"Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 02 - Patriot Games" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

brown sugar into his cup. His stirring stopped abruptly when Wilson
answered his question.
"The Prince and Princess of Wales. And their new baby."
Ryan's head snapped around. "What?"
"You really didn't know?" the nurse asked.
"You're serious," Ryan said quietly. They wouldn't kid about this,
would they?
"Too bloody right. I'm serious," Wilson went on, his voice very even.
Only his choice of words betrayed how deeply the affair disturbed him.
"Except for you, they would all three be quite dead, and that makes you a
bloody hero. Doctor Ryan." Wilson sipped his tea neatly and fished out a
cigarette.
Ryan set his cup down. "You mean you let them drive around here
without a police or secret service -- whatever you call it -- without an
escort?"
"Supposedly it was an unscheduled trip. Security arrangements for the
Royals are not my department in any case. I would speculate, however, that
those whose department it is will be rethinking a few things," Wilson
commented.
"They weren't hurt?"
"No, but their driver was killed. So was their security escort from
DPG -- Diplomatic Protection Group -- Charlie Winston. I knew Charlie. He
had a wife, you know, and four children, all grown."
Ryan observed that the Rolls should have had bulletproof glass.
Wilson grunted. "It did have bulletproof glass. Actually plastic, a
complex polycarbonate material. Unfortunately, no one seems to have read
what it said on the box. The guarantee is only for a year. Turns out that
sunlight breaks the material down somehow or other. The windshield was no
more use than ordinary safety glass. Our friend McCrory put thirty rounds
into it, and it quite simply shattered, killing the driver first. The
interior partition, thank God, had not been exposed to sunlight, and
remained intact. The last thing Charlie did was push the button to put it
up. That probably saved them, too -- didn't do Charlie much good, though.
He had enough time to draw his automatic, but we don't think he was able
to get a shot off."
Ryan thought back. There had been blood in the back of the Rolls --
not just blood. The driver's head had been blown apart, and his brains had
scattered into the passenger compartment. Jack winced thinking about it.
The escort had probably leaned over to push the button before defending
himself . . . Well, Jack thought, that's what they pay them for. What a
hell of a way to earn a living.
"It was fortunate that you intervened when you did. They both had hand
grenades, you know."
"Yeah, I saw one." Ryan sipped away the last of his tea. "What the
hell was I thinking about?" You weren't thinking at all, Jack. That's what
you were thinking about.
Kittiwake saw Ryan go pale. "You feel quite all right?" she asked.
"I guess." Ryan grunted in wonderment. "Dumb as I was, I must feel
pretty good -- I ought to be dead."
"Well, that most emphatically will not happen here." She patted his