Patriot games - Tom Clancy [67]
"The Lieutenant took rather a large chance, ma'am, not the sort of chance that one will walk away from very often. If there is ever a next time-and there won't be, of course. But if there is, you can act like a policeman or a soldier, but not both. You're very lucky to be alive, young man. You have that arm to remind you just how lucky you are. It is good to be brave, Lieutenant. It is better to be smart, and much less painful for those around you," Evans said. He looked down at his beer. "Dear God, how many times have I said that!"
"How many times have we all said it?" Bert said quietly. "And the pity is, so many of them didn't listen. Enough of that. This lovely lady doesn't want to hear the ramblings of tired old men. Bob tells me that you are expecting another child. In two months, I shall be a grandfather for the first time."
"Yes, he can hardly wait to show us the pictures." Evans laughed. "A boy or a girl this time?"
"Just so all the pieces are attached, and they all work." There was general agreement on the point. Ryan finished off his third beer of the evening. It was pretty strong stuff, and he was getting a buzz from it. "Gentlemen, if any of you come to America, and happen to visit the Washington area, I trust you will let us know."
"And the next time you are in London, the bar is open," Tom Hughes said. The Chief Warder was back in civilian clothes, but carrying his uniform bonnet, a hat whose design went back three or four centuries. "And perhaps you'll find room in your home for this. Sir John, with the thanks of us all."
"I'll take good care of this." Ryan took the hat, but couldn't bring himself to put it on. He hadn't earned that right.
"Now, I regret to say that if you don't leave now, you'll be stuck here all night. At midnight all the doors are shut, and that is that."
Jack and Cathy shook hands all around, then followed Hughes and Murray out the door.
The walk between the inner and outer walls was still quiet, the air still cold, and Jack found himself wondering if ghosts walked the Tower Grounds at night. It was almost-
"What's that?" He pointed to the outer wall. A spectral shape was walking up there.
"A sentry," Hughes said. "After the Ceremony of the Keys, the guards don their pattern-disruptive clothing." They passed the sentry at the Bloody Tower, now dressed in camouflage fatigues, with web gear and ammo pouches.
"Those rifles are loaded now, aren't they?" Jack asked.
"Not very much use otherwise, are they? This is a very safe place," Hughes replied.
Nice to know that some places are, Ryan thought. Now why did I think that?
* * *
7
Speedbird Home
he Speedway Lounge at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 4 was relaxing enough, or would have been had Jack not been nervous about flying. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows he could see the Concorde he'd be taking home in a few minutes. The designers had given their creation the aspect of a living creature, like some huge, merciless bird of prey, a thing of fearful beauty. It sat there at the end of the Jetway atop its unusually high landing gear, staring at Ryan impassively over its daggerlike nose.
"I wish the Bureau would let me commute back and forth on that baby," Murray observed.
"It's pretty!" Sally Ryan agreed.
It's just another goddamned airplane. Jack told himself. You can't see what holds it up. Jack didn't remember whether it was Bernoulli's Principle or the Venturi Effect, but he knew that it was something inferred, not actually seen, that enabled aircraft to fly. He remembered that something had interrupted the Principle or Effect over Crete and nearly killed him, and that nineteen months later that same something had reached up and killed his parents five thousand feet short of the runway at Chicago 's O'Hare International Airport. Intellectually he knew that his Marine helicopter had died of a mechanical failure, and that commercial airliners were simpler and easier to maintain than CH- 46s. He also knew that bad weather had been the main contributing factor in his parents' case-and the weather here was clear-but