“He looks a little like your son, Henry,” but General Shaw didn’t reply, he also was looking at the screen but his mind was far away with the USS Nimitz battle group in Australia, where both his son and daughter were right now.
“Is that young man still alive, Terry?”
He got a nod in reply.
“He is in New York having accompanied the body and the evidence stateside. I believe he is currently on a twenty four hour pass before returning to his unit.”
The President looked again at the young American before turning his attention is the dead Russian paratrooper.
“So if this guy is Colonel General Alontov, where are the rank badges, and what proof do we have that this is him and not a set up?”
The next two pictures were of the same dead Russian, but this time he was laid out naked on a slab.
Without a beating heart to circulate the blood about the body it had settled, drawn downwards by gravity to give his back a purple, mottled look, whilst the rest of him wore the pallor of death.
“The finger prints taken from the corpse in the forest, and again in New York match the several sets we had already acquired from his time in London and the States.”
Terry elected to skip the rest of the photos of the post mortem that had been a necessary part of the investigation.
“That was the easy bit, Mister President.”
Scanned images of the first of the pages recovered from the forest appeared on the screen alongside the English translation.
“The hard part is deciding if this is disinformation…” The screen changed again to another page, where several well-known names appeared along with their code names and contact details.
“…or if at least one of these names has been feeding the enemy details of what he has been privy to on senate oversight committees for the past decade?”
A light on the top of the telephone receiver in front of Henry Shaw began to blink and he picked it up, identifying himself in a low voice before covering the mouthpiece so he could listen to the caller without any of the briefing being overheard at the other end of the line.
Scrolling through all but the last two pages bearing Peridenko’s writing, Terry revealed eighty-three names of men and women of many nationalities, and resident in neutral countries as well as the warring ones.
The President recognised more than a few of the names and others he had actually met at one time or another. Before he had gained the presidency two of those individuals had been on first names terms with him, although in the business sense rather than social.
“So what are we going to do about this, arrest the ones in this country and inform the other governments?”
“Neither, Mr President.” In the world of espionage there was very little that was black and white, in fact the best they could really manage was various shades of grey.
“This list, if genuine, is by no means every agent they have in the world, if indeed they are agents, and we may never know why it was written or why a soldier had it hidden in his clothing.” Terry went on to explain.
“Handwriting analysis proves that this was written by Anatoly Peridenko, but is it his list of his best agents, his worst agents or is this the membership list for an online dungeons and dragons web ring?” The President was pondering over Terry’s words, listening to his spymaster.
“The bottom line is, we arrest no one today and we tell no other government today. It would only take one slip up, one mistake, for this knowledge to be compromised. As it is we can watch these people and assess this list’s value, and if they are working for the enemy camp then we can use that knowledge to control them, the information they have access to, or we can even feed them what we want them to see. Either way, it is of no immediate use to us knowing if…” Terry looked up the screen.
“…if for instance, ‘Tuscan Ranger’ is a KGB master spy or the equivalent of Woody Allen as 007.”
“Or just,” Put in Ben Dupre, “A fifth level Barbarian warrior with level two spell casting abilities.”
The President shook his head slowly.
“It’s bad enough that we could have been penetrated so seriously, but now I know we’re in trouble if my FBI chief is familiar with nerdy role playing games.”
Ben shrugged as Terry chuckled, but then the President returned to the business at hand.
“So, it’s a case of, better the spy you know than the spy you don’t, then?”
Terry nodded in agreement, which hardly pleased the chief executive.
“So is that it?”
“No Mister President, there is more and I believe that it could possibly be of practical use to us, if not against the new Soviet Union, then certainly against the PRC.” He brought up on the screen the last two page of Peridenko’s list, and these bore names of individuals from the PRC, North Korea, and all the countries of the new Soviet Union, including Russia.
“If I were a gambling man, I would be willing to bet all my money that Peridenko had plans to achieve high office, and had already put into place the means to acquire the Premiership.”
The names on the screen were all military men, and all in prominent positions in their countries armed forces.
“Which I think you will agree indicates an element of foresight and forward planning.” He highlighted a trio of Chinese officers.
“For instance, if you weren’t willing to share power with your principle ally then the positions these characters hold could give you the knife to stick into the PRC’s proverbial back.” One name in particular stood out due to his apparent position in the Peoples Republics equivalent of America’s National Security Agency.
The Chinese text appeared and with it a translation. Terry removed from an inside pocket a copy of the CD Rom which Serge had carried, placing it before him on the conference table.
“Alontov also carried a CD Rom sewn into his clothing and this is booby trapped with some very aggressive viruses, however despite this and the fact that the software and hardware to play this are rather specialised, NSA is confident that they can tell us what the hell it is exactly within a few more hours.”
The rest of the room were looking at the translation, but most of it was apparently referring to the CD Rom.
“Mister Jones, why would he be carrying a CD and not a USB? And do we have any ideas what it does?”
“The first is simple sir; a CD is more resistant to electro-magnetic pulse, EMP, than a USB. Secondly, there is a chance that this disc is something that may get us access to somewhere that would be of advantage to us. I cannot say more than that at the moment, because we just don’t know for certain.”
Lord knows we could do with some luck, thought the President.
“So what are we going to call this thing? And who will have access?”
“The codename for the CD’s location and its standalone systems is ‘Church’. All matters related to the contents of the CD will be known as Choir Practice, and we in this room, plus the three specialists who are cracking the CD, are ‘The Choir’.”
“Spare me!” grunted the President, disparagingly under his breath.
“Is there an issue with the choice of code name, sir?”
“No, I am sure that is adequate, Mr Jones…but I won’t hang up the bunting until we know more.”
He looked across at Henry who was replacing the telephone receiver.
“General Shaw, are you ready with the Guillotine and Equaliser updates?”
Terry cleared the screen and ejected his disc, handing the floor back to the CJC.
Henry placed his own disc in the drive, bringing up Gansu Province and zooming in the picture on to a range of mountains southwest of the Gobi desert.