"You know, it'll be nice to get back to Annapolis. At least the mids believe I'm a teacher!"
"Quite," Watkins noted. And the head of SIS is asking you for an opinion on Trafalgar. What exactly are you, Ryan? After leaving military service in 1972 and joining the Foreign Office, Watkins had often played the foreign service officer's embassy game: Who's the spook? He was getting mixed signals from Ryan, and this made the game all the more interesting. Watkins loved games. All sorts.
"How do you keep yourself busy now, Geoff?" Holmes asked.
"You mean, aside from the twelve-hour days? I do manage to read the occasional book. I just started going through Moll Flanders again."
"Really?" Holmes asked. "I just started Robinson Crusoe a few days ago. One sure way of getting one's mind off the world is to return to the classics."
"Do you read the classics, Doctor Ryan?" Watkins asked.
"Used to. Jesuit education, remember? They don't let you avoid the old stuff." Is Moll Flanders a classic? Jack wondered. It's not in Latin or Greek, and it's not Shakespeare…
" 'Old stuff. What a terrible attitude!" Watkins laughed.
"Did you ever try to read Virgil in the original?" Ryan asked.
"Arma virumque cano, trojae qui primus ab oris…?"
"Geoff and I attended Winchester together," Holmes explained. "Contiquere omnes, intenteque ora tenebant… " Both public school graduates had a good chuckle.
"Hey, I got good marks in Latin, I just don't remember any of it," Ryan said defensively.
"Another colonial philistine," Watkins observed.
Ryan decided that he didn't like Mr. Watkins. The foreign-service officer was deliberately hitting him to get reactions, and Ryan had long since tired of this game. Ryan was happy with what he was, and didn't need a bunch of amateur pshrinks, as he called them, to define his personality for him.
"Sorry. Where I live we have slightly different priorities."
"Of course," Watkins replied. The smile hadn't changed a whit. This surprised Jack, though he wasn't sure why.
"You live not far from the Naval Academy, don't you? Wasn't there some sort of incident there recently?" Sir Basil asked. "I read about it in some report somewhere. I never did get straight on the details."
"It wasn't really terrorism—just your basic crime, A couple of midshipmen saw what looked like a drug deal being made in Annapolis, and called the police. The people who got arrested were members of a local motorcycle gang. A week later, some of the gang members decided to take the mids out. They got past the Jimmy Legs—the civilian security guards—about three in the morning and sneaked into Bancroft Hall. They must have assumed that it was just another college dorm—not hardly. The kids standing midwatch spotted them, got the alarm out, and then everything came apart. The intruders got themselves lost—Bancroft has a couple of miles of corridors—and cornered. It's a federal case since it happened on government property, and the FBI takes a very dim view of people who try to tamper with witnesses. They'll be gone for a while. The good news is that the Marine guard force at the Academy has been beefed up, and it's a lot easier to get in and out now."
"Easier?" Watkins asked. "But—"
Jack smiled. "With Marines on the perimeter, they leave a lot more gates open—a Marine guard beats a locked gate any day."
"Indeed. I—" Something caught Charleston's eye. Ryan was facing the wrong way to see what it was, but the reactions were plain enough. Charleston and Holmes began to disengage, with Watkins making his way off first. Jack turned in time to see the Queen appear at the door, coming past a servant.
The Duke was at her side, with Cathy trailing a diplomatically defined distance behind and to the side. The Queen came first to him.
"You are looking much better."
Jack tried to bow—he thought he was supposed to—without endangering the Queen's life with his cast. The main trick was standing still, he'd learned. The weight of the thing tended to induce a progressive lean to the left. Moving around helped him stay upright.
"Thank you, Your Majesty. I feel much better. Good evening, sir."
One thing about shaking hands with the Duke, you knew there was a man at the other end. "Hello again, Jack. Do try to be at ease. This is completely informal. No receiving line, no protocol. Relax."
"Well, the champagne helps."
"Excellent," the Queen observed. "I think we'll let you and Caroline get reacquainted for the moment." She and the Duke moved off.
"Easy on the booze, Jack." Cathy positively glowed in a white cocktail dress so lovely that Ryan forgot to wonder what it had cost. Her hair was nicely arranged and she had makeup on, two things that her profession regularly denied her. Most of all, she was Cathy Ryan. He gave his wife a quick kiss, audience and all.
"All these people—"
"Screw 'em," Jack said quietly. "How's my favorite girl?"
Her eyes sparkled with the news, but her voice was deadpan professionaclass="underline"
"Pregnant."
"You sure—when?"
"I'm sure, darling, because, A, I'm a doctor, and B, I'm two weeks late. As to when, Jack, remember when we got here, as soon as we put Sally down to bed… It's those strange hotel beds, Jack." She took his hand. "They do it every time."
There wasn't anything for Jack to say. He wrapped his good arm around her shoulders and squeezed as discreetly as his emotions would allow. If she was two weeks late—well, he knew Cathy to be as regular as her Swiss watch. I'm going to be a daddy—again!
"We'll try for a boy this time," she said.
"You know that's not important, babe."
"I see you've told him." The Queen returned as quietly as a cat. The Duke, Jack saw, was talking to Admiral Charleston. About what? he wondered. "Congratulations, Sir John."
"Thank you, Your Majesty, and thank you for a lot of things. We'll never be able to repay you for all your kindness."
The Christmas-tree smile again. "It is we who are repaying you. From what Caroline tells me, you will now have at least one positive reminder of your visit to our country."
"Indeed, ma'am, but more than one." Jack was learning how the game was played.
"Caroline, is he always so gallant?"
"As a matter of fact, ma'am, no. We must have caught him at a weak moment," Cathy said. "Or maybe being over here is a civilizing influence."
"That is good to know, after all the horrid things he said about your little Olivia. Do you know that she refused to go to bed without kissing me goodnight? Such a lovely, charming little angel. And he called her a menace!"
Jack sighed. It wasn't hard for him to get the picture. After three weeks in this environment, Sally was probably doing the cutest curtsies in the history of Western Civilization. By this time the Palace staff was probably fighting for the right to look after her. Sally was a true daddy's girl. The ability to manipulate the people around her came easily. She'd practiced on her father for years.
"Perhaps I exaggerated, ma'am."
"Libelously." The Queen's eyes flared with amusement. "She has not broken a single thing. Not one. And I'll have you know that she's turning into the best equestrienne we have seen in years."