“Reporter in Washington resydentura of Izvestia is junior KGB officer. He do it last summer.”
“And how did you come to know about it?”
“His dispatch come to my desk, and I forward to America—Canada Institute—is KGB office. You know that, yes?”
“Yes,” Jack confirmed. “That is one we do know.” That was when his ears popped. The airliner was descending. Ryan gunned down the last of his third white wine and told himself it would all be over in a few minutes. One thing he’d learned from Operation BEATRIX: This field work wasn’t for him.
The no-smoking sign dinged back on. Ryan brought his chair to its full upright position, and then the lights of Manchester appeared through the windows, the car headlights and the airport fence, and in a few more seconds… thump, the wheels touched down in Merry Old England. It might not be the same as America, but for the moment it would do.
Oleg, he saw, had his face against the window, checking out the tail colors of the aircraft. There were too many for this to be a Soviet Air Force base and a huge maskirovka. He visibly started to relax.
“We welcome you to Manchester,” the pilot said over the intercom. “The time is three-forty, and the temperature outside is fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit. We appreciate your patience earlier today, and we hope to see you again soon in British Midlands Airways.”
Yeah, Jack thought. In your dreams, skipper.
Ryan sat and waited as the aircraft taxied to the international-arrivals area. A truck-borne stairway came to the front door, which the lead stew duly opened. Ryan and the Rabbit family were first off and down the steps, where they were guided to some cars instead of the waiting transfer bus.
Alan Kingshot was there to take his hand. “How was it, Jack?”
“Just like a trip to Disney World,” Ryan answered, without a trace of audible irony in his voice.
“Right. Let’s get you all loaded and off to a comfortable place.”
“Works for me, pal. What is it, quarter of three?” Ryan hadn’t changed his watch back yet. Britain was an hour behind the rest of Europe.
“That’s right,” the field spook confirmed.
“Damn,” Jack reacted. Too damned late to call home and tell Cathy he was back. But, then, he wasn’t really back. Now he had to play CIA representative for the first interview of the Red Rabbit. Probably Sir Basil had him doing this because he was too junior to be very effective. Well, maybe he’d show his British host just how dumb he was, Ryan growled to himself. But first it was time for sleep. Stress, he’d learned, was about as tiring as jogging—just harder on the heart.
BACK IN BUDAPEST, the three bodies were at the city morgue, an institution as depressing behind the Iron Curtain as in front of it. When Zaitzev’s identity as a Russian citizen had been confirmed, a call had been made to the Soviet Embassy, where it was speedily established that the man in question was a KGB officer. That generated interest in the rezidentura, just across the street from the hotel where he’d ostensibly died, and more telephone calls were made.
Before five in the morning, Professor Zoltan Biro was awakened in his bed by the AVH. Biro was professor of pathology at the Ignaz Semmelweis Medical College. Named for one of the fathers of the germ theory that had transformed the science of medicine in the nineteenth century, it remained a good one, even attracting students from West Germany, none of whom would attend the postmortem examinations ordered by the country’s Belügyminisztérium, which would also be attended by the physician-in-residence at the Soviet Embassy.
The first done would be the adult male. Technicians took blood samples from all three bodies for analysis in the adjacent laboratory.
“This is the body of a male Caucasian, approximately thirty-five years of age, length approximately one hundred seventy-five centimeters, weight approximately seventy-six kilograms. Color of hair cannot be determined due to extensive charring from a domestic fire. Initial impression is death by fire—more probably from carbon monoxide intoxication, as the body shows no evidence of death throes.” Then the dissection began with the classical Y incision to open the body cavity for viewing of the internal organs.
He was examining the heart—unremarkable—when the lab reports came in.
“Professor Biro, carbon monoxide in all three blood samples are well into lethal range,” the voice on the speaker said, giving the exact numbers.
Biro looked over at his Russian colleague. “Anything else you need? I can do a full postmortem on all three victims here, but the cause of death is determined. This man was not shot. We will do fuller blood-chemistry checks, of course, but it’s unlikely that they were poisoned, and there is clearly no bullet wound or other penetrating trauma in this man. They were all killed by fire. I will send you the full laboratory report this afternoon.” Biro let out a long breath. “A kurva életbe!” he concluded with a popular Magyar epithet.
“Such a pretty little girl,” the Russian internist observed. Zaitzev’s wallet had somehow survived the fire, along with its family photos. The picture of Svetlana had been particularly engaging.
“Death is never sentimental, my friend,” Biro told him. As a pathologist, he knew that fact all too well.
“Very well. Thank you, Comrade Professor.” And the Russian took his leave, already thinking through his official report to Moscow.
CHAPTER 29:
REVELATION
THE SAFE HOUSE WAS palatial, the country home of somebody with both money and taste, built in the previous century by the look of it, with stucco and the sort of heavy oaken timbers used to build ships like HMS
Victory once upon a time. But landlocked, it was about as far from blue water as one could get on this island kingdom.
Evidently, Alan Kingshot knew it well enough, since he drove them there and then got them settled inside. The two-person staff that ran the place looked like cops to Ryan, probably married and retired from the Police Force of the Metropolis, as the London Constabulary was officially known. They kindly escorted their new guests to a rather nice suite of rooms. Irina Zaitzev’s eyes were agog at the accommodations, which were impressive even by Ryan’s standards. All Oleg Ivanovich did was set his shaving kit in the bathroom, strip off his clothes, and collapse onto the bed, where alcohol-aided sleep proved to be less than five minutes away.
WORD GOT TO Judge Moore just before midnight that the package was safely ensconced in a very secure location, and with that information he also went to bed. All that remained was to tell the Air Force to get a KC-135 or a similar aircraft ready to fly the package home, and that would take a mere telephone call to an officer in the Pentagon. He wondered what the Rabbit would say, but he could wait for that. Patience, once the dangerous stuff was behind, was not all that difficult for the Director of Central Intelligence. It was like Christmas Eve, and while he wasn’t exactly sure what would be under the tree, he could be confident that it wouldn’t be anything bad.
FOR SIR BASIL Charleston at his Belgravia house, the news came before breakfast, when a messenger from Century House arrived with the word. An altogether pleasant way to start a working day, he thought, certainly better than some others he’d had. He left home for the office just before seven A.M., ready for his morning brief to outline the success of Operation BEATRIX.
RYAN WAS AWAKENED by traffic noise. Whoever had built this magnificent country home hadn’t anticipated the construction of a motorway just three hundred yards away, but somehow Ryan had avoided a hangover from all the drinks on the flight in, and the lingering excitement of the moment had gotten him fully awake after a mere six and a half hours of slumber. He washed up and made his way to the pleasant not-so-little breakfast room. Alan Kingshot was there, working on his morning tea.
“Probably coffee for you, eh?”
“If you have any.”
“Only instant,” Kingshot warned.
Jack stifled his disappointment. “Better than no coffee at all.”
“Eggs Benedict?” the retired woman cop asked.
“Ma’am, for that I will forgive the absence of Starbucks,” Jack replied, with a smile. Then he saw the morning papers, and he thought that reality and normality had finally returned to his life. Well, almost.
“Mr. and Mrs. Thompson run this house for us,” Kingshot explained. “Nick was a homicide detective with the Yard, and Emma was in administration.”
“That’s what my dad used to do,” Ryan observed. “How did you guys get working for SIS?”
“Nick worked on the Markov case,” Mrs. Thompson answered.
“And did a damned good job of it, too,” Kingshot told Ryan. “He would have been a fine field officer for us.”
“Bond, James Bond?” Nick Thompson said, walking into the kitchen. “I think not. Our guests are moving about. It sounds as though the little girl got them up.”