Page 128 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

“Good. You stay here with him. I’m going to the site. When it’s done, blow his brains out, then come.”

She kissed Emir on the forehead and headed for the door. The small Bosniak was visibly shaken by the kiss, as if a thousand volts of electricity had been shot through his body. His resolve stiffened.

Aida stopped and turned, a dark shadow framed in the doorway, the blazing sun behind her.

“You Americans sicken me. Ignorant. Arrogant. Naive. You are all fools. But you, Jack Ryan, are the biggest fool of all.” She laughed as she headed for her van.

Emir brayed like a mule.

The Volkswagen’s engine fired up outside, spitting gravel as it sped away.

60

Emir pulled up a chair and sat in it, still a safe distance away from Jack’s long reach, even though he couldn’t do much reaching at the moment.

Jack glanced at the laptop. A countdown clock was running.

Forty minutes remaining.

What the hell am I going to do?

“You know she played you, too, right?”

Emir frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re never going to see her again.”

Emir sneered as he shook his head. “You don’t know anything, do you?”

“I know she’s a lying bitch.”

“Watch your mouth, Ryan.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Soon you won’t be saying anything to anybody.”

“And you’re okay with this? Mass murder?”

“Murder? They are infidels who have butchered my peoplefor centuries. They slaughtered my family in the last war. Therefore, this is not murder. It is holy justice.”

“I thought you belonged to the religion of peace.”

Emir nodded. “When all men are Muslims, there will be peace. But until then”—his back stiffened—“there will be jihad.”

“Except you guys kill more of each other than we do.”

Emir spat on the floor. “The days of the filthy Shia are numbered.”

“Until you clowns can figure out how to invent something useful like an internal combustion engine or a telephone, I wouldn’t sweat trying to run the planet.”

Emir wasn’t biting. “Pathetic.”

Time to step it up.

Jack turned his attention back toward the laptop. “Another forty minutes of this? Don’t you have Netflix or something?”

“Always with the jokes, you Americans. But this is no joke. This is how the world you know ends in fire and blood.”