Clark and Chavez came off the jetway, saw Jack and the others, and walked over. “Door- to-door service?” Clark asked.
“We got something cooking. You guys up for a little tag?”
Chavez said, “As long as you find me Starbucks first.”
Jack explained the situation as they exited the security checkpoint and returned to the ticketing desk for Clark and Chavez’s passes. “So how do we do this?” Jack asked Clark, as they went back through security.
“Look for a guy who looks like he doesn’t belong. He’s sort of a trained spook. He presumably knows how to be invisible. You look for that. He won’t be looking around like most tourists do, won’t be doing anything to call attention to himself, but he probably also will not be overly familiar with the location. So a business type who doesn’t know the turf. When he looks around, he’ll be doing it carefully. He’ll probably be careful-looking for surveillance. You’ve been taught how to do that. Look for somebody else who’s doing what you were taught. It’s more art than science.”
“So what the hell do we do?” Brian demanded.
“Look like an American tourist. Turn everything off, all the training. Just be a normal schlub. Nobody notices them. Unless you’re in Redland-in the old USSR, for example. You especially never smile. The Russians almost never smile, weird thing about their culture. It ain’t easy, I know. But I been doing it for almost thirty years. It’s a little easier to remember when your ass is on the line,” he concluded with a smile.
“How many times?”
“Russia? More than once, and I was scared every time. You went in naked, no gun, no place to run to, just a ‘legend,’ a little backstopped cover if you were lucky.”
“‘Backstopped.’”
“Background that would stand up to light scrutiny. The hotel you stayed at in the last city, employer’s phone number… Stuff like that.”
“Been meaning to ask you,” Dominic said. “What about these guys, the current class of enemies?”
Clark thought this over. “Part of me says they’re all the same-different motivation, different outlook, all that, but doing the same shit. But the other part of me isn’t so sure. This bunch at least believes in God, but then they violate the rules of their own religion. Sociopathic personalities? Hell, I don’t know. They have their version of the world, and we have ours, and the twain don’t meet.”
The flight was called, and they went aboard together. Five seats abreast, separated by the aisle, all in coach. Chavez, with his short legs, didn’t mind, though Clark did. As he grew older, he got stiffer. The usual safety routine. Clark had his belt on and snugged in. He’d learned over the years not to dismiss safety rules in any of their manifestations. The 737-400 taxied out and rotated off the ground as routinely as if the pilot were driving a car. Clark lifted the in-flight magazine and started flipping through the catalog section. He stopped, looking at a toolbox ad.
“So how exactly are we going to do this?” Jack asked Clark.
“Play it by ear,” Clark replied, then turned back to his catalog.
The landing was almost as smooth as the takeoff, followed by the rollout and taxi trip to the terminal, and deplaning, and the usual shuffling walk-off. And the terminal was as nondescript as all the others around the world. They turned left and walked down the wide, anonymous concourse. Signs directed them to international arrivals, and it was just enough of a walk to get the blood flowing in their legs. Information TV monitors told them that the Alitalia flight was still ninety minutes out. A quick check of the area told them that it was easily surveilled. So much the better, there was a casual eatery in direct line of sight, with the usual plastic chairs surrounding plastic tables.
“Okay, guys, we have maybe two hours, counting processing the mutt through customs,” Clark thought aloud.
“That’s all?” Jack wondered.
“Maybe they’ll have a dog wander past the bags, sniffing for drugs, but not much more than that. The Canadians aren’t being all that careful. Bad guys transit Canada. They don’t stay here to do mischief. Good luck for them, I guess. It allows them to save money on security expenditures.”
“If the bad guys are casual here, you could bag a few fairly easily and put them on a boat to Buffalo.”
“And then,” Dominic continued the thought, “they’d make enemies they really don’t need. It’s business.”
“Good point,” Chavez said. “Business is business, and you let a sleeping dog alone, until you get bit. I wonder when they’ll have that happen to them.”
“Depends on the bad guys, but making enemies gratuitously is not good for business. Remember, a terrorist is a businessman whose business is killing people. Maybe they’re ideologically driven, but business is still business.”
“How many have you bagged?” Dominic asked Clark.
“A few, all in Europe. They’re not well trained. Alert, and they can be sly like a fox, but that isn’t the same as training. So you just exercise caution and take them down. Helps to shoot them in the back. Hard for them to return fire that way.”
Dominic frowned. “Huh.”
“Ain’t supposed to be fair. This isn’t the Olympics.”
“I suppose.”
“But it goes against your grain, doesn’t it?”
Dominic gave this a moment’s thought, then shrugged. “I don’t know about grain-just a different mind- set.”
Clark smiled grimly. “Welcome to the other side of the looking glass.” He checked his watch. The flight would be descending now.
It struck Hadi that the ground under an airplane always looked the same-but different. Distant but inviting as you came back down. Like America, all the roads and cars coming into view. He gauged height by whether or not he could see individual cars and trucks. The “Air Show” setting on his mini-TV said that altitude was 4,910 feet and dropping, ground speed 295, well down from their cruising height and speed over the ocean. They’d land soon. Ten minutes, according to the computer. Time for him to wake up all the way. The stewardess took his coffee cup away. Italian coffee was much like that of his distant youth in its acidity, and truth be told, he much enjoyed Italian food, though they served pork far too much, and though he drank wine, he drew the line well short of pig flesh. He’d get off, waltz through customs and immigration, spot his greeter, and get his ticket on to Chicago from him, who’d drive him also to his connecting flight for United Airlines Flight 1108, and he’d have a cigarette but not much of a chat.
He had to be alert coming through customs and immigration. He had nothing to declare, of course, not even a bottle of Italian wine. Business traveler, he was supposed to be, for whom such a trip was routine. Jewel dealer, that was his cover. He knew enough to have a brief conversation on the subject. Not enough to impress or fool a real Jewish diamond merchant, of course, but he knew how to deflect any conversation, even to fake an accent. Well, he was a business traveler of sorts, and this sort of trip was routine, though this was his first-ever visit to Canada. One more infidel country, with simple and gentle rules for people in transit, and they’d be just as happy to see him on his way, taking no notice of him as long as he didn’t carry a firearm or commit a crime.
The touchdown was a little rough. Perhaps the flight crew was weary as well. What a terrible life they had, Hadi thought. Sitting down all day, not walking around, constantly changing their body clocks to different places and times. But all men had their places in the world, and theirs was well paid, just unpleasant, even for infidels. His job and his cover compelled him to be pleasant to all he met. That included infidels who routinely ate pig. It was hard, but it was required by his place in life. The airliner stopped, and with the other 153 people aboard, he stood, collected his carry-on bag, and stumbled to the door.
You could tell the Canadian officials in their navy-blue visored caps, blank expressions, and scanning eyes. Greeters who didn’t care a whit about those whom they greeted to their infidel country. There were probably
