“God damn it!” Ryan swore. “This came in through State?”
“Correct, sir. Director Cabot's orders to use a fax line. He wanted to save transcription time.”
“Didn't Sam Yamata bother to explain about date-lines and time-zones?”
“'Fraid not,”
There was no sense swearing further at the man from the Japan Department. Ryan read through the pages again. “Well, what do you think?”
“I think the Prime Minister is walking into an ambush.”
“Isn't that too damned bad?” Ryan observed. “Messenger this down to the White House. The President's going to want it PDQ.”
“Right.” The man left. Ryan dialed up operations next. “How's Clark doing?” Jack asked, without preamble.
“Okay, he says. He's ready to make the plant. The monitor aircraft are all standing by. We know of no changes in the PM's schedule.”
“Thanks.”
“How long are you going to be in?”
Jack looked outside. The snow had already started. “Maybe all night.”
It was developing into a big one. The eastbound cold-weather storm from the Midwest was linking into a low-pressure area coming up the coast. The really big snow storms in the D.C. area always came in from the south, and the National Weather Service was saying six-to-eight inches. That prediction was up from two-to-four only a few hours earlier. He could leave work right now, then try to fight his way back in the morning, or he could stay. Staying, unfortunately, looked like the best option.
Golovko was also in his office, though the time in Moscow was eight hours ahead of Washington. That fact did not contribute to Sergey's humor, which was poor.
“Well?” he asked the man from the communications-intelligence watch staff.
“We got lucky. This document was sent by facsimile printer from the U.S. Embassy Tokyo to Washington.” He handed the sheet over.
The slick thermal paper was covered mainly with gibberish, some discrete but disordered letters, and even more black-and-white hash from the random noise, but perhaps as much as twenty percent was legible English, including two complete sentences and one full paragraph.
“Well?” Golovko asked again.
“When I delivered it to the Japanese section for comment, they handed me this.” Another document was passed. “I've marked the paragraph.”
Golovko read the Russian-language paragraph, then compared it to the English—
“It's a fucking translation. How was our document sent in?”
“By embassy courier. It wasn't transmitted because two of the crypto machines in Tokyo were being repaired, and the Rezident decided it was unimportant enough to wait. It ended up in the embassy bag. So, they are not reading our ciphers, but they got this anyway.”
“Who's working this case…? Lyalin? Yes.” Golovko said, almost to himself. He next called the senior watch officer for the First Chief Directorate. “Colonel, this is Golovko. I want a Flash-priority to Rezident Tokyo. Lyalin to report to Moscow immediately.”
“What's the problem?”
“The problem is, we have another leak.”
“Lyalin is a very effective officer. I know the material he's sending back.”
“So do the Americans. Get that message off at once. Then, I want everything we have from THISTLE on my desk.” Golovko hung up and looked at the major standing in front of his desk. “That mathematician who figured this all out — good God, I wish we'd had him five years ago!”
“He spent ten years devising this theory on ordering chaos. If it's ever made public, he'll win the Planck Medal. He took the work of Mandelbrot at Harvard University in America and MacKenzie at Cambridge, and—”
“I will take your word for it, Major. The last time you tried to explain this witchcraft to me I merely got a headache. How is the work going?”
“We grow stronger every day. The only thing we cannot break is the new CIA system that's starting to come on line. It seems to use a new principle. We're working on it.”
President Fowler boarded the Marine VH-3 helicopter before the snow got too bad. Painted a shiny olive-drab on the bottom, with white on top, and little else in the way of markings, it was his personal bird, with the call-sign Marine-One. Elizabeth Elliot boarded just behind him, the press corps noted. Pretty soon they'd have to break the story on the two, some thought. Or maybe the President would do the job for them by marrying the bitch.
The pilot, a Marine lieutenant-colonel, brought the twin turbine engines to full power, then eased up on the collective, rising slowly and turning northwest. He was almost instantly on instruments, which he didn't like. Flying blind and on instruments didn't trouble him. Flying blind and on instruments with the President aboard did. Flying in snow was about the worst thing there was. All external visual references were gone. Staring out the windshield could turn the most seasoned airman into a disoriented and airsick feather-merchant in a matter of seconds. As a result, he spent far more time scanning his instruments. The chopper had all manner of safety features, including collision-avoidance radar, plus having the undivided attention of two senior air-traffic controllers. In some perverse ways, this was a safe way to fly. In clear air, some lunatic with a Cessna might just try to perform a mid-air with Marine-One, and maneuvering to avoid such things was a regular drill for the colonel, both in the air and in the aircraft simulator at Anacostia Naval Air Station.
“Wind's picking up faster than I 'spected,” the co-pilot, a major, observed.
“May get a little bumpy when we hit the mountains.”
“Should have left a little sooner.”
The pilot switched settings on his intercom box, linking him with the two Secret Service agents in back. “May want to make sure everybody's strapped in tight. Picking up a little chop.”
“Okay, thanks,” Pete Connor replied. He looked to see that everyone's seatbelt was securely fastened. Everyone aboard was too seasoned a flyer to be the least bit concerned, but he preferred a smooth ride as much as the next person. The President, he saw, was fully relaxed, reading over a folder that had just arrived a few minutes before they'd left. Connor settled back also. Connor and D'Agustino loved Camp David. A company of hand-picked Marine riflemen provided perimeter security. They were backed up and augmented by the best electronic surveillance systems America had ever built. Backing everyone up were the usual Secret Service agents. Nobody was scheduled to come in or out of the place this weekend, except, possibly, one CIA messenger who would drive. Everyone could relax, including the President and his lady friend, Connor thought.
“This is getting bad. Better tell the weather pukes to stick their head out the window.”
“They said eight inches.”
“I got a buck says more than a foot.”
“I never bet against you on weather,” the co-pilot reminded the colonel.
“Smart man, Scotty.”
“Supposed to clear tomorrow night.”
“I'll believe that when I see it, too.”
“Temp's supposed to drop to zero, too, maybe a touch under.”
“That I believe,” the colonel said, checking his altitude, compass, and artificial horizon. His eyes went outboard again, seeing only snowflakes being churned by the downwash of the rotor tips. “What do you call visibility?”
“Oh, in a clear spot… maybe a hundred feet… maybe one-fifty… ” The major turned to grin at the colonel. The grin stopped when he started thinking about the ice that might build up on the airframe. “What's the outside temp?” he murmured to himself.
“Minus 12 centigrade,” the colonel said, before he could look at the thermometer.