east, harbinger of the midday Athens shower. "Perhaps I . . . yes, it was an un¬known, but what is life without unknowns? The job looked simple, Michael. I just had to launder it. Easy enough. Of course, if I had realized . . ." Again his voice trailed into the morning haze.
"So what's the inside story?"
Novosty drew once more on his cigarette. Finally he spoke. "All right. The number of twenty million rubles? Of course it's 'disinformation.' Typical. The real amount, nat¬urally, is classified. There is even a formal directive, signed by Chief, First Directorate Gribanov."
"Guess KGB still has enough clout to write the rules."
"The old ways die hard. They, and the military, are fighting a rearguard action to protect their turf—just as your CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense are doing now. Which is why they are so concerned about this. If they don't get to the bottom of it, they will once again be proved incompetent . . . as well as over-funded." He scratched at his beard. "More to the point, this operation went around them. That's a very bad precedent, if you understand what I'm saying. And the money, Michael, was almost three times what they admitted. In dollars it was over a hundred