The two men had grown close over the years, and that bond surfaced now. "But having said that, just fix it, Rodg."
Whittenberg nodded. "Yes, sir."
Although somewhat chastened, the President reasserted control and turned to his Director of Central Intelligence. "Bobby, do you know anything about this?"
The DCI, a man who employed thousands upon thousands of analysts, agents, computer specialists, and scientists, a man who had access to some of the world's most exotic technology, a man who presided over an operating budget greater than the gross national product of several countries in the world, said, "No, Mr. President."
"Well, you'd better shake the tree, and be damn quick about it. Call in all the chits you have to, but find out whatever you can about what the Russians are up to." The President turned to the Secretary of Defense. "Sam, look into any, and I mean any, contingency response we would have if the Intrepid retro-fires before our people get up there. I'm open to anything."
The former Senator responded in his Southern drawl, "Yes, Mr. President."
The Secretary of State was next in line. "Winston, get Ambassador Yakolev over here right away. I want the Russians to know we know something's up. Maybe it'll scare 'em off."
Admiral Bergstrom injected himself. "Mr. President, do you think it appropriate to go to a higher level of military alert? You know, as President Nixon did back in the '73 Arab-Israeli War. Shall we rattle a saber to let them know we mean business?"
The President scratched his head. "Winston, what do you think?"
The Secretary of State was quick with his response. "I would say yes, Mr. President, except for the presence of the French President. If we went to a higher level of military alert while he is a guest in our country it could give him the feeling of being caught in a crossfire, and that might not be a good thing to do in view of how well the visit has gone thus far."
"Hmmm. Good point. Very well. Stand down for the moment, Admiral. Everyone else get cracking. I've got to get dressed for dinner. Winston, let me know the minute Yakolev arrives. Mr. Vice President, please keep tabs on things while I'm tied up."
"Certainly, Mr. President."
"Colonel Lamborghini?"
The intel chief was caught off guard. "Uh, yes, Mr. President?"
The President allowed himself the trace of a smile. "It's always nice to meet a brother. Don't let your extended family down."
Lamborghini nodded in acknowledgment. "No, sir. I won't."
The chief executive left the room to prepare for a state dinner.
The night was achingly cold. Yuri Shevetchenko pulled his worn workman's coat closer as he walked past the faceless warehouse buildings in the Zuzino Prospekt. His feet had been crunching the frozen snow for almost an hour while he meandered on a labyrinthine path through the Prospekt, stopping every few blocks to check for an unwanted companion. Finally, he came to a doorway on Odesskaya Street and looked around one last time. The snow-covered boulevard was deserted. The door opened from the inside, and he quickly stepped over the threshold. Warm air rushed over him as he stamped his feet. Then he sagged against the doorway.
"Good evening, Lamplight." His host spoke Russian, but with an unusual accent. "Drink?"
Shevetchenko sighed. "A very, very large vodka, if you please."
His host, a man with sandy hair and unremarkable looks, was also dressed as a workman. He motioned Lamplight toward the potbellied stove in the middle of the room. Next to it stood a table and two chairs. "Get warm," he offered, "I'll pour." He produced a liter of Stolichnaya vodka and filled two glasses.
Shevetchenko drained his glass quickly and said, "Another." His wish was granted. Lamplight lovingly studied his glass before saying, "They control alcohol very carefully at Baikonur. It is rationed, but appetites cannot be controlled as easily. Some of the technicians tried straining anti-icing fluid through bread and drinking it. They went blind, I believe." He gulped down half the glass.
"We thought you had been discovered," said the host. "It's been over six months. I was happily surprised to have seen the thumbtack on my way home this evening."
Lamplight nodded. "They are shorthanded at Baikonur. My normal duty tour was extended."
Yuri Shevetchenko was a spy. Pure and simple. What's more, he was a spy with a purpose. During Stalin's reign of terror, when he was a small boy, some uniformed men came to his family's apartment and took his mother and father away. He never saw them again. No explanation. No grave. No epitaph. Just gone. Forever. He never forgave the state for that, and took a blood oath the state would pay. A lot of victims from that era felt the same way, but Shevetchenko was somewhat different in that he went about his revenge in a very methodical way, and he was in no hurry. He took his time. The "reforms" and the denunciation of the Stalinist era by Khrushchev and Gorbachev impressed him not at all. The state was the state, and he was going to even the score, however long it took. His strategy was simple. Being a Russian, he knew the most precious thing any Russian possessed was a secret. Find a way to compromise the state's secrets, and the state would feel the pain.
Having no family influence, Shevetchenko attended trade school and became a simple electrician. He was patient, and waited for the right opportunity. When he secured a job as a staff electrician in the Council of Ministers Building — which was a stone's throw from the Lenin Mausoleum — he felt his time had arrived. Surely there were all sorts of secrets in the ministers' building, weren't there? While waiting for a secret to surface, however, Shevetchenko stumbled onto something that was infinitely more precious. Something that profoundly affected his life. That discovery was White TASS.
Except for a brief period during Gorbachev's glasnost, information within the Soviet Union has always been tightly controlled. The government-sponsored newspapers, Pravda and Isvestia, publish little hard news and are devoid of debate on public issues. The TASS news agency — a Soviet version of the Associated Press — is also tightly throttled. However, there is an additional function that the TASS news agency performs which only the privileged few in Russia know about. This is White TASS.
In essence, White TASS is the mirror the Soviet elite hold up to look at themselves and their country, and it works this way: Foreign TASS correspondents stationed abroad regularly read what the Times of London, the Washington Post, and Le Monde have to say about the Soviet Union — such as stories on arms control, Afghanistan, or "Kremlinology." The correspondents condense this information and send it to Moscow on a special White TASS circuit. Summaries of these sensitive dispatches are prepared in the Minister of Information's office and distributed among senior Kremlin officials. Circulation of the summaries is severely limited, and the raw teletype White TASS dispatches are discarded in the minister's trash cans, which are routinely emptied into bins that are carried to the incinerator in the building's basement.