Tom Clancy - Red Rabbit

The courier was on the top floor, near the office of the Ambassador, Sir John Kenny. Haydock passed him a manila envelope sealed by metal clasp, glue, and wax over the flap. The address on the front designated the Foreign Office box that went straight to Century House across the Thames from Whitehall. The courier’s bag was an expensive leather attaché case with the coat of arms of the Royal House of Windsor embossed on both sides. There was also a pair of handcuffs for him to secure it to his wrist, despite the stern rules of the Vienna Convention. The Queen’s Messenger had a car waiting to take him to Sheremetyevo International Airport for the British Airways 737 afternoon return flight to Heathrow. The photos would be in Sir Basil’s hand before he went home for the evening, and surely some Century House experts would be staying late that night to go over them. That would be the last official check to see if the Rabbit was genuine. His face would be compared with those of known KGB field and security officers-and if there was a hit, then Ed and Mary Foley were in for a bad time. But Haydock didn’t expect that to happen. He agreed with his CIA counterparts. This one looked and felt real. But then, so did good Directorate Two people, didn’t they? His last stop was at Communications to get a quick message off to SIS Headquarters that an important message was en route via courier on Operation BEATRIX. That would perk up everyone’s eyeballs, and an SIS man would be waiting at the mailroom in Whitehall for this particular envelope. As laggardly as a government bureaucracy could be, Haydock thought, when you had something important to do, it usually got done quickly, at least in the SIS.

THE FLIGHT TOOK two hours and twenty minutes-a little late due to adverse winds-before arriving at Heathrow’s Terminal Three. There, a Foreign Office representative whisked the courier off to downtown London in a black Jaguar saloon car, and the Queen’s Messenger made his delivery and went off to his own office. Before he even got there, an SIS officer had taken the package and hustled down to Westminster Bridge and across the Thames.

“You have it?” Sir Basil asked.

“Here, sir.” The messenger passed over the envelope. Charleston checked the closures and, satisfied that it had not been tampered with, slit it open with his paper knife. Then, for the first time, he saw what the Rabbit looked like. Three minutes later, Alan Kingshot walked in. C handed over the color prints.

Kingshot took the top photo and gave it a long look. “So, this is our Rabbit, is it?”

“Correct, Alan,” Sir Basil confirmed.

“He looks ordinary enough. His wife, as well. The little girl is rather cute,” the senior field spook thought out loud. “On the way to Budapest now, are they?”

“Left Kiev Station five and a half hours ago.”

“Fast work from Nigel.” Kingshot gave the faces a closer look, wondering what information lay in the brain behind the man’s face, and whether or not they’d get to use it. “So, BEATRIX goes forward. Do we have the bodies?”

“The male from York is close enough. We’ll need to burn his face off, I’m afraid,” C observed distastefully.

“No surprise there, sir,” Kingshot agreed. “What about the other two?”

“Two candidates from America. Mother and daughter killed in a house fire in Boston, I believe. The FBI is working on that as we speak. We need to get this photo to them at once to make sure the bodies match up properly.”

“I’ll take care of that now if you wish, sir.”

“Yes, Alan, please do that.”

The machine downstairs was a color-photo transmitter like the one used by newspapers-relatively new and, its operator told Kingshot, very easy to use. He gave the photo only a cursory look. Transmission to an identical machine made by Xerox and located at Langley took less than two minutes. Kingshot took the photo back and returned to C’s office.

“Done, sir.” Sir Basil waved him to a seat.

Charleston checked his watch, giving it five minutes because CIA headquarters was a large building, and the communications people were in the basement. Then he called Judge Arthur Moore on the secure, dedicated line.

“Afternoon, Basil,” Moore’s voice said over the digitized circuit.

“Hello, Arthur. You have the photo?”

“Just got here. Looks like a nice little family,” the DCI observed. “This is from the train station?”

“Yes, Arthur, they are en route as we speak. They will arrive in Budapest in about twenty-no, nineteen hours.”

“Okay. Ready at your end, Basil?”

“We soon will be. There is the matter of those unfortunate people from Boston, however. We have the male body. It appears on first inspection that it will serve our needs quite well.”

“Okay, I’ll have the FBI expedite things here,” Moore replied. He’d have to get this photo to the Hoover Building ASAP. Might as well share this grisly business with Emil, he thought.

“Very good, Arthur. I shall keep you posted.”

“Great, Bas. See you.”

“Excellent.” Charleston hung up his phone, then looked over at Kingshot. “Have our people prepare the body for transport to Budapest.”

“Timing, sir?”

“Three days should be about right,” Sir Basil thought out loud.

“Right.” Kingshot left the room.

C thought for a moment and decided it was time to warn the American. He punched another button on his phone. This took only a minute and a half.

“Yes, sir,” Ryan said, entering his office.

“Your trip to Budapest, three days from today-perhaps four, but more likely three.”

“Where do I leave from?”

“There’s a morning British Airways flight from Heathrow. You can leave from here, or just take a taxi from Victoria Station. You’ll be accompanied on the flight by one of our people, and met in Budapest by Andy Hudson, he’s our Chief of Station there. Good man. Runs a good little station.”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan said, not knowing what the hell else to say in preparation for his first field mission as a spook. Then it was time for a question. “What, exactly, is going to happen, sir?”

“I’m not sure yet, but Andy has good connections with local smugglers. I would expect him to arrange a crossing into Yugoslavia, and then home from there by commercial aircraft.”

Great. More fucking airplanes, Ryan thought. Couldn’t we take the train? But ex-Marines weren’t supposed to show fear. “Okay, I guess that works.”

“You may speak with our Rabbit-discreetly,” Charleston warned. “And then you’ll be allowed to sit in on our initial debriefing out in Somerset. Finally, I rather expect you’ll be one of the chaps to escort him back to the States, probably on U.S. Air Force transport out of RAF Bentwaters.”

Better and better, Jack thought. His hatred for flying was something he’d have to get over, and intellectually he knew that sooner or later he’d do it. It was just that he hadn’t quite gotten over it yet. Well, at least he wouldn’t be flying anywhere in a CH-46 with a fluky transmission. He drew the line there.

“My total time away from home?” And sleeping apart from my wife, Ryan thought.

“Four days, perhaps as many as seven. It depends on how things work out in Budapest,” C replied. “That is difficult to predict.”

NONE OF THEM had ever eaten at sixty miles per hour. The adventure for their little girl just got better and better. Dinner was adequate. The beef was about average for the Soviet Union, and so they could not be disappointed by it, along with potatoes and greens, and, of course, a carafe of vodka, one of the better brands, to erase the pain of travel. They were heading into the setting sun, now in country used exclusively for farming. Irina leaned across the table to cut the zaichik ’s meat for her, watching their little angel eat her dinner, like the big girl she proclaimed herself to be, along with a glass of cold milk.