by Tom Clancy
“Jack, Cathy, this is Bob Hallston.”
“You must be thirsty,” the man said.
“You could talk me into a beer,” Jack admitted. “Cathy?”
“Something soft.”
“You’re sure?” Hallston asked.
“I’m not a temperance worker, I just don’t drink when I’m pregnant,” Cathy explained.
“Congratulations!” Hallston took two steps to the bar and returned with a glass of lager for Jack, and what looked like ginger ale for his wife. “To your health, and your baby’s.”
Cathy beamed. There was something about pregnant women, Jack thought. His wife wasn’t just pretty anymore. She glowed. He wondered if it was only for him.
“I understand you’re a doctor?”
“I’m an ophthalmic surgeon.”
“And you teach history, sir?”
“That’s right. I take it you work here, too.”
“Correct. There are thirty-nine of us. We are the ceremonial guardians of the Sovereign. We have invited you here to thank you for doing our job, and to join us in a small ceremony that we do every night.”
“Since 1240,” Murray said.
“The year 1240?” Cathy asked.
“Yeah, it’s not something they cooked up for the tourists. This is the real thing,” Murray said. “Right, Bob?”
“Quite real. When we lock up for the night, this museum collection becomes the safest place in England.”
“I’ll buy that,” Jack tossed off half his beer. “And if they get past those kids out there, the bad guys have you fellows to worry about. ”
“Yes.” Hallston smiled. “One or two of us might remember our basic skills. I was in the original SAS, playing hare and hounds with Rommel in the Western Desert. Dreadful place, the desert. Left me with a permanent thirst.”
They never lose it, Ryan thought. They never lose the look, not the real professionals. They get older, add a few pounds, mellow out a little, but beneath all that you can still see the discipline and the essential toughness that makes them different. And the pride, the understated confidence that comes from having done it all, and not having to talk about it very much, except among themselves. It never goes away.
“Do you have any Marines in here?”
“Two,” Hallston said. “We try to keep them from holding hands. ”
“Right! Be nice, I used to be a Marine.”
“No one’s perfect,” Hallston sympathized.
“So, what’s this Key Ceremony?”
“Well, back in the year 1240, the chap whose job it was to lock up for the night was set upon by some ruffians. Thereafter, he refused to do his duty without a military escort. Every night since, without interruption, the Chief Warder locks the three principal gates, then places the keys in the Queen’s House on the Tower Green. There’s a small ceremony that goes along with this. We thought that you and your wife might like to see it.” Hallston sipped his beer. “You were in court today, I understand. How did it go?”
“I’m glad it’s behind me. Dan says I did all right.” Ryan shrugged. “When Mr. Evans showed us the block topside—I wonder if it still works,” Ryan said thoughtfully, remembering the look on that young face. Is Miller sitting in his cell right now, thinking about me? Ryan drank the last of his beer. I’ll bet he is.
“Excuse me?”
“That Miller kid. It’s a shame you can’t take him up there for a short haircut.”
Hallston smiled coldly. “I doubt anyone here would disagree with you. We might even find a volunteer to swing the ax.”
“You’d have to hold a lottery, Bob.” Murray handed Ryan another glass. “You still worrying about him, Jack?”
“I’ve never seen anybody like that before.”
“He’s in jail, Jack,” Cathy pointed out.
“Yeah, I know.” So why are you still thinking about him? Jack asked himself. The hell with it. The hell with him. “This is great beer, Sar-major.”
“That’s the real reason they apply for the job,” Murray chuckled.
“One of the reasons.” Hallston finished his glass. “Almost time. ”
Jack finished off his second glass with a gulp. Evans reappeared, now wearing street clothes, and led them back out to the chilled night air. It was a clear night, with a three-quarters moon casting muted shadows on the stone battlements. A handful of electric lights added a few isolated splashes of light. Jack was surprised how peaceful it was for being in the center of a city, like his own home over the Chesapeake. Without thinking, he took his wife’s hand as Evans led them west toward the Bloody Tower. A small crowd was already there, standing by Traitor’s Gate, and a Warder was giving them instructions to be as quiet as possible, and not, of course, to take any photographs. A sentry was posted there, plus four other men under arms, their breath illuminated by the blue-white floodlights. It was the only sign of life. Otherwise they might have been made of stone.
“Right about now,” Murray whispered.
Jack heard a door close somewhere ahead. It was too dark to see very much, and the few lights that were turned on only served to impair his night vision. He heard the sound of jingling keys first of all, like small bells rattling to the measured tread of a walking man. Next he saw a point of light. It grew into a square lantern with a candle inside, carried by Tom Hughes, the Chief Warder. The sound of his footsteps was as regular as a metronome as he approached, his back ramrod-straight from a lifetime of practice. A moment later the four soldiers formed up on him, the warder between them, and they marched off, back into the tunnel-like darkness to the fading music of the rattling keys and cleated shoes clicking on the pavement, leaving the sentry at the Bloody Tower.
Jack didn’t hear the gates close, but a few minutes later the sound of the keys returned, and he glimpsed the returning guards in the irregular splashes of light. For some reason the scene was overpoweringly romantic. Ryan reached around his wife’s waist and pulled her close. She looked up.
Love you, he said with his lips as the keys approached again. Her eyes answered.
To their right, the sentry snapped to on-guard: “Halt! Who goes there?” His words reverberated down the corridor of ancient stone.
The advancing men stopped at once, and Tom Hughes answered the challenge: “The keys!”
“Whose keys?” the sentry demanded.
“Queen Anne’s keys!”
“Pass, Queen Anne’s keys!” The sentry brought his rifle to present-arms.
The sentries, with Hughes in their midst, resumed their march and turned left, up the slope to the Tower Green. Ryan and his wife followed close behind. At the steps that capped the upward slope waited a squad of riflemen. Hughes and his escort stopped. The squad on the steps came to present-arms, and the Chief Warder removed his uniform bonnet.
“God preserve Queen Anne!”
“Amen!” the guard force replied.
Behind them, a bugler stood. He blew Last Post, the British version of Taps. The notes echoed against the stones in a way that denoted the end of day, and when necessary, the end of life. Like the circular waves that follow a stone’s fall into the water, the last mournful note lingered until it faded to nothingness in the still air. Ryan bent down to kiss his wife. It was a magical moment that they would not soon forget.
The Chief Warder proceeded up the steps to secure the keys for the night, and the crowd withdrew.
“Every night since 1240, eh?” Jack asked.
“The ceremony was interrupted during the Blitz. A German bomb fell into the Tower grounds while things were under way. The warder was bowled over by the blast, and the candle in his lantern was extinguished. He had to relight it before he could continue,” Evans said. That the man had been wounded was irrelevant. Some things are more important than that. “Shall we return to the pub?”
“We don’t have anything like this at home,” Cathy said quietly.
“Well, America isn’t old enough, is she?”
“It would be nice
if we had something like this, maybe at Bunker Hill or Fort McHenry,” Jack said quietly.
Murray nodded agreement. “Something to remind us why we’re here.”
“Tradition is important,” Evans said. “For a soldier, tradition is often the reason one carries on when there are so many reasons not to. It’s more than just yourself, more than just your mates—but it’s not just something for soldiers, is it? It is true—or should be true—of any professional community.”
“It is,” Cathy said. “Any good medical school beats that into your head. Hopkins sure did.”
“So does the Corps,” Jack agreed. “But we don’t express it as well as you just did.”
“We’ve had more practice.” Evans opened the door to the pub. “And better beer to aid in our contemplation.”
“Now, if you guys could only learn how to fix beef properly....” Jack said to Evans.
“That’s telling ’em, ace,” the FBI agent chuckled.
“Another beer for a brother Marine.” A glass was handed to Ryan by another of the warders. “Surely you’ve had enough of this para prima donna by now.”
“Bert’s one of the Marines I told you about,” Evans explained.
“I never say bad things about somebody who buys the drinks,” Ryan told Bert.
“That is an awfully sensible attitude. Are you sure you were only a lieutenant?”
“Only for three months.” Jack explained about the helicopter crash.
“That was bad luck. Bloody training accidents,” Evans said. “More dangerous than combat.”
“So you guys work as tour guides here?”
“That’s part of it,” the other warder said. “It’s a good way to keep one’s hand in, and also to educate the odd lieutenant. Just last week I spoke to one of the Welsh Guards chaps—he was having trouble getting things right, and I gave him a suggestion.”
“The one thing you really miss,” Evans agreed. “Teaching those young officers to be proper soldiers. Who says the best diplomats work at Whitehall?”
“I never got the feeling that I was completely useless as a second lieutenant,” Jack observed with a smile.
“All depends on one’s point of view,” the other yeoman said. “Still and all, you might have worked out all right, judging by what you did on The Mall.”
“I don’t know, Bert. A lieutenant with a hero complex is not the sort of chap you want to be around. They keep doing the damnedest things. But I suppose the ones who survive, and learn, do work out as you say. Tell me, Lieutenant Ryan, what have you learned?”
“Not to get shot. The next time I’ll just shoot from cover.”
“Excellent.” Bob Hallston rejoined them. “And don’t leave one alive behind you,” he added. The SAS wasn’t noted for leaving people alive by accident.
Cathy didn’t like this sort of talk. “Gentlemen, you can’t just kill people like that. ”
“The Lieutenant took rather a large chance, ma’am, not the sort of chance that one will walk away from very often. If there is ever a next time—and there won’t be, of course. But if there is, you can act like a policeman or a soldier, but not both. You’re very lucky to be alive, young man. You have that arm to remind you just how lucky you are. It is good to be brave, Lieutenant. It is better to be smart, and much less painful for those around you,” Evans said. He looked down at his beer. “Dear God, how many times have I said that!”
“How many times have we all said it?” Bert said quietly. “And the pity is, so many of them didn’t listen. Enough of that. This lovely lady doesn’t want to hear the ramblings of tired old men. Bob tells me that you are expecting another child. In two months, I shall be a grandfather for the first time.”
“Yes, he can hardly wait to show us the pictures.” Evans laughed. “A boy or a girl this time?”
“Just so all the pieces are attached, and they all work.” There was general agreement on the point. Ryan finished off his third beer of the evening. It was pretty strong stuff, and he was getting a buzz from it. “Gentlemen, if any of you come to America, and happen to visit the Washington area, I trust you will let us know.”
“And the next time you are in London, the bar is open,” Tom Hughes said. The Chief Warder was back in civilian clothes, but carrying his uniform bonnet, a hat whose design went back three or four centuries. “And perhaps you’ll find room in your home for this. Sir John, with the thanks of us all.”
“I’ll take good care of this.” Ryan took the hat, but couldn’t bring himself to put it on. He hadn’t earned that right.
“Now, I regret to say that if you don’t leave now, you’ll be stuck here all night. At midnight all the doors are shut, and that is that. ”
Jack and Cathy shook hands all around, then followed Hughes and Murray out the door.
The walk between the inner and outer walls was still quiet, the air still cold, and Jack found himself wondering if ghosts walked the Tower Grounds at night. It was almost—
“What’s that?” He pointed to the outer wall. A spectral shape was walking up there.
“A sentry,” Hughes said. “After the Ceremony of the Keys, the guards don their pattern-disruptive clothing.” They passed the sentry at the Bloody Tower, now dressed in camouflage fatigues, with web gear and ammo pouches.
“Those rifles are loaded now, aren’t they?” Jack asked.
“Not very much use otherwise, are they? This is a very safe place,” Hughes replied.
Nice to know that some places are, Ryan thought. Now why did I think that?
7
Speedbird Home
The Speedway Lounge at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 4 was relaxing enough, or would have been had Jack not been nervous about flying. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows he could see the Concorde he’d be taking home in a few minutes. The designers had given their creation the aspect of a living creature, like some huge, merciless bird of prey, a thing of fearful beauty. It sat there at the end of the Jetway atop its unusually high landing gear, staring at Ryan impassively over its daggerlike nose.
“I wish the Bureau would let me commute back and forth on that baby,” Murray observed.
“It’s pretty!” Sally Ryan agree.
It’s just another goddamned airplane, Jack told himself. You can’t see what holds it up. Jack didn’t remember whether it was Bernoulli’s Principle or the Venturi Effect, but he knew that it was something inferred, not actually seen, that enabled aircraft to fly He remembered that something had interrupted the Principle or Effect over Crete and nearly killed him, and that nineteen months later that same something had reached up and killed his parents five thousand feet short of the runway at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Intellectually he knew that his Marine helicopter had died of a mechanical failure, and that commercial airliners were simpler and easier to maintain than CH-46s. He also knew that bad weather had been the main contributing factor in his parents’ case—and the weather here was clear—but to Ryan there was something outrageous about flying, something unnatural.
Fine, Jack. Why not go back to living in caves and hunting bear with a pointed stick? Whats natural about teaching history, or watching TV, or driving a car? Idiot.
But I hate to fly, Ryan reminded himself.
“There has never been an accident in the Concorde,” Murray pointed out. “And Jimmy Owens’s troops gave the bird a complete checkout.” The possibility of a bomb on that pretty white bird was a real one. The explosives experts from C-13 had spent over an hour that morning making sure that nobody had done that, and now police dressed as British Airways ground crewmen stood around the airliner. Jack wasn’t worried about a bomb. Dogs could find bombs.
“I know,” Jack replied with a wan smile. “Just a basic lack of guts on my part.”
“It’s only lack of guts if you don’t go, ace,” Murray pointed out. He was surprised that Ryan was so nervous, though he concealed it well, the FBI agent thought. Murray enjoyed flying. An Air Force recruiter had almost convin
ced him to become a pilot, back in his college days.
No, it’s lack of brains if I do, Jack told himself. You really are a wimp, another part of his brain informed him. Some Marine you turned out to be!
“When do we blast off, Daddy?” Sally asked.
“One o’clock,” Cathy told her daughter. “Don’t bother Daddy. ”
Blast off, Jack thought with a smile. Dammit, there is nothing to be afraid of and you know it! Ryan shook his head and sipped at his drink from the complimentary bar. He counted four security people in the lounge, all trying to look inconspicuous. Owens was taking no chances on Ryan’s last day in England. The rest was up to British Airways. He wasn’t even being billed for the extra cost. Ryan wondered if that was good luck or bad.
A disembodied female voice announced the flight. Jack finished off the drink and rose to his feet.
“Thanks for everything, Dan.”
“Can we go now, Daddy?” Sally asked brightly. Cathy took her daughter’s hand.
“Wait a minute!” Murray stooped down to Sally. “Don’t I get a hug and a kiss?”
“Okay.” Sally obliged with enthusiasm. “G‘bye, Mr. M’ray. ”
“Take good care of our hero,” the FBI man told Cathy.
“He’ll be all right,” she assured him.
“Enjoy the football, ace!” Murray nearly crushed Jack’s hand. That’s the one thing I really miss.”
“I can send you tapes.”
“It’s not the same. Back to teaching history, eh?”
“That’s what I do,” Ryan said.
“We’ll see,” Murray observed cryptically. “How the hell do you walk with that thing on?”
“Badly,” Ryan chuckled. “I think the doc installed some lead weights, or maybe he left some tools in there by mistake. Well, here we are.” They reached the entrance to the Jetway.
“Break a leg.” Murray smiled and moved off.
“Welcome aboard, Sir John,” a flight attendant said. “We have you in 1-D. Have you flown Concorde before?”
“No.” It was all Jack could muster. Ahead of him, Cathy turned and grinned. The tunnel-like Jetway looked like the entrance to the grave.
