Goddamn! A Russian ballistic-missile submarine defected and they kept it quiet oh, the boat was later sunk in deep water.

Back to London after that for a few more months before rotating home to be Greer's special assistant and heir-apparent. Some interesting work with the arms-control people

That can't be right. The KGB Chairman was killed in a plane crash

Goodley was taking furious notes now. Liz Elliot could not have known any of this, could she?

You're not looking for good stuff about Ryan, the White House Fellow reminded himself. Elliot had never really said that, of course, but she had made herself clear in a way that he'd understood or thought he'd understood, Goodley corrected himself. He suddenly realized just how dangerous a game this might be.

Ryan kills people. He'd shot and killed at least three. You didn't get that from talking to the man. Life wasn't a Western. People didn't carry revolvers with notches cut in the handles. Goodley didn't feel a chill over his skin, but he did remind himself that Ryan was someone to be regarded warily. He'd never before met someone who had killed other men, and was not foolish enough to regard such people as heroic or somehow more than other men, but it was something to keep in mind, wasn't it?

There were blank spots around the time of James Greer's death, he noted wasn't that the time when all that stuff was happening down in Colombia? He made some notes. Ryan had been acting DDI then, but just after Fowler took over, Judge Arthur Moore and Robert Ritter had retired to make way for the new presidential administration, and Ryan had been confirmed by the Senate as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. So much for his work record. Goodley closed that portion and opened up the personal and financial side

"Bad call " Ryan said. Twenty minutes too late.

"I think you're right."

"Too late. What did we do wrong?"

"I'm not sure." Bunker replied. "Tell the TR group to disengage and pull back, maybe?"

Ryan stared at the map on the far wall. "Maybe, but we've backed Andrey Il'ych into a corner we have to let him out."

"How? How do we do that without cornering ourselves?"

"I think there was a problem with this scenario not sure what, though "

"Let's rattle his cage hard," Ricks thought aloud.

"Like how, Cap'n?" Claggett asked.

"Status on tube two?"

"Empty, it was down for maintenance inspection," the weapons officer replied.

"Is it okay?"

"Yes, sir, completed the inspection half an hour before we got the contact."

"Okay " Ricks grinned. "I want a water slug out of tube two. Let's give him a real launch transient to wake him up!"

Damn! Claggett thought. It was almost something Mancuso or Rosselli would have done. Almost "Sir, that's kind of a noisy way to do it. We can shake him up enough with a "Tango" call on the Gertrude."

"Weps, we have a solution on Sierra-Eleven?" Mancuso wants aggressive skippers, well, I'll show him aggressive