Page 16 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

Unfortunately, Jack’s carry-on suitcase was two inches too tall and three kilos over the weight limit for his air carrier, so he had to check it. The time to retrieve his luggage seemed longer than the flight itself, but customs was little more than a perfunctory nod and a quick stamp of his passport, so it allevened out. The trick with commercial aviation travel, he’d learned over the past few years, was to keep your expectations low and to relax.

He was greeted in the airport’s small lobby with a broad smile and a firm handshake by his host, Rojko Struna, the thirty-seven-year-old owner of the firm that had hired Hendley for the consultation. He had a runner’s build and an easy gait.

“Mr. Struna, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Only one bag?”

“I travel light.”

“Good. I’m the same way. My car’s close.” Struna and Jack headed for the sliding glass doors and the temporary parking, which was just a few feet from the drop-off, another advantage to the sleepy little airport. There wasn’t enough rain to bother with an umbrella. A security camera was perched on the lamppost just above Struna’s SUV, a blue BMW X3.

Jack loaded his carry-on and laptop into the back of the BMW, then climbed into the plush black leather passenger seat as Struna pressed the starter button. By the time they pulled onto the southbound two-lane E61, the sky had darkened considerably and the windshield wipers were slapping away a heavy rain. The light traffic sped along nicely, mostly German and Italian nameplates on the cars, with a few Škodas making up the rest.

“Sorry about the weather. We’re due for rain the whole week. I was hoping to get you up into the mountains while you were here.”

“I’ve got plenty to do anyway. At least I won’t be tempted to leave the office.”

“It still might clear up. Around here we say, ‘If you don’t like the weather right now, just wait ten minutes.’”

“If you don’t mind my saying, your English is perfect.” Jack couldn’t detect any Slovenian accent—not that he knew what that would sound like anyway.

“Thanks. It’s my first language. I was born in Newport Beach.”

“What’s a beach bum from California doing in the Balkans?”

“My parents immigrated to the States just after Tito died in 1980. They opened a pizza joint and a bar and did pretty well. You know, the American Dream and all of that.”

“That’s great.”

“My sister and I both graduated from San Diego State. She went into nursing, and I studied computer science.”

“Which explains your company.” Struna’s firm was pioneering some of the best medical robotics technologies in the industry. “What brought you here?”

“California is a great place to live, but it’s a hard place to raise a family. Too crowded, too expensive, too many taxes. My wife and I have two small kids, and I’d come back here for vacations for years, so I knew the place well. Maybe it was my parents’ nostalgia or something else, but I really wanted to make a go of it, so here we are.”

“So far, so good?”

“As I hope you’ll see from our financials.”

“I’ve already seen the preliminaries. You’re tearing the joint up. Based on those, I don’t foresee any problem with you getting registered on the NASDAQ next year.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here to find out, one way or the other.”

Jack glanced out the rain-streaked passenger window. He saw low tree-covered mountains and green fields, dotted with the occasional farmhouse.

“Slovenia is a beautiful country.”

“This? This is nothing. Wait until you see the Julian Alps and the Soca River. It will take your breath away.”

Struna eased into the passing lane to get around a big Mercedes eighteen-wheeler. “And by the way, thanks for not calling it ‘Slovakia’ like a lot of Americans do. That’s another country altogether.”

“Not every American is geographically illiterate. But it’s not like I know a whole lot about your country.”

“I take it you’ve never been here before?”

“No, but the pictures I found on the Web were incredible.”