Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [221]
But what would happen in Hungary? He'd just be a watcher, the semiofficial CIA officer overseeing the evacuation of some fool Russian who wanted to move out of his place in Moscow. Damn, why the hell does this sort of thing always seem to happen to me? Jack wondered. It was like hitting the devil's lottery, and his number kept coming up. Would that ever stop? He was paid to look into the future and make his predictions, but inside he knew that he couldn't do it worth a damn. He needed other people to tell him what was happening, so that then he could compare it with things that everyone knew had happened, and then combine the two into a wild-ass guess on what somebody might do. And, sure, he'd done okay at that in the trading business, but nobody ever got killed over a few shares of common stock. And now, maybe, his cute little ass would be on the line. Great. Just fucking great. He stared at the ceiling. Why were they always white?
Wouldn't black be a better color for sleeping? You could always see white ceilings, even in a darkened room. Was there a reason for that?
Was there a reason why he couldn't sleep? Why was he asking damned-fool questions with no answers? However this played out, he'd almost certainly be okay. Basil wouldn't let anything happen to him. It would look very bad to Langley, and the Brits couldn't afford that—too embarrassing. Judge Moore wouldn't forget, and it would become part of CIA's institutional memory, and that would be bad for the next ten years or more. So, no, SIS wouldn't let anything bad happen to him.
On the other hand, they wouldn't be the only players on the field and, as in baseball, the problem was that both teams played to win, and you needed the right timing to send that 95-mph fastball out to the cheap seats.
But you can't wimp out, Jack, he told himself. Others, whose opinions he valued, would be ashamed of him—worse, he'd be ashamed of himself. So, like it or not, he had to suit up and go out on the field and hope he didn't drop the damned ball.
Or just go back to Merrill Lynch, but, no, he'd rather face bayonets than do that. I really would, Ryan realized, in considerable surprise. Did that make him brave, or just hardheaded? There's a question, he thought. And the only answer had to come from someone else, someone who would only see one side of the equation. You could only see the physical part, never the thought that went into it. And that wasn't enough to judge from, much as newsmen and historians tried to shape reality in that way, as though they really understood such things at a distance of miles or years. Yeah, sure.
In any case, his bags were packed, and with luck the worst part of this trip would be the airplane ride. Much as he hated it, it was fairly predictable… unless a wing fell off.
* * *
"WHAT THE FUCK is this all about?" John Tyler asked nobody in particular. The telex in his hand only gave orders, not the reasons behind them.
The bodies had been transported to the city coroner, with a request for no action to be taken with them. Tyler thought for a moment and then called the Assistant U.S. Attorney he usually worked with.
"You want what? Peter Mayfair asked in some incredulity. He'd graduated third in his Harvard Law School class three years before and was racing up the career ladder at the U.S. Attorney's office. People called him Max.
"You heard me."
"What is this all about?"
"I don't know. I just know it comes straight from Emil's office. It sounds like stuff from the other side of the river, but the telex doesn't say beans. How do we do it?"
"Where are the bodies?"
"Coroner's office, I guess. There's a note on them—mother and daughter—that says don't post them. So I suppose they're in