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.”