The Cardinal of the Kremlin - By Tom Clancy Page 0,137

there's a way to put a probability assessment on that choice that's anything more than a wild-ass guess, I haven't seen it yet."

"Get to work on it," Judge Moore ordered. "The President'll want something hard enough to grab hold of before Ernie Alien starts talking about putting SDI on the table again."

"Yes, sir." Jack stood. "Judge, do we expect the Sovs to go public on CARDINAL'S arrest?"

"There's a question," Ritter said.

Ryan headed for the door and stopped again. "Wait a minute."

"What is it?" Ritter asked.

"You said that the Ambassador delivered his protest before their Foreign Ministry said anything, right?"

"Yeah, Foley worked real fast to beat them to the punch."

"With all due respect to Mr. Foley, nobody's that fast," Ryan said. "They should have had their press release already printed before they made the pickup."

"So?" Admiral Greer asked.

Jack walked back toward the other three. "So the Foreign Minister is Narmonov's man, isn't he? So's Yazov at the Defense Ministry. They didn't know," Ryan said. "They were as surprised as we were."

"No chance," Ritter snorted. "They don't do things like that."

"Assumption on your part, sir." Jack stood his ground. "What evidence backs up that statement?"

Greer smiled. "None that we know of right now."

"Damn it, James, I know he's-"

"Keep going, Dr. Ryan," Judge Moore said.

"If those two ministers didn't know what was going down, it puts a different spin on this case, doesn't it?" Jack sat on the back of a chair. "Okay, I can see cutting Yazov out-CARDINAL was his senior aide-but why cut out the Foreign Minister? This sort of thing, you want to move fast, catch the newsies with the breaking story-for damned sure you don't want the other side to get the word out first."

"Bob?" the DCI asked.

The Deputy Director for Operations never had liked Ryan very much-he thought that he'd come too far too fast-but, for all that, Bob Ritter was an honest man. The DDO sat back down and sipped at his coffee for a moment. "Boy may have a point. We'll have to confirm a few details, but if they check out then it's as much a political operation as a simple 'Two' case."

"James?"

The Deputy Director for Intelligence nodded agreement. "Scary."

"We may not be talking about just losing a good source," Ryan went on, speculating as he spoke. "KGB might be using this for political ends. What I don't see is his power base. The Alexandrov faction has three solid members. Narmonov now has four, counting the new guy, Vaneyev-"

"Shit!" This was Ritter. "We assumed that when his daughter was picked up and let go that they either didn't break her-hell, they say she looks okay-or her father was too important for them to-"

"Blackmail." Now it was Judge Moore's turn. "You were right, Bob. And Narmonov doesn't know. You have to hand it to Gerasimov, the bastard has some beautiful moves If all this is true, Narmonov is outnumbered and doesn't know it." He paused for a frown. "We're speculating like a bunch of amateurs."

"Well, it makes for one hell of a scenario." Ryan almost smiled until he reached the logical conclusion. "We may have brought down the first Soviet government in thirty years that wanted to liberalize their own country." What will the papers make of that? Jack asked himself. And you know that it'll get out. Something like this is too juicy to stay secret long

"We know what you've been doing, and we know how long you've been doing it. Here is the evidence." He tossed the photographs onto the table.

"Nice pictures" Mary Pat said. "Where's the man from my embassy?"

"We don't have to let anyone talk with you. We can keep you here as long as we wish. Years, if necessary," he added ominously.

"Look, mister, I'm an American, okay? My husband is a diplomat. He has diplomatic immunity and so do I. Just because you think I'm a dumb American housewife, you think you can push me around and scare me into signing that damned-fool confession that I'm some kind of idiot spy. Well, I'm not, and I won't, and my government will protect me. So as far as I'm concerned you can take that confession and spread mustard on it and eat it. God knows the food over here is so bad you could use the fiber in your diet," she observed. "And you're saying that that nice old man I was taking the picture to was arrested too, eh? Well, I think you're just crazy."

"We know that you have met him