“Your words are calming, Marshal. Possibly they can be for President Konovalenko as well.”
Gennadiy Timofeyevich would be feeling the pressure, Kurchatov knew, and he was well aware who from. Yakovlev and Shergin. The interior minister he could do nothing about, but Shergin was his subordinate and was at the end of the direct line temporarily connecting NORAD with the Voyska PVO. Neutering the commander of the Motherland’s air-defense forces, at least temporarily, would split him from that weasel of an ally of his. Yakovlev would then stand alone, without an inroad to the military. Gennadiy Timofeyevich could then eat him for breakfast.
“I will speak to my people, and then I will speak to the president,” Kurchatov said, thinking on what his words would be for the latter. “One of our missiles in Cuba, eh?”
“At least in part,” Walker expanded.
“Yes. The part that matters, apparently. It is not so hard to believe. I was but a young captain during that time. Things were very confused, and information was hoarded as if it were gold.” In these days as if bread, the marshal thought. “As I gained rank and experience, I learned that there are many impossible things that are actually realities cloaked in secrecy.” Kurchatov smiled knowingly. “Someday, possibly, I can tell you of such things.”
Walker returned the expression. “And I to you.”
“So such a thing as you tell it is not beyond my belief, but…” The pause was punctuated by concern. “Those who are not here, those who cannot see and feel that you are in no way trying to deceive us, well, to them such a happening could be seen as less than fact. Even as a threat.”
“That’s my concern,” Walker said straightforwardly.
Kurchatov nodded concurrence. “And mine. Let us try to calm any fears that may be developing. Colonel Belyayev.”
Kurchatov and Belyayev followed General Walker from their quarters to the force-monitoring console. A new duty officer was in the left seat and stood respectfully as the Russian defense minister took the seat to his right.
“This one?” Kurchatov asked, pointing to the handset lying in the unmarked cradle. A nod affirmed his question, and he picked it up. The pre-dialed sequence, routed through three secure voice communications switching centers, searched for a connection at Voyska PVO. After a first failure — which took less than a second — the switching computers tried again. Another failure.
“No connect,” a microchip reported in a disembodied male voice.
Kurchatov pulled the receiver away, looking at it in a reaction that was as natural as it was unproductive. Colonel Belyayev took the phone from him, pressed the cradle switch down, and waited for the connection again.
“No connect.”
“Something is wrong,” Belyayev said. His words were tinged with the barest amount of a question, and his eyes silently waited for CINCNORAD to answer.
The same result came from General Walker’s attempt. He picked up another phone and called NORAD’s communication center — its own switchboard. “I want an analysis on the direct line between the force-monitoring console and Russian Air Defense Headquarters…fast.”
Belyayev and Kurchatov alternately watched CINCNORAD and the displays, the tension obvious and growing. Everything so far had been as the Americans had said. Everything. Even the Cuban revelation, though unexpected, was not the thing to cause confident hearts to stir. But this. A malfunction at this time? In combination with all else? If this became known to the president’s enemies in Moscow… The defense minister isolated by a communications failure? That discovery could be very dangerous. Marshal Kurchatov hoped, simply, that the sarcasm in his thought would turn out to be baseless.
The phone buzzed, and Walker snatched it up. “Yes.” He listened for less than thirty seconds. “You’re certain?”
“General Walker?” Kurchatov said after CINCNORAD had hung up.
“The direct circuit has been disconnected. Cut at the source.”
The defense minister’s eyebrows arched to the center of his forehead. It cannot be… “Why would you do this? Why would you isolate us?”
Walker’s head shook. “Not us. Marshal. You. The link was severed at your end. In Moscow.”
The thick black lines of hair over Kurchatov’s eyes shot upward, ending the expression of anger. The emotion now was plain fear. “Dear God.”
Greg Drummond stood personally by the secure fax and took the pages as soon as they came out. He made a duplicate copy and was in his office a minute later. Mike Healy was waiting for him.
“Here,” the DDI said, handing the copy to his Operations counterpart.
“Sam Garrity?” Healy said skeptically before reading the word-for-word wiretap transcripts just sent from the Bureau. Drummond had given him only what he had learned from Gordon Jones’s quick call, namely that they had a suspect in the leak, and, the big twist, that the leak’s contact was also directing two men wanted in the killing of Francisco Portero — the keeper of the tape.
Drummond ignored the question and read through the conversation, picking out important details first. “ ‘Off the director’s desk’? ‘Scribbles’? What the hell is he saying? There’s no way to get anything written off this floor. Security would have caught it in their sweep. Anything Anthony left on his desk would have gone in the burn bag.”
“Well, he got something,” the DDO said. “ ’Cause he knows about the missile. And so does his contact — whoever that is.”
“Gordy’s guys down in Miami are setting to take him real soon,” Drummond said with pleasure. Only nailing the man who’d caused his directorate to become suspect would bring greater joy.
Healy scanned farther down the transcript, his mind seizing on two passages. “Greg, look halfway down. You see that?”
“ ‘This isn’t like before,’ ”Drummond read.
“And then: ‘…that guy a while back wasn’t just making it up’.” Healy looked up. “You don’t think…”
Deputy Director, Intelligence, Greg Drummond, not a man prone to violent urges, knew exactly what he’d like done to the man filling his thoughts at the moment. “He had to know, Mike. The asshole had to.”
The DDO glanced back down. “You’re right. If this is accurate, then it’s the only way Garrity would have known.” His eyes looked right, to the wall that separated them from the DCI’s office.
“But how?” Drummond wondered aloud.
Healy thought for a moment, which was all the time he needed to make the decision. “I don’t know, but we sure as hell are going to find out. First step is to find out more on the man who brought the knowledge into the country.”
“Portero?”
“Exactly. We’re gonna check with our INS liaison in Florida and see just what he did when he came over.”
“Anthony won’t like us talking to his people,” Drummond countered, though the conviction behind his words was less than halfhearted.
“Fuck what he thinks. From where I see it, he is on assignment,” Healy said. “Deputy director is out of the country. That makes me acting director.”
The DDO had a few years service on the DDI, but Drummond didn’t mind the hierarchy one damn bit. Not for this. “Let’s do it, boss.”
“I’ll check with Florida,” Healy said. “And I assume you want to handle Garrity.”
“You assume correctly,” Drummond confirmed, nodding emphatically. “I’m going with the FBI team that’s going to pick him up. There are a few things I want to ask good old Sam.”
“Do it right, Greg. We need connections here to tie this all together.”
“We’ll get them,” the DDI said. And him, he added hopefully, referring to the man whose empty chair sat but a room away.