Patriot games - Tom Clancy [161]
Cathy was lying in her single-bed room. Her arm was in a cast. An enormous purple bruise covered the right side of her face and there was a bandage over half her forehead. Her eyes were open but almost lifeless, staring at a television that wasn't on. Jack moved toward her as though asleep. A nurse had set a chair alongside the bed. He sat in it, and took his wife's hand while he tried to think of something he could say to the wife he had failed. Her face turned toward his. Her eyes were blackened and full of tears.
"I'm sorry. Jack," she whispered.
"What?"
"I knew she was fooling with the seat belt, but I didn't do anything because I was in a hurry-and then that truck came, and I didn't have time to-if I had made sure she was strapped in, Sally would be fine but I was in a hurry," she finished, and looked away. "Jack, I'm so sorry."
My God, she thinks it's her fault what do I say now?
"She's going to be okay, babe," Ryan managed to say, stunned at what he'd just heard. He held Cathy's hand to his face and kissed it. "And so are you. That's the only thing that matters now."
"But-" She stared at the far wall.
"No 'buts.' "
Her face turned back. Cathy tried to smile but tears were rolling from her eyes. "I talked to Doctor Ellingstone at Hopkins -he came over and saw Sally. He says-he says she'll be okay. He says that Shapiro saved her life."
"I know."
"I haven't even seen her-I remember seeing the bridge and then I woke up two hours ago, and-oh, Jack!" Her hand closed on his like a claw. He leaned forward to kiss her, but before their lips touched, both started weeping.
"It's okay, Cathy," Jack said, and he started to believe that it really was, or at least that it would be so again. His world had not ended, not quite.
But someone else's will, Ryan told himself. The thought was a quiet, distant one, voiced in a part of his mind that was already looking at the future while the present occupied his sight. Seeing his wife weeping tears caused by someone else started a cold rage in him which only that someone's death could ever warm.
The time for grief was already ending, carried away by his own tears. Though it had not yet happened, Ryan's intellect was already beginning to think of the time when his emotions would be at rest-most of them. One would remain. He would control it, but it would also control him. He would not feel like a whole man again until he was purged of it.
One can only weep for so long; it is as though each tear carries a finite amount of emotion away with it. Cathy stopped first. She used her hand to wipe her husband's face. She managed a real smile now. Jack hadn't shaved. It was like rubbing sandpaper.
"What time is it?"
"Ten-thirty." Jack didn't have to check his watch.
"You need sleep, Jack," she said. "You have to stay healthy, too."
"Yeah." Jack rubbed his eyes.
"Hi, Cathy," Robby said as he came through the door. "I've come to take him away from you."
"Good."
"We're checked into the Holiday Inn over on Lombard Street."
"We? Robby, you don't-"
"Stuff it, Jack," Robby said. "How are you, Cathy?"
"I have a headache you wouldn't believe."
"Good to see you smile," Robby said softly. "Sissy'll be up after lunch. Is there anything she can get for you?"
"Not right now. Thanks, Rob."
"Hang in there, Doc." Robby took Jack's arm and hauled him to his feet. "I'll have him back to you later today."
Twenty minutes later Robby led Jack into their motel room. He pulled a pill container from his pocket. "The doc said you should take one of these."
"I don't take pills."
"You're taking one of these, sport. It's a nice yellow one. That's not a request, Jack, it's an order. You need sleep. Here." Robby tossed them over and stared until Jack swallowed one. Ryan was asleep in ten minutes. Jackson made certain that the door was secured before settling down on the other bed. The pilot dreamed of seeing the people