Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [281]
"Bye, Sally."
"Bye, Daddy." But then she thought again and jumped to her feet to give him another hug. She wouldn't grow up to break hearts, but to rip them out and cook them over charcoal. But that was a long way off, and for now her father had the chance to enjoy her. Little Jack was asleep on his back in the playpen, and his father decided not to disturb him.
"See ya, buddy," Ryan said as he turned to the door.
"Where are you going?" Miss Margaret asked.
"Out of the country. Business," Jack explained. "I'll call Cathy from the airport."
"Good trip, Dr. Ryan."
"Thanks, Margaret." And back out the door.
"How are we on time?" Ryan asked, back in the car.
"No problem," Thompson thought out loud. If they were late, this airliner, too, would have a minor mechanical problem.
"Good." Jack adjusted his seat to lean back and get a few winks.
He awoke just outside Heathrow Terminal Three. Thompson drove up to where a man in civilian clothes was standing. He looked like some sort of government worker.
He was. As soon as Ryan alighted from the car, the man came over with a ticket envelope.
"Sir, your flight leaves in forty minutes, Gate Twelve," the man reported. "You'll be met in Rome by Tom Sharp."
"What's he look like?" Jack asked.
"He will know you, sir."
"Fair enough." Ryan took the tickets and headed to the back of the car for his bags.
"I'll take care of that for you, sir."
This sort of traveling had its possibilities, Jack thought. He waved at Thompson and headed into the terminal, looking for Gate Twelve. That proved easy enough. Ryan took a seat close by the gate and checked his ticket—1-A again, a first-class ticket. The SIS must have had a comfortable understanding with British Airways. Now all he had to do was survive the flight.
He boarded twenty minutes later, sitting down, strapping in, and turning his watch forward one hour. He endured the usual rigmarole of useless safety briefing and instructions on how to buckle his seat belt, which, in Jack's case, was already clicked and snugged in.
The flight took two hours, depositing Jack at Leonardo da Vinci Airport at 3:09 local time. Jack walked off the aircraft and looked for the Blue Channel to get his diplomatic passport stamped after a wait of about five seconds—one other diplomat had been ahead of him, and the bonehead had forgotten which pocket his passport was in.
With that done, he retrieved his bags off the carousel and headed out. A man with a gray and brown beard seemed to be eyeballing him.
"You're Jack Ryan?"
"You must be Tom Sharp."
"Correct. Let me help you with your bags." Why people did this, Ryan didn't know, though on reflection, he'd done it himself often enough, and the Brits were the world champions at good manners.
"And you are?" Ryan asked.
"Station Chief Rome," Sharp replied. "C called to say you were coming in, Sir John, and that I ought to meet you personally."
"Good of Basil," Jack thought out loud.
Sharp's car was, in this case, a Bentley sedan, bronze in color, with left-hand driver's seat in deference to the fact that they were in a barbarian country.
"Nice wheels, fella."
"My cover is Deputy Chief of Mission," Sharp explained. "I could have had a Ferrari, but it seemed a little too ostentatious. I do little actual field work, you see, just administrative things. I actually am the DCM of the embassy. Too much diplomatic work—that can drive one mad."
"How's Italy?"
"Lovely place, lovely people. Not terribly well organized. They say we Brits muddle through things, but we're bloody Prussians compared to this lot."
"Their cops?"
"Quite good, actually. Several different police forces. Best of the lot are the Carabinieri, paramilitary police of the central government. Some of them are excellent. Down in Sicily they're trying to get a handle on the Mafia—pig of a job that is, but, you know, eventually I think they will succeed."
"You briefed in on why they sent me down?"
"Some people think Yuriy Vladimirovich wants to kill the Pope? That's what my telex said."
"Yeah. We just got a defector out who says so, and