Patriot Games

Bingo, Ryan thought. A four-month-old baby. If they kidnap the Prince and Princess, well, no government can cave in to terrorism. The politicians and police have tohave a contingency plan already set up for this, don't they? They'd take this town apart one brick at a time, but they wouldn't—couldn't—negotiate anything, and that was just too bad for the grown-ups, but a little baby… damn, there's a bargaining chip! What kind of people would—

'Bastards,' Ryan whispered to himself. Wilson blanched, but the Prince suspected what Jack was thinking about.

'Excuse me?'

'They weren't trying to kill you. Hell, I bet you weren't even the real objective… ' Ryan nodded slowly. He searched his mind for the data he'd seen on the ULA. There hadn't been much—it hadn't been his area of focus in any case—a few tidbits of shadowy intelligence reports, mixed with a lot of pure conjecture. 'They didn't want to kill you at all, I bet. And when you covered the wife and kid, you burned their plan… maybe, or maybe you just—yeah, maybe you just threw them a curve, and that blew their timing a little bit.'

'What do you mean?' the Prince asked.

'Goddamned medications slow your brain down,' Ryan said mainly to himself. 'Have the police told you what the terrorists were up to?'

His Highness sat upright in the chair. 'I can't—'

'You don't have to,' Ryan cut him off. 'Did they tell you that what you did definitely— definitely—saved all of you?'

'No, but—'

'Tony?'

'They told me you were a very clever chap, Jack,' Wilson said. 'I'm afraid I can't comment further, Your Royal Highness, Doctor Ryan may be correct in his assessment.'

'What assessment?' The Prince was puzzled.

Ryan explained. It only took a few minutes.

'How did you arrive at this conclusion, Jack?'

Ryan's mind was still churning through the hypothesis. 'Sir, I'm an historian. My business is figuring things out. Before that I was a stockbroker—doing essentially the same thing. It's not all that hard when you think about it. You look for apparent inconsistencies and then you try to figure out why they're not really inconsistent.' He concluded, 'It's all speculation on my part, but I'm willing to bet that Tony's colleagues are pursuing it.' Wilson didn't say anything. He cleared his throat—which was answer enough.

The Prince looked deep into his coffee cup. His face was that of a man who had recovered from fear and shame. Now he contemplated cold anger at what might have been.

'Well, they've had their chance, haven't they?'

'Yes, sir. I imagine if they ever try again, it'll be a lot harder. Right, Tony?'

'I seriously doubt that they will ever try again,' Wilson replied. 'We should develop some rather good intelligence from this incident. The ULA have stepped over an invisible line. Politically, success might have enhanced their position, but they didn't succeed, did they? This will harm them, harm their 'popular' support. Some people who know them will now consider talking—not to us, you understand, but some of what they say will get to us in due course. They were outcasts before, they will be outcasts even more now.'

Will they learn from this? Ryan wondered. If so, what will they have learned? There's a question. Jack knew that it had only two possible answers, and that those answers were diametrically opposed. He made a mental note. He'd follow up on this when he got home. It wasn't a merely academic exercise now. He had a bullet hole in his shoulder to prove that.

The Prince rose to his feet. 'You must excuse me, Jack. I'm afraid I have rather a full day ahead.'

'Going back out, eh?'

'If I hide, they've won. I understand that fact better now than when I came in here. And I have something else to thank you for.'

'You would have figured it out sooner or later. Better it should be sooner, don't you think?'

'We must see more of each other.'

'I'd like that, sir. Afraid I'm stuck here for a while, though.'

'We are traveling out of the country soon—the day after tomorrow. It's a state visit to New Zealand and the Solomon Islands. You may be gone before we get back.'

'Is your wife up to it, Your Highness?'

'I think so. A change of scenery, the doctor said, is just the ticket. She had a very bad experience yesterday, but' — he smiled—'I think it was harder on me than on her.'

I'll buy that, Ryan thought. She's young, she'll bounce back, and at least she has something good to remember. Putting your body between your family and the bullets ought to firm up any relationship. 'Hey, she sure as hell knows you love her, sir.'

'I do, you know,' the Prince said seriously.

'It's the customary reason to get married, sir,' Jack replied, 'even for us common folk.'

'You're a most irreverent chap, Jack.'

'Sorry about that.' Ryan grinned. So did the Prince.

'No, you're not.' His Highness extended his hand. 'Thank you, Sir John, for many things.'

Ryan watched him leave with a brisk step and a straight back.

'Tony, you know the difference between him and me? I can say that I used to be a Marine, and that's enough. But that poor guy's got to prove it every damned day, to everybody he meets. I guess that's what you have to do when you're in the public eye all the time.' Jack shook his head. 'There's no way in hell they could pay me enough to take his job.'

'He's born to it,' Wilson said.

Ryan thought about that. 'That's one difference between your country and mine. You think people are born to something. We know that they have to grow into it. It's not the same thing, Tony.'

'Well, you're part of it now, Jack.'

'I think I should go.' David Ashley looked at the telex in his hand. The disturbing thing was that he'd been requested by name. The PIRA knew who he was, and they knew that he was the Security Service executive on the case. How the hell did they know that!

'I agree,' James Owens said. 'If they're this anxious to talk with us, they might be anxious enough to tell us something useful. Of course, there is an element of risk. You could take someone with you.'

Ashley thought about that one. There was always the chance that he'd be kidnapped, but… The strange thing about the PIRA was that they did have a code of conduct. Within their own definitions, they were honorable. They assassinated their targets without remorse, but they wouldn't deal in drugs. Their bombs would kill children, but they'd never kidnapped one. Ashley shook his head.

'No, people from the Service have met with them before and there's never been a problem. I'll go alone.' He turned for the door.

'Daddy!' Sally ran into the room and stopped cold at the side of the bed as she tried to figure a way to climb high enough to kiss her father. She grabbed the side rails and set one foot on the bedframe as if it were the monkey bars at her nursery school and sprang upward. Her diminutive frame bent over the edge of the mattress as she scrambled for a new foothold, and Ryan pulled her up.

'Hi, Daddy.' Sally kissed him on the cheek.

'And how are you today?'

'Fine. What's that, Daddy?' She pointed.

'It's called a cast,' Cathy Ryan answered. 'I thought you had to go to the bathroom.'

'Okay.' Sally jumped back off the bed.

'I think it's in there,' Jack said. 'But I'm not sure.'

'I thought so,' Cathy said after surveying Jack's attachment to the bed. 'Okay, come on, Sally.'

A man had entered behind his family, Ryan saw. Late twenties, very athletic, and nicely dressed, of course. He was also rather good-looking, Jack reflected.