Maghrebi, and heavily accented English. The throngs seemed to move as if guided by some unseen traffic cop, sidestepping around one another and into and out of alleys with only the occasional eye contact or hesitation.
“Dog meat, maybe?”
“That’s Asia, bro, and less common than you’d think. Maybe a little horse here, but mostly lamb, I’d bet.”
“Been reading brochures again?”
“When in Rome.”
“Something tells me cleanliness ain’t high on their list of priorities,” Brian said, nodding at a vendor who was cutting up raw chicken on a cutting board; his canvas apron was speckled with blood.
Dominic laughed at this. “Hell, didn’t they have you eating bugs at SERE?” referring to Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape school.
Like all Marines, Brian had been through recruit, entry-level A SERE, but he’d also been pushed through the remaining B and C levels, reserved for forward operating combat units and aircrews.
“Yeah, bugs at Bridgeport, snakes at Warner.”
Navy and Marine Corps B and C SERE was held at a number of sites, including the Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, California, and Naval Air Station in Warner Springs, California.
“So what’s a little horse meat?”
“Maybe on the way out, okay? We getting close or what?”
“Yeah, but we got time to kill. We’ll make a pass of Bari’s place at dusk, get the lay of the land. Wait for dark to go in.”
“Sounds good. What time is—”
As if on cue, a loudspeaker down the alley crackled to life and emitted the muezzin’s call to prayer. Around them, the alleys slowly went silent as locals stopped what they were doing, unfurled their prayer rugs, and knelt for the ritual. Along with the other non-Muslims, Brian and Dominic stepped aside and remained quiet and still until the ritual was completed and normal activity resumed. The Carusos started walking again. Dusk was fading quickly, and lights were glowing to life in windows and outdoor cafés.
“Can’t say Islam is my cup of tea,” Dominic said, “but I’ll give them this: They’re dedicated.”
“Which is the problem when it comes to the radicals. That kind of dedication is the first step toward suicide bombing and flying planes into buildings.”
“Yep, but I can’t help wondering sometimes if we’re talking about the bad-apple theory.”
“Say what?”
“One bad apple in the barrel. In this case, there are plenty of really bad apples, but probably still a pretty small minority.”
“Maybe so, maybe not. Kinda above our pay grade, though.”
“I mean, think about it: How many Muslims in the world?”
“Billion and a half, I think. Maybe two.”
“And how many of them go around blowing themselves up? Better question: How many are radical terrorists?”
“Twenty or thirty thousand, probably. I get your point, bro, but I don’t worry about the good apples. Who and how you worship is your own business—up until you start getting divine messages to blow the shit out of innocent people.”
“Hey, no argument here.”
They’d had this discussion before: Was broad-brushing a whole people or religion merely a mistake of morality, or was it also a tactical mistake? When you see whole chunks of a demographic as the enemy, does that keep you from not only spotting the real bad guys but also recognizing an ally? Like almost every country on earth, America had had enemies turn to friends, and friends into enemies. The Afghan mujahideen was a case in point that Dominic had often cited. The same rebels the CIA had helped drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan had morphed into the Taliban. The history books would forever be debating how and why that had happened, but there was little arguing the truth of the thing itself. One issue the Caruso brothers agreed on was the similarities between a soldier’s perspective and a cop’s perspective: Know your enemy as best you can, and be flexible in your tactics. Plus, both of them had seen enough shit in their lives to know there was no such thing as black-and-white in the real world—and that was especially true of their roles at The Campus, where gray was the norm. There was a good reason why spooks and special operators were often referred to as “Shadow Warriors.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Dominic added. “I’m only too happy to pull the trigger on any mutt who threatens my country. I’m just saying, the guy who fights the smart war is usually the winner.”
“Amen to that. There’s probably a few million Soviet soldiers who’d argue that, though. Stalin shoved them into the meat grinder of the Eastern Front like they were cattle.”