Without remorse - Tom Clancy [103]
'You do some pretty hard work, right?'
'Yes,' Sandy said, nodding a little.
'Why not do something easier? I mean, work a department where it's different, I don't know - the nursery, maybe? That's a happy place, right?'
'Pretty much,' the nurse admitted.
'It's still important, too, right? Taking care of little babies, it's routine, yeah, but it still has to be done the right way, doesn't it?'
'Of course.'
'But you don't do that. You work Neuro. You do the hard stuff.'
'Somebody has to -' Bingo! Kelly thought, cutting her off.
'It's hard - hard to do the work, hard on you - it hurts you some, right?'
'Sometimes.'
'But you do it anyway,' Kelly pointed out.
'Yes,' Sandy said, not as an admission, but something stronger.
'That's why Tim did what he did.' He saw the understanding there, or perhaps the beginnings of it, just for a moment before her lingering grief pushed the argument aside.
'It still doesn't make sense.'
'Maybe the thing doesn't make sense, but the people do,' Kelly suggested. That was about as far as his mind stretched. 'Sorry, I'm not a priest, just a broken-down Navy chief.'
'Not too broken down,' O'Toole said, finishing her lunch.
'And part of that is your doing, ma'am. Thank you.' That earned him another smile.
'Not all our patients get better. We're kind of proud of those who do.'
'Maybe we're all trying to save the world, Sandy, one little bit at a time,' Kelly said. He rose and insisted on walking her back to the unit. It took the whole five minutes to say what he wanted to say.
'You know, I'd like to have dinner with you, maybe? Not now, but, well -'
'I'll think about it,' she allowed, half dismissing the idea, half wondering about it, knowing as Kelly did that it was too soon for both of them, though probably not as much for her. What sort of man was this? she asked herself. What were the dangers of knowing him?
CHAPTER 13
Agendas
It was his first-ever visit to the Pentagon. Kelly felt ill at ease, wondering if he should have worn his khaki chiefs uniform, but his time for wearing that had passed. Instead he wore a blue lightweight suit, with a miniature of the Navy Cross ribbon on the lapel. Arriving in the bus and car tunnel, he walked up a ramp and searched for a map of the vast building, which he quickly scanned and memorized. Five minutes later he entered the proper office.
'Yes?' a petty officer asked.
'John Kelly, I have an appointment with Admiral Maxwell.' He was invited to take a seat. On the coffee table was a copy of Navy Times, which he hadn't read since leaving the service. But Kelly was able to control his nostalgia. The bitches and gripes he read about hadn't changed very much.
'Mr Kelly?' a voice called. He rose and walked through the open door. After it closed, a red do-not-disturb light blinked on to warn people off.
'How are you feeling, John?' Maxwell asked first of all.
'Fine, sir, thank you.' Civilian now or not, Kelly could not help feeling uneasy in the presence of a flag officer. That got worse at once when another door opened to admit two more men, one in civilian clothes, the other a rear admiral - another aviator, Kelly saw, with the medal of honor, which was even more intimidating. Maxwell did the introductions.
'I've heard a lot about you,' Podulski said, shaking the younger man's hand.
'Thank you, sir.' Kelly didn't know what else to say.
'Cas and I go back a ways,' Maxwell observed, handling the introductions. 'I got fifteen' - he pointed to the aircraft panel hanging on the wall - 'Cas