Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Books 1-6

by Tom Clancy

  “Hello, Sandy.” Kelly smiled, dressed decently again, in a tie and blue blazer. It was so obviously a disguise, and so different from the way she’d last seen the man, that even his appearance was disturbing.

  “Where have you been?” Sandy asked, waving him in, not wanting the neighbors to know.

  “Off doing something,” Kelly dodged.

  “Doing what?” The immediacy of her tone demanded a substantive response.

  “Nothing illegal, I promise,” was the best he could do.

  “You’re sure?” A very awkward moment developed out of thin air. Kelly just stood there, right inside the door, suddenly oscillating between anger and guilt, wondering why he’d come here, why he’d asked Admiral Maxwell for a very special favor, and not really knowing the answer now.

  “John!” Sarah called down the stairs, saving both from their thoughts.

  “Hey, doc,” Kelly called, and both were glad for the distraction.

  “Have we got a surprise for you!”

  “What?”

  Dr. Rosen came down the stairs, looking as frumpy as ever despite her smile. “You look different.”

  “I’ve been exercising pretty regularly,” Kelly explained.

  “What brings you here?” Sarah asked.

  “I’m going to be going somewhere, and I wanted to stop over before I left.”

  “Where to?”

  “I can’t say.” The answer chilled the room.

  “John,” Sandy said. “We know.”

  “Okay.” Kelly nodded. “I figured you would. How is she?”

  “She’s doing fine, thanks to you,” Sarah answered.

  “John, we need to talk, okay?” Sandy insisted. Dr. Rosen bent to her wishes and went back upstairs while nurse and former patient drifted into the kitchen.

  “John, what exactly have you been doing?”

  “Lately? I can’t say, Sandy. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  “I mean-I mean everything. What have you been up to?”

  “You’re better off not knowing, Sandy.”

  “Billy and Rick?” Nurse O’Toole said, putting it on the table.

  Kelly motioned his head to the second floor. “You’ve seen what they did to her? They won’t be doing that anymore.”

  “John, you can’t do things like that! The police—”

  “—are infiltrated,” Kelly told her. “The organization has compromised somebody, probably someone very high up. Because of that I can’t trust the police, and neither can you, Sandy,” he concluded as reasonably as he could.

  “But there are others. John. There are others who—” His statement finally penetrated. “How do you know that?”

  “I asked Billy some questions.” Kelly paused, and her face gave him yet more guilt. “Sandy, do you really think somebody is going to go out of his way to investigate the death of a prostitute? That’s what it is to them. Do you think anybody really cares about them? I asked you before, remember? You said that nobody even has a program to help them. You care. That’s why I brought her here. But do the cops? No. Maybe I could scratch up information to burn the drug ring. I’m not sure, it’s not what I’ve been trained for, but that’s what I’ve been doing. If you want to turn me in, well, I can’t stop you. I won’t hurt you—”

  “I know that!” Sandy almost screamed. “John, you can’t do this,” she added more calmly.

  “Why not?” Kelly asked. “They kill people. They do horrible things, and nobody’s doing anything about it. What about the victims, Sandy? Who speaks for them?”

  “The law does!”

  “And when the law doesn’t work, then what? Do we just let them die? Die like that? Remember the picture of Pam?”

  “Yes,” Sandy replied, losing the argument, knowing it, wishing it were otherwise.

  “They took hours on her, Sandy. Your—houseguest—watched. They made her watch. ”

  “She told me. She’s told us everything. She and Pam were friends. After—after Pam died, she’s the one who brushed Pam’s hair out, John.”

  The reaction surprised her. It was immediately clear that Kelly’s pain was behind a door, and some words could bring it out in the open with a sudden speed that punished him badly. He turned away for a moment and took a deep breath before turning back. “She’s okay?”

  “We’re going to take her home in a few days. Sarah and I will drive her there.”

  “Thanks for telling me that. Thank you for taking care of her.”

  It was the dichotomy that unsettled her so badly. He could talk about inflicting death on people so calmly, like Sam Rosen in a discussion of a tricky surgical procedure—and like the surgeon, Kelly cared about the people he—saved? Avenged? Was that the same thing? He thought so.

  “Sandy, it’s like this: They killed Pam. They raped and tortured and killed her—as an example, so they could use other girls the same way. I’m going to get every one of them, and if I die in the process, that’s the chance I’m going to take. I’m sorry if you don’t like me for that.”

  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. O
ther 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 good one.

  “It’s lonely, isn’t it?” Kelly took a long time to answer.

  “Yeah.” She’d forced him to face something. Being alone was not the sort of life he wanted to have, but fate and his own nature had forced it on him. Every time he’d reached out, something terrible had happened. Vengeance against those who had made his life into what it now was did make for a purpose, but it wasn’t enough to fill the void they’d created. And now it was clear that what he was doing, all of it, was merely distancing him from someone else. How did life get so complicated as this?

  “I can’t say it’s okay, John. I wish I could. Saving Doris was a fine thing, but not through killing people. There is supposed to be another way—”

  “—and if there isn’t, then what?”

  “Let me finish?” Sandy asked quietly.

  “Sorry.”

  She touched his hand. “Please be careful.”

  “I usually am, Sandy. Honest.”

  “What you’re doing, what you’re going off to, it’s not—”

  He smiled. “No, it’s a real job. Official stuff and everything.”

  “Two weeks?”

  “If it goes according to plan, yes.”

  “Will it?”

  “Sometimes it actually does.”

  Her hand squeezed his. “John, please, think it over. Please? Try to find another way. Let it go. Let it stop. You saved Doris. That’s a wonderful thing. Maybe with what you’ve learned you can save the others without—without any more killing?”

  “I’ll try.” He couldn’t say no to that, not with the warmth of her hand on his, and Kelly’s trap was that his word, once given, could not be taken back. “Anyway, I have other things to worry about now.” Which was true.

  “How will I know, John—I mean—”

  “About me?” He was surprised she would even want to know.

  “John, you can’t just leave me not knowing.”

  Kelly thought for a moment, pulled a pen from his coat, and wrote down a phone number. “This goes to a guy—an admiral named James Greer. He’ll know, Sandy.”

  “Please be careful.” Her grip and her eyes were desperate now.

  “I will. I promise. I’m good at this, okay?”

  So was Tim. She didn’t have to say it. Her eyes did, and Kelly understood how cruel it could be to leave anyone behind.

  “I have to go now, Sandy.”

  “Just make sure you come back.”

  “I will. Promise.” But the words sounded empty, even to him. Kelly wanted to kiss her but couldn’t. He moved away from the table, feeling her hand still on his. She was a tall woman, and very strong and brave, but she’d been hurt badly before, and it frightened Kelly that he might bring yet more pain to her life. “See you in a couple weeks. Say goodbye to Sarah and Doris for me, okay?”

  “Yes.” She followed him towards the front door. “John, when you get back, let it stop.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said without turning, because he was afraid to look at her again. “I will.”

  Kelly opened the door. It was dark outside now, and he’d have to hustle to get to Quantico on time. He could hear her behind him, hear her breathing. Two women in his life, one taken by an accident, one by murder, and now perhaps a third whom he was driving away all by himself.

  “John?” She hadn’t let go of his hand, and he had to turn back despite his fear.

  “Yes, Sandy?”

  “Come back.”

  He touched her face again, and kissed her hand, and drew away. She watched him walk to the Volkswagen and drive off.

  Even now, she thought. Even now he’s trying to protect me.

  Is it enough? Can I stop now? But what was “enough”?

  “Think it through,” he said aloud. “What do you know that others can use?”

  It was quite a lot, really. Billy had told him much, perhaps a sufficient amount. The drugs were processed on one of those wrecked ships. He had Henry’s name, and Burt’s. He knew a senior narcotics officer was in Henry’s employ. Could the police take that and spin it into a case firm enough to put them all behind bars for drug trafficking and murder? Might Henry get a death sentence? And if the answer to every question was yes, was that good enough?

  As much as Sandy’s misgivings, his association with the Marines had brought the same questions to the front of his mind. What would they think if they knew that they were associating with a murderer? Would they see it that way or would they be sympathetic to his point of view?

  “The bags stink,” Billy had said. “Like dead bodies, like the stuff they use.”

  What the hell did that mean? Kelly wondered, going through town one last time. He saw police cars operating. They couldn’t all be driven by corrupt cops, could they?

  “Shit,” Kelly snarled at the traffic. “Clear your mind, sailor. There’s a job waiting, a real job.”

  But that had said it all. BOXWOOD GREEN was a real job, and the realization came as clear and bright as the headlights of approaching cars. If someone like Sandy didn’t understand—it was one thing to do it alone, just with your own thoughts and rage and loneliness, but when others saw and knew, even people who liked you, and knew exactly what it was all about. . . . When even they asked you to stop. . . .

  Where was right? Where was wrong? Where was the line between them? It was easy on the highway. Some crew painted the lines, and you had to stay in the proper lane, but in real life it wasn’t so clear.

  Forty minutes later he was on I-495, the Washington Beltway. What was more important, killing Henry or getting those other women out of there?

  Another forty and he was across the river into Virginia. Seeing Doris—what a dumb name—alive, after the first time when she’d been almost as dead as Rick. The more he thought about it, the better that seemed.

  BOXWOOD GREEN wasn’t about killing the enemy. It was about rescuing people.

  He turned south on Interstate 95, and a final forty-five or so delivered him to Quantico. It was eleven-thirty when he drove into the training site.

  “Glad you made it,” Marty Young observed sourly. He was dressed in utilities for once instead of his khaki shirt.

  Kelly looked hard into the General’s eyes. “Sir, I’ve had a bad enough night. Be a pal and stow it, all right?”

  Young took it like the man he was. “Mr. Clark, you sound like you’re ready.”

  “That isn’t what it’s about, sir. Those guys in SENDER GREEN are ready.”

  “Fair enough, tough guy.”

  “Can I leave the car here?”

  “With all these clunkers?”

  Kelly paused, but the decision came quickly enough. “I think it’s served its purpose. Junk it with the rest of ’em.”

  “Come on, the bus is down the hill a wa
ys.”

  Kelly collected his personal gear and carried them to the staff car. The same corporal was driving as he sat in the back with the Marine aviator who wouldn’t be going.

  “What do you think, Clark?”

  “Sir, I think we have a really good chance.”

  “You know, I wish just once, just one goddamned time, we could say, yeah, this one’s going to work.”

  “Was it ever that way for you?” Kelly asked.

  “No,” Young admitted. “But you don’t stop wishing.”

  “How was England, Peter?”

  “Pretty nice. It rained in Paris, though. Brussels was pretty decent, my first time there,” Henderson said.

  Their apartments were only two blocks apart, comfortable places in Georgetown built during the late thirties to accommodate the influx of bureaucrats serving a growing government. Built of solid cinder-arch construction, they were more structurally sound than more recent buildings. Hicks had a two-bedroom unit, which compensated for the smallish living-dining room.

  “So what’s happening that you wanted to tell me about?” the Senate aide asked, still recovering from jet lag.

  “We’re invading the North again,” the White House aide answered.

  “What? Hey, I was at the peace talks, okay? I observed some of the chitchat. Things are moving along. The other side just caved in on a big one.”

  “Well, you can kiss that goodbye for a while,” Hicks said morosely. On the coffee table was a plastic bag of marijuana, and he started putting a smoke together.

  “You should lay off that shit, Wally.”

  “Doesn’t give me a hangover like beer does. Shit, Peter, what’s the difference?”

  “The difference is your fucking security clearance!” Henderson said pointedly.

  “Like that matters? Peter, they don’t listen. You talk and talk and talk to them, and they just don’t listen.” Hicks lit up and took a long pull. “I’m going to leave soon anyway. Dad wants me to come and join the family business. Maybe after I make a few mill’, maybe then somebody’ll listen once in a while.”

  “You shouldn’t let it get to you, Wally. It takes time. Everything takes time. You think we can fix things overnight?”