a way to hone their English skills and to keep track of what was happening in America, more than ever a fascination to people learning how to emulate something they'd been raised to hate. In addition it was as fine an information source as had ever been available in those countries. Soon everyone was buying it, and the American management of the paper was expanding operations to broaden its readership still further.