"Well, there's the Walkers, Pelton, the others " Murray observed. The KGB had been remarkably successful at recruiting people within the American communications agencies. Cipher clerks held the most sensitive jobs in the embassies, but were so poorly paid and regarded that they were still called 'clerks,' not even 'technicians.' Some resented that. Some resented it enough that they had decided that they could make money from what they knew. They all learned eventually that intelligence agencies pay poorly (except for CIA, which rewarded treason with real money), but by then it was always too late to turn back. From Walker the Russians had learned how American cipher machines were designed and how their keying systems worked. The basics of the cipher machines hadn't really changed all that much in the preceding ten years. Improved technology had made them more efficient and much more reliable than their stepping-switch and pin-disc ancestors, but they all worked on a mathematical area called Complexity Theory, which had been developed by telephone engineers sixty years earlier to predict the working of large switching systems. And the Russians had some of the best mathematical theorists in the world. It was believed by many that knowledge of the structure of cipher machines might enable a really clever mathematician to crack a whole system. Had some unknown Russian made a theoretical breakthrough? If so

"We have to assume there are more we haven't caught. Add that to their technical expertise, and I'm really worried."

"Doesn't affect the Bureau directly, thank God." Most of the FBI encrypted communications were voice links, and though they could be broken, the data recovered was both too time-sensitive and further disguised by the use of code-names and slang that mostly concealed what agents were up to. Besides which, the opposition had real limits on how many things they could examine.

"Can you have your people do some scratching around?"

"Oh, yeah. You're going up the chain on this?"

"I think I have to, Dan."

"You're bucking a couple of major bureaucracies."

Ryan leaned against the doorframe. "My cause is just, isn't it?"

"You never learn, do you?" Murray shook his head and laughed.

"Those bastard Americans!" Narmonov raged.

"What's the problem now, Andrey Il'ych?"

"Oleg Kirilovich, have you any idea what it is like dealing with a suspicious foreign country?"

"Not yet." Kadishev answered. "I only deal with suspicious domestic elements." The effective abolition of the Politburo had perversely eliminated the apprenticeship period during which an up-and-coming Soviet political figure might learn the international version of statecraft. Now they were no better off than Americans were. And that, Kadishev reminded himself, was something to keep in mind. "What seems to be the problem?"

"This must be kept absolutely secret, my young friend."

"Understood."

"The Americans have circulated a memorandum around their embassies to make discreet inquiries concerning my political vulnerability."

"Indeed?" Kadishev did not allow himself to react beyond the single word. He was immediately struck by the dichotomy of the situation. His report had had the proper effect on the American government, but the fact that Narmonov knew of it made his discovery as an American agent possible. Wasn't that interesting? he asked himself in a moment of clear objectivity. His maneuvers were now a genuine gamble, with a downside as enormous as the upside. Such things were to be expected, weren't they? He was not gambling a month's wages. "How do we know this?" he asked, after a moment's reflection.