The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [166]
"There's a German contingent in Afghanistan. We were neighbors-our camps, like-and I talked some with the officers there."
"Any good?"
"They're Germans, bro, and this bunch was professionals, not draftees. Yeah, they're pretty good," Aldo assured him. "It was a reconnaissance group. Their physical routine is tough as ours, they know mountains pretty good, and they are well drilled at the fundamentals. The noncoms got along like thieves, swapped hats and badges a lot. They also brought beer along with their T O and E, so they were kinda popular with my people. You know, this beer is pretty damned good."
"Like in England. Beer is a kind of religion in Europe, and everybody goes to church."
Then Emil appeared with lunch-Mittagessen-and that, they both learned, was also okay. But both kept watching the apartment house.
"This potato salad is dynamite, Aldo," Dominic observed between bites. "I never had anything like it. Lots of vinegar and sugar, kinda crispy on the palate."
"Good food isn't all Italian."
"When we get home, gotta try to find a German restaurant."
"Roger that. Lookie, lookie, Enzo."
It wasn't their subject, but it was his squeeze, Trudl Heinz. Just like the photo on their computers, walking out of the apartment house. Pretty enough to turn a man's head briefly, but not a movie star. Her hair had been blond once, but that had changed in her midteens, by the look of her. Nice legs, better-than-average figure. A pity she'd linked up with a terrorist. Maybe he'd latched onto her as part of his cover, and so much the better for him that it had side benefits. Unless they were living platonically, which didn't seem likely. Both Americans wondered how he treated her, but you couldn't tell something like that from watching her walk. She went up the other side of the street, but passed the mosque. So, she wasn't heading there at the moment.
"I'm thinking if he goes to church, we can poke him coming out. Lots of anonymous people around, y'know?" Brian thought aloud. "Not a bad concept. We'll see how faithful this guy is this afternoon, and what the crowd's like."
"Call that a definite maybe," Dominic replied. "First, let's finish up here and then get some clothes that'll fit us in better."
"Roger that," Brian said. He checked the time: 14:00. Eight in the morning at home. Only one hour of jet lag from London, easily written off.
Jack came in earlier than usual, his interest piqued by what he took to be an ongoing operation in Europe, and wondering what today's message traffic would show.
It turned out to be fairly routine, with some additional traffic on Sali's death. Sure enough, MI5 had reported his death to Langley as having been the apparent result of a heart attack, probably caused by the onset of fatal arrhythmia. That's what the official autopsy read, and his body had been released to a solicitors' firm representing the family. Arrangements were being made to fly him home to Saudi Arabia. His apartment had been looked at by the London version of a black-bag team, which had not, however, turned up anything of particular interest. That included his office computer, whose hard drive had been copied and the data carted off. It was being examined bit by bit by their electronic weenies, details to follow. That could take a lot of time, Jack knew. Stuff hidden on a computer was technically discoverable, but, theoretically, you could also take the pyramids of Giza apart stone by stone to see what was hidden under them. If Sali had been really clever about burying things into slots only he knew about, or in a code to which only he knew the key well, it would be tough. Had he been that clever? Probably not, Jack thought, but you could only tell by looking, and that was why people always looked. It'd take at least a week, to be sure. A month, if the little bastard was good with keys and codes. But just finding hidden stuff would tell them that he'd been a real player and not just a stringer, and the varsity at GCHQ would be assigned to it. Though none of them would be