Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [174]
"Well, we're interested in what you can do with it" was all the DDI wanted to say.
This guy must teach foxes how to outsmart dogs and horses. Good thing he wasn't a Brit. The local aristocracy would shoot him for ruining their steeplechases, Ryan told himself. "Okay, sir, I'll be looking for it. I don't suppose you can give me a play-by-play?" he asked with a little hope in his voice.
"That new shortstop—Ripken, is it?—just doubled down the left-field line, drove in run number six, one out, bottom of the seventh."
"Thank you for that, sir. It beats Fawlty Towers."
"What the hell is that?"
"It's what they call a comedy over here, Admiral. It's funny if you can understand it."
"Brief me in next time I come over," the DDI suggested.
"Aye aye, sir."
"Family okay?"
"We're all just fine, sir, thank you for asking."
"Okay. Have a good one. See ya."
"What was that?" Cathy asked in the living room.
"The boss. He's sending me something to work on."
"What exactly?" She never stopped trying.
"He didn't say, just a heads-up that I have something new to play with."
"And he didn't tell you what it was?"
"The Admiral likes his surprises."
"Hmph" was her response.
* * *
THE COURIER SETTLED into his first-class seat. The package in his carry-on bag was tucked under the seat in front, and he had a collection of magazines to read. Since he was covert, not an official diplomatic courier, he could pretend to be a real person, a disguise that he'd shed at Heathrow's Terminal Four immigration desk, there to catch an embassy car for the ride into Grosvenor Square. Mainly he looked forward to a nice pub and some Brit beer before he flew back home in a day and a half. It was a waste of talent and training for the newly hatched field officer, but everyone had to pay his dues, and this, for a guy fresh out of The Farm, was just that. He consoled himself with the thought that whatever it was, it had to be a little bit important. Sure, Wilbur. If it were all that important, he'd be on the Concorde.
* * *
ED FOLEY WAS sleeping the sleep of the just. The next day, he'd find an excuse to head over to the British Embassy and have a sit-down with Nigel and plan the operation. If that went well, he'd wear his reddest tie and take the message from Oleg Ivan'ch, set up the next face-to-face and go forward with the operation. Who is it, he wondered, who the KGB is trying to kill? The Pope? Bob Ritter had his knickers in a twist over that. Or somebody else? The KGB had a very direct way of dealing with people it didn't like. CIA did not. They hadn't actually killed anyone since the fifties, when President Eisenhower had used CIA—actually quite skillfully—as an alternative to employing uniformed troops in an overt fashion. But that skill hadn't been conveyed to the Kennedy Administration, which had screwed up nearly everything it touched. Too many James Bond books, probably. Everything in fiction was simpler than the real world, even fiction written by a former field spook. In the real world, zipping your zipper could be hard.
But he was planning a fairly complex operation and telling himself that it wasn't all that complex. Was he making a mistake? Foley's mind wandered while the rest of his consciousness slept. Even asleep, he kept going over and over things. In his dreams, he saw rabbits running around a green field while foxes and bears watched. The predators didn't move on them, perhaps because they were too fast and/or too close to their rabbit holes for them to waste a chase. But what happened when the rabbits got too far away from their holes? Then the foxes could catch them, and the bears could move in to swallow them whole… And his job was to protect the little bunnies, wasn't it?
Even so, in his dream the foxes and bears just watched while he, the eagle, circled high and looked down. He, the eagle, had sworn off rabbits, though a fox might be a nice morsel to rip apart, if his talons got it properly, just behind the head