by Larry Bond
Coldwell found herself sitting on the floor, paralyzed. She was a little girl again, staring at the dead body, unable to go back up the stairs.
“I have faced great problems in the past,” Coldwell said aloud. “I can overcome this.”
Still she did not move. She tried thinking of achievements, of struggles. Not a year after she had been hired by the oil company, she had arranged for her boss (a slime and reprobate) to be freed from a Cairo jail after that unfortunate incident with several local boys. That task had been extremely difficult: harder than this, surely, and with greater personal risk. One man had held a knife at her throat and drawn blood.
If she could succeed then, she could succeed now.
Coldwell tried to rise but could not. Little had been at stake in Cairo beyond her life and that of her boss. This… this was an entire millennium waiting to be born.
That was all the more reason that she would succeed, wasn’t it? For she had the great weight of history on her side. Change was coming; it was inevitable. All she had to do was play her own small role in it, a droplet of rain in the stream.
“I can do it,” she said. “I will not falter.”
Slowly, unsteadily, Coldwell rose. A bath would feel wonderful. And after that, bed.
15
LATAKIA.
Monsoon sidled up next to Guns in the courtyard between the mosque and the outer wall. There were twenty or so men crowded around the ambulance, trying to see what had happened to the man the medics were working on.
Guns sneezed, then reached for a handkerchief. “Fouad,” he whispered to Monsoon. “Find out what happened.”
Monsoon didn’t acknowledge but shifted forward slightly, craning his head to get a better view. Then he asked a man in Arabic what was going on.
“Allah has called him,” answered the man.
“What?”
The man clutched at his heart. “His time,” he said. “It is a sign of holiness and worth to be called while praying,” said the man approvingly. “Perhaps the brother’s greatest wish was granted.”
Listening in the van, Ferguson turned to the small laptop computer he was using to track the signals from the locator devices planted on Fouad, Guns, and Monsoon, making sure they were working. He’d known the moment Fouad collapsed in the mosque that the Iraqi wasn’t faking; he’d gasped and made a muffled chirp like a young bird that had fallen from its nest. He upped the audio and heard him breathing irregularly, struggling for life.
Ferguson couldn’t help thinking of his father, who’d had a heart attack at home. He’d lain on the floor of his study for three days before the housekeeper found him.
A terrible thing, to die alone.
Ferguson pushed his headset to the side so he could talk on the sat phone to Corrigan back in the Cube. “You getting anything from our phone tap?”
“They called for the ambulance.”
“Nothing out of that office Guns went into?”
“We have all the lines you tapped. If that includes that line, we’ll get it. There’s no calls. You should have just planted a bug there,” Corrigan added.
Ferguson hated explaining things he thought should he obvious. “If I put the bug in there, and we’re right that Khazaal is going to be going there at some point, they’ll find the bug,” he told him. “Then we have to go back to square one.”
“They’re low probability of intercept,” said Corrigan.
“Did you read that out of the sales brochure?” Ferguson snapped. It was really a waste of time to get into details with other people, really a waste of time. “Listen, I need you to do something that’s going to seem strange, but is very important,” he told Corrigan. “I want you to call a number and give someone the access code so they can call my phone.”
“You sure?”
“Corrigan, do what I tell you. Here’s the weird part: the number is in Cuba.”
“Ferg—”
“If I explain it to you, I’ll have to kill you. So just do it. All right?”
He gave him the number.
“Am I looking for a response?” Corrigan said.
“You’ll get a machine. Give the access code, nothing else. Make it a one-time-use code.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
“Coming out,” muttered Guns, just loud enough so it could be picked up by the bug he was wearing.
The ambulance started to move. Ferguson put the laptop down and moved to the front of the van, where Rankin and one of the marines they’d borrowed were sitting.
“Skip, you take the con back here, OK? Keep monitoring the area, checking the bugs, but don’t go in,” said Ferguson. “When Thera checks back after renting the hotel rooms, tell her to come over and spell you guys. Don’t keep the truck here too long. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t let Fouad go to the hospital alone.”
“He’s just an Iraqi.”
It was really useless to explain anything to anybody, Ferg thought, moving to the back door.
* * *
The ambulance took Fouad to Al Assad University Hospital. The hospital, a satellite of the larger and more famous facility in Damascus, had facilities on par with the best hospitals in the U.S. and Europe and was considered one of the outstanding hospitals in the Middle East.
Beyond the high level of care, the university connection presented Ferguson with an opportunity for a convincing cover: the Syrian government’s Ministry of Health sponsored a number of programs for visiting doctors, including an exchange with the Syrian-American Medical Society. A sign in the lobby directed doctors attending the society’s convention to proceed to Suite A-21; Ferguson didn’t need any more hint than that to stroll down the corridor in search of the meeting. Unfortunately, he was dressed somewhat poorly for a visiting doctor, and so he began ducking his head into the offices that he passed, looking to exchange his stained, Arab-style coat for a shorter jacket. It took three tries before he found a snappy blue blazer beckoning from a rack. Two doors down he found a stethoscope, but it wasn’t until he took a wrong turn and bumped into a laundry cart that he completed his costume with a pair of green scrub pants. A bit much maybe — especially since they were large enough to fit over his “civilian” pants and then some — but sartorial excess could be excused in a heart specialist.
Suitably dressed at last, Ferguson decided to forgo the seminar — in his experience, always boring once the donuts were exhausted — and instead took up rounds, venturing toward what he hoped was the emergency cardiac care unit. He intended to tell anyone who stopped him that he was a visiting doctor simply here to observe procedures, but no one stopped him. In Syria, as in much of the world, a stethoscope and purposeful expression were enough credentials to sway most people without a medical degree.
* * *
Contrary to the opinions at the mosque, Fouad had not died, though admittedly his pulse was weak and his breathing very shallow. He was wheeled into an emergency unit for treatment. Shadows passed around him and voices hummed in his ears, but Fouad couldn’t make sense of anything except the tremendous pain surging through his body. It came in waves, starting as an excruciating bolt that knocked the wind from his lungs; from there it increased tenfold and then a hundred times beyond that. He wondered why he was putting up with it. Couldn’t he just sleep? Shouldn’t he sleep?
The hums grew louder. He felt himself moving away from the pain: the pain didn’t subside, just moved across the room somewhere, physically distanced from that part of him that was thinking.
“Hey,” said a voice, whispering in his ear.
Fouad turned and saw his neighbor Ali. They’d been boys together in Tikrit, blood brothers since the day they stole the teacher’s pen and were caned for it.
Ali had died in the Iran War. But long before that his spirit had been broken, depressed by what had happened to their country under the dictator. Like Fouad he worked for Saddam, first as a government inspector and then an army officer. H
is sense of fairness was too highly developed, Fouad thought. Everything about the regime pricked at him day and night, until finally his soul seeped from his body around the clock. The day he’d volunteered to go to the front and face the fanatics, Fouad had shaken his head for a full hour, already sure of his friend’s fate.
But now his boyhood friend smiled at him.
“You’re going to make it, Fouad,” said Ferguson, kneeling down next to his gurney and whispering in his ear in his Cairo-scented Arabic. Ferguson knew he was lying, but the urge to say something positive was so strong he couldn’t resist. He held the Iraqi’s hand. “You’re going to make it.”
Fouad didn’t see Ferguson; he saw his boyhood friend. It was a happy day when they were nine, sipping water. Nothing special, just a happy day.
So I have done my duty, sometimes well, sometimes not. And that is the total of what I am: a small man who navigated between the difficult rocks. That is what God gave me to do, and I have done it. And now I go to play with my friend, a reward neither special nor exalted but a reward I cherish all the more…
As the machine monitoring Fouad’s heart began to flat-line, Ferguson reached for the tiny bug implanted near the lapel of the agent’s coat, tugging it from its perch with a discreet but strong pull. He stepped back as the others in the room tried to revive the Iraqi, a task they knew would be fruitless yet felt compelled to undertake.
Ferguson’s eyes felt hollow. For a moment he stood in space, unaware of where he was, unconscious of the danger he himself faced if caught.
Were the others working for Fouad or for themselves? Why was it so necessary to defy death?
If you didn’t struggle, what else did you have?
Ferguson faded out of the room. He found an empty lounge, scanned for bugs, then turned on the sat phone.
A number was waiting. The international code indicated it was in Austria, though that would be only one stop along the way. He punched it in.
“Hello, Michael,” he said when a man on the other end of the line picked up.
“Fergie. I’ve been thinking about you,” said the man. His voice was that of a man in his early sixties whose English mixed hints of Europe and the Middle East.
“Good thoughts, I hope.”
“Always.”
“Listen, I need a favor. A very big favor.”
“I owe you my life. What can I do?”
“I need information about a man who may be working for Israel. I know what you’re going to say, but here’s why I need it: I want to rule out the possibility of Mossad being involved in an assassination attempt on a member of the administration.”
“They would not do that.”
“I have to rule it out.”
Ferguson glanced up at the doorway, making sure he was alone. He had debated whether to pull this string, since it might set off other repercussions, but in the end he needed an answer; he could accept only so many coincidences.
“The name?” asked Michael.
“Fazel al-Qiam.”
There was a long pause. “You are asking a great deal.”
“Could you get me a photograph?”
This time the pause was even longer. “I don’t know about that. It would depend on too many factors to say.”
“The cover’s a public one.”
“Still—”
“I’ll give you an e-mail address. I owe you one.”
“The debt is still heavily in your favor. But you have asked a great deal.”
Ferguson gave him the e-mail address, then killed the line and hot-keyed into the van. “Rankin?”
“It’s Guns, Ferg. Rankin’s doing a reecee.”
“Fouad died. Heart attack.”
“Man, that sucks.”
“He was smiling,” said Ferguson. “For what that’s worth.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on?”
“Corrigan called. The guy I talked to inside the administrative building called the Riviera hotel and told someone in a room there that a Russian had come in. He told him about the hotel he’d given me.”
“Bingo.”
“Corrigan says the Riviera’s a tourist hotel, high class,” added Guns. “You think he’s there?”
“Maybe they’re giving him the corporate terrorist rate.”
“What about that hotel the guy at the desk suggested? You want me to check in?”
“No, that may he too dangerous,” Ferguson told him. “We’ll get some video bugs in the lobby and tap the phones and see what shakes down. Where’s our Russian missile expert?”
“Plane should be leaving from Damascus in about ten minutes. Corrigan’s still tracking it.”
“Once you get confirmation that he’s on the flight, take Monsoon and get over to the airport so you can track him. Be careful with this guy; he’s been around the block a few times and he served in Chechnya.”
“Will do.”
“One other thing: there should be an e-mail coming to one of my addresses in a few minutes. I want you to forward it to Corrine’s e-mail address. To do that you’re going to have to open it and cut and paste, because the address I’m using is good for one shot only. Ready? There’s a lot of numbers in this.”
Guns took the address down. “Will she know what it’s about?”
“No. I’ll have to tell her. I’m trying to figure something out, and I want to make sure I’m looking at the right person. All right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“My butt or your butt?”
“I don’t know how to forward e-mail.”
“You kidding?”
“No, this system—”
“All right. Have Rankin do it.”
“Thanks, Ferg.”
“Watch what he does, OK? It’s rocket science.”
* * *
The Riviera was a chic hotel catering largely to very well-off Europeans and Arabs. Located in the center of the city on 14 Ramadan Street (the number being part of the street name, not the address of the building), it had an extensive staff, including a private security force, one of whose members frowned at Ferguson’s scrub pants as he sauntered into the lobby, checking his watch and taking a seat as if waiting for a friend. A casual glance showed there was little possibility of getting beyond the lobby to the elevators without elaborate preparation; the way was guarded by two men wearing bulky sweaters over bulletproof vests.
Nor was Ferguson given much of a chance to assess the situation. Within sixty seconds of his sitting down, a squat clerk with a twitchy moustache came toward him to ask what he was doing.
Ferguson jumped up and took his hand in greeting, pumping vigorously.
“Dr. Muhammad,” he said in English, throwing an Irish lilt to it. “I am looking for Dr. Muhammad, who is going to the conference at the hospital. He is an old friend from Cairo I studied with many years before. I could not believe my good luck at finding him registered for the conference.”
The man replied — in Arabic and English — that the esteemed doctor was unknown to him as a guest in the hotel.
“No?” Ferguson scratched his chin. “Could you look? Muhammad.”
“That is a very common name. Like Smith in your country. But I assure you, he is not staying here. Our guests are all well known to us.”
“Smith isn’t common in Ireland,” said Ferguson, trying to establish himself as Irish, not American. “I come from the south and Smith would be British — English. English, you know?”
The man didn’t know, but finally went to the computer under the weight of Ferguson’s spiel. Ferg’s attempt to catch another guest’s name failed; the computer screen was small and turned from his view.
They had no Dr. Muhammad, and in fact no doctor at all. The clerk named several rivals. As Ferguson lingered, one of the men with the bulky sweaters came over and grabbed his arm. Ferg only just managed to stay in character, yelping but not pulling the man over his shoulder.
A good move, as it turned out, for the man was
simply clearing the way for a phalanx of bodyguards who swept through the lobby. Ferguson stared at the men, who were all dressed in light brown fatigues, expecting to see Nisieen Khazaal in the middle of the group.
Instead, he saw a face he recognized not from this mission but from another a year and a half before: Meles Abaa, a Palestinian wanted for murdering ten Americans and two Israelis in an attack on a tourist bus in Ethiopia, and even more in another attack on an airliner headed to Rome from Israel three months ago.
The latter attack had taken place after Ferguson’s team, faced with a decision about whether to go after him or pursue their primary objective, had decided to bypass a chance to get Meles and concentrate on their objective, which was recovering several ounces of enriched uranium. Ferguson hadn’t made the decision — he wasn’t in charge of the mission, which took place before Special Demands existed — but he had agreed with it. Meles wasn’t on the “get” list at the time, and they needed approval to try and capture him, let alone assassinate him, which his presence on the list now entitled Ferguson to do.
The security man let go of Ferguson and walked hack to his post without an apology or even a glance toward him. Ferguson straightened his coat, said thank you to the man who had helped him, and went quickly outside. But Meles was gone.
Ferg took a turn around the block, sizing up the area and finding the telephone line into the hotel so they could set up a bugging operation once it got dark. The line came into the second floor, which was inconvenient. He was just deciding how inconvenient when his sat phone vibrated in his pocket.
“Ferguson,” he said, leaning against the wall to talk.
“Ms. Alston should be landing at the airport in about ten minutes,” said Corrigan.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“She’s following the Russian. They’ll be landing at the airport in ten minutes.”
“What the hell is she doing following the Russian?”
“There was a problem with the agents I lined up.”
“Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Corrigan. Jesus.”
“She’s not going out of the airport. I thought I better tell you, because Guns mentioned—”
