Without remorse - Tom Clancy [90]
'One mistake from Song Tay,' Kelly said after a moment.
'What's that?'
'They probably overtrained. After a certain period of time, you're just dulling the edge. Pick the right people, and a couple of weeks, max, will handle it. Go further than that and you're just doing embroidery.'
'You're not the first person to say that,' Maxwell assured him.
'Will this be a SEAL job?'
'We're not sure yet. Kelly, I can give you two weeks while we work on other aspects of the mission.'
'How do I get in touch, sir?'
Maxwell dropped a Pentagon pass on the table. 'No phones, no mail, it's all face-to-face contact.'
Kelly stood and walked him out to the helicopter. As soon as the Admiral came into view, the flight crew started lighting up the turbine engines on the SH-2 SeaSprite. He grabbed the Admiral's arm as the rotor started turning.
'Was the Song Tay job burned?'
That stopped Maxwell in his tracks. 'Why do you ask?'
Kelly nodded. 'You just answered my question, Admiral.'
'We're not sure, Chief.' Maxwell ducked his head under the rotor and got into the back of the helicopter. As it lifted off, he found himself wishing again that Kelly had taken the invitation to officer-candidate school. The lad was smarter than he'd realized, and the Admiral made a note to look up his former commander for a fuller evaluation. He also wondered what Kelly would do on his formal recall to active duty. It seemed a shame to betray the boy's trust - it might be seen that way to him, Maxwell thought as the Sea-Sprite turned and headed northwest - but his mind and soul lingered with the twenty men believed to be in sender green, and his first loyalty had to be to them. Besides, maybe Kelly needed the distraction from his personal troubles. The Admiral consoled himself with that thought.
Kelly watched the helo disappear into the forenoon haze. Then he walked towards his machine shop. He'd expected that by this time today his body would be hurting and his mind relaxed. Strangely, the reverse was now true. The exercise at the hospital had paid off more handsomely than he'd dared to hope. There was still a problem with stamina, but his shoulder, after the usual start-up pain, had accepted the abuse with surprisingly good grace, and now having passed through the customary post-exercise agony, the secondary period of euphoria had set in. He'd feel good all day, Kelly expected, though he'd hit the bed early tonight in anticipation of yet another day's punishing exercise, and tomorrow he'd take a watch and start exercising in earnest by rating himself against the clock. The Admiral had given him two weeks. That was about the time he'd given to himself for his physical preparation. Now it was time for another sort.
Naval stations, whatever their size and purpose, were all alike. There were some things they all had to have. One of these was a machine shop. For six years there had been crashboats stationed at Battery Island, and to support them, there had to be machine tools to repair and fabricate broken machine parts. Kelly's collection of tools was the rough equivalent of what would be found on a destroyer, and had probably been purchased that way, the Navy Standard Mark One Mod Zero machine shop selected straight out of some service catalog. Maybe even the Air Force had the same thing for all he knew. He switched on a South Bend milling machine and began checking its various parts and oil reservoirs to make sure it would do what he wanted.
Attendant to the machine were numerous hand tools and gauges and drawers full of various steel blanks, just roughly machined metal shapes intended for further manufacturing into whatever specific purpose a technician might need. Kelly sat on a stool to decide exactly what he needed, then decided that he needed something else first. He took down the .45 automatic from its place on the wall,