Tom Clancy: Red Rabbit

“Brand new, and two sets of replacements for each. Good to know that Her Majesty is well looked after.”

“Okay, so nobody can listen in, and we can swap information,” Ryan said. It was one more piece of good news set against a big black pile of the bad sort. “What’s the plan for the day?”

“Back to the piazza, do some more looking, and hope we see our friend Strokov.”

“And if we do?” Ryan asked.

“We follow him back to his accommodations and try to see if there’s a way to speak with the chap this evening.”

“If we get that far, just talk to him?”

“What do you suppose, Sir John?” Sharp replied with a cold look.

You really willing to go that far, Mr. Sharp? Jack didn’t ask. Well, the bastard was a multiple murderer, and as civilized as the Brits were, under all the good manners and world-class hospitality, they knew how to do business, and while Jack wasn’t entirely sure that he’d be able to go all the way, these guys probably didn’t have his inhibitions. Ryan figured he could live with that, as long as he wasn’t the trigger man himself. Besides, they’d probably give him a chance to change countries first. Better a talking defector than a silent corpse.

“Would that give anything away?”

Sharp shook his head. “No. He’s the chappie who killed Georgiy Markov, remember? We can always say it is a case of visiting Her Majesty’s justice on someone who needed to learn about it.”

“We don’t approve of murder at home, Jack,” John Sparrow advised. “It would indeed be a pleasure to have him answer for that.”

“Okay.” Ryan could live with that, too. He was certain his dad would approve.

Oh, yeah.

THE REST OF the day, they all played tourist and tested their radios. It turned out that the radios worked both inside and outside the basilica, and, better yet, inside to outside the immense stone structure. Each man would use his own name as an identifier. It made more sense than setting up numbers or code names that they’d all have to remember-one more confusing factor that they wouldn’t need if the shit hit the fan. All the while, they looked around for the face of Boris Strokov, hoping for a miracle, and reminding themselves that miracles did occasionally happen. People really did hit the lottery-they had one in Italy, too-and the football pools every week, and so it was possible, just damned unlikely, and this day, it did not happen.

Nor did they find a better or more likely place from which to take a shot at a man in a slow-moving vehicle. It seemed to them all that Ryan’s first impression of the tactical realities of the place was correct. That felt good to Jack until he realized that if he’d blown it, then it was his fault, not theirs.

“You know,” Ryan said to Mick King-Sharp was back doing Deputy-Chief-of-Mission business for the British ambassador-“more than half the crowd is going to be in the middle there.”

“Works for us, Jack. Only a fool would take the shot from in there, unless he plans to have Scotty beam him up to the starship Enterprise . No escape possible from that place.”

“True,” Jack agreed. “What about inside somewhere, get the Pope on the way to the car?”

“Possible,” Mick agreed. “But that would mean that somehow Strokov or someone under his control is already inside the Papal administration-household, whatever one calls it-and is thus free to make his killing whenever he wishes. Somehow I think that infiltrating that organization would be difficult. It would mean maintaining a difficult psychological disguise for an extended period of time. No.” He shook his head. “I would discount that possibility.”

“Hope you’re right, man.”

“So do I, Jack.”

They all left at about four, each catching a separate cab to within a few blocks of the Brit Embassy and walking the rest of the way.

Dinner was quiet that night. Each of them had his own worries, and everyone hoped that whatever the hell Colonel Strokov of the DS had in mind, it wasn’t for this week, and that they could all fly back to London the following evening none the worse off for the experience. One thing Ryan had learned: Experienced field spooks that they were, they were no more comfortable with this mission than he was. It was good not to be alone in his anxiety. Or was that just schadenfreude? What the hell, was this how it felt the night before D-Day? No, there was no German Army waiting for them. Their job was to prevent a possible murder, and the danger was not even to themselves. It was to someone else who either didn’t know or didn’t care about the danger to himself, and so they had assumed responsibility for his life. Mick King had gotten it right from his first impression the day before. It was a pig of a mission.

“MORE STUFF FROM the Rabbit,” Moore reported at the usual evening get-together.

“What’s that?”

“Basil says there’s a deep-penetration agent in their Foreign Office, and the Rabbit gave them enough information to narrow him down to four potential individuals. ‘Five’ is already looking at them. And he gave them some more on this CASSIUS guy over here. He’s been working for them just over ten years. Definitely a senior aide to a senator on the Intelligence Committee-sounds like a political adviser. So it’s probably somebody who’s been briefed in and has a clearance. That cuts it down to eighteen people for the Bureau to check out.”

“What’s he giving them, Arthur?” Greer asked.

“Sounds like whatever we tell The Hill about KGB operations gets back to Dzerzhinskiy Square in less than a week.”

“I want that son of a bitch,” Ritter announced. “If that’s true, then we’ve lost agents because of him.” And Bob Ritter, whatever his faults, looked after his agents like a mama grizzly bear with her cubs.

“Well, he’s been doing this long enough that he’s probably pretty comfortable in his fieldcraft.”

“He told us about a Navy guy-NEPTUNE, wasn’t it?” Greer remembered.

“Nothing new there, but we’ll be sure to ask him about it. That could be anybody. How careful is the Navy with their crypto gear?”

Greer shrugged. “Every single ship has communications people, petty officers, and a commissioned communications officer. They’re supposed to destroy the setting sheets and circuit boards on a daily basis, and toss them over the side-and not just one. Two people have to see it, supposedly. And they’re all cleared-”

“But only people with clearances can fuck us in the ass,” Ritter reminded them.

“Only the people you trust with your money can steal from you,” Judge Moore observed. He’d seen enough criminal cases along that score. “That’s the problem. Imagine how Ivan’s going to feel if he finds out about the Rabbit.”

“That,” Ritter said, “is different.”

“Very good, Bob,” the DCI reacted with a laugh. “My wife says that to me all the time. It must be the war cry of women all over the world- that’s different . The other side thinks they’re the forces of Truth and Beauty, too, remember.”

“Yeah, Judge, but we’re going to whip ’em.”

It was good to see such confidence, especially in a guy like Bob Ritter, Moore thought.

“Still thinking about THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, Robert?”

“Putting some ideas together. Give me a few weeks.”

“Fair enough.”

IT WAS JUST one in the morning in Washington when Ryan awoke on Italian time. The shower helped get him alert, and the shave got his face smooth. By seven-thirty, he was heading down for breakfast. Mrs. Sharp fixed coffee in the Italian style, which surprisingly tasted as though someone had emptied an ashtray into the pot. Jack wrote that off to differing national tastes. The eggs and (English) bacon were just fine, as was the buttered toast. Someone had decided that men going into action needed full bellies. A pity the Brits didn’t know about hash brown potatoes, the most filling of unhealthy breakfast foods.