Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [293]
"Getting them involved would be useful, but—"
"But we can't let the whole world know about the Rabbit. Yeah, I know. The Pope's life is secondary to that consideration. Isn't that just great?" Ryan growled.
"What is the security of your country worth, Sir John, and ours also?" King asked rhetorically.
"More than his life," Ryan answered. "Yeah, I know, but that doesn't mean I have to like it."
"Has any Pope ever been murdered?" Sharp asked. Nobody knew the answer.
"Somebody tried once. The Swiss Guards fought a stonewall action to protect his retreat. Most of them went down hard, but the Pope escaped alive," Ryan said, remembering something from a comic book he'd read at St. Matthew's in the—what was it? Fourth grade or so?
"I wonder how good they are, those Swiss chaps?" Stones asked.
"They're pretty enough in the striped uniforms. Probably well motivated. Question of training, really," Sharp observed. "That's the difference between a civilian and a soldier—training. The chaps in plainclothes are probably well briefed, but if they carry pistols, are they allowed to use them? They work for a church, after all. Probably not trained to shoot people outright."
"You had that guy jump out from a crowd and fire off a starter pistol at the Queen—on the way to Parliament, wasn't it?" Ryan remembered. "There was a cavalry officer on a horse right there. I was surprised he didn't cut the asshole in half with his sabre—that would have been my instinct—but he didn't."
"Parade sword, just for ceremonial occasions. You probably couldn't cut cold butter with it," Sparrow said. "Nearly trampled the bastard with his horse, though."
"The Secret Service would have dropped him on the spot. Sure, the gun was loaded with blanks," Ryan said, "but it damned sure looked and sounded like the real thing. Her Majesty kept her head screwed on pretty tight. I would have shit myself."
"I'm sure Her Majesty availed herself of the proper facilities at Westminster Palace. She has her own loo there, you know," King told the American.
"In the event, he was some disturbed fellow, doubtless cutting out paper dolls in a mental hospital now," Sharp said, but, like every other British subject, his heart had stopped cold watching the incident on TV, and he, too, had been surprised that the lunatic had survived the event. Had one of the Yeomen of the Tower been there with his ceremonial fighting spear—called a partisan—he surely would have been pinned to the pavement like a butterfly in a collection box. Perhaps God did look after fools, drunks, and little children after all. "So, if Strokov does show up, and does take his shot, you suppose the local Italians will do for him?"
"One can hope," King said.
Wouldn't that be just great? Jack thought. The professionals can't protect the Pope, but local waiters and clothing salesmen beat the fucker to death. That'll look great on NBC Nightly News.
* * *
BACK IN MANCHESTER, the Rabbit and his family finished yet another superb dinner from Mrs. Thompson.
"What does an ordinary English worker eat?" Zaitzev asked.
"Not quite this well," Kingshot admitted. He sure as hell didn't. "But we try to take decent care of our guests, Oleg."
"Have I told you enough about MINISTER?" he asked next. "Is all I know." The Security Service had picked his brain pretty thoroughly on the subject that afternoon, going over every single fact at least five times.
"You've been most helpful, Oleg Ivan'ch. Thank you." In fact, he'd given the Security Service quite a lot. Most often, the way you caught such penetration agents was by identifying the information he'd transferred. Only a limited number of people would have access to all of it, and the "Five" people would observe all of them until one did something difficult to explain. Then they would see who arrived at the dead-drop site to retrieve the package, and from that they'd get the bonus of identifying his KGB control officer,