Gone Tomorrow

Excerpt

Chapter One
Suicide bombers are easy to spot. They give out all kinds of telltale
signs. Mostly because they're nervous. By definition they're
all first-timers.
Israeli counterintelligence wrote the defensive playbook. They
told us what to look for. They used pragmatic observation and
psychological insight and came up with a list of behavioral
indicators. I learned the list from an Israeli army captain twenty
years ago. He swore by it. Therefore I swore by it too, because at
the time I was on three weeks' detached duty mostly about a
yard from his shoulder, in Israel itself, in Jerusalem, on the West
Bank, in Lebanon, sometimes in Syria, sometimes in Jordan, on
buses, in stores, on crowded sidewalks. I kept my eyes moving
and my mind running free down the bullet points.
Twenty years later I still know the list. And my eyes still move.
Pure habit. From another bunch of guys I learned another
mantra: Look, don't see, listen, don't hear. The more you
engage, the longer you survive.
The list is twelve points long if you're looking at a male suspect.
Eleven, if you're looking at a woman. The difference is a fresh
shave. Male bombers take off their beards. It helps them blend
in. Makes them less suspicious. The result is paler skin on the
lower half of the face. No recent exposure to the sun.
But I wasn't interested in shaves.
I was working on the eleven-point list.
I was looking at a woman.

I was riding the subway, in New York City. The 6 train, the
Lexington Avenue local, heading uptown, two o'clock in the
morning. I had gotten on at Bleecker Street from the south end
of the platform into a car that was empty except for five people.
Subway cars feel small and intimate when they're full. When
they're empty they feel vast and cavernous and lonely. At night
their lights feel hotter and brighter, even though they're the
same lights they use in the day. They're all the lights there are. I
was sprawled on a two-person bench north of the end doors on
the track side of the car. The other five passengers were all south
of me on the long bench seats, in profile, side on, far from each
other, staring blankly across the width of the car, three on the
left and two on the right.

I could see a police notice advising me: If you see something,
say something.