Patriot Games by Tom Clancy

“Why?” It was Owens this time, very quiet.

“Good question. I don’t know, I really don’t.” Ryan was silent for half a minute. “It made me mad. Everyone I’ve met over here so far has been pretty nice, and all of a sudden I see these two cocksuckers committing murder right the hell in front of me.”

“Did you guess who they were?” Taylor asked.

“Doesn’t take much imagination, does it? That pissed me off, too. I guess that’s it — anger. Maybe that’s what motivates people in combat,” Ryan mused. “I’ll have to think about that. Anyway, like I said, I saw the chance and I took it.

“It was easy — I was very lucky.” Owens’ eyebrows went up at that understatement. “The guy with the pistol was dumb. He should have checked his back. Instead he just kept looking at his kill zone — very dumb. You always ‘check-six.’ I blindsided him.” Ryan grinned. “My coach would have been proud — I really stuck him good. But I guess I ought to have had my pads on, ’cause the doc says I broke something up here when I hit him. He went down pretty hard. I got his gun and shot him — you want to know why I did that, right?”

“Yes,” Owens replied.

“I didn’t want him to get up.”

“He was unconscious — he didn’t wake up for two hours, and had a nasty concussion when he did.”

If I’d known he had that grenade, I wouldn’t have shot him in the ass! “How was I supposed to know that?” Ryan asked reasonably. “I was about to go up against somebody with a light machine gun, and I didn’t need a bad guy behind me. So I neutralized him. I could have put one through the back of his head — at Quantico when they say ‘neutralize,’ they mean kill. My dad was the cop. Most of what I know about police procedures comes from watching TV, and I know most of that’s wrong. All I knew was that I couldn’t afford to have him come at me from behind. I can’t say I’m especially proud of it, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.

“I moved around the right-rear corner of the car and looked around. I saw the guy was using a pistol. Your man Wilson explained that to me — that was lucky, too. I wasn’t real crazy about taking an AK on with a dinky little handgun. He saw me come around. We both fired about the same time — I just shot straighter, I guess.”

Ryan stopped. He hadn’t meant it to sound like that. Is that how it was? If you don’t know, who does? Ryan had learned that in a crisis, time compresses and dilates — seemingly at the same time. It also fools your memory, doesn’t it? What else could I have done? He shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said again. “Maybe I should have tried something else. Maybe I should have said, ‘Drop it!’ or ‘Freeze!’ like they do on TV — but there just wasn’t time. Everything was right now — him or me — do you know what I mean? You don’t . . . you don’t reason all this out when you only have half a second of decision time. I guess you go on training and instinct. The only training I’ve had was in the Green Machine, the Corps, They don’t teach you to arrest people — Christ’s sake, I didn’t want to kill anybody, I just didn’t have a hell of a choice in the matter.” Ryan paused for a moment.

“Why didn’t he — quit, run away, something! He saw I had him. He must have known I had him cold.” Ryan slumped back into the pillow. Having to articulate what had happened brought it back all too vividly. A man is dead because of you. Jack. All the way dead. He had his instincts, too, didn’t he? But yours worked better — so why doesn’t that make you feel good?

“Doctor Ryan,” Owens said calmly, “we three have personally interviewed six people, all of whom had a clear view of the incident. From what they have told us, you have related the circumstances to us with remarkable clarity. Given the facts of the matter, I — we — do not see that you had any choice at all. It is as certain as such things can possibly be that you did precisely the right thing. And your second shot did not matter, if that is troubling you. Your first went straight through his heart.”

Jack nodded. “Yeah, I could see that. The second shot was completely automatic, like my hand did it without being told. The gun came back down and zap! No thought at all . . . funny how your brain works. It’s like one part does the doing and another part does the watching and advising. The ‘watching’ part saw the first round go right through his ten-ring, but the ‘doing’ part kept going till he went down. I might have tried to squeeze off another round for all I know, but the gun was empty.”

“The Marines taught you to shoot very well indeed,” Taylor observed.

Ryan shook his head. “Dad taught me when I was a kid. The Corps doesn’t make a big deal about pistols anymore — they’re just for show. If the bad guys get that close, it’s time to leave. I carried a rifle. Anyway, the guy was only fifteen feet away.” Owens made some more notes.

“The car took off a few seconds later. I didn’t get much of a look at the driver. It could have been a man or a woman. He or she was white, that’s all I can say. The car went whippin’ up the street and turned, last I saw of it.”

“It was one of our London taxis — did you notice that?” Taylor asked.

Ryan blinked. “Oh, you’re right. I didn’t really think about that — that’s dumb! Hell, you have a million of the damned things around. No wonder they used one of those.”

“Eight thousand six hundred seventy-nine, to be exact,” Owens said. “Five thousand nine hundred nineteen of which are painted black.”

A light went off in Ryan’s head. “Tell me, was this an assassination attempt or were they trying to kidnap them?”

“We’re not sure about that. You might be interested to know that Sinn Fein, the political wing of the PIRA, released a statement completely disowning the incident.”

“You believe that?” Ryan asked. With pain medications still coursing through his system, he didn’t quite notice how skillfully Taylor had parried his question.

“Yes, we are leaning in that direction. Even the Proves aren’t this crazy, you know. Something like this has far too high a political price. They learned that much from killing Lord Mountbatten — wasn’t even the PIRA who did that, but the INLA, the Irish National Liberation Army. Regardless, it cost them a lot of money from their American sympathizers,” Taylor said.

“I see from the papers that your fellow citizens –”

“Subjects,” Ashley corrected.

“Whatever, your people are pretty worked up about this.”

“Indeed they are, Doctor Ryan. It is rather remarkable how terrorists can always seem to find a way to shock us, no matter what horrors have gone before,” Owens noted. His voice was wholly professional, but Ryan sensed that the chief of Anti-Terrorist Branch was willing to rip the head right off the surviving terrorist with his bare hands. They looked strong enough to do just that. “So what happened next?”

“I made sure the guy I shot — the second one — was dead. Then I checked the car. The driver — well, you know about that, and the security officer. One of your people, Mr. Owens?”

“Charlie was a friend of mine. He’s been with the Royal Family’s security detail for three years now . . . ” Owens spoke almost as though the man were still alive, and Ryan wondered if they had ever worked together. Police make especially close friendships, he knew.

“Well, you guys know the rest. I hope somebody gives that redcoat a pat on the head. Thank God he took the time to think it all out — at least long enough for your guy to show up and calm him down. Would have been embarrassing for everybody if he’d stuck that bayonet out my back.”

Owens grunted agreement. “Indeed it would.”

“Was that rifle loaded?” Ryan asked.

“If it was,” Ashley replied, “why didn’t he shoot?”

“A crowded street isn’t the best place to use a high-powered rifle, even if you’re sure of your target,” Ryan answered. “It was loaded, wasn’t it?”

“We cannot discuss security matters,” Owens said.

I knew it was loaded, Ryan told himself. “Where the hell did he come from, anyway? The Palace is a good ways off.”