Deep Lie (47 page)

Read Deep Lie Online

Authors: Stuart Woods

Tags: #Thriller, #Mystery

On the nearly empty shuttle to Washington, while Peter slept in her lap. Rule told Will about the meeting she had just left.

 

“You know,” she said, “sometimes winning isn’t all that much fun. Careers destroyed, a monumental shakeup at the Agency in the wake of Ed Rawls’s arrest, it’s going to be a godawful mess.”

 

“I like you for not gloating,” Lee said, “but maybe the Agency needed something like this. It’s bound to be a better place when the dust has settled. And you’ll have done it.”

 

“Thanks,” she said, “And listen, when the Swedes are through talking to the press, and when you’ve kept your promise to talk to that reporter, it’s going to make a lot of noise, you know. It’s just the sort of thing that might make a candidate for the Senate race in Georgia stand out from the pack.”

 

“That’s a thought.” Will said.

 

“Let’s see how it goes.

 

How would you feel about being a Senator’s wife?”

 

“Let’s see how it goes.” Rule replied, squeezing his hand.

 

“Kate.” Will said. “you told them you were going to resign from the Agency. Are you really going to do that?”

 

Katharine Rule smiled broadly.

 

“Let’s see how it goes.” she said. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

In roughly chronological order of their contributions. the author wishes to express his great gratitude to:

 

Richard Cohen, for thinking of me when he had an idea and for his efforts on behalf of this project; Ebbe Carlsson. for his friendship, his enthusiasm, his warm hospitality in Stockholm, and his many introductions to invaluable contacts (and my apologies for naming two such unfortunate characters after him): Admiral Sir ian Easton. Royal Navy (ret.), for his insight into strategic considerations and his good company; Richard Clurman. for unearthing vital information with such blinding speed, and for his friendship; Stafan Skott for background and for introducing me to my first Russian; Clive Egleton for introductions: Colonel Jonathan Alford Royal Army (ret.) of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London, for listening to me without laughing and helping me bolster my theories; Captain John Coote, Royal Navy (ret.) for technical advice, useful chats about submarines and introductions;

 

Jan Henrik and Babro Schauman for my first close look at the Baltic and for generous hospitality in Helsinki;

 

Ewan Hedman. for his contacts and kindness in Stockholm; Raymond Benson, Counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, for invaluable background. contacts, and experiences in that city, and Shirley Benson. for her kind hospitality and for all the caviar I could eat; Lyndon Allin and Nicholas Burakow of the American Consulate in Leningrad for introductions and hours of fascinating conversation, and Mary Ann Allin for her warm hospitality and equally good conversation; Anne Eaton for her kind introductions in the Soviet Union; Tom 340 Acknowledgments

 

Susman, for sharing his intimate knowledge of Washington; John Packs of Senator Edward Kennedy’s office, for his help with arrangements in the Soviet Union; Commander Richard Compton-Hall, Royal Navy (ret.), director of the Submarine Museum at Portsmouth Naval Station, for sharing his intimate knowledge of submarines in general and mini subs in particular; Wendell Rawls, Jr., for introductions and encouragement; Go Erikson of the Swedish Ministry of Defense, for non classified information on Swedish defenses; David Binder of the Washington Bureau of the New York Times, for sharing his knowledge of American intelligence institutions and for introductions; Eric Swenson, my editor, for his continuing interest and support of my work, and for his patience. good humor, and warm friendship; Judy Tabb Woods, who married me in the middle of all this, and who nurtured and protected my peace of mind while I finished it.

 

And to anyone whom I may have stupidly forgotten.

 

Finally, I must give my greatest thanks to those people I cannot name for fear of causing them embarrassment or worse: in Sweden, members of parliament, of the foreign ministry, of the defense ministry, of naval intelligence, of the counterintelligence department of the State Security Police, and of the executive branch of the Swedish government; in the Soviet Union, those refuseniks, ordinary citizens, and high officials who, no doubt without realizing it, gave a writer background, color, and a taste of real life in their country—and especially those who were reputed to be and might even have been KGB; in the United States, to those CIA contacts, loyalists all, who gave me a peek at practice and procedure and let me know what about their organization they love and what makes them angry.

 

All of the above people share whatever success this book may achieve, but none of the responsibility for the manner in which I may have distorted, ignored, or disagreed with their views in order to tell a story. AUTHOR’S NOTE

 

For the purposes of this book, I have driven from office the President of the United States, the Director of Central Intelligence and all his employees, the representatives from Georgia in the United States Senate, the Prime Minister of Sweden, his Minister of Defense and other employees of that ministry. In their places I have substituted persons of my own choosing, which is the constitutional prerogative of novelists. Names of characters were chosen from the ranks of friends and scrambled, or simply made up, and are not intended to represent any real person. Anybody who thinks he is characterized in this book is wrong, guilty of wishful thinking, or crazy.

 

This manuscript was written on two personal computers, an AT&T 6300 with a Peach tree Peripherals hard disk (using WordStar software, which I do not recommend to anyone), and a PolyMorphic 8813, an ancient, but honorable machine with its own proprietary word processing software. Frank Steams Associates of Vancouver, Washington transferred the material on PolyMorphic disks to IBM compatible disks. The copy editor corrections were entered on the computer, and the finished manuscript was supplied on disk to the typesetters. was born in a small railroad town in rural Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1959 and served two tours of duty as a pilot in the Air Force. In the course of his literary apprenticeship, he has worked as a mattress salesman for Rich’s Department Stores of Atlanta and as a copywriter for an advertising agency in New York and London.

 

His book credits include Blue Water, Green Skipper, a nonfiction account of his early days as a sailor; A Romantic’s Guide to the Country Inns of Britain and Ireland;

 

Chiefs, his first work of fiction; Run Before the Wind.

 

Deep Lie; and Under the Lake, his next novel, which will be published in 1987.

 

Woods’ novel Chiefs won the 1982 Edgar Award given by the Mystery Writers of America and was a three-part, six-hour CBS-TV miniseries starring Charlton Heston.

 

Woods divides his time between his homes in Atlanta, Georgia, and on the Isle of Wight, in England.

 

The End

 

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