Free Jack Ryan 3 - Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy Page B

I expect he counseled Suslov—they are old, old friends—to accept blindness rather than submit to American physicians. And if this Katz chap is Jewish, you said? That would not have helped, either. Not an attractive chap at all. When Suslov departs—a few months, we think—he'll be the new ideologue on the Politburo. He will back Yuriy Vladimirovich on anything he wishes to do, even if it means a physical attack on His Holiness.”
    “You really think it could go that far?” Jack asked.
    “Could it? Possibly, yes.”
    “Okay, has this letter been sent to Langley?”
    Harding nodded. “Your local Station Chief came over to collect it today. I would expect your chaps have their own sources, but there's no sense taking chances.”
    “Agreed. You know, if Ivan does anything that extreme, there's going to be hell to pay.”
    “Perhaps so, but they do not see things in the same way we do, Jack.”
    “I know. Hard to make the full leap of imagination, however.”
    “It does take time,” Simon agreed.
    “Does reading their poetry help?” Ryan wondered. He'd only seen a little of it, and only in translation, which was not how one read poetry.
    Harding shook his head. “Not really. That's how some of them protest. The protests have to be sufficiently roundabout that the more obtuse of their readers can just enjoy the lyrical tribute to a particular girl's figure without noticing the cry for freedom of expression. There must be a whole section of KGB that analyzes the poems for the hidden political content, to which no one pays particular attention until the Politburo members notice that the sexual content is a little too explicit. They are a bunch of prudes, you know… How very odd of them to have that sort of morality and no other.”
    “Well, one can hardly knock them for disapproving Debbie Does Dallas ,” Ryan suggested.
    Harding nearly choked on his pipe smoke. “Quite so. Not exactly King Lear , is it? They did produce Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Pasternak.”
    Jack hadn't read any of them, but this didn't seem the time to admit to it.
    “HE SAID WHAT !” Alexandrov asked.
    The outrage was predictable, but remarkably muted, Andropov thought. Perhaps he only raised his voice for a fuller audience, or more likely his subordinates over at the Party Secretariat building.
    “Here is the letter, and the translation,” the KGB Chairman said, handing over the documents.
    The chief-ideologue-in-waiting took the message forms and read them over slowly. He didn't want his rage to miss a single nuance. Andropov waited, lighting a Marlboro as he did so. His guest didn't touch the vodka that he'd poured, the Chairman noted.
    “This holy man grows ambitious,” he said finally, setting the papers down on the coffee table.
    “I would agree with that,” Yuriy observed.
    Amazement in his voice: “Does he feel invulnerable? Does he not know that there are consequences for such threats?”
    “My experts feel that his words are genuine, and, no, they believe he does not fear the possible consequences.”
    “If martyrdom is what he wishes, perhaps we should accommodate him…” The way his voice trailed off caused a chill even in Andropov's cold blood. It was time for a warning. The problem with ideologues was that their theories did not always take reality into proper account, a fact to which they were mostly blind.
    “Mikhail Yevgeniyevich, such actions are not to be undertaken lightly. There could be political consequences.”
    “No, not great ones, Yuriy. Not great ones,” Alexandrov repeated himself. “But, yes, I agree, what we do in reply must be considered fully before we take the necessary action.”
    “What does Comrade Suslov think? Have you consulted him?”
    “Misha is very ill,” Alexandrov replied, without any great show of regret. That surprised Andropov. His guest owed much to his ailing senior, but these ideologues lived in their own little circumscribed world. “I fear his life is coming to its