‘Of course you are, Wally. So talk.’
‘The peace talks are at a delicate stage now -‘
‘Peace talks are always delicate, aren’t they? Go on,’ MacKenzie ordered, rather enjoying his pedagogic discourse. Maybe this kid would learn something for a change.
‘Sir, we’ve lost too many people already. We’ve killed a million of them. And for what? What have we gained? What has anybody gained?’ His voice was almost a plea.
That wasn’t exactly new, and MacKenzie was tired of responding to it. ‘If you’re asking me to defend how we got stuck with this mess, Wally, you’re wasting your time. It’s been a mess since the beginning, but that wasn’t the work of this Administration, was it? We got elected with the mandate to get us the hell out of there.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Hicks agreed, as he had to. ‘That’s exactly my point. Doing this might harm our chances to bring it to an end. I think it’s a mistake, sir.’
‘Okay.’ MacKenzie relaxed, giving a tolerant eye to his aide. ‘That point of view may – I’ll be generous, does have merit. What about the people, Wally?’
‘They took their chances. They lost,’ Hicks answered with the coldness of youth.
‘You know, that sort of detachment may have its use, but one difference between us is that I’ve been there and you haven’t. You’ve never been in uniform, Wally. That’s a shame. You might have learned something from it.’
Hicks was genuinely taken aback by the irrelevancy. ‘I don’t know what that might be, sir. It would only have interfered with my studies.’
‘Life isn’t a book, son,’ MacKenzie said, using a word that he’d intended to be warm, but which merely sounded patronizing to his aide. ‘Real people bleed. Real people have feelings. Real people have dreams, and families. They have real lives. What you would have learned, Wally, is that they may not be like you, but they’re still real people, and if you work in this government of the people, you must take note of that.’
‘Yes, sir.’ What else could he say? There was no way he’d win this argument. Damn, he really needed someone to talk to about this.
‘John!’ Not a word in two weeks. She’d feared that something had happened to him, but now she had to face the contradictory thought that he was indeed alive, and perhaps doing things best considered in the abstract.
‘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 cared 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 other.’
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.’