The Bear and the Dragon - Страница 4

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“Rasputin?” Goodley said, scanning the first page. “Oh, okay, I have heard something about this one.”

“So has the Boss, I bet.”

“I’ll know in two hours,” Goodley imagined aloud. “What’s Station Moscow saying?”

“The station chief is in St. Pete’s for a trade conference, part of his cover duties. What we have is from his XO. The best bet to this point is that either Avseyenko made a big enemy in the Russian Mafia, or maybe Golovko was the real target, and they hit the wrong car. No telling which at this point.” Followed by the usual NIO damned-if-I-know shrug.

“Who would want to take Golovko out?”

“Their Mafia? Somebody got himself an RPG, and they don’t sell them in hardware stores, do they? So, that means somebody deeply into their criminal empire, probably, made the hit-but who was the real target? Avseyenko must have had some serious enemies along the way, but Golovko must have enemies or rivals, too.” She shrugged again. “You pays your money and you takes your choice.”

“The Boss likes to have better information,” Goodley warned.

“So do I, Ben,” Peggy Hunter replied. “But that’s all I got, and even the fuckin’ Russians don’t have better at this point.”

“Any way we can look into their investigation?”

“The Legal Attaché, Mike Reilly, is supposed to be pretty tight with their cops. He got a bunch of them admitted to the FBI’s National Academy post-grad cop courses down at Quantico.”

“Maybe have the FBI tell him to nose around?”

Mrs. Hunter shrugged again. “Can’t hurt. Worst thing anybody can say is no, and we’re already there, right?”

Goodley nodded. “Okay, I’ll recommend that.” He got up. “Well,” he observed on his way out the door, “the Boss won’t bitch about how boring the world is today.” He took the CNN tape with him and headed back to his SUV.

The sun was struggling to rise now. Traffic on the George Washington Parkway was picking up with eager-beaver types heading into their desks early, probably Pentagon people, most of them, Goodley thought, as he crossed over the Key Bridge, past Teddy Roosevelt Island. The Potomac was calm and flat, almost oily, like the pond behind a mill dam. The outside temperature, his dashboard said, was forty-four, and the forecast for the day was a high in the upper fifties, a few clouds, and calm winds. An altogether pleasant day for late fall, though he’d be stuck in his office for all of it, pleasant or not.

Things were starting early at The House, he saw on pulling in. The Blackhawk helicopter was just lifting off as he pulled into his reserved parking place, and the motorcade had already formed up at the West Entrance. It was enough to make him check his watch. No, he wasn’t late. He hustled out of his car, bundling the papers and cassette into his arms as he hurried inside.

“Morning, Dr. Goodley,” a uniformed guard said in greeting.

“Hi, Chuck.” Regular or not, he had to pass through the metal detector. The papers and cassette were inspected by hand-as though he’d try to bring a gun in, Ben thought in passing irritation. Well, there had been a few scares, hadn’t there? And these people were trained not to trust anybody.

Having passed the daily security test, he turned left, sprinted up the stairs, then left again to his office, where some helpful soul-he didn’t know if it was one of the clerical staff or maybe one of the Service people-had his office coffee machine turning out some Gloria Jean’s French Hazelnut. He poured himself a cup and sat down at his desk to organize his papers and his thoughts. He managed to down half of the cup before bundling it all up again for the ninety-foot walk. The Boss was already there.

“Morning, Ben.”

“Good morning, Mr. President,” replied the National Security Adviser.

“Okay, what’s new in the world?” POTUS asked.

“It looks as though somebody might have tried to assassinate Sergey Golovko this morning.”

“Oh?” President Ryan asked, looking up from his coffee. Goodley filled him in, then inserted the cassette in the Oval Office VCR and punched PLAY.

“Jeez,” Ryan observed. What had been an expensive car was now fit only for the crushing machine. “Who’d they get instead?”

“One Gregoriy Filipovich Avseyenko, age fifty-two-”

“I know that name. Where from?”

“He’s more widely known as Rasputin. He used to run the KGB Sparrow School.”

Ryan’s eyes went a little wider. “That cocksucker! Okay, what’s the story on him?”

“He got RIF’d back in ’93 or so, and evidently set himself up in the same business, and it would seem he’s made some money at it, judging by his car, anyway. There was evidently a young woman in with him when he was killed, plus a driver. They were all killed.”

Ryan nodded. The Sparrow School had been where for years the Soviets had trained attractive young women to be prostitutes in the service of their country both at home and abroad, because, since time immemorial, men with a certain weakness for women had often found their tongues loosened by the right sort of lubrication. Not a few secrets had been conveyed to the KGB by this method, and the women had also been useful in recruiting various foreign nationals for the KGB officers to exploit. So, on having his official office shut down, Rasputin-so called by the Soviets for his ability to get women to bend to his will-had simply plied his trade in the new free-enterprise environment.

“So, Avseyenko might have had ‘business’ enemies angry enough to take him out, and Golovko might not have been the target at all?”

“Correct, Mr. President. The possibility exists, but we don’t have any supporting data one way or the other.”

“How do we get it?”

“The Legal Attaché at the embassy is well connected with the Russian police,” the National Security Adviser offered.

“Okay, call Dan Murray at FBI and have his man nose around,” Ryan said. He’d already considered calling Golovko directly-they’d known each other for more than ten years, though one of their initial contacts had involved Golovko’s pistol right in Jack’s face on one of the runways of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport-and decided against it. He couldn’t show that much immediate interest, though later, if they had a private moment together, he’d be able to ask a casual question about the incident. “Same for Ed and MP at CIA.”

“Right.” Goodley made a note.

“Next?”

Goodley turned the page. “Indonesia is doing some naval exercises that have the Aussies a little interested….” Ben went on with the morning briefing for twenty more minutes, mainly covering political rather than military matters, because that’s what national security had become in recent years. Even the international arms trade had diminished to the point that quite a few countries were treating their national military establishments as boutiques rather than serious instruments of statecraft.

“So, the world’s in good shape today?” the President summarized.

“Except for the pothole in Moscow, it would seem so, sir.”

The National Security Adviser departed, and Ryan looked at his schedule for the day. As usual, he had very little in the way of free time. About the only moments on his plan-of-the-day without someone in the office with him were those in which he’d have to read over briefing documents for the next meeting, many of which were planned literally weeks in advance. He took off his reading glasses-he hated them-and rubbed his eyes, already anticipating the morning headache that would come in about thirty minutes. A quick re-scan of the page showed no light moments today. No troop of Eagle Scouts from Wyoming, nor current World Series champs, nor Miss Plum Tomato from California’s Imperial Valley to give him something to smile about. No. Today would be all work.

Shit, he thought.

The nature of the Presidency was a series of interlocking contradictions. The Most Powerful Man in the World was quite unable to use his power except under the most adverse circumstances, which he was supposed to avoid rather than to engage. In reality, the Presidency was about negotiations, more with the Congress than anyone else; it was a process for which Ryan had been unsuited until given a crash course by his chief of staff, Arnold van Damm. Fortunately, Arnie did a lot of the negotiations himself, then came into the Oval Office to tell the President what his (Ryan’s) decision and/or position was on an issue, so that he (van Damm) could then do a press release or a statement in the Press Room. Ryan supposed that a lawyer treated his client that way much of the time, looking after his interests as best he could while not telling him what those interests were until they were already decided. The President, Arnie told everyone, had to be protected from direct negotiations with everyone-especially Congress. And, Jack reminded himself, he had a fairly tame Congress. What had it been like for presidents dealing with contentious ones?

And what the hell, he wondered, not for the first time, was he doing here?

The election process had been the purest form of hell-despite the fact that he’d had what Arnie invariably had called a cakewalk. Never less than five speeches per day, more often as many as nine, in as many different places before as many diverse groups-but always the same speech, delivered off file cards he kept in his pocket, changed only in minor local details by a frantic staff on the Presidential aircraft, trying to keep track of the flight plan. The amazing thing was that they’d never made a mistake that he’d caught. For variety, the President would alter the order of the cards. But the utility of that had faded in about three days.