Patriot games - Tom Clancy [179]
"Yes," O'Donnell said. "I want you two to work together on this. We have plenty of time and we'll use all of it." He took the letter back and reread it before giving it to Miller. After they left, he wrote his instructions for their agent in London.
At the airport the next morning Cooley saw his contact and walked into the coffee shop. He was early for his flight, seasoned traveler that he was, and had a cup while he waited for it to be announced. Finished, he walked outside. His contact was just walking in. The two men brushed by each other, and the message was passed, just as was taught in every spy school in the world.
"He does travel about a good deal," Ashley observed. It had taken Owens' detectives less than an hour to find Cooley's travel agent and to get a record of his trips for the past three years. Another pair was assembling a biographical file on the man. It was strictly routine work. Owens and his men knew better than to get excited about a new lead. Enthusiasm all too easily got in the way of objectivity. His car-parked at Gatwick Airport -had considerable mileage on the clock for its age, and that was explained by his motoring about buying books. This was the extent of the data assembled in eighteen hours. They would patiently wait for more.
"How often does he travel to Ireland?"
"Quite frequently, but he does business in English-language books, and we are the only two countries in Europe that speak English, aren't we?" Ashley, too, was able to control himself.
" America?" Owens asked.
"Once a year, looks like. I rather suspect it's to an annual trade show. I can check that myself."
"They speak English, too."
Ashley grinned. "Shakespeare didn't live or print books there. There aren't many examples of American publishing old enough to excite a person like Cooley. What he might do is buy up books of ours that have found their way across the water, but more likely he's looking for buyers. No, Ireland fits beautifully with his cover-excuse me, if it is that. My own dealer, Samuel Pickett and Sons, travel there often also but not as much, I should think," he added.
"Perhaps his biography will tell us something," Owens noted.
"One can hope." Ashley was looking for a light at the end of this tunnel, but saw only more tunnel.
"It's okay, Jack," Cathy said.
He nodded. Ryan knew that his wife was right. The nurse- practitioner had positively beamed at the news she gave them on their arrival. Sally was bouncing back like any healthy child should. The healing process had already begun.
Yet there was a difference between the knowledge of the mind and the knowledge of the heart. Sally had been awake this time. She was unable to speak, of course, with the respirator hose in her mouth, but the murmurs that tried to come out could only have meant: It hurts. The injuries inflicted on the body of his child did not appear any less horrific, despite his knowledge that they would heal. If anything they seemed worse now that she was occasionally conscious. The pain would eventually go away-but his little girl was in pain now. Cathy might be able to tell herself that only the living could feel pain, that it was a positive sign for all the discomfort it gave. Jack could not. They stayed until she dozed off again. He took his wife outside.
"How are you?" he asked her.
"Better. You can take me home tomorrow night."
Jack shook his head. He hadn't thought about that. Stupid, Ryan told himself. Somehow he'd assumed that Cathy would stay here, close to Sally.
"The house is pretty empty without you, babe," he said after a moment.
"It'll be empty without her," his wife answered, and the tears started again. She buried her face in her husband's shoulder. "She's so little "
"Yeah." Jack thought of Sally's face, the two little blue eyes surrounded by a sea of bruises, the hurt there, the pain there. "She's going to get better, honey, and I don't want to hear any more of that 'it's my fault' crap."
"But it is!"
"No, it isn't. Do you know how lucky I am