Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy returns to Jack Ryan's early days, in an extraordinary novel of global political drama. Long before becoming President, Jack Ryan is a novice CIA Analyst. One of his first assignments is to debrief a high-level Soviet defector who tells an amazing tale of officials planning to assassinate Pope John Paul II. In the end, however, it will not just be the Pope's life, but the stability of the Western world that is at stake.