"Clancy, Tom - Jack Ryan 02 - Patriot Games" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

"He was unconscious -- he didn't wake up for two hours, and had a
nasty concussion when he did."
If I'd known he had that grenade, I wouldn't have shot him in the ass!
"How was I supposed to know that?" Ryan asked reasonably. "I was about to
go up against somebody with a light machine gun, and I didn't need a bad
guy behind me. So I neutralized him. I could have put one through the back
of his head -- at Quantico when they say 'neutralize,' they mean kill. My
dad was the cop. Most of what I know about police procedures comes from
watching TV, and I know most of that's wrong. All I knew was that I
couldn't afford to have him come at me from behind. I can't say I'm
especially proud of it, but at the time it seemed like a good idea.
"I moved around the right-rear corner of the car and looked around. I
saw the guy was using a pistol. Your man Wilson explained that to me --
that was lucky, too. I wasn't real crazy about taking an AK on with a
dinky little handgun. He saw me come around. We both fired about the same
time -- I just shot straighter, I guess."
Ryan stopped. He hadn't meant it to sound like that. Is that how it
was? If you don't know, who does? Ryan had learned that in a crisis, time
compresses and dilates -- seemingly at the same time. It also fools your
memory, doesn't it? What else could I have done? He shook his head.
"I don't know," he said again. "Maybe I should have tried something
else. Maybe I should have said, 'Drop it!' or 'Freeze!' like they do on TV
-- but there just wasn't time. Everything was right now -- him or me -- do
you know what I mean? You don't . . . you don't reason all this out when
you only have half a second of decision time. I guess you go on training
and instinct. The only training I've had was in the Green Machine, the
Corps, They don't teach you to arrest people -- Christ's sake, I didn't
want to kill anybody, I just didn't have a hell of a choice in the
matter." Ryan paused for a moment.
"Why didn't he -- quit, run away, something! He saw I had him. He must
have known I had him cold." Ryan slumped back into the pillow. Having to
articulate what had happened brought it back all too vividly. A man is
dead because of you. Jack. All the way dead. He had his instincts, too,
didn't he? But yours worked better -- so why doesn't that make you feel
good?
"Doctor Ryan," Owens said calmly, "we three have personally
interviewed six people, all of whom had a clear view of the incident. From
what they have told us, you have related the circumstances to us with
remarkable clarity. Given the facts of the matter, I -- we -- do not see
that you had any choice at all. It is as certain as such things can
possibly be that you did precisely the right thing. And your second shot
did not matter, if that is troubling you. Your first went straight through
his heart."
Jack nodded. "Yeah, I could see that. The second shot was completely
automatic, like my hand did it without being told. The gun came back down
and zap! No thought at all . . . funny how your brain works. It's like one
part does the doing and another part does the watching and advising. The
'watching' part saw the first round go right through his ten-ring, but the
'doing' part kept going till he went down. I might have tried to squeeze
off another round for all I know, but the gun was empty."