Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [222]
"And you want them raw, like?"
"Frozen, I suppose, but yeah, raw." What a hell of a way to put it, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge thought.
"Any families involved?"
"The police haven't located any yet that I know of."
"Okay, we hope it stays that way. If there's no family to say no, we declare them indigent and get the coroner to release them to federal custody, you know, like a dead drunk on the street. They just put them in a cheap box and bury them in Potter's Field. Where you going to take them?"
"Max, I don't know. Guess I send a reply telex to Emil and he'll tell me."
"Fast?" Mayfair asked, wondering what priority went on this.
"Last week, Max."
"Okay, if you want, I'll drive down to the coroner's right now."
"Meet you there, Max. Thanks."
"You owe me a beer and dinner at Legal Seafood," the U.S. Attorney told him.
"Done." He'd have to deliver on this one.
CHAPTER 25
EXCHANGING THE BODIES
THE BODIES WERE LOADED in cheap aluminum boxes, the sort used for transporting bodies by air, and then loaded on a van used by the FBI and driven to Logan International Airport. Special Agent Tyler called Washington to ask what came next, and fortunately his car radio was encrypted.
FBI Director Emil Jacobs, it turned out, hadn't thought things all the way through quite yet either, and he had to call Judge Moore at CIA, where more rapid dancing was done, until it was decided to load them on the British Airways 747 scheduled to leave Boston for London Heathrow, so that Basil's people could collect them. This was done with alacrity because BA cooperated readily with American police agencies, and Flight 214 rolled away from the gate on time at 8:10 and soon thereafter climbed to altitude for the three-thousand-mile hop to Heathrow's Terminal Four.
* * *
IT WAS APPROACHING five in the morning when Zaitzev awoke in his upper bunk, not sure why he had done so. He rolled a little to look out the window when it hit him: The train was stopped at a station. He didn't know which one—he didn't have the schedule memorized—and he felt a sudden chill. What if some Second Chief Directorate men had just boarded? In the daylight, he might have shaken it off, but KGB had the reputation of arresting people in the middle of the night, when they'd be less likely to resist effectively, and suddenly the fear came back. Then he heard feet walking down the corridor… but they passed him by, and moments later the train started moving again, pulling away from the wooden station building, and presently the view outside was just darkness again. Why did this frighten me? Zaitzev asked himself. Why now? Wasn't he safe now? Or almost so, he corrected himself. The answer was, no, not until his feet stood on foreign soil. He had to remind himself of that fact, until he stood on foreign, nonsocialist soil. And he wasn't there yet. With that reminder refixed in his mind, he rolled back and tried to get back to sleep. The motion of the train eventually overcame his anxiety, and he returned to dreams that were not the least bit reassuring.
* * *
THE BRITISH AIRWAYS 747 also flew through darkness, its passengers mainly asleep while the flight crew monitored its numerous instruments and sipped their coffee, taking time to enjoy the night stars, and watched the horizon for the first hint of dawn. That usually came over the west coast of Ireland.
* * *
RYAN AWOKE EARLIER than usual. He slipped out of bed without disturbing his wife, dressed casually, and went outside. The milkman was driving into the cul-de-sac at the end of Grizedale Close. He stopped his truck and got out with the half-gallon of whole milk his kids drank like a Pratt & Whitney engine guzzled jet fuel, and a loaf of bread. He was halfway to the house before he noticed his customer.
"Anything amiss, sir?" the milkman asked, thinking perhaps a child was ill, the usual reason for the parents of young children to be up and about at this time of day.
"No, just woke up a little early," Ryan replied with a yawn.
"Anything special you might need?"