Red Rabbit Part 41

"Local ones. Too hard to explain it to every new patient who might notice." But some asked about her accent anyway, or would ask why the name tag proclaimed her to be Lady Caroline Ryan, M.D., FACS. The "Lady" part appealed to her woman's vanity. Jack watched her brush her hair out, something that always gave him pleasure. She would have been an absolute knockout with somewhat longer hair, but she never let it grow, saying that the surgical caps ruined whatever set she might have gotten. That would change the next time they got invited to a formal dinner. They were due for one. The Queen liked both of them, and so did the Prince of Wales, and they were on the local version of the A-list. You had to accept such invitations, though Cathy had an excuse if she was doing surgery the next day. Spooks, on the other hand, were expected to be delighted at the honor, even if it meant three short hours of sleep before the next day at work.

"What's on the agenda for today?"

"Giving a lecture on the xenon-arc laser. They're going to be buying one soon, and I'm the only person in London who knows how to use it right."

"My wife, the laser jockey."

"Well, at least I can talk about what I do," she responded, "secret-agent man."

"Yes, dear," Ryan sighed. Maybe I should pack my Browning today just to p.i.s.s her off. But if anyone on the train noticed, he'd at best be regarded as unclean, and at worst would be asked by a police constable what he was doing with such a thing on his person. And even his diplomatic status would not entirely protect him from the resulting ha.s.sle.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jack and Cathy were in their compartment, heading northwest to London, she again reading her medical journals, and he going through the Telegraph. John Keegan had a column on the inside and he was a historian for whom Ryan had considerable respect as an a.n.a.lyst of complex information. Why Basil hadn't recruited him for Century House was a mystery to Jack. Maybe Keegan was just doing too well as an historian, able to spread his ideas to the ma.s.ses-well, at least the smart civilians out there. That made sense. n.o.body ever got rich as a British civil servant, and the anonymity-well, it was nice once in a while to get a pat on the head for doing something especially well. Bureaucrats were denied that all over the world.

ABOUT THE TIME their express train pa.s.sed by the Elephant and Castle station, Flight 214 rolled to an early stop at Heathrow's Terminal Four. It didn't come to a jetway. Instead it came to a halt where the shuttle buses waited to take people to Immigration and Customs. No sooner had the wheels been chocked than the cargo hatch came open. The last two items loaded at Logan had been the two coffins, and they became the first items of baggage to be manhandled off. The tags on one corner of each told the handlers where to send them, and two anonymous men from Century House were there to watch the process anyway. Placed on a four-wheel cart-called a trolley in England-they were pulled off to an area for parked cars and small trucks, where the boxes were quickly loaded on a small four-wheeled truck with no marking on its sides at all. The two men from SIS hopped aboard and drove off, easterly for London, entirely without a clue what this job was all about. It was often that way.

The truck arrived at 100 Westminster Bridge Road forty minutes later. There the boxes were removed and placed on another trolley for a ride to the freight elevator and a trip down to the second-level bas.e.m.e.nt.

Two more men were waiting there. The boxes were duly opened, and both men thanked fate that there was a goodly supply of dry ice inside and the bodies were not yet venting the particularly foul smell of dead and mortifying human tissue. Wearing rubber gloves, they lifted the bodies-neither was especially heavy-and transferred them to stainless-steel tables. Neither body was clothed and, in the case of the little girl, their job was particularly sad.

It would get more so. Comparing the bodies with the Times-generated photograph, it was determined, unsurprisingly, that the child's face didn't match the picture. The same was true of the grown woman, though her body ma.s.s and configuration were about right. Her face was virtually untouched by the fire, the toxic ga.s.ses of which had ended her life. And so both of them would have to be grossly disfigured to be usable for Operation BEATRIX. This was done with propane blowtorches. First, the senior of the two turned on the powerful exhaust fan in the ceiling. Both then donned fire-protective coveralls and lit their torches. These were heartlessly applied to both faces. Hair color was wrong in both cases, and so that was burned off first of all. Then the torches were applied at close range to both faces. It went quickly, but not quickly enough for the two SIS employees. The one doing the little girl breathed a series of prayers for her child's soul, knowing that she was wherever innocent children went. That which remained was just cold meat, of no value to its previous owner, but of some value to the United Kingdom-and doubtless the United States of America as well, else they would not be doing such ghoulish work as this. It was when the little girl's left eye exploded from internal pressure that her tormentor had to turn away and vomit. But it had to be done. Her eyes were the wrong color.

Hands and feet had to be well-charred, and both bodies were examined for tattoos, scars, or other distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics, but none were found, not even an appendectomy scar.

All in all, it took ninety minutes before they were satisfied with their work. Then the bodies had to be dressed. Clothing of Soviet origin was maneuvered onto the bodies, and then that had to be burned so that the fibers would be enmeshed with the surface burns. With all this grisly work done, the bodies were reloaded into their transport boxes, and more dry ice was added to keep them cool enough to r.e.t.a.r.d decay. The boxes were set near a third identical such box in the corner of the room. By then it was lunchtime, but neither of them cared much for food at the moment. A few shots of whiskey were more what they needed, and there were plenty of pubs within walking distance.

"JACK?" Sir Basil stuck his head through the door to find Ryan going over his doc.u.ments, like a good a.n.a.lyst.

"Yes, sir," Ryan responded, looking up.

"Are you packed?"

"My stuff is at home, but yes, sir."

"Good. You're on the BA flight from Heathrow Terminal Three at eight this evening. We'll have a car to run you home to pick up your things-say, about three-thirty?"

"I haven't gotten my pa.s.sport and visa yet," Ryan told C.

"You'll have it after lunch. Your overt cover is as an auditor from the Foreign Office. As I recall, you had an accountant's charter once upon a time. Perhaps you can look over the books while you're there." This was funny, Charleston thought.

Ryan tried to return the favor. "Probably more interesting than the local stock market. Anyone going with me?"

"No, but you'll be met at the airport by Andy Hudson. He's our Station Chief in Budapest. Good man," Sir Basil promised. "Stop in to see me before you head off."

"Will do, sir." And Basil's head vanished back into the corridor.

"Simon, how about a pint and a sandwich?" Ryan said to his workmate.

"Fine idea." Harding stood and got his coat. They walked off to the Duke of Clarence.

LUNCH ON THE TRAIN was pleasant: borscht, noodles, black bread, and a proper dessert-strawberries from some farm or other. The only problem was that Svetlana didn't care for borscht, which was odd for a Russian native, even a child. She picked at the sour cream topping, then later attacked the noodles with gusto and positively devoured the late-season strawberries. They'd just climbed through the low Transylvanian mountains on the Bulgarian border. The train would pa.s.s through Sofia, then turn northwest for Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and finally Hungary.

The Zaitzevs lingered over lunch, Svetlana peering out the windows as the train approached Sofia.

Oleg Ivanovich did the same, puffing on his cigarette. Pa.s.sing through Sofia, he found himself wondering which building housed the Dirzhavna Sugurnost. Was Colonel Bubovoy there, working on his plot, probably with that Colonel Strokov? How far along might they be? Was the Pope's life in immediate danger? How would he feel if the Polish priest was murdered before he could get his warning out? Could he or should he have moved faster? These d.a.m.ned questions, and no one in whom he could confide them! You are doing your best, Oleg Ivan'ch, he told himself, and no man can do more than that!

The Sofia station looked like a cathedral, an impressive stone building with an almost religious purpose. Somehow he wasn't worried now about a KGB arrest team boarding the train. His only thoughts were to press on, get to Budapest, and see what the CIA did there . . . and hope they were competent. KGB could do a job like this with consummate professionalism, almost like stage magicians. Was CIA also that good? On Russian TV, they were frequently portrayed as evil but b.u.mbling adversaries-but that wasn't what they said at The Centre. No, at #2 Dzerzhinskiy Square, they were thought to be evil spirits, always on the prowl, clever as the devil himself, the most deadly of enemies. So, which was true? Certainly he'd find out quickly enough-one way or another. Zaitzev stubbed out his cigarette and led his family back to their compartments.

"LOOKING FORWARD TO the mission, Jack?" Harding asked.

"Yeah, like the dentist. And don't tell me how easy it'll be. You've never gone out in the field either."

"Your own people suggested this, you know."

"So, when I get home-if I get home-I'll slug Admiral Greer," Ryan responded, half-but only half-joking. "I'm not trained for this, Simon, remember?"

"How many people are trained to deal with a direct physical attack? You've done that," Simon reminded him.

"Okay, I was a marine lieutenant once, for-what was it?-eleven months or so, before the helicopter crunched on Crete and I got my back broke. s.h.i.+t, I don't even like roller-coasters. My mom and dad loved the G.o.dd.a.m.ned things; they were always taking me up in them at Gwynn Oak Amus.e.m.e.nt Park when I was a little kid. Expected me to like the d.a.m.ned things, too. Dad," Ryan explained, "was a paratrooper in the One hundred first Airborne, back forty years ago. Falling out of the sky didn't worry him too much." That was followed by a snort. One nice thing about the Marine Corps, they didn't make you jump out of an airplane. Well, d.a.m.n, Jack thought suddenly. Was he more worried about this than the airline flight? That caused a downward look and an ironic chuckle. "Do your field officers carry weapons?"

That generated a laugh. "Only in the movies, Jack. They're b.l.o.o.d.y heavy to lug about, and they can be difficult to explain. There are no double-o people in SIS-at least not to my knowledge. The French occasionally kill people, and they are actually rather good at it. So are the Israelis, but people do make mistakes, even trained professionals, and that sort of thing can be difficult to explain to the press."

"You can't invoke a D-notice?"

"Theoretically, yes, but they can be difficult to enforce. Fleet Street has its own rules, you see."

"So does The Was.h.i.+ngton Post, as Nixon found out. So I ought not to kill anyone."

"I would try to avoid it," Simon agreed, munching on his turkey sandwich.

BELGRADE-BEOGRAD TO its natives-also had a fine station. In the previous century, evidently, architects had worked hard to outdo each other, like the pious ones who'd built cathedrals in the Middle Ages. The train was several hours late, he saw with surprise. He couldn't see why. The train hadn't stopped for any length of time anywhere. Perhaps it wasn't traveling as fast as it was supposed to. Leaving Belgrade, it snaked up some modest hills, and none too quickly at that. He imagined this country would be pretty in winter. Wasn't there an upcoming Olympiad hereabouts? The winter probably came here about the same time it did in Moscow. It was a little late this year, but that usually meant it would be unusually harsh when it arrived. He wondered what winter would be like in America....

"READY, JACK?" Charleston asked in his office.

"I suppose." Jack looked at his new pa.s.sport. Since it was a diplomatic one, it was a little more ornate than the usual, and bound in red leather, with the Royal Coat of Arms on the front cover. He paged through it to see the stamps of all the places he had not visited. Thailand, the People's Republic of China. d.a.m.n, Jack thought, I really do get around. "Why this visa?" he asked. The U.K. didn't require them for anybody.

"Hungary controls movement in and out rather sternly. They require an entry and exit visa. You'll not be needing the latter, I expect," C observed. "Hudson will probably be taking you out in a southerly direction. He has good relations with the local smugglers."

"Walking over any mountains?" Ryan asked.

Basil shook his head. "No, we don't often do that. Car or truck, I should think. Ought not to be any problem at all, my boy." He looked up. "It really is quite routine, Jack."

"You say so, sir." It d.a.m.ned sure isn't for me.

Charleston stood. "Good luck, Jack. See you back in a few days."

Ryan took his hand. "Roger that, Sir Basil." Semper fi, pal.

There was a car waiting on the street. Jack hopped in the left-front seat, and the driver headed east. The ride took about fifty minutes with the light afternoon traffic, almost as fast as the train would have been.

On getting to Chatham, Ryan found his daughter napping, Little Jack playing with his feet-fascinating things they were-in the playpen, and Miss Margaret sitting with a magazine in the living room.

"Dr. Ryan, I didn't expect-"

"That's okay, I have to take a business trip." He walked to the wall phone in the kitchen and tried calling Cathy, only to learn that she was giving her d.a.m.ned lecture on her laser toy. It was the one she used for welding blood vessels back shut, he thought. Something like that. Frowning, he went upstairs for his bag. He'd try to call her from the airport. But, just in case, he scribbled a note.

OFF TO BONN. TRIED TO CALL. WILL TRY AGAIN. LOVE, JACK. This one found its way to the refrigerator door. Ryan bent down to give Sally a kiss and then reached down to lift his son for a hug, a sloppy one, as it turned out. The little guy dribbled the way a car engine dripped oil. That necessitated a paper towel on the way out.

"Have a good trip, Dr. Ryan," the nanny called.

"Thanks, Margaret. See ya." As soon as the car pulled off, she called Century House to let people know Sir John was on the way to Heathrow. Then she went back to her magazine, this month's Tattler.

THE TRAIN CAME to an unexpected halt in a yard right at the Hungarian frontier, near the town of Zombor. Zaitzev hadn't known about this, and the surprise was soon compounded. There were cranes on their side of the train, and no sooner had the train stopped than a crowd of coveralled workmen appeared.

The Hungarian State Railway operated on standard gauge, the tracks 1,435 milimeters-4 feet, 8 inches-apart, which was the world's standard, and which incongruously dated back to the two-horse chariots used by the Romans. But the Russian train gauge was five feet, or 1,524 millimeters-for some reason no one remembered. The solution to that here was to lift the train bodies off the Russian tracks-the wheel sets-and lower them onto a different set. That took about an hour, but it was efficiently done, for all that. It utterly fascinated Svetlana, and it even impressed her father that the task was performed so routinely. An hour and twenty minutes later, they were moving almost due north on narrower tracks behind a new electric locomotive, crossing the rich agricultural soil of Hungary. Almost at once, Svetlana chirped at the sight of men in local dress riding horses, which struck both parents and child as quite exotic.

THE AIRCRAFT WAS a fairly new Boeing 737 and, for this trip, Ryan decided to take a friend. He bought a pack of cigarettes at the airport and lit one up at once on the concourse.

The good news was that he'd been given a first-cla.s.s window seat, 1-A. The scenery up in the sky was the only good part of flying, with the additional bonus that n.o.body could see the fear in your face, except maybe the stewardess, because like doctors they could probably also smell fear. But up front the booze was free, and so Ryan tried to order whiskey, only to find that the selection was Scotch (which he didn't like), vodka (which he didn't like), or gin (which he could not stand in his presence). It was the wrong airline for Jack Daniel's, but the wine list was okay, and, climbing to cruise alt.i.tude, the no-smoking light dinged off, and Ryan lit up another smoke. Not as good as a nice bourbon, but better than nothing at all. At least it enabled him to lean back and pretend to relax behind closed eyes, occasionally looking out to see if the stuff under the aircraft was green or blue. The flight was agreeably smooth, with only a few b.u.mps to make him grab for the armrests, and three gla.s.ses of a decent French white helped smooth his anxiety out. About halfway there, over Belgium, he got back to thinking. How many people hated flying? Maybe a third, maybe half? How many of them detested it as much as he did? Half of those? So, probably, he wasn't alone. Fearful people tried to hide it, and a look around showed faces much the same as his probably was. So at least he probably wasn't the only wimp on the airplane. And the wine was nice and fruity. And if the ULA hadn't been able to punch his ticket with Uzis right in his home on the Chesapeake Bay, then random chance was probably on his side as well. So he might as well relax and enjoy the ride-he was stuck here one way or another, after all, and the Boeing cruised along at 500 knots or so.

There were a few b.u.mps in the descent, but for Ryan this was the one part of the flight during which he felt safe-when the aircraft was returning to earth. Intellectually, he knew that this was actually the most dangerous part, but somehow his gut didn't see it that way. He heard the whine of various servos, and then the whoos.h.i.+ng sound that announced the open landing-gear doors, and then felt safe enough to see the ground rus.h.i.+ng toward him. The landing was b.u.mpy, but Jack welcomed it. He was back on the ground, where you could stand up and ambulate all by yourself at a reasonably safe speed. Good.

THEY WERE IN another train yard, packed with boxcars and cattle cars, and their train car jostled back and forth through switches and turns. Once more, zaichik had her nose against the gla.s.s, and finally they pa.s.sed under a gla.s.s roof and the train jerked to a stop in Eastern Station. Semiuniformed and rather scruffy-looking porters drew up by the baggage car. Zaichik practically leaped off the car to look around, almost outracing her mother, who fumbled after her with their carry-on bags. Oleg walked to the baggage car and oversaw the transfer of his bags to the two-wheel hand truck. They walked away from the train, through the old and rather seedy ticket room, and from there outside to the cabstand. There were a lot of cabs, all of them Russian-made Ladas-the Soviet version of an old Fiat-and all the same color, which might have been beige under the dirt. Zaitzev tipped the porter one Comecon ruble and supervised the loading of their bags into the car. The trunk of the diminutive taxicab was far too small. Three bags went to the front seat, and Svetlana would have to sit in her mother's lap for the ride to the hotel. The cab pulled away, made a swift and legally dubious U-turn, and then raced at breakneck speed down what appeared to be a major shopping street.

The Astoria Hotel was only four minutes from the station. It seemed to be an impressive structure, looking almost like a grand hotel of another age. The lobby was modest in size, though not in appointments, and much carved oak was in evidence. The desk clerk expected them, and greeted them with a smile. Soon after giving Zaitzev the room key, he pointed across the street to the Soviet-Hungarian Culture and Friends.h.i.+p Center, which was so obviously a KGB operation that it might as well have had a statue of Iron Feliks in front. The bellman led them to the tiny elevator and then to the third floor, turning right for Room 307, a corner room that would be their home for the next ten days, or so everyone but Oleg thought. He also got a ruble for his trouble and withdrew, leaving the family in a room little larger than the combined s.p.a.ce of their train accommodations, and with only a single bathroom, albeit one with a bath/shower, which all three of them needed. Oleg let his wife and daughter go first.

As shabby as the room was by Western standards, however, by Soviet ones it was almost palatial. There was a chair by the window, and Zaitzev sat down and surveyed the streets for a CIA officer. That, he knew, was a fool's errand, but he could hardly resist the temptation.

THE MEN HE was looking for were not Americans at all, but rather Tom Trent and Chris Morton, both of whom worked for Andy Hudson. Both had dark hair and hadn't washed that day so that they could appear to be working-cla.s.s Hungarians. Trent had staked out the train station and spotted them coming in, while Morton had camped out in the hotel. With good photographic prints provided by the Times photographer in Moscow, identifying the Zaitzev family had been simplicity itself. As a final check, Morton, who spoke flawless Russian, walked to the reception desk and verified his "old friend's" room number at the desk, in return for a twentyflorint banknote and a wink. Then he wandered down to the bar, while surveying the hotel's ground floor for future reference. So far, they decided on the subway ride back to the emba.s.sy, things were going remarkably well. The train had arrived late, but their information on the hotel had been bang-on for once.

ANDY HUDSON WAS a man of average height and appearance, except his sandy hair marked him as a foreigner in a land where everyone looked pretty much alike. Certainly at the airport they all did, Ryan thought.

"Can we talk?" Ryan asked on the way away from the airport.

"Yes, the car is clean." Like all such vehicles, it was regularly swept and parked in a secure location.

"How sure are you of that?"

"The opposition doesn't break the rules of diplomatic conduct. Strange, but true. And besides, the car has a very sophisticated alarm. Not sure I could fiddle it myself, as a matter of fact. In any case, welcome to Budapest, Sir John." He p.r.o.nounced the city's name as Byudapesht, as opposed to the way Ryan thought it was spoken.

"So, you know who I am?"

"Yes, I was home in London last March. I was in town when you performed your heroics-b.l.o.o.d.y fool, you ought to have gotten yourself killed, except for the stupid b.l.o.o.d.y Irish."

"I've said that to myself many times, Mr. Hud-"

"Andy," Hudson suggested at once.

"Fine. My name is Jack."

"Good flight?"

"Any flight you walk off of is a good one, Andy. So, tell me about the mission and how you're going to go about it."

"Entirely routine. We observe the Rabbit and his family-we'll keep them under intermittent surveillance-and when the time is right, we'll whisk them out of the city and into Yugoslavia."

"How?"

"Car or truck, haven't decided yet," Hudson answered. "Hungary is the only possible problem. The Yugoslavs care sod-all about people crossing their border-they have a million citizens working overseas in various capacities. And our relations with the border guards is very cordial indeed," Andy a.s.sured him.

"Payoffs?"

Hudson nodded as he took a turn around a modest-sized park. "It's a good way for them to outfit their families with fas.h.i.+onable items. I know people who smuggle hard drugs in-I make no use of them, of course. Drugs are one thing the locals at least pretend to care about, but some border guards are more open to negotiation than others-h.e.l.l, they probably all are, or d.a.m.ned nearly all. It's remarkable what you can get for some hard currency or a pair of Reebok running shoes. The black market here is a lively one, and since it often brings hard currency into the country, the political leaders.h.i.+p will look the other way so long as it doesn't get too out of hand, you see."

"Then how did the CIA station get clobbered?"

"Bad b.l.o.o.d.y luck." Hudson went on to explain for a minute or two. "Like being run over by a lorry on an empty road."

"d.a.m.n, does that sort of thing really happen?"

"Not often, rather like winning a state lottery."

"You gotta play to win," Ryan murmured. It was the motto for the Maryland State Lottery, which was just one more form of tax for those dumb enough to partake, just one that was a little more cynical than the other kinds.

"Yes, that's right. It's a chance we all take."

"And how does that apply to getting the Rabbit and his family out?"

"One in ten thousand."

To Ryan, those sounded like betting odds, but there was one other hang-up to worry about. "Have they told you his wife and kid don't know how extended his vacation is?"

That made Hudson's head turn. "You're b.l.o.o.d.y joking."

"Nope. That's what he told our people in Moscow. Complication?"

His hands flexed on the wheel. "Only if she's noisy. I suppose we can handle that if we must." But it was plain on his face that it was something to worry about.

"European women, they tell me, are less a.s.sertive than American ones."

"They are, as a matter of fact," Hudson agreed. "Particularly true of the Russians, I believe. Well, we shall see."

One last turn onto Harm Utca, and they were at the British Emba.s.sy. Hudson parked the car and got out.

"That building there is the Budapesti Rendrfkpitansg, the police headquarters. Good to be in a secure location-they are little threat to us. The local police are not very highly regarded. The local language is b.l.o.o.d.y impossible. Indo-Altaic, philologists call it. Origin is somewhere in Mongolia, if you can believe it. Unrelated to any language you've ever heard about. Not too many people here speak English, but some German, because Austria is the next country over. Not to worry, you'll have one of us with you at all times. I'll take you on a walkabout tomorrow morning. Don't know about you, but traveling always tires me out."

"Yeah," Ryan agreed at once. "I call it travel shock."

"So, we'll get you settled in your quarters upstairs. The emba.s.sy canteen is quite adequate, and your quarters will be comfortable if not elaborate. Let me get your bag."