by Tom Clancy
"So, we did do it? What did we use?" Ryan asked.
"Jack, I do not know, and I do not want to know what, if anything, we had to do with his untimely death. Nor do I have any desire to find out. Nor should you, okay?"
"Tony, how the hell can you be in this business and not be curious?" Jack Jr. demanded.
"You learn what is not good to know, and you learn not to speculate on such things," Wills explained.
"Uh-huh," Jack reacted dubiously. Sure, but I'm too young for that shit, he didn't say. Tony was good at what he did, but he lived inside a box. So did Sali right now, Jack thought, and it wasn't a good place to be. And besides, we did waste his ass. Exactly how, he didn't know. He could have asked his mom about what drugs or chemicals there might be that could accomplish this mission, but, no, he couldn't do that. She'd sure as hell tell his father, and Big Jack would sure as hell want to know why his son had asked such a question — and might even guess the answer. So, no, that was out of the question. All the way out.
With the official government traffic on Sali's death, Jack started looking for NSA and related intercepts from other interested sources.
There was no further reference to the Emir in the daily traffic. That had just come and gone, and previous references were limited to the one Tony had pulled up. Similarly, his request for a more global search of signals records at Fort Meade and Langley had not been approved by the people upstairs, disappointingly but not surprisingly. Even The Campus had its limits. He understood the unwillingness of the people upstairs to risk having somebody wonder who'd made such a request, and, not finding an answer, to make a deeper query. But there were thousands of such requests back and forth every day, and one more couldn't raise that much of a ruckus, could it? He decided not to ask, however. There was no sense in being identified as a boat rocker this early into his new career. But he did instruct his computer to scan all new traffic for the word "Emir," and, if it came up, he could log it and then have a firmer case for his special inquiry the next time, if there was a next time. Still, a title like that — to his mind, it was indicative of the ID for a specific person, even if the only reference CIA had about it was "probably an in-house joke." The judgment had come from a senior Langley analyst, which carried a lot of weight in that community, and therefore in this one as well. The Campus was supposed to be the outfit that corrected CIA's mistakes and/or inabilities, but since they had fewer people on staff, they had to accept a lot of ideas that came from the supposedly disabled agency. It did not make all that much logical sense, but he hadn't been consulted when Hendley had set the place up, and therefore he had to assume that the senior staff knew their business. But as Mike Brennan had told him about police work, assumption was the mother of all screwups. It was also a widely known adage of the FBI. Everybody made mistakes, and the size of any mistake was directly proportional to the seniority of the man making it. But such people didn't like to be reminded of that universal truth. Well, nobody really did.
* * *
They bought the clothes off the rack. They were generally like what one would buy in America, but the differences, while individually subtle, added up to an entirely different look. They also got shoes to match the outfits, and, after changing at their hotel, they went back out on the street.
The passing grade came when Brian was stopped on the street by a German citizen asking directions to the Hauptbahnhoff, at which time Brian had to respond in English that he was new here, and the German woman backed away with an embarrassed smile and buttonholed somebody else.
"It means the main train station," Dominic explained.
"So, why can't she catch a cab?" Brian demanded.
"We live in an imperfect world, Aldo, but now you must look like a good Kraut. If anyone else asks you, just say Ich bin ein Auslander. It means 'I'm a foreigner,' and that'll get you out of it. Then they'll probably ask the question in better English than you'd hear in New York."
"Hey, look!" Brian pointed to the Golden Arches of a McDonald's, a more welcome sight than the Stars and Stripes over the U.S. Consulate, though neither felt like eating there. The local food was simply too good. By nightfall they were back at the Hotel Bayerischer, enjoying just that.
* * *
"Well, they're in Munich, and they spotted the subject's building and mosque, but not him yet," Granger reported to Hendley. "They eyeballed his lady friend, though."
"Things going smoothly, then?" the Senator asked.
"No complaints to this point. Our friend is not being looked at by the German police. Their counterintelligence service knows who he is, but they're not running any sort of case on him. They've had some problems with domestic Muslims, and some of them are being covered, but this guy hasn't popped up on the radar screen yet. And Langley hasn't pressed the issue. Their relations with Germany aren't all that good at the moment."
"Good news and bad news?"
"Right." Granger nodded. "They can't feed us much information, but we don't have to worry about fooling a tail. The Germans are funny. If you keep your nose clean and everything's in Ordnung, you're reasonably safe. If you step over the line, they can make your life pretty miserable. Historically, their cops are very good, but their spooks are not. The Soviets and the Stasi both had their spook shop thoroughly penetrated, and they're still living that down today."
"They do black ops?"
"Not really. Their culture is too legalistic for that. They raise honest people who play by the rules, and that's a crippling influence on special operations — those they do try occasionally crater badly. You know, I bet the average German citizen even pays his taxes on time, and in full."
"Their bankers know how to play the international game," Hendley objected.
"Yeah, well, maybe that's because international bankers don't really recognize the concept of having a country to be loyal to," Granger responded, sticking the needle in slightly.
"Lenin once said the only country a capitalist knows is the ground he stands on when he makes a deal. There are some like that," Hendley allowed. "Oh, did you see this?" He handed over the request from downstairs to root around for somebody called "the Emir."
The director of operations scanned the page and handed it back. "He doesn't make much of a case for it."
Hendley nodded. "I know. That's why I denied it. But… but, you know, it caused his instincts to twitch, and he had the brains to ask a question."
"And the boy's smart."
"Yes, he is. That's why I had Rick set him up with Wills as a roommate and training officer. Tony is bright, but he doesn't reach outside very much. So, Jack can learn the business and also learn about its limitations. We'll see how much he chafes from that. If this kid stays with us, he just might go places."
"You think he has his father's potential?" Granger wondered. Big Jack had been a king spook before going on to bigger things.
"I think he might grow into it, yes. Anyway, this 'Emir' business strikes me as a fundamentally good idea on his part. We don't know much about how the opposition operates. It's a Darwinian process out there, Sam. The bad guys learn from their antecedents, and they get smarter — on our nickel. They're not going to offer themselves up to get a smart bomb in the ass. They're not going to try to be TV stars. Good for the ego, maybe, but fatal. A herd of gazelles doesn't knowingly head toward the lion pride."
"True," Granger agreed, thinking back to how his own ancestor had handled obstreperous Indians in the Ninth U.S. Cavalry Regiment. Some things didn't change much. "Gerry, the problem is, all we can do about their organizational model is to speculate. And speculation is not knowledge."
"So, tell me what you think," Hendley ordered.
"Minimum two layers between the head of it all: Is it one man or a committee? We do not and cannot know right now. And the shooters: We can get all those we want, but that's like cutting grass. You cut it, it grows, you cut it, it grows, ad infinitum. You want to kill a snake, best move is to take off the head. Okay, fine, we all know that. Tric
k is finding the head, because it's a virtual head. Whoever it is, or are, they're operating a lot like we are, Gerry. That's why we're doing a recon-by-fire, to see what we can shake loose. And we have all of our analytical troops looking for that, here, and at Langley, and Meade."
A tired sigh. "Yeah, Sam, I know. And maybe something will shake loose. But patience is a mother to live by. The opposition is probably basking in the sun right now, feeling good about stinging us, killing all those women and kids—"
"Nobody likes that, Gerry, but even God took seven days to make the world, remember?"
"You turning preacher on me?" Hendley asked, with narrowed eyes.
"Well, the eye-for-an-eye part works for me, bud, but it takes time to find the eye. We have to be patient."
"You know, when Big Jack and I talked about the need for a place like this, I was actually dumb enough to think we could solve problems more quickly if we had the authority to do so."
"We'll be quicker than the government ever will, but we're not The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Hey, look, the operational end just got under way. We've made only one hit. Three more to go before we can expect to see any real response from the other side. Patience, Gerry."
"Yeah, sure." He didn't add that time zones didn't help much, either.
* * *
"You know, there's one other thing."
"What's that, Jack?" Wills asked.
"It would be better if we knew what operations were going on. It would enable us to focus our data hunt a little more efficiently."
"It's called 'compartmentalization.'"
"No, it's called horseshit," Jack shot back. "If we're on the team, we can help. Things that might look like non sequiturs appear different if you know the context that appears out of nowhere. Tony, this whole building is supposed to be a compartment, right? Subdividing it like they do at Langley doesn't help get the job done, or am I missing something?"
"I see your point, but that's not how the system works."
"Okay, I knew you'd say that, but how the hell do we fix what's broke at CIA if all we do is just to clone their operation?" Jack demanded.
And there wasn't a ready answer for that which would satisfy the questioner, was there? Wills asked himself. There simply wasn't, and this kid was catching on way too fast. What the hell had he learned in the White House? For damned sure, he'd asked a lot of questions. And he'd listened to all the answers. And even thought about them.
"I hate to say this, Jack, but I'm only your training officer, not the Big Boss of this outfit."
"Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. I guess I got used to my dad having the ability to make things happen — well, it looked that way to me, at least. Not to him, I know, not all the time. Maybe impatience is a family characteristic." Doubly so, since his mom was a surgeon, accustomed to fixing things on her own schedule, which was generally right the hell now. It was hard to be decisive sitting at a workstation, a lesson his dad had probably had to learn in his time, back when America had lived in the gunsights of a really serious enemy. These terrorists could sting, but they couldn't do serious structural harm to America, though it had been tried in Denver once. These guys were like swarming insects rather than vampire bats…
But mosquitoes could transmit yellow fever, couldn't they?
* * *
South of Munich, in the port city of Piraeus, a container was lifted off its ship by a gantry crane and lowered to a waiting truck trailer. Once secured, the trailer went off, behind the Volvo truck driving out of the port, bypassing Athens, and heading north into the mountains of Greece. The manifest said it was going to Vienna, a lengthy non-stop drive over decent highways, delivering a cargo of coffee from Colombia. It didn't occur to the port security people to conduct a search, since all the bills of lading were in good order and passed the bar-code scans properly. Already men were assembling to deal with the part of the cargo not intended to be mixed with hot water and cream. It took a lot of men to break down a metric ton of cocaine into dose-sized packets, but they had a single-story warehouse, recently acquired, in which to accomplish the task, and then they would be driving individually all over Europe, taking comfort in the lack of internal borders the continent had adopted since the formation of the European Union. With this cargo, the word of a business partner was being kept, and a psychological profit was being recompensed by a monetary one. The process went on through the night, while Europeans slept the sleep of the just, even those who would soon be making use of the illegal part of the cargo as soon as they found a street dealer.
* * *
They saw the subject at 9:30 the following morning. They were having a leisurely breakfast at another Gasthaus half a block from the one that employed their friend Emil, and Anas Ali Atef was walking purposely up the street, and came within twenty feet of the twins, who were breakfasting on strudel and coffee, along with twenty or so German citizens. Atef didn't notice he was being watched; his eyes looked forward and did not discreetly scan the area as a trained spook would have done. Evidently, he felt safe here. And that was good.
"There's our boy," Brian said, spotting him first. As with Sali, there was no neon sign over his head to mark him, but he matched the photo perfectly, and he had come out of the right apartment building. His mustache made an error in identification unlikely. Reasonably well dressed. Except for his skin and mustache, he might have passed for a German. At the end of the block, he boarded a streetcar, destination unknown, but heading east.
"Speculate?" Dominic asked his brother.
"Off to have breakfast with a pal, or to plot the downfall of the Infidel West — we really can't say, man."
"Yeah, it'd be nice to have real coverage on him, but we're not conducting an investigation, are we? This mutt recruited at least one shooter. He's earned his way onto our shit list, Aldo."
"Roger that, bro," Brian agreed. His conversion was complete. Anas Ali Atef was just a face to him now, and an ass to be stuck with his magic pen. Beyond that, he was someone for God to talk to in due course, a jurisdiction that didn't directly concern either of them at the moment.
"If this was a Bureau op, we'd have a team in the apartment right now, at least to toss his computer."
Brian conceded the point. "Now what?"
"We see if he goes to church, and, if he does, we see how easy it might be to pop him on the way in or out."
"Does it strike you that this is going a little fast?" Brian wondered aloud.
"I suppose we could sit in the hotel room and jerk off, but that's hard on the wrist, y'know?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
Finishing breakfast, they left cash on the table but not a large tip. That would too surely mark them as Americans.
* * *
The streetcar wasn't as comfortable as his car, but it was ultimately more convenient because of the necessity of finding a parking place. European cities had not been designed with automobiles in mind. Neither had Cairo, of course, and the traffic jams there could be incredible — even worse than they were here — but at least in Germany they had reliable mass transportation. The trains were glorious. The quality of the lines impressed the man who'd had engineering training a few — was it really just a few? he asked himself; it seemed like a complete lifetime — years before. The Germans were a curious people. Standoffish and formal, and oh so superior, they thought, to all the other races. They looked down on Arabs — and, indeed, on most other Europeans as well — and opened their doors to foreigners only because their internal laws — imposed upon them sixty years earlier by Americans after World War II — said that they must. But because they were compelled to do so, they did, mostly without open complaint, because these mad people obeyed the law as though it had been delivered to them by God's own hand. They were the most docile people he'd ever encountered, but underneath that docility was the capacity for violence—organized violence — such as the world hardly knew. Within living memory, they'd risen up to slaughter the Jews. They'd even converted their death camps into muse
ums, but museums in which the pieces and machines undoubtedly still worked, as though standing ready. What a pity they could not summon the political will to make it so.
The Jews had humiliated his country four separate times, in the process killing his eldest brother, Ibrahim, in the Sinai while he'd been driving a Soviet T-62 tank. He didn't remember Ibrahim. He'd been far too young then, and only had photographs to give him an idea of what he'd looked like, though his mother still wept for his memory. He'd died trying to finish the job these Germans had started, only to fail, killed by a cannon shot from an American M60A1 main battle tank at the battle of the Chinese farm. It was the Americans who protected the Jews. America was ruled by its Jews. That was why they supplied his enemies with weapons, fed them with intelligence information, and loved killing Arabs.
But the Germans' failure at their task hadn't tamed their arrogance. Just redirected it. He could see it on the streetcar, the brief sideways looks, the way old women scuttled a few steps away from where he stood. Someone would probably wipe down the overhead bar with disinfectant after he got off, Anas grumbled to himself. By the Prophet, these were unpleasant people.
The ride took another seven minutes exactly, and it was time to get off, at Dom Strasse. From there, it was a one-block walk. Along the way, he saw more of the glances, the hostility in the eyes, or, even worse, the eyes that took note of his presence and just passed on, as though having seen a stray dog. It would have been satisfying to take some action here in Germany — right here in Munich! — but his orders were specific.
His destination was a coffee shop. Fa'ad Rahman Yasin was already there, dressed casually, like a working man. There were many like him in this cafe.
"Salaam aleikum," Atef said in greeting. Peace be unto you.
"Aleikum salaam," Fa'ad said in return. "The pastry here is excellent."
"Yes," Atef agreed, speaking softly in Arabic. "So, what is new, my friend?"