"And if they see him?"
"Ask him politely to depart the area?" Basil wondered aloud. "It would work, probably. He is a professional, and being spotted-I suppose we'd ostentatiously take photographs of him-would give him serious pause, perhaps enough to abandon the mission."
"Thin." Hendley thought of that idea.
"Yes, it is," C had to agree. But it would at least give him something to tell the Prime Minister.
"Whom to send?"
"We have a good Station Chief in Rome, Tom Sharp. He has four officers in his shop, plus we could send a few more from Century House, I suppose."
"Sounds reasonable, Basil. Why did you call me over?"
"I was hoping you'd have an idea that's eluded me, George." A final sip from the snifter. As much as he felt like some more brandy for the night, he demurred.
"One can only do what one can," Hendley sympathized.
"He's too good a man to be cut down this way-at the hands of the bloody Russians. And for what? For standing up for his own people. That sort of loyalty is supposed to be rewarded, not murdered in public."
"And the PM feels the same way."
"She is comfortable taking a stand." For which the PM was famous throughout the world.
"The Americans?" Hendley asked.
Charleston shrugged. "They haven't had a chance to speak to the defector yet. They trust us, George, but not that much."
"Well, do what you can. This KGB operation probably will not happen in the immediate future, anyway. How efficient are the Soviets, anyway?"
"We shall see" was all C had to say.
It was quieter here than in his own house, despite the nearby presence of the motorway, Ryan thought, rolling out of bed at 6:50. The sink continued the eccentric British way of having two faucets, one hot and one cold, making sure that your left hand boiled while the right one froze when you washed your hands. As usual, it felt good to shave and brush and otherwise get yourself ready for the day, even if you had to start it with Taster's Choice.
Kingshot was already in the kitchen when Jack got there. Funny how people slept late on Sunday but frequently not on Saturday.
"Message from London," Al said by way of greeting.
"What's that?"
"A question. How would you feel about a flight to Rome this afternoon?"
"What's up?"
"Sir Basil is sending some people to the Vatican to suss things out. He wants to know if you want to go. It's a CIA op, after all."
"Tell him yes," Jack said without a moment's thought. "When?" Then he realized he was being impetuous again. Damn.
"Noon flight out of Heathrow. You ought to have time to go home and change clothes."
"Car?"
"Nick will drive you over," Kingshot told him.
"What are you going to tell Oleg?"
"The truth. It ought to make him feel more important," Al thought aloud. It was always a good thing for defectors.
Ryan and Thompson left within the hour, with Jack's bags in the "boot."
"This Zaitzev chap," Nick said out on the motorway. "He seems rather an important defector."
"Bet your ass, Nick. He's got all kinds of hot information between his ears. We're going to treat him like a hod full of gold bricks."
"Good of CIA to let us talk to him."
"It'd be kinda churlish not to. You guys got him out for us, and covering the defection up was pretty slick." Jack couldn't say too much more. As trusted as Nick Thompson was, Jack couldn't know how much clearance he had.
The good news was that Thompson knew what not to ask. "So, your father was a police officer?"
"Detective, yeah. Mainly homicide. Did that more than twenty years. He topped out at lieutenant. Said captains never got to do anything more than administrative stuff, and dad wasn't into that. He liked busting bad guys and sending them to the joint."
"The what?"
"Prison. The Maryland State Prison is one evil-looking structure in Baltimore, by Jones Falls. Kinda like a medieval fortress, but more forbidding. The inmates call it Frankenstein's Castle."
"Fine with me, Sir John. I've never had much sympathy for murderers."
"Dad didn't talk about them much. Didn't bring his work home. Mom didn't like hearing about it. Except once, a father killed his son over a crab cake. That's like a little hamburger made out of crab meat," Jack explained. "Dad said it seemed like a shitty thing to get killed over. The father-the killer-copped right out, all broken up about it. But it didn't do his son much good."
"Amazing how many murderers react that way. They gather up the rage to take a life, then afterwards they are consumed by remorse."
"Too soon old, too late smart," Jack quoted from the Old West.
"Indeed. The whole business can be so bloody sad."
"What about this Strokov guy?"
"Different color of horse, entirely," Thompson replied. "You don't see many of those. For them it's part of the job, ending a life. No motive in the usual sense, and they leave little behind in the way of physical evidence. They can be very difficult to find, but mainly we do find them. We have time on our side, and sooner or later someone talks and it gets to our ear. Most criminals talk their own way into prison," Nick explained. "But people like this Strokov fellow, they do not talk-except when he gets home and writes up his official report. But we never see those. Getting a line on him was plain luck. Mr. Markov remembered being poked by the umbrella, remembered the color suit the man was wearing. One of our constables saw him wearing the same suit and thought there was something odd about him-you know, instead of flying right home, he waited to make sure Markov died. They'd bungled two previous attempts, you see, and so they called him in because of his expertise. Good professional, Strokov. He wanted to be completely sure, and he waited to read the death notice in the newspapers. In that time, we talked to the staff at his hotel and started assembling information. The Security Service got involved, and they were helpful in some ways but not in others-and the government got involved. The government was worried about creating an international incident, and so they held us up-cost us two days, I reckon. On the first of those two days, Strokov took a taxi to Heathrow and flew off to Paris. I was on the surveillance team. Stood within fifteen feet of him. We had two detectives with cameras, shot a lot of pictures. The last was of Strokov walking down the jetway to the Boeing. Next day, the government gave us permission to detain him for questioning."
"Day late and a dollar short, eh?"
Thompson nodded. "Quite. I would have liked to put him in the dock at the Old Bailey, but that fish got away. The French shadowed him at De Gaulle International, but he never left the international terminal, never talked with anyone. The bugger showed no remorse at all. I suppose for him it was like chopping firewood," the former detective said.
"Yeah. In the movies you make your hit and have a martini, shaken not stirred. But it's different when you kill a good guy."
"All Markov ever did was broadcast over BBC World Service," Nick said, gripping the wheel a little tightly. "I imagine the people in Sofia were somewhat put out with what he said."
"The people on the other side of the Curtain aren't real big on Freedom of Speech," Ryan reminded him.
"Bloody barbarians. And now this chap is planning to kill the Pope? I am not a Catholic, but he is a man of God, and he seems rather a good chap. You know, the most vicious criminal hesitates before trifling with a man of the clergy."
"Yeah, I know. Doesn't do to piss God off. But they don't believe in God, Nick."
"Fortunate for them that I am not God."
"Yeah, it would be nice to have the power to right all the wrongs in the world. The problem is, that's what Strokov's bosses think they're doing."