by Larry Bond
“Tickles,” said Ferguson, who finally passed through the gate without setting the machine off. Thera was waiting for him.
“Did you do that on purpose?” she asked as he took her arm.
“What do you think?”
“I know you must have, but I can’t figure out why.”
The maître d’ approached them, nodded graciously, and then showed them to a table overlooking the bar.
“I want them to remember that I was clean,” said Ferguson as they sat. “And I wanted everybody in the place to get a look at how cute you are, especially Ras.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Look, he’s coming to us tonight. Perrier with a twist,” he said as a waiter fluttered toward them.
“I’ll have a champagne cocktail,” she said.
“No bourbon?” asked Ferguson.
“The night is young,” said Thera. “How are we going to get our guns?”
“Monsoon’ll figure it out.” Ferguson rose. “Ras, how are you?”
“Mr. IRA and wife,” said Ras, sitting. “So lovely.” He asked Thera what she was drinking and then ordered the same.
“You don’t strike me as a champagne cocktail kind of guy, Ras,” said Ferguson.
“Mr. Ferguson, I have to say, you have impeccable taste in women. Your wife is so intoxicating she makes me forget who I am.”
“Too bad I don’t have the same good judgment when it comes to picking business associates.”
“How so?” asked Ras, making a not very subtle attempt to stare down Thera’s cleavage.
“I mean that you have not been completely honest with me,” said Ferguson. “You told me you had not heard that Vassenka was in town, and now I hear that he is.”
“If he is or not, that’s not my concern. I didn’t know that he was when you asked.”
“So now you do?”
Ras waved his hand. “The Syrians may think so. I have an open mind.”
“What do they say about Suhab Majadin?”
Ras didn’t recognize the name.
“An Iraqi,” said Ferguson. “A Shiite.”
“You are dealing with him, Mr. IRA?”
“I always deal with the highest bidder. But I have other business with Suhab Majadin. Personal business. Business that I would like to conclude, especially if I had the opportunity by chance to meet him here.”
They sipped their drinks for a while. Ras asked Thera some questions about her background. Thera said that she was from Turkey but was otherwise purposefully vague.
As Ras glanced at his watch, Ferguson leaned forward. “If you sell anything to Suhab, you’re going to make a lot of people very angry,” he said. “And by sell I include trade, loan, or gift.”
“One never makes a gift in this business,” said Ras.
Ferguson leaned forward on the table. He said nothing and made no gesture that could be interpreted as conventionally threatening. Yet even Thera felt a tingle of fear.
“Where’s Suhab?” whispered Ferguson.
Ras shook his head.
“You’re dealing with him?”
“I don’t even know him.”
Ferguson straightened, then leaned back in his seat, staring at Ras. Then he grinned, in effect releasing him. Ras strode away, his composure not quite restored.
“Can we bug him?” Thera asked.
“He’d find it.” Ferguson sipped his seltzer.
“So what are we going to do now?” Thera asked.
“Dance the night away,” said Ferguson. “Then go for a swim.”
25
LATAKIA
Despair seized Judy Coldwell as the taxi approached the hotel. For the first time since receiving the Reverend Tallis’s message she doubted, truly doubted, her ability to carry out the task.
It was not that the meeting with the Polish arms dealer had gone badly. On the contrary, while clearly he didn’t remember her or the AK-47s and grenades he had supplied her employer three years before, the Pole seemed to have taken her seriously. He had even tried to sell her a weapon.
She thought he had. Surely he hadn’t been just making conversation by mentioning he had a cruise missile for sale. But that was what had depressed her. He claimed to want five million dollars for it.
Five million dollars!
A serious buyer would surely bargain him down—if she remembered correctly, the rifles had sold for about half his initial asking price—but even so: who would be impressed by a few hundred thousand dollars when millions were needed?
A hole opened in her stomach as the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. She must not lose hope, she told herself. The weight of history was on her side.
Coldwell gave the taxi driver a good tip. Inside the hotel, the short man at the desk smiled at her lasciviously. She forced herself to smile back.
A man trotted across the lobby toward her as the elevator arrived. She got in, then grabbed the door to hold it for him.
“Thank you,” said the man. He reached for the floor button and pressed five, even though she already had.
“The Pole is not a very reasonable man,” said the man as the doors closed. “But he is willing to bargain, which is a plus.”
Startled, Coldwell asked if he had been sent by Birk.
“No, not at all. But perhaps we can work together.”
“I’m not quite sure what you mean,” she said.
“Seven Angels?” said the man, Aaron Ravid.
“Yes,” managed Coldwell.
The door opened on her floor. Coldwell stayed frozen in place. When the door started to close, Ravid put his hand out to stop it. “We should find a place to talk. Your room is surely bugged.”
When they finally reached a part of the beach Ravid thought was safe from eavesdroppers, they stood together for a few moments without speaking. It was Coldwell who spoke first, suspicious yet feeling almost confident, as if she were an actress playing out a well-known part.
“Who are you?” she asked.
Ravid gave his cover name, Fazel al-Qiam.
“I am here for Benjamin Thatch,” said Coldwell. “To complete the arrangements.”
“Yes,” said Ravid.
He waited for her to continue, but she did not. Finally he saw no other choice to push the conversation but to admit that he was not the person she was apparently waiting to meet. As soon he did, however, a frown appeared on her face. He volunteered that he had heard of Seven Angels and knew that the group was willing to help those “with the proper agenda” in the Middle East.
Coldwell listened to him carefully, believing that he was lying now about not being her contact. Benjamin would have presented the group as being sympathetic to the Islamic goals of jihad; it could be counterproductive to explain the true nature of what they wanted, though Coldwell believed most groups would take their money anyway. She was afraid that when she told him she had only two hundred thousand dollars, he would simply walk away.
After a few minutes, Ravid decided that he had gotten all the information from the woman that he was likely to get. She was an amateur at best, a poseur at worst, and if she had real money it would surely be fleeced off of her by one of the many snakes in the seaside hotels within a few days. He watched her face, thinking of how to best break this off. As he did, a light on the water caught Coldwell’s attention and she turned away. The sweep of her head took him by surprise: he saw not Coldwell but his wife. As Ravid pulled himself back to reality, back to the present, Coldwell turned her head back to him.
“I have little money,” she said, deciding to state the situation simply and get it over with. “I can get two hundred thousand, no more.”
“It’s not enough,” said Ravid. He thought of Khazaal’s gems. For a moment, only a moment, he inserted her into the plans he had thought of the other day.
“What would your target be?” Coldwell asked.
Ravid looked up at her. “Mecca.”
Coldwell didn’t understand. She thought she had heard wrong. Before sh
e could say anything, Ravid flew at her. He gripped her blouse and pushed her down, his rage erupting. Two years of anger flashed into his hand as he pushed it against her chest. The suicide bomber, the Muslims, his keepers at Mosaad—everything erupted.
Coldwell looked up at him, unable to speak, certain that she was to be killed. She put her hands against his chest, starting to push him off, knowing it would be futile but determined to have her last act on earth be one of courage.
“Yes,” said Ravid as she pushed against him. He let go and stood back. His wife would have fought that way, too.
The rage vanished. In its place was something logical and cold, another kind of wrath, one with a chance to be fulfilled.
“I want to destroy Mecca,” he told the woman. “And you can help me. In this way, both of us can benefit.”
26
LATAKIA AROUND FOUR A.M.
A layer of thin clouds obscured the moon over the eastern Mediterranean. Water lapped against the side of the boat. The breeze made the air a bit chilly. It was a fairy-tale sort of night, the kind that makes you think nothing can go wrong anywhere in the world, the sort of night that makes even a cynic feel safe while slumbering in bed.
Zrrrpp …
Zrrpppp …
The two guards fell to the deck of the boat, paralyzed by Taser shots from fifteen feet away. As they hit, a man in a frogman’s suit leapt up the ladder of the boat they had been guarding. In his right hand he carried a weapon that looked like a rubberized M79 grenade launcher, which was more or less what it was. He leveled the launcher in the direction of the bow, where two other guards were sitting, and fired. A large shell sped from the barrel, striking the bulkhead just beyond them. As it hit, a nylon and metal mesh net mushroomed from the canister, along with a heavy dose of gas derived from the same chemical family as methadone. The victims struggled for a moment, but they had had a long day and had been close to sleep even before the attack; the effect of the gas was overwhelming.
The frogman bent to the two men who’d been hit by the Tasers. The men were still conscious though paralyzed. He pulled a hypodermic needle from the pouch at his belt, tore away the plastic guard and slammed it home in the first man’s leg. He repeated the process with the second man. The drug took effect within three and a half seconds of being administered. By that time, the frogman’s two comrades, Thera and Monsoon, were aboard. In their hands were weapons that looked like oversized spearguns covered in rubber: Tasers designed for working in water.
“Monsoon, you have the deck,” he said. “Thera, let’s go find Sleeping Beauty.”
Birk Ivanovich hated to be woken up before ten a.m., even if it was by a beautiful woman who looked as if she’d just stepped out of a dream.
A wet dream, as a matter of fact: she had on a tight-fitting diving suit, and her hair and upper body were still damp.
“Who are you?” he said, simultaneously trying to rise from the bed in his cabin on the Sharia.
He wasn’t successful, because Ferguson had taken the precaution of restraining his hands before waking him.
“Rise and shine, Birk ol’ buddy,” said Ferguson from the foot of the bed. “Time to do some business.”
“Ferguson, how did you get onto my boat?”
“You invited me the other day, remember?”
“My guards?”
“Upstairs sleeping,” said Ferguson. “I keep telling you, Polacks guarding Polacks is never going to work. By the way, when are you going to hire a full crew? You have only four bodyguards on duty. That’s fine for the Syrians, but what if a real enemy came calling?”
“Undo my chains,” grumbled Birk.
“Just belts,” said Ferguson. “You’re a really heavy sleeper, Birk. You’re lucky I didn’t do something you’d regret.”
Ferguson nodded at Thera, who leaned over and undid them. Birk stayed motionless for a moment, then grabbed for her. Thera, prepared, had no trouble fending him off with a hard punch to the chest, calculated to stun rather than incapacitate. Birk fell back, blinked a few times, then rolled to the other side of the bed, grabbing for a weapon.
“I got it already,” said Ferguson, holding up the pistol. “So the Walther P1A1 has the arms dealer’s seal of approval?”
“A gun is a gun,” said Birk. “Why are you here?”
“I want to make a purchase.”
Birk’s face brightened and he sat up. “What do you want?”
“Is the missile still for sale?”
“Yes,” said Birk.
“When can we take delivery?”
“Three days. Or maybe four.”
“Three days?”
“I need a day or two to make arrangements. You know how it goes.”
“Is that how long it’s going to take you to get the missile for the Iraqi?”
Birk made a face. “What Iraqi?”
“Khazaal.”
“I told you, I’m not dealing with him.”
“You shouldn’t. It would decrease your life expectancy. And you see how defenseless you are.”
“I’m not dealing with him, Ferguson. I haven’t been invited to their party. I’m not trusted, and I don’t care to be. Not there.”
“Why is the Russian in town?”
“I don’t know. Honestly.”
“Are the Israelis involved?”
“Mossad? Here? You believe the stories that they are supermen. That is a myth they like to spread. They were powerful once. Those days are gone.”
“How much do you want for the missile?”
“A million. As I said the other night.”
“Three hundred thousand.”
“Be reasonable. I have others interested.”
“Oh really? Khazaal?”
“There is a good market for a weapon like this,” said Birk. “Someone offered me five tonight.”
Ferguson laughed.
“I can get two million,” said Birk, annoyed not that his bluff was called but that he had made such a halfhearted attempt. He was not at his best when first waking. “You must meet my price.”
“I don’t know how high I can go,” said Ferguson. “If you’re serious—”
“Very serious.”
“I have to talk to the bean counters.”
“You were to do that the other day.”
“No, the other day I had to get clearance from my superiors. Now that I have it, I can see what’s in the piggy bank.”
“You’re becoming more like the Russians every day, Ferguson. This is not a good direction to take. What happened to the man I was going into business with? Where is the boldness?”
Ferguson smiled. “In the interests of goodwill, I’d like to buy some other items.”
“Not on credit,” said Birk.
“Considering that we’re doing business—”
“Not on credit, Ferg. No, no, no. You know better.”
“We can roll it into the other deal, with a little interest.”
Birk shook his head.
“All right. But I need to take delivery by this afternoon,” said Ferguson.
“It will be figured into the price. What do you need?”
“C4—”
“I have a Czech substitute. Very high quality.”
“Acceptable. I need something along the lines of the M252, the 81mm mortar.”
“I can get you two of the British designs. Same weapon. How many rounds?”
“At least four good ones. High explosives. I’d like some training rounds and an illumination round or two.”
“Training rounds? Why?”
“I’m out of practice. I need some rifles.”
“M16s? Or will AK-47s do?”
“Well, what do you have?”
“Oh, we have many things,” said Birk, finally warming to his role as a dealer. “If you want a machine gun, I have these very nice H&Ks made in Mexico. I came by them just the other day.”
“Mexico?”
“Your army chose the Minimi over it, bu
t I think the trials were rigged.”
“Yeah, but Mexico?”
“Labor is cheaper there. What can I say?”
“I’ll take two, but I need regular rifles as well. Kalashnikovs. Couple of thousand rounds. And something like a MILAN antitank weapon.”
“Now we are becoming serious,” said Birk. This was his way of saying that he did not have the item, but could find suitable substitutes. “Not RPGs?”
“I need something better. Longer range.”
“Battle tested:”
“Sure, if I don’t mind being flattened by the return fire.”
“Handled properly, there will be no return fire.” Birk knotted his brow. “I have a pair of older Gustavs. Good weapons. Hard to find ammunition.”
“How many rounds?”
“Just two. But I can let you take them very cheap.”
“I’ll bet.”
The Gustavs—M2 Carl Gustav recoilless rifles—were Swedish-built antitank guns. They fired an 84mm round to about 450 meters; the missile could penetrate up to eighteen inches of armor.
“Are you going to war with all of this?” asked Birk.
“More or less. I need some crappy radios, too. Something easy to intercept. Russian.”
Birk rolled his eyes. “As you wish.”
They haggled for a bit over price after Ferguson finished giving him the shopping list. The mortars were very expensive: the list price on the versions that the U.S. used was just a shade under $25,000, and while Birk couldn’t get quite that much for a used British model, he held out for more than half. Ferguson got some throw-ins, including a pair of white phosphorous rounds, but he was not in a position to haggle and probably wouldn’t have gotten a much better deal elsewhere in the city if he had been. Birk claimed to be taking a beating by selling the Gustavs for only five thousand dollars apiece, which was actually a fair deal, especially as an RPG-7 (the basic lightweight Russian rocket-launched grenade) would have cost about the same. The total—as Ferguson had predicted several days before—came to just under a hundred thousand dollars.
Thera, tiring of the back and forth, went topside to check on Monsoon. He had removed the mesh from the two guards at the bow and stowed it in a canvas bag. Though it covered about ten square feet, the thin filament filled the space of a large skein of yarn.