Without Remorse (John Clark, #1; Jack Ryan Universe, #1)

by Tom Clancy

Kelly took the knife from his limp hand and shoved it hard into the base of his skull, leaving it there. Within a minute his Volkswagen was half a block away.

Seven, he told himself, turning east. Shit.

Quantity of Mercy

“Wino—that’s the bottle he dropped.” She pointed. Douglas picked it up with the greatest care. “Can you describe him?” Lieutenant Ryan asked.

White, forty or older, long black hair, short, dirty. Ryan looked at his notes. “Go home, ma’am,” he’d told Virginia Charles. Ma’am.

Thank God for gloves, Kelly thought, looking at the bruises on his right hand.

Shit happens.

“You know, I do not expect a war between my country and yours. Truly I do not. We have little that you might wish to take away. What we have—resources, space, land—all these things you have. But the Chinese,” he said, “they need these things, and they share a border with us. And we gave them the weapons that they will use against us, and there are so many of them! Little, evil people, like these here, but so many more.” “So what are you going to do about it?” Grishanov shrugged. “I will command my regiment. I will plan to defend the Motherland against a nuclear attack from China. I just haven’t decided how yet.”

Zacharias didn’t deserve to die, Grishanov told himself, recognizing the greatest irony of all. Kolya Grishanov and Robin Zacharias were now friends.

“Remember Pam?” he whispered to the dying body in his hands, and for the question he received his satisfaction. There was recognition through the pain before the eyes rolled back. Snake.

Kelly’s hands started shaking then. This was real danger. If he let her live, then someone would know who he was—a description, enough to start a proper manhunt, and that would—might—prevent him from accomplishing his goal. But the greater danger was to his soul. If he killed her, that was lost forever. Of that he was certain. Kelly closed his eyes and shook his head. Everything was supposed to have gone so smoothly.

Shit happens, Johnnie-boy.

After another minute or so, she looked up. In the glare of incandescent lights off the white-tile walls, Sandra O’Toole saw the face of hell.

Depressurization

Dear God, she was protecting me. Even after I failed her. She didn’t even know if I was alive or not, but she lied to protect me.

“Are we dealing with a psychopath?” Farber shook his head. “No. The true psychopath is a person unable to deal with life. He sees reality in a very individual and eccentric way, generally a way that is very different from the rest of us. In nearly all cases the disorder is manifested in very open and easily recognized ways.”

“This fellow is all business. He’s not getting any emotional release at all. He’s just killing people and he’s doing it for a reason that is probably rational, at least to him.”

“Except to say that he’s not killing for fun.” “Correct.” Farber nodded. “Everything he does will have a purpose, and he has a lot of specialized training that he can apply to this mission. It is a mission. You have one really dangerous cat prowling the street.”

“Rage?” “That will be obvious. One other thing—if you have police looking for this guy, remember that he’s better with weapons than almost anybody. He’ll look harmless. He’ll avoid a confrontation. He doesn’t want to kill the wrong people, or he would have killed this Mrs. Charles.” “But if we corner him—” “You don’t want to do that.”

With luck and good medical care, Billy would live for several weeks. If you could call it that.

Possibilities

Possibilities. Billy makes contact with somebody. Who? What does Billy know? He knows where the product is processed, but not how it comes in… maybe the smell, the formaldehyde smell on the plastic bags.

Billy knew roughly where the processing was done, but could he find it on his own? Henry didn’t think so.

A plan began to form. He’d put the word out: he wanted Billy and he wanted him alive.

As he began rowing back, his aft-facing position forced him to look at Billy. He’d left him naked. No identification. He bore no distinguishing marks that Kelly had not created.

“Mr. Clark, sir, I think you’ll do.”

Titles

Sarah looked up. “I have never seen him do anything illegal. Have you?”

Damn. No, he told himself, this one was exactly what Farber said he was. This wasn’t a criminal. This was a killer, something else entirely.

“The one thing,” Ryan repeated. It was a private bit of shorthand. The one thing to break a case could be a name, an address, the description or tag number of a car, a person who knew something. Always the same, though frequently different, it was for the detective the crucial piece in the jigsaw puzzle that made the picture clear, and for the suspect the brick which, taken from the wall, caused everything to fall apart. And it was out there. Ryan was sure of it. It had to be there, because this killer was a clever one, much too clever for his own good.

“Give me a timeline on getting mission approval,” Greer said. It was serious now. He’d always thought the operation had merit, and watching it develop had been a lesson in many things that he’d need to know at CIA. Now he believed it possible. BOXWOOD GREEN might well succeed if allowed to go.

“Thank you, Mr. Clark. That’s a fuckin’ mission,” Master Gunnery Sergeant Paul Irvin told the pine trees and the bats. “So you’re first in and last out?” “I’ve worked alone before.”

Altruism

“The Invisible Man,” Ryan said quietly, finally giving the case a name. “He should have killed Mrs. Charles. You know what we’ve got here?” Douglas snorted. “Somebody I don’t want to meet alone.”

Hellos

“Your English is excellent.” “Thank you, Peter. I am George.”

George was his real name—actually Georgiy, which was the Russian equivalent—and he rarely went into the field anymore.

George was unusually good-natured for a Russian, though that was part of his cover. He smiled at the American. “Your senator has access to many things.”

“I’ve been helping you, George.” Which was true. Henderson had been nibbling at the hook for nearly two years. What the KGB colonel had to do now was to sweeten the bait, then see if Henderson would swallow the hook down.

Departures

“James? Bob. It’s a go. Start pushing buttons.”

“Make signal to Admiral Podulski on Constellation: ‘Olive Green.’”

“We’re going?” “Tonight,” Maxwell confirmed with a nod.

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.

“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?”

“Good luck,” Greer said to each man. “Good hunting,” was what Dutch Maxwell told them.

The time of night made it easy for everyone, and the Starlifter started turning engines as soon as the cargo hatch was shut.

“When do we go out?” “Three days, Bob,” James Greer answered.

Transit

One, Two, Three, Four. We don’t want your fucking war.