Read Online Covert One 6 - The Moscow Vector by Robert Ludlum - Free Book Online Page A

least for now.
    Wexler raised a single quizzical eyebrow. “In what way?”
    “I want more focus on political and military developments inside Russia, and on events in the smaller countries around its borders,” Castilla said. “And that’s going to require extensive shifts in the allocation of satellite time, SIGINT translation priorities, and analyst assignments.”
    “Russia?” Wexler was astonished.
    “That’s right.”
    “But the Cold War is over,” the intelligence director protested.
    “So they tell me,” Castilla said drily. He leaned forward in his chair.
    “Look, Bill, for anv number of overriding geopolitical reasons we’ve cut our good friend Viktor Dudarev a lot of slack over the past couple of years, right?
    Even though that’s meant turning a blind eye to some of the nasty moves he’s made against his own people?”
    Wexler nodded reluctantlv.
    “Well, the trouble is that while we’ve been tied down in Afghanistan, Iraq, and a dozen other hellholes around the globe, Dudarev has been busy building a new autocracy in Russia, with him sitting on top of the heap as the supreme ruler of all that he surveys. And I don’t like that. I don’t like it one little goddamned bit.”
    “The Russians have been extremely useful allies against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups,” the intelligence director pointed out. “Both the CIA and the Pentagon report that we’ve obtained a substantial amount of action-able intelligence from their prisoner interrogations in Chechnya.”
    Castilla shrugged his big shoulders. “Sure.” He gave the other man a lopsided grin. “But, hell, even a two-bit thug will help you kill a rattlesnake—so long as you’re both stuck at the bottom of the same canyon, that is. That sure doesn’t mean you should turn your back on him.”
    “Are you suggesting that Russia is again becoming an active enemy of the United States?” Wexler asked carefully.
    Castilla made an effort to hold his temper in check. “What I’m suggesting is that I don’t like flying blind around a guv like Viktor Dudarev. And right now the intelligence analysis I’m getting from the CIA and the other agencies pretty much reads as though they’re just clipping newspaper articles.”
    The DNI smiled weakly. “I’ve made the same comments to my staff,” he admitted. “I’ve even passed those complaints along through the various appropriate interagency coordinating committees.”
    Castilla scowled. The “appropriate interagency coordinating committees?”
    Leadership by memo and committee? And this was the guy who was supposed to be cracking the whip over the CIA and the other intelligence organizations? Wonderful. Just wonderful. He gritted his teeth. “And?”
    “Apparently, there are … well … problems in some of the analysis sections,” Wexler said hesitantly. “I don’t have all the details myself yet, but I’ve
    been told that several of our best Russia specialists have fallen seriously ill over
    the past couple of weeks.”
    Castilla stared hard at him for several seconds. “Maybe you had better fill me in, Bill,” he said grimly. “From the top, and starting right now.”
    Moscow
    It was full daylight now. Pallid rays cast by the weak winter sun winked off the ice-choked Moscow River and sent back dazzling reflections from the windshields of the cars and trucks grinding slowly in both directions across the bridges visible from the windows of the Kotelnichcskaya high-rise. Even twenty-four floors up, their blaring horns could be heard faintly. The Russian capital’s morning rush hour was in full swing.
    The blond-haired man sat at his desk, again rapidly skimming through the set of highly encrypted e-mails sent to his computer over the past several hours. Most were short, usually containing only a name and title, a location, and a single-line status report:
    MARCHUK, A., CINC, NORTHERN COMMAND, UKRAINE -
    INFECTED. CONDITION: TERMINAL.
    BRIGHTMAN, H., SIGINT SPECIALIST, CCHQ,