Tom Clancy: Red Rabbit

Vicar of Christ on earth was what kept repeating in Jack’s mind. This Strokov bastard-hell, he would have killed Jesus Himself. A new Pontius Pilate-if not an oppressor himself, then certainly the representative of the oppressors, here to spit in God’s face. It wasn’t that he could harm God, of course. Nobody was that big, but in attacking one of God’s institutions and God’s personal representative-well, that was plenty bad enough. God was supposed to punish such people in His own good time. . and maybe the Lord chose His instruments to handle that for Him. . maybe even ex-Marines from the United States of America. .

Noon. It would be a warm day. What had it been like to live here in Roman times without air-conditioning? Well, they hadn’t known the difference, and the body adapted itself to the environment-something in the medulla, Cathy had told him once. It would have been more comfortable to take his jacket off, but not with a pistol stuck in his belt. . There were street vendors about, selling cold drinks and ice cream. Like money changers in the Temple? Jack wondered. Probably not. The priests in evidence didn’t chase them away. Hmm, a good way for the bad guy to get close with his weapon? he suddenly wondered. But they were a good way off, and it was too late to worry about that, and none of them matched the photos he had. Jack had a small print of Strokov’s face in his left hand, and looked down at it every minute or so. The bastard might be wearing a disguise, of course. He’d be stupid not to, and Strokov probably wasn’t stupid. Not in his business. Disguises didn’t cover everything. Hair length and color, sure. But not height. It took major surgery to do that. You could make a guy look heavier, but not lighter. Facial hair? Okay, look for a guy with a beard or mustache . Ryan turned and scanned the area. Nope. Nothing obvious, anyway.

Half an hour to go. The crowd was buzzing now, people speaking a dozen or more languages. He could see tourists and the faithful from many lands. Blond heads from Scandinavia, African blacks, Asians. Some obvious Americans. . but no obvious Bulgarians. What did Bulgarians look like? This new problem was that the Catholic Church was supposed to be universal, and that meant people of every physical description. Lots of possible disguises.

“Sparrow, Ryan. See anything likely?” Jack asked his lapel.

“Negative,” the voice in his ear answered. “I’m scanning the crowd around you. Nothing to report.”

“Roger,” Jack acknowledged.

“If he’s here, he’s bloody invisible,” Sharp said, standing next to Ryan. They were eight or ten yards from the interlocking steel barriers brought in for the Pope’s weekly appearance. They looked heavy. Two men to put them on the truck, or four? Jack wondered. He discovered that the mind liked to wander at times like this, and he had to guard against that. Keep scanning the crowd, he told himself.

There’s too many goddamned faces! the self responded angrily. And as soon as the fucker gets into place, he’ll be looking away .

“Tom, how about we edge forward and sweep along the railing?”

“Good idea,” Sharp agreed at once.

The crowd was difficult, but not impossible, to slip through. Ryan checked his watch. Fifteen minutes. People were now edging against the barriers, wanting to get close. There was a belief from medieval times that the mere touch of a king could cure the ill or bring good fortune, and evidently that belief lingered-and how much more true if the man in question was the Pontifex Maximus? Some of the people here would be cancer victims, entreating God for a miracle. Maybe some miracles actually happened. Docs called that spontaneous remission and wrote it off to biological processes they didn’t yet understand. But maybe they really were miracles-to the recipients they certainly were exactly that. It was just one more thing Ryan didn’t understand.

People were leaning forward more, heads were turning to the face of the church.

“Sharp/Ryan, Sparrow. Possible target, twenty feet to your left, standing three ranks back of the barrier. Blue coat,” Jack’s earpiece crackled. He headed that way without waiting for Sharp. It was hard pressing through the crowd, but it wasn’t a New York subway crush. Nobody turned to curse at him. Ryan looked forward. .

Yes. . right there. He turned to look at Sharp and tapped his nose twice.

“Ryan is on the target,” he said into his lapel. “Steer me in, John.”

“Forward ten feet, Jack, immediately left of the Italian-looking woman in the brown dress. Our friend has light brown hair. He is looking to his left.”

Bingo , Jack thought in silent celebration. It took two more minutes and he was standing right behind the cocksucker. Hello, Colonel Strokov .

Hidden in the thickness of the crowd, Jack unbuttoned his jacket.

The man was farther back than he would have done it, Jack thought. His field of fire was limited by the bodies around him, but the woman directly in front of him was short enough that he could easily draw and fire right over her, and his field of view was fairly unrestricted.

Okay, Boris Andreyevich, if you want to play, this game’s going to surprise you some. If the Army or the Navy ever look on heaven’s scenes/They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines, motherfucker .

Tom Sharp took the chance to slide through the crowd in front of Strokov, brushing past as he went. On the other side, he turned in Ryan’s direction and reached up with his fist into the sky. Strokov was armed.

The noise of the crowd rose in frequency, and the languages all melded into one murmuring hiss of noise that suddenly went dead still. A bronze door had opened out of Ryan’s view.

Sharp was four feet away, just one person, an adolescent boy, between him and Strokov. . easy for him to dart right and get his hands on the man.

Then a cavalcade of screams erupted. Ryan inched back and pulled out his pistol, thumbing the hammer back, putting his pistol fully in battery. His eyes were locked on Strokov.

“King, the Pope is coming out now! Vehicle is in view.”

But Ryan couldn’t answer. Neither could he see the Popemobile.

“Sparrow, I see him. Ryan/Sharp, he will enter your field of view in a few seconds.”

Unable to say a word, unable to see His Holiness approach, Jack’s eyes were locked on his target’s shoulders. You can’t move your arm without having them move, too, and when he did that. .

Shooting a man in the back is murder, Jack. .

In his peripheral vision, Ryan saw the front-left corner of the white jeep/golf cart slowly moving left to right. The man in front of him was looking in that general direction. . but not quite. . why?

But then his right shoulder moved ever so slightly. . At the bottom of Ryan’s field of view, his right elbow came into view, meaning that his forearm was now parallel to the ground.

And then his right foot moved back, ever so slightly. The man was getting ready to-

Ryan pressed the muzzle of his pistol against the base of his spine. He could feel the vertebrae of his backbone on the muzzle of his Browning. Jack saw his head rock back, just a few millimeters. Ryan leaned forward and rasped a whisper into his ear.

“If that gun in your hand goes off, you’ll be pissing into a diaper the rest of your life. Now, real slow, with your fingertips, hand it back to me, or I will shoot you where you stand.”

Mission accomplished , Ryan’s brain announced. This fucker isn’t going to kill anybody. Go ahead, resist if you want. Nobody’s that fast . His finger was so tight on the trigger that if Strokov turned suddenly, the pistol would go off on its own accord, and sever his spine for all time to come.