Splinter Cell (2004) by Tom - Splinter Cell 0 Clancy

in Lebanon. I came back here when I was eighteen.”
    “Where’s your father?”
    “He’s dead.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    He shrugged again. “It happened when I was young. It was a terrorist bombing. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “Gee, Eli.”
    “Your mother is dead, too, isn’t she?” he asked.
    “Yeah. She died of cancer when I was fifteen.”
    “And your father . . . is he still an ‘international salesman’?”
    She looked at him sideways. “You say that like you’re skeptical.”
    He laughed. “It’s just that you don’t seem to know much about what he does for a living. You never have.”
    “That’s true, I guess.”
    “You see him much?”
    “No, not really. He lives in Baltimore, or rather a suburb of Baltimore.”
    “That’s near Washington, D.C., you know,” he said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “He’s probably in the CIA.” Eli said it facetiously.
    “Actually he did work for the CIA a long time ago. Not anymore, though. He was in the CIA when he met my mother.”
    “No shit?”
    “That’s right.”
    “What was he, like a spy or something?”
    “I really don’t know. Some kind of diplomat’s aid.”
    Eli laughed. “Yep. Spy.”
    She laughed with him. “I guess, maybe. Anyway, I don’t know what he does now.”
    “I see.”
    “So, Eli, are you going to stay in Israel or are you coming back to the States to get your degree?”
    He took a sip of wine and said, “I’m thinking of going to Juilliard. I have an audition in the summer. I just have to get a visa.”
    “Really? Juilliard?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “So you won’t come back to Chicago?”
    “I don’t think so, Sarah. But, listen, why don’t you come live with me in New York after you graduate? You’ve got one more year, right?”
    The question took Sarah by surprise. “You want me to come live with you?”
    “Sure. Why not? You like me, don’t you?”
    “Well, yeah, but that’s . . . that’s like we’d be married or something.”
    “No it’s not, silly. We’d just be living together.”
    She was flustered. “I’ll have to get back to you on that one, Eli.”
    “There’s plenty of time, I think,” he said. He reached across the table, placed his hand over hers, and lightly squeezed it. Sarah was taken aback by his show of affection. She had no idea that he cared enough for her to ask her something like that.
    What would a future with Eli Horowitz be like? she wondered. As an English major she could probably get a job teaching somewhere in New York. She’d have to get a certificate from that state, of course. Or maybe she’d just stay at home and be a writer. That’s what she really wanted to do. Wouldn’t it be an idyllic existence? She a best-selling author and Eli a famous orchestra conductor?
    Sarah turned over her hand so that she could squeeze his in return.
    It just might work, she thought.

9
    I set out in the Toyota Land Cruiser and head north from Baghdad. The Iraqi security forces stop me at two different roadblocks on the outskirts of the city. They’re very thorough. At the first one they ask to see my identity papers and passport. They ask me if I’m armed even though the papers indicate that I’m cleared with the Iraqi government to carry firearms. I comply by revealing the Five-seveN, but the SC-20K remains in the duffel bag. After a few minutes of suspicious looks and some frowns, they let me drive on. The second roadblock is much the same. They ask what I plan to do in Mosul and how long I’ll be there. I tell them what I think will appease them and they let me go.
    The highway is a modern one—newly repaved after the beating it took during the war and subsequent months of unrest. The city was brutal with stop-and-go congestion on every major street, but here there isn’t much traffic. The open road feels good. I occasionally see military vehicles, even U.S. ones. Dilapidated pickup trucks and wagons carrying produce and other goods are fairly common.
    The