Tom Clancy - Red Rabbit

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed at once. “I call it travel shock.”

“So, we’ll get you settled in your quarters upstairs. The embassy canteen is quite adequate, and your quarters will be comfortable if not elaborate. Let me get your bag.”

You couldn’t knock the hospitality, Jack thought ten minutes later. A bed, private bath, a TV, and a VCR with a dozen or so tapes. He decided on The Cruel Sea with Jack Hawkins, and he made it to the end before fading off to sleep.

ALL OF THEM WOKE UPabout the same time. Little zaichik was first, quickly followed by her mother and finally her father. The Hotel Astoria even had room service, an unheard-of luxury for Soviet citizens. Their room had a telephone, and Irina, after taking down the orders, called it in to the right extension, then was told that their food would arrive in about thirty minutes.

“I could fix it faster,” Irina observed, with a hint of sourness. But even she had to admit that not having to fix it wasn’t a bad deal for her at all. And so they all took turns in the bathroom in anticipation of their morning meal.

RYAN GOT HIMSELF showered and found his way to the embassy canteen about a quarter to eight. Evidently, the Brits liked their luxuries as much as American foreign service officers. He got himself a pile of scrambled eggs and bacon-Ryan loved English bacon, though their most popular sausages seemed to him to use sawdust as a filler-and four slices of white toast, figuring that he’d need a big breakfast to make it through this day. The coffee wasn’t all that bad. On asking, he found out that it was Austrian in origin, which explained the quality.

“The Ambassador insisted on that,” Hudson said, sitting down across the table from his American guest. “Dickie loves his coffee.”

“Who?” Jack asked.

“Richard Dover. He’s the Ambassador-back in London at the moment, just left day before yesterday. Too bad. He’d enjoy meeting you. Good boss, he is. So, sleep well?”

“No complaints. What the hell, only one hour’s worth of time difference. Is there a way for me to call London? I didn’t get a chance to talk to my wife before I left yesterday. Don’t want her to worry,” Jack explained.

“Not a problem, Sir John,” Hudson told him. “You can do that from my office.”

“She thinks I’m in Bonn on NATO business.”

“Really?”

“Cathy knows I’m Agency, but she doesn’t know much about what I do-and besides, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here anyway. Analyst,” Ryan explained, “not an operations guy.”

“So the signal about you said. Bollocks,” the field officer observed tersely. “Think of this as a new experience for your collection.”

“Thanks a bunch, Andy.” Ryan looked up with a very crooked smile. “I got plenty already, pal.”

“Well, then, the next time you do a memo, you’ll have a better appreciation for how things are at the sharp end.”

“Fine with me, just so I don’t get blunted by a brick wall.”

“It’s my job to prevent that.”

Ryan took a long sip of the coffee. It wasn’t up to Cathy’s but, for industrial coffee, not too shabby. “What’s the plan for today?”

“Finish breakfast, and I’m your tour guide. We’ll get you a feel for the land and start thinking about how we complete Operation BEATRIX.”

THE ZAITZEV FAMILY was agreeably surprised by the quality of the food. Oleg had heard good things about Hungarian cuisine, but the proof of the pudding is always in the eating, and the surprise was a pleasant one. Eager to see the new city, they finished, got dressed, and asked for directions. Since Irina was the one most interested in the local opportunities, she asked for the best shopping street. This, the desk clerk said, was Váci Utca, to which they could take the local metro, which, he told them, was the oldest in Europe. And so they walked to Andrassy Utca and walked down the steps. The Budapest Metro, they saw, was really an ordinary streetcar tram, just underground. Even the tram car was of wooden construction, with the same overhead catenary you usually found over the street. But it was underground, if barely so, and it moved efficiently enough. Barely ten minutes after boarding, they were at Vorosmarty Tér, or Red Marty Square, a short walk from Váci Street. They didn’t notice the man who accompanied them at a discreet distance-Tom Trent-who was quite amazed to see them walking directly toward the British Embassy on Harm Utca.

RYAN WENT BACK to his room to get his raincoat-Hudson had advised a topcoat for the morning’s jaunt-and then hustled down to the foyer, then outside onto the street. The weather was broken clouds, which suggested rain later in the day. Hudson nodded at the security officer at the door and led Ryan out, rather to his surprise when he got there. Hudson’s first look was to the left at police headquarters, but there was Tom Trent, not seventy-five yards away. .

Following the Rabbit family?

“Uh, Jack?”

“Yeah, Andy?”

“That’s our bloody Rabbit, Mrs. Rabbit, and the little Bunny.”

Ryan turned to look, and was startled to see the three people from the photos walking right toward him. “What the hell. .?”

“Must be going shopping on the next block. It’s a tourist area-shops and everything. Bloody strange coincidence,” Hudson observed, wondering what the hell this might mean.

“Follow them?” Jack asked.

“Why not?” Hudson asked rhetorically. He lit a smoke of his own-he liked small cigars-and waited for his companion to ignite a cigarette as the Rabbits passed. They waited for Trent to pass by before heading that way as well.

“Does this mean anything?” Ryan asked.

“I do not know,” Hudson answered. But while he wasn’t visibly uneasy, the tone of his voice carried a message of its own. They followed anyway.

Things were clear almost immediately. Within minutes, it was apparent that the Rabbits were shopping, with Mrs. Rabbit taking the lead, as all mama rabbits usually do.

Váci Street was seemingly an old one, though the buildings must have been restored after World War II, Ryan thought. This city had been fought for, and viciously so, in early 1945. Ryan looked in the shop windows and saw the usual variety of goods, though of poorer quality, and lesser quantities than one saw in America or London. Certainly they were impressive to the Rabbit family, whose matriarch gestured with enthusiasm at every window she passed.

“Woman thinks she’s on Bond Street,” Hudson observed.

“Not quite.” Jack chuckled back. He’d already dropped a fair bit of his personal exchequer there. Bond Street was perhaps the finest shopping street in all the world, if you could afford to walk the sidewalk there. But what was Moscow like, and how did this shopping area look to a Russian?

All women, it seemed to Jack, were alike in one respect. They liked window shopping, until the strain of not buying things drove them over the edge. In Mrs. Rabbit’s case, it lasted about 0.4 blocks before she walked into a clothing store, dragging little Bunny with her, while Mr. Rabbit went in last, with visible reluctance.

“This is going to be a while,” Ryan predicted. “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.”

“What’s that, Jack?”

“You married, Andy?”

“Yes.”

“Kids?”

“Two boys.”

“You’re lucky. Girls require more expensive upkeep, buddy.” They walked forward to eyeball the store in question. Women’s and girls’ stuff. Yeah, Jack thought, they’ll be a while.