State of Siege - Tom Clancy [8]
"I don't know," she said. "What are you going to do when the children are gone? My own son's scratching on teenagerhood and I'm already thinking about what I'll do when he leaves for college." "What will you do?" Hood asked.
"Unless some wonderful, middle-aged guy with black hair and hazel eyes carries me off to Antigua or Tonga?" she asked. "Yes," Hood said, flushing. "If that doesn't happen. "I'll probably buy a house somewhere in the middle of one of those islands and write. Real fiction. Not the stuff I give the Washington Press Corps every day. There are some stories I want to tell."
The former political reporter and one-time press secretary to Connecticut Senator Bob Kaufmann did indeed have stories to tell. Tales of spin-doctoring, affairs, and back-stabbing in the corridors of power.
Hood sighed. He looked at his depersonalized desk. "I don't know what I'll do. I've got some personal things to work on." "With your wife, you mean."
"With Sharon," he said softly. "If I succeed, then the future will take care of itself."
Hood had made a point of saying his wife's name because it made her seem more real, more present. He did that because Ann was pushing more than usual. This would be her last chance to talk to him here, where the memories of a long, close professional relationship, of triumph and mourning, and of sexual. tension were suddenly very vivid.
"Can I ask you something?" Ann said. "Sure."
Her eyes lowered. So did her voice. "How long will you give it?" "How long?" Hood said under his breath. He shook his head. "I don't know, Ann. I really don't." He looked at her for a long moment. "Now let me ask you something."
"Sure," she said. "Anything." Her eyes were even softer than before. He didn't understand why he was doing this to himself. "Why me?" he asked.
She seemed surprised. "Why do I care about you?" "Is that what this is? Care?"
"No," she admitted quietly. "Then tell me why," he pressed. "It isn't obvious?"
"No," he said. "Governor Vegas. Senator Kaufmann. The president of the United States. You've been close to some of the most dynamic men in the nation. I'm not like them. I ran from the arena, Ann." "No. You left it," she said. "There's a difference. You left because you were tired of the smears, of the political correctness, of having to watch every word. Honesty is very appealing, Paul. So is intelligence. So is keeping cool when all those charismatic politicians and generals and foreign leaders are running around swinging their sabres."
"Steady Paul Hood," he said.
"What's wrong with that?" Ann asked.
"I don't know," Hood said. He stood and picked up the carton. "What I do know is that something's wrong somewhere in my life, and I need to find out what it is."
Ann also rose. "Well, if you need any help looking for it, I'm available. If you want to talk, have coffee, dinner just call." "I will," Hood smiled. "And thanks for stopping by.,, "Sure," she said.
He motioned with the carton for Ann to go first. She left the office briskly, without looking back. If there was sadness or temptation in her eyes, Hood was spared both. He shut the office door behind him. It closed gently but with a solid, final click.
As he walked past the cubicles to the elevator, Hood accepted good wishes from the night team. He rarely saw them, since Bill Abram and Curt Hardaway ran things after seven. There were so many young faces. So many go-getters. Steady Paul Hood was definitely feeling like an antique.
Hopefully, the trip to New York would give him time to think, time to try and fix his relationship with Sharon. He reached the elevator, stepped in, and took a last look at the complex that had taken so much of his time and spirit-but had also given him those adrenaline jolts. There was no point lying to himself: He was going to miss it. All of it.
As the door shut, Hood found himself getting angry again. Whether he was angry at what he was leaving or what he was going to, he just didn't know. Op-Center psychologist Liz Gordon once told him that confusion was a term we'd invented to describe an order of