Zaitzevs were spirited out of the hotel they were staying. Accompanied by Ryan, they are then smuggled to Yugoslavia, where they immediately fly to the United Kingdom. By then, SIS agents had planted dead bodies that are physically identical to the family in their hotel room, which was then set on fire, thus deceiving the KGB. After settling down in a safehouse outside Manchester, Zaitzev reveals what he knows about the assassination plot, which alarms the SIS and the CIA. Ryan was later sent to St. Peter's Square in Vatican City to accompany the British SIS officers on the ground to ascertain how the hit on the pope will play out, as well as to try capturing the shooter. At the pope's weekly audience, Ryan manages to capture Strokov; however, the Pope gets shot anyway by the real shooter Ağca. Nevertheless, the pontiff recovers from his wounds. It was then revealed that Strokov was executed by the British as retaliation for murdering Soviet defector Georgi Markov on British soil four years ago. Characters Oleg Ivanovich Zaitzev: Communications officer in the Committee for State Security, later a conscience defector to the United States (known in the CIA lexicon as "Rabbit") Jack Ryan: Central Intelligence Agency liaison to the Secret Intelligence Service Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov: KGB chairman Colonel Boris Andreyevich Strokov: Bulgarian KDS intelligence officer working for the KGB Ed Foley: CIA chief of station in Moscow, under cover as embassy press attaché Mary Pat Foley: CIA operative, Ed Foley's wife Sir Basil Charleston: Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service Simon Harding: SIS analyst who works directly with Ryan Arthur Moore: Director of Central Intelligence James Greer: CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence Robert Ritter: CIA Deputy Director of Operations. Distrustful of Ryan, an analyst, taking part in field operations. Cathy Ryan: Clinical instructor in ophthalmic surgery on an exchange program at St. Guy's Hospital, London; Jack Ryan's wife Themes Red Rabbit takes elements from Frederick Forsyth's thriller novel The Day of the Jackal (1973), although the assassin "is never so fully realized nor as sympathetic as the Jackal". Additionally in the novel, Clancy discusses the tradecraft of espionage, as well as life in Moscow before the fall of Communism. Reception The novel received mixed reviews. One of its problems is wrong timing; Marc Cerasini pointed out in his essay on the novel: "After the history-making events of September 11, 2001, a nostalgic