Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [290]
Jack didn't rise to the bait. Besides, you went to Italy for the wine, not the beer.
"What do we know about Strokov?" Ryan asked.
"They faxed me the police file on him," Sharp reported. "Read it this morning. He's five-eleven, about fifteen stone. Evidently, he likes to eat too much. So, not an athlete—certainly not a sprinter. Brown hair, fairly thick. Good language skills. Speaks accented English, but reportedly speaks French and Italian like a native. Thought to be an expert with small arms. He's been in the business twenty years—age forty-three or so. Selected for the special DS assassination unit about fifteen years ago, with eight kills attributed to him, possibly more—we don't have good information on that."
"Delightful chap, sounds like," Sparrow thought aloud. He reached for one of the photos. "Ought not to be difficult to spot. Better to get some of these prints reduced to pocket size, so that we can all carry them with us."
"Done," Sharp promised. The embassy had its own little photo lab, mainly for his use.
Ryan looked around the table. At least it was good to be surrounded by professionals. Given the chance to perform, they probably wouldn't blow it—like a good bunch of Marines. It was not all that much, but it was something.
"What about side arms?" Ryan asked next.
"All the nine-millimeter Brownings we need," Tom Sharp assured him.
Ryan wanted to ask if they had hollow-point ammunition, but they probably just had military-issue hardball. That Geneva Convention bullshit. The nine-millimeter Parabellum cartridge was thought by Europeans to be powerful, but it was hardly a BB compared to the .45 Colt with which he'd been trained. So, then, why did he own a Browning Hi-Power? Jack asked himself. But the one he had at home was loaded with Federal 147-grain hollow-points, regarded by the American FBI as the only useful bullet to shoot out of the thing, good both for penetration and for expanding to the diameter of a dime inside the target's body, to make him bleed out in a hurry.
"He'd better be bloody close," Mick King announced. "I haven't fired one of the things in years." Which reminded Jack that England did not have the gun culture America has, even in their security services. James Bond was someone from the movies, Ryan had to remember. Ryan himself was probably the best pistol shot in the room, and he was a long way from being an expert. The pistols Sharp would hand out would be military-issue, the ones with invisible sights and crummy grips. The one Ryan owned had Pachmayr grips that fit his hand so nicely that it might have been a custom-made glove. Damn, nothing about this job was going to be easy.
"Okay. John, you'll be atop the colonnade. Find out how you get there, and arrange to get up there Wednesday morning early."
"Right." He had press credentials to make that easy. "I'll recheck the timing for everything as well."
"Good," Sharp replied. "We'll spend the afternoon going over the ground more. Look for things we may have overlooked. I'm thinking we put one man over on the side street to try and spot our friend Strokov coming in. If we spot him, we shadow him all the way in."
"Not stop him out there?" Ryan asked.
"Better to get him in closer," Sharp thought out loud. "More of us, less chance for him to bolt. If we're onto him, Jack, he won't be doing anything untoward, will he? We'll see to that."
"Will he be that predictable?" Jack worried.
"He's doubtless been here already. Indeed, we could just spot him today or tomorrow, couldn't we?"
"I wouldn't bet the ranch on it," Jack shot back.
"We play the card we are dealt, Sir John," King said. "And hope for luck."
There was no arguing with that, Ryan realized.
"If I were planning this operation, I'd be trying very hard to keep it simple. The most important preparation he'll be making is up here." Sharp tapped the side of his head. "He, too, will be somewhat tense, no matter how experienced he is in this business. Yes, he's a clever bugger, but he is not bloody Superman. The key to his success is surprise. Well, he doesn't