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

do was remember street names, but he had a photographic memory for maps.
He walked to the end of the block, turned left, proceeded two blocks, then
right, and sure enough there was St. James's Park. Ryan checked his watch;
he was fifteen minutes early. It was downhill past the monument to a Duke
of York, and he crossed the street near a longish classical building of
white marble.
Yet another pleasant thing about London was the profusion of green
spaces. The park looked big enough, and he could see that the grass was
tended with care. The whole autumn must have been unseasonably warm. The
trees still bore plenty of leaves. Not many people around, though. Well,
he shrugged, it's Wednesday. Middle of the week, the kids were all in
school, and it was a normal business day. So much the better, he thought.
He'd deliberately come over after the tourist season. Ryan did not like
crowds. The Marine Corps had taught him that, too.
"Daddee!" Ryan's head snapped around to see his little daughter
running toward him from behind a tree, heedless as usual of her safety.
Sally arrived with her customary thump against her tall father. Also as
usual, Cathy Ryan trailed behind, never quite able to keep up with their
little white tornado. Jack's wife did look like a tourist. Her Canon 35mm
camera was draped over one shoulder, along with the camera case that
doubled as an oversized purse when they were on vacation.
"How'd it go. Jack?"
Ryan kissed his wife. Maybe the Brits don't do that in public either,
he thought. "Great, babe. They treated me like I owned the place. Got all
my notes tucked away." He tapped his clipboard. "Didn't you get anything?"
Cathy laughed.
"The shops here deliver." She smiled in a way that told him she'd
parted with a fairish bit of the money they had allocated for shopping.
"And we got something really nice for Sally."
"Oh?" Jack bent over to look his daughter in the eye. "And what might
that be?"
"It's a surprise. Daddy." The little girl twisted and giggled like a
true four-year-old. She pointed to the park. "Daddy, they got a lake with
swans and peccalins!"
"Pelicans," Jack corrected.
"Big white ones!" Sally loved peccalins.
"Uh-huh," Ryan observed. He looked up to his wife. "Get any good
pictures?"
Cathy patted her camera. "Oh, sure. London is already Canonized -- or
would you prefer that we spent the whole day shopping?" Photography was
Cathy Ryan's only hobby, and she was good at it.
"Ha!" Ryan looked down the street. The pavement here was reddish, not
black, and the road was lined with what looked like beech trees. The Mall,
wasn't it? He couldn't remember, and would not ask his wife, who'd been to
London many times. The Palace was larger than he'd expected, but it seemed
a dour building, three hundred yards away, hidden behind a marble monument
of some sort. Traffic was a little thicker here, but moved briskly. "What
do we do for dinner?"
"Catch a cab back to the hotel?" She looked at her watch. "Or we can
walk."