Jack Ryan 5 - The Cardinal of the Kremlin (36 page)

The target kept going up for a few more seconds, but surprisingly did not ignite its rocket motor. It was now a ballistic object, traveling in obedience to the laws of physics. Its oversized fins provided enough aerodynamic drag to keep it pointed in the proper direction as gravity began to reclaim the object for its own. The rocket tipped over at one hundred thirty thousand feet, reluctantly pointing its nose at the earth.

Then its motor fired. The solid-fuel engine burned for only four seconds, but that was enough to accelerate its conical nose to a speed that would have terrified the Blackbird's pilot.

"Okay,” an Army officer said. The point-defense radar went from standby to active. It immediately saw the inbound. The target rocket was pushing itself down through the atmosphere at roughly the same speed as an ICBM warhead. He didn't have to give a command. The system was fully automated. Two hundred yards away a fiberglass cover exploded off a concrete hole drilled in the gypsum flats, and a FLAGE erupted skyward. The Flexible Lightweight Agile Guided Experiment looked more like a lance than a rocket, and was nearly that simple. Millimeter-wave radar tracked the inbound, and the data was processed through an onboard microcomputer. The remarkable part of this was that all the parts had been taken off the shelf from existing high-tech weaponry.

Outside, men watched from behind a protective earthen berm. They saw the upward streak of yellow light and heard the roar of the solid rocket motor, then nothing for several seconds.

The FLAGE homed in on its target, maneuvering a few fractions of degrees with tiny attitude-control rockets. The nosecap blew off, and what unfolded would have looked to an outsider like a collapsing umbrella's framework, perhaps ten yards across . . .

It looked just like a Fourth of July rocket, but without the noise. A few people cheered. Though both the target and the FLAGE “warhead” were totally inert, the energy of the collision converted metal and ceramic to incandescent vapor.

“Four for four,” Gregory said. He tried not to yawn. He'd seen fireworks before.

“You're not going to get all the boosters, Major,” General Parks chided the younger man. “We still need the midcourse systems, and the terminal-defense ones.”

“Yes, sir, but you don't need me here. It works.”

For the first three tests, the target rocket had been fired from a Phantom fighter, and people in
Washington
had claimed that the test series had underestimated the difficulty of intercepting the inbound warheads. Using the SR-71 as the launch platform had been Parks's idea. Launching the drone from higher altitude, and with a higher initial speed, had made for a much faster reentry target. This test had actually made things slightly harder than was expected, and the FLAGE hadn't cared a bit. Parks had been a little worried about the missile-guidance software, but, as Gregory had noted, it worked.

“Al,” Parks said, “I'm starting to think that this whole program is going to work.”

“Sure. Why not?” If those Agency pukes can get us the plans for the Russian laser . . .

C
ARDINAL
sat alone in a bare cell, one and a half meters wide, two and a half meters long. There was a bare light bulb overhead, a wooden cot with a bucket underneath, but not a window except the spy hole in the rusted iron door. The walls were solid concrete, and there was no sound at all. He couldn't hear the pacing of the corridor guard, nor even the rumble of traffic on the street outside the prison. They'd taken his uniform blouse, and belt, and his polished boots, replacing the last with cheap slippers. The cell was in the basement. That was all he knew, and he could tell from the damp air. It was cold.

But not so cold as his heart. The enormity of his crime came to him as it never had. Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich Filitov, three times Hero of the
Soviet Union
, was alone with his treason. He thought of the magnificent, broad land in which he lived, whose distant horizons and endless vistas were peopled with his fellow Russians. He'd served them all his life with pride and honor, and with his own blood, as the scars on his body proclaimed. He remembered the men with whom he'd served, so many of whom had died under his command. And how they had died, defiantly cursing the German tanks and guns as they burned alive in T-34s, retreating only when forced to, preferring to attack even when they knew it to be doomed. He remembered leading his troops in a hundred engagements, the frantic exhilaration that accompanied the roar of the diesel engines, the reeking clouds of smoke, the determination even unto the death that he had cheated so many times.

And he'd betrayed it all.

What would my men say of me now?
He stared at the blank concrete wall opposite his cot.

What would Romanov say?

I think we both need a drink, my Captain
, the voice chimed in. Only Romanov could be both serious and amused at the same time. Such thoughts are more easily considered with vodka or Samogan.

Do you know why?
Misha asked.

You've never told us why, my Captain. And so Misha did. It took but a brief flicker of time.

Both your sons, and your wife. Tell me, Comrade Captain, for what did we die?

Misha didn't know that. Even during the shooting he hadn't known. He'd been a soldier, and when a soldier's country is invaded, the soldier fights to repel the enemy. So much the easier when the enemy is as brutal as the Germans were . . .

We fought for the Soviet Union, Corporal.

Did we, now? I seem to remember fighting for Mother Russia, but mainly I remember fighting for you, Comrade Captain.

But—

A soldier fights for his comrades, my Captain. I fought for my family. You and our troop, they were my only family. I suppose you also fought for your family, the big one and the little one. I always envied you that, my Captain, and I was proud that you made me part of both in the way that you did.

But I killed you. I shouldn't have—

We all have our destiny, Comrade Captain. Mine was to die young at Vyasma without a wife, without children, but even so I did not die without a family.

I avenged you, Romanov. I got the Mark-IV that killed you.

I know. You avenged all the dead of your family. Why do you think we loved you? Why do you think we died for you?

You understand?
Misha asked in surprise.

The workers and peasants may not, but your men will. We understand destiny now, as you cannot.

But what shall I do?

Captains do not ask such questions of corporals.
Romanov laughed. You had all the answers to our questions.

Filitov's head jerked up as the latch slipped on the door of his cell.

Vatutin expected to find a broken man. The isolation of the cell, the prisoner stripped of identity and alone with his fears and his crimes, always had the proper effect. But while he looked at a tired, crippled old man, he saw the eyes and mouth change.

Thank you, Romanov.

“Good morning, Sir Basil,” Ryan said as he reached for the man's bags. “Hello, Jack! I didn't know they were using you as a gofer.”

“Depends on who I'm going-fer, as they say. The car's over this way.” He waved. It was parked fifty yards away.

“Constance sends her love. How is the family?” Sir Basil Charleston asked.

“Fine, thanks. How's London?”

“Surely you haven't forgotten our winters already.”

“No.” Jack laughed as he wrenched open the door. “I remember the beer, too.” A moment later both doors were closed and locked.

“They sweep the wheels every week,” Jack said. “How bad is it?”

“How bad? That's what I came over here to find out. Something very odd is happening. You chaps had an op go wrong, didn't you?”

“I can say yes to that, but the rest'll have to come from the Judge. Sorry, but I was just cleared for part of it.”

“Recently, I'll wager.”

“Yep.” Ryan shifted up as he took the turn off the airport road.

“Then let's see if you can still put two and two together, Sir John.”

Jack smiled as he changed lanes to pass a truck. “I was doing the intelligence estimate on the arms talks when I broke into it. Now I'm supposed to be looking at Narmonov's political vulnerability. Unless I'm wrong, that's why you've flown over.”

“And unless I'm very far off the mark, your op has triggered something very serious indeed.”

“Vaneyev?”

“Correct.”

“Jesus.” Ryan turned briefly. “I hope you have some ideas, 'cause we sure as hell don't.” He took the car to seventy-five. Fifteen minutes later he pulled into
Langley
. They parked in the underground garage and took the VIP elevator to the seventh floor.

“Hello, Arthur. It's not often I have a knight chauffeur me about, even in London.” The head of SIS took a chair while Ryan summoned Moore's department chiefs.

“Hi, Bas',” Greer said on entering. Ritter just waved. It was his operation that had triggered this crisis. Ryan took the least comfortable chair available.

“I'd like to know exactly what went wrong,” Charleston said simply, not even waiting for the coffee to be passed around.

“An agent got arrested. A very well-placed agent.”

“Is that why the Foleys are flying out today?” Charles smiled. “I didn't know who they were, but when two people get ejected from that delightful country, we generally assume—”

“We don't know what went wrong yet,” Ritter said. “They should be landing at Frankfurt right about now, then ten more hours till we have them here for the debrief. They were working an agent who—”

“Who was an aide to Yazov—Colonel M. S. Filitov. We've deduced that much. How long have you had him?”

“It was one of your folks who recruited him for us,”
Moore
replied. “He was a colonel, too.”

“You don't mean . . . Oleg Penkovskiy . . . ? Bloody hell!”
Charleston
was amazed for once, Ryan saw. It didn't happen often. “That long?”

“That long,” Ritter said. “But the numbers caught up with us.”

“And the Vaneyeva woman we seconded to you for courier service was part of that—”

“Correct. She never came close to either end of the chain, by the way. We know that she was probably picked up, but she's back at work. We haven't checked her out yet, but—”

“We have. Bob. Our chap reported that she'd—changed somehow. He said it was hard to describe but impossible to miss. Like the hoary tales of brainwashing, Orwell and all that. He noted that she was free—or what passes for it over there—and related that to her father. Then we learned of something big in the Defense Ministry—that a senior aide to Yazov had been arrested.”
Charleston
paused to stir his coffee. "We have a source inside the Kremlin that we guard rather closely. We have learned that Chairman Gerasimov spent several hours with Alexandrov last week and under fairly unusual circumstances. This same source has warned us that Alexandrov has a considerable urge to sidetrack this perestroika business.

“Well, it's clear, isn't it?” Charleston asked rhetorically. It was quite clear to everyone. “Gerasimov has suborned a Politburo member thought to be loyal to Narmonov, at the very least compromised the support of the Defense Minister, and been spending a good deal of time with the man who wants Narmonov out. I'm afraid that your operation may have triggered something with the most unpleasant consequences.”

“There's more,” the DCI said. “Our agent was getting us material on Soviet SDI research. Ivan may have made a breakthrough.”

“Marvelous,”
Charleston
observed. “A return to the bad old days, but this time the new version of the 'missile gap' is potentially quite real, I take it? I am awfully old to change my politics. Too bad. You know, of course, that there is a leak in your program?”

“Oh?” Moore asked with a poker face.

“Gerasimov told Alexandrov that. No details, unfortunately, except that KGB think it highly important.”

“We've had some warnings. It's being looked at,”
Moore
said.

“Well, the technical matters can sort themselves out. They generally do. The political question, on the other hand, has created a bit of a bother with the PM. There's trouble enough when we bring down a government that we wish to bring down, but to do so by accident . . .”

“We don't like the consequences any more than you do, Basil,” Greer noted. “But there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it from this end.”

“You can accept their treaty terms,”
Charleston
suggested. “Then our friend Narmonov would have his position sufficiently strengthened that he might be able to tell Alexandrov to bugger off. That, in any case, is the unofficial position of Her Majesty's government.”

And that's the real purpose of your visit to us, Sir Basil
, Ryan thought. It was time to say something:

“That means putting unreasonable restrictions on our SDI research and reducing our warhead inventory in the knowledge that the Russians are racing forward with their own program. I don't think that's a very good deal.”

“And a Soviet government headed by Gerasimov is?”

“And what if we end up with that anyway?” Ryan asked. “My estimate is already written. I recommend against additional concessions.”

“One can always change a written document,”
Charleston
pointed out.

“Sir, I have a rule. If something goes out with my name on the front, it says what I think, not what somebody else tells me to think,” Ryan said.

“Do remember, gentlemen, that I am a friend. What is likely to happen to the Soviet government would be a greater setback to the West than a temporary restriction on one of your defense programs.”

“The President won't spring for it,” Greer said.

“He might have to,”
Moore
replied.

“There has to be another way,” Ryan observed.

“Not unless you can bring Gerasimov down.” It was Ritter this time. “We can't offer any direct help to Narmonov. Even if we assume that he'd take a warning from us, which he probably wouldn't, we'd be running an even greater risk by involving ourselves in their internal politics. If the rest of the Politburo got one whiff of that . . . I suppose it might start a little war.”

“But what if we can?” Ryan asked,