Tom Clancy's Op-center Balance of Power - Tom Clancy [97]
His eyes were heavy and his thoughts became disjointed and Hood drifted off quickly. But his sleep was troubled. He didn't dream about Spain. He dreamt about his family. They were all driving together and laughing. Then they parked and walked down an anonymous Main Street somewhere. The kids and Sharon were eating ice cream cones. They continued laughing. The ice cream was melting fast and the more it dripped over their fists and clothes the more they laughed. Hood sulked beside them, feeling sad and then angry. Suddenly he stopped behind a parked car and slammed his fists on the trunk. His family continued to laugh, not at him but at the mess the ice cream was making. The three of them were ignoring him and he started to scream. His eyes snapped open-
Hood looked around. Then his eyes settled on the illuminated clock on the coffee table beside the couch. It had been only about twenty minutes since he'd shut his eyes. He lay back down, his head on the cushioned armrest. He closed his eyes again.
There was nothing quite like waking from a bad dream. He always felt a tremendous relief because that world wasn't real. But the emotions it aroused were genuine and that kept the sense of well-being from seeping deep inside. Then there were the people he dreamt about. Dreams always made them more real, more desirable.
Hood had had enough. He needed to talk to Sharon. He got up, turned on the desk light, and sat down. He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes then punched in her cell phone number. She answered quickly.
"Hello?"
Her voice was strong. She hadn't been sleeping.
"Hi," Hood said. "It's me."
"I know," Sharon said. "It's kind of late for anyone else to be calling."
"I guess it is," Hood said. "How are the kids?"
"Good."
"And how are you?"
"Not so good," Sharon told him. "How about you?"
"The same."
"Is it work," she asked pointedly, "or us?"
That pinched. Why did women always assume the worst about men, that they were always preoccupied and upset about their jobs?
Because we usually are. Hood told himself. Somehow, when it was this late and this dark and this quiet, you just had to be honest with yourself.
"Work is what it always is," he answered. "We've got a crisis. Even with that, what I'm most upset about is you. About us."
"I'm only upset about you," Sharon replied.
"All right, hon," Hood said calmly. "You win that one."
"I don't want to 'win' anything," she said. "I just want to be honest. I want to figure out what we're going to do about this. Things can't continue the way they are. They just can't."
"I agree," Hood said. "That's why I've decided to resign."
Sharon was silent for a long moment. "You'd leave Op-Center?"
"What choice do I have?"
"The truth?" Sharon asked.
"Of course."
"You don't need to resign," she said. "What you need to do is spend less time there."
Hood was really annoyed. He'd been sincere. He'd played his hole card-a big one. And instead of giving her husband a big wet kiss, Sharon was telling him how he'd done that all wrong.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Hood asked. "Nobody can predict what's going to happen here."
"No, but you have backups," Sharon said. "There's Mike Rodgers. There's the night team."
"They're all very capable," Hood replied, "but they're here for when things are running smoothly. I have to be on top of a situation like this one, or like the one we had last time-"
"Where you were nearly killed!" she snapped.
"Yes, where I was nearly killed, Sharon," Hood said. He stayed