Eddie Price, for example, had taken retirement as Regimental Sergeant Major of the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, and was now the Yeoman Gaoler at Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress, the Tower of London. John and Ding had both wondered if the UK’s Chief of State understood how much more secure her Palace and Fortress was today, and if Price’s ceremonial ax (the Yeoman Gaoler is the official executioner there) had a proper edge to it. For damned sure he still did his morning run and PT, and woe betide any member of the regular-Army security force quartered there who didn’t have his boots spit-shined, his gig-lines in order, and his rifle cleaner than when it had left the factory.
It was a damned shame that you had to get old, John Clark told himself, close enough to sixty to see the shadow of it, and the worst part of getting old was that you could remember being young, even the things best forgotten, in his case. Memories were a double-edged sword.
“Hey, Mr. C.,” said a familiar voice at the front door. “Hell of a day out, isn’t it?”
“Ding, we talked about this,” John said without turning.
“Sorry… John.”
It had taken John Clark years to get Chavez, colleague and son-in-law, to call him by his first name, and even now Ding was having trouble with it.
“Ready if somebody tries to hijack the flight?”
“Mr. Beretta is in his usual place,” Ding responded. They were among the handful of people in Britain who got to carry firearms, and such privileges were not lightly set aside.
“How are Johnny and Patsy?”
“The little guy is pretty excited about going home. We have a plan after we get there?”
“Not really. Tomorrow morning we make a courtesy call at Langley. I might want to drive over and see Jack in a day or two.”
“See if he’s leaving footprints on the ceiling?” Ding asked with a chuckle.
“More likely claw marks, if I know Jack.”
“Retirement ain’t fun, I suppose.” Chavez didn’t push it further. That was a touchy subject for his father-in law. Time passed, no matter how much you wished it wouldn’t.
“How’s Price handling it?”
“Eddie? He takes an even strain with life-that’s how you sailors say it, right?”
“Close enough for a doggie.”
“Hey, man, I said ‘sailor,’ not ‘squid.’”
“Duly noted, Domingo. I beg your pardon, Colonel.”
Chavez enjoyed the next laugh. “Yeah, I’m gonna miss that.”
“How’s Patsy?”
“Better than the last pregnancy. Looks great. Feels great-least she says she does. Not a big complainer, Patsy. She’s a good girl, John-but then again, I ain’t telling you anything you didn’t already know, am I?”
“Nope, but it’s always nice to hear it.”
“Well, I have no complaints.” And if he did, he’d have to approach the subject with great diplomacy. But he didn’t. “The chopper is waiting, boss,” he added.
“Damn.” A sad whisper.
Sergeant Ivor Rogers had the luggage well in hand, loaded in a green British Army truck for the drive to the helipad, and he was waiting outside for his personal Brigadier, which was John’s virtual rank. The Brits were unusually conscious of rank and ceremony, and he saw more of that when he got outside. He’d hoped to have a low-profile departure, but the locals weren’t thinking that way. As they rolled onto the helipad, there was the entire Rainbow force, the shooters, the Intel support, even the team armorers-Rainbow had the best three gunsmiths in all of Britain-formed up-the local term was “paraded”-in whatever uniforms they were authorized to wear. There was even a squad from the SAS. Stone-faced, they collectively snapped to Present Arms, in the elegant three-count movement the British Army had adopted several centuries earlier. Tradition could be a beautiful thing.
“Damn,” Clark muttered, getting out of the truck. He’d come pretty far for an old Navy chief bosun’s mate, but he’d taken a lot of strange steps along the way. Not knowing quite what to do, he figured he had to review the troops, as it were, and shake hands with all of them on the way to the MH-60K helicopter.
It took more time than he’d expected. Nearly every person there got a word or two with the handshake. They all deserved it. His mind went back to 3rd SOG, a lifetime before. These were as good as those, hard to believe though that might be. He’d been young, proud, and immortal back then. And remarkably, he hadn’t died of being immortal, as so many good men had. Why? Luck, maybe. No other likely explanation. He’d learned caution, mostly in Vietnam. Learned from seeing men who’d not been lucky go down hard from making some dumb mistake, often as simple as not paying attention. Some chances you had to take, but you tried to run them through your mind first and take only the necessary chances. Those were plenty bad enough.
Alice Foorgate and Helen Montgomery both gave him hugs. They’d been superb secretaries, and those were hard to find. Clark had been half tempted to try to find them jobs in the United States, but the Brits probably valued them as much as he had and would’ve put up a fight.
And finally Alistair Stanley, the incoming boss, was standing at the end.
“I’ll take good care of them, John,” he promised. They shook hands. There was not much else to be said. “Still no word on the next posting?”
“I expect they’ll tell me before the next check comes.” The government was usually good about getting the paperwork done. Not much else, of course, but paperwork, surely.
With nothing left to be said, Clark walked to the helicopter. Ding, Patsy, and J.C. were already strapped in, along with Sandy. J.C. especially loved flying, and he’d get a gut full in the next ten hours. On lifting off they turned southeast for Heathrow Terminal Four. Landing on their own pad, a van took them to the aircraft, and so they were absolved of passing through the magnetometers. It was a British Airways 777. The same type they’d flown over on four years earlier, then with the Basque terrorists aboard. They were in Spain, though in which prison and how the conditions were they’d never asked. Probably not the Waldorf Astoria.
Are we fired, John?” Ding asked as the aircraft rotated off the Heathrow tarmac.
“Probably not. Even if we are, they’re not going to call it that. They might make you a training officer down at The Farm. Me…? Well, they can keep me on the payroll a year or two, maybe I can hold down a desk in the operations center until they take my parking sticker away. We’re too senior to fire. Not worth the paperwork. They’re afraid we might talk to the wrong reporter.”
“Yeah, you still owe Bob Holtzman a lunch, don’t you?”
John almost spilled his preflight champagne at that reminder. “Well, I did give my word, didn’t I?”
They sat in silence for a few minutes, then Ding said, “So we make a courtesy call on Jack?”
“We kinda sorta gotta, Domingo.”
“I hear you. Hell, Jack Junior’s out of school now, isn’t he?”
“Yeah. Not sure what he’s doing, though.”
“Some rich-kid job, I bet. Stocks and bonds, money shit, I bet.”
“Well, what were you doing at that age?”
“Learning how to handle a dead drop from you, down at The Farm, and studying nights at George Mason University. Sleepwalking, mostly.”
“But you got your master’s, as I recall. Lot more than I ever got.”
“Yeah. I got a piece of paper that says I’m smart. You left dead bodies all over the world.” Fortunately, it was virtually impossible to bug an airliner’s cabin.
“Call it foreign-policy laboratory work,” Clark suggested, checking the first-class menu. At least British Airways pretended to serve decent food, though why airlines didn’t just stock up on Big Macs and fries still mystified him. Or maybe a Domino’s pizza. All the money they’d save-but the McDonald’s in the UK just didn’t seem to have the right beef. In Italy it was even worse. But their national dish was veal Milanese, and that had a Big Mac beat. “You worried?”