by Larry Bond
The water relaxed her. Corrine had been on the swim team in high school, and she fell into an easy pace now, her muscles remembering the early morning routines. That had always been the way back then: dread for the first lap, then contentment as she fell into the exercise.
“Whoa,” said one of the marines, swimming near her. He stopped paddling and stared at the beach.
A bevy of rather attractive young women had come down from the hotel in ultra-skimpy two-piece suits and were fussing over their blankets. There were more than a dozen women between whom the material of their suits wouldn’t have filled a square foot.
She was a bit far to know for sure, but Corrine assumed among them were the two girls she’d seen in Ferguson’s room. She spun in the water, just in time to see one of the marines darting downward.
“It’s all right,” she hissed. “He’s with me. Let him go.”
Corrine had meant the warning for the Marine, but when Ferguson bobbed upward, it was the bodyguard who was in his grip, not the other way around. The second Marine made another lunge, but the CIA officer was too quick, releasing the other man and paddling backward.
“It’s Ferguson,” hissed Corrine. “Relax, Bob. They’re with me.”
“Nice work if you can get it,” said Ferguson. “Step into my office.” He paddled backward, using the marines to help screen them, though it was difficult to think anyone would look out to sea while the girls continued to preen on the beach.
“You’re lucky I was on the swim team,” said Corrine.
“So that’s why you’re in the shallow water. What was your event?”
“Butterfly.”
“I’m freestyle.”
“I never would have guessed.”
“So what the hell are you doing here?” asked Ferguson in his most cheerful voice. “Besides trying to get me killed.”
“The president is going to Baghdad next week.”
“Everybody and his brother knows that.”
“He’s also going to make a side trip, to Jerusalem to announce a new peace accord between Israel and Palestine. They’ve agreed on a shared security arrangement to keep the holy sites of Jerusalem safe for all faiths. The trip hasn’t been announced, and it won’t be until it happens.”
“It’ll be hard to keep that a secret.”
“You didn’t know it,” said Corrine. “How hard can it be?”
“Touché.” Ferguson took a few strokes, glancing back toward the beach to make sure his diversion was still in force. “So, are you going to answer my question or not? Why are you here?”
“Bob—”
“You can call me Ferg.”
“If Special Demands does anything to mess that up, the president will not be happy.”
Ferguson didn’t respond.
“Why did you go to Cairo without clearing it with me first?” said Corrine.
“My job is to make the operational decisions,” said Ferguson. “That hasn’t changed. Once we were on Seven Angels, it was my show.”
“The original plan called for you to follow Thatch in Jerusalem. You weren’t following Thatch, and you weren’t in Jerusalem.”
“What if he had gone to Tel Aviv?”
“He didn’t. He died.”
“See, the problem is, Corrine, we’re not arguing a legal case here. We’re doing a covert action that you can’t define beforehand. I went to Cairo because I thought I might have a chance at finding out who Seven Angels was connecting with, and from that getting more information about them and their plans, which would help us close them down. That’s my job. It’s a real pain to have to explain step by step what I’m doing.”
“You can’t just go off on your own. There are other considerations. Like the president’s peace plan and visit.”
“You want my opinion on that?”
“No.”
Ferguson smiled and took a few strokes away, checking on the beach show.
“Is Khazaal a threat to disrupt the visit to Baghdad?” Corrine asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure where he is at the moment. Probably not here. But I’d stay the hell out of Baghdad on general principle, don’t you think?”
“I haven’t been there.”
“Take my word for it.”
“This is an historic moment,” said Corrine.
Ferguson stopped in the water, trying to knock some water out of his ear. Every moment was historic. The problem was, the really important ones were never obvious until a hundred years later on.
“Maybe Khazaal is running away from Iraq because the heat is on,” suggested Corrine. “Maybe the insurgency is dead.”
“You’re listening to Corrigan too much,” said Ferguson. “He got that idea from Slott. And with all due respect to our esteemed deputy director of operations, he doesn’t know diddly about Iraq or the Middle East. He was an Asia hand. People are much more logical there. As for Corrigan, he thinks he won the war against Saddam by putting McDonald’s ads on Iraqi television.”
“So what’s Khazaal up to then?”
“First I find him, then I psychoanalyze him.”
“The Israelis said he might be going to Syria.”
“Yeah, but we missed him on the border. Maybe they gave us the information too late. Or maybe we’re just slow. Or maybe they’re wrong. What are they holding back?”
“I don’t know. I agree that they are.”
Well, at least she figured that out, thought Ferguson. He kicked back in a circle behind her.
“So you only came here because you wanted to spit at me in person?”
“You work for me, Bob. Not the other way around. You have to show some respect,” said Corrine.
“You have to earn respect.”
“No, I represent the president. I don’t have to earn anything. First of all, when I say I want to talk to you, I want to talk to you. I am supervising Special Demands. Not Parnelles, not Slott, not you. Me. I didn’t want the job. The president stuck me with it. If you disagree with him, fine. Tell him. But until he changes his mind, I’m in charge. I’m not trying to be an asshole,” she added, softening the strident note in her voice. “I don’t want to micromanage you. I just want to do my job. And that means that we have to communicate. To head off problems.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” said Ferguson, more neutral. “You would have told me about the visit to Palestine and the peace plan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well you shouldn’t have. If I got dropped, it wouldn’t have been secret.”
“That’s true now.”
“I rest my case.”
“Well don’t get dropped.”
Ferguson laughed. “Good advice.”
“I’m trying to balance what you need to know with enough information so you trust me,” said Corrine.
“I could say the same thing about Cairo,” said Ferguson.
“You’re right,” she said.
Ferguson was mildly surprised by the admission. He started swimming parallel to her, matching her pace.
“Do you think Khazaal has enough money to buy an airliner?” asked Corrine. “That was one of the theories on the threat matrix.”
“Ah, that matrix crap is bullshit. They just throw that together for the briefing,” said Ferguson. “We don’t know how much he has. Rankin and Thera found out last night he’s traveling with jewels, so he could have a lot, but buying an airliner, or renting one? It’d be shot down halfway to Baghdad. That’s not it.” Ferguson stopped. “Do you want my opinion?”
“Yes.”
“Our best bet is just to kill the son of a bitch when we see him.”
Profanity aside, Corrine, as a citizen of the U.S. and an admirer of the president and what he stood for, didn’t disagree. But as counsel to the president, as someone whose job called for her to uphold the Constitution and its principles, she had to disagree. Khazaal should be tried in an Iraqi court. Only after he was convicted shou
ld he be stomped to death.
“The president has specifically directed his apprehension, not his assassination,” she said.
“He didn’t have his fingers crossed behind his back?”
“They were in clear view on his desk at all times.”
“I’m not being a smart aleck. I don’t know if I can take him alive,” said Ferguson. “Especially in Syria. It’s pretty easy to get away with things in Lebanon, but Syria: the police don’t like Westerners, Americans especially, and the upper ranks of the intelligence service are pretty competent. Some of the lower-ranking guys can get bought off but not dependably. Once we’re out of the desert, things can get very complicated . . .” He shook his head. “If I start something, he may make me finish it.”
“If you have a high probability of success, go for it.”
“That’s kind of mealymouthed.”
“If you have to protect yourself, do it. Then it’ll be different.”
“Why?”
Corrine resisted trotting out the textbook distinctions between justifiable homicide and murder, knowing that Ferguson was getting at a much larger question, an issue that, frankly, she herself could not completely decide. If an individual was allowed to defend him- or herself against an attack, wasn’t a nation? And given that the answer had to be yes, how far could it go? Would pulling a gun on a robber in a dark alley be more acceptable than pulling it in your own home? What if you left the window open and invited the robber in to rob you?
“The law says it’s different,” she said. “I didn’t draw the distinction, but I can uphold it.”
“If I come up with a plan that’s so bad it puts me in danger, I get to kill him. That doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
“I know your record. I know what you did in Chechnya and over the Pacific,” Corrine added. “I was there. You wouldn’t come up with a crappy plan.”
“Everybody has a bad day,” said Ferg. “Listen, since we’re up close and personal here, why did you yank us off Seven Angels without even talking to me and explaining the situation?”
“I didn’t take you off. That operation ended.”
“No, it didn’t,” said Ferg. “Thatch got himself blown up, but that wasn’t the end of the operation.”
“The FBI made arrests. Come on, Ferguson. You don’t think those crazies were a legitimate threat, do you?”
“They might have led to people who are. I had a few more leads to check out in Tel Aviv. There were phone calls made from a dentist’s office there that haven’t been explained. And even if I didn’t have anything else to look into, even if they are just whackos, you talk about courtesy: you should have called me yourself and told me, not had Corrigan do it.”
“Fair enough,” said Corrine. “My mistake.”
Two instances of acting decent within five minutes of each other, thought Ferguson; maybe there was hope for her.
Nah.
“Nice suit,” he told her. “I have to go. I’m not sure what our next move is, but I should know by tonight. I’ll call. Better yet, if you’re still in town, I’ll tell you in person.”
“I have to take a tour this evening and one tomorrow morning. I’m here as a liaison to the Commerce Department, representing the president.”
“Yeah, I heard. Your escorts will include government security people, secret police. Syrians pull a lot of the strings behind the curtains. They have two people on the beach watching you.”
“Syrians?”
“Half of Lebanon is on Assad’s payroll. You see his pictures everywhere? There’s a jazz club we can meet at tonight to go over notes,” he told her. “I’ll leave a message with the time.”
“You like jazz?”
Ferguson started swimming again. She followed.
“Don’t notice me in the club,” he told her. “I’ll only come close if it’s safe.”
He gave a strong kick. Corrine realized he was a good swimmer; she could keep up but just barely.
“Ferg?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s with the bimbos?”
Ferguson laughed and stopped swimming. “Good diversion, huh? The two Syrians who are watching you have their eyes pasted on them.”
“I meant in the room.”
“The cute one, Kel, is a Mossad agent. She claims she didn’t know who I was when she picked me up, but I’m not sure. She also claimed she knew I figured out who she was before my Russian friend appeared, but I think that’s bull.”
“She’s Mossad?”
“The Israelis move people in and out all over Syria. Most of them are contract people they bring up for a few weeks, then get out.”
“Is the other one an agent, too?”
“Nah. She can’t hold her liquor.” Ferguson glanced at the beach and saw that the girls were preparing to leave. “Diversion’s over. You should stay out here for a while before you go back. Glad we had this talk.”
“I never know whether you’re being sarcastic or not.”
“I’d think it was pretty much a given.”
~ * ~
18
EASTERN SYRIA
Thera came up with the idea, and it was a good one: “worthy of Ferguson,” said Rankin. Only Ferguson couldn’t have carried it off.
Primarily a military facility, the airport was patrolled by two companies’ worth of soldiers and two armored personnel carriers, vehicles that dated from the days when Syria was a client of the Soviet Union. Most of the force was concentrated on the military side of the airport, and the two soldiers at the gate to the civilian terminal building didn’t seem to even notice Fouad and Thera as they approached.
Fouad took care of that.
“An outrage!” he yelled in Arabic. “An outrage and dishonor on my family for generations! Shame and the curse of Allah be upon the dog.” He gestured at Thera, who bent her veiled head down over a freshly curved belly. Fouad continued to rant, sketching out the outlines of the story: his daughter’s fiancé had left the city by plane the day before, and he demanded justice.
One of the soldiers looked away, hiding a smirk, but the other, about the age to have children of his own, Fouad thought, nodded with concern. Fouad continued his tirade as they walked along toward the building, complaining about how few people devoted themselves properly to the Koran or common decency.
“You’re going a bit over the top,” whispered Thera as they came up the concrete walk to the main door of the terminal. “Take it down a notch.”
He didn’t understand the slang.
“You’re overacting,” Thera said, “Too much.”
Fouad didn’t think so. If he’d had a daughter who’d been dishonored, surely he would be this angry, angrier. He was entitled to exact revenge on the miscreant, by custom if not by law, and few judges would dispute that right.
Fouad had never had children—his wife had died of cholera two years after they married—but he thought of her now as he refined his rant inside the terminal, acting as if her blessed memory had been besmirched. It took several minutes before they managed to find a charter office where Fouad could lay out an explanation, in rambling style, of what he wanted: information on where the fiancé had gone. Persistent complaints and pleading led them to the office of the airport manager, where the secretary, a thoroughly modern Syrian, proved entirely unsympathetic. He was on the verge of calling the military people up when Thera grew violently ill. They helped her to the restroom together, where a female worker took over and led her inside.
“Surely you have your own daughter,” Fouad said to the man, who was in his late twenties. “You understand and can help.”
“No, by the grace of God,” said the man. “Only a boy so far.”
“You are ten times luckier than I, a thousand times, by the mercy and grace of God you are highly blessed. I am a poor man, wretched,” moaned Fouad, “to be terribly disgraced like this. I shall kill her and then myself
when she comes out of the restroom. I will wait until you return to your office so you are not disturbed.”
“The plane that day left for Latakia,” said the man. “That was the only plane. But the passenger ... I doubt it was your son-in-law.”