by Tom Clancy
"I remind you of your oath to tell the truth—the whole, complete truth. Have you misled the court in any way, Doctor Ryan?"
"No, sir, absolutely not."
"Thank you, Doctor Ryan. I believe that question is now settled." Mr. Justice Wheeler turned back to his right. "Next question, Mr. Atkinson."
The barrister had to be angry at that, Ryan thought, but he didn't let it show. He wondered if someone had briefed the judge.
"You say that you shot my client merely in the hope that he would not get up?"
Richards stood. "My Lord, the witness has already—"
"If His Lordship will permit me to ask the next question, the issue will be more clear," Atkinson interrupted smoothly.
"Proceed."
"Doctor Ryan, you said that you shot my client in the hope that he would not get up. Do the U.S. Marine Corps teach one to shoot to disable, or to kill?"
"To kill, sir."
"And you are telling us, therefore, that you went against your training?"
"Yes, sir. It is pretty clear that I was not on a battlefield. I was on a city street. It never occurred to me to kill your client." I wish it had, then I probably wouldn't be here, Ryan thought, wondering if he really meant it.
"So you reacted in accordance with your training when you leaped into the fray on The Mall, but then you disregarded your training a moment later? Do you think it reasonable that all of us here will believe that?"
Atkinson had finally succeeded in confusing Ryan. Jack had not the slightest idea where this was leading.
"I haven't thought of it that way, sir, but, yes, you are correct," Jack admitted. "That is pretty much what happened."
"And next you crept to the corner of the automobile, saw the second person whom you had seen earlier, and instead of trying to disable him, you shot him dead without warning. In this case, it is clear that you reverted again to your Marine training, and shot to kill. Don't you find this inconsistent?"
Jack shook his head. "Not at all, sir. In each case I used the force necessary to—well, the force I had to use, as I saw things."
"I think you are wrong, Sir John. I think that you reacted like a hotheaded officer of the United States Marines throughout. You raced into a situation of which you had no clear understanding, attacked an innocent man, and tried then to kill him while he lay helpless and unconscious on the street. Next you coldly gunned down someone else without the first thought of trying to disarm him. You did not know then, and you do not know now what was really happening, do you?"
"No, sir, I do not believe that was the case at all. What was I supposed to have done with the second man?"
Atkinson saw an opening and used it. "You just told the court that you only wished to disable my client—when in fact you tried to kill him. How do you expect us to believe that when your next action had not the first thing to do with such a peaceful solution?"
"Sir, when I saw McCrory, the second gunman, for the first time, he had an AK-47 assault rifle in his hands. Going up against a light machine gun with a pistol—"
"But by this time you saw that he didn't have the Kalashnikov, didn't you?"
"Yes, sir, that's true. If he'd still had it—I don't know, maybe I wouldn't have stepped around the car, maybe I would have shot from cover, from behind the car, that is."
"Ah, I see!" Atkinson exclaimed. "Instead, here was your chance to confront and kill the man in true cowboy fashion." His hands went up in the air. "Dodge City on The Mall!"
"I wish you'd tell me what you think I should have done," Jack said with some exasperation.
"For someone able to shoot straight through the heart on his first shot, why not shoot the gun from his hand, Sir John?"
"Oh, I see." Atkinson had just made a mistake. Ryan shook his head and smiled. "I wish you'd make up your mind."
"What?" The barrister was caught by surprise.
"Mr. Atkinson, a minute ago you said that I tried to kill your client. I was at arm's-length range, but I didn't kill him. So I'm a pretty lousy shot. But you expect me to be able to hit a man in the hand at fifteen or twenty feet. It doesn't work that way, sir. I'm either a good shot or a bad shot, sir, but not both. Besides, that's just TV stuff, shooting a gun out of somebody's hand. On TV the good guy can do that, but TV isn't real. With a pistol, you aim for the center of your target. That's what I did. I stepped out from behind the car to get a clear shot, and I aimed. If McCrory had not turned his gun towards me—I can't say for sure, but probably I would not have shot. But he did turn and fire, as you can see from my shoulder—and I did return fire. It is true that I might have done things differently. Unfortunately I did not. I had—I didn't have much time to take action. I did the best I could. I'm sorry the man was killed, but that was his choice, too. He saw I had the drop on him, but he turned and fired—and he fired first, sir."
"But you never said a word, did you?"
"No, I don't think I did," Jack admitted.
"Don't you wish you'd done things differently?"
"Mr. Atkinson, if it makes you feel any better, I have gone over that again and again for the past four weeks. If I'd had more time to think, perhaps I would have done something different. But I'll never know, because I didn't have more time." Jack paused. "I suppose the best thing for all concerned would be if all this had never happened. But I didn't make it happen, sir. He did." Jack allowed himself to look at Miller again.
Miller was sitting in a straight-back wooden chair, his arms crossed in front of him, and head cocked slightly to the left. A smile started to take shape at one corner of his mouth. It didn't go very far, and wasn't supposed to. It was a smile for Ryan alone… or maybe not me alone, Jack realized. Sean Miller's gray eyes didn't blink—he must have practiced that—as they bored in on him from thirty feet away. Ryan returned the stare, careful to keep his face without expression, and while the court reporter finished up his transcription of Jack's testimony, and the visitors in the overhead gallery shared whispered observations, Ryan and Miller were all alone, testing each other's wills. What's behind those eyes? Jack wondered again. No weakling, to be sure. This was a game—Miller's game that he'd practiced before, Ryan thought with certainty. There was strength in there, like something one might encounter in a predatory animal. But there was nothing to mute the strength. There was none of the softness of morality or conscience, only strength and will. With four police constables around him, Sean Miller was as surely restrained as a wolf in a cage, and he looked at Ryan as a wolf might from behind the bars, without recognition of his humanity. He was a predator, looking at a… thing—and wondering how he might reach it. The suit and the tie were camouflage, as had been his earlier smile at his friends in the gallery. He wasn't thinking about them now. He wasn't thinking about what the court would decide. He wasn't thinking about prison, Jack knew. He was thinking only about something named Ryan, something he could see just out of his reach. In the witness box, Jack's right hand flexed in his lap as though to grasp the pistol which lay in sight on the evidence table a few feet away.
This wasn't an animal in a cage, after all. Miller had intelligence and education. He could think and plan, as a human could, but he would not be restrained by any human impulses when he decided to move. Jack's academic investigation of terrorists for the CIA had dealt with them as abstractions, robots that moved about and did things, and had to be neutralized one way or another. He'd never expected to meet one. More important, Jack had never expected to have one look at him in this way. Didn't he know that Jack was just doing his civic duty?
You could care less about that. I'm something that got in your way. I hurt you, killed your friend, and defeated your mission. You want to get even, don't you? A wounded animal will always seek out its tormentor. Jack told himself. And this wounded animal has a brain. This one has a memory. Out of sight to anyone else, he wiped a sweaty hand on his pants. This one is thinking.
Ryan was frightened in a way that he'd never known before. It lasted several seconds bef
ore he reminded himself that Miller was surrounded by four cops, that the jury would find him guilty, that he would be sentenced to prison for the remainder of his natural life, and that prison life would change the person or thing that lived behind those pale gray eyes.
And I used to be a Marine, Jack told himself. I'm not afraid of you. I can handle you, punk. I took you out once, didn't I? He smiled back at Sean Miller, just a slight curve at the corner of his own mouth. Not a wolf—a weasel. Nasty, but not that much to worry about, he told himself. Jack turned away as though from an exhibit in the zoo. He wondered if Miller had seen through his quiet bravado.
"No further questions," Atkinson said.
"The witness may step down," Mr. Justice Wheeler said.
Jack stood up from the stool and turned to find the way out. As he did so, his eyes swept across Miller one last time, long enough to see that the look and the smile hadn't changed.
Jack walked back out to the grand hall as another witness passed in the other direction. He found Dan Murray waiting for him.
"Not bad," the FBI agent observed, "but you want to be careful locking horns with a lawyer. He almost tripped you up."
"You think it'll matter?"
Murray shook his head. "Nah. The trial's a formality, the case is airtight."
"What'll he get?"
"Life. Normally over here 'life' doesn't mean any more than it does stateside—six or eight years. For this kid, 'life' means life. Oh, there you are, Jimmy."
Commander Owens came down the corridor and joined them. "How did our lad perform?"
"Not an Oscar winner, but the jury liked him," Murray said.
"How can you tell that?"
"That's right, you've never been through this, have you? They sat perfectly still, hardly even breathed while you were telling your story. They believed everything you said, especially the part about how you've thought and worried about it. You come across as an honest guy."
"I am," Ryan said. "So?"
"Not everybody is," Owens pointed out. "And juries are actually quite good at noticing it. That is, some of the time."
Murray nodded. "We both have some good—well, not so good—stories about what a jury can do, but when you get down to it, the system works pretty well. Commander Owens, why don't we buy this gentleman a beer?"
"A fine idea. Agent Murray." Owens took Ryan's arm and led him to the staircase:
"That kid's a scary little bastard, isn't he?" Ryan said. He wanted a professional opinion.
"You noticed, eh?" Murray observed. "Welcome to the wonderful world of the international terrorist. Yeah, he's a tough little son of a bitch, all right. Most of 'em are, at first."
"A year from now he'll have been changed a bit. He's a hard one, mind, but the hard ones are often rather brittle," Owens said. "They sometimes crack. Time is very much on our side, Jack. And even if he doesn't, that's one less to worry about."
"A very confident witness," the TV news commentator said. "Doctor Ryan fended off a determined attack by the defense counsel, Charles Atkinson, and identified defendant Sean Miller quite positively in the second day of The Mall Murder trial in Old Bailey Number Two." The picture showed Ryan walking down the hill from the courthouse with two men in attendance. The American was gesturing about something, then laughed as he passed the TV news camera.
"Our old friend Owens. Who's the other one?" O'Donnell asked.
"Daniel E. Murray, FBI representative at Grosvenor Square," replied his intelligence officer.
"Oh. Never saw his face. So that's what he looks like. Going out for a jar, I'll wager. The hero and his coat-holders. Pity we couldn't have had a man with an RPG right there… " They'd scouted James Owens once, trying to figure a way to assassinate him, but the man always had a chase car and never used the same route twice. His house was always watched. They could have killed him, but the getaway would have been too risky, and O'Donnell was not given to sending his men on suicide missions. "Ryan goes home either tomorrow or next day."
"Oh?" The intelligence officer hadn't learned that. Where does Kevin get all his special information…?
"Too bad, isn't it? Wouldn't it be grand to send him home in a coffin, Michael?"
"I thought you said he was not a worthwhile target," Mike McKenney said.
"Ah, but he's a proud one, isn't he? Crosses swords with our friend Charlie and prances out of the Bailey for a pint of beer. Bloody American, so sure of everything." Wouldn't it be nice to… Kevin O'Donnell shook his head. "We have other things to plan. Sir John can wait, and so can we."
"I practically had to hold a gun on somebody to get to do this," Murray said over his shoulder. The FBI agent was driving his personal car, with a Diplomatic Protection Group escort on the left front seat, and a chase car of C-13 detectives trying to keep up.
Keep your eyes on the damned road, Ryan wished as hard as he could. His exposure to London traffic to this point had been minimal, and only now did he appreciate that the city's speed limit was considered a matter of contempt by the drivers. Being on the wrong side of the road didn't help either.
"Tom Hughes—he's the Chief Warder—told me what he had planned, and I figured you might want an escort who talks right."
And drives right, Ryan thought as they passed a truck—lorry—on the wrong side. Or was it the right side? How do you tell? He could tell that they'd missed the truck's taillights by about eighteen inches. English roads were not impressive for their width.
"Damned shame you didn't get to see very much."
"Well, Cathy did, and I caught a lot of TV."
"What did you watch?"
Jack laughed. "I caught a lot of the replays of the cricket championships."
"Did you ever figure out the rules?" Murray asked, turning his head again.
"It has rules?" Ryan asked incredulously. "Why spoil it with rules?"
"They say it does, but damn if I ever figured them out. But we're getting even now."
"How's that?"
"Football is becoming pretty popular over here. Our kind, I mean. I gave Jimmy Owens a big runaround last year on the difference between offside and illegal procedure."
"You mean encroachment and false start, don't you?" the DPG man inquired.
"See? They're catching on."
"You mean I could have gotten football on TV, and nobody told me!"
"Too bad, Jack," Cathy observed.
"Well, here we are." Murray stood on the brakes as he turned downhill toward the river. Jack noticed that he seemed to be heading the wrong way down a one-way street, but at least he was going more slowly now. Finally the car stopped. It was dark. The sunset came early this time of year.
"Here's your surprise." Murray jumped out and got the door, allowing Ryan to repeat his imitation of a fiddler crab exiting from a car. "Hi, there, Tom!"
Two men approached, both in Tudor uniforms of blue and red. The one in the lead, a man in his late fifties, came directly to Ryan.
"Sir John, Lady Ryan, welcome to Her Majesty's Tower of London. I am Thomas Hughes, this is Joseph Evans. I see that Dan managed to get you here on time." Everyone shook hands.
"Yeah, we didn't even have to break mach-1. May I ask what the surprise is?"
"But then it wouldn't be a surprise," Hughes pointed out. "I had hoped to conduct you around the grounds myself, but there's something I must attend to. Joe will see to your needs, and I will rejoin you shortly." The Chief Warder walked off with Dan Murray in his wake.
"Have you been to the Tower before?" Evans asked. Jack shook his head.
"I have, when I was nine," Cathy said. "I don't remember very much."
Evans motioned for them to come along with him. "Well, we'll try to implant the knowledge more permanently this time."
"You guys are all soldiers, right?"
"Actually, Sir John, we are all ex-sergeant majors—well, two of us were warrant officers. I was sergeant major in 1 Para when I retired. I had to wait four years to get accepted here. There is quite a
bit of interest in this job, as you might imagine. The competition is very keen."
"So, you were what we call a command sergeant-major, sir?"
"Yes, I think that's right."
Ryan gave a quick look to the decorations on Evans' coat—it looked more like a dress, but he had no plans to say that. Those ribbons didn't mean that Evans had come out of the dentist's office with no cavities. It didn't take much imagination to figure what sort of men got appointed to this job. Evans didn't walk; he marched with the sort of pride that took thirty years of soldiering to acquire.
"Is your arm troubling you, sir?"
"My name's Jack, and my arm's okay."
"I had a cast just like that one back in sixty-eight, I think it was. Training accident," Evans said with a rueful shake of his head. "Landed on a stone fence. Hurt like the very devil for weeks."
"But you kept jumping." And did your push-ups one-handed, didn't you?
"Of course." Evans stopped. "Right, now this imposing edifice is the Middle Tower. There used to be an outer structure right there where the souvenir shop is. They called it the Lion Tower, because that's where the royal menagerie was kept until 1834."
The speech was delivered as perfectly as Evans had done, several times per day, for the past four years. My first castle, Jack thought, looking at the stone walls.
"Was the moat for-real?"
"Oh, yes, and a very unpleasant one at that. The problem, you see, was that it was designed so that the river would wash in and out every day, thereby keeping it fresh and clean. Unfortunately the engineer didn't do his sums quite right, and once the water came in, it stayed in. Even worse, everything that got thrown away by the people living here was naturally enough thrown into the moat—and stayed there, and rotted. I suppose it served a tactical purpose, though. The smell of the moat alone must have been sufficient to keep all but the most adventurous chaps away. It was finally drained in 1843, and now it serves a really useful purpose—the children can play football there. On the far side are swings and jungle gyms. Do you have children?"
"One and a ninth," Cathy answered.
"Really?" Evans smiled in the darkness. "Bloody marvelous! I suppose that's one Yank who will be forever—at least a little—British! Moira and I have two, both of them born overseas. Now this is the Byward Tower."