Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [302]
"Fuck," Ryan breathed quietly.
"Did you do your best, Sir John?"
That snapped his head around. "Yes—I mean, of course. We all did."
"And that is all a man can do, isn't it? Jack, I've been in the field for, what? Twelve years. Sometimes things go according to plan. Sometimes they do not. Given the information we had and the manpower we were able to deploy, I don't see how we could have done any better. You're an analyst, aren't you?"
"Correct."
"Well, for a desk boffin, you acquitted yourself well, and now you know a good deal more about field operations. There are no guarantees in this line of work." King took another swallow of his drink. "I can't say that I like it, either. I lost an agent in Moscow two years ago. He was a young captain in the Soviet army. Seemed a decent sort. Wife and a young son. They shot him, of course. Lord only knows what happened to his family. Maybe she's in a labor camp, or maybe in some godforsaken town in Siberia, for all I know. You never find that out, you know. Nameless, faceless victims, but victims still."
* * *
"THE PRESIDENT IS PISSED," Moore told his senior executives, his right ear still burning from a conversation ten minutes before.
"That bad?" Greer asked.
"That bad," the DCI confirmed. "He wants to know who did it and why, and he'd prefer to know before lunch."
"That's not possible," Ritter said.
"There's the phone, Bob. You call him and tell him that," the Judge suggested. None of them had ever seen the President angry. It was, for the most part, something people tried to avoid.
"So, Jack was right?" Greer offered.
"He might have made a good guess. But he didn't stop it from happening, either," Ritter observed.
"Well, it gives you something to say, Arthur," Greer said, with a little hope in his voice.
"Maybe so. I wonder how good Italian doctors are."
"What do we know?" Greer asked. "Anything?"
"One serious bullet wound in the chest. The President ought to be able to identify with that," Moore thought out loud. "Two other hits, but not serious ones."
"So, call Charlie Weathers up at Harvard and ask him what the likely prognosis is." This was from Ritter.
"The President's already talked to the meatball surgeons at Walter Reed. They're hopeful but noncommittal."
"I'm sure they all say, 'If I was on it, it'd be okay.' " Greer had experience with military doctors. Fighter pilots were shrinking violets next to battlefield surgeons.
"I'm going to call Basil and have the Rabbit flown here as soon as the Air Force can get a plane ready. If Ryan's available—they ought to be flying him back from Rome right now, if I know Basil—I want him on the aircraft, too."
"Why?" Ritter asked.
"So he can brief us—maybe the President, too—on his threat analysis prior to the event."
"Christ, Arthur." Greer nearly exploded. "They told us about the threat four, five days ago."
"But we wanted to interview the guy ourselves," Moore acknowledged. "I know, James, I know."
* * *
RYAN FOLLOWED MICK KING off the airliner. At the bottom of the steps was somebody who had to be from Century House. Ryan saw that the man was staring right at him.
"Dr. Ryan, could you come with me, please? We'll have a man get your bags," the fellow promised.
"Where now?"
"We have a helicopter to take you to RAF Mildenhall, and—"
"My ass. I don't do helicopters since one nearly killed me. How far is it?"
"An hour and a half's drive."
"Good. Get a car," Jack ordered. Then he turned. "Thanks for the try, guys." Sparrow, King, and the rest shook his hand. They had indeed all tried, even though no one would ever know about their effort. Then Jack wondered what Tom Sharp would be doing with Strokov, and decided that Mick King was right. He really didn't want to know.
* * *
RAF MILDENHALL is just north of Cambridge, the home of one of the world's great universities, and Ryan's driver was in another Jaguar, and didn't much care about whatever speed limits there were on British roads. When they pulled past the