Biowar

75

By the time Charlie Dean figured out where the back stairs were, Lia had already been packed into a car. He got out of the hotel just in time to see the vehicle, a small white Toyota, pull off. Dean ran after it like a madman. A motor scooter shot out of the intersection on his left as he ran into the street. Dean thought the man was coming to knock him down; by the time he realized he wasn’t, he’d already thrown himself at the bike. Dean, driver, and vehicle tumbled to the pavement. Dean grabbed the teenage boy who’d been riding the bike and tossed him away like a candy bar wrapper. Then Dean scooped up the scooter and took off in the direction of the car carrying Lia.

“Turn left at the second intersection,” said Rockman.

“Why did they take her?”

“We’re not sure, Charlie. It may be routine; it may be more interesting; we’ll have to see how things go. She’s not in any danger.”

“Bull.”

“Charlie, you have to trust us,” said Telach. “Just relax. Slow that bike down. You’re going to crash.”

“Screw that.”

“Look, we can see the situation from here. We know what’s going on. We’ll tell you where to go.”

“You think you can see better than I can? You think your satellites and intercepts and fancy gear tell you everything?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Part of him knew he was reacting emotionally — something that was not merely unprofessional but potentially deadly. If he’d still been in the service, a phalanx of Marine noncoms would have lined up to kick his butt. You followed orders; you stayed with the program. Otherwise, you died and your friends died.

On the other hand, his service and experience, in Vietnam especially, had taught him to be skeptical of superiors, especially ones who tried to micromanage situations. The Art Room was all about micromanaging, in his opinion.

He wasn’t in Vietnam. And Telach wasn’t a second lieutenant trying to make her bones.

Still. They trusted their technology too much.

And something else. He cared for Lia in a way that made him reckless.

Dean backed off the gas, slowing to take the turn through the intersection. A block later, he found the street blocked with traffic. It was a struggle not to go up on the sidewalk and whip through.

Yacoub seemed to be on very friendly terms with the people at the police station. The loyalties of the police were not in question — all were card-carrying Ba’athists, fervent followers of the Nazi-like prima donna running the country. Lia soon found herself sitting in a small room, flanked by a Syrian who obviously had a thing for garlic. Yacoub disappeared; Lia studied the picture of the Syrian President on the wall, wondering how he would look with devil horns.

“We’re with you,” said Telach in her ear. “Let’s see how far this goes.”

Just peachy, thought Lia.

A few minutes later, the door opened. A man in an army uniform came in and sat down. He gave her a grim look, introduced himself as Lieutenant Abbas, and asked in heavily accented French for her passport.

Lia took it from her pocket and threw it on the desk. The lieutenant scowled but picked it up.

“Welcome to our country,” he said in English.

“Oui.”

“I don’t speak French very well,” he said. “Anglais?”

“Oui,” she said, with the sneer only a Frenchman would use. “I can speak it if I must.”

The lieutenant smiled sympathetically. “We all do things we don’t like.”

“Oui.”

“Which way now?” he asked when the traffic opened up.

“Take your next right,” said Rockman. “She’s in the police station.”

“Damn.”

“No, Charlie, it’s fine. We can hear what’s going on. Please — don’t attract attention to yourself.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Charlie. “Okay.”

“A French arms dealer in my city,” said the Syrian. “Why is that?”

“I like the beach,” answered Lia.

“The beach is thirty miles from here.”

“I was misinformed.”

“You are French? Or Vietnamese?”

“Does it matter?”

“Your passport says French.”

“Then I’m French.” Lia’s back story indicated that her parents had fled Vietnam shortly before its fall to the Communists, but that she had a wide range of contacts there. A small file on the Interpol network — compromised by the Syrians, though they did not appear to have real-time access to it — duplicated the back story.

“Are you here as a buyer or a seller?” asked the lieutenant.

“A trader,” said Lia.

The Syrian shook his head. “A buyer or a seller?”

“A buyer,” decided Lia.

“Very unlike the French, to buy when they can sell.”

“What I’m trying to buy isn’t available in my home country. It came through Austria.”

There was a slight twitch on the Syrian’s face.

“Perhaps, if you are very good, someone will contact you,” he said.

“Great.” Lia got up. The guard behind her started to grab for her, to push her back into her seat.

On another day, another mission, Lia might have accepted the gesture in stride. Today, however, she was too tired, too worn, to hold her reactions in check — she threw the man over her shoulder onto the lieutenant’s desk.

Then she figured, What the hell.

Lia vaulted over the side of the desk and confronted the lieutenant directly — with her custom-made Kahr pistol in his neck.

“Let’s just decide right now that I’m very, very good. Comprende?”

He managed to smile before she flattened his windpipe with the butt of her fist.

“Comprende was a bit over the top,” said Rockman as she walked down the front steps onto the street.

“I got jet lag. What can I tell you? And tell Charlie Dean he stands out like a sore thumb in that bazaar over there. If he’s going to back me up he’s going to have to work on his act.”