by Larry Bond
“There’s a bus coming,” said Corrigan.
Rankin cursed and stepped on the gas, but by the time he got close enough to see the bus the men were aboard and it was moving.
“We’ll tag along, see if they get off together,” said Rankin, though he knew it was hopeless. “Best we can do.”
~ * ~
10
LATAKIA
Ferguson was just about to call it a night when a large man in an ill-fitting suit walked into the Milad, a crowded club on the Blue Beach. The pale-ski lined, pimple-faced European looked out of place here, but then he probably would have looked out of place at his own funeral.
“Birk wants to talk,” said the man. “At the Max.”
“Very good,” said Ferguson. “We were just on our way over.”
The Max awed Thera. The place was one part European grand hotel and another part Las Vegas fun palace.
“Nice place,” she said as Ferguson tugged her inside.
“It’ll do. Don’t say anything in Russian. Or about Russia. And count your fingers when we’re done.”
Birk was sitting with Jean Allsparté, an Algerian who specialized in arranging transport for items large and small. Ferguson remembered from his last visit that Allsparté spent almost all of his time in town gambling; clearly he was here now for a deal. Birk dismissed him as soon as he saw Ferguson arrive: Allsparté slipped away before Ferguson could get close enough to ask how his luck was running these days.
“Ferg, a pleasure,” said Birk rising. “And with such lovely company tonight.” He took Thera’s hand as gallantly as Ras had but then turned to Ferguson and said, “She leaves.”
“She’s with me.”
Birk shook his head. “No.”
Ferguson gestured to Thera that she should go over near the bar. “Not too far,” he said. He watched her leave, then turned to Birk. “So talk to me.”
“Recently on the market. Very nice.”
“I know you’re speaking English, Birk, but I’m not getting the words.”
“Mashinostroenia.”
“Russian weapons manufacturer,” said Ferguson. “Speak English. Or I’ll speak Polish.”
“The P-120 Malakhit 4K-85—the Siren cruise missile. One has recently become available.”
“That’s nice.”
The weapon Birk was referring to—known to NATO as the SS-N-9 Siren—was an antiship cruise missile that entered Russian (at the time, Soviet) service in 1969. The weapon carried a five-hundred-kilogram conventional warhead, or nuke. Primarily a ship-launched missile, it was also carried aboard Russian “Charlie II”-class submarines. Depending on how it was launched, it had a sixty-nautical-mile range, with inertial and radar-terminal homing, meaning that once fired it could find its own way to the target.
According to some sources, the Russians had experimented with a video guidance system for the weapon that allowed it to be steered to a precise aim point (though in practice the target would have had to be fairly large: a house as opposed to a door, for example). It was a potent missile, though weapons such as the “Switchblade” (Kh-35 Uran, a Harpoon knock-off) had made it technically obsolete in the Russian inventory.
“Come on. You would like one, no?” prompted Birk. “You bought the SA-2s last year.”
“Different program,” said Ferguson. “What sort of warhead?”
“What would you like?”
“What can you get?”
Birk laughed. “I like you, Ferguson, really. You dance like one of us. You are Polish, no? Tell me you are, and I slice ten percent from the price.”
“Not according to Mom. But she might’ve had reason to lie.”
“Perhaps we should go into business as partners.”
“You’d trust me as your partner?”
“Of course not. That is why you would make a good partner.”
“Maybe when I retire.”
“One million.”
“Too much.”
Actually, the price was low, and under other circumstances Ferguson would have grabbed it. But he had too many other things to worry about and doubted he could talk Corrine Alston into the idea.
“I will find many buyers,” said Birk. “There is a primitive launching system included; no need for elaborate preparation.”
“You have the Titanit radar, too, huh?”
“No, but this is not a serious deficiency. A GPS kit has been installed. There is internal guidance as a backup and—”
“Whose GPS kit? American?”
“Russian, actually,” said Birk. GPS stood for “global positioning satellite” and technically referred to a group of satellites launched by America. But the initials had become short hand for any system using satellites for target guidance. The satellites and the radios that got their bearings from them had many uses; civilians were familiar with the GPS system from mapping programs used for getting directions in high-end automobiles. The U.S. military had pioneered the use of relatively inexpensive “kits” that could be added to otherwise simple weapons: an iron bomb, for example, could be turned into a precision-guided munition with such a system steering its tail fins. The Russians had a satellite network named Glosnass that worked the same way.
Satellite guidance had not been invented when the Siren was first put into service; even if it had been, the Russians wanted the weapon to strike ships, which presumably wouldn’t stay at a fixed point on the earth’s surface very long. But on the black market, such a system would make the missile more desirable to anyone wishing to hit a fixed target. Not only would it be more accurate, it would be easier to use.
A five-hundred-kilogram warhead (a bit more than a thousand pounds) could obliterate a decent-sized building. A nuke could take out a good-sized city.
“Can you get a satellite kit for other missiles?” Ferguson asked.
“Everything is for sale.” Birk sighed. He hated it when negotiations moved off point. “As I understand it, the Siren missile is aimed in the proper direction, then launched. After a certain time the guidance system takes over. The accuracy is very good. Within three meters, guaranteed.”
“Or my money back, right?”
Birk smiled.
“You have an EUC for the missile?” Ferguson was referring to an end-user certificate, a document used by governments to certify that weapons systems had been bought legally. The usual fee for one—fraudulent, of course—started at one hundred thousand dollars.
“That would be pointless in this case,” admitted Birk. “There were not so many made: five hundred, eight hundred ... I lose track.”
“I’ll bet.”
“A very good deal for you, Ferguson. A dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.”
“Whose hands?”
Birk shrugged.
“The warhead on the Siren, a nuke?”
“Conventional, alas. But something of this size is very hard to come by. Five hundred kilograms. It would leave quite a hole. And of course you could always remove the conventional payload and replace it with something more to your liking.”
“Do you have more?” asked Ferguson.
“Only the one.”
“If there are so few, where did this one come from?”
“That is always a question I do not ask. One would believe a government,” said Birk. “But I do not deal direct.”
“And the person who has this has only one?”
“Had one. It is now in my possession.”
“What about the guidance system?” asked Ferguson.
“Part of the package.”
“Are there other guidance systems? I might be interested in buying a few.”
“What missile would you like them for?”
“How about a Scud?”
Birk made a face. “An inferior product. I would not sell you one.”
“The guidance system or the missile?”
“Either. The Scud is a piece of junk.”
Not, thought Ferguson, if it were guided by a GPS system, though
admittedly this would take a bit of tinkering. “Who would you sell it to?”
“I have no Scuds. Today, I’m selling the Siren. Tomorrow, who knows? Are you a serious buyer?”
“I’ll talk to my superiors and see what we can do.”
“You have a superior?” Birk laughed. “I don’t believe it. Not even God would be your superior. As a show of good faith, one piece of interesting gossip,” added Birk. “First, a vodka.”
“Back to vodka?”
“One strays but always comes home. Drinking is like marriage.”
They shared a shot of an obscure Polish vodka that Birk claimed was the best alcohol in existence. To Ferguson it tasted one step removed from potato peelings—and a step in the wrong direction.
“Look for your friend Khazaal in a mosque,” said Birk.
“Which one?”
Birk shook his head. “You are supposed to be the spy. I cannot keep track of these mosques. They are all alike to me.”
Ferg got up, winking at Thera.
“Five hundred thousand, firm,” said Birk.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
~ * ~
11
DAMASCUS
THE NEXT MORNING . . .
Corrine tried twice more to get hold of Tischler without getting a response. When she told Ferguson about it, he didn’t seem surprised.
“His man may have already filled him in,” Ferguson told her.
“Wouldn’t it be polite to return my call? He doesn’t know what it’s about.”
“It would be smart to return your call, because he doesn’t know what you want, even if he thinks he does,” said Ferguson. “But Tischler doesn’t do polite. Think of it this way: he figures you’re going to tell him his man is a screwup.”
“How is he a screwup?”
“He should have skulked away without seeing you, taking the chance that you wouldn’t notice or might not remember, and knowing that even if you did, you’re supposed to be an ally and ought to know enough to keep your mouth shut. This way there was no chance that you wouldn’t notice him.”
“I thought Mossad people don’t screw up.”
“They’re human,” said Ferguson.
“If he’s not going to call me back, the hell with him.”
“I guess,” said Ferguson. He paused a moment, then changed the subject. “Listen, I need a million dollars.”
“What?”
“I can probably get the price down a bit, but it’s going to be in that neighborhood.”
“For what?”
Ferguson explained that he wanted to buy the Russian ship-to-ship missile Birk had for sale.
“I’ll have to talk to Washington,” she said doubtfully.
“They’re going to tell you it’s not in the budget,” said Ferguson. “The program to buy nuclear-capable cruise missiles ran out of funds eight months ago.”
“Well, then, why are you asking me?”
“Because it’s an opportunity to take a pretty potent missile off the market,” said Ferguson. “And because it’ll make my next request seem much more reasonable.”
“Which is?”
“First, let me ask you: are you still ruling out an air strike? Van says he can get some Stealth Fighters overhead in a half hour. Personally, I prefer B-52s.”
“Absolutely, positively not. No aggression on Syrian soil. Nothing like that. We’re trying to improve relations, not end them for all time.”
“All right. I’m going to need a hundred thousand dollars, greenbacks, in the next couple of days. I can’t finesse it with local counterfeit or Euros.”
“For what? Another missile?”
“No. I need some mortars and some other weapons, along with some Semtex, and I’m going to have to overpay to get them.”
“Mortars? You’re out of your mind.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” said Ferguson. “The sooner the better. I’ll make the arrangements myself if you tell Corrigan it’s cool.”
“It’s not cool.”
“Look, I need the money. Otherwise I’m going to have to rob a bank, and I don’t really have time.”
“You wouldn’t rob a bank.”
“I will if I have to.” Ferguson gave her a brief rundown of what he needed the money for. “I know it’s a rip-off, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I want to make it look at least plausible that a rival group hit them. With Fouad’s help, I’ll start spreading the rumor tonight that there’s another group coming to town. We’ll make some rentals, set up a paper trail. All we have to do is give the Syrians a few little tidbits so they can claim it wasn’t the U.S., and we’ll be all right.”
“The U.S. government cannot condone the operation of an international outlaw, much less make a deal with him. You can’t go and buy mortars, for cryin’ out loud.”
“Jeez, Madame Counselor, where have you been for the last century? Even Washington bought arms on the black market.”
“You are not George Washington.”
“You were just going to check on a cruise missile.”
“You said it could carry a nuke.” Corrine sighed. “Tell me you’re not going to kill Khazaal with these mortars.”
“Never mind. I’ll rob the bank.”
“Ferguson, don’t blackmail me.”
“Now there’s an approach I hadn’t thought of.”
“Are you going to kill him?”
“Not if I can help it. And not with the mortars.”
“Every cent better be accounted for. Every cent.”
“I’ll get the invoice in triplicate.”
“Be serious, Ferg. You can’t cause an international incident here. You cannot.”
“That’s why I need the money. Look, this is basically what we did to get Kiro in Chechnya.”
“That was in Chechnya. No one cares what happens there.”
“The Russians do.”
Corrine realized that he had her checkmated at every turn. Once again, she felt like a complete amateur and not, she had to admit, without reason. She thought that she had proven herself in the dirty-bomb operation. And she had—with everyone but the most important person, Ferguson. She was never going to win him over. In his eyes, she was always going to be the outsider, the “suit” he had to work around to get his job done. Which was baloney.
“You live dangerously, Bob. I respect that. And I appreciate the fact that you saved my life. But if you go too far here, I’m not going to be there to reel you in.”
“He who lives by the sword, right?”
She could just about see his smirk in front of her.
“I need you to do one more thing for me,” he added. “It’s a little dangerous, so I’ll understand—”
“What?” she snapped, angry that he was manipulating her so transparently.
“There’s a Russian coming into Damascus in a few hours. I was going to send Guns and one of the rentals I picked up from you down there, but I have him working another angle. If you could help out—”
“What do you need?”
“I’m going to use two people who are agents of ours in town, but I don’t want to give them more information than necessary, especially ahead of time,” said Ferguson. “All you have to do is point out who they have to follow, put them on the plane, and that’s that.”
“What if he doesn’t take the plane?”
“Same deal. They should be able to handle it. I’ll have a photo sent to the embassy.”
“All right.”
“One other thing.”
“Yes?”
“He’d be easier to follow if he had a tracking device. One’s being delivered to you personally in half an hour. You twist it to turn it on. Tell them not to twist it until they’re ready to leave it. The battery’s pretty limited. It’s a tiny little bug, smaller than your fingernail. Well, smaller than my fingernail.”
“I have small fingernails.”
“There’s nobody in the airport I trust to get it on his baggage b
ehind the scenes, so it has to go on him.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Not you, them.”