Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [171]
Where’s the nearest head? Clark thought. A lot of people made a head call soon after deplaning, after being too nervous to use the one on the airplane. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to camp out on that possibility. Spooks were not robots. Every one had his own peculiarities, and those, once identified, made them vulnerable. It struck him that he’d never been a counterspy. Identifying spooks was something he’d always worked to prevent … but maybe that gave him the resources needed to do the job? He’d see. They were after an Arab, probably late thirties to middle forties, male. Height, weight, hair color, and eye color were all unknowns. He was a trained operator. He’d probably act like a trained operator.
Well, he was being met. They knew that much. Somebody to hand him a ticket for a connecting flight. Probably not as well trained. Probably a stringer. Maybe somebody hoping to earn a promotion in whatever organization he belonged to. Maybe as smart but not as experienced or as well trained. Somebody who knew his inbound asset by sight? Maybe, maybe not. Probably a driver. He’d be looking to make the pickup. Scanning the faces for recognition. Holding a sign? Yeah, maybe THE EMIR SENT ME, Clark thought with a snort. He’d seen some dumb ones in his time, but never that dumb. Might as well eat a gun outside the terminal with TV cameras watching. These guys might not be pros the way he thought of the term, but neither would they be stupid. Somebody had trained them or instructed their organization on how to teach them fieldcraft. It wasn’t that hard. The nuances came with experience, but the basics were things a half-smart guy could figure out on his own. The four of them were standing in line. That wasn’t smart. He shuffled over to Dominic.
“Break into pairs, opposite sides of the railings. Dominic, you and Brian. Jack, you’re with Ding and me.”
Dominic and Brian moved down the escalator and away, curling back to a place opposite Clark and Chavez. John tapped his nose, and the twins repeated the signal.
“What are you thinking, Domingo?” John asked.
“Who, them? Good instincts, a little rough around the edges, but that’s natural. If trouble develops, I think they’ll handle it okay.”
“Fair enough for a ninja,” Clark responded.
“We own the night, baby.” That had been quite a while ago, but it was part of Domingo’s core identity. He was a hard one to spot. Short as he was, people often overlooked him. His eyes could give him away, but only if you took the time to scan his face, and he really wasn’t big enough for any tough guy to worry about, until you were on your back, wondering how the hell you got there. Times had changed since his SEAL days. Third SOG had had a few John Wayne types, but the new ones looked more like marathon runners, short and skinny. They tended to live longer, being harder to hit. But their eyes were different, and that’s where the danger was. If you were smart enough to notice.
“Little nervous,” Jack admitted.
“Nice and casual,” Clark replied. “Don’t try too hard. And never look directly into the subject’s eyes, except maybe to check out the way he was looking around, but only briefly and carefully.”
Who are you, Hadi? Clark thought. Why are you here? Where are you going? Whom do you want to meet? None of which was he likely to ask or have answers for. But the mind did its own thing all the time, the more so for a fairly intelligent and active mind.
49
HADI COULD have been the first in line, but he manufactured a false delay to avoid that possibility. He didn’t have to pretend to be tired. Counting the feeder flight from Marseille and the layover at Milan, he’d been in the air for fifteen hours, and the reduced partial-pressure of oxygen had taken its toll on his body. One more reason to wonder about the flight crew and their miserable jobs.
“Hello, Mr. Klein,” the immigration clerk said with what appeared to be a smile.
“Good day,” Hadi replied, reminding himself again of his false identity. Fortunately, no one had tried to speak with him