by Larry Bond
He’d been shot, hit, wounded, but lived to tell about it. That was the point of his dad’s story, one of the few he told. Anyone could get themselves shot in the head. Living to talk about it was the trick.
Ferguson crossed the street and kept walking, catching a glimpse of Al-Azhar, the grand mosque and university, before following a zigzag to the address on Radwan.
The address belonged to a kahwa, or coffee shop, a gathering place that didn’t figure prominently in any of the Mossad dossiers about Cairo activity. Though the CIA regularly cooperated with Egyptian intelligence, Ferguson—with approval from CIA Deputy Director Daniel Slott—had decided not to contact them in this case. The Egyptians were not necessarily the most tight-lipped group in the world and tended to get especially antsy if they thought the Mossad was involved.
For its part, the Mossad had agreed to provide only “distant support”: fake IDs and some equipment. Which was fine with Ferguson; it was safer to keep them at arm’s length here. He’d drawn on two CIA officers in Cairo for additional support, one of whom could liaise with the Egyptians if necessary.
Ferguson walked past the building, glancing down the alleyway next to it. The area was popular with tourists; an American such as Ferguson—or Thatch, whose ID Ferg had doctored and was carrying—fit right in. He stopped at a small stand where a man was selling scarves. His Arabic was a little rusty, but the Egyptian inflections he’d heard as a kid came back as he pulled out a long “laa,” or “no,” to an offer, falling into a rhythm as he negotiated. The seller finally broke the back-and-forth to launch into a long harangue about the quality of the material, unsurpassed in Egypt and certainly worthy of an American who had shown himself educated enough to speak the language like a native. Ferguson bowed his head gratefully, listening to the lecture without interruption so he could surreptitiously glance around and see if he was being watched.
If so, it wasn’t obvious. Ferguson held up three fingers for a price, got another frown, and started to walk away. This resulted in a quick agreement; the merchant solemnized the deal with a tirade of praise for the tourist’s negotiating skills, to which Ferguson responded by praising the great artistry of the man’s wares. The vendor wished him a thousand lifetimes of pleasure and handed over his purchase.
Ferguson continued ambling around the bazaar. He spotted Rankin and one of the CIA station people buying some food from a man with a small charcoal burner and decided to walk over. He heard their accents, or so it seemed, and introduced himself as a fellow tourist, new in the city, just a tourist, happy to say hello, his name was Benjamin Thatch, and if they were ever in New Mexico and needed an accountant, they should look him up.
Now that he had announced his name for the benefit of any nearby lookouts, Ferguson went into the café. Tourists mixed with locals in the main room. Though it was early in the afternoon, the place was crowded, and Ferguson had to wait for a table, which suited his purpose perfectly. He pulled out a hundred-dollar traveler’s check and his passport, asking if it was possible to get the check changed. The cashier obliged, and he managed to say “Thatch” loudly enough that the waiter at the end of the counter waiting for a coffee looked up. Ferguson looked at the money he lost on the exchange rate as an investment.
Shown to a postage stamp of a table at the side of the room, Ferguson ordered kahwamazboot, a Turkish coffee with medium sugar. The idea of “medium” was relative; the brew tasted as if it had been made from jelly beans. Ferg leaned back in the chair, watching as a quartet of British tourists shared a hookah pipe, clearly not sure what to make of the experience. An Egyptian soap opera played on the television above the barlike counter; more than half of the patrons were watching it, though they were all male.
The lone exception—an Egyptian woman in western dress—approached Ferguson and asked if he was a tourist.
“Yup. Seeing the sights,” he told her.
“Many sights here.”
“Beautiful ones. Name’s Ben, Benjamin Thatch.” He shook her hand, the sort of faux pas an American tourist would be likely to make. She smiled at him but then turned and walked to another table.
Ferg concentrated on his coffee, sipping slowly. He had a second but declined a third, not sure his teeth would survive another infusion of sugar. He got up slowly and made his way out, walking lazily back to the street. He got to the end of the block before he was sure he was being followed.
Guns pulled the earphones down, figuring that the wireless bugging system they’d planted inside the café was no longer of much use. He pulled his shirt collar up, repositioning the small microphone that was clipped to the inside of his front collar.
“Two guys following him,” he told Rankin and the others.
“Yeah,” said Rankin, watching a video feed on a small handheld device about the size of a PDA. “With our luck they’ll turn out to be pickpockets.”
Ferguson was supposed to walk back in the general direction of the hotel after making contact, and they had set up their plans accordingly. Guns feigned interest in a stand selling cloth wallets as he waited for Ferg and the others to pass. The two CIA people they’d borrowed for the operation—Phil Thalid, a resident officer who worked with the Egyptian security forces, and Abu Yeklid, an agent who was technically a freelancer—were waiting just up the street. Thalid and Yeklid would pick up the trail at close range.
Ferguson walked twenty yards past Guns then promptly turned around, ambling diagonally through the different bazaar stalls.
“What the hell is he doing?” grumbled Rankin. “He’s supposed to go back to the hotel. He’s heading back toward the café.”
“Maybe he forgot something.”
“I wish he’d stick to the game plan just once.”
Ferguson continued down the block, trying to judge whether anyone besides the two men he’d spotted were following him. They had the stiff necks and stooped shoulders he associated with Jihaz Amn al Daoula, the State Security Service, which was part of Mukhabath el-Dawla, the interior ministry’s General Directorate of State Security Investigations.
Though to be honest, the fact that he remembered one of the men from an assignment a year before was a surer giveaway. The men had either decided to trail him because he was acting suspicious or because they were bored. More likely the latter.
Ferguson passed near the empty alley next to the café and then found a watch repairman’s window, where he stopped to admire the man’s small display. Discovering that his own watch was several minutes behind those in the window, he reset it slowly, debating whether he should talk to the Egyptian agents. He had just decided to do that next when the woman who’d approached him in the café came out of the door and walked hurriedly past. Ferg smiled at her; she stared ahead as she passed.
“Excuse me,” said a man walking a few paces behind, nearly bumping into him.
“Sorry,” said Ferguson.
“Qasim’s Tailor Shop in an hour,” said the man. “Give your name.”
“They’re Egyptian intelligence,” Thalid told Rankin as Ferguson entered a carpet shop near the edge of the Islamic quarter.”Ferguson must have figured it out.”
“Maybe we should tell them who we are,” Guns suggested.
“I wouldn’t trust them to keep their mouths shut,” answered Thalid. “Besides, then they’ll have to ask all sorts of questions.”
“Ferg’ll shake them,” predicted Guns. “That’s why he’s going into the carpet shop.”
“Yeah. You’re right.” Rankin leaned out from the corner where they’d stopped. The two Egyptian agents were standing about half a block away, just lighting up a pair of cigarettes. “Guns, go around the back. You other guys, get the cars.”
If the Egyptian agents had been trying even a little, they would have seen Ferguson going out the back of the carpet place. That told him they didn’t know who he was, and so with his trail shorn he made his way over to the tailor’s.
The front door opened into a room packed with jackets and trouser
s in every conceivable stage of construction. Bolts of fabric lined the walls, and the place smelled of exotic tobacco and hashish. Two Egyptians, one fat, one skinny, stood on separate pieces of carpet nearby, submitting to the ministrations of young tailor assistants who poked and prodded their pinned suits into shape. A short, harried-looking man emerged from the back, a roll of measuring tape partially wrapped around the thumb of one hand and a swatch of fabric in the other. Speaking in rapid-fire Arabic, he berated one of the helpers, then turned to the skinny customer and displayed the sample, which the man reached for but was not allowed to take. At this point he turned to Ferguson and asked in Arabic who he was and what he wanted. Ferguson pretended not to understand, and the man repeated the question in English.
“Ben Thatch,” Ferguson said. “I was told this was the best tailor in Cairo, which must mean it is the best in the world.”
The man called him a jackass and easy mark in Arabic, then said in English that he must have an appointment in order to get a suit.
“Well, then I’ll make one,” Ferguson said.
“Yes, yes,” said the man, who turned to the customer at his left and began a harangue about the importance of choosing the proper shade of gray.
“Can I use your phone?” Ferg asked. “I want to check my itinerary.”
The man waved at him dismissively.
Ferguson stepped over to the desk, which was partly obscured by fabric and a pile of large, yellowing papers that proved to be customer invoices. He picked up the phone and punched the numbers rapidly, connecting with a local line that had been set up for the First Team. The line was being monitored by Corrigan.
“Jack, how are ya?” he said brightly. “I’m standing here in Qasim’s Tailor Shop and looking to know—”
Something prodded him in the ribs. Ferg turned and saw one of the assistants holding a Beretta.
“It’s just a local call,” he said, but when the boy poked him again he thought it best to replace the receiver on the cradle.
Rankin felt the phone vibrating in his pocket. He reached down and hit the “OK” switch. The unit was similar to stock iridium phones, though smaller and with several customized features: besides the silent alert it had 128k encryption and plugs that would let him use his radio’s mike and ear set.
“Ferg just called from a tailor,” said Corrigan. “Something’s up.”
“Yeah, he needs a new pair of pants.”
“You’re starting to sound just like him.”
“I’m standing across the street from it. We got it covered.”
“Why are you here?” the fat customer asked in the back room of the shop.
“Best suits in Cairo,” said Ferguson. The man didn’t quite understand his English. “I got a message that said to come here. I follow directions.”
The customer turned to the younger man who had pulled the gun. They spoke in Arabic so quickly that Ferguson couldn’t catch it all, but what he did catch wasn’t particularly encouraging: the fat man called him an “unnecessary nuisance” and berated someone named Ali for originally making contact with the “American idiots.”
“In the car,” the fat man told Ferg.
“Which car?”
“In the back. Go.”
“This is just business. We don’t need a gun. We’re friends.”
“In the car.”
“It would make me less nervous if he put that away,” Ferguson said, gesturing with his head toward the pistol. The fat man frowned but then told the younger man that Ferguson, being an American idiot, was harmless.
Out in the alley, Ferguson stopped to tie his shoe. As he did, he activated the homing device in his heel and turned his radio on. The fat man grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him upward, pushing him in the direction of a white Mercedes S a few yards up the alley.
“Nice,” said Ferg cheerfully. “This is the executive version, right? Got the bulletproof glass, armor on the side; must’ve cost you a fortune.”
“Just get in.” The fat man opened the door with a key fob device.
“Want me to drive?”
“The back, idiot,” said the man, adding a string of curses in Arabic.
Ferguson slid into the backseat and pushed over. He gave Fatman a goofy smile as he got in and slammed the door. The kid got into the driver’s seat.
“What is your interest in Palestine?” asked Fatman as the car reached the street.
“Does it matter?” said Ferg.
The man made a snorting sound that reminded Ferguson of a choking walrus. He supposed it was meant to be dismissive.
“You think the Prophet Jesus will come on a cloud,” said Fatman.
“Well, I don’t know if it would be a cloud.” Ferguson looked out the window, trying not only to get a rough idea of where they were going but also to watch Fatman in the reflection at the same time. The nearby buildings were covered with large, colorful billboards featuring popular entertainers, each proclaimed as the spirit of his or her generation.
“I don’t like this,” Guns told Rankin over the radio as they followed northward in the direction of Shubra, a working-class suburb. “Maybe we should call in the Egyptians.”
“Ferguson knows what he’s doing.”
“What do you think?” Guns asked Yeklid, who was driving the car.
“I have no idea. This is your gig, man.”
“How long will it take to get help out here?”
The officer shrugged. “Ten minutes or never. Nothing in between.”
“How did you know to contact us?” said Fatman as they turned off the main street toward a row of closely packed buildings dressed in white tiles and yellow bricks.
“It was all done for me,” said Ferguson. “I just follow directions.”
The car drove up a hill, then turned abruptly down a narrow street that wound down toward an area of small factory and warehouse buildings. They took another turn and then another, finally driving up a tight alleyway.
Four men were waiting near the back door of a brown brick building. The men were fairly nondescript; their AK-47s were not.
“So this is where we get out?” Ferguson said.
“You’re an amateur, Mr. Thatch. And a meddler. We don’t like you, and we don’t need your money,” said Fatman. He turned to the driver.
Under ideal circumstances, Ferguson might have noted how ironic it was that someone who hadn’t bothered to frisk him was calling him an amateur. But these weren’t ideal circumstances, and besides, he was too busy sliding his hand down to the back of his pants to grab the small Glock 23 pistol hidden there. He put one bullet into the head of the driver, then turned to Fatman, who made the incredibly bad decision of reaching for his own weapon. Ferguson put two slugs into his head, then dove forward over the car seat as the men with the AK-47s began to fire at the bulletproofed car. Ferguson pulled the driver’s body to the side—like most Egyptians, he didn’t wear a seat belt—and flung himself behind the wheel as the first bullets cracked but did not pierce the windshield. He jammed the car into reverse, turning to see where he was going. As he did, one of the guards fired point-blank at the rear window’s shatterproof glass.
Which, to Ferguson’s great surprise, shattered.
The range finder on the tracking device showed they were a half block away when Rankin heard the stutter of automatic rifle fire.
“Damn it,” he yelled, reaching down to the floor where he’d stashed his Uzi. “There! Stop!”
Yeklid jerked the wheel of the car and hit the brakes just in time to miss the Mercedes as it shot out of the alley and rammed into a car parked across the street. Rankin threw his door open in time to empty his submachine gun at the men running from the alley with AK-47s. Guns ran up behind him with a grenade launcher and pumped a tear gas canister into the alleyway, not realizing it was too late now to do any good.
The crash had deployed the Mercedes’ air bags. Ferguson pitched himself down as the guns erupted, reaching to his sock for his other hidea
way. He rolled out of the car onto the ground, a gun in each fist.
“Ferguson, get the hell out of there!” screamed Rankin.
“Yo, Skippy! Don’t hit me,” yelled Ferguson.
“Come on, get the hell out of there,” said Rankin.
Guns pumped another tear gas grenade into the alley. The acrid smoke drifted back toward the car.
“Get out of here, come on!” yelled Yeklid.
Ferguson got up and trotted to the car. Two men with assault rifles came from down the block; Ferguson spun around and cut them down.
“Trail car! Trail car!” he yelled, seeing their way blocked.
They clung to the second as Yeklid backed out into the main street, barely missing a truck.
“I called the Egyptians, but I think it’s better if we lay low for an hour,” Yeklid told Ferguson when they collected themselves several blocks away. “I’m going to call one of the senior people I know. This may end up being a real pain.”
“You’re good with understatement,” said Ferguson. “I like that.”
ACT II
And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man.
—Revelation 16:3 (King James Version)
1
CIA BUILDING 24-442, VIRGINIA
Corrine Alston stood as patiently as possible in the small booth in the basement of CIA Building 24-442, waiting as the equipment behind the stainless steel walls scanned her for high-tech bugs. Security here was so meticulous that no one—not Corrine, not CIA Director Thomas Parnelles, not even the president himself—could bypass the bug scan, let alone the weapons and identity checks. But the ritual only heightened her anger.
The small green light in the center of the ceiling lit. Corrine stared at the door, willing it to open. When it did, she walked down the hall to an elevator that opened as she approached. She didn’t have to press any buttons once inside, which was fortunate; she would have broken either the panel or her fingers with the jabs.