to know.
Raf Mildenhall is just north of Cambridge, the home of one of the world’s great universities, and Ryan’s driver was in another Jaguar, and didn’t much care about whatever speed limits there were on British roads. When they pulled past the RAF Ground Defense Regiment’s security troops, the car didn’t go to the aircraft waiting there on the ramp, but rather to a low building that looked like—and was—a VIP terminal. There, a man handed Ryan a telex that took about twenty seconds to read and resulted in a muttered “Great.” Then Jack found a phone and called home.
“Jack?” his wife said when she recognized his voice. “Where the hell are you?” She must have been exercised. Cathy Ryan didn’t ordinarily talk like that.
“I’m at RAF Mildenhall. I have to fly back to Washington.”
“Why?”
“Let me ask you this, honey: How good are Italian doctors?”
“You mean—the Pope?”
“Yep.” She couldn’t see his tired but curt nod.
“Every country has good surgeons—Jack, what’s going on? Were you there?”
“Cath, I was about forty feet away, but I can’t tell you any more than that, and you can’t repeat it to anybody, okay?”
“Okay,” she replied, with wonder and frustration in her voice. “When will you be home?”
“Probably in a couple of days. I have to talk to some people at headquarters, and they’ll probably send me right back. Sorry, babe. Business. So, how good are the docs in Italy?”
“I’d feel better if Jack Cammer was working on him, but they have to have some good ones. Every big city does. The University of Padua is about the oldest medical school in the world. Their ophthalmologists are about as good as we are at Hopkins. For general surgery, they must have some good people, but the guy I know best for this is Jack.” John Michael Cammer was Chairman of Hopkins’ Department of Surgery, holder of the prestigious Halstead Chair, and one hell of a good man with a knife. Cathy knew him well. Jack had met him once or twice at fund-raisers and been impressed by his demeanor, but wasn’t a physician and couldn’t evaluate the man’s professional abilities. “It’s fairly straightforward to treat a gunshot wound, mostly. Unless the liver or spleen is hit. The real problem is bleeding. Jack, it’s like when Sally got hurt in the car with me. If you get him there fast, and if the surgeon knows his stuff, you have a good chance of surviving—unless the spleen’s ruptured or the liver is badly lacerated. I saw the TV coverage. His heart wasn’t hit—wrong angle. I’d say better than even money he’ll recover. He’s not a young man, and that won’t help, but a really good surgical team can do miracles if they get to him fast enough.” She didn’t talk about the nasty variables of trauma surgery. Bullets could ricochet off ribs and go in the most unpredictable directions. They could fragment and do damage in widely separated places. Fundamentally, you couldn’t diagnose, much less treat, a bullet wound from five seconds of TV tape. So the odds on the Pope’s survival were better than even money, but a lot of 5—1 horses had beaten the chalk horse and won the Kentucky Derby.
“Thanks, babe. I’ll probably be able to tell you more when I get home. Hug the kids for me, okay?”
“You sound tired,” she said.
“I
“I love you, Jack,” she reminded him.
“I love you, too, babe. Thanks for saying that.”
Ryan waited more than an hour for the Zaitzev family. So the offer of a helicopter would have just enabled him to wait here longer—fairly typical of the U.S. military. Ryan sat on a comfortable couch and drifted off to sleep for perhaps half an hour.
The Rabbits arrived by car. A USAF sergeant shook Jack awake and pointed him to the waiting KC-135. It was essentially a windowless Boeing 707, also equipped to refuel other aircraft. The lack of windows didn’t help his attitude very much, but orders were orders, and he climbed up the steps and found a plush leather seat just forward of the wing box. The aircraft had hardly lifted off the ground when Oleg fell into the seat beside his own.
“What happened?” Zaitzev demanded.
“We caught Strokov. I got him myself, and he had a gun in his hand,” Ryan reported. “But there was another shooter.”
“Strokov? You arrested him?”
“Not exactly an arrest, but he decided to come with me to the British Embassy. SIS has him now.”
“I hope they kill the
Ryan didn’t reply, wondering if that might actually happen. Did the Brits play that rough? He had committed rather a nasty murder on their soil—hell, within sight of Century House.
“The Pope, will he live?” the Rabbit asked. Ryan was surprised to see his degree of interest. Maybe the guy was a real conscience defector after all.
“I don’t know, Oleg. I called my wife—she’s a surgeon. She says that it’s better than a fifty-fifty chance that he will survive.”
“That is something,” Zaitzev thought out loud.
“Well?” Andropov asked.
Colonel Rozhdestvenskiy stood a little more erect. “Comrade Chairman, we know little at this point. Strokov’s man took the shot, as you know, and he hit his target in a deadly area. Strokov was unable to eliminate him as planned, for reasons unknown. Our Rome
“There is no such thing as a partial success, Colonel!” Andropov pointed out heatedly.
“Comrade Chairman, I told you weeks ago that this was a possibility. You will recall that. And even if this priest survives, he will not be going back to Poland anytime soon, will he?”
“I suppose not,” Yuriy Vladimirovich grumbled.
“And that was the real mission, wasn’t it?”
“
“No signals as yet?”
“No, Comrade Chairman. We’ve had to break in a new watch officer in Communications, and—”
“What is that?”
“Major Zaitzev, Oleg Ivanovich, he and his family died in a hotel fire in Budapest. He had been our communicator for mission six-six-six.”
“Why was I not informed of this?”
“Comrade Chairman,” Rozhdestvenskiy soothed, “it was fully investigated. The bodies have been returned to Moscow and were duly buried. They all died of smoke inhalation. The autopsy procedures were viewed in person by a Soviet physician.”
“You are sure of this, Colonel?”
“I can get the official report to you if you wish,” Rozhdestvenskiy said with confidence. “I have read it myself.”
Andropov shook it off. “Very well. Keep me informed on whatever comes in. And I want to be notified at once of the condition of this troublesome Pole.”
“By your order, Comrade Chairman.” Rozhdestvenskiy made his way out while the Chairman went back to other business. Brezhnev’s health had taken a definite downturn. Very soon Andropov would have to step away from KGB in order to protect his ascension to the head seat at the table, and that was the main item on his plate at the moment. And, besides, Rozhdestvenskiy was right. This Polish priest would not be a problem for months, even if he survived, and that was sufficient to the moment.
“Well, Arthur?” Ritter asked.
“He’s calmed down a little bit. I told him about Operation BEATRIX. I told him that we and the Brits had
