The typist looked up after just a few seconds: “Transmission complete, comrade.” Zaitzev nodded and walked back to the supervisor’s desk.
“If anything comes in with this operation-reference number, bring it to me immediately.”
“Yes, Comrade Captain,” the supervisor acknowledged, making a notation on his set of “hot” numbers.
With that done, Zaitzev headed back for his desk, where the work pile was already quite high enough, and only marginally less mind-numbing than that of the robots in the next room. Perhaps that was why something started whispering at the back of his head: physically close to the Pope… why?
THE ALARM WENT OFF at a quarter of six. That was an uncivilized hour. At home, Ryan told himself, it was quarter of one, but that thought did not bear reflection. He flipped the covers clear off the bed and rose, staggering to the bathroom. There was still a lot to get used to here. The toilets flushed pretty much the same, but the sink… Why the hell, Ryan wondered, did you need two spouts to put water in the sink, one for hot and one for cold? At home you just held your hand under the damned spout, but here the water had to mix up in the sink first, and that slowed you down. The first morning look in the mirror was difficult. Do I really look like that? he always wondered on the way back into the bedroom to pat his wife on the rump.
“It’s time, honey.”
An oddly feminine grumble. “Yeah. I know.”
“Want me to get Little Jack?”
“Let him sleep,” Cathy advised. The little guy hadn’t felt like sleeping the previous evening. So now, of course, he wouldn’t feel like waking up.
“‘Kay.” Jack headed to the kitchen. The coffee machine only needed its button punched, and Ryan was able to handle that task. Just before flying over, he’d seen a new American company IPO. It sold premium coffee, and since Jack had always been something of a coffee snob, he’d invested $100,000 and gotten himself some of their product—as fine a country as England might be, it was not a place you visited for the coffee. At least he could get Maxwell House from the Air Force, and perhaps he’d get this new Starbucks outfit to ship him some of their brew. One more mental note to make. Next he wondered what Cathy might make for breakfast. Surgeon or not, she regarded the kitchen as her domain. Her husband was allowed to make sandwiches and fix drinks, but that was about it. That suited Jack, for whom a stove was terra incognita. The stove here was gas, like his mom had used, but with a different trademark. He stumbled to the front door, hoping to find a newspaper.
It was there. Ryan had signed up for the Times, to go with the International Herald Tribune he picked up at the train station in London. Finally, he switched on the TV. Remarkably, there was a start-up version of cable TV in this subdivision, and, mirabile dictu, it had the new American CNN news service—just in time for baseball scores. So England was civilized after all. The Orioles had knocked off Cleveland the previous night, 5—4, in eleven innings. The ballplayers were doubtless in bed right now, sleeping off the postgame beers they’d quaffed at their hotel bar. What a pleasant thought that was. They had a good eight hours of sack time ahead of them. At the turn of the hour, the CNN night crew in Atlanta summarized the previous day’s events. Nothing overly remarkable. The economy was still a little fluky. The Dow Jones had snapped back nicely, but the unemployment rate always lagged behind, and so did working-class voters. Well, that was democracy for you. Ryan had to remind himself that his view of the economy was probably different from that of the guys who made the steel and assembled the Chevys. His dad had been a union member, albeit a police lieutenant and part of management rather than labor, and his dad had voted Democrat most of the time. Ryan hadn’t registered in either party, opting instead to be an independent. It limited the junk mail you got, and who cared about primaries, anyway?
“Morning, Jack,” Cathy said, entering the kitchen in her pink housecoat.
It was shabby, which was surprising, since his wife was always a fastidious dresser. He hadn’t asked, but supposed it had sentimental significance.
“Hey, babe.” Jack rose to give his wife the first kiss of the day, accompanied by a rather limp hug. “Paper?”
“No. I’ll save it for the train.” She pulled open the refrigerator door and pulled some things out. Jack didn’t look.
“Having coffee this morning?”
“Sure. I don’t have any procedures scheduled.” If she had a surgery scheduled, Cathy kept off the coffee, lest the caffeine give her hands a minor tremor. You couldn’t have that when you were screwing an eyeball back together. No, today was get-acquainted day with Professor Byrd. Bernie Kate knew him and called him a friend, which boded well, and besides, Cathy was about as good as eye surgeons got, and there was no reason for her to be the least bit concerned about a new hospital and a new boss. Still, such concerns were human, though Cathy was too macho to let it show. “How does bacon and eggs grab you?” she asked.
“I’m allowed to have some cholesterol?” her husband asked in surprise.
“Once a week,” Mrs. Dr. Ryan replied, imperiously. Tomorrow she’d serve him oatmeal.
“Sounds good to me, babe,” Ryan said, with some pleasure.
“I know you’ll get something bad for you at the office anyway.”
“Mm?”
“Yeah, croissant and butter, probably. They’re made entirely out of butter anyway, you know.”
“Bread without butter is like a shower without soap.”
“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 ungodly rime, 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 that 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 bumped 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 player—probably loved his mother, too—but he’d played in pinstripes, i that was that. Ryan rose and fixed the coffee for his wife, handing it icr 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 makes 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 shirt—white cotton, buttondown—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 African—Dutch. Her accent was different from those 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.”