by Larry Bond
“Is that the position of the Israeli government?” she asked Tischler when Ravid finished.
“We don’t speak for the government,” he answered.
Corrine pushed her chair away from the table and got up to leave. As she did, she turned to Ferguson. “Is there anything you want to say?”
“Only that this is the best coffee I’ve had in the Middle East It’s not Starbucks, is it?”
“I can’t believe they blew us off like that,” said Corrine outside the building.”I can’t believe it.”
“Relax,” said Ferguson. “Walk with me.”
He turned to the left, leading her down the block, away from the car.
“We’re supposed to be allies,” said Corrine. “We’re supposed to work together.”
“Yeah. That happens sometimes. Not as much as you’d think.”
Corrine pressed her lips together. She wanted to admit that she wasn’t really sure what to do, but she couldn’t say that to Ferguson. Making herself that vulnerable to someone who not only didn’t like her but also resented her would be suicidal.
“You noticed that Tischler didn’t say anything?” asked Ferguson.
“And?”
“That’s what’s important for the next step. Whatever that is.”
Corrine stopped in the street, squinting because of the sun, which poked through the buildings and hit her in the eyes. Ferguson saw the squint and interpreted it as her attempt to look tough, which he thought made her look just the opposite. If it weren’t for stuff like that, she might actually be all right to deal with.
Not better than all right, but all right. On a good day.
“What’s next is we figure out where the Russian went,” said Ferguson. “He’s not in Latakia.”
“You don’t think back to Russia?”
Vassenka could have gotten down to Damascus, hopped a plane to Cairo, and then flown just about anywhere in the world. Alternatively, he could have taken a boat to Turkey or Lebanon or even Israel, driven north in a car, even taken a train.
“Let’s say Khazaal’s friends didn’t kill him. On the contrary, they helped him get out of town. Seems logical. If that’s the case, then he owes them a favor.”
“We have the rocket fuel.”
“True. But we don’t have the rockets.”
“How many could there be?”
“You tell me. There was enough fuel for a dozen at least. You have them in parts? Who knows?” Ferguson still thought that Khazaal had overpaid for the fuel and for Vassenka. But the fact that he had to get the rocket fuel from Korea showed that maybe the stuff was getting harder to come by these days because of the weapons export agreements. When the Russians had first started mixing the stuff using German recipes, it had cost about twenty cents a kilogram, which would work out to less than a thousand dollars a missile. Clearly, the stuff was harder to come by these days.
“One thing I want to take care of in Syria,” Ferguson added. “The cruise missile Birk’s offering for sale. I want to buy it.”
“For a million dollars?”
“That’s cheap. Not only do I take it off the market, but I also can find out where he got it. As far as we know, nobody’s manufactured copies of the SS-N-9 Siren, and it’s never been exported. If we have this one, we may find out differently. Not to mention the fact that we’d be taking a pretty potent weapon off the market. The Siren has a range of over 110 kilometers, carries a 500-kilogram warhead; it’ll do a lot of damage.”
“All right. I’ll fix it with Parnelles.”
Mildly surprised, Ferguson told her that he was sending Rankin and Guns to Iraq to see if they could figure out who was supposed to pick up the fuel, and to poke around for Vassenka. He mentioned Thera in passing, saying he was keeping her in Cyprus in case he needed backup.
Which was the truth, just not all of it. He hadn’t decided what to do about the jewels yet.
“Ferg, let me ask you something,” Corrine said, trying not to look at her watch. “What do you think about Iraq?”
“It’s a hellhole.”
“Do you think the government there is going to last?”
“You were just there. You tell me.”
“The ambassador claims it will. He seems pretty confident.”
Ferguson laughed. It was the only answer he gave and the only one she needed.
Since Ferguson had to make a complicated dance to get from Israel to Syria anyway, he made a virtue of necessity and stopped in Cairo for a few hours that afternoon. The new CIA deputy station chief who met with him had recently discovered the pleasure of the pipe, and spent much of their meeting in the café puffing away, to Ferguson’s amusement. Unfortunately, that was about the only thing he got out of the meeting. If Vassenka had stopped in Cairo on his way out of Syria, no one had spotted him.
There had been no fallout from the Fatman incident. “Dead is dead” went an old Egyptian proverb. It might have lost a bit of color in the translation, but it retained all of its meaning.
“That was related to that whacko Christian thing, Seven Angels, right?” asked the deputy between puffs.
“Yeah,” said Ferguson.
“Did the FBI find that lady or what?”
“You lost me there.”
“They had a heads up the other day, travel-advisory thing, about this woman they were looking for. Real vague. It got flagged because it was related to your run-in. Routine stuff.”
“Yeah, routine. You find her?”
“She didn’t come to Cairo.”
“You sure?”
“Not on any of the lists. You can check with Dave downstairs if you want. I don’t even remember her name.”
Neither did Dave downstairs, who had to look it up: Judy Coldwell.
It didn’t click with Ferguson either, but it did with Thera.
“That’s the woman I visited in the States. Thatch’s sister,” she said immediately when he mentioned the name. “The bureau said she wasn’t connected with Seven Angels. Why is she traveling overseas?”
“And why the hell don’t we know about it?”
Two hours later, Ferguson had his answer to the question: the FBI had considered the First Team’s involvement in the case over and therefore hadn’t bothered to inform them. He also knew that someone had used Thatch’s name to register at a hotel in Latakia.
“The FBI really dropped the ball, Ferg,” said Corrigan as he finished filling Ferguson in. “They really screwed up.”
“Yeah. Where is she now?”
“Unclear. Thatch checked out. We’re trying to see if we can trace any credit cards that were used.”
“Get back to me when you know something.”
Ferguson called Thera in Cyprus to see if she knew anything else about Coldwell. When he told her that Coldwell had been in Latakia, she volunteered to go there and look for her.
“No,” he told her. “Not now.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure she’s still there.”
“Hell, Ferg. Why am I on ice here?” she asked. “You think I screwed this up somehow?”
“You’re not on ice.”
“Well, why am I here when everybody else is on the job?”
“Just get some rest.”
“I’m sorry I screwed up.”
“I didn’t say you screwed up.”
The emotion in her voice sounded genuine, so convincing, that it was hard for Ferguson to imagine that she could do anything wrong. But it wasn’t easy to figure out if someone was lying from the tone of their voice. Ferguson, who made a science of lying, knew you could never go by what someone said, or even how they said it; you needed the whole context of what they did, and even then it could be a tough call.
Few people were above suspicion where millions of dollars were concerned. Then why didn’t he think Guns or Rankin had taken them? He couldn’t even consider that possibility. Neither was a good liar, but that wasn’t the reason: he knew where they would draw the line.
He’d seen them under fire, been next to them through a lot of mud and thunder.
He’d seen Thera under fire, too, though not for as long. Maybe he was just being harder on her, or more distant, because he realized she was in love with Monsoon.
“Just hang loose,” he told her. “Work on your tan. He also serves who sits and waits.”
“Whoever said that was blind,” snapped Thera. She killed the connection before Ferguson could tell her she was right.
7
NEAR JERICHO, THE WEST BANK
The building looked no different—absolutely no different—than a public school in America. In fact, as she walked through the halls Corrine couldn’t help but think of her own childhood. They paused at the door of a classroom where the students were learning English; third-graders were reading a storybook about ducklings that would have been appropriate in any American class.
Corrine realized that the officials who met her might distrust and even hate the U.S. The deputy prime minister had chided her for starting her day in Israel rather than coming directly from Baghdad or Jordan. But the children who turned from their lesson to stare at her did so with curious eyes; they were neither suspicious nor particularly troubled by her presence.
“I know that story,” she said from the doorway. “I read that when I was your age.”
She hesitated and then walked into the classroom. The children rose in respect, something that she thought would never happen in America.
“Oh, no, please sit,” she told them. She went to the teacher, a young man about her age. “Might I read that?”
The teacher, embarrassed, turned to her escorts, who besides the school principal included the deputy prime minister and the American ambassador. By the time he told Corrine that he would be honored, she had already taken the book and pulled over a chair to the children, beginning to read. When she was done, she told the children that she had gone to a school in California just like theirs.
“The paint was not as pretty, but I think the teachers worked nearly as hard as yours.” She smiled. “Do you have any questions? What would you like to know?”
For a moment, she felt as if she might be able to change things, to affect the children in some way with some simple answer about her own hometown or youth. If they knew that she was just like them, she thought, then when they grew older they might be able to see America as their friend, which it should by rights be.
But the moment wilted. The children had no questions for her, and Corrine began to feel foolish. She glanced at their teacher, then back to them. When no one said anything after a few more seconds, she asked if they got homework every night. There were a few nods, and she said something innocuous about how she used to hate homework but did it anyway.
Later, the officials took her to a refugee camp to the west of the city. The camp looked more like a tightly packed city at the foot of the mountains than a camp, but the incongruity that struck Corrine was the great beauty of the towering hills behind it. It was as if God had placed a reminder of His power and abilities in front of the citizens.
But whose God? The God of Abraham: the God of Jews, of Muslims, and of Christians. They shared this land and this God but had nothing but strife to show for it.
The deputy prime minister had other appointments and took his leave. “I will pray for peace and a full agreement,” he told her as he said good-bye.
“I’ll pray with you,” said Corrine.
8
BAGHDAD THE NEXT MORNING …
It wasn’t exactly a case of déjà vu, but when he stepped off the helicopter, Rankin remembered the last time he’d gotten off an aircraft in Baghdad, roughly two years before. Then he’d been hunting for one of Khazaal’s rivals, though he didn’t know who Khazaal was at the time. He didn’t know who anyone was in Iraq. He thought he did; that was the problem.
When the war started, Rankin was assigned to work with a Special Operations task group searching for Saddam. When the dictator was found, Rankin was shipped out to Afghanistan for a few months. After catching two members of al Qaeda, he was “rewarded” by being assigned to lead the team hunting for the Crabman back in Iraq.
The Crabman’s real name was Fathah Tal Saed, but everybody used the dumb nickname. It came originally from the way the hajji slime had looked in one of his pictures. The picture turned out not to look much like him at all, but that was beside the point.
The Crabman had tried to collect on a reward offered by Osama bin Laden for the assassination of Paul Bremmer, the American ambassador and civilian head of the occupying government before power was turned over to the Iraqis. A lot of people actually were gunning for Bremmer, but the Crabman and his band of murderers had come a little too close for comfort.
It took two weeks to find the town north of Tikrit where he had fled after his latest attempt failed. It took three weeks to find out where he was in the town. It took five minutes to kill the son of a bitch. And it took a lifetime to get out of there once they did.
For the record, the after-action report claimed it took only three days and nights to “exfiltrate” once the assignment was completed. But those things never ever got the story right, even when they were written by the people who’d been there.
Especially not then.
Two years had changed the airport, turning it into a facility that might actually be considered efficient and attractive somewhere else. Once they cleared customs and the security area, they found a suite of car-rental desks; Corrigan had arranged for a car, which turned out to be a tiny Ford Fiesta. Guns took one look at the vehicle and went back inside to negotiate an upgrade. This proved surprisingly easy, and they were soon on their way into town.
Guns yawned. “Doesn’t look as bad as you said it would.”
“They built a few new things.” He flinched involuntarily as a car zoomed close to pass.
They were staying in the equivalent of a Days Inn, a new motel at the north of town. Applying a move from Ferguson’s playbook, Rankin took two double rooms on opposite ends of the second floor. For security they would stay together, but this gave them a backup to use just in case. They were walking from the car to the room when a voice Rankin hadn’t heard in a lifetime echoed against the freshly sealed macadam.
“Hey, Sergeant. Hey, Rankin! Steve?”
Rankin turned slowly, as if acknowledging the voice meant more than simply recognizing it. But when he did, and when he saw James Corning, he smiled, genuinely glad to see him.
“What the hell are you doing here, James?” Rankin asked.
“Same old, same old,” said James. He held up his scrawny hand and gave Rankin a mock high five.
“Still pissed off at the world?” asked James when he saw Rankin’s scowl.
“You still writing lies?”
“Oh, you betcha. Bigger the better. What are you here for? Do something wrong?”
“Yeah. I got to work it off.”
They looked at each other for a moment, Rankin towering over James, James practically dancing back and forth as if he were buzzed on amphetamines, though in reality he didn’t even drink coffee.
Alcohol was a different story.
“I have an interview with the new prime minister, so I can’t hang out,” James told Rankin. “But we should have a drink.”
“Maybe.”
James thought that was funny and started to laugh. “You here for the president?”
“No,” said Rankin.
James thought that was even funnier. “What are you here for?”
“Looking for Scuds. You see any?”
James thought this was a joke—it did sound like one—and he laughed twice as hard as before. “You got a sense of humor in the last two years. I’ll give ya that. Listen, I’m in two ten. Knock on the door. Same old, same old.” He did the goofy thing with his hand again, slapping at the air, and walked off.
“What’s he, some sort of reporter?” Guns asked as they checked out their rooms.
“Yeah. Excep
t he’s OK. He was with me north of Tikrit when I got Crabman.”
“The whole time?”
“Whole time. He’s OK.”
Guns nodded. He had heard the story in bits and pieces, the only way Rankin told it. Even though he had worked with the guy for going on nine months, he still didn’t know everything that had happened.
“He’s not the guy who shot the woman?”
“No. That was Colgan. James shot the kid that tried to turn us in, and the two policemen who came for us.”
“Oh,” said Guns. “I didn’t know journalists could do stuff like that.”
“I told you he’s OK, right?”
“Whatever.” Guns shrugged. He didn’t have any feelings about journalists, one way or another.
Rankin finished scanning the room with the bug detector. He put his gear into one of the drawers, setting a small motion detector in the lower corner so he could tell if it had been tampered with.
“James is the guy who dove on the hand grenade that turned out to be a dud,” said Rankin. “Did the ultimate good deed and lived to tell about it.”
“Wow.”
Guns hadn’t heard that part of the story at all. He waited for Rankin to explain, but the other man simply went to the door. “Let’s go to Iraqi intelligence and get that bit of BS over with.”
9
LATAKIA
The analysts had tentatively identified the alias Judy Coldwell had used to travel to Europe and then the Middle East: Agnes Perpetua. She had used a Moroccan passport. But no one by that name had registered in any of the hotels in Latakia.
“What about the rest of the country?” Ferg asked Corrigan.
“Jeez, Ferg, Syria is a big place.”
“Immense,” said Ferguson. “Try Damascus.”
“Well, there I’m ahead of you, because I did already, and she’s not there. Not in any tourist hotel.”
It wouldn’t be hard to register under a different name. If the Syrians were more cooperative, and if they had infinite amounts of time, they might be able to find her. But neither was true. Ferguson needed a shortcut, but couldn’t think of one.