Without remorse - Tom Clancy [139]
He was still pondering that one when he turned onto her street.
'Your house needs some paint,' Kelly told her, glad that it did.
'I know. I can't afford painters and I don't have the time to do it myself.'
'Sandy - a suggestion?'
'What's that?'
'Let yourself live. I'm sorry Tim's gone, but he is gone. I lost friends over there, too. You have to go on.'
The fatigue in her face was painful to see. Her eyes examined him in a professional sort of way, revealing nothing of what she thought or what she felt inside, but the fact that she troubled herself to conceal herself from him told Kelly something.
Something's changed in you. I wonder what it is. I wonder why, Sandy thought. Something had resolved itself. He'd always been polite, almost funny in his overpowering gentility, but the sadness she'd seen, that had almost matched her own undying grief, was gone now, replaced with something she couldn't quite fathom. It was strange, because he had never troubled to hide himself from her, and she thought herself able to penetrate whatever disguises he might erect. On that she was wrong, or perhaps she didn't know the rules. She watched him get out, walk around the car, and open her door.
'Ma'am?' He gestured toward the house.
'Why are you so nice? Did Doctor Rosen ... ?'
'He just said you needed a ride, Sandy, honest. Besides, you look awful tired.' Kelly walked her to the door.
'I don't know why I like talking to you,' she said, reaching the porch steps.
'I wasn't sure that you did. You do?'
'I think so,' O'Toole replied, with an almost-smile. The smile died after a second. 'John, it's too soon for me.'
'Sandy, it's too soon for me, too. Is it too soon to be friends?'
She thought about that. 'No, not too soon for that.'
'Dinner sometime? I asked once, remember?'
'How often are you in town?'
'More now. I have a job - well, something I have to do in Washington.'
'Doing what?'
'Nothing important.' And Sandy caught the scent of a lie, but it probably wasn't one aimed at hurting her.
'Next week maybe?'
'I'll give you a call. I don't know any good places around here.'
'I do.'
'Get some rest,' Kelly told her. He didn't attempt to kiss her, or even take her hand. Just a friendly, caring smile before he walked away. Sandy watched him drive off, still wondering what there was about the man that was different. She'd never forget the look on his face, there on the hospital bed, but whatever that had been, it wasn't something she needed to fear.
Kelly was swearing quietly at himself as he drove away, wearing the cotton work gloves now, and rubbing them across every surface in the car that he could reach. He couldn't risk many conversations like this one. What was it all about? How the hell was he supposed to know? It was easy in the field. You identified the enemy, or more often somebody told you what was going on and who he was and where he was - frequently the information was wrong, but at least it gave you a starting place. But mission briefs never told you, really, how it was going to change the world or bring the war to an end. That was stuff you read in the paper, information repeated by reporters who didn't care, taken down from briefers who didn't know or politicians who'd never troubled themselves to find out. 'Infrastructure' and 'cadre' were favorite words, but he'd hunted people, not infrastructure, whatever the hell that was supposed to be. Infrastructure was a thing, like what Sandy fought against. It wasn't a person who did evil things and could be hunted down like an offensive big-game animal. And how did that apply to what he was doing now? Kelly told himself that he had to control his thinking, stay to the easy stuff, just remember that he was hunting people, just as he had before. He wasn't going to change the whole world, just clean up one little corner.
'Does it still hurt,