Jack Ryan 2 - Patriot Games (15 page)

Watkins made an embarrassed gesture. “It does keep me rather busy.”

“It must,” Holmes observed. “I haven't seen you at the tennis club in months.”

“Doctor Ryan, the Palace staff have asked me to express their appreciation for what you have done.” He droned on for a few more seconds. Watkins was an inch under Ryan's height and pushing forty. His neatly trimmed black hair was going gray at the sides, and his skin was pale in the way of people who rarely saw the sun. He looked like a diplomat. His smile was so perfect that he must have practiced it in front of a mirror. It was the sort of smile that could have meant anything. Or more likely, nothing. There was interest behind those blue eyes, though. As had happened many times in the past few weeks, this man was trying to decide what Dr. John Patrick Ryan was made of. The subject of the investigation was getting very tired of this, but there wasn't much Jack could do about it.

“Geoff is something of an expert on the Northern Ireland situation,” Holmes said.

“No one's an 'expert,' ” Watkins said with a shake of his head. “I was there at the beginning, back in 1969. I was in uniform then, a subaltern with -- well, that hardly matters now, does it? How do you think we should handle the problem, Doctor Ryan?”

“People have been asking me that question for three weeks, Mr. Watkins. How the hell should I know?”

“Still looking for ideas, Geoff?” Holmes asked.

“The right idea is out there somewhere,” Watkins said, keeping his eyes on Ryan.

“I don't have it,” Jack said. “And even if someone did, how would you know? I teach history, remember, I don't make it.”

“Just a history teacher, and these two chaps descend on you?”

“We wanted to see if he really works for CIA, as the papers say,” Charleston responded.

Jack took the signal from that. Watkins wasn't cleared for everything, and was not to know about his past association with the Agency -- not that he couldn't draw his own conclusions, Ryan reminded himself. Regardless, rules were rules. That's why I turned Greer's offer down, Jack remembered. All those idiot rules. You can't talk to anybody about this or that, not even to your wife. Security. Security. Security . . . Crap! Sure, some things have to stay secret, but if nobody gets to see them, how is anyone supposed to make use of them -- and what good is a secret you can't use?

“You know, it'll be nice to get back to Annapolis. At least the mids believe I'm a teacher!”

“Quite,” Watkins noted. And the head of SIS is asking you for an opinion on Trafalgar. What exactly are you, Ryan? After leaving military service in 1972 and joining the Foreign Office, Watkins had often played the foreign service officer's embassy game: Who's the spook? He was getting mixed signals from Ryan, and this made the game all the more interesting. Watkins loved games. All sorts.

“How do you keep yourself busy now, Geoff?” Holmes asked.

“You mean, aside from the twelve-hour days? I do manage to read the occasional book. I just started going through 'Moll Flanders' again.”

“Really?” Holmes asked. “I just started 'Robinson Crusoe' a few days ago. One sure way of getting one's mind off the world is to return to the classics.”

“Do you read the classics. Doctor Ryan?” Watkins asked.

“Used to. Jesuit education, remember? They don't let you avoid the old stuff.” Is 'Moll Flanders' a classic? Jack wondered. It's not in Latin or Greek, and it's not Shakespeare . . .

“ 'Old stuff.' What a terrible attitude!” Watkins laughed.

“Did you ever try to read Virgil in the original?” Ryan asked.

“Arma virumque cano, trojae qui primus ab oris . . .?”

“Geoff and I attended Winchester together,” Holmes explained. “Contiquere omnes, intenteque ora tenebant . . . ” Both public school graduates had a good chuckle.

“Hey, I got good marks in Latin, I just don't remember any of it,” Ryan said defensively.

“Another colonial philistine,” Watkins observed.

Ryan decided that he didn't like Mr. Watkins. The foreign-service officer was deliberately hitting him to get reactions, and Ryan had long since tired of this game. Ryan was happy with what he was, and didn't need a bunch of amateur pshrinks, as he called them, to define his personality for him.

“Sorry. Where I live we have slightly different priorities.”

“Of course,” Watkins replied. The smile hadn't changed a whit. This surprised Jack, though he wasn't sure why.

“You live not far from the Naval Academy, don't you? Wasn't there some sort of incident there recently?” Sir Basil asked. “I read about it in some report somewhere. I never did get straight on the details.”

“It wasn't really terrorism -- just your basic crime, A couple of midshipmen saw what looked like a drug deal being made in Annapolis, and called the police. The people who got arrested were members of a local motorcycle gang. A week later, some of the gang members decided to take the mids out. They got past the Jimmy Legs -- the civilian security guards -- about three in the morning and sneaked into Bancroft Hall. They must have assumed that it was just another college dorm -- not hardly. The kids standing midwatch spotted them, got the alarm out, and then everything came apart. The intruders got themselves lost -- Bancroft has a couple of miles of corridors -- and cornered. It's a federal case since it happened on government property, and the FBI takes a very dim view of people who try to tamper with witnesses. They'll be gone for a while. The good news is that the Marine guard force at the Academy has been beefed up, and it's a lot easier to get in and out now.”

“Easier?” Watkins asked. “But --”

Jack smiled. “With Marines on the perimeter, they leave a lot more gates open -- a Marine guard beats a locked gate any day.”

“Indeed. I --” Something caught Charleston's eye. Ryan was facing the wrong way to see what it was, but the reactions were plain enough. Charleston and Holmes began to disengage, with Watkins making his way off first. Jack turned in time to see the Queen appear at the door, coming past a servant.

The Duke was at her side, with Cathy trailing a diplomatically defined distance behind and to the side. The Queen came first to him.

“You are looking much better.”

Jack tried to bow -- he thought he was supposed to -- without endangering the Queen's life with his cast. The main trick was standing still, he'd learned. The weight of the thing tended to induce a progressive lean to the left. Moving around helped him stay upright.

“Thank you, Your Majesty. I feel much better. Good evening, sir.”

One thing about shaking hands with the Duke, you knew there was a man at the other end. “Hello again, Jack. Do try to be at ease. This is completely informal. No receiving line, no protocol. Relax.”

“Well, the champagne helps.”

“Excellent,” the Queen observed. “I think we'll let you and Caroline get reacquainted for the moment.” She and the Duke moved off.

“Easy on the booze. Jack.” Cathy positively glowed in a white cocktail dress so lovely that Ryan forgot to wonder what it had cost. Her hair was nicely arranged and she had makeup on, two things that her profession regularly denied her. Most of all, she was Cathy Ryan. He gave his wife a quick kiss, audience and all.

“All these people --”

“Screw 'em,” Jack said quietly. “How's my favorite girl?”

Her eyes sparkled with the news, but her voice was deadpan professional:

“Pregnant.”

“You sure -- when?”

“I'm sure, darling, because, A, I'm a doctor, and B, I'm two weeks late. As to when, Jack, remember when we got here, as soon as we put Sally down to bed . . . It's those strange hotel beds. Jack.” She took his hand. “They do it every time.”

There wasn't anything for Jack to say. He wrapped his good arm around her shoulders and squeezed as discreetly as his emotions would allow. If she was two weeks late -- well, he knew Cathy to be as regular as her Swiss watch. I'm going to be a daddy -- again!

“We'll try for a boy this time,” she said.

“You know that's not important, babe.”

“I see you've told him.” The Queen returned as quietly as a cat. The Duke, Jack saw, was talking to Admiral Charleston. About what? he wondered. “Congratulations, Sir John.”

“Thank you. Your Majesty, and thank you for a lot of things. We'll never be able to repay you for all your kindness.”

The Christmas-tree smile again. “It is we who are repaying you. From what Caroline tells me, you will now have at least one positive reminder of your visit to our country.”

“Indeed, ma'am, but more than one.” Jack was learning how the game was played.

“Caroline, is he always so gallant?”

“As a matter of fact, ma'am, no. We must have caught him at a weak moment,” Cathy said. “Or maybe being over here is a civilizing influence.”

“That is good to know, after all the horrid things he said about your little Olivia. Do you know that she refused to go to bed without kissing me goodnight? Such a lovely, charming little angel. And he called her a menace!”

Jack sighed. It wasn't hard for him to get the picture. After three weeks in this environment, Sally was probably doing the cutest curtsies in the history of Western Civilization. By this time the Palace staff was probably fighting for the right to look after her. Sally was a true daddy's girl. The ability to manipulate the people around her came easily. She'd practiced on her father for years.

“Perhaps I exaggerated, ma'am.”

“Libelously.” The Queen's eyes flared with amusement. “She has not broken a single thing. Not one. And I'll have you know that she's turning into the best equestrienne we have seen in years.”

“Excuse me?”

“Riding lessons,” Cathy explained.

“You mean on a horse?”

“What else would she ride?” the Queen asked.

“Sally, on a horse?” Ryan looked at his wife. He didn't like that idea very much.

“And doing splendidly.” The Queen sprang to Cathy's defense. “It's quite safe, Sir John. Riding is a fine skill for a child to learn. It teaches discipline, coordination, and responsibility.”

Not to mention a fabulous way to break her pretty little neck, Ryan thought. Again he remembered that one does not argue with a queen, especially under her own roof.

“You could even try to ride yourself,” the Queen said. “Your wife rides.”

“We have enough land now. Jack,” Cathy said. “You'd love it.”

“I'd fall off,” Ryan said bleakly.

“Then you climb back on again until you get it right,” said a woman with over fifty years of riding behind her.

It's the same with a bike, except you don't fall as far off a bike, and Sally's too little for a bike, Ryan told himself. He got nervous watching Sally move her Hotwheel trike around the driveway. For God's sake, she's so little the horse wouldn't even know if she was there or not. Cathy read his mind.

“Children do have to grow up. You can't protect her from everything,” his wife pointed out.

“Yes, dear, I know.” The hell I can't. That's my job.

A few minutes later everyone headed out the room for dinner. Ryan found himself in the Blue Drawing Room, a breathtaking pillared hall, and then passed through mirrored double doors into the State Dining Room.

The contrast was incredible. From a room of muted blue they entered one ablaze with scarlet, fabric-covered walls. Overhead the vaulted ceiling was ivory and gold, and over the snow-white fireplace was a massive portrait -- of whom? Ryan wondered. It had to be a king, of course, probably 18th or 19th century, judging by his white . . . pantyhose, or whatever they'd called them then, complete with garter. Over the door they'd entered was the royal cipher of Queen Victoria, VR, and he wondered how much history had passed through -- or been made right in this single room.

“You will sit at my right hand, Jack,” the Queen said.

Ryan took a quick look at the table. It was wide enough that he didn't have to worry about clobbering Her Majesty with his left arm. That wouldn't do.

The worst thing about the dinner was that Ryan would be forever unable to remember -- and too proud to ask Cathy -- what it was. Eating one-handed was something he'd had a lot of practice at, but never had he had such an audience, and Ryan was sure that everyone was watching him. After all, he was a Yank and would have been something of a curiosity even without his arm. He constantly reminded himself to be careful, to go easy on the wine, to watch his language. He shot the occasional glance at Cathy, sitting at the other end of the table next to the Duke and clearly enjoying herself. It made her husband slightly angry that she was more at ease than he was. If there was ever a pig in the manger, Ryan thought while chewing on something he immediately forgot, it's me. He wondered if he would be here now, had he been a rookie cop or a private in the Royal Marines who just happened to be at the right place. Probably not, he thought. And why is that? Ryan didn't know. He did know that something about the institution of nobility went against his American outlook. At the same time, being knighted -- even honorarily -- was something he liked. It was a contradiction that troubled him in a way he didn't understand. All this attention was too seductive, he told himself. It'll be good to get away from it. Or will it? He sipped at a glass of wine. I know I don't belong here, but do I want to belong here? There's a good question. The wine didn't give him an answer. He'd have to find it somewhere else.

He looked down the table to his wife, who did seem to fit in very nicely. She'd been raised in a similar atmosphere, a monied family, a big house in Westchester County, lots of parties where people told one another how important they all were. It was a life he'd rejected, and that she had walked away from. They were both happy with what they had, each with a career, but did her ease with this mean that she missed . . . Ryan frowned.

“Feeling all right. Jack?” the Queen asked.

“Yes, ma'am, please excuse me. I'm afraid it will take me a while to adjust to all of this.”

“Jack,” she said quietly, “the reason everyone likes you -- and we all do, you know -- is because of who and what you are. Try to keep that in mind.”

It struck Ryan that this was probably the kindest thing he'd ever been told. Perhaps nobility was supposed to be a state of mind rather than an institution. His father-in-law could learn from that, Ryan thought. His father-in-law could learn from a lot of things.