by Larry Bond
“Um.”
“What’s um mean? Are you studying yoga or something?”
“Um, no. I have one flight record. He went to France a few days before.”
“She. Kiska’s a she.”
“I knew that.”
“That’s all you have?”
“I’m working on more information. To get data—”
“You look at credit card information?”
“In the works. To get access to the records, first we have to make—”
“All right. Kiska has a second cousin in a mental institution in Romania.”
“Um, sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. Her last name is Stronghauf or something along those lines—it’s German. The mental hospital is right outside Baja Mare. There can’t be too many institutions around. Find out the name, then give it to this guy whose phone number I’m going to give you, and he’ll find the accounts for you. Or if you’re really nice to him, he’ll tell you how to get them yourself. Save you a couple of hours, if not days.”
“Um—”
“There’s that um again. You sure you’re not practicing yoga?”
“The cousin isn’t named in any of the reports.”
“What a shock. Guy goes by the name of Fibber. Here’s his number—”
“Is this outside, um—strictly speaking, am I breaking protocol? Because the privacy laws, see there’s an internal counsel who’s supposed to review requests, even when they involve overseas—”
“ U tebya cho ruki izjopi rastut?” said Ferguson.
“My hands are where they’re supposed to be,” said Ciello.
The Russian expression—literally “are your hands growing out your ass?”—was generally used to deride an inept boob.
“Well, then do what I’m telling you,” answered Ferguson. “Use my name as soon as Fibber answers the phone. But don’t ‘um’ him; he’s not into that New Age crap.”
“Corrigan always says we should totally obey the procedures because otherwise—”
“Hooy tebe,” said Ferguson, using a Russian expression that meant “don’t mess with that,” though it was rather more emphatically put. Then he dictated the phone number; the country code indicated it was in Nigeria.
“Run your request through channels as a backup,” added Ferguson. “This way, no one will complain. You just don’t mention that you already have the information.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not as dumb as you sound, Ciello. I didn’t know you knew Russian.”
“Just curse words.” He’d made a study of them several years before; they helped break the ice when dealing with Russian UFO experts about the so-called Siberian Series Sightings.
“Otvai,” said Ferguson.
“Piss off yourself.”
Ferguson laughed. “Talk to you later.”
~ * ~
7
BOLOGNA, ITALY
Thera hesitated before getting out of the cab, scanning the block in front of the hotel for anything suspicious.
“Maybe I’ll just go to bed,” said Rostislawitch, getting out on the other side.
“How about dinner?” Thera asked. “Are you hungry?”
Rostislawitch looked across the roof of the taxi. She was beautiful and concerned, and despite the difference in their ages—despite the fact that he knew, knew, that she would not be interested in him sexually—he wanted badly to make love to her.
Even acknowledging the thought to himself felt awkward. And yet many older men had younger women. Many. Why was he different?
They were handsome, and rich. He was neither.
“Professor?”
“You should call me Artur,” said Rostislawitch. “Artur is what friends call me. And I have never liked to be a professor. Research has been my true calling.”
“I’m sorry. I keep forgetting.”
“You deserve dinner for rescuing me. Let’s have something nice. Yes,” said Rostislawitch, suddenly sure of himself. “Come on. Let us see what we can find in the hotel restaurant. It is supposed to be very good.”
~ * ~
F
erguson moved the binoculars slowly, scanning the street. There were two Italian surveillance teams on the roofs near the hotel, and one more on the top floor of the hotel itself. But no sign of Kiska, or the Iranian.
“Thera’s on her way in,” said Guns, who was on the street a few yards behind her.
“Got it,” acknowledged Rankin, who was in the lobby
Ferguson continued to scan the buildings after Thera and Rostislawitch went inside. He assumed that T Rex would know by now that he—or she—had missed. Would the assassin try to finish the job quickly, or wait until some of the heat died down? Ferguson could make a good argument either way.
But Kiska Babev as T Rex? That still didn’t quite fit, despite what Ciello had found, and even though Ferguson had seen Kiska’s alabaster face, her thick black lips, and the cell phone: a bomb detonator. Or maybe just a cell phone.
“They’re going into the hotel restaurant,” said Rankin over the radio. “Maitre d’ is talking to them, I assume telling them they’re closed until seven. Going to the bar.”
“Give her some space,” said Ferguson.
“No shit.”
Guns checked in; Ferguson told him to circle the block a few times and then head over to one of their safe rooms and grab a nap: he decided T Rex would undoubtedly need some time to reload as well as let the pressure die down. If he’d been thinking of striking right away, he would have gone to the hospital.
Or she.
Ferguson was thinking about whether he might take a rest as well when his sat phone began to buzz.
“Yeah?” he said, making the connection.
“No funny jokes this time?” asked Corrine Alston.
“Lost my sense of humor when I crashed the Ducati,” said Ferguson. “Beautiful bike. Seat was a little uncomfortable, but I could live with that.”
“Are you OK?”
“Corrigan didn’t tell you?”
“No. Are you OK? What happened to you?”
“One of the spokes went through my liver,” said Ferguson. He picked up the field glasses and went back to scanning the street.
“Ferguson, are you pulling my leg?”
“I’m fine, Counselor. What’s on your mind?”
“I want to know what’s going on. Is the Russian agent T Rex?”
“What Russian agent?”
“Corrigan said you guys are looking pretty hard at a Russian FSB colonel as T Rex.”
“Corrigan wouldn’t know a Russian FSB colonel from his mother-in-law,” said Ferguson. Stinking Corrigan had a big mouth. “I saw a Russian op on the street just before the explosion. It doesn’t mean she’s T Rex.”
“Where is she now?”
“We’re working on it. The Italians are helping. Or we’re helping the Italians, depending on your point of view.”
“Do you think the Russian FSB wants to kill Rostislawitch?”
It was a possibility, but Ferguson didn’t think it was likely—they would have had a much easier time bumping Rostislawitch off in Russia. If Kiska was T Rex, this was a freelance assignment on the side.
In that case, the last place she’d want to clip him would be in Russia; there’d be too much potential to link it to her.
“I really don’t have enough information to get into theories right now,” Ferguson told Corrine.
“You thought the Iranians wanted to kill him. Could that theory still hold? Does this mean he’s given them something, or won’t cooperate with them? What does it mean?”
A cab pulled up front of the hotel. A woman got out, a blonde.
Kiska Babev.
“Ferg?”
“The answer is ‘D: all of the above,’“ said Ferguson. “I’m going to have to get back to you.”
~ * ~
8
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Corrine hung up the phone. She was used to F
erguson’s quick hangups by now and knew it was usually because he was working. Still, it was clear he was holding something back.
Of course he was. Ferguson never told the whole story about anything.
Her intercom buzzed. “The chief of staff just called. The President wants to move the two o’clock up to twelve fifteen and make it a working lunch,” said her secretary, Teri Gatins. “I ordered you a Caesar salad. OK?”
Corrine glanced at her watch. “It’s twelve thirty.”
“He said he was running fifteen minutes late.”
That was so Jonathon McCarthy, thought Corrine, getting up.
~ * ~
S
ecretary of State Jackson Steele ran his fingers through his curly white hair, pushing it back on his scalp. It was thick and so bright that it reminded people of the cotton his ancestors had once picked, and Steele sometimes wondered if the Lord had given it to him as a warning not to forget his humble beginnings.
“All I’m asking for is a week. Less. We’re almost there. The Iranian ayatollahs have already signed off on the agreement. Give me a week and we’ll have a full commitment. The bombs will be eliminated and inspections will begin.”
“What sense does it make to let them have a biological weapon?” asked Defense Secretary Larry Stich. “It’s potentially as devastating as a nuclear bomb. More so.”
“I didn’t say we should let them have it. I’m saying we should put off any overt action until the treaty is signed,” said Steele.
“The Revolutionary Guard is threatening a coup if the treaty is signed,” said Stich.
“That’s not going to happen. They don’t have the power. There’s a reason their leader is only education minister. If he was truly powerful, he would be the Prime Minister, or at least defense.”
Stich found the comment ironic—he didn’t feel particularly powerful at the moment, given that he clearly was failing to carry the argument.
“If we move too forcefully, there’s always the potential that word will get out,” said Steele. “That could change the balance in Iran. We have to keep things calm until the treaty is signed. Observe, yes. Act, no.”
“If the treaty is signed,” said Stich. “In the meantime, they may get away.”
“Ignoring a germ warfare program just to get this treaty signed seems like a very poor idea to me,” McCarthy said. “A very poor idea.”
There was a knock on the door.
“That will be either our food or Miss Alston,” said McCarthy, rising. “I doubt it will be Tom Parnelles. He is worse about schedules than I am.”
It proved to be both their food and Corrine Alston, who apologized for being late.
“Oh, you are not late, Miss Alston,” said McCarthy, settling back into his chair as a steward set down a tray for him. “We were taking advantage of a hole in the Secretary of State’s schedule to digest the situation vis-a-vis Iran.”
“There’s a joke in there somewhere, I’m sure,” said Steele. “Probably at my expense.”
“Well, I was about to call you a holy man,” said McCarthy, winking at Corrine. His mirth was short-lived. “Am I to understand that you have an update from Italy?” he asked Corrine.
“Yes, sir, I do.” Corrine explained quickly what she had been told, adding that their “people”—she never named the members of the First Team, of course—believed a Russian FSB agent might have been involved.
“The Russians are working with Iran?” said Steele.
“No. The thinking is that T Rex is freelancing. They’re still trying to work out what’s going on.”
That point was reinforced by the CIA Director, who made his appearance a few minutes later. Thomas Parnelles told the others what Slott had learned from MI6-—that the Iranian operative, Anghuyu “Atha” Jahan, was a supposed Iranian businessman who had arranged relatively minor deals in the past. One or two had been related to the nuclear program, though most involved getting around the economic boycott instituted because of the program. The Iranian seemed to be fairly close to the government’s education minister, Parsa Moshen— who was also the head of the Revolutionary Guard.
“Moshen opposes the nuclear treaty,” said Steele. “But his star is on the downside.”
“Maybe not if he can start up a biological warfare program,” said Parnelles. “This would give him a chip to come back with.”
“So they buy a scientist?” asked Steele.
“More likely they’re buying information from him,” said Parnelles. “Techniques, DNA sequences. Otherwise, they would have no need to kill him. We think we know who the killer is—a Russian FSB agent, probably freelancing for Iran. She may not even know who she’s working for. In any event, if they’ve authorized the murder, then the scientist has already given them what they want.”
“Excuse me, Tom,” said Corrine, “but our people—your people—aren’t convinced that the Russian is T Rex. They’re still looking for more data.”
Parnelles, annoyed by the “our people—your people” faux pas, snapped back.
“Nonsense. The Russian is the killer. And we have to take her into custody”
“Why don’t we just let the Italians handle that?” said Steele. “Have them apprehend her for this bombing, get her out of the way. You go on and follow these people, apprehend them after the treaty is signed.”
“They’ll be back in Iran by then.” Parnelles had little confidence in the Italians. He was also annoyed with Corrine, for undercutting him.
And with Ferguson, since clearly that’s where her information came from. Parnelles had reviewed the report from the desk man, Corrigan, himself; it looked pretty obvious.
“Given what we have discovered here,” said McCarthy, “this assassin is a side issue. We can let the Italians deal with her for the time being.”
“It’s not a side issue.” Parnelles struggled to keep his voice civil. “Jonathon, it’s not a side issue. This agent—this woman—killed one of our best people. One of my people. We need to bring her to judgment. Killing a federal officer is a capital crime.”
“I’ll have no trouble pulling the switch on her personally,” said McCarthy. “But I do not believe she is our first priority. Now that we know that there is a program to develop biological agents—germ warfare if you will—that is where our assets should be directed. We need more information about it. The First Team is in position to gather it. That is what they should be doing.”
“They can do both,” said Parnelles.
McCarthy looked over to Corrine.
“I agree,” she said.
“But we shouldn’t do anything that will disrupt the treaty,” said Steele.
“Let’s send the horse across that bridge when we come to it,” said McCarthy. “Now everyone eat up, because I’m going to have to kick y’all out in a few minutes so I can meet with the head of the National Restaurant Association. I wouldn’t want him thinking we’re not doing our share to support our nation’s restaurants.”
~ * ~
9
BOLOGNA, ITALY
Ferguson ran down the stairs from the second-floor room, slowing to a brisk stroll as he reached the lobby. Kiska Babev was standing in the middle of the reception area, glancing around at the bright yellow sofas and blue sideless chairs as if she were looking for someone.
He did an exaggerated double take when she turned her head toward him.
“Of all the people in all the gin joints in all the world,” Ferguson said, riffing on Bogart. “Kiska Babev.”
“Robert Ferguson.” It had been quite some time since Kiska had seen Ferguson, but she remembered him well. “How are you, Bob?”
“Good as ever. You?”
“Very good.”
“They let you out of Moscow?”
“Once or twice a year,” she told him.
“And you’re in Bologna. Italy. Of all places.” Ferguson twisted around examining his surroundings, as if he’d been dropped here. “What brings you to Bologna?”
“It’s a lovely city.”
“So is Moscow.”
“I needed a little break.”
“You needed a break? Work got to you?”
“You’re the one who lives a dangerous life, Bobby,” said Kiska. “What brings you to Bologna?”
