The Red Horseman (37 page)

“You make it sound as if we’re the bad guys.
We aren’t.

We’re trying to keep the peace in an unstable
world. Surely you can see that? We had no choice.
Yeltsin is failing: he’s doomed. He can’t
possibly succeed, not a chance in a million. Either
we have an in with his successors or we get the door
slammed in our faces. That’s the only goddamn
choice we have.”

Skphen Goonts

“How long have you and Schenler been running
your own foreign policy?”

“Hub?”

Jake’s voice was almost a whisper. “How long
has the CIA been running its own foreign
policy? That’s a simple question.

Tenney looked bewildered, as if he didn’t
understand what was being asked. And then the truth dawned
on Jake Presidential administrations came and
went but the professional spies soldiered on
regardless. The CIA had been doing what the CIA
leaders believed necessary for as long as there had been a
CIA, almost fifty years. It still was.

“All, you people, you bottle-sucking lollipop
amateursfucking around in national security
matters,” Herb raved., becoming more and more
infuriated. “You’re all gonna diet This ain’t
a fucking football game.

This is real, for keeps.

America is at stake here.”

He’s coming apart, Jake Grafton decided.
He’s been through too much.

Jake averted his eyes as Tenney ranted on:
“Those tencent codes you use on the
scramblers-they’ve been reading the messages thirty
minutes later. They even fax me hard
copies. They know what the fuck you traitors are
up to. They know!”

Jake and Toad taped Herb Tenney’s mouth and
put him in the bedroom. When the door was closed,
Toad asked, “So he wasn’t trying to poison
us?”

“Sure he was,” Jake muttered. He put
the tablets into the bottle and dropped it into his shirt
pocket.

“What are those tablets, some kind of suicide
pills?”

Spiro Dalworth asked, “Binary poison,”
Toad told him. –It’s medicine for people you don’t
want to see anymore.”

Jack Yocke sat over in the corner with his chin
resting on one hand. He glanced at Jake
Grafton, who was staring at the floor, then leaned
back in his chair and closed his eyes.

Toad reached under the couch for the cassette
recorder and pushed the rewind button. When the
rewind was complete, he placed. the recorder on the
table and pushed the play button. He thumbed up the
volume.

Several minutes went by as they listened to feet
shuffling, someone coughing, then finally Jake
Grafton’s voice: “General Shmarov died last
night. Tell us about that.”

The little machine had caught it all. The confusion and
muffled comments as they poisoned Tenney were brutally
plain, as was the sound of Tenney retching afterward. The
listeners studiously avoided looking at one
another.

When Tenney got out Harvey Schenler’s name,
Jake motioned to Toad to turn off the tape.
“Get the senior chief and fire up the
TACSAT,” Jake told him. “Send that tape
to General Land.”

“You heard Herb, CAG. They’ll crack the
code.”

“Send it. Use the TACSAT. In the meantime
we’ll deliver a message of our own to Harley
McCann.”

“What about the ambassador? He wanted to see
you.”

Jake glanced at his watch. “The night’s young.”

Jake was still in his flight suit when he entered the
ambassador’s outer office and encountered Agatha
Hempstead.

she sniffed gingerly, no doubt slightly
appalled at Jake’s aroma, then opened
the door to Lancaster’s office.

The ambassador looked coldly across the top of
his glasses at Jake Grafton and said, “I
asked to see you when you returned to the embassy,
Admiral.”

“Yessir. I apologize. I didn’t have much
to tell you two hours ago, except to report that
Lieutenant Moravia destroyed the weapons at
the Petrovsk facility and a transport that was
probably Iraqi. We were intercepted by r
Russian fighters on the way down there.”

“But you evaded them. Obviously.”

V

Yessir. Is Senator Wilmoth still in
Moscow?” Wilmoth was the U.s.

senator who wanted a peek at the KGB
files.

“He’s staying at the embassy, but He’s leaving
tomorrow. The KGB slammed the door today after Shmarov
died. I’m afraid Yeltsin doesn’t have a lever
big enough to pry it open.”

“I might be able to help. Could you ask the
senator to come here to your office now? I have a tape
I would like for you both to listen to.

Then we’re going to have to have a lengthy
chat.”

Lancaster looked dubious, but he picked up the
telephone. Jake took the cassette player from
his pocket and sat it on the desk. Hempstead
helped him find a plug.

When Wilmoth arrived, Jake started the tape.
He had to stop it at numerous places and explain.
Lancaster wanted to know what in the world Admiral
Grafton was forcing into Herb Tenney’s mouth, so
Jake displayed the two pill bottles, even
dumped the tablets onto Lancaster’s polished
mahogany.

After the first run-through, Jake played the tape
again.

without interruptions. Then a third time at
Senator Wilmoth’s request, It took some
digesting. The fact that the Old Guard junt had
blown up the Serdobsk reactor infuriated
Wilmoth, who swore in a manner that Jake
Grafton found most gratifying. Finally he said,
“Wait until the president hears this V, “I
suspect he’s listening to it right now, sir,” Jake
told, him. “I’ve already sent this via a
TACSAT unit to General Land at the Pentagon.
He said he would take it to the White
House immediately.”

“What about Harley McCann?” the
ambassador said.

“Was he in on this?”

“Captain McElroy has him outside in your
waiting room..

Why don’t you ask him?” McElroy had taken
four marines with him to the CIA spaces. They had
found McCann and his deputies merely sitting at
their desks, waiting. “Apparently after Toad
snatched Herb Tenney this morning, they talked it
over and decided that they didn’t want any part of
whatever was going down. They appear to be quite ready
to talk.”

“I have a few questions to ask them,” Wilmoth said
heatedly.

“I suggest, Senator, that you send a team of your
investigators to the CIA office and impound the
files. I don’t know what the CIA puts on
paper, but some of that stuff might be interesting reading.”

Wilmoth grabbed for the telephone.

Lancaster reached for the white tablets on the desk
and examined them.

Finally he put them back on the desk next to the
pill bottle.

When Wilmoth got off the phone, Jake said,
“Perhaps, Mr. Ambassador, tonight would be a good time
for President Yeltsin to call on the American
Embassy. We can make a duplicate tape for
him to keep. He might be able to find a good use for
an artifact like that. Lancaster nodded. “And?”

“Well, I need a plane to get to Saudi
Arabia. I need to, get there without being
intercepted and attacked by Russian fighters.
Perhaps after Yeltsin listens to the tape, we can
discuss that problem with him.”

JL “On the tape you said you killed four men
today. Who?”

“We were intercepted by fighters. Rita and I are
still alive.” Jake Grafton shrugged.

Lancaster grinned wolfishly. “I’m beginning
to under stand why General Land holds you in such high
regard, Admiral. Agatha, while we’re
talking to Mr. McCann, would you see if you can
get President Yeltsin on the telephone?”

“Start scribbling.”" j; “Scribble what?”
Jack Yocke was down on his hands Jff and knees
with a sponge and a bucket trying to clean Herb
Tenney’s vomit from the carpet. He leaned back
on his heels and looked up at Jake
Grafton.

“How the Old Guard blew up the Serdobsk
reactor and murdered a half-million human
beings. How the Old Guard sold nuclear weapons
to Saddam Hussein. How they used the money
to bribe elected Russian politicians to vote
Yelt sin out. That story. Write it.”

“An agent of the U.s. government tortured for
information can hardly be quoted as a “reliable,
high-placed government source,” was Yocke
pointed out acidly. He dabbed at the wet place
in the rug. “I don’t know if there was a single word
of truth in what he said.”

“I thought you were a red-hot reporter.”

Yocke threw the sponge in the 1pucket and
got to his feet.

He sat down in the chair he had occupied during
Tenney’s interrogation.

He dried his hands on his trousers. “I don’t
want to write it. Grafton gazed at Yocke
for a moment, then found a chair. “Maybe you’d
better explain.”

“The world is full of bad people. I write about them
every day. They rob, steal, cheat, take drugs,
bribes, beat their kids to death, kill their
spouses in drunken rages or gun the bitches on
the courthouse steps when they’re stonecold sober.
Those people I can understand.

They’re human.

These people here, people like Tenney, Shmarov, Yakolev
. .

Yocke’s voice trailed off.

“They’re human too. Their crimes are just
worse.”

“No. They aren’t human. They are evil. They
have no humanity. was Jack Yocke shuddered.

“They’re human all right,” Jake Grafton
told him. “if anything, too human. What you
don’t want to face is that everyone has a little
Hitler, a little Stalin in him. Given the means and
motive, a lot of people could become absolutely
corrupt. What’s the difference between killing a man
and ordering his death? What’s the difference between ordering
one death or a half-million? Or a million?
Or five million.

Or ten million. With a stroke of a pen you can
kill all the Jews-all the educated people-WI-THE
rich people–comWI-THE poor people-all the homosexuals
… whoever. Evil and sm are exactly the same
thing-you just need to convince yourself that the ends
justify the means. Every human alive is capable of
that little trick.”

“I don’t want to write it.”

“You don’t have a choice. I’m making the
decisions around here. Get out your computer and plug the
damn thing in. If necessary, I’ll write the story
for you.”

“Just who the fuck do you think you are, Grafton?”

“I’m a public servant trying to do his job.
You are a newspaper reporter who wants to get
famous by writing the truth. We’ve got a
bucketful of truth here and you are going to write it
because people need to come face-to-face with it. What they do
with the truth is beyond my control: I’m not taking
responsibility for the human condition. But by God
they are going to see it smeared all over the front
page of every newspaper in the world. Then if they
refuse to face it they are just as evil and just as
guilty as the men you’re writing about.”

Jake Grafton stood. “You’re going to have to name
names. Lancaster is in his office right now playing the
tape for Yeltsin. Put that in your story.”

Jack Yocke gnawed on a fingernail as he
thought about it. Finally he said, “You want me to say
how you got the information from Tenney?”

“You can do it like an interview, if you want.
Don’t mention binary poisons. I think that little
problem is going to solve itself. Just quote Herb.
Don’t forget to mention that the interview was recorded
and the president got a copy of the tape.”

was “That little problem is going to solve itself.”
Goddamnit, Admiral, shit is shit! If
we’re going to nail theCommies to the cross we ought
to nail our own bastards up there with them.”

“Oh, we will, Jack. We will. But one set of
bastards at a time.”

“Who authorized you to release this story? The
president?”

“I authorized myself.”

Yocke couldn’t think of a reply, which infuriated
him since he had known what Grafton’s answer
would be before he asked the question.

“Wake me up in two hours,” the admiral
said, “and let me read your story. I’m not much of a
writer but maybe I can help you with the commas.”

And with that Jake Grafton stretched out on the
couch.

He turned so his back was to Yocke. In
moments, as Jack Yocke stared, he was breathing
deeply and regularly. By the time Yocke
got his computer plugged in and running, Jake was
snoring lightly.

BORIS YELTSIN WAS A BEAR OF A
MAN, A BURLY, fleshy Russian with a
bulbous, veined nose that one hoped did not
indicate the condition of his liver. He shook Jake
Grafton’s hand and waved toward a chair as he
traded Russian with an aide who didn’t bother
to translate. The interpreter who had led Jake
into the room also remained Went.

The sun streamed between the drapes of the tall window
on Yeltsin’s left. Blinking in the glare,
Jake Grafton looked around curiously. It was
a good room, a man’s room, tastefully
decorated and heaped with piles of paper.

Yeltsin kept glancing at Grafton as he
spoke. Finally one of the aides said, “President
Yeltsin wishes to thank the American government for
its help in this crisis.”

Jake Grafton nodded pleasantly and glanced
at his watch.

The first edition of the Post carrying Jack
Yocke’s story was probably hitting the streets
of Washington just about now. If the Post editors
placed the story on the wires it was going
to be on CNN and every other television and radio
station in the Western world within an hour.

Yeltsin’s phone should start ringing in very short
order.

After Yocke sent the story to the Post in the wee
hours this morning via modem, his editor, Mike
Gatler, called back and questioned him for ten minutes.
When Yocke was about to lose his temper, he passed
the telephone to Jake Grafton, who told
Gader, “Yeah, I read the story.

Every word’s true.”

“Saddam Hussein has two dozen nuclear
weapons?”

“At least that.”

Gatler whistled. “Can this CIA source-what’s
his name “1 I

“Herb Tenney.”

“Yeah. Can Tenney be trusted?”

“I don’t know that I trust him, but I think he
told the truth on this matter.”

“Can we quote you on that?”

“If you spell my name right.”

“Rear Admiral, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you and Yocke both saw the base
where Hussein got the weapons?

Weapons sold to him by the Russians?”

“Yes. Name of the place is Petrovsk.
Yocke has it in the story. We went there in a
helicopter.”

“This is a big story,” Gatler said.

“That’s what Jack said.”

“Put him back on, please.” Jake held out
the telephone.

“This story just scratches the surface,” Gatler
complained to Yocke.

“I know that, Mike. I’m getting all I can.
I’ll send you more as soon as possible.”

“I want you to work with Tommy Townsend on this.

Call him at his hotel.”

Yocke decided to call Townsend in the morning.
He went to the bathroom, washed his face and hands, and
was just stretching out on the floor with a pillow when
Gatler called back. “The State Department
refuses to confirm or deny this story.”

“Nothing I can do about that,” Yocke said, waving
frantically to Jake Grafton. The admiral
sat up on the couch and rubbed his head.

“Yocke, this is the biggest story since the
Japs hit Pearl Harbor,” Gatler
said. “Our White House guys can’t get any
confirmation, State refuses to confirm or deny, the
people at the Pentagon refuse to comment, the CIA
press people refuse to confirm that they’ve ever even
heard of this Tenney guy. And CIA says that none
of their people would ever talk to the press-violation of
security regs and all that crap. So we’ve got
your story and a voice on the telephone who claims
he’s Rear Admiral Jake Grafton.

That’s all. II

“I heard the Tenney interview, Mike. I was
there in person. I saw the tape being made. I
saw the rubble of the Serdobsk reactor, I
visited the base at Petrovsk, I saw some
bodies. I saw some weapons. I talked
to Jake Grafton on the record-he’s the
deputy director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency, for Christ’s sake! He explicitly
agreed to be quoted. I talked to an Israeli
Mossad agent who’s now dead-she was shot in my
presence. I’ve got all that I an give you.
If you haven’t got the balls to run the story, then
don’t run it.”

“Don’t get testy with me, Jack. I’m just
explaining how far out on the limb we are with
this story.”

“I’m sorry, Mike, but it’s a good story.
Every fucking word is true. I guarantee it. I
don’t give a shit what anybody else says,
General Shmarov sold Saddam Hussein those
bombs and blew up the Serdobsk reactor to cover
up the fact that the weapons were gone.”

“Shmarov is dead.”

“I know that, Mike.”

“Heart attack.”

“No, he was poisoned by Herb Tenney.”

“What?” Gatler roared. “Poisoned! By a
CIA agent?

That isn’t in this story!”

“I know that too, Mike. I can’t get any
confirmation for that from anybody. But Tenney confessed
to the killing in my Presence. I didn’t put that in
this story because I don’t know that anyone will ever confirm
that Shmarov was even murdered, much less that Tenney
did it.

I’m telling you that the stuff that is in that story is
confirmed gospel. I’ve got a mountain of stuff
that isn’t in there because I haven’t Yet got it
confirmed.”

smln

Gatler thought that over for five seconds, then
said, “I want a copy of the tape of Tenney’s
confession.”

“Grafton won’t release it. The White
House might, but I doubt it. It covers a lot
of ground, all of it classified up the wazoo.”

“I want more stories when you get confirmations.”

“I understand. When and if, you’ll be the first to hear.”

They said their good-byes and Yocke told Jake,
“He’s gonna print it.”

Jake Grafton had grunted from his position on
the couch and pulled his jacket around him. He was
asleep again in minutes.

This afternoon Jake idly wondered what Boris
Yeltsin would do when he heard the story was out. Oh
well, he was a politician, experienced in
converting lemons into lemonade.

He settled back into the chair and crossed his
legs. This afternoon President Clinton was supposed
to call to talk to Yeltsin about the mess in Iraq.
Last night Yeltsin invited Jake to come here
to answer any questions his staff might have.

Now the telephone rang. One of the aides
picked it up, said something, then Yeltsin took the
other line. Jake looked at his watch.
He wondered if the airplanes coming in from Germany
would be on time.

But this wasn’t President Clinton’s call.
The interpreter hung up his phone and Yeltsin
fell into his chair as he listened intently on his
own instrument. Occasionally his eyes swung
to Grafton. This went on for several minutes with
Yeltsin grunting occasionally. Finally he replaced
the telephone on its hook and swiveled his chair
to face Grafton. He wiggled his finger at the
interpreter and spoke.

The intrepreter said, “A news story has
appeared in the Washington Post.

You are quoted. Did you release a story to the
newspaper?”

Jake nodded. “I did.”

Yeltsin listened to the answer and swiveled his
chair nervously. He toyed with a pencil, then stared
at it, finally replaced it. He said something to the
interpreter.

“The president wishes to know why you released the
story.”

“As we discussed last night, it is of
critical importance that those weapons be recovered
or rendered harmless. We cannot go after those
weapons without a public explanation of our actions.
So the truth must be told. The truth is that a
small group of individuals here in Russia
sold weapons to get money to overthrow the elected
government. They murdered hundreds of thousands of people
to cover up their crime. This is the story. The
sooner the world knows it, the better-for Russia, for the
United States, for the people of the Middle East.”

“You released this story?”

“Yes.” Of course he had discussed it with
General Hayden Land, but both men had agreed it
would be best if Jake took the responsibility.
If the story came from Jake it was deniable in
Washington, and that might well be the first reaction of
panicky politicians with a genetic aversion
to telling the public about disasters. In the ordinary
course of things weeks might pass before they screwed
up the courage to talk publicly about this one. Yet
Hayden Land and Jake Grafton knew they
didn’t have weeks to clean up this mess: at best,
they had hours.

“What is going on, Admiral?” In
Washington, Yeltsin meant.

“Sir, we discussed this matter last night.
Nothing has changed. U.s.

Air Force planes are flying in from Germany
to take me and the other foreign military observers
to Arabia. From there we will go to Iraq to recover the
weapons.

You agreed that Marshal Mikhailov and General
Yakolev would accompany our group on behalf of the
Russian Republic.”

“I don’t want them talking to reporters.”

“I understand. I promise that they won’t.”

“I should have been consulted before you talked to the
press.”

Jake acknowledged this. He apologized, though not
very convincingly.

Yeltsin didn’t look too put out-the story
Yocke wrote couldn’t have been more favorable to him
even if he had written it himself Complete innocence
was a rare commodity, one to be savored. Being the
unwounded target of a cutthroat power play that
misfired was even nicer.

“I have a suggestion,” Jake added. “In an
hour or so you, Mr. President, are going to be
besieged by reporters wanting your comments.

The reporter who wrote this morning’s story for the
Washington Post, Jack Yockc, is
downstairs. Why not get him up here,
give him an interview, and get your side of this on
record before the spin doctors in Washington and
Baghdad get into the act? Mr. Yocke is
knowledgeable about this matter and sympathetic to your
government.”

The mention of Baghdad did the trick. Saddam
Hussein would be on camera as soon as he heard
about the Post story. Hussein had just two options,
as far as Jake could see: deny he had nuclear
weapons or admit it and claim that the government of
Russia sold them to him. That government, of
course, was Boris Yeltsin. Which option Hussein
picked would depend, Jake suspected, on the
amount of time he still needed to get the nuclear weapons
operational. The nearer he was to being ready to push the
button the more likely he was to admit that he had
them. But this was speculation, and just now Jake was trying
to cover all the possibilities.

In minutes Jack Yocke was being ushered into the
president’s office. He glanced at Rear
Admiral Jake Grafton seated at an
oblique angle from Yeltsin’s desk, then turned
his attention to the Russian president.

Yocke knew exactly what his editor, Mike
Gatter, wanted-a gold-plated
confirmation of the first story-and he went after it without
making any detours. Point by point he led
Yeltsin through the story and scribbled his answers on
a small steno pad.

Yes, it was true that Shmarov had used the KGB
to collect money from Saddam Hussein. He sold
things that belonged to the nation that he had no right to sell.
That was a crime. Such a thing would be a crime in
any nation on earth.

Yes, Shmarov allowed the removal of
planeloads of weapons from the base at
Petrovsk the day before the Serdobsk reactor was
destroyed. Yes, Shmarov ordered Colonel
Gagarin of the KGB to destroy the Serdobsk fast
breeder reactor. And yes, Gagarin committed the
crime. Yeltsin was not yet prepared to say what
Shmarov did with the money he collected for the
weapons-the government was investigating. The new
fact to lead off this story-Yeltsin had ordered
Marshal Mikhailov, commander of the Russian armed
forces, and General Yakolev, commander of the
Russian army, to accompany Rear Admiral
Jake Grafton and a group of officers from Germany,
Britain, France and Italy on a trip to Iraq
to recover the stolen weapons.

“Stolen?” Yocke asked, looking up at
Yeltsin.

“Stolen,” the interpreter repeated after a burst from
Yeltsin. “The government of Russia has never
sold and will never sell or give away nuclear
weapons. We have given our solemn promise on
that point to numerous governments throughout the world. We have
signed treaties.”

Jack Yocke then asked the next logical
question: what would Russia do to get the stolen weapons
back if Saddam Hussein wasn’t gentleman enough
to return them? The answer: “We are cooperating
with the United States and the governments of other nations
to secure the return of the stolen weapons.”

That should have been the end of it, but Yocke was
Yocke and couldn’t resist asking one more. After a
glance at Grafton, whose face showed no emotion
whatever, he said, “General Shmarov allegedly
died of a heart attack the night before last. Was it a
heart attack?”

“I don’t know,” Boris Yeltsin said. “An
autopsy is being performed.”

Yocke opened his mouth, glanced again at
Grafton, then thanked President Yeltsin for the
interview. He was ushered from the room.
Jake Grafton remained seated.

Out in the waiting area Yocke grabbed his computer
from the chair where he had placed it and opened it on his
lap.

In seconds he was tapping away while the
U.s. marine captain, McElroy, watched over
his shoulder.

When Yocke finished and looked up, McElroy
and the four enlisted marines with him were no longer in the
room.

But there was a secretary behind the desk and she had a
telephone in front of her. “May I make a
collect telephone call?” he asked.

She merely grinned nervously at him.

“Use the phone?” He reached for it and raised his
eyebrows.

She nodded. Yocke snagged the instrument and when
he heard a voice addressing him in Russian,
asked for the international operator.

The C-141 was somewhere over the Black Sea
when Jack Yocke tired of looking out the window at
the four F- 15 escorts, their KC-135
tanker and the electronic warfare E-3 Sentry
that formed this aerial armada.

Jake Grafton obviously intended
to make it to Arabia regardless of who had other
ideas.

As they were boarding the airplane in Moscow,
Yocke had asked, “You don’t really expect the
Russian air force to try to shoot us down, do you?”

“With the story out, probably not. But we have
Mikhailov and Yakolev.