Walking Ghost: Welcome to Terrorist University by Nicholas Black

Author:Nicholas Black [Black, Nicholas]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-07T04:30:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

One thing that cannot be estimated by CIA analysts, hungry intelligence agents, or nervous lawyers, is the amount of time it takes for two people to develop trust and rapport with each another. Personali ties are so complex—a mixture of nature (genetic predisposition) and nurture (what life does to an organism from the second it is born)—that attempts to predict the time frame and outcome of a relationship are inaccurate at best. Sometimes two people just hit it off.

Other times, they react like two bees in a glass jar, being constantly shaken until they decide to kill each other. And with that comes the reality that you can't assume that your spies will get close enough to their targets to produce reliable intel. Psychological profiling may help narrow down the different options; might shorten your list of potential agents for the particular operation. But nothing more. The rest is left to chance.

Over time, we began to share our histories with each other. All the tiny ones and zeros that made us who we were. It seem~d like Nasser would open up to me more and more each day. We would share various stories and details about our lives, and with each came new insights into his personality. Seemingly insignificant little bits of our lives that made us human. His life was a complicated mosaic. No longer was he just a monster, or just a terrorist. In the same respect, I was no longer just a gun-for-hire. It was a slow process, but friendships are that way. Yes, we were becoming friends.

You can't force it. Slowly, as each day went by, the suspicions and uncertainty seemed to wash off like the camouflage face paint we both used in the jungles to stay hidden. With each new piece of our former lives made available to the other, the walls of apprehension slowly lowered. We stared to become more visible to the other.

I told Nasser about my time in college, in Texas, and how it cemented in me the resolve that I had to do something bigger, more grand. I had to do something with my life that had an impact; that was above the ordinary. Back when I was in college I didn't have a direction. I studied psychology, and watched the sky, trying to imagine where my life would end up taking me. I wasn't a criminal back then. I wasn't a warrior. All I had was this strange, suffocating desire to do something grand. I could never respect myself if all I did was enter the corporate world and claw my way up to middle management, wearing one of those short-sleeved button-up shirts with a clip-on tie. Have some guy named Marty ask me about my notes from the staff meeting on recycling staples and paper clips. No, thanks. I mean, what would I tell my illegitimate grandchildren?

I had known for a long time, even before my days at UT, that I would follow the way of the gun. Maybe that makes me socially retarded; inept at living within the confines of a modern citizen's life.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.