Red Rabbit

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 analyst 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 masses—well, at least the smart civilians out there. That made sense. Nobody 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 passed 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 basement.

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 mass and configuration were about right. Her face was virtually untouched by the fire, the toxic gasses 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 distinguishing 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 retard 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 documents, like a good analyst.

“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 passport 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 pass 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. Passing 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 damned 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 bumbling 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. Shit, I don’t even like roller-coasters. My mom and dad loved the goddamned things; they were always taking me up in them at Gwynn Oak Amusement Park when I was a little kid.