The Cardinal of the Kremlin - By Tom Clancy Page 0,171

and had never been seen to touch pornographic material. "Those two are so much in love they don't have the first idea of what's going on around them-except work. I bet their pillow talk is classified. What's happening, Will, is that Taussig is being cut out of her friend's life and she's unhappy about it. Tough."

"So how do we write this one up?"

"Zip. A whole lot of nothing." Their assignment for the evening had been to follow up a report that strange cars were occasionally seen at the Gregory-Long residence. It had probably originated, Agent Jennings thought, from a local prude who didn't like the idea of the two young people living together without the appropriate paperwork. She was a little old-fashioned about that herself, but it didn't make either one of them a security risk. On the other hand-

"I think we ought to check out Taussig next."

"She lives alone."

"I'm sure." It would take time to look at every senior staffer at Tea Clipper, but you couldn't rush this kind of investigation.

"You shouldn't have come here," Tania observed at once. Bisyarina's face didn't show her rage. She took Taussig's hand and brought her inside. "Ann, it's just so awful!"

"Come sit down. Were you followed?" Idiot! Pervert! She'd just gotten out of the shower, and was dressed in a bathrobe, with a towel over her hair. "No, I watched all the way." Sure, Bisyarina thought. She would have been surprised to learn that it was true. Despite the lax security at Tea Clipper-it allowed someone like this inside!-her agent had broken every rule there was in coming here.

"You cannot stay long."

"I know." She blew her nose. "They've about finished the first draft of the new program. The Geek has cut it down by eighty thousand lines of code-taking out all that AI stuff really made a difference. You know, I think he has the new stuff memorized-I know, I know, that's impossible, even for that."

"When will you be able-"

"I don't know." Taussig smiled for a second. "You ought to have him working for you. I think he's the only one who really understands the whole program-I mean, the whole project."

Unfortunately all we have is you, Bisyarina didn't say. What she did was very hard. She reached out and took Taussig's hand.

The tears started again. Beatrice nearly leaped into Tania's arms. The Russian officer held her close, trying to feel sympathy for her agent. There had been many lessons at the KGB school, all of them intended to help her in handling agents. You had to have a mixture of sympathy and discipline. You had to treat them like spoiled children, mixing favors and scoldings to make them perform. And Agent Livia was more important than most.

It was still hard to turn her face toward the head on her shoulder and kiss the cheek that was salty with tears both old and new. Bisyarina breathed easier at the realization that she needed go no further than this. She'd never yet needed to go further, but lived in fear that "Livia" would one day demand it of her-certainly it would happen if she ever realized that her intended lover had not the slightest interest in her advances. Bisyarina marveled at that. Beatrice Taussig was brilliant in her way, certainly brighter than the KGB officer who "ran" her, but she knew so little about people. The crowning irony was that she was very much like that Alan Gregory man she so detested. Prettier, more sophisticated though Taussig was, she lacked the capacity to reach out when she needed to. Gregory had probably done it only once in his life, and that was the difference between him and her. He had gotten there first because Beatrice had lacked the courage. It was just as well, Bisyarina knew. The rejection would have destroyed her.

Bisyarina wondered what Gregory was really like. Probably another academic-what was it the English called them? Boffins. A brilliant boffin-well, everyone attached to Tea Clipper was brilliant in one way or another. That frightened her. In her way, Beatrice was proud of the program, though she deemed it a threat to world peace, a point on which Bisyarina agreed. Gregory was a boffin who wanted to change the world. Bisyarina understood the motivation. She wanted to change it, too. Just in a different way. Gregory and Tea Clipper were a threat to that. She didn't hate the man. If anything, she thought, she'd probably like him. But personal likes and dislikes had absolutely