Tom Clancy Red Winter, page 36
“Aw,” Hulse said. “That’s just for the gun charge. Pretty sure we can make that go away.”
“I do not have a gun!”
Hulse produced a clear plastic bag containing a Makarov pistol and an empty magazine. “You mean this isn’t your gun?”
“No! Where did you get that?”
“Hmm,” Hulse said. “It might belong to a recently murdered KGB agent . . . but I could have sworn we got it off of you.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I’m sure you guys will work it all out once you tell them about the mix-up.”
“You are turning me over to them?”
“Yep,” Hulse said. “With your gun.”
“You can’t be serious! Do you realize what you are giving up?”
“I don’t know, Kurt,” Hulse said. “A very frightened young woman who works for our State Department gets to come home. You seem like a pretty good trade.”
* * *
—
Admiral Greer and Lane Buckley arrived in Berlin before lunch and accompanied Ryan to the base hospital to look in on Foley.
Her heart monitor sped up momentarily to match her glare when the ADDO walked into the room.
“Lane,” she said, stone-faced, before smiling at Greer and Ryan.
The admiral closed the hospital room door and shut the blinds. “This isn’t exactly a SCIF,” he said. “But I think it’s secure enough that I can tell you two what an outstanding job you’ve done.”
Buckley, who looked like he’d been spoiling for a fight since he arrived, walked to the window and peered around the miniblinds.
“I don’t get it, Admiral,” he said. “You talk like we should give these guys an award when I came over here with the full intention of chewing them new assholes. Because of them, we just lost one of the best intelligence sources we’ve had in years.”
“Is that so?” Greer said.
“Yes, Admiral,” Buckley said. “I believe it is.”
Ryan took a deep breath, forcing himself not to punch this arrogant asshole in the throat.
“Are you telling me you’d be okay trading an innocent kid’s life for a thimble of information that will be stale before we get it into a report? What the hell do we gather intelligence for if not to protect people like Ruby Keller?”
“No one expects you to understand an operational mindset, Ryan,” Buckley said. “You stick to analysis. Let ops handle the heavy lifting.”
Foley’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “How about I grab you by the balls and do a little heavy lifting, you sanctimonious—”
Greer gave a quiet nod and she backed off.
Buckley wagged his head. “Listen. I understand you guys are spun up by all this.”
Foley’s heart rate began to accelerate again and she very nearly came out of the bed. “You listen, dickhead! You have no idea how—”
Another look from Greer.
Foley raised an open hand. “Okay . . . okay . . .” She inhaled deeply, then blew it out slowly through her mouth, regaining some semblance of control.
“It helps not to look at him,” Ryan said. He was every bit as mad as Foley, but if he bowed up, Buckley would take it as a threat to his manhood and things were sure to get physical. It was an option that Ryan had yet to rule out. As Cathy often reminded him, his fuse was very difficult to light, but it was incredibly short, burning down instantly if someone managed to touch it off.
“I’m trying to tell you I do understand,” Buckley continued. “I didn’t make it to assistant deputy director without seeing some things. You’ve been in some shit, I get it. But sometimes, a thimbleful of intel is worth a half-dozen lives . . . or more.”
“Maybe sometimes.” Ryan looked Buckley directly in the eye. “But not this time.” He gave a determined nod, realizing that he’d reached a firm conclusion. “You know, I wasn’t sure before about this new job at Langley. But you’ve made the decision for me.”
“Sorry you feel that—”
Ryan cut him off. “If this is the way you do business, then I will gladly come and work on the seventh floor, just so I can counter every program you have going.”
“Oh,” Buckley said. “You’re not working in any office near me. Not with that attitude, mister. Ritter will make sure of that.”
“He’s right, Jack,” Greer said. “Sometimes things don’t work out with the sort of equity that we’d like for them to. Ruby Keller was treated like shit by that female Stasi guard. But . . . so goes the war. There is little we can do about Mitzi Graff. And sadly, as much as I’d love to see you working on the same floor as Lane, I’m afraid that’s not going to work out.”
Buckley twirled his Montblanc pen in his fingers and beamed.
Greer put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jack, but in light of everything that has occurred, Ritter, Judge Moore, and I all feel it would be better for Buckley to head up the CIA’s Office of Congressional Affairs . . .”
Greer didn’t say it, but of all Lane Buckley’s traits, his ability to kiss ass was stellar. He’d be fantastic in Congressional Affairs, and was just self-important enough to think of the move as a promotion.
“Are you going to be all right?” Greer asked Foley after Buckley left her hospital room.
“I’m fine.”
“Jen North?” Ryan asked.
Greer nodded grimly. “Sources say Colonel Schneider shot her about the same time you came out the west end of the tunnel—which they have filled with concrete on their end, by the way.”
From Foley: “The East Germans will use this to embarrass us.”
Greer gave a knowing nod. “I’m sure. It’s what they do.”
“Well,” Foley said, “I think we can handle it. Not too many of our people fleeing to the East to escape democracy and a free press.”
“Too bad about Jen North,” Ryan said.
“It’s a sad deal, for sure,” Foley said. “But I’m not shedding too many tears. She helped us escape, but let’s not forget she betrayed the Helsinki team.” She looked at Greer. “Any word from Mike?”
“Two confirmed dead,” Greer said. “Mike joined the others from the safe house and they hitched a ride north to the Baltic. They should be in Copenhagen by nightfall.”
“What about the two bodies?” Ryan asked.
Foley closed her eyes and pounded her head softly against the pillow.
“Stars on a wall, Jack. Stars on a wall . . .”
They sat in silence for a time, each of them knowing that if they were to die in some enemy land, they would be buried there, likely in an unmarked ditch, their family fed some fiction as to the cause of their death. At some point, the stonecutter would carve another memorial star on the wall at Langley. No name, no date, just one of many simple stars to mark the newest sacrifice.
“It’s all so tragic,” Ryan whispered. “Even Jen. I know she was your friend once.”
“No.” Foley sighed, coming to terms with it all. “We worked together. That’s all.” She gave Ryan a wan smile. “It’s not like she ever stitched up my bullet wounds or anything . . .”
Greer raised an eyebrow at that.
Ryan said, “You’ll be happy to hear Ruby Keller made it back.”
“I heard,” Foley said. “Missing her thumb and pretty shaken up. And Pfeiffer?”
“He’s back in the East,” Ryan said. “With his Makarov.”
“Good,” Foley said. “I know it’s the way things are, but it pisses me off that nothing can be done about that Stasi guard.”
“Oh,” Greer said. “I didn’t say nothing could be done. I said there wasn’t much we could do.”
Greer nodded to Ryan and they both turned to go. Greer opened the door, and then went back to Foley’s bedside and put his hand on her shoulder. “That friend of ours.” He gave her a smiling nod. “He’s home, too.”
EPILOGUE
One week after the powers that be had let the little American bitch go free, Mitzi Graff put on her tracksuit and wool hat and went for a five-kilometer run through Prenzlauer Berg People’s Park, as she did every Tuesday and Thursday night to work off steam from the rigors of her job. They’d brought in a new one for her, a former Stasi major who had decided to blab to the West. Fortunately, he’d been caught before he could give up any secrets. Unfortunately for him, he’d been captured with a dead KGB officer’s pistol, that officer being a favorite of KGB Colonel Evgeni Zima. Graff did not expect the miserable slob to last a week. Even if he did, Zima would see that he was taken to Moscow—and then . . .
Graff slowed to a trot. It was awfully cold and awfully dark for old folks to be out walking.
The old woman was woefully thin, not nearly enough meat on her bones to be out in this weather. At least she was smart enough to get out of the way. The old man was a different story. He stumbled a little, then stopped in the middle of the trail, frozen like a stag in oncoming headlights.
“Clear the trail, Grandpa!” Graff shouted, slowing to spit.
“Mitzi Graff,” the old woman whispered as she went past.
Graff slowed, puffing great blossoms of vapor, running in place so she did not waste her workout. “How do you know my name, Grannie?”
“Ruby Keller told me,” the old woman said as she shot her four times in the chest with a suppressed pistol.
“Come, Lotte,” Graff heard the old man say as they walked away, leaving the freckled guard writhing in the snow.
* * *
—
Cathy Ryan made it her habit to unpack for her husband. Not because she didn’t trust him, but because he would leave his suitcase full of dirty clothes sitting in the closet for a week. And sometimes he left little presents for her and the kids to find.
Jack Junior sat on the edge of the bed, bouncing, singing a little song, and “helping,” which usually meant throwing things on the floor. At the moment, he’d draped his father’s huge wool coat over himself like a tent. A dry cleaner’s tag on the lapel relieved her of worry that the coat might be covered in who knew what . . .
She sorted through the bag, tossing dirty skivvies in a basket, folding a pair of slacks that it looked like he’d never worn, thinking of all the things she had to do to get ready for the move back to the States for Jack’s new position at Langley . . . and her new job at Johns Hopkins . . . Jack Junior brought her back to the present with one of his maniacal giggles. When she looked up to check on him, she saw his little finger sticking out of a hole in the shoulder of her husband’s coat.
“Just a minute, buddy,” she said. “Let Mommy see that.”
She took the coat and lifted it up, putting her own index finger through not one, but two holes . . . an entry and an exit. Bullet holes.
“Jack!”
Coat in hand, she spun to march downstairs, but he was already there, standing with his hand in the doorway, looking handsome and important and worthy.
She held up the coat. “Some secrets?”
He sighed, soft and exhausted, the kind of sigh that said he was happy to be home and safe with his little family.
“Afraid so . . .”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A little more than thirty years ago, Tom Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore's Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold briskly as a result of rave reviews, then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it "the perfect yarn." From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense. He passed away in October 2013.
A native of Texas, Marc Cameron spent almost thirty years in law enforcement. He served as a uniformed police officer, mounted (horse patrol) officer, SWAT officer, and a U.S. Marshal. Cameron is conversant in Japanese, and travels extensively researching his New York Times-bestselling Jericho Quinn novels. Cameron's books have been nominated for both the Barry Award and the Thriller Award.
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Marc Cameron, Tom Clancy Red Winter
