Without remorse - Tom Clancy [224]
She took a deep breath. There was nothing more to be said.
'You said you're going away.'
'Yes. If things work out I should be back in about two weeks.'
'Will it be dangerous?'
'Not if I do it right.' Kelly knew she would see through that one.
'Doing what?'
'A rescue mission. That's as far as I can go, and please don't repeat that to anyone. I'm leaving tonight. I've been off training for it, down at a military base.'
It was Sandy's turn to look away, back towards the kitchen door. He wasn't giving her a chance. There were too many contradictions. He'd saved a girl who would otherwise have certainly died, but he'd killed to do it. He loved a girl who was dead. He was willing to kill others because of that love, to risk everything for it. He'd trusted her and Sarah and Sam. Was he a bad man or a good one? The mixture of facts and ideas was impossible to reconcile. Seeing what had happened to Doris, working so hard now to get her well, hearing her voice - and her father's - it had all made sense to her at the time. It was always easy to consider things dispassionately, when they were at a distance. But not now, faced with the man who had done it all, who explained himself calmly and directly, not lying, not concealing, just telling the truth, and trusting her, again, to understand.
'Vietnam?' she asked after a few moments, temporizing, trying to add more substance to a very muddled collection of thoughts.
'That's right.' Kelly paused. He had to explain it, just a little, to help her understand. 'There are some people over there who won't get back unless we do something, and I am part of it.'
'But why do you have to go?'
'Why me? It has to be somebody, and I'm the one they asked. Why do you do the things you do, Sandy? I asked that before, remember?'
'Damn you, John! I've started to care about you,' she blurted out.
The pain returned to his face one more time. 'Don't. You might get hurt again, and I wouldn't want that.' Which was exactly the wrong thing for him to say. 'People who get attached to me get hurt, Sandy.'
Sarah came in just then, leading Doris into the kitchen, for the moment saving both of them from themselves. The girl was transformed. Her eyes were animated now. Sandy had trimmed her hair and found decent clothes for her. She was still weak, but moving under her own power now. Her soft brown eyes fixed on Kelly.
'You're him,' she said quietly.
'I guess I am. How are you?'
She smiled. 'I'm going home soon. Daddy - Daddy wants me back.'
'I'm sure he does, ma'am,' Kelly said. She was so different from the victim he'd seen only a few weeks before. Maybe it did all mean something.
The same thought came into Sandy's mind just then. Doris was the innocent one, the real victim of forces that had descended on her, and but for Kelly, she would be dead. Nothing else could have saved her. Other deaths had been necessary, but - but what?
'So maybe it was Eddie,' Piaggi said. 'I told him to sniff around and he says he doesn't have anything.'
'And nothing's happened since you talked to him. Everything's back to normal, like,' Henry replied, telling Anthony Piaggi what he already knew and following with a conclusion that he had also considered. 'What if he was just trying to shake things up a little? What if he just wanted to be more important, Tony?'
'Possible.'
Which led to the next question: 'How much you want to bet that if Eddie takes a little trip, nothing else happens?'
'You think he's making a move?'
'You got anything else that makes sense?'
'Anything happens to Eddie, there could be trouble. I don't think I can -'
'Let me handle it? I have a way that'll work just fine.'
'Tell me about it,' Piaggi said. Two minutes later he nodded approval.
'Why did you come here?' Sandy asked while she and Kelly cleaned up the dinner table. Sarah took Doris back upstairs for more rest.
'I wanted to see how she was doing.' But that was a lie, and not an especially