Tom Clancy - Red Rabbit

“And Wednesday?”

“We’ll arrive about nine in the morning, pick our individual surveillance areas, and mill about while the crowd arrives.”

“This isn’t what they trained me for in the Corps,” Ryan thought aloud.

“Sir John,” Mick King responded, “this isn’t what they trained any of us for. Yes, we are all experienced intelligence officers, but this really is a job for someone in the protective services, like the police constables who guard Her Majesty and the PM or your Secret Service chaps. Hell of a way to earn a living, this is.”

“Yes, Mick, I expect we’ll all appreciate them a little more after this lot,” Ray Stones observed, to general agreement around the table.

“John.” Ryan turned to Sparrow. “You’ve got the most important job, spotting this motherfucker for the rest of us.”

“Lovely,” Sparrow replied. “All I have to do is examine five-thousand-plus faces for the one that might or might not be there. Lovely,” the spook repeated.

“What will you be using?”

“I have three Nikon cameras and a good assortment of lenses. I think tomorrow I might buy some seven-by-fifty binoculars also. I just hope I can find a good perch to scan from. The height of the parapet worries me. There’s a dead space extending out from the base of the columns about thirty yards or so that I can’t see at all. That limits what I can do, lads.”

“Not much choice,” Jack thought out loud. “You can’t see shit from ground level.”

“That is the problem we have,” Sparrow agreed. “Our best choice would be two men, one-actually, more than one-on each side with good spotting glasses. But we lack the manpower, and we’d have to get permission from the Pope’s own security people, which is, I gather, quite out of the question.”

“Getting them involved would be useful, but-”

“But we can’t let the whole world know about the Rabbit. Yeah, I know. The Pope’s life is secondary to that consideration. Isn’t that just great?” Ryan growled.

“What is the security of your country worth, Sir John, and ours also?” King asked rhetorically.

“More than his life,” Ryan answered. “Yeah, I know, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Has any Pope ever been murdered?” Sharp asked. Nobody knew the answer.

“Somebody tried once. The Swiss Guards fought a stonewall action to protect his retreat. Most of them went down hard, but the Pope escaped alive,” Ryan said, remembering something from a comic book he’d read at St. Matthew’s in the-what was it? Fourth grade or so?

“I wonder how good they are, those Swiss chaps?” Stones asked.

“They’re pretty enough in the striped uniforms. Probably well motivated. Question of training, really,” Sharp observed. “That’s the difference between a civilian and a soldier-training. The chaps in plainclothes are probably well briefed, but if they carry pistols, are they allowed to use them? They work for a church, after all. Probably not trained to shoot people outright.”

“You had that guy jump out from a crowd and fire off a starter pistol at the Queen-on the way to Parliament, wasn’t it?” Ryan remembered. “There was a cavalry officer on a horse right there. I was surprised he didn’t cut the asshole in half with his sabre-that would have been my instinct-but he didn’t.”

“Parade sword, just for ceremonial occasions. You probably couldn’t cut cold butter with it,” Sparrow said. “Nearly trampled the bastard with his horse, though.”

“The Secret Service would have dropped him on the spot. Sure, the gun was loaded with blanks,” Ryan said, “but it damned sure looked and sounded like the real thing. Her Majesty kept her head screwed on pretty tight. I would have shit myself.”

“I’m sure Her Majesty availed herself of the proper facilities at Westminster Palace. She has her own loo there, you know,” King told the American.

“In the event, he was some disturbed fellow, doubtless cutting out paper dolls in a mental hospital now,” Sharp said, but, like every other British subject, his heart had stopped cold watching the incident on TV, and he, too, had been surprised that the lunatic had survived the event. Had one of the Yeomen of the Tower been there with his ceremonial fighting spear-called a partisan-he surely would have been pinned to the pavement like a butterfly in a collection box. Perhaps God did look after fools, drunks, and little children after all. “So, if Strokov does show up, and does take his shot, you suppose the local Italians will do for him?”

“One can hope,” King said.

Wouldn’t that be just great? Jack thought. The professionals can’t protect the Pope, but local waiters and clothing salesmen beat the fucker to death. That’ll look great on NBC Nightly News .

BACK IN MANCHESTER, the Rabbit and his family finished yet another superb dinner from Mrs. Thompson.

“What does an ordinary English worker eat?” Zaitzev asked.

“Not quite this well,” Kingshot admitted. He sure as hell didn’t. “But we try to take decent care of our guests, Oleg.”

“Have I told you enough about MINISTER?” he asked next. “Is all I know.” The Security Service had picked his brain pretty thoroughly on the subject that afternoon, going over every single fact at least five times.

“You’ve been most helpful, Oleg Ivan’ch. Thank you.” In fact, he’d given the Security Service quite a lot. Most often, the way you caught such penetration agents was by identifying the information he’d transferred. Only a limited number of people would have access to all of it, and the “Five” people would observe all of them until one did something difficult to explain. Then they would see who arrived at the dead-drop site to retrieve the package, and from that they’d get the bonus of identifying his KGB control officer, and get two breaks for the price of one-or perhaps even more, because the case officer would be working more than one agent, and the discoveries could branch out like the limbs of a tree. Then you tried to arrest a peripheral agent before going after the main target, because then the KGB could not know how their main penetration agent had been exposed, and that would protect the primary source, Oleg Zaitzev, from discovery. The counterintelligence business was as baroque as medieval-court intrigue and was both loved and hated by the players for its intricacy, but that just made the apprehension of a real Bad Guy that much more rewarding.

“And what of the Pope?”

“As I said the other day, we have a team in Rome right now to look into the matter,” Kingshot answered. “Not much we can say-in fact, not much we can really do, but we are taking action based on your information, Oleg.”

“That is good,” the defector thought out loud, hoping it hadn’t all been for nothing. He’d not really looked forward to exposing Soviet agents throughout the West. He’d do that, to safeguard his own position in his new home, of course, and for the money he’d get for turning traitor to his Motherland, but his highest concern was in saving that one life.

TUESDAY MORNING, Ryan slept later than usual, arising just after eight, figuring he’d need to bankroll his rest for the following day. He’d sure as hell need it then.

Sharp and the rest of the team were already up.

“Anything new?” Jack asked, coming into the dining room.

“We have the radios,” Sharp reported. There was, indeed, one at every place at the table. “They’re excellent-the very same sort your Secret Service use-same manufacturer, Motorola. Brand new, and they are encrypted. Lapel microphones and earpieces.”

Ryan looked at his. The earpiece was clear plastic, curled up like a phone cord, and nearly invisible. That was good news. “Batteries?”