Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [138]
Out on the street, the air was cool with approaching autumn. Ed wondered if the Russian winter was all it was cracked up to be. If so, you could always dress for cold weather. It was heat that Foley detested, though he remembered playing stickball out on the streets, and the sprinklers on the tops of some of the fire hydrants. The innocence of youth was far behind him. A damned far way behind, the chief of station reflected, checking his watch as he entered the metro station. As before, the efficiency of the metro worked for him, and he entered the usual subway car.
* * *
THERE, ZAITZEV THOUGHT, maneuvering that way. His American friend was doing everything exactly as before, reading his paper, his right hand on the grab rail, his raincoat hanging loose around him… and in a minute or two, he was standing next to him.
* * *
FOLEY'S PERIPHERAL VISION was still working, The shape was there, dressed exactly as before. Okay, Ivan, make your transfer… Be careful, boy, be very careful, his mind said, knowing that this sort of thing was going to be too dangerous to sustain. No, they'd have to set up a dead-drop somewhere convenient. But first they'd have to do a meet, and he'd let Mary Pat handle that one for him, probably. She just had a better disguise…
* * *
ZAITZEV WAITED UNTIL the train slowed. Bodies shifted as it did so, and he reached quickly in and out of the offered pocket. Then he turned away, slowly, not so far as to be obvious, just a natural motion easily explained by the movement of the metro car.
* * *
YES! WELL DONE, IVAN. Every fiber of his being wanted to turn and eyeball the guy, but the rules didn't allow that. If there was a shadow in the car, those people noticed that sort of thing, and it wasn't Ed Foley's job to be noticed. So he waited patientiy for his subway stop, and this time he turned right, away from Ivan, and made his way off the car, onto the platform, and up to the cool air on the street.
He didn't reach into his pocket. Instead, he walked all the way home, as normal as a sunset on a clear day, into the elevator, not reaching in even then, because there could well be a video camera in the ceiling.
Not until he got into his flat did Foley pull out the message blank. This time it was anything but blank, covered with black ink letters—as before, written in English. Whoever Ivan was, Foley reflected, he was educated, and that was very good news, wasn't it?
"Hi, Ed." A kiss for the microphones. "Anything interesting happen at work?"
"The usual crap. What's for dinner?"
"Fish," she answered, looking at the paper in her husband's hand and giving an immediate thumbs-up.
Bingo! They both thought. They had an agent. A no-shit spy in KGB. Working for them.
CHAPTER 16
A FUR HAT FOR THE WINTER
"THEY DID WHAT?" Jack asked.
"They broke for lunch in the middle of surgery and went to a pub and had a beer each!" Cathy replied, repeating herself.
"Well, so did I."
"You weren't doing surgery!"
"What would happen if you did that at home?"
"Oh, nothing much," Cathy said. "You'd probably lose your license to practice medicine—after Bernie amputated your fucking hands with a chain saw!"
That got Jack's attention. Cathy didn't talk like that.
"No shit?"
"I had a bacon, lettuce, and tom-AH-to sandwich with chips—that's French fries for us dumb colonials. I had a Coke, by the way."
"Glad to hear it, doctor."