Rainbow Six

Clark and Tawney both nodded at that. The brush-pass had probably been around as long as spies had. You walked down a street and at most you pretended to bump into someone. In the process, his hand delivered something into yours, or dropped it in your pocket, and with minimal practice it was virtually invisible even to people watching for it. To be successful, only one of the parties had to wear something distinctive, and that could be a carnation in your buttonhole, the color of a necktie or the way one carried a newspaper, or sunglasses, or any number of other markers known only to the participants in the mini-operation. It was the simplest of examples of fieldcraft, the easiest to use, and for that reason the curse of counterespionage agencies.

But if he did a pass to this Popov guy, they had a photograph of the bastard. Maybe had it, he reminded himself. There was no guarantee that the guy he'd drunk with yesterday was the right fellow. Maybe Kirilenko was swift enough that he'd go to a pub and strike up a conversation with some other patron just to piss the "Five" people off and give them another randomly selected person to check out. Doing that required perso

"So, you'll increase your coverage of Kirilenko?" Bill Tawney asked.

"Yes." Holt nodded. "But do remember we're up against a highly skilled player. There are no guarantees."

"I know that, Mr. Holt. I've been in the field, and the Second Chief Directorate never got their hands on me," Clark told the visitor from the Security Service. "So anything at all on Popov?"

He shook his head. "That name is not in our files. It's possible, I suppose, that we have him under another name. Perhaps he's been in contact with our PIRA friends-that;actually seems likely, if he's a terrorism specialist. There are many such contacts. We've got informers inside the PIRA, and I'm thinking about showing the photograph to some of them. But that's something we have to do carefully. Some of our informers are doubles. Our Irish friends have their own counterespionage operations, remember'."' "I've never worked directly against them," John said next. "How good are they?"

"Bloody good," Holt assured him, catching a nod also from Bill Tawney. "They're highly dedicated, and superbly organized, but now the organization's fragmenting somewhat. Obviously, some of them do not want peace to break out. Our good friend Gerry Adams is by profession a publican, and if the Troubles come to an end, and he fails to get himself elected to high public office, as he clearly hopes, then his fallback job is rather lower in prestige than the position he now holds-but the majority of them seem willing to terminate their operations, declare victory. and give peace a chance. That has helped our infomer-recruiting somewhat, but there are elements of the PIRA who are more militant today than they were ten years ago. It's a cause for concern," Holt told them.

"Same story in the Bekaa Valley," Clark agreed. What did you do when Satan came to Jesus? Some would never want to stop fighting sin, and if that meant creating some sin themselves, well, that was just the cost of doing business, wasn't it? "They just don't want to let go."

"That is a problem. And I need not tell you that are of the main targets of those chaps is right here. The SAS is not exactly beloved of the PIRA."

That wasn't news either. The British Special Air Service commandos had gone into the field often enough to "sort out" IRA members who had made the two serious mistakes of breaking the law and being known. John thought it a mistake to use soldiers to perform what was essentially a police function-but then he had to admit that Rainbow was tasked to that exact mission, in a ma

The decision had come with unusual speed from Number Two Dzerzhinsky Square, and a courier was now on his way. Kirilenko was surprised to get the coded message. The courier was flying Aeroflot to Heathrow with a diplomatic bag, which was inviolable so long as the courier kept it in his possession countries had been known to steal them for their contents, which were often uncoded, but couriers knew about that, and played by a strict set of rules-if they had to visit the can, so did the bag. And so with their diplomatic passports they breezed through control points and went off to the waiting cars that were always there, carrying the usually canvas bags often full of valuable secrets past the eyes of people who would trade their daughters' virtue for one look.

So it happened here. The courier arrived on the evening flight from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International, was waved through customs, and hopped into the waiting car driven by an embassy employee. From there it was a mere forty minutes through rush-hour traffic to Kensington, Lind from there to Kirilenko's office. The manila envelope was sealed with wax to ensure that it hadn't been tampered with. The rezident thanked the courier for this and two other packages and went to work. It was late enough that he'd have to pass on his usual pint of bitter tonight. It was an a

So, now, he was in England somewhere, doing something covert, and his parent agency wanted to know about it, because you tried very hard to keep track of such people. The rezident took the paper scrap from his wallet. It looked like a cellular phone number. He had several of those in his desk drawers, all cloned from existing accounts, because it kept his signals people busy, cost the embassy no money, and was very secure. Tapping into a known cellular account was difficult, but absent the electronic codes, it was just one more signal in a city awash in them.