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

hand. "Please ring me if you need anything." Another beaming smile and she
left.
Ryan was still shaking his head. "The other one got away?"
Wilson nodded. "We found the car near a tube station a few blocks
away. It was stolen, of course. No real problem for him to get clean away.
Disappear into the underground. Go to Heathrow, perhaps, and catch a plane
to the continent -- Brussels, say -- then a plane to Ulster or the
Republic, and a car the rest of the way home. That's one route; there are
others, and it's impossible to cover them all. He was drinking beer last
night, watching the news coverage on television in his favorite pub, most
likely. Did you get a look at him?"
"No, just a shape. I didn't even think to get the tag number -- dumb.
Right after that the redcoat came running up to me." Ryan winced again.
"Christ, I thought he'd put that pigsticker right through me. For a second
there I could see it all -- I do something right, then get wasted by a
good guy."
Wilson laughed. "You don't know how lucky you were. The current guard
force is from the Welsh Guards."
"So?"
"His Royal Highness's own regiment, as it were. He's their
colonel-in-chief. There you were with a pistol -- how would you expect him
to react?" Wilson stubbed out his cigarette. "Another piece of good luck,
your wife and daughter came running up to you, and the soldier decides to
wait a bit, just long enough for things to sort themselves out. Then our
chap catches up with him and tells him to stand easy. And a hundred more
of my chaps come swooping in.
"I hope you can appreciate this, Doctor. Here we were with three men
dead, two others wounded, a Prince and Princess looking as though they'd
been shot -- your wife examined them on the scene, by the way, and
pronounced them fit just before the ambulance arrived -- a baby, a hundred
witnesses each with his own version of what had just taken place. A bloody
Yank -- an Irish-American to boot! -- whose wife claims he's the chap in
the white hat." Wilson laughed again. "Total chaos!
"First order of business, of course, was to get the Royals to safety.
The police and guardsmen handled that, probably praying by this time that
someone would make trouble. They're still in an evil mood, they tell me,
angrier even than from the bandstand bombing incident. Not hard to
understand. Anyway, your wife flatly refused to leave your side until you
were under doctor's care here. Quite a forceful woman, they tell me."
"Cathy's a surgeon," Ryan explained. "When she plays doc, she's used
to having her own way. Surgeons are like that."
"After she was quite satisfied we drove her down to the Yard.
Meanwhile we had a merry time identifying you. They called your Legal
Attache at the American Embassy and he ran a check through your FBI, plus
a backup check through the Marine Corps." Ryan stole a cigarette from
Wilson's pack. The policeman lit it with a butane lighter. Jack gagged on
the smoke, but he needed it. Cathy would give him hell for it, he knew,
but one thing at a time. "Mind you, we never really thought you were one
of them. Have to be a maniac to bring the wife and child along on this
sort of job. But one must be careful."