Editing The Cardinal of the Kremlin (section)

==Plot==
For thirty years, Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich "Misha" Filitov, a personal aide to the [[Minister of Defence (Soviet Union)|Soviet Minister of Defense]] and war hero, has been passing military, technical, and political intelligence to the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] as their highest agent-in-place, codenamed CARDINAL. His latest mission concerns a Soviet [[anti-ballistic missile]] research project codenamed "Bright Star", based at a secret defense installation located 50&nbsp;km southeast of [[Dushanbe]], [[Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic|Tajik SSR]].

Colonel Filitov sends Gennady Bondarenko, a Soviet colonel skilled with lasers, to Dushanbe to evaluate the facility and unwittingly procure information that Misha will then send to his CIA contacts. Unfortunately, a minor slip-up in passing Filitov's intelligence alerts the [[KGB]], which then aggressively pursues the couriers involved. They later become suspicious of Filitov and place him under surveillance. The courier chain having been quickly shut down by the CIA station chief in [[Moscow]], Edward Foley, Filitov's more important intelligence on Bright Star is delayed; however, he reveals the presence of a KGB agent infiltrating Bright Star's counterpart, Tea Clipper, which alarms the CIA.

The CIA then tasks Foley with extracting CARDINAL out of the country. However, when his wife Mary Pat, also a CIA agent, attempts to make a [[brush pass]] to Filitov, the two are arrested by the KGB. The Foleys are then declared ''[[persona non grata]]'', while Filitov is imprisoned and psychologically tortured until he eventually confesses to his crimes. In an effort to salvage the mission, CIA analyst [[Jack Ryan (character)|Jack Ryan]], who had now learned of CARDINAL's identity, concocts a plan to secure the return of Filitov and at the same time force the defection of KGB chairman Nikolay Gerasimov, who has been vying for the position of General Secretary since Filitov's arrest; Ryan tries to prevent his ascension to power due to his anti-American ideology.

Ryan, who is part of the American arms negotiation team, travels to Moscow for the arms reduction talks. There he meets Gerasimov, and blackmails him into releasing Filitov and betraying his country; if his demands are not met, he will reveal what actually happened to the Soviet [[ballistic missile submarine]] ''[[Red October (fictional submarine)|Red October]]'', which would disgrace the KGB chairman, who had used the incident to consolidate the KGB's control over the military. As counter-leverage should he refuse to defect, Gerasimov arranges for the kidnapping of Tea Clipper's top SDI researcher, Major Alan Gregory.

Gregory's kidnapping was undertaken by KGB agent Tania Bisyarina, who has been handling a mole inside Tea Clipper. The mole, a lesbian named Dr. Beatrice Taussig who unluckily falls in love with Gregory's fiancée, eventually gives up Bisyarina to the [[FBI]] out of guilt, and the [[Hostage Rescue Team]] later saves Gregory from his Soviet captors in a shabby desert safe house in [[New Mexico]]. Ryan later informs Gerasimov, who finally caves into his demands. The KGB chairman's wife and daughter are later extracted by CIA operative [[John Clark (Tom Clancy character)|John Clark]] from [[Estonia]] into the submarine {{USS|Dallas|SSN-700|6}}. Meanwhile, the secret ABM facility in Dushanbe finds itself under attack by the Afghan [[mudjahedin]], whose leader was known as "the Archer" due to his expertise in using [[surface-to-air missile]]s to bring down Soviet ground support aircraft. Colonel Bondarenko, who was there for a second round of evaluations, manages to repel the attackers, protecting Bright Star's scientific and engineering personnel and eventually killing the Archer.

On the last day of the arms negotiation talks, Gerasimov releases Filitov so that they can both proceed to [[Sheremetyevo Airport]], joining Ryan and the American negotiation team in returning to the United States. They successfully board the American delegation's aircraft, but Ryan allows himself to be captured by KGB officer Sergey Golovko, who is his counterpart in the arms talks and had become aware of their planned departure. He is then led to the private [[dacha]] of [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General Secretary]] Narmonov, where they discuss the CIA's interest in his political position and interference in the Soviet Union's internal security. Meanwhile, a [[Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25]] attempts to force the American delegation's plane to return to Russia, but the delagation plane successfully evades.

Filitov, who was extensively debriefed by the CIA, later dies due to heart disease. He was buried at [[Camp David]], within twenty miles of the [[Antietam National Battlefield|Antietam battlefield]]. His funeral was attended by Ryan and the Gregorys, among others, as well as a Soviet military attaché who questions why Filitov would be buried close to American soldiers. Ryan, always working to keep the peace, explains to him, "One way or another, we all fight for what we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?"