No, just the ones aboard ship. Theyre not real portable.

Well, it has a couple of pieces, an X-shaped antenna and a little wire stand that looks like its made out of a couple of used coat hangers. Theres a new backpack only weighs fifteen pounds, including the handset, and it even has a Morse key in case the sender doesnt want to talk too loud. Single sideband, super-encrypted UHF. Thats as secure as communications get.

But what about keeping them covert? Cutter was worried about that.

If the region was heavily populated, Ritter explained tiredly, the opposition wouldnt be using it. Moreover, they operate mainly at night for the obvious reason. So our people will belly-up during the day and only move around at night. They are trained and equipped for that. Look, weve been thinking about this for some time. These people are very well trained already, and were Resupply?

Helicopter, Ritter said. Special-ops people down in Florida.

I still think we should use Marines.

The Marines have a different mission. Weve been over this, Admiral. These kids are better trained, theyre better equipped, most of them have been into areas like this one, and its a hell of a lot easier to get them into the program without anybody noticing, Ritter explained for what must have been the twentieth time. Cutter wasnt one to listen to the words of others. His own opinions were evidently too loud. The DDO wondered how the President fared, but that question needed no answer. A presidential whisper carried more weight than a scream from anyone else. The problem was, the President so often depended on idiots to make his wishes a reality. Ritter would not have been surprised to learn that his opinion of the National Security Adviser matched that of Jack Ryan; it was just that Ryan could not know why.

Well, its your operation, Cutter said after a moment. When does it start?

Three weeks. Just had a report last night. Things are going along just fine. They already had all the basic skills we needed. Its only a matter of honing a few special ones and adding a few refinements. Weve been lucky so far. Havent even had anybody hurt up there.

How long have you had that place, anyway?

Thirty years. It was supposed to have been an air-defense radar installation, but the funding got cut off for some reason or other. The Air Force turned it over to us, and weve been using it to train agents ever since. It doesnt show up on any of the OMB site lists. It belongs to an offshore corporation that we use for various things. During the fall we occasionally lease it out as a hunting camp, would you believe? It even shows a profit for us, which is another reason why it doesnt show on the OMB list. Is that covert enough? Came in real useful during Afghanistan, though, doing the same thing were doing now, and nobody ever found out about it. . . .

Three weeks.

Ritter nodded. Maybe a touch longer. Were still working on coordinating the satellite intelligence, and our assets on the ground.

Will it all work? Cutter asked rhetorically.

Look, Admiral, Ive told you about that. If you want some magical solution to give to the President, we dont have it. What we can do is sting them some. The results will look good in the papers, and, hell, maybe well end up saving a life or two. Personally, I think its worth doing even if we dont get much of a return.

The nice thing about Ritter, Cutter thought, was that he didnt state the obvious. There would be a return. Everyone knew what that was all about. The mission was not an exercise in cynicism, though some might see it as such.

What about the radar coverage?

There are only two aircraft coming on line. Theyre testing a new system called LPILow Probability of Interceptradar. I dont know all the details, but because of a combination of frequency agility, reduced side-lobes, and relatively low power output, its damned hard to detect the emissions from the set. That will invalidate the ESM equipment that the opposition has started using. So we can use our assets on the ground to stake out between four and six of the covert airfields, and let us know when a shipment is en route. The modified E-2s will establish contact with them south of Cuba and pace them all the way in till theyre intercepted by the F-15 driver I told you about. Hes a black kidhell of a fighter jock, they say. Comes from New York. His mother got mugged by a druggie up there. It was a bad one. She got all torn up, and eventually died. She was one of those ghetto success stories that you never hear about. Three kids, all of them turned out pretty well. The fighter pilot is a very angry kid at the moment. Hell work for us, and he wont talk.

Right, Cutter said skeptically. What about if he develops a conscience later on and The boy told me that hed shoot all the bastards down if we wanted him to. A druggie killed his mother. He wants to get even, and he sees this as a good way. There are a lot of sensitive projects underway at Eglin. His fighter is cut loose from the rest as part of the LPI Radar project. Its two Navy airplanes carrying the radar, and weve picked the flight crewspretty much the same story on them. And rememberafter we have lock-on from the F-15, the radar aircraft shuts down and leaves. So if Broncothats the kids namedoes have to splash the inbound druggie, nobodyll know about it. Once we get them on the ground, the flight crews will have the living shit scared out of them. I worked out the details on that part myself. If some people have to disappearI dont expect itthat can be arranged, too. The Marines there are all special-ops types. One of my people will pretend hes a fed, and the judge we take them to is the one the President I know that part. It was odd, Cutter thought, how ideas grow. First the President had made an intemperate remark after learning that the cousin of a close friend had died of a drug overdose. Hed talked about it with Ritter, gotten an idea, and mentioned it to the President. A month after that, a plan had started to grow. Two months more and it was finalized. A secret Presidential Finding was written and in the filesthere were only four copies of it, each of which was locked up tight. Now things were starting to move. It was past the time for second thoughts, Cutter told himself weakly. Hed been involved in all the planning discussions, and still the operation had somehow leaped unexpectedly to full flower. . . .

What can go wrong? he asked Ritter.

Look, in field operations anything can go wrong. Just a few months ago a crash operation went bad because of an illegal turn That was KGB, Cutter said. Jeff Pelt told me about that one.

We are not immune. Shit happens, as they say. What we can do, weve done. Every aspect of the operation is compartmentalized. On the air part, for example, the fighter pilot doesnt know the radar aircraft or its peoplefor both sides its just call signs and voices. The people on the ground dont know what aircraft are involved. The people were putting in-country will get instructions from satellite radiosthey wont even know where from. The people who insert them wont know why theyre going or where the orders come from. Only a handful of people will know everything. The total number of people who know anything at all is less than a hundred, and only ten know the whole story. I cant make it any tighter than that. Now, either its a Go-Mission or its not. Thats your call, Admiral Cutter. I presume, Ritter added for effect, that youve fully briefed the President.

Cutter had to smile. It was not often, even in Washington, that a man could speak the truth and lie at the same time: Of course, Mr. Ritter.

In writing, Ritter said next.

No.

Then I call the operation off, the DDO said quietly. I wont be left hanging on this one.

But I will? Cutter observed. He didnt allow anger to creep into his voice, but his face conveyed the message clearly enough. Ritter made the obvious maneuver.

Judge Moore requires it. Would you prefer that he ask the President himself?

Cutter was caught short. His job, after all, was to insulate the President. Hed tried to pass that onus to Ritter and/or Judge Moore, but found himself outmaneuvered in his own office. Someone had to be responsible for everything; bureaucracy or not, it always came down to one person. It was rather like a game of musical chairs. Someone was always left standing. That person was called the loser. For all his skills, Vice Admiral Cutter had found himself without a seat on that last chair. His naval training, of course, had taught him to take responsibilities, but though Cutter called himself a naval officer, and thought of himself as onewithout wearing the uniform, of courseresponsibility was something hed managed to avoid for years. Pentagon duty was good for that, and White House duty was better still. Now responsibility was his again. He hadnt been this vulnerable since his cruiser had nearly rammed a tanker during replenishment operationshis executive officer had saved him with a timely command to the helmsman, Cutter remembered. A pity that his career had ended at captains rank, but Ed just hadnt had the right stuff to make Flag. . . .

Cutter opened a drawer to his desk and pulled out a sheet of paper whose letterhead proclaimed The White House. He took a gold Cross pen from his pocket and wrote a clear authorization for Ritter in his best Palmer Method penmanship. You are authorized by the President . . . The Admiral folded the sheet, tucked it into an envelope, and handed it across.

Thank you, Admiral. Ritter tucked the envelope into his coat pocket. Ill keep you posted.

You be careful who sees that, Cutter said coldly.

I do know how to keep secrets, sir. Its my job, remember? Ritter rose and left the room, finally with a warm feeling around his backside. His ass was covered. It was a feeling craved by many people in Washington. It was one he didnt share with the Presidents National Security Adviser, but Ritter figured it wasnt his fault that Cutter hadnt thought this one through.

Five miles away, the DDIs office seemed a cold and lonely place to Ryan. There was the credenza and the coffee machine where James Greer made his Navy brew, there the high-backed judges chair in which the old man leaned back before making his professorial statements of fact and theory, and his jokes, Jack remembered. His boss had one hell of a sense of humor. What a fine teacher he might have madebut then he really was a teacher to Jack. What was it? Only six years since hed started with the Agency. Hed known Greer for less than seven, and the Admiral had in large part become the father hed lost in that airplane crash at Chicago. It was here he had come for advice, for guidance. How many times?

The trees outside the seventh-floor windows were green with the leaves of summer, blocking the view of the Potomac Valley. The really crazy things had all happened when there were no leaves, Ryan thought. He remembered pacing around on the lush carpet, looking down at the piles of snow left by the plows while trying to find answers to hard questions, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not.

Vice Admiral James Greer would not live to see another winter. Hed seen his last snow, his last Christmas. Ryans boss lay in a VIP suite at Bethesda Naval Medical Center, still alert, still thinking, still telling jokes. But his weight was down by fifteen pounds in the last three weeks, and the chemotherapy denied him any sort of food other than what came through tubes stuck in his arms. And the pain. There was nothing worse, Ryan knew, than to watch the pain of others. Hed seen his wife and daughter in pain, and it had been far worse than his own hospital stays. It was hard to go and see the Admiral, to see the tightness around the face, the occasional stiffening of limbs as the spasms came and went, some from the cancer, some from the medications. But Greer was as much a part of his family asGod, Ryan thought, I am thinking of him like my father. And so he would, until the end.

Shit, Jack said quietly, without knowing it.

I know what you mean, Dr. Ryan.

Hmph? Jack turned. The Admirals driver (and security guard) stood quietly by the door while Jack retrieved some documents. Even though Ryan was the DDIs special assistant and de facto deputy, he had to be watched when going over documents cleared DDI-eyes-only. CIAs security rules were tough, logical, and inviolable.

I know what you mean, sir. Ive been with him eleven years. Hes as much a friend as a boss. Every Christmas he has something for the kids. Never forgets a birthday, either. You think theres any hope at all?

Cathy had one of her friends come down. Professor Goldman. Russ is as good as they come, professor of oncology at Hopkins, consultant to NIH, and a bunch of other things. He says one chance in thirty. Its spread too far, too fast, Mickey. Two months, tops. Anything else would be a miracle. Ryan almost smiled. I got a priest working on that.

Murdock nodded. I know hes tight with Father Tim over at Georgetown. He was just at the hospital for some chess last night. The Admiral took him in forty-eight moves. You ever play chess with him?

Im not in his class. Probably never will be.

Yes, sir, you are, Murdock said after a moment or two. Leastways, thats what he says.

He would. Ryan shook his head. Damn it, Greer wouldnt want either of them to talk like this. There was work to be done. Jack took the key and unlocked the file drawer in the desk. He set the key chain on the desk blotter for Mickey to retrieve and reached down to pull the drawer, but goofed. Instead he pulled out the sliding board you could use as a writing surface, though this one was marked with brown rings from the DDIs coffee mug. Near the inside end of it, Ryan saw, was a file card, taped in place. Written on the card, in Greers distinctive hand, were two safe combinations. Greer had a special office safe and so did Bob Ritter. Jack remembered that his boss had always been clumsy with combination locks, and he probably needed the combination written down so he wouldnt forget it. He found it odd that the Admiral should have combinations for both his and Ritters, but decided after a moment that it made sense. If somebody had to get into the DDOs safe in a hurryfor example, if Ritter were kidnapped, and someone had to see what really classified material was in the current fileit had to be someone very senior, like the DDI. Probably Ritter had the combination to the DDIs personal safe, as well. Jack wondered who else did. Shrugging off the thought, he slid the board back into place and opened the drawer. There were six files there. All related to long-term intelligence evaluations that the Admiral wanted to see. None were especially critical. In fact, they werent all that sensitive, but it would give the Admiral something to occupy his mind. A rotating team of CIA security personnel guarded his room, with two on duty at all times, and he could still do work in the time he had left.

Damn! Jack snarled at himself. Get your mind off of it. Hell, he does have a chance. Some chance is better than none at all.

Chavez had never handled a submachine gun. His personal weapon had always been the M-16 rifle, often with an M-203 grenade launcher slung under the barrel. He also knew how to use the SAWthe Belgian-made squad automatic weapon that had recently been added to the Armys inventoryand had shot expert with pistol once. But submachine guns had long since gone out of favor in the Army. They just werent serious weapons of the sort a soldier would need.

Which was not to say that he didnt like it. It was a German gun, the MP-5 SD2 made by Heckler & Koch. It was decidedly unattractive. The matte-black finish was slightly rough to the touch, and it lacked the sexy compactness of the Israeli Uzi. On the other hand, it wasnt made to look good, he thought, it was made to shoot good. It was made to be reliable. It was made to be accurate. Whoever had designed this baby, Chavez decided as he brought it up for the first time, knew what shooting was all about. Unusually for a German-made weapon, it didnt have a huge number of small parts. It broke down easily and quickly for cleaning, and reassembly took less than a minute. The weapon nestled snugly against his shoulder, and his head dropped automatically into the right place to peer through the ring-aperture sight.

Commence firing, Mr. Johnson commanded.

Chavez had the weapon on single-shot. He squeezed off the first round, just to get a feel for the trigger. It broke cleanly at about eleven pounds, the recoil was straight back and gentle, and the gun didnt jump off the target the way some weapons did. The shot, of course, went straight through the center of the targets silhouetted head. He squeezed off another, and the same thing happened, then five in rapid fire. The repeated shots rocked him back an inch or two, but the recoil spring ate up most of the kick. He looked up to see seven holes in a nice, tight group, like the nose carved into a jack-o-lantern. Okay. Next he flipped the selector switch to the burst positionit was time for a little rock and roll. He put three rounds at the targets chest. This group was larger, but any of the three would have been fatal. After another one Chavez decided that he could hold a three-round burst dead on target. He didnt need full-automatic fire. Anything more than three rounds just wasted ammunition. His attitude might have seemed strange for a soldier, but as a light infantryman he understood that ammunition was something that had to be carried. To finish off his thirty-round magazine he aimed bursts at unmarked portions of the target card, and was rewarded with hits exactly where hed wanted them.

Baby, where have you been all my life? Best of all, it wasnt much noisier than the rustle of dry leaves. It wasnt that it had a silencer; the barrel was a silencer. You heard the muted clack of the action, and the swish of the bullet. They were using a subsonic round, the instructor told them. Chavez picked one out of the box. The bullet was a hollow-point design; it looked like you could mix a drink in it, and on striking a man it probably spread out to the diameter of a dime. Instant death from a head shot, nearly as quick in the chestbut if they were training him to use a silencer, hed be expected to go for the head. He figured that he could take head shots reliably from fifty or sixty feetmaybe farther under ideal circumstances, but soldiers dont expect ideal circumstances. On the face of it, hed be expected to creep within fifteen or twenty yards of his target and drop him without a sound.

Whatever they were preparing for, he thought again, it sure as hell wasnt a training mission.

Nice groups, Chavez, the instructor observed. Only three other men were on the firing line. There would be two submachine gunners per squad. Two SAWsJulio had one of thoseand the rest had M-16s, two of them with grenade launchers attached. Everyone had pistols, too. That seemed strange, but despite the weight Chavez didnt mind.

This baby really shoots, sir.

Its yours. How good are you with a pistol?

Just fair. I dont usually Yeah, I know. Well, youll all get practice. Pistol aint really good for much, but theres times when it comes in right handy. Johnson turned to address the whole squad. All right, you four come on up. We want everyone to know how all these here weapons work. Everybodys gotta be an expert.

Chavez relinquished his weapon to another squad member and walked back from the firing line. He was still trying to figure things out. Infantry combat is the business of death, at the personal level, where you could usually see what you were doing and to whom you were doing it. The fact that Chavez had not actually done it yet was irrelevant; it was still his business, and the organization of his unit told him what form the mission would take. Special ops. It had to be special ops. He knew a guy whod been in the Delta Force at Bragg. Special operations were merely a refinement of straight infantry stuff. You had to get in real close, usually you had to chop down the sentries, and then you hit hard and fast, like a bolt of lightning. If it wasnt over in ten seconds or lesswell, then things got a little too exciting. The funny part to Chavez was the similarity with street-gang tactics. There was no fair play in soldiering. You sneaked in and did people in the back without warning. You didnt give them a chance to protect themselvesnone at all. But what was called cowardly in a gang kid was simply good tactics to a soldier. Chavez smiled to himself. It hardly seemed fair, when you looked at it like that. The Army was just better organized than a gang. And, of course, its targets were selected by others. The whole point to an Army, probably, was that what it did made sense to someone. That was true of gangs, too, but Army activity was supposed to make sense to someone important, someone who knew what he was really doing. Even if what he was doing didnt make much sense to hima frequent occurrence for soldiersit did make sense to somebody.

Chavez wasnt old enough to remember Vietnam.

Seduction was the saddest part of the job.

With this, as with all parts of his profession, Cortez had been trained to be coldly objective and businesslike. but there wasnt a way to be coldly intimateat least not if you wanted to accomplish anything. Even the KGB Academy had recognized that. There had been hours of lectures on the pitfalls, he remembered with an ironic smileRussians trying to tell a Latin about romantic entanglements. Probably the climate worked against them. You adapted your approach to the individual peculiarities of your target subject, in this case a widow who at forty-six retained surprising good looks, who had enough remaining of her youth to need companionship after the children retired for the evening or went out on their own dates, whose bed was a lonely place of memories grown cold. It wasnt his first such subject, and there was always something brave about them, as well as something pathetic. He was supposed to thinkas his training had taught himthat their problems were their business and his opportunity. But how does a man become intimate with such a woman without feeling her pain? The KGB instructors hadnt had an answer to that one, though they did give him the proper technique. He, too, had to have suffered a recent loss.

His wife had also died of cancer, hed told her. Hed married late in life, the story went, after getting the family business back on trackall that time working, flying around to secure the business his father had spent his life foundingand then married his Maria only three years before. Shed become pregnant, but when shed visited the doctor to confirm the joyous news, the routine tests . . . only six months. The baby hadnt had a chance, and Cortez had nothing left of Maria. Perhaps, hed told his wineglass, it was Gods punishment on him for marrying so young a girl, or for his many dalliances as a foot-loose playboy.

At that point Moiras hand had come across the table to touch his. Of course it wasnt his fault, the woman told him. And he looked up to see the sympathy in the eyes of someone whod asked herself questions not so different from those hed just ostensibly addressed to himself. People were so predictable. All you had to do was press the right buttonsand have the proper feelings. When her hand had come to his, the seduction was accomplished. There had been a flush of warmth from the touch, the feeling of simple humanity. But if he thought of her as a simple target, how could he return the emotionsand how could he accomplish the mission? He felt her pain, her loneliness. He would be good to her.

And so he was, now two days later. It would have been comical except for how touching it was, how shed prepared herself like a teenage girl on a datesomething she hadnt done for over twenty years; certainly her children had found it entertaining, but there had been enough time since the death of their father that they didnt resent their mothers needs and had smiled bemused encouragement at her as she walked out to her car. A quick, nervous dinner, then the short ride to his hotel. Some more wine to get over the nerves that were real for both of them, if more so for her. But it had certainly been worth the wait. She was out of practice, but her responses were far more genuine than those he got from his usual bedmates. Cortez was very good at sex. He was proud of his abilities and gave her an above-average performance: an hours work, building her up slowly, then letting her back down as gently as he knew how.

Now they lay side by side, her head on his shoulder, tears dripping slowly from her eyes in the silence. A fine woman, this one. Even dying young, her husband had been a lucky man to have a woman who knew that silence could be the greatest passion of all. He watched the clock on the end table. Ten minutes of silence before he spoke.

Thank you, Moira . . . I didnt know . . . its been. He cleared his throat. This is the first time since . . . since . . . Actually it had been a week since the last one, which had cost him thirty thousand pesos. A young one, a skilled one. But The womans strength surprised him. He was barely able to take his next breath, so powerful was her embrace. Part of what had once been his conscience told him that he ought to be ashamed, but the greater part reported that hed given more than hed taken. This was better than purchased sex. There were feelings, after all, that money couldnt buy; it was a thought both reassuring and annoying to Cortez, and one which amplified his sense of shame. Again he rationalized that there would be no shame without her powerful embrace, and the embrace would not have come unless he had pleased her greatly.

He reached behind himself to the other end table and got his cigarettes.

You shouldnt smoke, Moira Wolfe told him.

He smiled. I know. I must quit. But after what you have done to me, he said with a twinkle in his eye, I must gather myself. Silence.

Madre de Dios, he said after another minute.

Whats the matter?

Another mischievous smile. Here I have given myself to you, and I hardly know who you are!

What do you want to know?

A chuckle. A shrug. Nothing importantI mean, what could be more important than what you have already done? A kiss. A caress. More silence. He stubbed out the cigarette at the halfway point to show that her opinion was important to him. I am not good at this.

Really? It was her turn to chuckle, his turn to blush.

It is different, Moira. Iwhen I was a young man, it was understood that whenit was understood that there was no importance, but . . . now I am grown, and I cannot be so . . . Embarrassment. If you permit it, I wish to know about you, Moira. I come to Washington frequently, and I wish . . . I am tired of the loneliness. I am tired of . . . I wish to know you, he said with conviction. Then, tentatively, haltingly, hopeful but afraid, If you permit it.

She kissed his cheek gently. I permit it.

Instead of his own powerful hug, Cortez let his body go slack with relief not wholly feigned. More silence before he spoke again.

You should know about me. I am wealthy. My business is machine tools and auto parts. I have two factories, one in Costa Rica, the other in Venezuela. The business is complicated andnot dangerous, but . . . it is complicated dealing with the big assemblers. I have two younger brothers also in the business. So . . . what work do you do?

Well, Im an executive secretary. Ive been doing that kind of work for twenty years.

Oh? I have one myself.

And you must chase her around the office . . .

Consuela is old enough to be my mother. She worked for my father. Is that how it is in America? Does your boss chase you? A hint of jealous outrage.

Another chuckle. Not exactly. I work for Emil Jacobs. Hes the Director of the FBI.

I do not know the name. A lie. The FBI, that is your federales, this I know. And you are the chief secretary for them all, then?

Not exactly. Mainly my job is to keep Mr. Jacobs organized. You wouldnt believe his scheduleall the meetings and conferences to keep straight. Its like being a juggler.

Yes, it is that way with Consuela. Without her to watch over me . . . Cortez laughed. If I had to choose between her and one of my brothers, I would choose her. I can always hire a factory manager. What sort of man is thisJacobs, you say? You know, when I was a boy, I wanted to be a policeman, to carry the gun and drive the car. To be the chief police officer, that must be a grand thing.

Mainly his job is shuffling papersI get to do a lot of the filing, and dictation. When you are the head, your job is mainly doing budgets and meetings.

But surely he gets to know thethe good things, yes? The best part of being a policemanit must be the best thing, to know the things that other people do not. To know who are the criminals, and to hunt them.

And other things. It isnt just police work. They also do counterespionage. Chasing spies, she added.

That is CIA, no?

No. I cant talk about it, of course, but, no, that is a Bureau function. Its all the same, really, and its not like television at all. Mainly its boring. I read the reports all the time.

Amazing, Cortez observed comfortably. All the talents of a woman, and also she educates me. He smiled encouragement so that she would elaborate. That idiot whod put him onto her, he remembered, suggested that hed have to use money. Cortez thought that his KGB training officers would have been proud of his technique. The KGB was ever parsimonious with funds.

Does he make you work so hard? Cortez asked a minute later.

Some of the days can go long, but really hes pretty good about that.

If he makes you work too hard, we will speak, Mr. Jacobs and I. What if I come to Washington and I cannot see you because you are working?

You really want . . . ?

Moira. His voice changed its timbre. Cortez knew that hed pressed too hard for a first time. It had gone too easily, and hed asked too many questions. After all, lonely widow or not, this was a woman of substance and responsibilitytherefore a woman of intellect. But she was also a woman of feelings, and of passion. He moved his hands and his head. He saw the question on her face: Again? He smiled his message: Again.

This time he was less patient, no longer a man exploring the unknown. There was familiarity now. Having established what she liked, his ministrations had direction. Within ten minutes shed forgotten all of his questions. She would remember the smell and the feel of him. She would bask in the return of youth. She would ask herself where things might lead, but not how they had started.

Assignations are conspiratorial by their nature. Just after midnight he returned her to where her car was parked. Yet again she amazed him with her silence. She held his hand like a schoolgirl, yet her touch was in no way so simple. One last kiss before she left the carshe wouldnt let him get out.

Thank you, Juan, she said quietly.