Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [291]
"Think so?" Ryan wasn't the least bit sure of that.
"Yes, I do. If there were, from an operational standpoint, they would well have executed the mission already, and the Pope would already be chatting directly with God. According to what I've heard from London, this mission has been in planning for more than six weeks. So, clearly he's taking his time. I'll be very surprised if it happens day after tomorrow, but we must act as though it will."
"I wish I had your confidence, man."
"Sir John, field officers think and act like field officers, whatever their nationality," Sharp said with confidence. "Our mission is a difficult one, yes, but we speak his language, as it were. If this were a balls-out mission, it would have been done already. Agreed, gentlemen?" he asked, and got nods from around the table, except from the American.
"What if we're missing something?" Ryan wondered.
"That is a possibility," Sharp admitted, "but it's a possibility we have to both live with and discount. We have only the information we have, and we must design our plan around that."
"Not much choice for us, is it, Sir John?" Sparrow asked. "We have only what we have."
"True," Ryan admitted, rather miserably. There had come the sudden thought that other things might be happening as well. What if there were a diversion? What if somebody tossed firecrackers—to draw eyes toward the noise and away from the real action? That, he suddenly thought, was a real possibility.
Damn.
* * *
"WHAT'S THIS ABOUT RYAN?" Ritter asked, storming into Judge Moore's office.
"Basil thought that since BEATRIX was a CIA operation from the get-go, why not send one of our officers down there to take a look at things? I don't see that it can hurt anything," Moore told his DDO.
"Who the hell does Ryan think he's working for?"
"Bob, why don't you just settle down? What the hell can he do to hurt things?"
"Damn it, Arthur—"
"Settle down, Robert," Moore shot back in the voice of a judge used to having his own way on everything from the weather on down.
"Arthur," Ritter said, calming down a whisker, "it's not a place for him."
"I see no reason to object, Bob. None of us think anything's going to happen anyway, do we?"
"Well… no, I suppose not," the DDO admitted.
"So he's just broadening his horizons, and from what he learns, he'll be a better analyst, won't he?"
"Maybe so, but I don't like having some desk-sitter playing field spook. He isn't trained for this."
"Bob, he used to be a Marine," Moore reminded him. And the U.S. Marine Corps had its own cachet, independent of the CIA. "He's not going to wet his pants on us, is he?"
"I suppose not."
"And all he's going to do is look around at nothing happening, and the exposure to some field officers will not do his education any harm, will it?"
"They're Brits, not our guys," Ritter objected weakly.
"The same guys who brought the Rabbit out for us."
"Okay, Arthur, I'll give you this one."
"Bob, you throw a hell of a conniption fit, but why not use them for something important?"
"Yes, Judge, but the DO is my shop to run. You want me to get Rick Nolfi into this?"
"You think it's necessary?"
Ritter shook his head. "No, I expect not."
"Then we let the Brits run this mini-op and keep it cool here at Langley until we can interview the Rabbit and quantify the threat to the Pope, all right?"
"Yes, Arthur." And the Deputy Director (Operations) of the Central Intelligence Agency headed back to his office.
* * *
DINNER WENT WELL. The Brits made good company, especially when the talk turned to non-mission-related things. All were married. Three had kids, with one expecting his first shortly.
"You have two, as I recall?" Mick King asked Jack.
"Yeah, and number two arrived on a busy night."