Without remorse - Tom Clancy [149]
'Nurses' station, O'Toole.'
'Sandy? It's John. Still getting out at three?'
'You do have good timing,' she said, allowing herself a private smile at her stand-up desk. 'The damn car is broke again.' And taxicabs cost too much.
'Want me to look at it?' Kelly asked.
'I wish somebody could fix it.'
'I make no promises,' she heard him say. 'But I come cheap.'
'How cheap?' Sandy asked, knowing what the reply would be.
'Permit me to buy you dinner? You can pick the place, even.'
'Yes, okay ... but...'
'But it's still too soon for both of us. Yes, ma'am, I know that. Your virtue is not endangered - honest.'
She had to laugh. It was just so incongruous that this big man could be so self-effacing. And yet she knew that she could trust him, and she was weary of cooking dinner for one, and being alone and alone and alone. Too soon or not, she needed company sometimes.
'Three-fifteen,' she told him, 'at the main entrance.'
'I'll even wear my patient bracelet.'
'Okay.' Another laugh, surprising another nurse who passed by the station with a trayful of medications. 'Okay, I said yes, didn't I?'
'Yes, ma'am. See you then,' Kelly said with a chuckle, hanging up.
Some human contact would be nice, he told himself, heading out the door. First Kelly headed to a shoe store, where he purchased a pair of black high-tops, size eleven. Then he found four more shoe stores, where he did the same, trying not to get the same brand, but he ended up with one duplicate pair even so. The same problem attended the purchase of bush jackets. He could find only two brand names for that type of garment, and ended up getting a pair of duplicates, then to discover that they were exactly the same, different only in the name tag inside the neck. Planned diversity in disguise, he found, was harder than he'd expected it to be, but that didn't lessen the necessity of sticking to his plan. On getting back to his apartment - he was, perversely, thinking of it as 'home' though he knew better - he stripped everything of tags and headed for the laundry room, where all the clothes went into the machine on a hot-hot cycle with plenty of Clorox bleach, along with the remaining dark-color clothes he'd picked up at yard sales. He was down to three clothing sets now, and realized he'd have to shop for more.
The thought evoked a frown. More yard sales, which he found tedious, especially now that he'd developed an operational routine. Like most men Kelly hated shopping, now all the more since his adventures were of necessity repetitive. His routine was also tiring him out, both from lack of sleep and the unremitting tension of his activity. None of it was routine, really. Everything was dangerous. Even though he was becoming accustomed to his mission, he would not become inured to the dangers, and the stress was there. That was partly good news in that he wasn't taking anything lightly, but stress could also wear at any man in little, hard-to-perceive ways such as the increased heart rate and blood pressure that resulted in fatigue. He was controlling it with exercise, Kelly thought, though sleep was becoming a problem. Аll in all it was not unlike working the weeds in 3rd SOG, but he was older now, and the lack of backup, the absence of companions to share the stress and ease the strain in the off-hours, was taking its toll. Sleep, he told himself, checking his watch. Kelly switched on the TV set in the bedroom, catching a noon news show.
'Another drug dealer was found dead in west Baltimore today,' the reporter announced.
'I know,' Kelly said back, fading out for his nap.
'Here's the story,' a Marine colonel said at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, while another was doing much the same thing at exactly the same time at Camp Pendleton, California. 'We have a special job. We're selecting volunteers exclusively from