the mountains. Such a large, strange country this was, full of strange people, most of them unbelievers. But they were people to be wary of, and so he had to watch himself and his conduct every minute, even more than he had in Italy. It was hard on a man never to relax, never to let down his guard. With luck he’d be able to relax when he met his friend, depending on the next stop in his flight. How strange that he’d never learned where the Emir lived. They’d been friends for many, many years. They’d even learned to ride horses together, at the same time and place, at a very young age, attended the same school, played and run together. But the wine took its toll, and he’d suffered through a long day. His eyes grew heavy, and he drifted off to sleep as night overtook the aircraft.
Clark boarded another airliner, took his first-class seat, and closed his eyes, not to sleep but to run his mind over the events of the day. What had he done? What things had he done wrong? What had he done right, and why had it not mattered?
The short version was manpower. The Caruso boys seemed competent enough, and Jack did fine, but that was no big surprise. The kid had some good instincts. Heredity, maybe. All in all, not a bad op, given how hastily it had been assembled. They’d known he was headed to Chicago. Better to have split into teams of two and then forwarded the photo electronically to make it easier to carry forward? Could they have done that? Technically possible, maybe, but just because it might have been possible didn’t mean it would have worked. Stuff like this, you wanted multiple backups, because random chance could not be depended on to do anything but screw things up. Hell, carefully planned stuff could not be depended on, even with ample manpower composed of trained professionals. The enemy didn’t even have to be professionals for random events to screw up the best-laid plans. Might be a good idea, he thought, to walk through the European missions with the twins, just to see how good their fieldcraft was. They looked good, but looking good was something fashion models could do. It came down to training and experience. Heavy on experience. You grew your own training out in the field, and experience was something he’d tried hard to teach new CIA officers down at The Farm in the Virginia Tidewater. He’d never learned how well that had gone. Some came back and quaffed beers with him and Chavez. But what about the kids who had not come back? What lessons were to be learned from them? You rarely heard those stories, because not coming back meant never coming back, a gold star on the right-side wall in the CIA atrium, and usually a blank spot in the book.
Improve intrateam communications, for starters, he thought. If they didn’t have the experience to read minds, they damned well should have solid comm protocols. Hiring more troops would be a good idea, but that wasn’t going to happen. The Campus was supposed to run small and smart. Maybe they had the ability to do that, but damned sure there were times when a lot of people could solve a lot of problems. But that wasn’t going to happen.
Clark’s plane landed softly at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. It took five minutes to taxi to gate D-3, allowing Clark to walk off quickly. He made a head call and walked down the concourse, hoping that someone would be waiting for him. It turned out to be Jack, who waved.
“I know what you look like,” Clark said. “You don’t have to let other people know that you know me.”
“Hey, I mean—”
“I know what you mean. You never break fieldcraft until it’s over your first beer at home, kid. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Got it. What did you learn?”
“He flew on to Vegas, and he’s probably there now. Mainly I learned that we don’t have enough troops to do anything important at The Campus,” he concluded crossly.
“Yeah, well, we can’t do what we do if we have government oversight, can we?”
“I suppose not, but there are advantages to being part of a larger organization, y’know?”
“Yeah. I guess we’re kinda parasites on the body politic.”
“I suppose. Was there any attempt to track the bird to where he went?”
Jack shook his head as they walked out of the concourse. “Nope.”