Page 98 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

Aida turned around once or twice, offering Jack a wide smile while she kept speaking, and Jack returned it, but he got the sense the conversation was a little more heated than Aida was letting on.

Finally, the Croatian nodded. Aida pulled out cash from her pocket and counted off a number of bills that Jack couldn’t make out. Apparently, it was enough. The stone-faced Croatian finally smiled and took the cash.

Aida came back over to the van and stuck her head in the window. “Ready to go?”

“Everything okay?”

“Sure. We’ll just leave the van here. Parking on the street is no good at my place. It’s not far.”

“Works for me.”

They pulled their two wheeled bags out of the back of the van as the Croatian rolled up the steel door again, shutting it behind them as they started up the steep concrete hill toward her apartment.

“So those were the medical supplies you came for?”

“Yes.”

“There was a problem, though.”

“Not a problem, a misunderstanding. All good now.”

The diesel engine of a giant silver Mercedes tour bus roaredin their ears as it passed by. Several white-haired tourists stared blankly at them out of their smoke-tinted windows.

The hill got steeper as they walked. It reminded Jack of a summer he had spent in San Francisco. The air here on the coast was cooler and there was a slight breeze. They passed several staircases climbing up to homes and apartments built on the hills ascending from the street. Jack was glad he wasn’t on crutches or in a wheelchair living in this city.

“So, I’m curious. Why drive all the way to pick up the meds? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to order them by mail? Fly them in?”

“Sadly, it’s cheaper to do it this way. The clinic can’t afford the—how do you Americans say it? The ‘five-finger discount’?”

“You’re worried about stuff getting stolen?”

“Sometimes high-value cargo gets ‘inspected’ by customs agents, and things disappear. And then there is the red tape, which magically disappears once a handful of cash appears. Or sometimes things get impounded and the shipment is never seen again.”

“So, basically, you’re smuggling.”

“Well, yes. I suppose you could call it that.”

“Isn’t that illegal?”

Aida tilted her head. “Yes, of course. But it was illegal to smuggle black slaves on the Underground Railroad, too, wasn’t it? Why should I let corrupt and greedy politicians rob poor refugees of the medicines they need?”

“I expect that kind of thing in the Third World, not Europe.”

Aida stopped in her tracks, fighting a smile. “Oh, Jack. Are you really so naive? Do you think such things don’t happen all over Europe? And in your country as well?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you suppose so many billions of dollars’ worth of drugs and smuggled people and guns and everything else illegal gets into your country every year? Do you think it could be done without bribing judges and mayors? Do you think there are no American border guards and customs officers on the payrolls of the Mexican Mafia?”

Jack should have known better. His grandfather was a Baltimore police detective, and Jack had heard stories over the years of all manner of big-city corruption and crime. He just thought—or, rather, hoped—those days were long past in his country.

They trudged along like Sherpas for another hundred yards and Aida stopped again. “We’re here.”

Jack glanced up the staircase. He’d skied on Colorado mountain slopes that weren’t as steep.

Aida laughed, collapsing her telescoping bag handle. “If it’s too much for you, I’ll carry your bag.”

Jack collapsed his handle, too, and snatched up her bag. “I’ve got the bags. Start climbing, Sir Edmund.”