"Our-you mean CIA?" the DDI asked, with sudden concern in his voice. No matter how old a player you were, no matter how much experience you had, the idea that your parent agency might be compromised scared the living hell out of you.
"Correct," Ryan answered. He didn't need to press that button very hard. Nobody at Langley was entirely comfortable with all the information that went to the "select" intelligence committees in the House and Senate. Politicians talked for a living, after all. Hell, there were few things harder than making a political figure keep his mouth shut. "Sir, this guy is a fantastically valuable source. We'll get him cut loose from over here in three days or so. I think the debriefing process will take months. I've met his wife and daughter. They seem nice enough-the little girl is Sally's age. I think this guy's the real deal, sir, and there's gold in them thar hills."
"How comfortable is he?"
"Well, they're all probably in sensory overload at the moment. I'd think hard about getting a pshrink assigned to them to help with the transition. Maybe more than one. We want to keep him settled down-we want him confident in his new life. That might not be easy, but it'll damned sure pay off for us."
"We have a couple of guys for that. They know how to talk them through the transition part. Is the Rabbit a flight risk?"
"Sir, I see nothing to suggest that, but we have to remember that he's made one hell of a broad jump, and the stuff he landed in isn't exactly what he's used to."
"Noted. Good call, Jack. What else?"
"That's all for the moment. We've only been talking to the guy about five and a half hours, just preliminary stuff so far, but the waters look pretty deep."
"Okay. Arthur is on the phone with Basil right now. I'm going to head over that way and give him your read. Oh, Bob Ritter just got back from Korea-jet-lagged all to hell and gone. We're going to tell him about your adventure in the field. If he tries to bite your head off, it's our fault, mine and the Judge's."
Ryan took a long look down at the carpet. He didn't quite understand why Ritter disliked him, but they didn't swap Christmas cards, and that was a fact. "Gee, thanks, sir."
"Don't sweat it. From what I understand, it sounds like you acquitted yourself pretty well."
"Thanks, Admiral. I didn't trip over my own feet. That's all I'm going to claim, if that's okay with you."
"Fair enough, my boy. Get your write-up completed and fax it to me PDQ."
In Moscow, the secure fax went into the office of Mike Russell. Oddly, it was a graphic, the first-edition cover of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter. The address on the cover sheet told him who was supposed to get it. And on the page was a handwritten message: "Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail have moved to a new hutch."
So, Russell thought, they did have a Rabbit case, and it had been successfully run. Nothing he could claim to know for certain, but he knew the language spoken in the community. He walked down to Ed Foley's office and knocked on the door.
"Come," Foley's voice called.
"This just came in from Washington, Ed." Russell handed the fax across.
"Well, that's good news," the COS observed. He folded the signal into his jacket pocket for Mary Pat. "There's an additional message in this fax, Mike," Foley said.
"What's that?"
"Our comms are secure, pal. Otherwise it would not have come in this way."
"Well, thank the Good Lord for that," Russell said.
CHAPTER 30 - FLAVIAN AMPHITHEATER
"Ryan? he did what?" Bob Ritter growled.
"Bob, you want to settle down? It's nothing to get your tits in a flutter about," James Greer said, half soothingly and half an indirect challenge in the CIA's in-house power playground. Judge Moore looked on in amusement. "Jack went into the field to observe an operation for which we had no available field officer. He didn't step on his crank with the golf shoes, and the defector is in a safe house in the English Midlands right now, and from what I hear, he's singing like a canary."
"Well, what's he telling us?"
"For starters," Judge Moore answered, "it seems that our friend Andropov wants to assassinate the Pope."
Ritter's head snapped around. "How solid is that?"
"It's what made the Rabbit decide to take a walk," the DCI said. "He's a conscience defector, and that set him off."
"Okay, good. What does he know?" the DDO asked.
"Bob, it seems that this defector-his name is Oleg Ivanovich Zaitzev, by the way-was a senior watch officer in The Centre's communications, their version of our MERCURY."
"Shit," Ritter observed an instant later. "This is for real?"
"You know, sometimes a guy puts a quarter in the slot and pulls the handle and he really does get the jackpot," Moore told his subordinate.
"Well, damn."
"I didn't think you'd object. And the good part," the DCI went on, "is that Ivan doesn't know he's gone."
"How the hell did we do that?"
"It was Ed and Mary Pat who twigged to that possibility." Then Judge Moore explained how it had been carried out. "They both deserve a nice Pat on the head, Bob."
"And all while I was out of town," Ritter breathed. "Well, I'll be damned."
"Yes, there's a bunch of attaboy letters to be drawn up," Greer said next. "Including one for Jack."
"I suppose," the DDO conceded. He went quiet for a moment, thinking over the possibilities of Operation BEATRIX. "Anything good so far?"
"Aside from the plot against the Pope? Two code names of penetration agents they have working: NEPTUNE-he sounds like somebody working in the Navy-and CASSIUS. He's probably on The Hill. More to come, I expect."
"I talked to Ryan a few minutes ago. He's pretty excited about this guy, says his knowledge is encyclopedic, says there's gold in these hills, to quote the boy."
"Ryan does know a thing or two about gold," Moore thought out loud.
"Fine, we'll make him our portfolio manager, but he isn't a field officer," Ritter groused.
"Bob, he succeeded. We don't punish people for that, do we?" the DCI asked. This had gone far enough. It was time for Moore to act like the appeals-court judge he had been until a couple years before: the Voice of God.
"Fine, Arthur. You want me to sign the letter of commendation?" Ritter saw the freight train coming, and there was no sense in standing in its way. What the hell, it would just go into the files anyway. CIA commendations almost never saw the light of day. The Agency even classified the names of field officers who'd died heroically thirty years before. It was like a back door into heaven, CIA style.
"Okay, gentlemen, now that we've settled the administrative issues, what about the plot to kill the Pope?" Greer asked, trying to bring order back to the meeting of supposed sober senior executives.
"How solid is the information?" Ritter wanted to know.
"I talked to Basil a few minutes ago. He thinks we need to take it seriously, but I think we need to talk to this Rabbit ourselves to quantify the danger to our Polish friend."
"Tell the President?"
Moore shook his head. "He's tied up all day today with legislative business, and he's flying out to California late this afternoon. Sunday and Monday, he'll be giving speeches in Oregon and Colorado. I'll see him Tuesday afternoon, about four." Moore could have asked for an urgent meeting-he could break into the President's schedule on really vital matters-but until they had the chance to speak face-to-face with the Rabbit, that was out of the question. The President might even want to speak to the guy himself. He was like that.