by Tom Clancy
“Right.”
Shaw hung up and dialed his office at the Bureau. “Dave, Bill. Call London, and tell Dan Murray I want him in his office in half an hour. We may have something happening over here.”
“ ’Bye, Daddy,” his daughter said. Shaw hadn’t even had time to take off his coat.
He was at his desk twenty-seven minutes later. First he called Nick Capitano in Annapolis.
“Anything new?”
“No, sir. The security detail at Annapolis can’t find this Ryan guy. His car is parked on the Academy grounds, and they’ve got people looking for him. I’ve asked the Anne Arundel County Police to send a car to his home in case he got a ride—car broke down, or something like that. Things are a little wild here at the moment. Something crazy happened about the same time this John Doe gunman got picked up. A car got hosed down with a machine gun just outside the city.”
“What the hell was that?”
“The State Police are handling it. We haven’t been called in,” Capitano explained.
“Get a man over there!” Shaw said at once. A secretary came into the office and handed him a folder. Inside was a facsimile copy of the suspect’s mug shot. It showed full face and profile.
“Hold it!” He caught the secretary before the door was closed. “I want this faxed to London right now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Shaw next dialed the tie line to the embassy in London.
“I just got to sleep,” the voice answered after the first ring.
“Hi, Dan. I just missed dinner. It’s a tough world. I have a photo being faxed to you now.” Shaw filled Murray in on what had happened.
“Oh, my God.” Murray gulped down some coffee. “Where’s Ryan?”
“We don’t know. Probably just wandering around somewhere. His car’s still parked in Annapolis—at the Academy, I mean. The security guys are looking for him. He’s gotta be all right, Dan. If I read this right, the suspect in Annapolis was probably waiting for him. ”
The photograph of Eamon Clark was already in the embassy. The Bureau’s communications unit worked on the same satellite net used by the intelligence services. The embassy communications officers were actually employees of the National Security Agency, which never slept. The facsimile had arrived with a FLASH-priority header, and a messenger ran it up to the Legal Attaché’s office. But the door was locked. Murray had to set the phone down to open it.
“I’m back,” Murray said. He opened the folder. The photo had suffered somewhat from twice being broken into electronic bits and broadcast, but for all of that it was recognizable. “This one’s familiar. I can’t put a name on him, but he’s a bad guy.”
“How fast can you ID him?”
“I can call Jimmy Owens real quick. You in your office?”
“Yeah,” Shaw answered.
“I’ll be back.” Murray changed buttons on his phones. He didn’t have Owens’ home number memorized and had to look it up.
“Yes?”
“Hi, Jimmy, it’s Dan.” Murray’s voice was actually chipper now. Have I got something for you.
Owens didn’t know that yet. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Our guys have somebody in custody that you may be interested in.”
“Who?” Owens asked.
“I got a picture but no name. He was arrested in Annapolis, outside the Naval Academy—”
“Ryan?”
“Maybe.” Murray was worried about that.
“Meet me at the Yard,” Owens said.
“On the way.” Murray headed downstairs for his car.
It was easier for Owens. His house was always watched by a pair of armed detectives in a police car. All he had to do was step outside and wave, and the Land-Rover came to his door. He beat Murray by five minutes. By the time the FBI agent arrived, Owens had already consumed a cup of tea. He poured two more.
“This guy look familiar?” The FBI agent tossed the photo over. Owens’ eyes went wide.
“Ned Clark,” he breathed. “In America, you say?”
“I thought he looked familiar. He got picked up in Annapolis.”
“This is one of the lads who broke out of Long Kesh, a very bad boy with several murders to his name. Thank you, Mr. Murray.”
“Thank the Marines.” Murray grabbed a cup of tea. He really needed the caffeine. “Can I make a call?” Within a minute he was back to FBI headquarters. The desk phone was on speaker so that Owens could listen in.
“Bill, the suspect is one Ned Clark, a convicted murderer who escaped from prison last year. He used to be a big-time assassin with the Provos.”
“I got some bad news, Dan,” Shaw replied. “It appears that there was an attack on this Ryan fellow’s family. The State Police are investigating what looks like a machine-gun attack on a car belonging to Doctor Caroline Ryan, MD. The suspects were in a van and made a clean escape after killing a state trooper.”
“Where is Jack Ryan?” Murray asked.
“We don’t know yet. He was seen leaving the Naval Academy grounds in the car of a friend. The troopers are looking for the car now. ”
“What about his family?” It was Owens this time.
“They were flown to the Shock-Trauma Center in Baltimore. The local police have been notified to keep an eye on the place, but it’s usually guarded anyway. As soon as we find Ryan we’ll put some people with him. Okay, on this Clark kid, I’ll have him in federal custody by tomorrow morning. I expect that Mr. Owens wants him back?”
“Yes.” Owens leaned back in his chair. He had his own call to make now. As often happened in police work, there was bad news to accompany the good.
“Mr. Ryan?” It was a doctor. Probably a doctor. He wore a pink paper gown and strange-looking pink booties over what were probably sneakers. The gown was bloodstained. He couldn’t be much over thirty, Ryan judged. The face was tired and dark. DR. BARRY SHAPIRO, the name tag announced, DEPUTY TRAUMA-SURGEON-IN-CHIEF. Ryan tried to stand but found that his legs would not work. The doctor waved for him to remain seated. He came over slowly and fell into the chair next to the sofa
What news do you bring me? Ryan thought. His mind both screamed for information and dreaded learning what had happened to his family.
“I’m Barry Shapiro. I’ve been working on your daughter.” He spoke quickly, with a curious accent that Ryan noted but discarded as irrelevant. “Okay, your wife is fine. She had a broken and lacerated upper left arm and a nasty cut on her head. When the helicopter paramedic saw the head wound—heads bleed a lot—he brought her here as a precaution. We ran a complete head protocol on her, and she’s fine. A mild concussion, but nothing to worry about. She’ll be fine.”
“She’s pregnant. Do—”
“We noticed.” Shapiro smiled. “No problem with that. The pregnancy has not been compromised in any way.”
“She’s a surgeon. Will there be any permanent damage?”
“Oh? I didn’t know that. We don’t bother very much with patient identification,” Shapiro explained. “No, there should be no problem. The damage to her arm is extensive but routine. It should heal completely.”
Ryan nodded, afraid to ask the next question. The doctor paused before going on. Does the bad news come next....
“Your daughter is a very sick little girl.”
Jack nearly choked with his next breath. The iron fist that had clutched his stomach relaxed a millimeter. At least she’s alive. Sally’s alive!
“Apparently she wasn’t wearing her seat belt. When the car hit she was thrown forward, very hard.” Jack nodded. Sally liked to play with her seat belt buckle—we thought it was cute, Ryan reminded himself bitterly. “Okay, tib and fib are broken in both legs, along with the left femur. All of the left-side ribs are broken, and six on the right side—a classic flailed chest. She can’t breathe for herself, but she’s on respirator; that is under control. She arrived with extensive internal injuries and hemorrhaging, severe damage to the liver and spleen, and the larg
e bowel. Her heart stopped right after she got here, probably—almost certainly—from loss of blood volume. We got it restarted at once and immediately started replacing the blood loss.” Shapiro went on quickly. “That problem is also behind us.
“Doctor Kinter and I have been working on her for the best part of five hours. We had to remove the spleen—that’s okay, you can live without a spleen.” Shapiro didn’t say that the spleen was an important part of the body’s defense against infections. “The liver had a moderately extensive stellate fracture and damage to the main artery that feeds blood into the organ. We had to remove about a quarter of the liver—again no problem with that—and I think we fixed the arterial damage, and I think the repair will hold. The liver is important. It has a great deal to do with blood formation and the body’s biochemical balance. You can’t live without it. If liver function is maintained ... she’ll probably make it. The damage to the bowel was easy to repair. We removed about thirty centimeters. The legs are immobilized. We’ll repair them later. The ribs—well, that’s painful but not life-threatening. And the skull is relatively minor. I guess her chest took the main impact. She has a concussion, but there’s no sign of intercranial bleeding.” Shapiro rubbed his hands over his heavily-bearded face.
“The whole thing revolves around her liver function. If the liver continues to work, she will probably recover fully. We’re keeping a very close watch on her blood chemistry, and we’ll know something in, oh, maybe eight or nine hours.”
“Not till then?” Ryan’s face twisted into an agonized mass. The fist tightened its grip yet again. She still might die ... ?
“Mr. Ryan,” Shapiro said slowly, “I know what you are going through. If it hadn’t been for the helicopter bringing your little girl in, well, right now I’d be telling you that she had died. Another five minutes getting here—maybe not that long—and she would not have made it this far. That’s how close it was. But she is alive now, and I promise you that we’re doing our very best to keep her that way. And our best is the best there is. My team of doctors and nurses is the best of its kind in the world—period. Nobody comes close. If there’s a way, we’ll find it.” And if there’s not, he didn’t say, we won’t.
“Can I see them?”
“No.” Shapiro shook his head. “Right now both of them are in the CCRU—the Critical Care Recovery Unit. We keep that as clean as an OR. The smallest infection can be lethal for a trauma patient. I’m sorry, but it would be too dangerous to them. My people are watching them constantly. A nurse—an experienced trauma nurse—is with each of them every second, with a team of doctors and nurses thirty feet away.”
“Okay.” He almost gasped the word. Ryan leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Eight more hours? But you have no choice. You have to wait. You have to do what they say. “Okay.”
Shapiro left and Jackson followed after him, catching him by the elevator.
“Doc, can’t Jack see his little girl? She—”
“Not a chance.” Shapiro half fell against the wall and let out a long breath. “Look, right now the little girl—what’s her name anyway?”
“Sally.”
“Okay, right now she’s in a bed, stark naked, with IV tubes running into both arms and one leg. Her head’s partially shaved. She’s wired up to a half-dozen monitors, and we have an Engstrom respirator breathing for her. Her legs are wrapped—all you can see of her is one big bruise from her hips to the top of her head.” Shapiro looked down at the pilot. He was too tired to show any emotion. “Look, she might die. I don’t think so, but there’s no way we can be sure. With liver injuries, you can’t tell until the blood-chemistry readings come in, you just can’t. If she does die, would you want your friend to see her like that? Would you want him to remember her like that, for the rest of his life?”
“I guess not,” Jackson said quietly, surprised at how much he wanted this little girl to live. His wife could not have children, and somehow Sally had become like their own. “What are her chances?”
“I’m not a bookie, I don’t quote odds. Numbers don’t mean a thing in a case like this. Sorry, but either she makes it or she doesn’t. Look, that wasn’t a song and dance I gave—Jack, you said? She could not be in a better place.” Shapiro’s eyes focused on Jackson’s chest. He jabbed a finger at the wings of gold. “You a pilot?”
“Yeah. Fighters.”
“Phantoms?”
“No, the F-14. Tomcat.”
“I fly.” Shapiro smiled. “I used to be a flight surgeon in the Air Force. Last year I got a sailplane. Nice and peaceful up there. When I can get away from this madhouse, I go up every time I can. No phones. No hassles. Just me and the clouds.” The doctor was not talking to Jackson so much as himself. Robby set his hand on the surgeon’s arm.
“Doc, tell you what—you save that little girl, and I’ll get you a checkride in any bird you want. Ever been up in a T-38?”
“What’s that?” Shapiro was too tired to remember that he’d seen them before.
“A spiffy little supersonic trainer. Two seats, dual controls, and she handles like a wet dream. I can disguise you as one of ours and get you up, no sweat. Ever been past mach-1?”
“No. Can you do some aerobatics?” Shapiro smiled like a tired little boy.
“Sure, Doc.” Jackson grinned, knowing that he could do maneuvers to make a quail lose its lunch.
“I’ll take you up on that. We work the same way with every patient, but I’ll take you up on that anyway. Keep an eye on your friend. He looks a little rocky. That’s normal. This sort of thing can be harder on the family than it is on the victims. If he doesn’t come around some, tell the receptionist. We have a staff psychiatrist who specializes in working with—the other victims, he calls ’em.” Yet another new idea at Shock-Trauma was a specialist in helping people cope with the injuries to family and friends.
“Cathy’s arm. She’s an eye surgeon, lots of fine work, you know? You sure there’s no problem with that?”
Shapiro shook his head. “No big deal. It was a clean break to the humerus. Must have been a jacketed slug. The bullet went in clean, went out clean. Pretty lucky, really.”
Robby’s hand clamped shut on the doctor’s arm as the elevator arrived. “Bullet?”
“Didn’t I say that? God, I must be tireder than I thought. Yeah, it was a gunshot wound, but very clean. Hell, I wish they were all that clean. A nine-millimeter, maybe a thirty-eight, ’bout that size. I have to get back to work.” The doctor went into the elevator.
“Shit,” Jackson said to the wall. He turned when he heard a man with an English accent—two of them, it turned out—whom the receptionist directed to the waiting room. Robby followed them in.
The taller one approached Ryan and said, “Sir John?”
Ryan looked up. Sir John? Robby thought. The Brit drew himself to attention and went on briskly.
“My name is Geoffrey Bennett. I am Chargé d’Affaires at the British Embassy.” He produced an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Ryan. “I am directed by Her Majesty to deliver this personally into your hand and to await your reply.”
Jack blinked his eyes a few times, then tore open the envelope and extracted a yellow message form. The cable was brief, kind, and to the point. What time is it over there? Ryan wondered. Two in the morning? Three? Something like that. That meant that she’d been awakened with the news, probably, and cared enough to send a personal message. And was waiting for a reply.
How about that.
Ryan closed his eyes and told himself that it was time to return to the world of the living. Too drained for the tears he needed to shed, he swallowed a few times and rubbed his hands across his face before standing.
“Please tell Her Majesty that I am most grateful for her concern. My wife is expected to recover fully, but my daughter is in critical condition and we will have no definitive word on her for another eight or nine hours. Please tell Her Majesty that ... that I am deeply touched by her conce
rn, and that all of us value her friendship very highly indeed.”
“Thank you, Sir John.” Bennett made some notes. “I will cable your reply immediately. If you have no objection, I will leave a member of the embassy staff here with you.” Jack nodded, puzzled, as Bennett made his exit.
Robby took all this in with a raised eyebrow and a dozen unasked questions. Who was this guy? He introduced himself as Edward Wayson, and took a seat in the corner facing the doorway. He looked over at Jackson. Their eyes met briefly and each man evaluated the other. Wayson had cool, detached eyes, and a wispy smile at the corners of his mouth. Robby gave him a closer look. There was a slight bulge under his left arm. Wayson affected to read a paperback novel, which he held in his left hand, but his eyes kept flickering to the door every few seconds, and his right hand stayed free in his lap. He caught Jackson’s glance and nodded. So, Robby concluded, a spook, or at least a security officer. So that’s what this is all about. The realization came as a blast of cold air. The pilot’s hands flexed as he considered the type of person who would deliberately attempt to murder a woman and her child.
Five minutes later three State Police officers made their belated arrival. They talked to Ryan for ten minutes. Jackson watched with interest and saw his friend’s face go pale with anger as he stammered answers to numerous questions. Wayson didn’t look but heard it all.
“You were right, Jimmy,” Murray said. He .was standing at the window, watching the early morning traffic negotiate the corner of Broadway and Victoria.
“Paddy O’Neil in Boston likes to say what wonderful chaps Sinn Fein are,” Owens said speculatively. “And our friend O’ Donnell decides to embarrass them. We could not have known, Dan. A possibility of a suspicion is not evidence and you know it. There was no basis in fact for giving them a more serious warning than what you did. And you did warn them, Dan.”
