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

hadn't worked; it was the name of her grandmother -- "is a little angel,
asleep, but when she wakes up she's more like a little tornado, and she's
very good at breaking things. Especially valuable things."
"What a dreadful thing to say!" Her Majesty feigned shock. "That
lovely little girl. The police told us that she broke hearts throughout
Scotland Yard last evening. I fear you exaggerate, Sir John."
"Yes, ma'am." There was no arguing with a queen.

Chapter 3
Flowers and Families

Wilson had been mistaken in his assessment. The escape had taken
longer than anyone at the Yard had thought. Six hundred miles away, a
Sabena flight was landing outside of Cork. The passenger in seat 23-D of
the Boeing 737 was entirely unremarkable; his sandy hair was cut
medium-close, and he was dressed like a middle-level executive in a neat
but rumpled suit that gave the entirely accurate impression of a man who'd
spent a long day on the job and gotten too little sleep before catching a
flight home. An experienced traveler to be sure, with one carry-on flight
bag. If asked, he could have given a convincing discourse on the wholesale
fish business in the accent of Southwestern Ireland. He could change
accents as easily as most men changed shirts; a useful skill, since TV
news crews had made the patois of his native Belfast recognizable the
world over. He read the London Times on the flight, and the topic of
discussion in his seat row, as with the rest of the aircraft, was the
story which covered the front page.
"A terrible thing, it is," he'd agreed with the man in 23-E, a Belgian
dealer in machine tools who could not have known how an event might be
terrible in more than one way.
All the months of planning, the painstakingly gathered intelligence,
the rehearsals carried out right under the Brit noses, the three escape
routes, the radiomen -- all for nothing because of this bloody meddler. He
examined the photo on the front page.
Who are you, Yank? he wondered. John Patrick Ryan. Historian -- a
bloody academic! Ex-Marine -- trust a damned bootneck to stick his nose
where it doesn't belong! John Patrick Ryan. You're a bloody Catholic,
aren't you? Well, Johnny nearly put paid on your account . . . too bad
about Johnny. Good man Johnny was, dependable, loved his guns, and true to
the Cause.
The plane finally came to a stop at the Jetway. Forward, the
stewardess opened the door, and the passengers rose to get their bags from
the overhead stowage. He got his, and joined the slow movement forward. He
tried to be philosophical about it. In his years as a "player," he'd seen
iterations go awry for the most ridiculous of reasons. But this op was so
important. So much planning. He shook his head as he tucked the paper
under his arm. We'll just have to try again, that's all. We can afford to
be patient. One failure, he told himself, didn't matter in the great
scheme of things. The other side had been lucky this time. We only have to
be lucky once. The men in the H-blocks weren't going anywhere.
What about Sean? A mistake to have taken him along. He'd helped plan