even go to his father for advice. His dad would probably have flipped out to learn that he was working here. Mom would not be overly pleased, either.
Why did that matter? Wasn't he a man now, able to do what he wanted to do with his life? Not exactly. Parents had power over you that never went away. He'd always be trying to please them, to show them that they'd raised him the right way, and that he was doing the right thing. Or something like that. His father had been lucky. They'd never learned about all the things he'd had to do. Would they have liked it?
No. They would have been upset — furious — with all the chances he'd taken with his life. And that was just the stuff his son knew about. There were a lot of blank spots in his memory, times his father hadn't been home, and Mom hadn't explained why… and so, now, here he was, if not doing the same thing, then sure as hell heading in that direction… Well, his father had always said that the world was a crazy place, and so here he was, figuring out just how crazy it might really be.
CHAPTER 7
TRANSIT
It started in Lebanon, with a flight to Cyprus. From there, a KLM flight to Schipol Airport in the Netherlands, and from there to Paris. In France the sixteen men overnighted in eight separate hotels, taking the time to walk the streets and exercise their English — there had been little point in having them learn French, after all — and struggle with a local population that could have been more helpful. The good news, as they saw it, was that certain female French citizens went out of their way to speak decent English, and were very helpful indeed. For a fee.
They were ordinary in most details, all in their late twenties, clean-shaven, average in size and looks, but better dressed than was the average. They all concealed their unease well, albeit with lingering but furtive glances at the cops they saw — they all knew not to attract the attention of anyone in a police officer's uniform. The French police had a reputation for thoroughness which did not appeal to the new visitors. They were traveling on Qatari passports at the moment, which were fairly secure, but a passport issued from the French Foreign Minister himself would not stand up to a directed inquiry. And so they kept a low profile. They had all been briefed not to look around much, to be polite, and to make the effort to smile at everyone they encountered. Fortunately for them, it was tourist season in France, and Paris was jammed with people like them, many of whom also spoke little French, much to the bemused contempt of the Parisians, who in every case took their money anyway.
The next day's breakfast hadn't concluded with any new explosive revelations, and neither had lunch. Both Caruso brothers listened to their lessons from Pete Alexander, doing their best not to doze off, because these lessons seemed pretty straightforward.
'Boring, you think?' Pete asked over lunch.
'Well, none of it's earthshaking,' Brian responded after a few seconds.
'You'll find it's a little different in a foreign city, out on the street in a market, say, looking for your subject in a crowd of a few thousand. The important part is to be invisible. We'll work on that this afternoon. You had any experience in that, Dominic?'
'Not really. Just the basic stuff. Don't look too directly at the subject. Reversible clothes. Different ties, if you're in an environment that calls for a necktie. And you depend on others to switch off on coverage. But we won't have the same backup we have in the Bureau for a discreet surveillance, will we?'
'Not even close. So, you keep your distance until it's time to move in. At that point, you move in as quickly as circumstances allow—'
'And whack the guy?' Brian asked.
'Still uneasy about it?'
'I haven't walked out yet, Pete. Let's say I have my concerns, and leave it at that.'
Alexander nodded. 'Fair enough. We prefer people who know how to think, and we know that thinking carries its own penalties.'
'I guess that's how you have to look at it. What if the guy we're supposed to do away with turns out to be okay?' the Marine asked.
'Then you back off and report in. It's theoretically possible that an assignment can be erroneous, but to the best of my knowledge it's never happened.'
'Never?'
'Not ever, not once,' Alexander assured him.
'Perfect records make me nervous.'
'We try to be careful.'
'What are the rules? Okay, maybe I don't need to know — right now — who sends us out to kill somebody, but it would be nice to know what the criteria are to write up some fucker's death warrant, y'know?'
'It will be someone who has, directly or indirectly, caused the death of American citizens, or is directly involved in plans to do so in the future. We're not after people who sing too loud in church or who have books overdue at the library.'
'You're talking about terrorists, right?'
'Yup,' Pete replied simply.
'Why not just arrest them?' Brian asked next.
'Like you did in Afghanistan?'
'That was different,' the Marine protested.
'How?' Pete asked.
'Well, for one thing we were uniformed combatants operating in the field under orders from legally constituted command authority.'
'You took some initiative, right?'
'Officers are supposed to use their heads. My overall mission orders came from up the chain of command, however.'
'And you don't question them?'
'No. Unless they're crazy, you're not supposed to do that.'
'What about when
'That's what CIA and FBI are for.'
'But when they can't get the job done, for one reason or another, then what? Do you just let the bad guys move ahead with their plans and handle them afterward? That can be expensive,' Alexander told him. 'Our job is to do the things that are necessary when the conventional methods are unable to accomplish the mission.'
'How often?' This was Dominic, seeking to protect his brother.
'It's picking up.'
'How many hits have you made?' Brian again.
'You don't need to know.'
'Oh, I do love hearing that one,' Dominic observed with a smile.
'Patience, boys. You're not in the club yet,' Pete told them, hoping they were smart enough not to object at this point.
'Okay, Pete,' Brian said, after a moment's thought. 'We both gave our word that what we learn here stays here. Fine. It's just that murdering people in cold blood isn't exactly what I've been trained to do, y'know?'
'You're not supposed to feel good about it. Over in Afghanistan, did you ever shoot anybody looking the other way?'
'Two of them,' Brian admitted. 'Hey, the battlefield isn't the Olympic Games,' he semiprotested.
'Neither is the rest of the world, Aldo.' The look on the Marine's face said,
