Read Online Jack Ryan 3 - Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Tom Clancy
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Jack?”
“I think the pot's going to simmer until the lid slides off, and then when it boils over, there's going to be a hell of a mess. The Poles haven't really bought into communism all that well. Their army has chaplains, for Christ's sake. A lot of their farmers operate on a free-agent basis, selling hams and stuff. The most popular TV show over there is Kojak, they even show it on Sunday morning to draw people away from going to church. That shows two things. The people there like American culture, and the government is still afraid of the Catholic Church. The Polish government is unstable, and they know they're unstable. Allowing a little wiggle room is probably smart, at least in the short term, but the fundamental problem is that they operate a fundamentally unjust regime. Unjust countries are not stable, sir. However strong they appear, they're rotten underneath.”
Charleston nodded thoughtfully. “I briefed the PM just three days ago out at Chequers, and told her much the same thing.” The Director General paused for a moment, then decided. He lifted a file folder from the pile on his desk and handed it across.
The cover read MOST SECRET. So, Jack thought, now it starts. He wondered if Basil had learned to swim by falling into the Thames, and thought everyone should learn the same way.
Flipping the cover open, he saw that this information came from a source called WREN. He was clearly Polish, and by the look of the report, well placed, and what he said—
“Damn,” Ryan observed. “This is reliable?”
“Very much so. It's a five-five, Jack.” By that he meant that the source was rated 5 on a scale of 5 for reliability, and the importance of the information reported was graded the same way. “You're Catholic, I think.” He knew, of course. It was just the English way of talking.
“Jesuits at high school, Boston College, and Georgetown, plus the nuns at Saint Matthew's. I'd better be.”
“What do you think of your new Pope?”
“First non-Italian in four centuries, maybe more: That's saying something right there. When I heard the new one was Polish, I expected it to be Cardinal Wiszynski from Warsaw—guy's got the brains of a genius and the cunning of a fox. This guy, I didn't know beans about, but from what I've read since, he's a very solid citizen. Good parish priest, good administrator, politically very astute…” Ryan paused. He was discussing the head of his church as though he were a political candidate, and he was damned sure there was more substance to him than that. This had to be a man of deep faith, with the sort of core convictions that an earthquake couldn't budge or crack. He'd been chosen by other such men to be the leader and spokesman for the world's largest church, which, by the way, also happened to be Ryan's church. He'd be a man who didn't fear much of anything, a man for whom a bullet was his get-out-of-jail-free card, a key to God's own presence. And he'd be a man who felt God's presence in everything he did. He was not someone you could scare, not someone you could turn away from what he deemed the right thing.
“If he wrote this letter, Sir Basil, it's not a bluff. When was it delivered?”
“Less than four days ago. Our chap broke a rule getting it to us so quickly, but its importance is patently clear, is it not?”
Welcome to London, Jack
, Ryan thought. He'd just fallen into the soup. A big pot, like they used to boil missionaries in the cartoons.
“Okay, it's been forwarded to Moscow, right?”
“So our chap tells us. So, Sir John, what will Ivan have to say about this?” And with that question, Sir Basil Charleston lit the fire under Jack's personal cauldron.
“That's a multifaceted question,” Ryan said, dodging as artfully as the situation allowed.
It wasn't very far: “He will say something,” Charleston observed, leveling his hazel eyes at Ryan.
“Okay, they won't like it. They will see it as a threat. The questions are how
“I think the pot's going to simmer until the lid slides off, and then when it boils over, there's going to be a hell of a mess. The Poles haven't really bought into communism all that well. Their army has chaplains, for Christ's sake. A lot of their farmers operate on a free-agent basis, selling hams and stuff. The most popular TV show over there is Kojak, they even show it on Sunday morning to draw people away from going to church. That shows two things. The people there like American culture, and the government is still afraid of the Catholic Church. The Polish government is unstable, and they know they're unstable. Allowing a little wiggle room is probably smart, at least in the short term, but the fundamental problem is that they operate a fundamentally unjust regime. Unjust countries are not stable, sir. However strong they appear, they're rotten underneath.”
Charleston nodded thoughtfully. “I briefed the PM just three days ago out at Chequers, and told her much the same thing.” The Director General paused for a moment, then decided. He lifted a file folder from the pile on his desk and handed it across.
The cover read MOST SECRET. So, Jack thought, now it starts. He wondered if Basil had learned to swim by falling into the Thames, and thought everyone should learn the same way.
Flipping the cover open, he saw that this information came from a source called WREN. He was clearly Polish, and by the look of the report, well placed, and what he said—
“Damn,” Ryan observed. “This is reliable?”
“Very much so. It's a five-five, Jack.” By that he meant that the source was rated 5 on a scale of 5 for reliability, and the importance of the information reported was graded the same way. “You're Catholic, I think.” He knew, of course. It was just the English way of talking.
“Jesuits at high school, Boston College, and Georgetown, plus the nuns at Saint Matthew's. I'd better be.”
“What do you think of your new Pope?”
“First non-Italian in four centuries, maybe more: That's saying something right there. When I heard the new one was Polish, I expected it to be Cardinal Wiszynski from Warsaw—guy's got the brains of a genius and the cunning of a fox. This guy, I didn't know beans about, but from what I've read since, he's a very solid citizen. Good parish priest, good administrator, politically very astute…” Ryan paused. He was discussing the head of his church as though he were a political candidate, and he was damned sure there was more substance to him than that. This had to be a man of deep faith, with the sort of core convictions that an earthquake couldn't budge or crack. He'd been chosen by other such men to be the leader and spokesman for the world's largest church, which, by the way, also happened to be Ryan's church. He'd be a man who didn't fear much of anything, a man for whom a bullet was his get-out-of-jail-free card, a key to God's own presence. And he'd be a man who felt God's presence in everything he did. He was not someone you could scare, not someone you could turn away from what he deemed the right thing.
“If he wrote this letter, Sir Basil, it's not a bluff. When was it delivered?”
“Less than four days ago. Our chap broke a rule getting it to us so quickly, but its importance is patently clear, is it not?”
Welcome to London, Jack
, Ryan thought. He'd just fallen into the soup. A big pot, like they used to boil missionaries in the cartoons.
“Okay, it's been forwarded to Moscow, right?”
“So our chap tells us. So, Sir John, what will Ivan have to say about this?” And with that question, Sir Basil Charleston lit the fire under Jack's personal cauldron.
“That's a multifaceted question,” Ryan said, dodging as artfully as the situation allowed.
It wasn't very far: “He will say something,” Charleston observed, leveling his hazel eyes at Ryan.
“Okay, they won't like it. They will see it as a threat. The questions are how
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