Том Клэнси - The Teeth of the Tiger

“The Campus? What’s that?” the Marine asked. Alexander noticed that Dominic Caruso did not. He was listening and watching very closely. Brian would never stop being a Marine, and Dominic would never stop being FBI. They never did. It was both good and bad, in both cases.

“ That is a privately funded intelligence service.”

“Privately funded?” Brian asked. “How the hell–”

“You’ll see how it works later, and when you do, you will be surprised how easily it’s done. What concerns you right here and right now is what they do.”

“They kill people,” Dominic said immediately. The words came out seemingly of their own accord.

“Why do you think that?” Alexander asked innocently.

“The outfit is small. We’re the only people here, judging by the parking pad outside. I’m not experienced enough to be an expert agent. All I did was whack somebody who needed it, and next day I’m up in Headquarters talking to an assistant director, and a couple of days after that I drive to D.C. and get sent down here. This place is very, very special, very, very small, and it has top-level approval for whatever it does. You’re not selling U.S. Savings Bonds here, are you?”

“The book on you is that you have good analytical ability,” Alexander said. “Can you learn to keep your mouth shut?”

“It’s not needed in this particular place, I should think. But, yeah, I know how, when the situation calls for it,” Dominic said.

“Okay, here’s the first speech. You guys know what ‘black’ means, right? It means a program or project that is not acknowledged by the government. People pretend it doesn’t exist. The Campus takes that one step further: We really do not exist. There is not a single written document in the possession of any government employee that has a single word about us. From this moment on, you two young gentlemen do not exist. Oh, sure, you, Captain – or is it Major already? – Caruso, you get a paycheck that’s going to be direct-deposited into whatever bank account you set up this week, but you are no longer a Marine. You are on detached duty, whose nature is unknown. And you, Special Agent Dominic Caruso–”

“I know. Gus Werner told me. They dug a hole and pulled it in after them.”

Alexander nodded. “You will both leave your official identification documents, dog tags, everything, here before you leave. You can keep your names, maybe, but a name is just a couple of words, and nobody believes a name in this business anyway. That’s the funny part about my time in the field with the Agency. Once on a job, I changed names without thinking about it. Damned embarrassing when I realized it. Like an actor: All of a sudden I’m Macbeth when I’m supposed to be Hamlet. No harm came of it, though, and I didn’t croak at the end of the play.”

“What, exactly, will we be doing?” This was Brian.

“Mostly, you’ll be doing investigative work. Tracking money. The Campus is particularly good at that. You’ll find out how and why later. You will probably deploy together. You, Dominic, will do most of the heavy lifting on the investigative side. You, Brian, will back him up on the muscle side, and along the way you’ll learn to do what – what was it you called him a little while ago?”

“Oh, you mean Enzo? I call him that because he had a heavy foot when he got his driver’s license. You know, like Enzo Ferrari.”

Dominic pointed to his brother and laughed. “He’s Aldo because he dresses like a dweeb. Like in that wine commercial, Aldo Cella: ‘He’s not a slave to fashion’? It’s a family joke.”

“Okay, go to Brooks Brothers and dress better,” Pete Alexander told Brian. “Your cover mainly will be as a businessman or a tourist. So, you’ll have to dress neatly, but not like the Prince of Wales. You’ll both let your hair grow out, especially you, Aldo.”

Brian rubbed a hand over his head stubble. It marked him anywhere in the civilized world as a United States Marine. It could have been worse. Army Rangers were even more radical in the hair department. Brian would look like a fairly normal human being in a month or so. “Damn, I’ll have to buy a comb.”

“What’s the plan?”

“For today, just relax and settle in. Tomorrow we wake up early and make sure you two are in decent physical shape. Then there’s weapons proficiency – and the sit-down classwork. You’re both computer-literate, I presume.”

“Why do you ask?” This was Brian.

“The Campus mainly works like a virtual office. You’ll be issued computers with built-in modems, and that’s how you’ll communicate with the home office.”

“What about security?” Dominic asked.

“The machines have pretty good security built in. If there’s a way to crack them, nobody’s found it yet.”

“That’s good to know,” Enzo observed, dubiously. “They use computers in the Corps, Aldo?”

“Yeah, we have all the modern conveniences, even toilet paper.”

“AND YOURname is Mohammed?” Ernesto asked.

“That is correct, but for now, call me Miguel.” Unlike with Nigel, it was a name he’d be able to remember. He had not begun by invoking Allah’s blessing on this meeting. These unbelievers would not have understood.

“Your English is – well, you sound English.”

“I was educated there,” Mohammed explained. “My mother was English. My father was Saudi.”

“Was?”

“Both are dead.”

“My sympathies,” Ernesto offered with questionable sincerity. “So, what can we do for each other?”

“I told Pablo here about the idea. Has he filled you in?”

“ Sí, he has, but I wish to hear it directly from you. You understand that I represent six others who share my business interests.”

“I see. Do you have the power to negotiate for all of them?”

“Not entirely, but I will present what you say to them – you need not meet with them all – and they have never rejected my suggestions. If we come to an agreement here, it can be fully ratified by the end of the week.”

“Very well. You know the interests I myself represent. I am empowered to make an agreement, as well. Like you, we have a major enemy nation to the north. They are putting ever-greater pressure on my friends. We wish to retaliate, and to deflect their pressure in other directions.”

“It is much the same with us,” Ernesto observed.

“Therefore, it is in our mutual interests to cause unrest and chaos within America. The new American president is a weak man. But for that reason he can be a dangerous one. The weak are quicker to use force than the strong. Even though they use it inefficiently, it can be an annoyance.”

“Their methods of intelligence-gathering concern us. You also?”

“We have learned caution,” Mohammed replied. “What we do not have is a good infrastructure in America. For this we need assistance.”

“You don’t? That’s surprising. Their news media is full of reports about the FBI and other agencies busily tracking your people within their borders.”

“At the moment, they are chasing shadows – and sowing discord in their own land by doing so. It complicates the task of building a proper network so that we can conduct offensive operations.”

“The nature of those operations does not concern us?” Pablo asked.

“That is correct. It is nothing you have not done yourselves, of course.” But not in America, he did not add. Here in Colombia the gloves were all the way off, but they’d been careful to limit themselves in the U.S., their “customer” nation. So much the better. It would be entirely out of character with anything they’d done. Operational security was a concept both sides fully understood.