Page 39 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

Adnan’s phone rang and he picked up, chattering in Bosanski with the caller on the other end. Jack cast his gaze back outside. The people in their cars or walking the pavement seemed neither particularly well dressed nor desperately poor, and many of them were smoking, young and old alike. Like city dwellers everywhere, they had mostly unsmiling faces stress-hardened against the harsh realities of not enough wages and too-high rents. The anxious energy of the city radiated against the car’s tinted glass like the rays of the sun.

Adnan hung up. “Sorry about that.”

“No worries. Everything okay?”

“My mother. She’s sick.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not bad. Just a cold. But I worry, you know?”

“It’s your mother. You should worry,” Jack said.

Adnan smiled at that. “How long are you in Bosnia?”

Jack didn’t particularly care to answer questions, especially from strangers, but this guy was a driver and just trying to make small talk.

Right?

“A week,” Jack lied. He had no idea how long he’d be in town. He might even be leaving tomorrow if his luck held.

“Too bad. There is much to see, especially out in the country. Business?”

“Pleasure.”

“Good. You Americans work too hard.”

“What about you? Is this your full-time job?”

“Me? Yes. One of them. I also study German, and sometimes work at my father’s shop, and sometimes clean windows. Whatever work I can get.”

“Jobs are hard to get here?”

“More than forty percent unemployment here in the city. Very bad.”

“Why so high?”

“People moving into the city from the country every day. But mostly, it is stupid government and corrupt politicians causing problems. Hard to develop industries and jobs when you pay too much in taxes and bribes to idiots like we got.”

“Trust me, you don’t have a monopoly on idiots,” Jack said. “Your English is very good. You learned it in school?”

“Mostly on the Internet, playing video games. School not so good here.”

“I saw your books in the front seat. You’re studying German and business. Thinking about starting an importing company?”

“No. Export company. Starting with me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I want to learn enough German to emigrate. Eighty thousand Bosnians leave every year looking for work, especially in Germany. I have a cousin in Frankfurt, drives a taxi. Soon as I save up enough money, I’m going there.”

“That’s gotta be tough, leaving your own country to find work somewhere else,” Jack offered.

“What choice do I have? You go where the work is. If I make enough, maybe come back.”

Jack didn’t know what else to say. Adnan was like millions of other people displaced by the crushing economic realities of globalism. Jack was lucky he was born in a country that still knew how to compete.

“How much longer until we arrive?”