Read Online October's Ghost by Ryne Douglas Pearson - Free Book Online

adequately with a non response. “It is simply a matter of advisement. To place so much trust in the Americans is, well, presumptuous, would you not say?”
    “No, I would not say that.” The president pulled his collar up against the breeze that was picking up. “They have given Marshal Kurchatov unprecedented access to their strategic systems. Their raket submarines are being recalled for the duration of the operation. In a few hours he will observe the process by which a launch of their strategic missiles is ordered, something that is such a closely held secret the KGB was never able to determine the exact process.” His head shook emphatically. “No, Comrade Bogdanov, I would not say that our trust of the Americans is presumptuous.”
    “I would,” the interior minister countered, drawing the philosophical line between himself and the president. “And so do many others...in all areas of our government.”
    The president saw the general straighten at the minister’s words. What was being implied was clear enough. He had already survived one coup and had squashed two others before they ever got past the planning stages, mostly because they lacked any sort of catalyst to spark and inspire the plotters. The dismantling of his nation’s missile-warning system about to begin with American assistance could be just such a catalyst. Warnings of such a situation had been given since the plan’s inception. There was deep, vitriolic disagreement within the government over the plan. To trust the Americans or not. There were only two answers, with no gray area in between, and these men had been dispatched to be convinced that the president’s decision was correct. Anything less could lead to something the country neither wanted nor needed.
    “Igor Yureivich,” the president said, signaling his foreign minister to do that which he had hoped would not be necessary. As a smart political maverick, though, he had prepared for the eventuality that it would.
    “We have proof that the Americans are sincere in this effort,” Yakovlev began. “From inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”
    The revelation caught both Bogdanov and Shergin off guard, and each looked to the other for some bearing as to what should be done now. The interior minister went on with the obvious. “We have an agent in the CIA?”
    “Not exactly,” Yakovlev said with a smile, explaining the full story for the visitors after a sip of vodka. “As you can see, it is an unusual arrangement. But we have validated the information. The spy that State Security caught earlier this year—the damned Lithuanian in the shipyard—was foretold by the information we received from our source. And several other pieces of information have proven very helpful, and very truthful.”
    Bogdanov thought over what he’d just been told. It was quite out of the ordinary but very elegant indeed. State Security, the leftovers of the former KGB, still held domain over the gathering of intelligence, but not in this, it was apparent. “And the reason for having the Foreign Ministry handle this...source, instead of State Security?”
    The president laughed. “Even you, Georgiy Ivanovich, cannot believe that our vaunted intelligence agency is free of all the powers that corrupted it in the past. This arrangement is more secure, if somewhat more cumbersome. The chain consists of two persons in America. One of them is an American who has given us advance word of media reports for more than a decade now—their press is often more adept at information gathering than the KGB was—and can be trusted completely. Now his use is mostly as a courier. The other is a liaison at the embassy. Reports are delivered to the American by means that are not important, then to our man at the embassy. They are then brought directly to Moscow and hand-delivered to Igor Yureivich. He then brings them to me for review. And now the both of you are blessed with the knowledge.” He said the latter with