Red Rabbit Part 8

"Tell me that when you get your first heart attack."

"My last physical, my cholesterol was . . . what?"

"One fifty-two," Cathy answered, with an annoyed yawn.

"And that's pretty good?" her husband persisted.

"It's acceptable," she admitted. But hers had been one forty-six.

"Thank you, honey," Ryan acknowledged, turning to the op-ed page of the Times. The letters to the editor here were a positive hoot, and the quality of the writing throughout the papers was superior to anything he found in the American print media. Well, they had invented the language over here, Ryan figured, and fair was fair. The turn of phrase here was often as elegant as poetry, and occasionally too subtle for his American eye to appreciate. He'd pick it up, he figured.

The familiar sound and pleasant smell of frying bacon soon permeated the room. The coffee-tempered with milk instead of cream-was agreeable, and the news wasn't of the sort to ruin breakfast. Except for the unG.o.dly time, things were not all that bad, and besides, the worst part of waking up was already behind him.

"Cathy?"

"Yeah, Jack?"

"Have I told you yet that I love you?"

She ostentatiously checked her watch. "You're a little late, but I'll write that off to the early hour."

"What's your day look like, honey?"

"Oh, meet the people, look around at how things are laid out. Meet my nurses especially. I hope I get good ones."

"Is that important?"

"Nothing screws surgery up worse than a clumsy scrub nurse. But the people at Hammersmith are supposed to be pretty good, and Bernie says that Professor Byrd is about the best guy they have over here. He teaches at Hammersmith and Moorefields. He and Bernie go back about twenty years. He's been to Hopkins a lot, but somehow I've never b.u.mped into him. Over easy?" she asked.

"Please."

Then came the sound of cracking eggs. Like Jack, Cathy believed in a proper cast-iron skillet. Harder to clean, perhaps, but the eggs tasted a lot better that way. Finally came the sound of the toaster lever being depressed.

The sports page-it was called "sport" (singular) over here-told Jack everything he'd ever need to know about soccer, which wasn't much.

"How'd the Yankees do last night?" Cathy asked.

"Who cares?" her husband countered. He'd grown up with Brooks Robinson and Milt Pappas and the Orioles. His wife was a Yankees fan. It was hard on the marriage. Sure, Mickey Mantle had been a good ballplayer-probably loved his mother, too-but he'd played in pinstripes. And that was that. Ryan rose and fixed the coffee for his wife, handing it to her with a kiss.

"Thanks, honey." Cathy handed Jack his breakfast.

The eggs looked a little different, as though the chickens had eaten orange corn to make the yellows come out so bright. But they tasted just fine. Five satisfying minutes after that, Ryan headed for the shower to make room for his wife.

Ten minutes later, he was picking out a s.h.i.+rt-white cotton, b.u.t.tondown-striped tie, and his Marine Corps tie pin. At 6:40, there was a knock at the door.

"Good morning." It was Margaret van der Beek, the nanny/governess. She lived just a mile away and drove herself. Recommended from an agency vetted by the SIS, she was a South Africa native, the daughter of a minister, thin, pretty, and seemingly very nice. She carried a huge purse. Her hair was napalm-red, which hinted at Irish ancestry, but it was apparently strictly South AfricanDutch. Her accent was different from those of most locals, but nonetheless pleasant to Jack's ear.

"Good morning, Miss Margaret." Ryan waved her into the house. "The kids are still asleep, but I expect them up at any moment."

"Little Jack sleeps well for five months."

"Maybe it's the jet lag," Ryan thought out loud, though Cathy had said that infants didn't suffer from it. Jack had trouble swallowing that. In any case, the little b.a.s.t.a.r.d-Cathy snarled at Jack whenever he said that-hadn't gone to sleep until half past ten the previous night. That was harder on Cathy than on Jack. He could sleep through the noise. She couldn't.

"Almost time, honey," Jack called.

"I know, Jack," came the retort. The she appeared, carrying their son, with Sally following in her yellow bunny-rabbit sleeper.

"Hey, little girl." Ryan went over to lift his daughter for a hug and kiss.

Sally smiled back and rewarded her daddy with a ferocious hug. How children could wake up in such a good humor was a perverse mystery to him. Maybe it was some important bonding instinct, to make sure their parents looked after them, like when they smiled at mommy and daddy practically from their first moment. Clever little critters, babies.

"Jack, put a bottle on," Cathy said, heading with the little guy to the changing table.

"Roger that, doc," the intelligence a.n.a.lyst responded dutifully, doubling back into the kitchen for a bottle of the junk he'd mixed up the previous night-that was man's work, Cathy had made clear to him during Sally's infancy. Like moving furniture and taking out the garbage, the household tasks for which men were genetically prepared.

It was like cleaning a rifle to a soldier: unscrew the top, reverse the nipple, place bottle in pot with four to five inches of water, turn on stove, and wait a few minutes.

That would be Miss Margaret's task, however. Jack saw the taxi outside the window, just pulling onto the parking pad.

"Car's here, babe."

"Okay," was the resigned response. Cathy didn't like leaving her kids for work. Well, probably no mother did. Jack watched her head into the halfbath to wash her hands, then emerge to put on the suit coat that went with her gray outfit-even gray cloth-covered flat shoes. She wanted to make a good first impression. A kiss for Sally, and one for the little guy, and she headed for the door, which Jack held open for her.

The taxi was an ordinary Land Rover saloon car-only London required the cla.s.sic English taxi for public livery, though some of the older ones found their way into the hinterland. Ryan had arranged the morning pickup the previous day. The driver was one Edward Beaverton, and he seemed awfully chipper for a man who had to work before 7:00 A.M.

"Howdy," Jack said. "Ed, this is my wife. She's the good-looking Dr. Ryan."

"Good morning, mum," the driver said. "You're a surgeon, I understand."

"That's right, ophthalmic-"

Her husband cut her off: "She cuts up eyeb.a.l.l.s and sews them back together. You should watch, Eddie, it's fascinating to see how she does it."

The driver shuddered. "Thank you, sir, but, no, thank you."

"Jack just says that to make people throw up," Cathy told the driver. "Besides, he's too much of a wuss to come watch any real surgery."

"And properly so, mum. Much better to cause surgery than to attend it."

"Excuse me?"

"You're a former Marine?"

"That's right. And you?"

"I was in the Parachute Regiment. That's what they taught us: Better to inflict harm on the other bloke than to suffer it yourself."

"Most Marines would agree with that one, pal," Ryan agreed with a chuckle.

"That's not what they taught us at Hopkins," Cathy sniffed.

IT WAS AN hour later in Rome. Colonel G.o.derenko, t.i.tularly the Second Secretary at the Soviet Emba.s.sy, had about two hours per day of diplomatic duties, but most of his time was taken up by his job as rezident, or Chief of Station for the KGB. It was a busy posting. Rome was a major information nexus for NATO, a city in which one could obtain all manner of political and military intelligence, and that was his main professional concern. He and his six full- and part-time officers ran a total of twenty-three agents-Italian (and one German) nationals who fed information to the Soviet Union for political or pecuniary reasons. It would have been better for him if their motivation was mainly ideological, but that was rapidly becoming a thing of the past. The rezidentura in Bonn had a better atmosphere in which to work. Germans were Germans, and many of them could be persuaded that helping out their co-linguists in the DDR was preferable to working with the Americans, British, and French who called themselves allies of the Fatherland. For G.o.derenko and his fellow Russians, Germans would never be allies, whatever politics they might claim to have, though the fig leaf of Marxism-Leninism could sometimes be a useful disguise.

In Italy, things were different. The lingering memory of Benito Mussolini was pretty well faded now, and the local true-believer communists were more interested in wine and pasta than revolutionary Marxism, except for the bandits of the Red Brigade-and they were dangerous hooligans rather than politically reliable operatives. Vicious dilettantes more than anything else, though not without their uses. He occasionally saw to their trips to Russia, where they studied political theory and, more to the point, learned proper fieldcraft skills that at least had some tactical use.

On his desk was a pile of overnight dispatches, topmost of which was a message flimsy from Moscow Centre. The header told him it was important, and the cipher book: 115890. This was in his office safe, in the credenza behind his desk. He had to turn in his swivel chair and halfkneel to dial in the combination to open the door, after first deactivating the electronic alarm that was wired to the dial. That took a few seconds. Atop the book was his cipher wheel. G.o.derenko cordially hated using one-time pads, but they were as much a part of his life as using the toilet. Distasteful, but necessary. Decryption of the dispatch took him ten minutes. Only when it was done did he grasp the actual message. From the Chairman himself? he thought. As with any mid-level government official across the world, it was like being called to the princ.i.p.al's office.

The Pope? Why the h.e.l.l does Yuriy Vladimirovich care a rat's a.s.s about getting close to the Pope? Then he thought for a second. Oh, of course. It's not about the head of the Catholic Church. It's about Poland. You can take the Polack out of Poland, but you can't take Poland out of the Polack. It's political. That made it important.

But it did not please G.o.derenko.

"ASCERTAIN AND REPORT MEANS OF GETTING PHYSICALLY CLOSE TO THE POPE," he read again. In the professional language of the KGB, that could only mean one thing.

Kill the Pope? G.o.derenko thought. That would be a political disaster. As Catholic as Italy was, the Italians were not a conspicuously religious people. La dolce vita, the sweet life-that was the religion of this country. The Italians were the most profoundly disorganized people in the world. How they had ever been allies to the Hitlerites boggled the imagination. For the Germans, everything was supposed to be in Ordnung, properly arranged, clean and ready for use at all times. About the only things the Italians kept in proper order were their kitchens and perhaps their wine cellars. Aside from that, everything was so casual here. To a Russian, coming to Rome was a culture shock, akin to being bayoneted in the chest. The Italians had no sense of discipline. You only had to observe their traffic to see that, and driving in it was what flying a fighter plane must be like.

But the Italians were all born with a sense of style and propriety. There were some things one could not do here. Italians had a collective sense of beauty that was difficult for any man to fault, and to violate that code could have the most serious of consequences. For one thing, it could compromise his intelligence sources. Mercenaries or not . . . Even mercenaries would not work against their very religion, would they? Every man had some scruples, even-no, he corrected himself, especially-here. So the political consequences of something like this potential mission could adversely affect the productivity of his rezidentura and would seriously impact recruitment.

So, what in h.e.l.l 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 G.o.derenko 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 Cla.s.s 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 disa.s.sembled 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 d.a.m.n 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.

"d.a.m.ned 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, everybody smokes here," Cathy observed as they pulled into Victoria Station.

"Honey, think of it as a future income source for all the docs."

"It's an awful and a dumb way to die."

"Yes, dear." Whenever Jack smoked a cigarette, there was h.e.l.l to pay in the Ryan house. One more cost of being married to a doc. She was right, of course, and Jack knew it, but everyone was ent.i.tled to at least one vice. Except Cathy. If she had one, she concealed it with great skill. The train slowed to a halt, allowing them to stand and open the compartment door.

They stepped out into the arriving rush of office workers. Just like Grand Central Terminal in New York, Jack thought, but not quite as crowded. London had a lot of stations, laid out like the legs of an octopus. The platform was agreeably wide, and the rush of people politer than New York would ever be. Rush hour was rush hour everywhere, but the English city had a patina of gentility that was hard not to like. Even Cathy would soon be admiring it. Ryan led his wife to the outside, where a rank of cabs waited. He walked her to the first one in line.

"Hammersmith Hospital," he told the driver. Then he kissed his wife good-bye.

"See you tonight, Jack." She always had a smile for him.

"Have a good one, babe." And Ryan made his way to the other side of the building. Part of him hated the fact that Cathy had to work. His mom never had. His father, like all men of his generation, had figured that it was the man's job to put food on the table. Emmet Ryan had liked the fact that his son had married a physician, but his chauvinistic att.i.tude about a woman's place had somehow or other carried over to his son despite the fact that Cathy made a lot more than Jack did, probably because ophthalmologists were more valuable to society than intelligence a.n.a.lysts. Or the marketplace thought so, anyway. Well, she couldn't do what he did, and he couldn't do what she did, and that was that.

At Century House, the uniformed security guard recognized him with a wave and a smile.

"Good morning, Sir John."

"Hey, Bert." Ryan slid his card into the slot. The light blinked green, and Jack transited the security gate. From there, it was just a few steps to the elevator.