"It's going to take a couple of days," the San Francisco Examiner said, fingering the cassette and looking at his colleagues. The race started now. Every reporter in the room would want to be the first to break the story. That process would start with them playing their tapes in their cars during the drive to their homes, and the one with the shortest drive had the advantage.
"Gentlemen, all I can say is, this is an important story, and you have to apply your best professional conduct to it. It's not for me," Kealty said. "I wish I could pick someone else to do this, someone with a better record—but I can't. Not for me. It's for the country, and that means you have to play it as straight as you can."
"We will, Ed," the Times promised. He checked his watch. Almost three in the morning. He'd work all day to make the ten P.M. deadline. In that time he'd have to verify, re-verify, and conference in with his assistant managing editor to make sure that he got the front page, above the fold. The West Coast papers had the advantage— three more hours because of time zones—but he knew how to beat them to the punch. The coffee cups went down on the table, and the journalists rose, tucking their personal mini-tape machines in their jacket pockets, and each holding his personal cassette in the left hand while the right fished for the car keys.
"TALK TO ME, BEN," Jack commanded barely four hours later.
"Still nothing on the local TV, but we've caught microwave stuff transmitted for later broadcast." Goodley paused as Ryan took his seat behind the desk. "Quality is too poor to show you, but we have the audio tracks. Anyway, they spent all day consolidating power. Tomorrow, they go public. Probably the word's out on the street, and the official stuff will be for the rest of the world."
"Smart," the President observed.
"Agreed." Goodley nodded. "New wild card. The Premier of Turkmenistan bit the big one, supposedly an automobile accident. Golovko called me about—just after five, I think—to let us know. He ain't a real happy camper at the moment. He thinks that Iraq and Turko-land are part of the same play—"
"Do we have anything to support that?" Ryan asked, tying his necktie. It was a dumb question.
"You kidding, boss? We don't have crap, not even overheads in this case."
Jack looked down at his desktop for a second. "You know, for all the things people say about how powerful CIA is—"
"Hey, I work there, remember? Thank God for CNN. Yeah, I know. Good news, the Russians are telling us at least some of what they know."
"Scared," the President observed.
"Very," the national intelligence officer agreed.
"Okay, we have Iran taking over Iraq. We have a dead leader in Turkmenistan. Analysis?" Jack asked.
"I won't contradict Golovko on this one. He doubtless does have agents in place, and it sounds like he's in the same situation we're in. He can watch and worry, but he doesn't have any real operational possibilities. Maybe it's a coincidence, but spooks aren't supposed to believe in such things. Damned sure Sergey doesn't. He thinks it's all one play. I think that's a definite possibility. I'll be talking to Vasco about that, too. What he says is shaping up is starting to look a little scary. We'll be hearing from the Saudis today." And Israel could not be far behind, Ryan knew.
"China?" the President asked next. Maybe the other side of the world was a little better. It wasn't.
"Major exercise. Surface and sub-surface combatants, no air yet, but the overheads show the fighter bases are tooling up—"
"Wait a minute—"
"Yes, sir. If it's a planned exercise, why weren't they ready for it? I'll be talking to the Pentagon about that one at eight-thirty. The ambassador had a little talk with a foreign ministry type. Feedback is, no big deal, the ministry didn't even know about it, routine training."
"Bullshit."
"Maybe. Taiwan is still low-keying it, but they'll be sending some ships out today—well, tonight over there. We have assets heading to the area. The Taiwanese are playing ball, full cooperation with our observers in their listening posts. Soon they will ask us what we will do if'A' or 'B' happens. We need to think about that. The Pentagon says that the PRC doesn't have the assets to launch an invasion, same as back in 96. The ROC air force is stronger now than it was. So, I don't see that this is likely to lead anywhere. Maybe it really is just an exercise. Maybe they want to see how we—you, that is—will react."
"What's Adler think?"
"He says to ignore it. I think he's right. Taiwan is playing low-key. I think we do the same. We move ships, especially subs, but we keep them out of sight. CinCPAC seems to have a handle on it. We let him run it for the time being?"
Ryan nodded. "Through SecDef, yes. Europe?"
"Nice and quiet, ditto our hemisphere, ditto Africa. You know, if the Chinese are just being their usual obnoxious selves, then the only real problem is the Persian Gulf—and the truth of the matter is that we've been there and done that, sir. We've told the Saudis that we're not going to back off of them. That word will get to the other side in due course, and it ought to make the other side stop and think before making any plans to go farther. I don't like the UIR thing, but I think we can deal with it. Iran is fundamentally unstable; the people in that country want more freedom, and when they get a taste, that country will change. We can ride it out."
Ryan smiled and poured himself a cup of decaf. "You're getting very confident, Dr. Goodley."
"You pay me to think. I might as well tell you what's moving around between the ears, boss."
"Okay, get on with your work and keep me posted. I have to figure a way to reconstitute the Supreme Court today." Ryan sipped his coffee and waited for Arnie to come in. This job wasn't all that tough, was it? Not when you had a good team working for you.
"IT'S ABOUT SEDUCTION," Clark said to the shiny new faces in the auditorium, catching Ding's grin in the back of the room and cringing. The training film they'd just watched had gone over the history of six important cases. There were only five prints of the film, and this one was already being rewound for the walk back to the vault. Two of the cases he'd worked himself. One of the agents had been executed in the basement of 2 Dzerzhinskiy Square after being burned by a KGB mole inside Lang-ley. The other had a small farm in the birch country of northern New Hampshire, probably still wishing that he could go home- but Russia was still Russia, and the narrow view their culture took of high treason wasn't an invention of the previous regime. Such people were forever orphans… Clark turned the page and continued from his notes.
"You will seek out people with problems. You will sympathize with those problems. The people with whom you will work are not perfect. They will all have beefs. Some of them will come to you. You don't have to love them, but you do have to be loyal to them.
"What do I mean by seduction? Everyone in this room has done it once or twice, right? You listen more than you talk. You nod. You agree. Sure, you're smarter than your boss—I know about him, we have the same sort of jerk in our government. I had a boss like that once myself. It's hard to be an honest man in that kind of government, isn't it? You bet, honor really is important.
"When they say that, you know they want money. That's fine," Clark told them. "They never expect as much as they ask for. We have the budget to pay anything they want—but the important thing is getting them on the hook. Once they lose their virginity, people, they can't get it back.
"Your agents, the people you recruit, will get addicted to what they do. It's/ww to be a spy. Even the most ideologically pure people you recruit will giggle from time to time because they know something nobody else knows.