Jack Ryan 3 - Red Rabbit Read Free Page A

assignment he'd never expected to get. Bulgaria, maybe, but not the very belly of the beast. Bob Ritter must have been really impressed by his time in Tehran. Thank God Mary Pat had delivered Eddie when she had. They'd missed the takeover in Iran by, what, three weeks? It had been a troublesome pregnancy, and Mary Pat's doc had insisted on their coming back to New York for the delivery. Kids were a gift from God, all right… Besides, that had made Eddie a New Yorker, too, and Ed had damned well wanted his son to be a Yankees and Rangers fan from birth. The best news of this assignment, aside from the professional stuff, was that he'd see the best ice hockey in the world right here in Moscow. Screw the ballet and the symphony. These fuckers knew how to skate. Pity the Russkies didn't understand baseball. Probably too sophisticated for the muzhiks. All those pitches to choose from…
    “It's not real big,” Mary Pat observed, looking at one cracked window. They were on the sixth floor. At least the traffic noise wouldn't be too bad. The foreigners' compound—ghetto—was walled and guarded. This was for their protection, the Russians insisted, but street crime against foreigners wasn't a problem in Moscow. The average Russian citizen was forbidden by law to have foreign currency in his possession, and there was no convenient way to spend it in any case. So there was little profit in mugging an American or Frenchman on the streets, and there was no mistaking them—their clothing marked them about as clearly as peacocks among crows.
    “Hello!” It was an English accent. The florid face appeared a moment later. “We're your neighbors. Nigel and Penny Haydock,” the face's owner said. He was about forty-five, tall and skinny, with prematurely gray and thinning hair. His wife, younger and prettier than he probably deserved, appeared an instant later with a tray of sandwiches and some welcoming white wine.
    “You must be Eddie,” the flaxen-haired Mrs. Haydock observed. That's when Ed Foley noticed the maternity dress. She was about six months gone, by the look of her. So the briefings had been right in every detail. Foley trusted CIA, but he'd learned the hard way to verify everything, from the names of people living on the same floor to whether the toilet flushed reliably. Especially in Moscow, he thought, heading for the bathroom. Nigel followed.
    “The plumbing works reliably here, but it is noisy. No one complains,” Haydock explained.
    Ed Foley flipped the handle and, sure enough, it was noisy.
    “Fixed that myself. Bit of a handyman, you see,” he said. Then, more quietly, “Be careful where you speak in this place, Ed. Bloody bugs everywhere. Especially the bedrooms. The bloody Russians like to count our orgasms, so it seems. Penny and I try not to disappoint.” A sly grin. Well, to some cities you brought your own nightlife.
    “Two years here?” The toilet seemed to run forever. Foley was tempted to lift the tank cover to see if Haydock had replaced the plumbing hardware inside with something special. He decided he didn't have to look to check that.
    “Twenty-nine months. Seven to go. It's a lively place to work. I'm sure they told you, everywhere you go, you'll have a 'friend' handy. Don't underestimate them, either. The Second Directorate chaps are thoroughly trained…” The toilet ran its course, and Haydock changed his voice. “The shower—the hot water is pretty reliable, but the spray pipe, it rattles, just like the one in our flat…” He turned the faucet to demonstrate. Sure enough, it rattled. Had someone worked on the wall to loosen it? Ed wondered. Probably. Probably this very handyman with him.
    “Perfect.”
    “Yes, you will get a lot of work done in here. Shower with a friend and save water—isn't that what they say in California?”
    Foley managed his first laugh in Moscow. “Yeah, that's what they say, all right.” He gave his visitor a look. He was surprised that Haydock had