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Page 274
ber of the Russian mission." It had hardly been necessary to suggest Ryerson talk to the FBI. Charlton Fisk and his people had been way ahead of everyone on the NSC roster. Everyone.
Kellner turned back. "Go on inside, John," he said. "I'll be right there."
Morgan found Charlotte Conroy still on the phone. She nodded briefly, then ignored him. "Look," she was saying angrily, "I've had about enough from State about this. The declaration of a defcon two may have been unwise, but it was the President's decision. He told Cherny, face to face, that the possibility of a coup d'état in a fragmenting nuclear power was such a danger to the world that be felt he had to act immediately."
Morgan froze in his tracks. His mind was racing. Defcon two. What coup and where? What had gotten into Cole Caidin, the pacifist President? He almost missed Charlotte Conroy's next words.
"Yes, we know that, now," she was saying. "There has been a serious leak here. Milstein's murder and Abramov's arrest make that clear. Vincent now considers the probability, even the certainty, that information held closely in this office has reached Moscow within hours of its discussion here. I" She listened for a moment and shook her head, obviously disagreeing with what she was hearing.
"What. I was going to say, Gerald," she finally said in exasperation, "is that Ian Halloran is here now, at Blair House. They're in an uproar at home about the nuclear contamination in Hudson Bay, and he's leaning hard on the President. But we have found a defector, a GKNT man, or rather, he found us. He's ill and in the hospital at Bethesda, with what looks to be plutonium poisoning, so we're quite sure he's real."
Charlotte Conroy looked over at Morgan, who stood transfixed at the news he was hearing. "Don't worry," she said into the phone. "We have just the man on hand to find out." She noticed Kellner returning and said, "I'll be in touch, Gerald. I'll call you as soon as I have more complete information.

 
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