Red Rabbit - Tom Clancy [58]
So, what in hell do I do now? he asked himself. A senior colonel in the KGB's First Chief Directorate and a highly successful rezident, he had a certain degree of flexibility in his actions. He was also a member of a huge bureaucracy, and the easiest thing for him to do was what all bureaucrats did. He would delay, obfuscate, and obstruct.
There was some degree of skill required for this, but Ruslan Borissovich Goderenko knew all he needed to know about that.
CHAPTER 6
BUT NOT TOO CLOSE
NEW THINGS ARE ALWAYS INTERESTING, and that was true for surgeons, too. While Ryan read his paper, Cathy looked out the train window. It was another bright day, with a sky as blue as his wife's pretty eyes. For his part, Jack had the route pretty well memorized, and boredom invariably made him sleepy. He slumped in the corner of the seat and found his eyelids getting heavy.
"Jack, are you going to sleep? What if you miss the stop?"
"It's a terminal," her husband explained. "The train doesn't just stop there; it ends there. Besides, never stand up when you can sit down, and never sit down when you can lie down."
"Who ever told you that?"
"My gunny," Jack said, from behind closed eyes.
"Who?"
"Gunnery Sergeant Phillip Tate, United States Marine Corps. He ran my platoon for me until I got killed in that chopper crash—ran it after I left, too, I suppose." Ryan still sent him Christmas cards. Had Tate screwed up, that "killed" might not have been the limp joke he pretended it was. Tate and a Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class named Michael Burns had stabilized Ryan's back, at the very least preventing a permanent crippling injury. Burns got a Christmas card, too.
About ten minutes to Victoria, Ryan rubbed his eyes and sat up straight.
"Welcome back," Cathy observed dryly.
"You'll be doing it by the middle of next week."
She snorted. "For an ex-Marine, you sure are lazy."
"Honey, if there's nothing to do, you might as well use the time productively."
"I do." She held up her copy of The Lancet.
"What have you been reading up on?"
"You wouldn't understand," she replied. It was true. Ryan's knowledge of biology was limited to the frog he'd disassembled in high school. Cathy had done that, too, but she'd probably put it together again and watched it hop back to its lily pad. She could also deal cards like a Vegas cardsharp, a talent that flat amazed her husband every time she demonstrated it. But she wasn't worth a damn with a pistol. Most physicians probably weren't, and here guns were regarded as unclean objects, even by the cops, some of whom were allowed to carry them. Funny country.
"How do I get to the hospital?" Cathy asked, as the train slowed for its last stop.
"Take a cab the first time. You can take the tube, too," Jack suggested. "It's a new city. Takes time to learn your way around."
"How's the neighborhood?" she asked. It came from growing up in New York and working in Baltimore's inner city, where you did well to keep your eyes open.
"Damned sight better than the one around Hopkins. You won't be seeing too much gunshot trauma in the ER. And the people are as nice as they can be. When they figure out that you're an American, they practically give you the joint."
"Well, they were nice to us in the grocery store yesterday," Cathy allowed. "But, you know, they don't have grape juice here."
"My God, no civilization at all!" Jack exclaimed. "So get Sally some of the local bitter."
"You moron!" she laughed. "Sally likes her grape juice, remember, and Hi-C cherry. All they have here is black-currant juice. I was afraid to buy it."
"Yeah, and she's going to learn to spell funny, too." Jack didn't worry about his little Sally. Kids were the most adaptable of creatures. Maybe she'd even learn the rules for cricket. If so, she could explain the incomprehensible game to her daddy.
"My God, everybody smokes here,"