"Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 03 - The Cardinal of the Kremlin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

Party man, else he would never have made the rank of Marshal. "We have that delegation coming in from the expert mental station in the Tadzhik SSR." "Ah, 'Bright Star.' Yes, that report is due today, isn't it?" 1 "Academicians," Misha snorted. "They wouldn't know what! a real weapon was if I shoved it up their asses." ]
"The time for lances and sabers is past, Mikhail Semyon-ovich," Yazov said with a grin. Not the brilliant intellect that Ustinov had been, neither was Yazov a fool like his predecessor, Sergey Sokolov. His lack of engineering expertise was balanced by an uncanny instinct for the merits of new weapons systems, and rare insights into the people of the Soviet Army. "These inventions show extraordinary promise." . "Of course. I only wish that we had a real soldier runninl the project instead of these starry-eyed professors." * "But General PokryshkinЧ"
"He was a fighter pilot. I said a soldier, Comrade Minister, Pilots will support anything that has enough buttons and dials, Besides, Pokryshkin has spent more time in universities o late than in an aircraft. They don't even let him fly himsel anymore. Pokryshkin stopped being a soldier ten years ago. Now he is the procurer for the wizards." And he is building his own little empire down there, but that's an issue we'll savt
for another day.
"You wish a new job assignment, Misha?" Yazov inquired
slyly.
"Not that one!" Filitov laughed, then turned serious. "What I am trying to say, Dmitri Timofeyevich, is that the progresi assessment we get from Bright Star isЧhow do I say this?-warped by the fact that we don't have a real military man 01 the scene. Someone who understands the vagaries of combat, someone who knows what a weapon is supposed to be."
The Defense Minister nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I sd your point. They think in terms of 'instruments' rather thai 'weapons,' that is true. The complexity of the project con
cerns me."
"Just how many moving parts does this new assembly have' "I have no ideaЧthousands, I should think." "An instrument does not become a weapon until it can \
handled reliably by a private soldierЧwell, at least a sen
lieutenant. Has anyone outside the project ever done a
liability assessment?" Filitov asked.
"No, not that I can recall."
Filitov picked up his tea. "There you are, Dmitri Timofeyevich. Don't you think that the Politburo will be interested in that? Until now, they have been willing to fund the experimental project, of course, but"ЧFilitov took a sipЧ"they are coming here to request funding to upgrade the site to operational status, and we have no independent assessment of the project."
"How would you suggest we get that assessment?"
"Obviously I cannot do it. I am too old, and too uneducated, but we have some bright new colonels in the Ministry, especially in the signals section. They are not combat officers, strictly speaking, but they are soldiers, and they are competent to look at these electronic marvels. It is only a suggestion." Filitov didn't press. He had planted the seed of an idea. Yazov was far easier to manipulate than Ustinov had ever been.
"And what of the problems at the Chelyabinsk tank works?" Yazov asked next.
Ortiz watched the Archer climbing the hill half a mile away. Two men and two camels. They probably wouldn't be mistaken for a guerrilla force the way that twenty or so would have. Not that this had to matter, Ortiz knew, but the Soviets were to the point now that they attacked almost anything that moved. Vaya con Dios.
"I sure could use a beer," the Captain observed.
Ortiz turned. "Captain, the thing that allowed me to deal with these people effectively is that I live the way they do. I observe their laws and respect their ways. That means no booze, no pork; that means I don't fool with their women."
"Shit." The officer snorted. "These ignorant savagesЧ" Ortiz cut him off.
"Captain, the next time I hear you say that, or even think
it real loud, will be your last day here. These people are
working for us. They're bringing us stuff that we can't get
any place else. You will, repeat will treat them with the re-
; sped they deserve. Is that clearr
I "Yes, sir." Christ, this guy's turned into a sand nigger him-Iself.
_3^ TheWeary Red Fox
T'S impressiveЧif you can figure out what they're doing." Jack yawned. He'd taken the same Air Force transport back to Andrews from Los Alamos, and was behind in his sleep again. For all the times this had happened to him, he'd never quite learned to deal witi it. "That Gregory kid is smart as hell. He took about two seconds to identify the Bach installation, practically word foi word with the NPIC assessment." The difference was that the photointerpreters at the National Photographic Intelligence Center had taken four months and three written report
to get it right.
"You think he belongs in the assessment team?" "Sir, that's like asking if you want to have surgeons in tht operating room. Oh, by the way, he wants us to infiltrate somebody into Bach." Ryan rolled his eyes. Admiral Greer nearly dropped his cup. "That kid must
watch ninja movies."
"It is nice to know that somebody believes in us." Ja< chuckled, then turned serious. "Anyway, Gregory wants know if they've made a breakthrough in laser power output-excuse me, I think the new term is 'throughput.' He suspec that most of the new power from the hydroelectric dam w
go to Bach." Greer's eyes narrowed. "That's an evil thought. Do
think he's right?"
"They've got a lot of good people in lasers, sir. Niko Bosov, remember, won the Nobel Prize, and he's been
laser-weapons research ever since, along with Yevgeniy Ve-likhov, noted peace activist, and the head of the Laser Institute is Dmitri Ustinov's son, for God's sake. Site Bach is almost certainly a sparse array laser. We need to know what kind of lasers, thoughЧcould be gas-dynamic, free-electron, chemical. He thinks it'll be the free-electron kind, but that's just a guess. He gave me figures to establish the advantage of putting the laser assembly on this hilltop, where it's above about half of the atmosphere, and we know how much energy it takes to do some of the things they want to do. He said he'd try to do some backwards computations to estimate the total power of the system. The figures will be on the conservative side. Between what Gregory said, and the establishment of the residential facilities at Mozart, we have to assume that this site is intended to go into formal test and evaluation in the near future, maybe operational in two or three years. If so, Ivan may soon have a laser that can snuff one of our satellites right out of business. Probably a soft kill, the Major saysЧit'll smoke the camera receptors and the photovoltaic cells. But the next stepЧ" "Yeah. We're in a race, all right." "What are the chances that Ritter and the Operations people can find out something inside one of those Bach-site buildings?"
"I suppose we can discuss the possibility," Greer said diffidently, and changed the subject. "You look a little ragged." Ryan got the message: he didn't need to know what Operations had in mind. He could talk like a normal person now. "All this traveling around has been pretty tiring. If you don't mind, sir, I'd just as soon take the rest of the day off." "Fair enough. See you tomorrow. But firstЧJack? I got a call about you from the Securities and Exchange Commission." "Oh." Jack bowed his head. "I forgot all about that. They called me right before I flew to Moscow." "What gives?"
B "One of the companies I own stock in, the officers are
Хtbeing investigated for insider trading. I bought some of it
Bright when they did, and SEC wants to know how I decided
Hto buy it just then."
H "And?" Greer asked. CIA had had enough scandals, and
Kthe Admiral didn't want one in his office.
K "I got a tip that it might be an interesting company, and
when I checked it out I saw that the company was buying itself back. So what got me to buy in was that I saw they were buying in. That's legal, boss. I have all the records at home. I do all this by computerЧwell, I don't since I came to work hereЧand I have hard copies of everything. I didn't break any rules, sir, and I can prove it."
"Let's try to settle that in the next few days," Greer suggested. "Yes, sir."
Jack was in his car five minutes later. The drive home to Peregrine Cliff was easier than usual, taking only fifty minutes instead of the usual seventy-five. Cathy was at work, as usual, and the kids were at schoolЧSally at St. Mary's and Jack at kindergarten. Ryan poured himself a glass of milk in the kitchen. Finished, he wandered upstairs, kicked off his shoes, and collapsed into bed without even bothering to take off his pants.
Colonel of Signal Troops Gennady losifovich Bondarenko sat across from Misha, straight of back and proud, as so young a field-grade officer should be. He did not show himself to be the least intimidated by Colonel Filitov, who was old enough to be his father, and whose background was a minor legend in the Defense Ministry. So this was the old war-horse who fought in nearly every tank battle in the first two years of the Great Patriotic War. He saw the toughness around the eyes that age and fatigue could never erase, noted the impairment to the Colonel's arm, and remembered how that had happened. It was said that Old Misha still went out to the tank factories with some of the men from his old regiment, to see for himself if quality control was up to standards, to make certain that his hard blue eyes could still hit a target from the gunner's seat. Bondarenko was somewhat in awe of this soldier's soldier. More than anything else, he was proud to weai the same uniform.