"Take two minutes," Nancy said.

"Fine." Jack walked off to the washroom. Looking in the mirror, he saw that Clark was as right as ever. He really did look like hell. But that couldn't be helped. "Ready?"

"If you are, Doc." Clark was already holding the documents in a zipped leather case.

The perversity of life did not abate this Monday morning. Somewhere around the I-66 cutoff, some fool had managed to cause an accident, and that backed traffic up. What should have been a ten or fifteen minute drive took thirty-five. Even senior government officials have to deal with D.C. traffic. The Agency car pulled into West Executive Drive barely on time. Jack managed not to run into the west entrance to the White House only because someone might notice. Reporters used this entrance, too. A minute later, he was in Liz Elliot's corner office.

"What gives?" the National Security Advisor asked.

"I'd prefer to go over this just once. We have a report from a penetration agent that you're not going to like very much."

"You have to tell me something," Elliot pointed out, reasonably for once.

"Narmonov, his military, and nukes."

She nodded. "Let's go." It was a short walk down two corridors, past eight Secret Service agents who guarded the President's office like a pack of very respectful wolves.

"I hope this is good," President Fowler said, without rising. "I'm missing a budget brief for this."

"Mr President, we have a very highly-placed penetration agent inside the Soviet government," Ryan began.

"I know that. I have asked you not to reveal his name to me, as you recall."

"Yes, sir," Ryan said. "I'm going to tell you his name now. Oleg Kirilovich Kadishev. We call him SPINNAKER. He was recruited some years ago by Mary Patricia Foley, when she and her husband were in Moscow."

"Why did you give me that?" Fowler asked.

"So that you can evaluate what he says. You've seen his reports before under the codenames RESTORATIVE and PIVOT."

"PIVOT - That's the one back in September that talked about problems with Narmonov's - I mean, that he was having trouble with his security apparatus."

"Correct, Mr President." Good for you, Ryan thought. You remember what we send down. It was not always so, Ryan knew.

"I gather his problems are worsening or you would not be here. Go on," Fowler ordered, leaning back in his chair.

"Kadishev says he had a meeting with Narmonov last week - late last week -"

"Wait a minute. Kadishev - he's a member of their parliament, head of one of the opposition groups, right?"

"Also correct, sir. He has a lot of one-on-ones with Narmonov, and that's why he's so valuable to us."

"Fine, I can see that."

"In their most recent meeting, he says, Narmonov said that his problems are indeed getting worse. He's allowed his military and security forces to increase their internal clout, but it would seem that this is not enough. There may be opposition to the arms-reduction treaty implementation. According to this report, the Soviet military wants to hold onto all of its SS-18s instead of eliminating six regiments of them as agreed. Our man says that Narmonov may be ready to give in to them on that point. Sir, that would be treaty violation, and that's why I'm here."