Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [220]
One nice thing about Merrill Lynch: You always knew who the hell you were. Sure, Jack's mind went on, let the whole damned world know you were a flunky of Joe Muller. Not in this lifetime. Any opinionated asshole could make money, and his father-in-law was one of them.
"Finished?" Cathy asked from behind him.
"Just about, babe," Jack answered.
"It's not dangerous, what you're doing, is it?"
"I don't expect it to be, babe." But Jack couldn't lie, and his uncertainty conveyed just enough.
"Where are you going?"
"I told you, remember, Germany." Uh-oh. She caught me again.
"Some NATO thing?"
"That's what they tell me."
"What do you do in London, Jack? Century House, that's intelligence stuff, and—"
"Cathy, I've told you before. I'm an analyst. I go over information from various sources, and I try to figure out what it means, and I write reports for people to read. You know, it's not all that different from what I did at Merrill Lynch. My job is to look at information and figure out what it really means. They think I'm good at it."
"But nothing with guns?" Half a question and half an observation. Jack supposed it was from her work in the Emergency Room at Hopkins. As a group, doctors didn't much care for firearms, except the ones who liked hunting birds in the fall. She didn't like the Remington shotgun in his closet, unloaded, and she liked the Browning Hi-Power hidden on the shelf in his closet, loaded, even less.
"Honey, no, no guns, not at all. I'm not that kind of spook."
"Okay," she semi-conceded. She didn't believe him completely, but she knew he couldn't say what he was doing any more than she could discuss her patients with him. In that understanding came her frustration. "Just so you're not away too long."
"Babe, you know I hate being away from you. I can't even sleep worth a damn unless you're next to me."
"So take me with you?"
"So you can go shopping in Germany? For what? Dirndls for Sally?"
"Well, she likes the Heidi movies." It was a weak offering.
"Nice try, babe. Wish you could, but you can't."
"Oh, damn," Lady Ryan observed.
"We live in an imperfect world, babe."
She especially hated that aphorism of his, and her reply was an un-grammatical grunt. But, really, there was no reply she could make.
Minutes later, in bed, Jack wondered what the hell he would be doing. Reason told him that it would be routine in every respect, except for the location. But except for one little thing, Abe Lincoln had enjoyed that play at Ford's Theater. He'd be on foreign soil—no, hostile foreign soil. He was already living in a foreign place, and, friendly as the Brits were, only home was home. But the Brits liked him. The Hungarians wouldn't. They might not take a shot at him, but neither would they give him the key to the city. And what if they found out he was traveling on a false passport? What did the Vienna Convention say about that? But he couldn't wimp out on this one, could he? He was an ex-Marine. He was supposed to be fearless. Yeah, sure. About the only good thing that had happened at his house a few months back was that he'd made a head call before the bad guys had crashed the party, and so hadn't been able to wet his pants with a gun to his head. He'd gotten it done, but he damned sure didn't feel heroic. He'd managed to survive, managed to kill that one guy with the