Patriot games - Tom Clancy [217]
Jack shook his head. Robby was wrong, but he knew of no way to persuade his friend otherwise. His code was that of the warrior, who had to live by civilized rules. Rule Number One was: You don't deliberately harm the helpless. It was bad enough when that happened by accident. To do so on purpose was cowardly, beneath contempt; those who did so merited only death. They were beyond the pale.
"They're playing a goddamned game, Jack," the pilot went on. "There's even a song about it. I heard it at Riordan's on St. Patrick's Day. 'I've learned all my heroes and wanted the same/To try out my hand at the patriot game.' Something like that." Jackson shook his head in disgust. "War isn't a game, it's a profession. They play their little games, and call themselves patriots, and go out and kill little kids. Bastards. Jack, out in the fleet, when I'm driving my Tomcat, we play our games with the Russians. Nobody gets killed, because both sides are professionals. I don't much like the Russians, but the boys that fly the Bears know their stuff. We know our stuff, and both sides respect the other. There's rules, and both sides play by 'em. That's the way it's supposed to be."
"The world isn't that simple, Robby," Jack said quietly.
"Well, it damned well ought to be!" Jack was surprised at how worked up his friend was about this. "You tell those guys at CIA: find 'em for us, then get somebody to give the order, and I'll escort the strike in."
"The last two times we did that we lost people," Ryan pointed out.
"We take our chances. That's what they pay us for. Jack."
"Yeah, but before you toss the dice again, we want you over for dinner."
Jackson grinned sheepishly. "I won't bring my soap box with me, I promise. Dressy?"
"Robby, am I ever dressy?"
"I told 'em it wasn't dressy," Jack said afterward.
"Good," his wife agreed.
"I thought you'd say that." He looked up at his wife, her skin illuminated by moonlight. "You really are pretty."
"You keep saying that-"
"Don't move. Just stay where you are." He ran his hand across her flanks.
"Why?"
"You said this is the last time for a while. I don't want it to be over yet."
"The next time you can be on top," she promised.
"It'll be worth waiting for, but you won't be as beautiful as you are now."
"I don't feel beautiful at the moment."
"Cathy, you are talking to an expert," her husband pronounced. "I am the one person in this house who can give out a dispassionate appraisal of the pulchritude of any female human being, living or dead, and I say that you are beautiful. End of discussion."
Cathy Ryan took her own appraisal. Her belly was disfigured by gross-looking stretch marks, her breasts were bloated and sore, her feet and ankles swollen, and her legs were knotting up from her current position. "Jack, you are a dope."
"She never listens," he told the ceiling.
"It's just pheromones," she explained. "Pregnant women smell different and it must tickle your fancy somehow or other."
"Then how come you're beautiful when my nose is stuffy? Answer me that!"
She reached down to twist her fingers in the hair on his chest. Jack started squirming. It tickled. "Love is blind."
"When I kiss you, my eyes are always open."
"I didn't know that!"
"I know," Jack laughed quietly. "Your eyes are always closed. Maybe your love is blind, but mine isn't." He ran his fingertips over her abdomen. It was still slick from the baby oil she used to moisturize her skin. Jack found this a little kinky. His fingertips traced circles on the taut, smooth surface.
"You're a throwback. You're something out of a thirties movie." She started squirming now. "Stop that."
"Errol Flynn never did this in the movies," Jack noted, without stopping that.
"They had censors then."
"Spoilsports. Some people are just no fun." His hands expanded their horizons. The next target was the base