Angels of Wrath

1

Menacham Stein, the Mossad officer who had worked with the First Team on Seven Angels, met Corrine at the airport in Tel Aviv. He looked more like a businessman on vacation than a spy: six feet tall, with slicked-back hair and a light scent of aftershave, he walked up to her as she came out of the tunnel off the plane and led her away from the others. He slid a magnetic card into a reader on a door, showing her into a stairwell that led to an empty corridor. After several more twists and turns they emerged in an area of offices before exiting in the main terminal section. Here he slowed his pace to an easy nonchalance, guiding her with a gentle tap on the shoulder to the doors. As they walked to the car she realized that there were at least two other men watching them.

“Your people, I assume,” she said.

He smiled but said nothing, leading the way to a blue Ford in the middle of the lot. Corrine noticed another pair of men sitting in a car nearby.

“More?” she said.

“We don’t like to take chances with important visitors,” said the officer, popping the trunk for her bag.

While it looked ordinary from the outside, the vehicle had been heavily modified: the sides, roof, and floor had been armored and the glass reinforced. A phone sat on the console between driver and passenger. The Mossad officer reached under the dash and put his finger on a small device that read his fingerprint. This gave him five seconds to insert his key in the ignition and start the car.

“First time in Tel Aviv?” asked Stein.

“It’s my third or fourth, but it’s been ten years. You sound like you’ve spent a great deal of time in the U.S.,” she added. “Do you come from New York?”

“I lived in Brooklyn for a few years,” said Stein, but he didn’t elaborate.

Inside the Mossad building, Corrine was searched politely but not perfunctorily. Stein took her to an elevator that led to an isolated part of the building, where a special room was set up for top-secret conversations. To secure the room against possible eavesdropping, it had been sheathed in a layer of copper and its supports isolated from vibrations, so that it literally floated within the space. More conventionally, radio and microwave detection devices hunted for transmissions emanating not only from the room but from any of the nearby areas, and white noise generators provided a sonic barrier around the facility.

To get into the secure area, they had to walk down a tunnellike hall made of polished cement. As they started down it, another man came up from the other side. Corrine thought it was David Tischler, the Mossad supervisor she was meeting with, coming out to greet her. But after holding her glance for a brief moment, the man abruptly turned his head toward the wall and then put his hand up, shielding the other side of his face.

Stein touched her elbow, leading her through a small anteroom to the chamber where Tischler sat waiting.

“I hope your flight was a good one,” said the Israeli, rising. Unlike Stein, he was short and a little overweight; it might not have been fair to say he had a potbelly, but he certainly didn’t look like an athlete.

“We appreciate your help with the Seven Angels case,” she told him as she sat down.

“Of course.”

“I want to be assured that his death was random,” said Corrine.

“God does not call us randomly. But in the sense you mean it, yes. It was an accident. Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, I suppose we can’t tell.”

“It was unfortunate for our investigation,” said Corrine. “He would have been apprehended, and you would have had more information about the people he wanted to contact.”

Tischler’s narrow brown eyes held no expression; his mouth was the mouth of a man staring into space, revealing nothing.

“Ferg was there,” said Stein, who unlike his boss seemed agitated at the question. “What did he think?”

“Mr. Ferguson was a little too close to be objective,” said Corrine.

“He thought it was random, too,” suggested Stein. “As did I.”

“Mr. Ferguson wasn’t prepared to say it wasn’t random. But he lacked proof, one way or the other.”

“Spoken like an American lawyer,” said Stein.

The faintest of grins appeared on Tischler’s face.

“We’ve made arrests in the case,” said Corrine, loosening her tone slightly. “The FBI will share what’s appropriate as it becomes available. If you require specific items to assist you, I can certainly facilitate sharing that. As I said, we appreciate your assistance. I’m wondering if you’ve developed any additional information that might be useful to us.”

“We’ve shared everything we know,” said Stein.

“There was a jeweler?”

“A blind, as far as we can tell.”

Corrine looked at Tischler, whose face was once more a blank wall. “Do you see a connection between Seven Angels and Nisieen Khazaal?”

Tischler’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “Is there one?”

“Thatch was on his way to Egypt. We believe the people he was to see in Cairo may have been on their way to the meeting that Khazaal is going to.”

Tischler’s eyes went dull again. “I guess.”

“It would be difficult to believe,” said Stein. “The Seven Angels would be more aptly named Seven Wanna-bes. They’re really amateurs. Thatch would have been killed by them, just as Ferguson almost was.”

The connection between Seven Angels and Khazaal was every bit as far-fetched as Stein said. Egyptian intelligence indicated that the tailor, Ahmed Abu Saahlid, commanded a network of terrorists and had plans to travel to Lebanon or Syria — typically for the Egyptians, they couldn’t be specific. The tailor opposed the Egyptian government and was “of interest,” something that might be said of at least a third of the Egyptian population. Nothing in his dossier, however, showed that he had any connection with Khazaal or any Iraqi for that matter. The Egyptian report made it seem unlikely that he would have been willing to act as a go-between with Seven Angels even if he did have access to Khazaal. Several of his recorded statements showed he despised Americans in general, and Ferguson’s experience with him demonstrated a willingness to act on those beliefs.

But something in Stein’s answer interested Corrine a great deal: the line about wanna-bes. It had been in an FBI report she’d read on the way over, one that was not among the documents shared with the Israelis.

Coincidence? It was a common phrase.

“I suppose it’s unlikely there’s a connection,” said Corrine, moving on to the real reason she’d come to see Tischler in person. “What else can you tell us about Khazaal?”

“Very little,” said Tischler.

“You know his travel plans?”

“Only that he is due to see others in Syria. Two men we have interest in over in Damascus transferred some money into an account used by one of the exile groups friendly to the so-called resistance. And a room there was rented for the weekend.”

One of the men was being followed by Iraqi intelligence, and the bank account was being monitored by the CIA. But it was possible that the exiles had already been tipped off; the second man had disappeared.

“Do you expect the meeting in Damascus?” asked Corrine.

“Not necessarily,” said Tischler. “Damascus would not be ideal, because of the Syrian government’s presence. Somewhere in the east, perhaps.”

While that would sound logical to someone uninitiated in the intrigues of Iraq, the sparsely populated desert areas of Syria were much worse than the capital of Syria. Strangers there tended to stick out, and there were many competing interests — Kurds, informants, smugglers, drug dealers — who would have much to gain by supplying information to the Syrians or to the Iraqi spies and operatives in the area. A meeting outside of a city would be visible to spy planes or satellites. Though in reality the coverage over the area was spotty at best, the resistance people tended to think American coverage was twenty-four/seven.

So why had Tischler even suggested it, Corrine wondered. “Could you make an educated guess?”

“Syria is a place where educated guesses can often get one in trouble,” said Tischler. “I wouldn’t try.”

Corrine let the matter drop temporarily, asking if the Mossad required assistance on any other projects and receiving the bland answers she expected. Finally she glanced at her watch.

“I’m afraid I’m running a little late,” she said, rising. “I’m due at the embassy.”

“Of course.” Tischler rose. “If we can be of further assistance while you’re in Tel Aviv, please tell us.”

“Thank you. The Khazaal meeting—”

The Mossad officer looked at her expectantly as she paused. He was well practiced at keeping his face expressionless, and Corrine simply couldn’t tell now whether he knew more about it than he had shared.

“You would suppose that would be more likely in the west than in the east,” she suggested.

“I’ve learned not to suppose.”

An answer there could be no arguing with, Corrine thought. “If we get any additional information,” she said, extending her hand. “We’ll share it.”

“As we will with you,” said Tischler, walking out with them.

2

Thomas Ciello could not believe his good fortune. The CIA analyst had stopped at the post office on his way to work and found, completely unexpectedly, a new manuscript on UFOs by Carmine P. Ragguzi. Professor Ragguzi, a true genius who had devoted nearly forty years of his life to the problem of extraterrestrial communication, had sent a select group of devotees an advanced copy of a mammoth work on UFO sightings he hoped to publish next year. A letter that accompanied the book urged Ciello to “make whatever suggestions you feel are warranted.” Of course, given that Ragguzi was a genius, Ciello doubted that he could do much more than cheer. Nonetheless, the opportunity to read a Ragguzi work before it was released to the rest of the world was truly an honor. He took it inside with him, hoping to steal a glance at lunch or on his morning break.

The security person at the entrance to the CIA building didn’t bother hiding her skepticism when Thomas told her what it was. He was used to that sort of reaction and waited patiently while she applied a blacklight stamp to several of the pages and made random photocopies of a few more so the work could be checked on the way out. Security at the CIA in general was tight, but Building 24-442 had even more elaborate precautions. Even though it had been logged and inspected, it was possible that the manuscript would be confiscated when he tried to take it home and held until it had been thoroughly checked for classified information. The process could take days — there were no preset limits — but Thomas was so eager to start reading the book inside that he didn’t mind the hassle. Besides, he’d spent just about every waking hour here since joining the First Team as what Corrigan called its resident “geek freak.” If he was going to find any spare time at all, it would be here.

Thomas thought “geek freak” was a compliment, though sometimes the people on the action side of the agency were too eccentric to decipher.

Cleared down to his office, Thomas immediately went to work, signing into his network and “checking the traps” as he called it: reviewing overnight alerts, briefs, and regular news developments. Thomas’s position at the Agency was unique: he was assigned to facilitate intelligence gathering for a specific group and had access to nearly every area of the Agency to do so. Still, it mostly came down to reading. Making sense of what you read was important, surely, but you had to read it first.

Three days before, he had asked the National Security Agency to “harvest” possible communications in Syria related to Nisieen Khazaal. The request had yielded two phone conversations which included an alias Khazaal was believed to use: Snake. Translated by computer from Arabic, the conversations were both brief and frustrating:

1.

man’s voice 1: The Snake is not here.

man’s voice 2: Yes.

man’s voice 1: Yes.

[Disconnect]

2.

man’s voice 1: When?

man’s voice 2: The day after tomorrow.

man’s voice 1: Difficult.

man’s voice 2: The snake will be in the East. It must be then.

[Disconnect]

Did they pertain to Khazaal? The NSA didn’t pretend to know. That wasn’t their job; they just gathered conversations and passed them on.

Thomas set the intercepts aside in one of his note files on the secure computer and continued trolling through the information and notes that bad accumulated while he slept. He had a memo from the desk — from Corrigan, actually, who usually personally supported the First Team during a critical mission — about the desert snatch operation, and a brief on the preliminary interrogation of the men they’d stopped in Syria. Two of the men who’d been in the last car stopped, a Ford, had been positively identified, and Thomas recognized one of the names right away, Sadeghi Saed, a Palestinian who had helped fund a Shiite resistance group in Iraq. Thomas set that aside as well.

Were there a lot of Fords in Syria? He hadn’t thought so. He punched into a database, trying to see if it was significant.

There were in fact many thousands. But perhaps some additional information about it would allow him to trace it. He accessed another database compiling foreign registrations and found that VIN or vehicle identification numbers were sometimes used to show where sales were; different series indicated different regions. It was a tenuous link, but he could at least differentiate between vehicles brought into Syria and Iraq; and, after he looked through some customs records poached by an NSA computer program from Lebanon, that country as well.

Thomas wrote a quick “action note” for Corrigan, asking for the VIN attached to the various components; the brief on the vehicle had already indicated there was no visible registration.

Two hours and many notes later, the UFO manuscript beckoned at the corner of his desk. Deciding he was ready for a break, Thomas dragged it over and opened to a page at random.

The 1950s Turkey sightings and landings were the most phenomenal event in the history of mankind, and a key extraterrestrial moment.

Thomas gasped. That was a serious error. The sighting he was referring to had actually been U.S. Air Force spy flights, with the UFO story floated out as a cover when the Soviets became suspicious.

“Ah, there you are,” said Debra Wu, peeking in the doorway. Wu was Corrigan’s assistant.

Thomas practically jumped out of his chair, grabbing the manuscript and holding it to his chest. Unfortunately, the papers weren’t bound, and they flew all over the office.

Wu rolled her eyes. Ciello was eccentric, even for an analyst.

“Corrigan wants to see you. He’s downstairs.”

“I’m going.” Thomas grabbed the papers and took them to one of the lockable file cabinets at the side of his room. Technically, the cabinet was only supposed to be used to temporarily store classified information. But he had no other place to put the manuscript, and besides, his cabinets were all empty.

He leaned to the side so she couldn’t see his combination, then stuffed the pages of Professor Ragguzi’s book inside. He gave the lock a spin, then another and another.

“I’m not going to break in,” Wu told him disgustedly as she walked away.

Corrigan was in the middle of a call with Corrine Alston when Thomas cleared security to get into the Cube’s situation room. Unlike in the movies, the Facility was extremely simple: no large-screen video panels, no wall of constantly updated radar plots and infrared views. Corrigan sat at a simple metal desk with a single computer and a large telephone set. If the situation called for it, several more very plain desks and computers could be set up in the open area to the left. The chairs that were used were terribly uncomfortable and the computer screens among the cheapest available. Corrigan’s main equipment consisted of a telephone headset. The lines it connected to were scrambled, and some actually tied into radio frequencies, but the operation of the phones themselves was no more difficult than the setup for a typical corporate office cubicle. It was what you did with the phones that mattered.

Corrigan raised his finger as Thomas came in, signaling for him to take a seat.

“The interrogation is ongoing,” Corrigan told the person on the other end of the phone line. “I don’t know why Ferg couldn’t make it to Tel Aviv, but I assume that had something to do with it.”

Thomas couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation, though he could tell from Corrigan’s expression that it wasn’t pleasant. That led Thomas to conclude, correctly, that Corrigan was speaking to the president’s counsel, Corrine Alston. Thomas had never met her, but he’d heard that she was difficult to satisfy and expected prompt and perfect results.

Thomas tapped his feet impatiently as he continued to wait. He wondered if he should ask Corrigan about the Turkey UFOs, perhaps even share Professor Ragguzi’s manuscript with him. They’d never actually discussed UFOs, at least not in depth, but he was fairly certain Corrigan was a fellow believer, one of the very few he’d encountered at the Agency. Working for the CIA had the unfortunate effect of dulling most people’s capacity for imagination.

Corrigan held up a piece of paper for Thomas, sliding it toward him.

It was the VIN numbers he had asked for. He recognized the sequence at the start of the long number: it was one of the Lebanese vehicles. It was also two years old.

“Thomas,” said Corrigan, finally off the phone. “We need to find out where Khazaal is going. Absolutely need to find out.”

“The Ford came from Lebanon originally,” said Thomas.

“It’s a start. What else do you know?”

Thomas told him about the snake intercept and a few other things.

“So the bottom line is, you know nothing,” said Corrigan. “What would you say about western Lebanon? Could the meeting be there? It could be there, couldn’t it?”

“It could be anywhere. I think the car—”

“Yes, yes. The car came from there.”

“No,” said Thomas. “The car originally was shipped into Lebanon two years ago.”

“We have a map showing Tripoli circled, the Tripoli in Lebanon on the coast, not the one in Libya. You think it could be there?”

Thomas was not an expert on the Middle East (he’d been brought into the job primarily because he was more a generalist, though he had a great deal of experience tracking terrorist groups), and so he could only shrug.

Not that he would have had a different answer if he had been an expert.

“Ferg says there’s an Iraqi community there,” Corrigan told him. “Got to get everything you can get and tell me what you think. You have one hour.”

3

Ravid folded the newspaper under his arm as the line began to move forward again. The corrugated steel roof of the Israeli checkpoint shut away some of the sun but not the heat nor the dust and certainly not the languid boredom and anxiety that mixed together as the crowd waited to pass into the Gaza Strip. It had become nearly as difficult to get out of Israel as it was to get in, at least if you were a Palestinian, as Ravid’s papers claimed he was. Weapons gates and ID checks were routine, and it was not unusual for Israeli intelligence officers to choose someone at random for interrogation. Palestinian guards waited on the other side of the border, and while they rarely stopped anyone, they could make one’s life thoroughly miserable, with less chance of appeal than one would have in Israel.

In Ravid’s case, life could be very miserable indeed; his Palestinian papers were forgeries, part of the elaborate shell game of covers he played, his true identity hidden like the heart of an onion under many skins. As an Arab intellectual and activist, it was natural for him to use a cover to travel into Israel. If he got caught by the Israelis, well, that would be inconvenient but would at least shore up his phony identity.

If he got caught on the Palestinian side, however, his fate was less sure. Eighteen months ago, he had known many people who could clear up a “misunderstanding.” Now there was no telling if they were even still alive.

Tischler had told Ravid relatively little of his mission. This was Tischler’s way, for his own protection as well as the mission’s: information became available as it was necessary, never before. But Ravid got the definite impression that Tischler no longer trusted him. The Mossad supervisor had asked about the drinking, trying to make it seem offhanded: “Still enjoying the vodka?”

“No,” said Ravid. “No.”

The truth, though of course it was not quite that simple.

Up ahead, one of the guards began giving a woman a hard time. Her documents were due to expire tonight. He decided that meant she had to be searched; the machine and the wand were not good enough. A pair of female guards walked over and began talking to the woman, who balked for a moment before conceding to the inevitable and following them to a small building nearby.

Ravid glanced at the young man behind him. He had a dull, dazed look on his face. The man just wanted to return home with a minimum of hassle. He would endure whatever he had to, as long as he achieved his goal.

Two years ago, the look of resignation would have roused pity in Ravid. Now it kindled anger, incredible anger. He wanted to kill the man, to kill all the Muslims here, every one of them, stomp them from the earth.

He clenched his fist against his rage. Wrath was useless here. Stomping a few men, even a few hundred, wouldn’t satisfy him.

Coming back might offer him a chance for revenge on the scale he wanted, but never with Mossad’s blessing. He was not so foolish to think that he would have it. And to even hint at simmering animosity, let alone the deeper emotions he felt, would have been the end of the interview with Tischler. There was a line that he could not cross no matter how badly he was needed. Simply to deny emotion was the safest course.

Mossad would be watching him very carefully. There were other agents, men and women, not quite as good, not as experienced or adept, but able nonetheless. They would be watching for him to slip, hoping (perhaps) that he wouldn’t, but ready if he did. This would make it difficult for him to find a way for revenge but not impossible. Not if a big enough opportunity came.

To a man of his abilities, to a man of his wrath, nothing was impossible.

Ravid’s throat felt so dry it cracked. He wanted a drink. Vodka, gin even.

A drink!

With all the will he could muster, Ravid pushed his tongue around his lips, wetting them. If he could master this thirst, he could master anything.

The line began to move. One of the guards pointed to him, gesturing him toward a metal detector. Ravid hesitated, his thirst overwhelming. The young man with downtrodden eyes nudged him gently, anxious that he wouldn’t lose his own place in line.

“Wait,” said the Israeli, pointing toward his arm.

Ravid did not understand at first, and by the time he realized what the soldier was after, the man had pulled the paper out from under his arm. Sawt Al-Haqq Wal-Hurriya (Voice of Truth and Freedom) was considered anti-Israeli.

“Why do you have this?” demanded the guard.

Ravid stared at the soldier rather than answering. Silence was always safest.

The man took the paper and threw it into a nearby trash bag. “Go,” said the soldier, gesturing dismissively.

4

Van Buren tried hard not to glance at his watch. If he wanted to catch his son before he left for the weekend tournament, he had to call him before ten o’clock Eastern Time. It was now ten minutes to the hour. But the planning session was too important to interrupt, not the kind of thing you stopped for a personal matter.

“I don’t know whether the Israeli information is wrong or not,” said Ferguson. Ferguson got up and went over to the side of the large conference room to try some of the coffee. They’d been given the use of several rooms at the U.S. Air Force facility in western Turkey, where the First Team MC-130 and other support units were temporarily based. The location made it easier to fly near Syria and was less vulnerable to Iraqi resistance spies and possible attacks than a base in western Iraq would have been. Ferg, Fouad and the prisoners had transferred from the Chinooks to the MC-130 at a small airfield and come directly here the night before.

“The map we found with the money shows a route to Tripoli, Lebanon,” said Ferguson.

“Doesn’t mean Khazaal’s going there,” said Van Buren. “Or that he got past us.”

“The airplane was headed toward Beirut when the Israelis lost track of it. And the car that grabbed our friend came from Lebanon.”

There were holes in the intelligence supporting Ferguson’s theory, and he knew it. The vehicle had been stolen from northern Lebanon, not from Beirut or the western coast. And the Israeli surveillance plane that had managed to spot the plane had lost sight of it near Beirut. They weren’t even sure it was the same plane, only that it had come from the right direction, was the right size, and did not correlate with any known or filed flights.

But there was also circumstantial evidence to support the theory. Tarabulus esh Sham, more commonly known as Tripoli, sat on the Lebanese coast at the end of a long oil pipeline back to Iraq. There were many Iraqis in the city and region. Drug dealers liked the spot because of the port.

“What do you say, Fouad?” asked Van Buren.

“As Mr. Ferguson would have it, the fact that I don’t expect it makes it likely.”

“Not everybody’s thinking two steps ahead,” said Van.

“Khazaal does,” said Ferguson. “I know it’s a long shot, but at the moment it’s our best guess.”

“Assuming we missed him.”

“Even if we didn’t miss him. I can’t search all of Syria and all of Lebanon. I have to start making some guesses.”

“We can’t run an operation there,” said Van Buren. “It’s too urban.”

“I don’t expect you to,” said Ferguson. “Best bet is to go in by sea. This way I don’t advertise to the local security types that I’m in.”

“They know you?”

“I was there last year, briefly,” said Ferg. “One or two might have reason to remember.”

Van Buren liked the CIA officer a lot, though he tended to cut things a little too close to the bone. The First Team was a cooperative venture between the CIA and the Special Operations Command; the two men headed their respective halves, cooperating better with each other than anyone would have predicted before the program began. The arrival of Corrine Alston as the president’s direct representative — and, in effect, their boss — bothered Ferguson a great deal, because he saw it as political interference. Van Buren didn’t know it as fact, but he gathered that Ferguson believed his father’s career at the Agency had been sabotaged by similar second-guessing.

Van Buren’s take on Alston was different. As a colonel and career military man, he was used to dealing with bureaucratic politics, and Alston had been nothing but supportive. She had her own set of questions and priorities, but considering that the latter probably came directly from the president, she had been relatively easy to work with.

“We leave the scout mission at the border intact,” said Ferguson. “But we’ll start looking around in the cities nearby in case we’ve missed him already. Fouad can help Rankin and Thera handle that. Your guys stay on the border with Guns, ready to run a replay of last night. Hopefully with better results.”

“You’re just going into Lebanon by yourself?” asked Fouad.

Van Buren had the same question, though it was typical of Ferg. He had a knack for slipping in and out of places he didn’t belong.

“It’s a scouting mission. I’ll be in and out. If the meeting is going to be held there, I’m going to want as many clean faces as I can get, including yours. And maybe Van’s.”

“Thanks, but my job is with the troops.”

Ferguson laughed, then became more serious. “Once I see if anything’s up I’ll fall back and regroup. We just don’t have enough time to sit out in the desert and wait. This meeting’s supposed to take place in a matter of days.”

“Well, I agree we must try a chance,” said Fouad. “If this is the best of your information, it makes sense.”

“It’s the best at the moment.” One of the earliest lessons Ferguson had learned was to be prejudiced toward action; you didn’t accomplish anything by hanging out and drinking coffee.

Well, you might, but only if that was part of the plan.

“I know some people around town,” Ferguson told them. “Maybe if nothing’s happening, I’ll head down to Beirut. It’s not as bad as you think. Really.”

“How friendly are these people to Americans?” asked Van Buren.

“To Americans, so-so. But I’m going as an Irishman.” Ferg winked. “Everyone loves Irishmen.”

“You have to talk to Alston about this, you know. She’s still worked up about the fact that you went to Cairo without briefing her. Even I heard about it.”

“I’ll take care of her.”

“She’s only trying to do her job.”

“Go make your phone call. I’ll deal with Alston,” Ferg told Van Buren. “But first I have to rustle up a milk truck.”

5

Rankin listened to the heavy crush of the Chinook’s propellers as the massive chopper approached from the east. The desert reverberated with the big bird’s distinctive sound, and though they’d scoured the area for insurgents with the UAV and even sent a pair of patrols toward the road, Rankin worried that a hajji would pop out of a spider hole they’d missed and slam the chopper with a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile. He’d been on two helicopters that had barely escaped SAM attacks, and while he knew that the men and aircraft chosen for the mission here would be well equipped and trained to deal with the danger, he couldn’t push aside his concern.

He’d noticed that a lot lately. He didn’t fear for himself, but he worried about others getting hurt, almost like a father worried about his kids; or so he imagined. He personally had no experience of being a father, and his time with his own had been extremely limited, his parents divorcing when he was three.

“Two choppers?” said Guns, coming up next to him.

“Sounds like it.”

“There’s one of them.” The Marine Corps sergeant pointed to the shadow of the first helicopter as it approached. The chopper had rotors fore and aft. The dual power plants made the Chinook among the most powerful helicopters in the world, capable not only of transporting forty-four fully armed soldiers but also of carrying upward of 26,000 pounds beneath her belly. This one had been chosen for just that reason: dangling in a massive sling beneath the chopper was the rear section of a tank truck.

Rankin and Guns watched as the Chinook squatted over the landing area. Several Rangers trotted over to help unhook the truck.

“Hate to be down there,” said Guns.

“How’s that?” asked Rankin. He was still thinking about the possibility of some scumbag popping up with a missile.

“Dirt and crap flying all over the place,” said Guns. “You never get the grit out of your skin.”

Rankin remembered the powdery sand that had clung to his body when he’d been in Iraq during the search for Scuds. Ancient history now.

Relieved of its load, the helicopter seemed to step back in the air before circling off to the right and landing a hundred yards or so down the road and disgorging its passengers. Meanwhile, the second chopper moved into position, the truck’s cab dangling beneath its fuselage.

“That’ll be Ferg,” said Guns, gesturing toward the men coming off the helicopter ramp. “Maybe we ought to go check it out.”

“I guess.”

“Why don’t you like him?” Guns asked.

“What’s it to you?”

“Ain’t nothin’ to me,” said Guns.

“Good.”

Ferguson watched as the mechanics fiddled with the engine, trying to get it to start. With the way his luck was running, the stinking thing wouldn’t work, and they’d lose the entire day. Fouad folded his arms next to him, his long face even longer.

“How was Turkey?” asked Thera, who’d come down from the base.

“Dark. How are these guys treating you?” asked Ferg.

“Not bad.”

“Like being the only woman in the desert?”

“I’m used to it,” said Thera. “What I’d like to try some time is being the only woman in a palace.”

The engine coughed. A mass of black smoke emerged from the exhaust.

“Getting there,” said one of the soldiers.

Ferguson wasn’t so sure. He saw Guns coming down the path from the rocks, trailed by Captain Melfi, who’d come east to the base camp with most of his men after the snatch operation the night before.

“Hey, Houston, why don’t we grab the rest of the team and have a little planning session?” Ferguson suggested, taking his rucksack.

“You going to keep up that Houston business instead of using my real name?”

“It’s better than some of the alternatives, don’t you think?”

“I think Thera is fine.”

“You don’t get a vote.” Ferguson smirked at her frown.

Melfi gave Ferguson an update on the traffic, or rather the lack of traffic, as they walked back up to the command tent. They found Rankin sitting at the table that dominated the room, staring at the large map. Ferg helped himself to a cup of coffee, then leaned over the table, orienting himself.

“Couple of things might have happened,” Ferguson told the others. “One is that we missed him. In that case he may be waiting for the folks we grabbed to show up in one of the cities around here. So we check them out.”

“How did he get past us?” asked Rankin.

“Disguised, scooted right through with the rest of the traffic near Aby Kamal,” said Ferguson, pointing at the border city on the Euphrates. “Bribed the guards, tricked the Americans.”

“I don’t see how they could have,” said Melfi.

“Which of course would be how they did it,” said Ferguson. “Or he used one of the tunnels we don’t know about. Or he came over a few days ago. Or our information is completely bad.”

Ferguson outlined the general game plan, telling Melfi that he and his people would continue to watch the border area.

“In the meantime, Fouad, Rankin, and Thera are going to go over to Sukna and then Deir Ex Zur and see if they can catch a whiff of the trail.” Ferguson reached into his rucksack and pulled out a large padded envelope, which contained travel and identity documents, along with a bundle of money. “You go as Egyptians with the milk truck. Everybody knows you’re smugglers looking for business.”

“I don’t look very Egyptian,” said Rankin.

“No one will question it if you don’t talk too much,” said Fouad. “You smear more red tone on your face and keep growing your beard, you look fine.”

“Maybe I ought to dress like a Bedouin,” suggested Rankin.

“That’s overdoing it,” said Ferguson. “Anyone who studies your face is going to know you haven’t spent your life in the desert. You’ll be all right. Just the normal pajamas will do.”

Rankin had a customized salwnr kameez, an oversized shirt and baggy pants, which in his case were bulky enough to hide a lightweight bulletproof vest along with his weapons. He could obscure his face when necessary with a head scarf or shimagh.

Despite its poor relations with the U.S., in many ways Syria was much more liberal than many Middle Eastern countries, and Western-style clothing would be the norm in the larger towns and cities. Fouad was dressed little differently than a man would dress in America.

“The milk truck has a series of fake compartments,” Ferguson told them. “I got it off a genuine smuggler. Actually, the First Airborne got it off a smuggler, and they said I could borrow it.”

He explained how the compartments worked. There was one toward the cab area large enough to fit weapons and a series of smaller ones. “You can chain two of the motorcycles on the back, and another at the side. They may come in handy.”

“Where are you going to be?” Thera asked Ferguson.

“The map those clowns were working with suggest they were going to Tarabulus esh Sham, Tripoli. Long shot but worth checking. It’s north of Beirut.”

“What happened to Syria?” asked Thera.

“Still in the running. It may be that they were going here first, maybe to pick up someone or sell something or even buy something, then heading north. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Won’t know until I get there and maybe not even then.”

“What am I doing, Ferg?” asked Guns.

“For the time being, big guy, winning Melfi’s poker money. Your Arabic isn’t good enough to ride with those guys, and I don’t want to burn you in Lebanon with me in case I need you to come in as a Russian drug dealer or something like that. If you’re seen with me it’ll kill your cover. Just remember, I get half your winnings here.”

Guns smirked. Melfi didn’t.

“Questions? Complaints?” asked Ferguson.

“There’s five thousand Euros here,” said Thera, flipping through the money.

“That’s all they’d let me sign for.”

She stared at him.

Ferguson realized she was thinking about the cash they’d found in the smuggler’s car and laughed. “Don’t forget your sunblock,” he told them.

6

Sukna was a very small town, and it was clear as they approached that they were not going to get any information there, even it was to be had. A small patrol of Syrian soldiers met them outside of town and quizzed them. Fouad handled it somewhat nervously, and Thera worried that the man was going to make the mistake of offering the Syrians a bribe. Close to the border that might be expected, but here it would be regarded as an insult and perhaps worse.

Rankin pressed his elbow into the Iraqi’s side, hoping to shut him up. Fouad blubbered on, talking inanely about the swarm of bugs that followed the truck, worrying that they were attracted by the souring milk in the back. Finally even the guards grew tired of him and waved them past the checkpoint.

“Why did you tell them that the milk was sour?” said Thera, leaning across Rankin.

The Iraqi shrugged.

“Talk less,” said Rankin.

“I have been in this business longer than you have been alive,” answered Fouad, though it had been many years since he had traveled undercover. The weather didn’t help his mood, and the flies were atrocious. He thought to himself that he should have insisted on going to Tripoli, where at least he might have been able to find a pool to cool off in.

“This doesn’t look like a good place to stop,” said Thera as they came to a cluster of buildings that marked the start of the town center. Soldiers stood on both sides of the road.

Rankin agreed. They drove through slowly but saw no hint of what was going on. There was a second checkpoint at the northern outskirts; this time the soldiers wanted to check their truck. The interior had been dummied up against just such a possibility with a mixture of brackish water and milk. One of the soldiers made the mistake of tasting some of the liquid as it poured from the back and spit it into the sand; his companions laughed at him.

“Obviously a new recruit,” said Rankin as they drove away.

“You think Khazaal’s in the town and that’s why they’re here?” asked Thera.

“Nothing can be completely ruled out,” said Fouad. “But the Syrian government would not want to be seen actively cooperating with the resistance at this time. If anything, the soldiers would be looking for him and others. You see how our truck was searched? They were looking for a person, not merchandise. They probably heard the helicopters yesterday or rumors of the gunfights. That is why they are here.”

Rankin waited until they were a few miles out of town, then used the sat phone to call Corrigan and tell him about the Syrians. “They didn’t look like a search party exactly,” he told him. “But I don’t know. Better tell Guns and the rest of them to be careful tonight.”

They made decent time on the highway, stopping once for diesel. Thera found herself nodding off as they continued north, fatigue and the heat lulling her to sleep. Green appeared on the horizon; the wind suddenly felt humid. Then she drifted, sliding somewhere near Houston, where she’d grown up.

Rankin let Thera’s weight shift against him. She had a compact body, not quite buxom enough on top to be a knockout but trim under the loose Arab clothes she wore. Her nose had the slightest hook to it, the sort of blemish that made a woman seem ugly at first but kept your eyes returning to her face until you realized that she was actually very beautiful. A curly strand of hair fell over her ear, drawing a line between the two post earrings.

He reached over and moved her against the side of the truck, not wanting his gun obstructed. He had a small Glock in his pants pocket; his Uzi was strapped beneath the dashboard.

“The woman is sleeping?” asked Fouad.

“Yeah.”

“Women can always sleep.”

“I guess.”

“I have not been to Deir Ex Zur in many years.”

“Makes two of us,” said Rankin, though in fact he had never been there.

“It is the most likely place in the area that he would come,” continued Fouad. “Everyone goes through it, and you can buy many things.”

“Yeah. You’re probably right.”

Deir Ex Zur sat on an important trade route that dated well into prehistory. During the French domination of Syria, it had been an important French outpost, albeit a small one. Like so many other places in the Middle East, the discovery of oil here had changed the city’s fortunes dramatically. It was now a relatively large city, by far the biggest in eastern Syria, with Western-style hotels and a smattering of Europeans on the streets. The Euphrates sat on the northern side of the city, less a boundary than a wide, rich vein of green and blue — and a gathering place for the squadrons of swarming bugs. They made their way to 8th Azar Street, one of the main thoroughfares. Rankin woke Thera when they found a lot to park in. They were a few blocks from the microbus station, which itself was several from the river and the heart of town.

“Time to go to work,” he told her.

The area around the river had changed considerably since the last time Fouad had been here. While it had always had its share of tourist traps catering to Western visitors as well as Arabs, they had multiplied tenfold in the last two years. The forest of English signs crowding out Arabic pained Fouad as well as disoriented him.

Their first stop was a café frequented by Iraqi exiles on the south side of the river.

“It looks exactly as it did when I first saw it twenty years ago,” said Fouad, surprised as well as relieved. “Wait for me.”

“You sure you’re all right?” asked Rankin.

Fouad, annoyed, put up his hand but said nothing.

When he had been gone five minutes, Rankin told Thera to come along.

“I thought you told him we’d stay out here.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Ferg does.”

“I ain’t Ferg.”

Thera followed him inside. The influence of tourism had loosened local customs to the point that women were a sizable minority inside the café. If anything, Thera’s rust-colored jiba and lace-up hijab and scarf were on the conservative side here. She followed Rankin to a seat several tables from Fouad, whose back was turned to them at a table in the corner. He was sitting alone.

They ordered tea, Thera doing the talking. She had a pistol strapped to the inside of each thigh as well as her left ankle; on her right were three small pin grenades, miniature flash-bangs that could be used to divert attention if she needed to escape. A knife, spare ammo, and two more pin grenades, these with smoke, were strapped below her breasts. The weapons felt uncomfortable under the long dress, but it was something she’d have to get used to.

“Didn’t even talk to anyone,” grumbled Rankin as Fouad got up to leave.

They met Fouad outside after she finished her tea.

“We have to find a taxi,” the Iraqi told them. “I have an address.”

7

Ferguson had found that, as a general rule in life, it was best to simply show up at the place where you wished to be. Less questions were asked, more things assumed, if one simply walked out from the crowd. And so it was that Bob Ferguson made his appearance in Tripoli, striding out of the surf at the Palace, a recently built luxury resort that featured the self-proclaimed biggest and best sand beach in all Lebanon — not much of a boast in a country not known for sandy beaches but a slogan nonetheless.

Ferguson wiped the seawater from his eyes and looked around, peering left and right as if looking for friends amid the throng. He scanned up and down for a few moments, getting a feel for the crowd. Though it was past high season, there was a good number of people here. Finally he found what he was looking for: an unattended towel. As he scooped it up, a hotel employee approached. Ferguson smiled and, before it was possible for the man to say anything, asked if he could possibly have a martini. The man was flustered; Ferg repeated the question in French. He was a little rusty and the grammar came out wrong, but the employee was hardly in a position to correct it. The man asked him in Arabic if he was with the Ugari party. Unsure what the right answer would be, Ferguson replied in French that he wasn’t sure what time it was, as he had left his watch upstairs. After two more tries the man turned around and headed back toward the building.

Wrapping the large towel around his shoulders as a gesture to modesty, Ferguson set out in the direction of the catamaran concession, where ten slightly damp one-hundred Euro notes procured him the last boat on the dock, a craft that had been promised to a man who’d gone to gather his family just a moment before. Ferg hopped aboard as the man returned, running up his sail and pulling away as the concessionaire explained over the man’s loud protests that there had been a mistake.

Steering northward, Ferguson passed a second beach — from the water it looked just as big as the first one, but he wasn’t checking slogans for authenticity- and then a stretch of jagged rocks. Sail furled and anchor set in the shallow rocks, he slipped into the water, diving down and retrieving the pair of plastic torpedoes he had tied to one of the rocks below. Back in the boat, he opened one of the containers and slipped on a shirt and a pair of cargo hiking shorts. Then he took one of the small Glocks from the torpedo and stuffed it into his belt line, letting his shirt cover it. He took three magazines of 9mm bullets and put them into one of his pockets; a pair of pin grenades went into his other. The weapons, which looked more like oversized fancy metal pens than pins (or grenades for that matter), were downsized flash-bangs, useful for diversions and skipping out on bar bills. He debated taking out another gun but decided against it. Carrying one could always be defended as a matter of personal protection, but two bordered on ostentation. Ferguson got out his Irish passport and put it into his shirt pocket, along with a ticket stub indicating that he had arrived two days before in Damascus from Germany.

From the second torpedo-shaped container, Ferguson daubed a layer of cold cream to his nose and cheek, old-fashioned protection against sunburn. Wraparound sun glasses in place, he donned a pair of rubber gloves and applied a thick layer of gel to his hair.

The wind began to kick up, and by the time Ferguson was ready to go back onshore he had floated several hundred yards northward. That was fine with him; he didn’t want to go back to the hotel beach in case the waiter brought back more than a martini. He went where the wind took him, sailing until he found a familiar-looking dock jutting from one of the vacation villages that dotted the area. Tying the torpedoes together, he slung them over his shoulders and sauntered onto the dock, wandering up the pebbled path and around to the road.

The way, unfortunately, was barred by a security guard. The man demanded in Arabic to know who Ferguson was. Ferguson answered in Arabic that he was a guest of Muhammad Lassi, whom he was just going up to see.

Lassi was, in fact, a resident here, a fact Ferguson knew because he had visited Lassi the year before. Unfortunately, the guard had seen Mr. Lassi not too long ago: a week ago, in fact, at his funeral. He informed Ferguson of this as he pulled out his pistol.

8

Corrine spent a good portion of the morning meeting with the American ambassador, who wanted to talk about some of the nuances of the president’s upcoming trip. As part of her cover — she was supposedly working for the Commerce Department on a special assignment — she met with Israeli officials to discuss a proposed protocol for loan paybacks. In between she got an update on the Khazaal situation to the effect that there was no update. Ferguson had managed to call while she was in one of the meetings, leaving only a message that they should “catch up” when she got a chance. It was his only acknowledgment of her request that he meet her here.

Corrine had lunch with the Commerce Department negotiator, a pleasant enough middle-aged woman who missed her five- and six-year-old children dearly and spent the entire lunch talking about them. As they waited for the coffee to arrive, Corrine excused herself and went to call Corrigan and try Ferguson again. One of the Delta bodyguards assigned to her by the embassy followed her to the restroom.

“You’re not coming in with me,” she said to him.

The man looked embarrassed. “No, ma’am.”

Corrine felt compelled to tell him she was joking, but he didn’t noticeably relax. The restroom was a coed affair and not terribly clean, but it did have a lock on the door. She scanned the room and turned on the white noise box, then pulled out the sat phone. Corrigan was off-duty; Lauren Di Capri, his relief, told her there was nothing new.

“All right. Can you connect me to Ferguson?”

“He’s off the air right now. His phone’s off. When he checks in—”

“Where is he?”

“On his way to Lebanon. He should be there now.”

“Why?”

“He had a hunch on where Khazaal might be going.”

“Why the hell didn’t he check in with me first?”

Lauren didn’t answer.

“You tell him to call me. No excuses.”

“All right.”

Corrine slapped the phone off. Was it a coincidence that he had called when she was unavailable? The people at the Cube had access to her schedule. It wouldn’t take much to weasel out the best — or, rather, worst — time to call her.

The incident in Cairo had been explained away by the Egyptian police, largely because they were grateful that an enemy of the regime had been taken care of. But an incident in Lebanon would be something else again.

And, really, who did he think he was, blowing her off? She’d sent word for him to meet her in Tel Aviv; he hadn’t even acknowledged her.

Corrine had to straighten this out. She could give him some leeway — she’d given him plenty already — but major operations were supposed to be approved by her first. Especially now, with the president due in the region next week.

Ferguson was a walking time bomb: he was exactly what the president had appointed her to head off. She had to confront him directly. Waiting for him to call her wasn’t going to work.

9

“I didn’t realize you knew Lassi,” Ferguson told the guard holding the pistol on him. If ever there was a situation where the truth was called for, Ferg reasoned, this was it. “He was an uncle to us all,” continued Ferguson in Arabic. “Of course, now that his cousin owns the apartment, that is whom I am staying with.”

“Where is your identification?” demanded the man. He held the pistol in one hand and used his other to reach for the radio.

“Right here,” said Ferg. He took the Irish passport from his pocket, tapped it on his nose, and then swiped it across his hair as he nervously scratched an itch. The officer took the passport, frowning as his fingers smeared across the gooey mixture from Ferguson’s hair. He held it against his radio, squinted at it, then crumpled to the ground.

The gel was an enzyme that activated the synthetic opiate in the cold cream. Ferguson reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and picked up the passport gingerly, wiping off the residue on the man’s shirt. He pulled the man to the side, ejected the bullet from the chamber of his gun — it was very dangerous to carry it that way, when you thought about it — and for good measure took the magazine with him as well. Then he went to find the microbus, which would take him into town.

10

The taxi driver refused to take Fouad and the others anywhere near the address Fouad had given him, dropping them on an empty street three blocks away despite the offer to triple his tip if he drove past the building.

The scent of raw oil hung heavy in the air. Rankin held his Beretta in his hand, hiding it in the crook of his arm as they passed row after row of dilapidated steel buildings. The structures looked like warehouses that might still have been in use, though they saw no one nearby. Night had begun to fall, shading the buildings with a dimness that made them seem even more ominous.

“What do you think?” asked Thera when they stopped at a wide though empty cross street.

“Don’t know,” said Rankin.

Fouad said nothing. His stomach had started to gnaw at him: nerves mostly, though he realized he must also be hungry by now. Some men claimed that they became immune to danger, even comfortable with it, but Fouad would not tell such a lie or even attempt it.

They crossed the street. An odor of sewage replaced the petroleum scent; they were close to the river.

Two dusty Lexus SUVs sat across the road as they walked up. Rankin and Thera realized they were being watched from the roof, though both pretended not to notice. Fouad understood where he was now and saw a script to follow, a path that he had trod before. He picked up his pace, walking to the middle of the block, where two masked men with AK-47s met them.

The masks were a good sign. They did not want to be identified later on. This wasn’t an ambush.

The men would not search Thera. She handed over her small Glock as a sign of her integrity, keeping the knife and the other Glock as well as her grenades. Rankin gave up the pistol in his hand as well as the Colt at his back. Fouad surrendered a revolver. As a weapon it was not much, but he had had it long enough now that it had emotional value, and he told the men not to lose it.

They were shown through a narrow door into a reception area at the center of one of the steel buildings. The floor had been tiled with an elaborate black-and-white mosaic, but the walls were plain panels covered with thick white paint. A window similar to those manned by a receptionist at doctors’ offices in the States sat at one side; there was a steel door next to it. A bare forty-watt bulb in the ceiling supplied the only light.

The steel door opened, and a man with an AK-47 appeared in the doorway.

“What do you want?” he demanded in Arabic.

“Business,” replied Fouad.

“What business?”

“We transport items. We seek work. We are here to speak to Ali.”

The man made a face and disappeared back through the door. He returned less than a minute later, far too quickly to have actually consulted with anyone.

“Come back tomorrow,” he said.

Fouad knew that this was a test, but he wasn’t sure what the proper response was. He waited a moment, then began to step back.

Thera reached across Rankin and took his sleeve. “Tomorrow we should be at the border. If there is no business, we can’t afford to wait,” she told him in Arabic. “Making good customers angry to please one we don’t have makes no sense.”

“But if there is no business, there is no business,” said Fouad, falling into the act. “We cannot be too greedy.”

He looked to Rankin, as if giving the other partner the final say. Rankin shrugged.

“Then we’ll leave,” said Thera.

They started to, but the man called them back.

“I have been a poor host, forgive me,” he said. “Perhaps we can find some work for honest people.”

He came around to the door and waved them inside the warehouse proper. It was large and dimly lit, and almost entirely empty.

“What business do you have here?” said a woman’s voice as they approached a pair of trucks at the back near the garage-style doors. The trucks were Russian military transport models, nearly as old as Fouad.

“We are open for anything,” said Fouad.

A woman in Western jeans and a flowing top came out from behind one of the trucks, flanked by two young men with M16s.

“You’re just petty smugglers,” said the woman dismissively.

“Honest carriers,” said Thera. “Trying to make a living in a difficult era.”

“Don’t lie, sister.” The woman walked to her, pointing. “You’re simple thieves.”

“Carriers.”

“You must be a whore to be with such men.”

Thera stared at the woman, whose eyes were focused on her in fury. When Thera did not rise to the provocation, the woman turned back to Fouad. “Talk to Oda,” she said, walking back to the trucks. Oda was the man who had led them inside.

“We have our own trucks,” he told them. He brought them to a corner at the far end of the warehouse, where several chairs sat around a table. “But sometimes we have material that needs other shippers.”

“Our forte,” said Fouad. “What part of Iraq do you come from, my friend?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Your accent. Did you leave before or after the war?”

It was a delicate question but worth the risk; Fouad thought overcoming Oda’s discomfort would provide a basis for the questions he had actually come to ask. Oda told him that he had come only within the last few months — a neutral answer and clearly a lie, though one Fouad could easily go along with. The two men traded a few more lies before Fouad managed to mention Baghdad, saying that he had not been that far east in many years. He mentioned a street that any recent native would have recognized as the home area of one of the insurgent groups, but if this had an effect on Oda it neither registered in his face nor his questions. They turned to the sort of notice required for transport. Thera took over briefly to say that they could stay in the city for two days in the future, as it was a pleasant place, but only on their way back from Damascus.

Found began talking of others they did business with, carefully slipping in the names of Syrians who smuggled arms to rebel groups. Again, there was no reaction. Finally, Fouad looked at his watch.

“We must go,” he said, rising.

“Be on Ben Whalid Street at nine tonight,” said Oda in a low hush, before moving quickly to the door. “A third at pickup, the rest at delivery. One thousand, American.”

“Done.”

Why make such a big deal out of it like that?” said Rankin when they finally reached the more populated part of the city.

“They watch how we react; we watch how they react,” said Fouad. “Smuggling is a matter of trust.”

“He was definitely setting us up,” said Thera. “A thousand is too much for a first-time job.”

“No, not necessarily,” said Fouad.

“We being followed?” Rankin asked.

“I don’t think so, but maybe they have a nightscope in one of the buildings or someone watching us from up there,” said Thera.

“They wouldn’t bother,” said Fouad. “We’re not worth it. We’re small beans.”

“Potatoes,” said Rankin.

“Whatever we are, we aren’t important enough for them to follow. They don’t have that many people.”

“You don’t think the meeting is a trap?” said Thera.

“A trap it may be. Or not.” Fouad wasn’t sure. He wanted to know what they were shipping, and the only way to find out would be to show up. “There is a Kurd in this city who might be of help,” said Fouad. “If we can find him before nine, then we need not keep the appointment.”

“We’re not going to keep it, not all of us,” said Rankin. “You go. Thera and I will take the bikes and trail you.”

“A reasonable plan,” said Fouad.

They didn’t find the Kurd, and so Fouad drove the truck down Ben Whalid at exactly nine p.m. The street ran through the downtown area, and as he approached each intersection Fouad slowed, expecting to be signaled. But there were no men, no signs, no signals. He reached the western end of the street; unsure whether to go left or right, he turned right toward the river. As he did, something thumped against the left side of the truck. He turned to see what it was. In that brief moment Oda leapt from a hiding place between two cars along the road, hopped onto the running board of the passenger side, and opened the door. It happened so quickly that Fouad did not have time to feel fear.

“I thought I had gotten something wrong,” said Fouad.

“Nothing wrong,” said Oda, pulling himself inside the truck. “Drive on.”

Fouad wondered what would have happened if he had gone the other way, but the answer soon occurred to him: there was another man posted along the other street; they would have simply changed places. The other man would now be trailing, probably wondering where his companions were.

You see him?” asked Rankin. He was riding on the motorcycle a few hundred yards behind the milk truck.

“Not yet,” answered Thera. She’d gone ahead, turning down a side street, and was now doubling back.

“All right. Looks like we’re heading up along the river.”

“That’s not the river. The tributary.”

“Whatever.”

“I see him now. He’s got a guy in the cab with him.”

Thera passed the tanker, saw the car that Rankin said was trailing it, then passed Rankin. She rode a little farther then turned around. She’d changed from her long dress and put on coveralls and a helmet so she looked like a man, albeit a highly suspicious one.

“Turning,” said Rankin. “Going toward the river or tributary or whatever that is. Stopping.”

He killed the bike’s motor, coasting off the road near a thicket of grass and brush. The truck and car had stopped about thirty yards ahead. He let the bike down as quietly as he could, then slid the Uzi from his backpack, extended the stock, and walked in the direction of the truck.

Fouad was still in the cab.

“So where is my cargo?” he asked Oda.

“Where are the others?”

“They wanted to get dinner. And other things. You know how it is when you are young,” he said.

Oda wasn’t much for innuendo and responded by taking out his pistol. “Where are the others?”

It had been a long time since anyone had pointed a gun at Fouad’s chest, and the first thing that he thought of was: I do not want to die for the Americans.

“I’m not sure of the restaurant,” he told Oda. “Why do we need them?”

“You are cheating them?”

“No,” said Fouad. “I am an honest man.”

“For a criminal.”

“I merely make a living. If I am cheating the regime, who is the loser? The Americans who want our oil and manhood? If that is who I am hurting, you should congratulate me as a patriot.”

Fouad wanted to sound brave but even to his ears the note was too forced, too off-key to impress. Oda lifted his gun.

“Where are they?” he asked again.

“We can look for them, I suppose.”

“Out of the truck.”

“The cargo?”

“You are a genuine fool.”

“I am getting out of the truck,” said Fouad. As he reached for the door, he made a judgment. There was a gun tucked against the seat within easy reach, but he calculated that he could not swing it up and around before Oda could blow his brains out. And so he left it there, and started to pull open the door — which was promptly yanked from his grip. A pair of hands grabbed him, and he felt himself flying down from the truck.

As he landed, something flashed above him and the world reverberated with the sharp, loud crack of a grenade exploding.

11

Corrine’s plane was met by a staffer from the U.S. embassy, who arrived with four marines as bodyguards and a separate police detail. Two members of the Lebanese government’s trade committee also turned up, having heard that the Commerce Department fact finder was especially interested in how agricultural trade might be facilitated.

The trade issue was particularly difficult for President McCarthy; oranges were Lebanon’s major exportable crop, and he had narrowly carried Florida in the recent election. But the issue gave her more than ample reason to tour the country and to get over to Tripoli. The men were invited to come with her on the ride to the embassy to make their case.

Corrine nodded several times and even managed to praise the quality of the country’s fruit, mentioning that she hoped to further acquaint herself with different exportable items in preparation for a full report to the commerce secretary “at the most opportune time.” The men interpreted this as a positive sign, immediately offering to assist her. Corrine lamented that her schedule was not her own but that official help would be welcome.

Considerable dancing and a feint or two later led her to say that she planned to see the Mediterranean coast, mentioning that she was interested in tourism and the potential impact of the industry on “full” trade and relations. The men, of course, praised her decision and began working on an itinerary by cell phone. Corrine had a full slate of tours for the next day and a half by the time they reached the embassy.

Inside, she used the secure communications center to call Lauren, who was on duty in the Cube. “Where is Ferguson?”

“Tripoli, as far as I know. He should be checking in any second. Should I have him call you at the embassy?”

“No. I’ll be in Tripoli in the morning,” she said. “Tell Mr. Ferguson to find me.”

“What?”

“I’ll be at the Medici. Tell him if he doesn’t find me, I’ll find him. I assume he’ll find it much more expedient if he picks the time and place, but I am quite prepared to take matters into my own hands.”

12

Rankin managed to get Fouad out of the cab just as the flash-bang he’d thrown into the truck exploded. But before he could fire at Oda, the car that had followed the truck off the road pulled to a stop. Rankin sprayed the windshield with his Uzi, killing one of the two men inside. The other jumped out and began returning fire, hitting Rankin in the chest, where the bulletproof vest he wore beneath the coverall stopped the slug, leaving him with only a minor bruise. Rankin fired at the top of the gunman’s skull. The man’s head exploded like a pumpkin, gore spraying everywhere; even Rankin winced involuntarily at the sight.

Fouad lay on the ground nearby, trying to push himself toward some nearby bushes for cover while staying as flat as possible at the same time. He crawled forward, chin scraping the hard-packed dirt. He feared that the American would mistake him for one of the attackers or, worse, would throw a grenade or indiscriminately blanket the area with gunfire, not trying to kill him but not particularly caring one way or another.

Rankin hadn’t warned Thera before he tossed the grenade, and its explosion off the road surprised her. She hunkered low on the bike and passed the turnoff the others had taken. When she realized this she throttled down and braked until she could drop the bike. The motorcycle flew from her hands, but she managed not only to stay on her feet but also to pull her M4 carbine up and ready, crouching as automatic weapons fire erupted off the road.

A car approached from the north with its lights off. Thera hunkered on the shoulder. She had her night glasses on and could see all three of the men as they got out of the vehicle. She didn’t fire until she saw a weapon in one of the men’s hands. The delay allowed one man to dive to the ground and roll or crawl into the thicket; the others fell where they stood.

Thera crouched, looking for the man who’d gotten away. For a moment she thought he had run off, but a stream of bullets dancing on the nearby macadam told her that was wishful thinking. She jumped over to the side of the shoulder, looking for cover. As she did she saw another car coming from the north, also with its lights off. Thera drew her gun to take aim, but she came under fire again, bullets ricocheting less than a foot away. She squeezed right and got off a few rounds, sending the gunman farther into the weeds. By that time, the car had stopped. She turned to see someone running from it toward the turnoff.

Fifty yards away, Rankin moved warily toward the front of the truck, trying to see what had become of the man who’d been in the cab with Fouad.

Something moved on the other side of the truck. Rankin couldn’t get a target and held his fire.

“Rankin?” whispered Thera in the radio. “Where are you?”

“I’m near the truck.”

“Someone’s coming down from the north end of the road. I’m pinned down up here.”

“I’ll come for you when I take care of this.”

“I’m just warning you, asshole,” said Thera. “I’ll take care of this.”

Rankin continued around to the passenger side of the vehicle and eased toward the cab. When he saw that it was clear he swung up into the interior and was crossing over to the driver’s side when he snagged himself on the large shifter at the center of the cab. He forced a slow, deep breath from his lungs, twisting back and then spreading himself along the seat, moving forward again. When he reached the side he slid down into the well beneath the dashboard. He couldn’t quite see all the way down the side of the truck to the back. Pushing out to get a better angle, he spotted someone and goosed the Uzi, striking him in the head with the second burst.

Not sure now how many other gunmen there were nearby, Rankin leaned out from the side of the truck, hesitated a second, then dove forward about a half second before Oda began firing into the cab from the passenger side.

As Rankin rolled into the dirt, bullets followed him to the ground. Oda dropped to his knees and fired under the truck, his bullets spraying wildly. Several struck the oil pan and one the feed from the gas tank to the engine. Oil and diesel fuel began seeping and then pouring downward. Rankin, fearing that the liquid or at least its vapors would ignite, rolled backward and got into the brush.

Fouad in the brush smelled the diesel, too. He didn’t think the diesel was volatile enough to easily ignite, but the smell gave him an idea.

“Set the truck on fire,” he yelled aloud in Arabic, speaking quickly. This brought an immediate response from Oda who began firing in his direction. Rankin clambered to his feet and hunched by the wheel, waiting for a chance to fire.

Thera took out a pin grenade and threw it into the area between the two cars. As it exploded she ran along the road to her left, waiting until the gunman began firing again. When she saw that he was firing at her old position, she crossed to his side. She dove down as the bullets began firing in her direction. For ten or twenty seconds she didn’t breathe, her mouth in the dirt. Then she sidled to the left, down a slight incline that ran along this side of the road. She expected to find the gunman in the ditch but didn’t. Confused, she stared in the direction of the car, then glanced over her shoulder, worried that he had managed to outflank her after she crossed.

If that was the case, her best bet was to take his old position. She began working toward it. When she was about ten feet away, Thera finally saw the gunman up on the road, pressed against the side of the vehicle. She moved her M4 to the right and squeezed the trigger. The first two slugs caught her enemy in the ankle. He howled and fell backward, managing to roll away behind the car. Thera jumped to her feet, raising her weapon high and firing, more to keep him pinned down than in hopes of hitting him, since she was off balance and firing blind. She leapt up the embankment, spun left, and fired a long burst into the body sprawled on the ground. A tracer spit from her barrel, a cue that she was near the end of the box. She pulled her finger off the trigger, heart thumping, knowing that she had hit her target several times but not yet convinced he was dead.

Back by the truck, Fouad moved to his left, eyes scanning the darkness as he looked for Oda. The fuel continued to run from the truck; he could hear it splashing when the gunfire on the roadway faded away. Something moved before him and he fired, two, three, four shots, the bullets whizzing into the brush.

Rankin leapt up as Fouad began to fire, running to the back of the tanker. Oda, hiding behind the fender at the front, raised his gun to fire at Fouad, but Rankin pulled his trigger first. Oda curled backward, dead.

Rankin slid to one knee, scanning quickly to make sure there were no others.

“Thera. Hey!” he yelled.

“Hey, yourself,” said Thera over the radio. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You got the man who came down?”

“Yeah. I got ‘em all.”

“Where’s Fouad?” she asked.

“He’s over on the other side of the cab. Fouad!” Rankin yelled.

Fouad, arms trembling, lowered his weapon. “Rankin?”

“Stay where you are until we have this sorted out. I’m on the other side of the truck, opposite you.”

Rankin ran to Oda’s prostrate body. The bullets had caught him across the neck, nearly severing it. Blood gurgled down over his shirt, pooling around his shoulders.

“Thieves,” said Fouad, walking over.

Rankin looked up. “I told you to stay by the side of the road.”

The Iraqi stared at him, but he said nothing.

“They wanted the truck and figured we were easy pickings,” said Fouad. “Fortunately, they thought we were amateurs and didn’t take us seriously. We were lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” said Rankin. “Let’s make sure they’re all dead, then let’s go see your Kurd.”

Fouad rode with Thera back to town, clinging to her as she worked the bike around the narrow streets before they got to the café where he believed he would find the Kurd. The bulletproof vest under her coveralls exaggerated the firmness of her body, but even without it he thought he would find her flesh stiff and hard, not so much the product of exercise or deprivation but an expression of will, as if to be a warrior she had shed everything soft from her.

She had beautifully curly hair, just long enough to peek out of the back of her helmet. She would be quite a pretty wife.

Fouad poked her side as the last turn came up, afraid she would miss it. When she stopped, he felt his legs wobble, his equilibrium shaken by the ride.

“You look like you could use a drink,” said Thera, pulling off her helmet.

“A devout Muslim does not drink.”

“Are you devout?”

Fouad stared as she unzipped the front of her coveralls, forgetting for a second that she had clothes on beneath it.

“I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said, pulling the coveralls down. She left her bulletproof vest on, dropping her oversized jibab over it and the matching baggy pants.

“I wasn’t insulted,” he said.

The image of her undressing stayed with him as he led them inside. Fouad had not seen the Kurd, Abu Nassad, in four or five years. But he recognized the man the instant he saw him across the room, and as their eyes locked he felt the other man’s fear.

There was no reason for Nassad to fear him any longer, but the emotion was reflexive. Fouad approached him across the room, standing over the table and leaning toward him menacingly, though his voice was mild. “I hope you are well, Abu Nassad.”

The Kurd blinked. “Yes.”

Fouad sat in one of the empty chairs. The man sitting next to Nassad looked first to Fouad and then to Nassad before rising and walking over to the other side of the room. The two other men remained sitting, looking at their coffee impassively. There was a pipe on the table; Nassad offered Fouad a smoke, but he shook his head.

Thera and Rankin sat at a table nearby, Thera watching the room and Rankin watching Fouad and the Kurds.

“I’m looking for information about someone,” said Fouad.

“I don’t sell information.”

“I do not buy.” Fouad wished he had a cigarette, not because he felt the need to smoke — he had never been much of a smoker — but because it was a useful prop. There was so much that could be done with it. “Khazaal was here, and I would like to know where he is now.”

Nassad’s face turned pale.

“He’s here still?” asked Fouad.

“No.” Nassad shook his head. “The devil has gone.”

“Very well. Where?”

“It seems to me, Fouad, you owe me a great deal. When last we met you extorted a bribe from me. I would like my money back.”

Fouad turned his anger into a trite frown, as if he weren’t insulted, as if he weren’t angry at being held up by a man whom he could have had executed, whom he could have executed himself. “Where did he go?”

“The old ways do not work anymore,” said Nassad, the effort in his voice obvious. “You cannot intimidate me.”

Oh, but I can, Fouad thought. He leaned across the table. “Where?”

“How much do you want?” said Rankin behind him.

Nassad, who had started to slide back in his seat, sat upright immediately. “Five hundred American.”

“Fifty Euros,” said Rankin.

“Nothing,” said Fouad.

Rankin reached into his pocket and threw a fifty-Euro bill on the table. “Everything you know. Or the Iraqi will show you how angry he is.”

Nassad reached for the bill, but Fouad threw his hand over it.

“Khazaal, the pig, was here,” said the Kurd. “He left in the morning. He paid for a car with a jewel. He’s traveling with jewels, not cash. He has necklaces and gold. Many of them. In a case his bodyguard keeps. Ask his hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

“The Palmyra.”

“Where did he go when he left?” said Rankin.

Nassad shrugged and reached for the money. Fouad let his fingers touch the edge of the bill.

“How many jewels?” said Fouad.

“Khazaal and I are not on speaking terms.”

“What was he trying to buy?”

“Here? What would you buy here?”

“Which direction did he go in?”

Nassad stared at Fouad. Was it fear that he saw in his eyes or defiance? Both maybe.

Rankin, meanwhile, slipped around the back of the Kurd. He had slipped the palm-sized Glock 22 into his hand and pressed it now against the man’s skull. “Answer my friend’s question,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“I think west. Mansura, maybe. He asked about a car and flights out of the airport. I believe he was going to the coast because he said something about the sea.”

“Lebanon? Or Syria?”

Nassad shook his head.

Rankin studied Fouad’s venomous look. It was the hardest expression he’d seen on his face since they had come. Fouad wanted to kill the Kurd. The emotion reassured Rankin; until now the Iraqi had been a blank to him, with no visible emotion, a dangerous mask that could not be trusted, especially in an Iraqi.

“Let him have the money,” Rankin told him. “Whether he deserves it or not.”

Fouad lifted his hand. As the Kurd reached for the money, one of his companions at the table sprang at Fouad, only to find himself spinning and then wrestled to his knees by Thera, who pressed the sharp edge of her knife against the soft part of his neck near his Adam’s apple.

“I’m not holding this very well,” she told him in Arabic. “So you will bleed to death slowly if I kill you. I’m sure you would prefer a painless end.”

The man croaked as he dropped his knife. Thera threw him down, and as someone else moved forward she raised her other hand, revealing a grenade.

A conventional one, not one of the miniature flash-bangs on her vest.

“No pin,” she said.

Fouad rose from the table. He too had drawn a knife. Had Thera not intervened, the man who sprang, would be dead now. The thought made him shudder slightly. He returned the blade to its scabbard beneath his jacket and walked slowly to the door. The others followed.

“The bikes!” said Thera as soon as they were outside. “Go!”

She waited until she could hear the footsteps approaching the door to drop the primed bomb in her hand — it was a smoke grenade — and tossed a pin flash-bang on the ground before running to catch up with the others.

13

As the name suggested, Il Medici had an Italian motif, with buff marble statues and a massive fountain that greeted visitors as they entered the hotel’s main hall. The hotel had been built only the year before on land that had once been a dumping ground for cars and trucks. The city fathers hoped Il Medici would entourage a new era in tourism, drawing visitors from Europe as well as northern Lebanon and southern Syria. Perhaps it would someday; for now, though, only a quarter of its rooms were occupied and its spacious casino and clubs were at best half full.

The casino had, however, become the locus of choice for entrepreneurs in the import-export trade or, more precisely, the specific subset of that trade dealing with hashish and similar items. This made it a convenient place for Ferguson to stay, and after buying some cheap luggage and clothes in the bazaar in town, he went over to the hotel and checked in. Room secured, bugs located — one in the bedroom beneath the desk where the phone was and another in the bathroom — he sauntered down to the casino, wandering past the roulette wheel and casting an eye toward the card tables. There were several bars. The one he found at the back of the casino clearly catered to the intended clientele; bored Europeans attracted by the cut rate prices, high payoff rates on the machines, and vaguely dangerous atmosphere. There were Greeks and Turks, along with a number of Frenchmen, a few of whom looked to have been here since the occupation. Attractive women in tight-fitting two-piece rayon dresses that exposed their midriffs hovered nearby, smiling fitfully.

Ferg circled the bar, then sidled up near the waiter station and ordered a German beer, Einbecker. He started to pay with a Lebanese note but caught the frown of the bartender. Smiling, Ferg slid a ten-Euro note on the bar and ignored the change. He walked to a table near the side, sipping the beer and watching the crowd.

“You are alone?” asked one of the young women, leaning toward him.

“Sit,” he invited her.

“You buy drink?”

“Sit,” said Ferguson, gesturing.

The woman glanced over her shoulder, though Ferg knew that her employer would not be in the casino. The glance was meant to imply that she had protection if he didn’t play by the rules. Unfortunately for her sake, this wasn’t true; if he took advantage of her services without paying, there was a fifty-fifty chance her boss would come for him. But there was a hundred-percent chance she would be punished and that a beating would be only the beginning. The woman would not be in a position to complain; she was likely to be Palestinian, not Lebanese, and had less standing with police than even a foreign spy.

Ferguson reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills, American this time. He peeled off two hundreds and a fifty, understanding that the woman would be able to give her boss the fifty and keep the rest. He folded them individually between his fingers and laid his fist on the table, poking the fifty up with his thumb.

“What are you drinking?” he asked.

“Ginger ale,” said the woman.

Watered-down ginger ale was the most expensive item on the menu here, one reason the hovering women in rayon were tolerated.

“Get one,” he told her.

The woman looked over toward the bar and nodded.

“I’m looking for where the Russian hangs out,” said Ferguson, letting the fifty-dollar bill fall to the table.

The woman shook her head as if she didn’t understand. Ferguson repeated the question in Arabic, and this time added that he was looking for men “who buy and sell,” the euphemism of choice the year before, though he wasn’t sure now if he was out of date, as it tended to change. “The Russian is the one I want.”

The woman looked over her shoulder, then reached for the bill. He let her take it.

“He’s not here,” she said.

“Downstairs?”

Ferg slid one of the hundred-dollar bills out so that it appeared between the fingers of his fist. “Where can I find him?”

“I — “

He slid the bill out a little farther. Another of the women who had been standing nearby saw it and stepped over to see what was going on. This convinced the woman already at the table to become more cooperative.

“I hear at the Krehml,” she said, reaching for the money. “Krehml” meant “Kremlin,” a very nice club at the other end of town. It wasn’t the right answer, but her willingness to guess was all Ferguson wanted for now.

“Show me where it is,” he told her.

The woman blanched. The other stepped forward.

“Both of you can show me,” said Ferguson, rising. He pushed his thumb into his fist, demonstrating that there were two bills there, then put the money into his pocket. He dropped another fifty Euros on the table to cover the ginger ale. The women were trading glares behind him, following. When he reached the roulette table he stopped and turned to them.

“Red or black?” he asked.

They looked at each other. He gestured at the game. “Red or black?”

One said red; the other, black.

“Decide. Agree on one,” said Ferguson. He stepped over to the cashier and exchanged the two thousand Euros for chips. When he returned, they had agreed on black.

“Black?”

The women nodded.

Black came up.

“Dresses,” he said, dropping the chips into their hands. “Go exchange those. Then we get a car.”

The women looked at him incredulously.

“You have to look a little stylish around town, no?”

Despite the fact that it was now past nine p.m., the concierge had no trouble accommodating him. A Mercedes appeared outside the hotel within a few minutes of Ferguson’s request. Had he bothered to scan for a bug, he was sure he would find at least one, and it was a good bet that the driver was on the police payroll. But this was a necessary part of doing business, and something that could be worked to his advantage if required.

The port area of the city had a small row of boutiques on the road from the hotel; one happened to belong to a friend of a friend of the concierge, who knew he would be open late. (He also knew he would receive a cut of the profit if the rich foreign customer was as indulgent toward women as he seemed.)

For nearly two hours, the women tried on clothes while Ferguson passed judgment on their choices — no fool, he claimed to like everything — and sipped the complimentary champagne brought over by the owner. One of the women called herself Kel and the other, Aress. Not even Ferg could have guessed how close these were to their real names. Their winnings didn’t cover what they selected, but Ferg made up the difference, with a generous tip on the side for the salesclerk’s patience and the owner’s champagne, not to mention the lateness of the hour.

He checked his watch. Seeing that it was not yet midnight, he told the driver to go over to the Simon, a restaurant at the top of one of the residential towers near the water. They had dinner — Ferg offered to include the driver, which was expected, but the man turned him down, also expected — and by the time the Mercedes pulled up at the Krehml it was after two.

“You know what? Let’s hop down the street to La Citadelle,” he said. “Just for the hell of it.”

The driver, who probably was expecting this, nodded. Kel pulled back. She’d been the second one to join him at the casino.

“I thought you wanted fun,” she said.

“There’s fun there.”

“Very dangerous there,” she said in English.

“Some people like danger. It’s good for the heart.”

She made a face, but she was too comfortable in the dress to back out now.

La Citadelle had a weapons detector at the front door; knowing this, Ferguson had taken only the big Glock with him. He surrendered it with the proper amount of decorum and was admitted with a nod. A swing band with a slight Middle Eastern accent played inside to a rather noisy crowd. Ferguson guided the women down to the floor that overlooked the terrace. Aress picked up the beat as they walked, but Kel remained apprehensive, glancing around at the crowd, which included a fair amount of the world’s seamier characters. Ferguson smiled at the faces that turned to meet his, then slid into a chair near the window, ordering a bottle of champagne to keep with the theme of the evening. He let the two women drink and leaned back, gazing pensively at the ceiling as if contemplating the cost of the gold-and-jewel-encrusted border. In reality, he was examining the reflections of the people in the dark glass. He didn’t see who he was looking for, but that didn’t matter; he would eventually come to him.

First, though, there were diversions: a short, portly Lebanese man with a buzz cut and several gold chains approached the table, took a few steps past, then pretended to suddenly remember that he had seen Ferguson’s face before.

“Not my Irish friend,” said the man.

“Sarkis! How are you?” said Ferguson, getting up, his English suddenly rich with the sound of Dublin. They exchanged kisses, each feigning happiness at seeing each other. “Sit and have a drink.”

“No, no, no, thank you anyway.”

“Come on now. An Irish whiskey with an Irishman.”

Sarkis glanced at the girls but resisted temptation.

“What brings you to town?”

“Why does anyone come to town?”

Sarkis nodded grimly He was not a dealer — on the contrary, his job was to stop trafficking — but he received several times more money each month from the local dealers than he did from the government.

“I am interested in finding Romanski,” said Ferguson.

Sarkis made a face. “Romanski finds you, if he wants to.”

“I’ll mention you sent your regards when I see him,” said Ferguson.

Ferguson stopped at two more clubs, flashing money and making himself generally visible, without finding Romanski or even anyone as interesting as Sarkis. The scene here was still pretty much as it had been a year before: an easy place to buy drugs wholesale if you knew whom you were dealing with, an even easier place to get killed if you didn’t.

Ferguson called the Cube from the men’s room of a jazz lounge called Blu Note. The place, owned by a French couple, was a relatively quiet bar rarely frequented by dealers or government officials.

“Where have you been, Ferg? Boss lady wants to talk to you. She’s freaking.”

“Corrine? Don’t worry about her. What’s up with Rankin and Thera?”

Lauren told him that they hadn’t had anything interesting when they last checked in, then went back to berating him about Corrine. “She’s on her way to see you.”

“What?”

“She’s really mad that you blew her off. She’s flying into Tripoli tomorrow. She says either you find her or she finds you. She’s going to be at the Medici.”

“Aw, come on.”

“She’s pissed, Ferg. I keep telling you. You can’t just blow her off.”

“Tell her that I’ll contact her. Remind her I’m a member of the IRA, right?”

“She knows you’re undercover.”

“And tell her this isn’t the Yale Drama Club.”

“I don’t think you’re being fair.”

“You’re right. She wouldn’t have passed the auditions.”

Ferg snapped off the phone. When he got back, Kel and Aress were slumped in the booth. Aress had fallen asleep; Kel looked at him through slit eyes.

“Who are you?” she said, speaking in Arabic. “What are you doing here?”

“Just a traveler.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Time for bed. Come on.”

He slid his arm under Aress and got her to her feet. A woman played a piano nearby, working the keys slowly as she moved through a bluesy version of a Cole Porter song. She glanced at Ferg and he smiled at her, admiring the way she flipped her shoulder-length hair as she turned back to her keyboard.

Ferg found the driver napping in the car. He woke him up, and they started back to the hotel.

“Where are we going now?” Kel asked.

“I’m going to my hotel and sleep,” he told her cheerfully. “You can go anywhere you want.”

“And her?”

“She can have my couch.” Aress was too far gone to leave anywhere.

“You don’t want both of us?”

“I don’t even want one of you. Nothing personal.”

“What do you want?”

“Usually what I can’t have.”

14

“They didn’t like you in there,” Thera said to Fouad when they stopped outside of town.

“No. They were Kurds.”

“Iraqi Kurds?”

“Kurds believe they belong to their own country. They were our enemy. They are our enemy now.”

“They’re part of your government.”

“I don’t expect Americans to understand,” he told her.

Rankin, who’d doubled back to see if they’d been followed, finally caught up.

“We’re clear,” he told them. “What was the business about the jewels?” he asked Fouad.

“He cannot carry money, so he carries jewelry, probably things stolen or hidden during the regime.”

Fouad explained to Rankin about the airplane. As in most places in Syria, even scheduled flights tended to be sporadic there, but it might be possible for Khazaal to rent a plane, especially if he had enough jewels.

“If he wanted to take an airplane, where would he be going?” asked Thera.

Fouad shrugged. “Somewhere in Syria, but from there, who knows? There is a plane every week to Damascus, but it is suspended every so often for different reasons. Sometimes security, sometimes one of the dictators has a notion of something. It is hard to say where he would go.”

“But he’s out of here?” said Rankin.

“That much I would believe. Nassad would not lie about that.”

“Right,” said Rankin.

Fouad stared at him but said nothing.

“Push on or call for pickup?” asked Thera.

“We should go to the airport,” said Fouad.

“How far is Mansura?” Rankin asked.

“A little more than a hundred kilometers up this highway. Two hours. We can rest outside of town and go in during the afternoon.”

“Yeah, he’s right. Let’s go. We can always get picked up.” He kick-started the bike, revved the motor, then started down the road.

15

Kel decided she would stay in his room as well. Ferguson ended up giving the women the bed and sleeping in the bathtub, not because he was chivalrous by nature but because it was the only room in the suite that he could lock. He woke around ten in the morning to the sound of furious banging, punctuated by a teary whimper.

“I have to pee,” said Aress outside the door.

“Can’t you find a cup or something?” he asked.

“Please?”

He got up out of the tub and unlocked the door. Aress glanced at his pistol but was in too dire shape to say anything or even pause. Kel lay sprawled on the bed, one of her breasts exposed. She opened her eyes and blinked at him.

“One of your boobs is showing,” he said, gesturing with his Clock. She pulled the sheet up. He went to the telephone and ordered two pots of coffee from room service. Kel watched him as he looked around the room. He had scanned it before turning in, wanting to know if anyone — Romanski he hoped — had gone to the trouble of adding their own bugs. They hadn’t, and no one had come in during the night. (He’d attached small detectors near the door and window, which would have sounded an alert if they had.)

“There’s aspirin in the medicine cabinet,” he told Aress in Arabic.

She looked at him, nodded, then went back and got it.

“What are you going to do with us?” Kel asked in English.

“Get you some breakfast. Show you the sights.”

“That’s all?”

Someone kicked at the door, much harder than a room-service waiter would have dared. Ferguson reached into his pocket and tossed Kel a hand grenade. Her eyes nearly bolted from her head.

“Hold on to that.”

“Where’s the pin?”

“Lost it. Peel off the tape and hold down the trigger, preferably not in that order. Once you let go, you have about four seconds. Maybe three. Throw it and duck. By the way, in here wouldn’t be a good place to throw it.”

Whoever was outside kicked again, the door shaking.

“Open the door, would you?” Ferguson told Aress.

She went and unlocked it. As soon as she turned the handle, it flew open. Two men in Western business suits pushed her aside, standing in the doorway with Steyr AUG/HBARs, light machine-gun versions of the Steyr AUG assault rifle, packed with forty-two-shot boxes. Behind them came a tall, mustachioed man in Arab dress. His squared-off jaw, bald head, and regal gait made him look like Caesar of Arabia, a description he would have encouraged.

“You’re up early, Romanski,” said Ferguson, who had zeroed the big Glock at his face. “Then again, you took your time getting to me. I was starting to think I might actually have to pay for the room.”

“Ferguson. Always with a joke.” Romanski’s English was perfect; he had spent nearly a decade in New York as a young KGB man before going to the Middle East. “But you point a pistol at me? My men could cut you in half with their guns.”

“Not before you got a third eye.”

“They are very fast.”

Romanski glanced toward the bed, where he saw Kel holding the grenade. “What is this?”

“An assistant,” said Ferguson.

“A common whore.”

“It’s not smart to insult people who are holding grenades,” said Ferguson. “Especially when they don’t have pins in them.”

“So what do you want?”

“My coffee, for starters. Then you probably want to close the door.”

Corrine and her bodyguards left before dawn and drove north from the capital to Tripoli in a pair of Mercedes, escorted by an unmarked Renault police car. The hotel was located south of the city proper, not far from the Olympic Stadium, but protocol required Corrine to first pay a visit to the local mayor. This meant going into the city, a gray-looking place that still showed signs of the occupation by Israel that had ended many years before. A faceless apartment building gaped at a small fruit stand not far from the center of town; closer to the sea, a brand-new mansion muscled its way into a quarter of battered old brick buildings that had stood since the time of the Crusades.

The mayor and the dozen other city officials who met her were so gracious that Corrine found herself feeling guilty for using them as a cover to come here. She listened as they made a short and almost subtle pitch about the importance of better trade with the U.S. and all countries. When she told them that she would take their message back to the president, she meant it.

Walking back to the car, she saw a wall pasted with posters of Bashir al-Assad, the dictator of Syria. The image was a popular one here, though it was difficult to tell if it was a sincere appreciation or something simply meant to curry favor from the muscular and dominant neighbor, which had also occupied Lebanon in the past.

Corrine and her small entourage headed back south, passing the Olympic Stadium and catching a grand view of the Mediterranean as they pulled into the hotel lot. The embassy had detailed two marines and two Delta Force bodyguards, all dressed in civilian clothes, as escorts. The men fanned out around Corrine as she walked into the hotel. One of the Delta ops and a marine went upstairs to check her room out while she waited below.

The hotel’s display cases showed off eleventh- and twelfth-century Italian manuscripts, pages that had originally been part of prayer books brought to the Holy Land by crusaders. Though the works were exquisite, Corrine thought it odd that the hotel would feature a display devoted to the art of the country’s ancient invaders. She wondered at the disconnect between war and art, between the reality of what the crusaders had experienced and done, and the beauty of the artists’ work.

Her brief moment of distraction was interrupted by one of the marines, who tapped her on the shoulder.

“We have a problem, ma’am,” he said. “Men with guns in your hall.”

Ferguson made sure Romanski took two full sips from his coffee before he drank his. The Russian saw this and nodded.

“A lesson from your father?”

“Common sense,” Ferg told him.

Romanski claimed to have known his father from service in Germany as well as the Middle East, though Ferguson had never bothered to check. He was the right age, pushing sixty, and he had been in the KGB’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki (SVR), which was succeeded more or less intact (as far as his area was concerned) by the Central Intelligence Service, or Centralnaya Sluzhbza Razvedkyin (CSR), in the early 1990s. He had retired in 1995 to set up shop as a businessman; as long as he did not sell drugs to Russians, his former employers left him alone. Romanski knew everything that was going on in Tripoli and northern Lebanon, indeed, in the rest of the country and much of Syria as well. He had better sources now than when he had worked as an intelligence officer.

Which wasn’t the same thing as sharing information or even sharing the truth.

“Can the women be trusted?” Romanski said, pointing toward the women. Aress had joined Kel on the bed.

“As much as any women,” said Ferg.

Romanski frowned. “You are here why?”

“Nisieen Khazaal.”

“Khazaal? The Iraqi lunatic? You’re looking in the wrong country. He’s in Iraq.”

“I heard he was on his way here.”

“Why would he come here?”

“Big meeting of lunatics.”

“I doubt it.”

“You wouldn’t be doing business with him, would you?”

“Terrorists do not buy drugs.”

“I was thinking Khazaal might be a seller, looking for money.”

“The only thing the Iraqis can sell are weapons. And most of those are toys that stopped working long ago. Why do you waste your time, Ferguson?”

“Is he hiding over at Oil City?”

“Bah. The Iraqis there all work for the government now. They are fat and lazy; why would they have him in their midst?”

“You tell me.”

“Bah. You have CIA agents in Iraq,” Romanski told Ferguson, refilling his coffee cup. “What do they say?”

“They ask who Khazaal is.”

“I would not be surprised. What do the Israelis say?”

“They say he’s going to Syria.”

“Then look there. Mossad is very good.”

“Big country.”

“There are only a few places to look.”

“How about you ask the Syrians for me?”

“A favor? You have the nerve to ask for a favor?”

“I have nothing but nerve.”

Romanski gave him a crooked smile. “Why are they meeting?”

“Not sure.”

“The Iraqis sell weapons and beg for money. For either of those things I would go to Latakia.”

Romanski took another sip of his coffee. Before Ferguson could decide whether that was an educated or uneducated guess, the phone at Romanski’s belt began to ring.

“Do you mind if I answer that?” asked the Russian.

“I wish you would.”

He took it out and held it up. His face flushed. “You set a trap for me?” he thundered at Ferguson.

“Let’s not do anything rash.” Ferg gestured with his pistol toward Kel and the grenade. “I didn’t set a trap. What’s going on?”

“Armed men coming upstairs. Americans.”

Great timing, Ferguson thought to himself.

“It’s just my boss. She’s here to chew me out.” Ferguson got up and walked to the terrace. They were on the third floor; jumping down would not have been a problem except for Romanski.

“I have a rope,” said Ferguson. “I’ll get you out.”

“This is a trap.”

“Aw, come on Romanski. Why would I bother?”

Ferguson got the rope from his bag and tied it to one of the bed legs.

“You, down,” Romanski said to one of his men. “See if the way is clear. Give me your gun first.”

He took the Steyr AUG/HBAR. The bodyguard hung off the terrace, then dropped down.

“How many of your men are outside?” Ferguson asked.

The Russian scowled. “I can handle the situation, thank you.”

“I thought you had all the police in town bribed.”

“You owe me, Ferguson. I will get a repayment.”

“I’ll double it for real information about Khazaal.”

Romanski slung the gun over his shoulder and climbed out the window. He got down to about the middle of the first floor, then let go, rolling on the ground. His last bodyguard bolted over the terrace and paid for his haste with a sprained ankle.

Ferguson went to Kel and took the grenade. It was wet with her sweat. He let the spring trigger snap open, setting the grenade to fire. He held it for a moment, then dropped it out the window, where it began spewing smoke.

“Don’t think I didn’t trust you with a real grenade,” he told Kel when she stopped screaming. “It was all I had handy.”

Someone pounded on the door before he could answer. A voice claiming to be the police told them to open up.

“Just a second,” said Ferguson in English. He took the large Glock and dropped it out the window into the billowing smoke.

“Aress, open the door, would you?”

Before she could reach the knob, the police broke it down.

16

Rankin, Thera, and Fouad stopped outside of Mansura a few hours before dawn and slept in a field until nearly noon. Several hours of rummaging in town turned up no trace of Khazaal. All of Fouad’s old contacts were gone, and Thera had trouble with the accents in the small restaurant when they bought lunch. Their bikes stood out, but Rankin didn’t want to leave them outside of town. Parking them in a lot near a bank didn’t help much. He had his Uzi stuffed into his pack on his back, but the pack probably made them look almost as suspicious as the gun would. Rankin felt uncomfortably out of his element, exposed and obvious. This was the sort of situation that Ferguson made look easy, the sort of place where a glib bullshit artist could parlay some vague lie into a plan of attack, wheedling information out of stones. But Rankin wasn’t a bullshitter. Never had been, never would be.

You had to be, maybe.

“Best thing is to go down the road a bit,” he whispered to Fouad when he noticed the stares as they walked through the old part of town. The Iraqi agreed. They went back to their bikes and got onto the highway, riding until they found a turnoff with a view of the river. It was postcard perfect. Thera oohed, and even Fouad was impressed. Rankin stared at the blue shimmer.

“Let’s see if we can turn up anything at the airport,” he said finally.

Fouad nodded.

“They’re probably not going to tell us anything,” said Thera.

“Then we’ll just have to figure out a way to bullshit them into it,” Rankin said, walking back to the bike.

17

The police were incredibly understanding, thanks partly to a suggestion to the sergeant in charge that a processing fee for the incredible amount of paperwork sure to be involved would probably be most appropriate if paid in advance. Kel’s timely rearrangement of the bedclothes didn’t hurt either. Aress swore she had seen one of the men going into a room down the hall; the police mustered after the fresh lead.

Corrine was not so easily dealt with. She and two of her guards appeared in the hallway, glancing through the open doorway as the police finished their interrogation. She gave Ferguson an evil glare.

“You look Irish,” he said loudly, giving his English a Dublin twist. “Tourist?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Corrine.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said, as if realizing he was wearing only his shirt and shorts. (He’d scooped off his pants and shoes under the cover of the blanket as the policemen entered.) “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I hardly think so.”

“In the bar. Right now. Come on. Soon as I get m’pants.”

“Thank you, no.”

“You have a big appetite,” he said, gesturing toward the men.

Corrine flushed. Even though she knew it was an act, she was furious with him, so mad that the emotion clouded her judgment.

“Drinks?” suggested Ferguson. “Lunch?”

“No, thank you,” she said stiffly. The police were now breaking into another room down the hall.

“Well, I’ll be there if you change your mind,” said Ferguson.

He wasn’t in the restaurant or the casino when Corrine went down to look for him a half hour later.

“Where the hell is he?” she demanded when she called the Cube from her room.

“Go swimming,” said Corrigan, who’d come back on duty.

“What?”

“Go swimming. Ferguson will meet you in the water.”

“We’ll be seen.”

“He’ll figure it out. Go swimming.”

Corrine didn’t have a bathing suit with her. “Tell him it will take a while. I don’t have a bathing suit. I’ll have to go buy one.”

Wait until the General Accounting Office saw that voucher, she thought to herself.

“He’s pissed, just to warn you,” said Corrigan. “He says you almost blew his cover.”

“Screw him.”

She snapped the phone off. Corrine leaned back in her chair and picked up the small white noise machine; she’d found two bugs with the scanner and used the screener just in case.

Ferguson was being difficult, but from his perspective, it might in fact look as if she had screwed up. It was just a coincidence that they’d chosen the same hotel. Actually, Corrigan should have told her he was at the Medici, and she could have made other arrangements. Although maybe that would have seemed suspicious.

It had been a bad decision to come here, that was the problem. But she couldn’t let Ferguson do what he wanted. She had to bring him to heel.

Parnelles had a point about giving a good officer room to do his job, but how much room was that? Her job was to make sure that the First Team didn’t just run amok. And if you considered the number of bodies that were falling…

That might not be a fair measure, but the Intelligence Committee and Congress weren’t necessarily known for being fair.

Corrine continued to wrestle with notions of what to do until she arrived at the dress shop from the hotel. There she turned her attention to an even knottier problem: finding a bathing suit that fit. The European-style suits came in two sizes: incredibly tiny and ridiculously infinitesimal. Finally she found a one-piece suit that didn’t make her look like a bimbo or an idiot. She got a modest wrap and some sandals, and took out her personal charge card to pay, wincing as she mentally worked out the exchange rate.

“I need at least two people on the detail with me on the beach,” Corrine told her escorts as they walked back to the car. “Volunteers?”

“Uh, we don’t have suits, ma’am,” said the sergeant in charge of the detail.

“That’s my point. There’s a men’s store right over there. Put it on this,” she said, tossing him her card. “And go easy. That’s my personal card.”

Corrine walked to the far end of the sand near the kids’ pool but didn’t see Ferguson. She spread one of the towels she’d rented — those she charged to the room — and waited for a while. Finally, she decided to go for a swim in the ocean.

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 should 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

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.”

“Why not?”

The man shook his head.

“Women?” suggested Fouad. He knew, or thought he knew, the answer, but guessing it would raise too many suspicions.

“No.”

Fouad gave his best puzzled stare.

“Foreigners,” said the man finally.

“Americans?”

The man turned pale. “What would an American be doing here?”

“You said foreigners, not Jews!”

“Iraqi criminals,” whispered the man. “A smuggler, I think, with bodyguards. Not Syrians. The man paid with gold chains.”

Rankin could see the civilian terminal building from a small rise on the road about a half mile from the fence. He stopped there, pretending to work on his hike as he eyed the two soldiers in front of the building. They were older men, career guys who probably viewed the posting as semiretirement.

One cupped his hands to light a cigarette. It wouldn’t be hard to take them, Rankin realized; the trick would be dealing with the other twenty guys who would come after them.

Unnecessary planning, he hoped.

Thera and Fouad had taken only their phones with them, reasoning that the radios would be hard to explain if they were searched. Rankin had suggested hiding them in Thera’s “package,” but she pointed out that they would set off a metal detector. It was an obvious mistake, and he wished he hadn’t made the suggestion; it made him look like a fool.

Worse would have been her not questioning it.

Thera came out of the terminal door, followed by Fouad and another man. One of the guards came over.

Were they under arrest?

Rankin reached around to his pack, then saw that the other man who’d come out had gone to the soldier to bum a cigarette. He swung the pack back and gunned the bike to life. He rode down to the gate, passed by, and turned down a street across from the airport fence, riding up a short distance to a cluster of buildings where they had left the other bike. He parked next to it, debating whether to go into the store and get something to drink. He could see from the street that it had a Western-style beverage case, the sort of help-yourself arrangement that would minimize the amount of Arabic he would have to speak.

His Arabic wasn’t that bad.

He went in and bought an Arab cola, a precise knockoff of Coke except for the Arabic script. He paid with a ten-pound note that brought some change. He pointed to his mouth and groaned “toothache” when the proprietor tried to start a conversation. The man nodded sympathetically and advised him on a number of cures, all available at the store. Rankin simply shook his head patted his pocket, as if he had aspirin there. It was an old trick but an easy one, and when he left, the store owner had the impression they had had a long conversation.

Outside, he sipped the soda, the best thing he’d tasted in days.

After two gulps, a soldier appeared on the road. The man stared at the bikes as he approached; Rankin watched the man from the corner of his eyes.

“What business do you have here?” asked the soldier, walking up to him.

“Me?” asked Rankin in Arabic.

The soldier thought he was being disrespectful and asked again, this time in an even more demanding tone.

“No business,” said Rankin. The words were right and even the accent was fine, but he didn’t say it quickly enough, and the soldier’s suspicions had already been aroused. The Syrian began to swing his gun up to challenge him; Rankin flew forward, throwing his forearm into the soldier’s chin so hard that the man’s teeth nearly severed his tongue as his head snapped back. Rankin rode him to the ground and knocked him unconscious with two hard snaps to the head.

As quick as he was, Rankin hadn’t been quite fast enough; two of the man’s companions turned the corner of the fence nearby. They were talking to each other, arguing over soccer; it took them a second or more to see the two men sprawled on the road nearby.

It was too late for them by then. Rankin grabbed the soldier’s gun, leveling it against his stomach and thumbing down the selector to automatic fire without conscious thought. As he pulled the trigger he realized he might have chosen to run instead. If they’d been a little farther away or if he’d had another moment or two to think, he might have made that choice, but you didn’t survive in wartime by second-guessing your instincts. By the time he dismissed the idea the men were already dead.

Rankin jumped on his motorcycle, pulling it backward away from the curb before starting it. He started down the road toward the airport. Thera turned the corner, running toward him.

“On! Get on!” he said, pulling up.

“What’s going on?”

“Come on.”

“We can’t leave Fouad.”

“I’m not. Get on.”

Thera had to hike her long dress to her waist before she could do so; they lost a few more seconds before Rankin could spin back toward the other motorcycle. Rankin let her off, retrieved his Uzi from the top of his pack, then sped back toward Fouad, just turning the corner, face flush and chest heaving. Rankin pushed him down as if swatting a fly, then emptied the Uzi at the two soldiers who’d come out from the gate to see what the gunfire was about. Both men hit the dirt, but from this distance, a little better than a hundred yards, it was impossible to tell if he’d put them down or they’d simply taken cover.

“Up! Up!” he yelled to Fouad, reaching down for him. “Up! Let’s go! Come on!”

Fouad got his hands beneath his chest and pushed forward, more a beached whale looking for the water than an intelligence agent trying to escape. Rankin grabbed him and pulled him onboard, nearly losing his gun as he started moving again. Shots whizzed by before he turned the corner.

“Come on!” yelled Thera, who was waiting. “Let’s go!”

“That way,” said Rankin, pointing ahead. “Head for the highway!”

19

“Hey, beautiful. This towel taken?”

Kel looked up from her blanket on the beach below the Hotel Cairo, which was next to the Medici. Ferguson had left her there before swimming out to meet with Corrine.

“Bob, back already?”

“I told you, everybody calls me Ferg.” He grabbed his towel, giving the beach a quick glance while drying his hair.

“Still no one watching us,” said Kel.

“Syrians must be busy.” Ferguson plopped down next to her. “Thanks for hiring the girls. They did a good job. All locals?”

“All locals.” She leaned her arms back, stretched in the sand. “Now it’s time for you to pay up.”

“A hundred Euros apiece wasn’t enough?”

“I was talking about me,” she said, craning her head back for a kiss.

20

Rankin and Thera stopped their bikes in a grove of trees overlooking the river about fifty miles from the airport. As far as Rankin could tell, they hadn’t been followed, but he was sure they would be.

Corrigan cursed when he heard what had happened. For once, Rankin didn’t snap back and tell him to screw himself.

“We’re going to get back on Route 4 and ride up near Aj’aber,” Rankin told him. “At that point we’ll cut south into the desert. Fouad knows a couple of good places for pickups. We should be OK until nightfall.”

“The Syrians are going to go ape.”

Rankin said nothing. He was about to kill the connection when Corrigan told him that Ferguson wanted to talk to him.

“When?”

“I think he can talk now. Hold on. I’ll find out.”

Rankin’s shoulders sagged as he waited, partly from fatigue and partly because he knew he hadn’t had a particularly good run the last few days.

“Hey, Skippy,” said Ferguson. “How do you like the bikes?”

“They’re all right.”

“Tell me about the jewels Khazaal had.”

Rankin told him the little that he knew, then gave him the information that Thera and Fouad had found out at the airport.

“It’s a logical place,” said Ferguson. “How are you doing?”

Rankin told Ferguson what had happened.

“Yeah, Corrigan mentioned something along those lines. Sucks,” said Ferguson. “I’m going to have Corrigan figure out how to get you guys over here after you bug out. Take Guns, too. In the meantime, let me talk to Fouad.”

Rankin passed the phone over to the Iraqi. Fouad blinked into the sun, which had fallen halfway down the sky.

“Khazaal went west,” Fouad told him.

“So I heard. Why would he do that?”

“I have no answer for you.”

“Why would he go to Latakia you think? Buy weapons?”

“It would he logical.”

“It’s either that or gamble. I don’t figure him for that. If he was going to sell the jewels, he would have gone to Cairo, don’t you think?”

“A good bet.”

“Who would he know up there in Latakia?”

“We have people in Damascus,” said Fouad. “Perhaps you could speak to them.”

“There’s a waste of time. Why would the resistance need to buy weapons?”

“Perhaps they aren’t buying weapons but services. Or maybe he is escaping: from Latakia he could go to Turkey.” The more Fouad thought about this, the more he thought it must be the answer. The insurgency was doomed, and Khazaal, not being a stupid man, would try to get out while it was still possible.

“If he was going to Turkey, it would have been easier to get out through the Kurdish area,” said Ferguson.

“Not for him.”

“Point taken.”

Fouad didn’t understand the expression, but he assumed it meant that Ferguson agreed with him.

“How’s Rankin treating you?” asked Ferg.

“Very well.” When Thera had begun running at the first crack of gunfire, Fouad had assumed the worst: that the Americans were abandoning him. He was ashamed now.

“He can be tough on Iraqis.”

“Yes,” said Fouad. “But I am tough on Americans as well.”

“Fair enough. See you guys when you get here.”

21

Corrine went through the motions of the tour, admiring the equipment she was shown, nodding appropriately, and twice taking notes. Her hosts were very cordial and accommodating, traditional Arabs who did not let political or even religious differences disturb the mandate to be gracious hosts. They staged an elaborate dinner with enough food for an army; Corrine thought to herself that she would not fit into the bathing suit she had bought earlier in the day without considerable exercise. As the dinner wound down, she managed to ask her hosts for their opinion about a new peace plan for a Palestinian homeland without offending them. They were vaguely hopeful, but perhaps that too was due to politeness.

Her car was escorted back to the hotel by four police vehicles. It presented the illusion of safety while creating an obvious target for anyone who hated the regime as well as the U.S. Still, by the time she got into the hotel Corrine could almost believe that the media had overhyped the hatred Arabs felt toward Americans; her experience here had been as pleasant as any she had had in Europe or Asia.

Once again she waited in the reception area as her room was checked; once again she examined the illustrated manuscript pages. Gazing at them through the glass, she noticed a man approaching the reservations desk who looked vaguely familiar. She stared for a moment, unable to place him, and then, as he turned and met her gaze, she realized it was the man she had seen in the Mossad building.

She turned her head away, pretending not to notice, feigning absorption in the art.

The man came over to her.

“Ms. Alston?”

Corrine hesitated for a split second before turning around. Her escorts were right at his side bristling, ready to intervene. A few feet behind them, the Lebanese police too were ready.

“Yes?” she said.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” said the man, bowing his head slightly in greeting.

“I’m afraid not.” It was the safest thing to say.

“I was with the delegation to the UN two years ago. I had the great privilege of presenting the Pan-Arab view on the injustices faced by the Palestinian people.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, emphasizing the noncommittal tone.

“You did not treat us well.” The man wagged his finger at her. “You personally, of course, were very gracious, but your employers—” He stumbled over the word, as if choosing one that would be neutral. “I was glad to see a new president elected, with better ideas toward the Arab view, I trust.”

The Lebanese security people, who had begun by looking suspiciously at the man, now turned those same glares toward Corrine.

“I’m afraid I’ve totally forgotten your name,” she said.

“I am Fazel al-Qiam. I no longer have my government post,” said Aaron Ravid. He’d come to Lebanon en route to Syria, renewing his contacts and gathering information.

The American had clearly recognized him from Tel Aviv and wasn’t practiced enough to hide her expression, which was sure to be seen by the Syrian and Lebanese agents watching the lobby. So he’d done the only thing he could do, approach her and try to cover it.

Was it a coincidence that she was here, an accident of luck? Or was the Mossad somehow using her?

It must be an accident, but he would put nothing past Tischler.

Corrine, not thinking, extended her hand to shake. Ravid reacted as a conservative Arab might, frowning and smiling nervously but hesitating to shake. Realizing the faux pas, she quickly dropped her hand.

“Excuse me. I beg your pardon,” she said.

“Apologies are not necessary for such a gracious and beautiful woman. I am in private life now, a simple man.”

“Well, it was nice to see you again.” Corrine started to turn away.

“You didn’t answer my question. Does the new president understand the needs of the Palestinian people?”

“I think the president wishes to understand all of the complicated needs of the people in the Middle East,” she said. “I would hope, strongly hope, that better arrangements can be made to our mutual benefit. I am here to help report on a trade agreement. I have found my hosts gracious and wonderful. Candidly, I don’t think there are friendlier people in the world.”

“We could do much trade with America if our rights are respected. Of course, that is tantamount. For too long the Arab people have not been accorded the proper respect. You are happy to take our oil, but do you treat us with the consideration equal partners are due? Sadly, you do not. Our civilization is many times older than yours, but we are treated like the little brother.” Ravid smiled, as if stopping himself from the rest of the rant. “I apologize. You, Ms. Alston, are certainly not personally responsible for this. You have been honorable and respectful, even though I see you disagree with me.”

“I don’t disagree. I—” She stopped herself midsentence. “I may disagree on some points but not on the whole. Some day, at your leisure, I hope, we may discuss them.”

“With the grace of God, we shall.”

Upstairs in her suite, one of the marines found a brochure of tourist spots stuck under the door as they entered. Corrine took it from him before he could toss it in the garbage.

Convinced it was Ferguson’s message on what time to meet, she thumbed through the English section several times without finding any clue, much less a note or directions. Out of desperation she looked in the directory for jazz clubs. There was only one: the Blu Note, in an older part of town. She didn’t see a clue there either, until she realized that the digits for the acts had been carefully erased or changed, until the only ones that were legible were all the same: 1.

22

Pleasant though it was, Ferguson’s personal-information sharing with Kel yielded no useful knowledge about any Islamic militant meeting in Tripoli and nothing but generic warnings about cells that were operating in the city. As a courtesy, he waited until she was out of sight to scan his room and suitcase, removing not one, not two, but three bugs and a tracking device. You couldn’t blame a girl for trying.

The rest of the day and evening were equally unproductive. The majority of the local Iraqi community were employed with the Iraqi Petroleum Company at its massive processing and distribution facility a few kilometers north of town. Fouad had directed him toward the local intelligence contact, who as he predicted was useless; the nonofficial contacts were more thoughtful but had not heard that Khazaal was in the area. Ferguson left bugs in the café they frequented, arranging for an uplink just in case. But if the meeting was taking place here, it remained a well-kept secret. Ferguson wandered through the clubs where the drug dealers hung out; he could have bought huge portions of dope and smaller quantities of weapons, but information was much harder to come by.

Several hours of wandering the bars and casinos of Latakia had given Ferguson a splitting headache but not appreciably more information. He walked into the Blu Note a little after one a.m. and headed for the rest-room, where he tried fighting off the headache with a small dose of Cytomel as well as aspirin. The thyroid hormone sometimes gave his system a jump start, but it didn’t tonight, and he didn’t have to put on much of an act to look like one of the disaffected Europeans as he sauntered into the bar area.

The jazz singer he’d seen the night before was back. Ferguson stared at her, looking at Corrine from the corner of his eye. She had a table with her marines and Delta troopers. Two members of the Lebanese police force sat across from her but seemed to be undercover.

Two other people were watching her from across the room. Ferguson decided they were probably Syrians, though it was difficult to tell. He sipped a seltzer, working out how to approach Corrine without blowing his cover; even though he was leaving town, he didn’t want the Syrians to pick up on him, if possible.

Easiest thing to do would be to wait until she went to the restroom.

Or just bag the in-face meeting. It was unnecessary.

He leaned back against the bar, turning to the right in time to see a possible diversion come through the door in tight jeans and an equally snug red camisole top. She smiled at Ferguson and walked toward him.

He reached for his bankroll when a man ran into the room behind her. Clearly out of place, he wore a long raincoat, his eyes wide. Someone behind him shouted. Ferguson cursed, reaching to his back for the big Glock. He steadied, fired, and suddenly his headache felt ten times worse.