Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 7-12 (687 page)

“Reliable information?” King inquired.

“We think it’s gold-plated and copper-bottomed, yeah. Sir Basil has bought into it. That’s why he flew you guys down,” Jack let them know, in case they hadn’t already figured that one out. “I’ve met the Rabbit myself, and I think he’s the real deal.”

“CIA operation?” This was Sharp.

Jack nodded. “Correct. We had an operational problem, and you guys were kind enough to help us out. I’m not cleared to say much more, sorry.”

They all understood. They didn’t want their asses exposed by loose talk about a black operation.

“This must go to Andropov himself—the Pope’s giving them trouble in Poland, is it?”

“It would seem so. Maybe he has command of more divisions than they appreciate.”

“Even so, this seems a little extreme—how will the world see the assassination of His Holiness?” King wondered aloud.

“Evidently, they fear that less than a total political collapse in Poland, Mick,” Stones thought out loud. “And they’re afraid that he might be able to bring that about. The sword and the spirit, as Napoleon said, Mick. The spirit always wins in the end.”

“Yes, I reckon so, and here we are at the epicenter of the world of the spirit.”

“My first time here,” Stones said. “It
is
bloody impressive. I must bring the family down here sometime.”

“They do know their food and wine,” Sparrow observed, going through his veal. “What about the local police?”

“Rather good, actually,” Sharp told him. “Pity we can’t enlist their assistance. They know the territory—it is their patch, after all.”

But these guys are the pros from Dover
, Ryan thought, with some degree of hope. Just that there weren’t enough of them. “Tom, you talk to London about the radios?”

“Ah, yes, Jack. They’re sending us ten. Earpieces and lapel microphones to speak into. Sideband, rather like what the army use. I don’t know if they’re encrypted, but fairly secure in any case, and we’ll use proper radio discipline. So at least we’ll be able to communicate clearly. We’ll practice with them tomorrow afternoon.”

“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?”

“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.