Without remorse - Tom Clancy [341]
'Henry Tucker won't kill any more girls. I accomplished that. I never expected to do any more, but I took that drug operation down.' Kelly paused. There was something else this man needed to know. 'There's a cop at that building. I think he was dirty. Tucker and Piaggi shot him. Maybe he can come out of this a hero. There's a load of stuff there. It won't look too bad for your department that way.' And thank God I didn't have to kill a cop - even a bad one. 'I'll give you one more. I know how Tucker was getting his stuff in.' Kelly elaborated briefly.
'I can't just let you go,' the detective said again, though part of him wished it were otherwise. But that couldn't be, and he would not have made it so, for his life had rules, too.
'Can you give me an hour? I know you'll keep looking. One hour. It'll make things better for everybody.'
The request caught Ryan by surprise. It was against everything he stood for - but then, so were the monsters the man had killed. We owe him something... would I have cleared those cases without him? Who would have spoken for the dead... and besides, what could the guy do - where could he go?... Ryan, have you gone nuts? Yes, maybe he had ...
'You've got your hour. After that I can recommend you to a good lawyer. Who knows, a good one might just get you off.'
Ryan rose and headed for the side door without looking back. He stopped at the door just for a second.
'You spared when you could have killed, Mr Kelly. That's why. Your hour starts now.'
Kelly didn't watch him leave. He hit his engine controls, wanning up the diesels. One hour should just about do it. He scrambled out on the deck, slipping his lines, leaving them attached to the dock piles, and by the time he got back inside the salon, the diesels were ready for turning. They caught at once, and he pivoted the boat, heading out into the harbor. As soon as he was out of the yacht basin he firewalled both throttles, bringing Springer to her top speed of twenty-two knots. With the channel empty, Kelly set his autopilot and rushed to make the necessary preparations. He cut the corner at Bodkin Point. He had to. He knew who they'd send after him.
'Coast Guard, Thomas Point.'
This is the Baltimore City Police.'
Ensign Tomlinson took the call. A new graduate of the Coast Guard Academy at New London, he was here for seasoning, and though he ranked the Chief Warrant Officer who ran the station, both the boy and the man understood what this was all about. Only twenty-two, young enough that his gold officer's bars still had the original shine, it was time to turn him loose on a mission, Paul English thought, but only because Portagee would really be running things. Forty-One-Bravo, the second of the station's big patrol craft, was warmed up and ready. The young ensign sprinted out, as though they might leave without him, much to the amusement of CWO English. Five seconds after the lad had snapped on his life vest, Forty-One-Bravo rumbled away from the dock, turning north short of the Thomas Point Light.
The man sure didn't give me any slack, Kelly thought, seeing the cutter closing from starboard. Well, he'd asked for an hour, and an hour he'd received. Kelly almost flipped on his radio for a parting salute, but that wouldn't have been right, and more was the pity. One of his diesels was running hot, and that was also a pity, though it wouldn't be running hot much longer.
It was a kind of race now, and there was a complication, a large French freighter standing out to sea; right where Kelly needed to be, and he would soon be caught between her and the Coast Guard.
'Well, here we are,' Ritter said, dismissing the security guard who'd followed them like a shadow all afternoon. He pulled a ticket from his pocket. 'First class. The booze is free, Colonel.' They'd been able to skip passport control on the strength of an earlier phone call.
'Thank you for your hospitality.'
Ritter chuckled. 'Yeah, the US government's flown you three quarters of the