Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [130]
CHAPTER 15
MEETING PLACE
MARY PAT WAS EXPECTED to come into the embassy sometimes, to see her husband about family matters or to purchase special food items from the commissary. To do this, she always dressed up—better than she did for the Moscow streets—with her hair well-brushed and held in place by a youthful headband, and her makeup done, so that when she drove into the compound parking lot she would look like a typical air-headed American blonde. She smiled to herself. She liked being a natural blonde, and anything that made her appear dumb worked for her cover.
So she breezed in the front door, waving airily at the ever-polite Marines, and into the elevator. She found her husband alone in his office.
"Hey, baby." Ed rose to kiss her, then drew back to take in the whole picture. "Looking good."
"Well, it's an effective disguise." It had worked fine in Iran, too, especially when she'd been pregnant. That country didn't treat women especially well, but it did extend them an odd deference, especially when pregnant, she'd found, right before she'd skipped the country for good. It was one station she didn't particularly miss.
"Yeah, babe. Just gotta get you a surfboard and a nice beach, maybe the Banzai Pipeline."
"Oh, Ed, that's just so tubular. And Banzai Beach is in Hawaii, dummy." A quick gear change. "The flag go up wrong?"
"Yep. The TV cameras didn't show anyone on the street paying particular attention to it. But you could see it from a block away, and the security cameras don't look that far out. We'll see if our friend drops a message in my pocket on the ride home tonight."
"What did the Marines say?" she asked.
"They asked why, but Dom didn't tell them anything. Hell, he doesn't know either, does he?"
"He's a good spook, Dominic is," Mary Pat judged.
"Ritter likes him. Oh," Foley remembered. He fished a message out of his drawer and handed it across.
"Shit," his wife breathed, scanning it quickly. "The Pope? Those motherfuckers want to kill the Pope?" Mary Pat didn't always talk like a California blonde.
"Well, there's no information to suggest that directly, but, if they want to, we're supposed to find out."
"Sounds like a job for WOODCUTTER," who was their man in the Party Secretariat.
"Or maybe CARDINAL?" Ed wondered.
"We haven't flagged him yet," MP pointed out, but it would soon be time to check in with him. They checked his apartment every night for the light-and-blinds combination in his living room. His apartment was agreeably close to their own, and the ratline was well established, beginning with a piece of paper tape on a lamppost. Setting that flag signal was MP's job. She'd already walked Little Eddie by it half a dozen times. "Is this a job for him?" she asked.
"The President wants to know," her husband pointed out.
"Yeah." But CARDINAL was their most important agent-in-place, and not one to be alerted unless it was really critical. CARDINAL would also know to get something like this out on his own if he became aware of it. "I'd hold off on that unless Ritter says different."
"Agreed," Ed Foley conceded. If Mary Pat advised caution, then caution was justified. After all, she was the one who enjoyed taking risks and betting her skill against the house odds. But that didn't mean that his wife was a reckless player, either. "I'll sit on that one for a while."
"Be nice to see what your new contact will do next."
"Bet your cute little tushy, babe. Want to meet the Ambassador?"
"I suppose it's time," she agreed.
* * *
"SO, RECOVER FROM yesterday?" Ryan asked Harding. It was the first time he'd beaten his workmate into the office.
"Yes, I suppose I have."
"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't met the President yet, myself. And I'm not exactly looking forward to the experience. Like Mark Twain said about the guy who got himself tarred and feathered, if it weren't for the honor of the thing, he would just as soon have missed it."
Harding managed a brief laugh. "Precisely, Jack. One does go a little weak in the knees."
"Is she as