Tom Clancy - Red Rabbit

“About ten. Your Station Chief, Silvestri, is driving it over.”

Ryan had only met him once. He’d seemed competent enough, but you expected that of a COS, even one in a sunset posting.

“Nothing new from Moscow?”

“Just some new rumors about Brezhnev’s health. It seems that stopping smoking did him precious little good,” Harding said, lighting his pipe. “Nasty old bugger,” the Brit analyst added.

“What about this stuff from Afghanistan?”

“Ivan’s getting cleverer. Those Mi-24 helicopters seem to be rather effective. Bad news for the Afghans.”

“How do you think that’s going to play out?”

Harding shrugged. “It’s a question of how many casualties Ivan is willing to take. They have the firepower they need to win, and so it’s a matter of political will. Unfortunately for the Mujahideen, the leadership in Moscow doesn’t trouble itself very much with casualties.”

“Unless something changes the equation,” Ryan thought out loud.

“Like what?”

“Like an effective surface-to-air missile to neutralize their helos. We have the Stinger. Never used it myself, but the write-up’s pretty good.”

“But can a mob of illiterate savages use a missile properly?” Harding asked dubiously. “A modern rifle, certainly. A machine gun, sure. But a missile?”

“The idea is to make a new weapon soldier-proof, Simon. You know, simple enough that you don’t have to think while you’re dodging bullets. There’s not much time to think then, and you make the steps as short as you can. Like I said, I’ve never used that one, but I’ve played with anti-tank weapons, and they’re pretty simple.”

“Well, your government will have to decide to give them the SAMs, and they haven’t yet. Hard for me to get overly excited about it. Yes, they are killing Russians, and I reckon that’s good, but they are bloody savages.”

And they killed a lot of Brits once, Ryan reminded himself, and Brit memories are as long as anyone else’s. There was also the issue of having Stingers fall into Russian hands, which would not make the United States Air Force terribly happy. But that was well above his pay grade. There were some rumbles in Congress about it, though.

Jack settled into his seat, sipped his coffee, and read his message traffic. After that he’d get back to his real job of analyzing the Soviet economy. That would be like drafting a road map of a plateful of spaghetti.

SILVESTRI’S JOB in London was not a secret. He’d been in the spook business too long, and while he hadn’t been burned per se, the East Bloc had pretty much guessed which government agency he worked for by the end of his stay in Warsaw, where he’d run a very tight shop and winkled out a lot of good political intelligence. This was to be his final tour of duty-the same was true of most of his officers-and since he was respected by various allied services, he’d drawn the London posting, where his main job was interfacing with the British Secret Intelligence Service. So he had an embassy Daimler drive him over across the river.

He didn’t even need a pass to get through security. Sir Basil himself was waiting for him at the entrance, where hands were cordially shaken before the trip upstairs.

“What’s the news, Randy?”

“Well, I have a package for you, and one for that Ryan guy,” Silvestri announced.

“Indeed. Should I call him in?”

The London COS had read the cover sheet and knew what was in the packages. “Sure, Bas, no problem. Harding, too, if you want.”

Charleston lifted his phone and made the summons. The two analysts arrived in less than two minutes. They had all met at least once. Ryan, in fact, was the least familiar with the other American. Sir Basil pointed them to seats. He’d already ripped his envelope open. Silvestri handed Ryan his own message.

For his part, Jack was already thinking oh, shit. Something unusual was in the offing, and he’d learned not to trust new and different things at CIA.

“This is interesting,” Charleston observed.

“Do I open this now?” Ryan asked. Silvestri nodded, so he took out his Swiss Army Knife and sliced through the heavy manila paper. His message was only three pages, personally signed by Admiral Greer.

A Rabbit, he saw. He knew the terminology. Somebody wanted a ticket out of. . Moscow. . and CIA was providing it, with the help of SIS because Station Budapest was currently out of business. .

“Tell Arthur that we will be pleased to assist, Randy. We will, I assume, get a chance to speak with him before you fly him off to London?”

“It’s only fair, Bas,” Silvestri confirmed. “How hard to pull this one off, you suppose?”

“Out of Budapest?” Charleston thought for a moment. “Not all that difficult, I should think. The Hungarians have a rather nasty secret-police organization, but the country as a whole is not devoutly Marxist-oh, this Rabbit says that KGB may have compromised your communications. That is what Langley is excited about.”

“Damned straight, Basil. If that’s a hole, we have to plug it up fast.”

“This guy’s in their MERCURY? Jesus Christ,” Ryan breathed.

“You got that one right, sonny,” Silvestri agreed.

“But what the hell am I going into the field for?” Jack demanded next. “I’m not a field officer.”

“We need one of ours to keep an eye on things.”

“I quite understand, Randy,” Charleston observed, his head still down in his briefing papers. “And you want someone whom the opposition doesn’t know?”

“So it seems.”

“But why me?” Ryan persisted.

“Jack,” Sir Basil soothed, “your only job will be to watch what happens. It’s just pro forma.”

“But what about my cover?”

“We’ll give you a new diplomatic passport,” C answered. “You will be quite safe. The Vienna Convention, you know.”

“But. . but. . it’ll be fake.”

“They won’t know that, dear boy.”

“What about my akzint ?” It was painfully obvious that his accent was an American’s, not a Brit’s.

“In Hungary?” Silvestri asked with a smile.

“Jack, with their bloody language, I seriously doubt they will notice the difference, and in any case, with your new documents, your person is quite inviolable.”

“Relax, kid. It’s better than your little girl’s teddy bear. Trust me on that one, okay?” Silvestri assured him.

“And you’ll have a security officer with you at all times,” Charleston added.

Ryan had to sit back and take a breath. He couldn’t allow himself to appear to be a wuss, not in front of these guys and not before Admiral Greer. “Okay, excuse me. It’s just that I’ve never been in the field before. It’s all kinda new to me.” He hoped that was adequate backpedaling. “What exactly will I be doing, and how do I go about it?”

“We’ll fly you into Budapest out of Heathrow. Our chaps will pick you up at the airport and take you to the embassy. You will sit it out there-a couple of days, I expect-and then watch how Andy gets your Rabbit out of Redland. Randy, how long would you expect?”

“To get this moving? End of the week, maybe a day or two longer,” Silvestri thought. “The Rabbit will fly or take the train to Budapest, and your man will figure how to get him the hell out of Dodge City.”

“Two or three days for that,” Sir Basil estimated. “Mustn’t be too quick.”

“Okay, that keeps me away from home for four days. What’s my cover story?”

“For your wife?” Charleston asked. “Tell her that you have to go to-oh, to Bonn, shall we say, on NATO business. Be vague on the time factor,” he advised. He was inwardly amused to have to explain this to the Innocent American Abroad.