Angels of Wrath ft-2

by Larry Bond

  “Yeah, all right. I’ll take care of it. Next time she tells you she’s going to do something like this, tell her no, OK?”

  “She’s the boss.”

  “That only means you can’t slap her,” Ferguson told him. “Unless you have a very good reason; and this would qualify.”

  * * *

  Corrine sat two rows behind the Russian, and she spent the entire flight watching him. Neither alcohol nor food was distributed on the flight, but he’d come prepared with a flask bottle, sipping at regular intervals. He didn’t look like a weapons engineer to her; he looked more like an alcoholic, and a classic one at that.

  When they touched down, she stayed with him into the terminal, following as he headed to the baggage area, apparently to claim luggage that had already been checked through. By the time he got it, Charlie had hooked up with Guns. When the Russian passed her in the baggage area of the small terminal, Corrine made eye contact, stopped, and crossed her arms. The Russian laughed and grabbed for his foot as if it were all a joke, then continued past.

  Corrine, playing her part, shook her head and walked around the side to where her suitcase was waiting. As she reached the end of the hall someone grabbed her from the side.

  “Never turn your back on an asshole.”

  “Ferguson!” she said.

  “Not that I’m the asshole in question.” Ferg smiled at her, then noticed one of the attendants eyeing them. “Make like you’re happy to see me.”

  “You’re not—”

  He kissed her. As their lips parted, she reared back and slapped him.

  “That was in the line of duty,” he said.

  “So was that.”

  “Step into my office, dear, so we can have a proper quarrel.” Still holding her elbow, Ferguson steered her toward the side hall. Corrine pulled her arm away as they walked. He stopped next to the men’s room.

  “What do you have? A death wish? What are you doing in Latakia?” Ferguson asked.

  “Can we talk here?”

  “I got the two bugs they had down here already, but that’s a good point. It’s been a whole ten minutes.” Ferguson reached into his pocket and took out his bug scanner. The area was still clean.

  “Why are you here?”

  “You needed help; I helped.”

  “Corrigan sent two people to do the job.”

  “They were buffoons.”

  “Says you.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “Even if you were right, you should have let Charlie or someone else handle it. I’m sure he’s done crap like this before.”

  “You’re forgetting I was in Russia.”

  “I’m not forgetting anything. You were stopped there, too. Sooner or later your luck is going to run out.”

  “What about yours?”

  “I don’t need luck.”

  “You’re such a bullshit artist. I have to go. I have a plane to catch.”

  “Wait.” Ferg grabbed her as she turned away. “Since you’re here. Something new has come up.”

  He told her about Meles. “I want to take him down.”

  “No,” she said. “You can’t.”

  “No? He killed a hundred and twenty people in the airplane that crashed going to Rome. A lot of them were Americans. He’s on the list; I can take him. I don’t need permission. That’s the idea of the list.”

  “You can’t jeopardize this mission, Khazaal is more important.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Ferguson. “Meles is more of a threat, Khazaal stays in Iraq. Besides, I’ll figure a way to get them both.”

  “It’s too close to the president’s visit to the Middle East. The political repercussions will be too much.”

  “What repercussions? It’s just pest eradication.”

  Corrine shook her head. “I’m not chancing it.”

  “He’s on the list.”

  “I’m overruling the list.”

  “Why is Khazaal different?”

  “He’s not. You’re just arresting him and turning him over to the Iraqis.”

  “Then I’ll arrest Meles,” said Ferguson, though he knew this would be even more difficult than getting Khazaal.

  “No.”

  Ferguson folded his arms in front of his chest. “You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”

  “Neither do you, I bet.” She, too, folded her arms. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I have to tell you, Corrine, it’s taking a hell of a lot of self-control here not to slug you.”

  It took just as much self-control on her part to simply turn and walk to the airline counter for her flight back to Damascus.

  “If anything happens to her, I’m going to take it out of your hide,” Ferguson told Charlie, the Delta bodyguard. “Because I want her around so I can stomp her ass when this is done.”

  16

  LATAKIA

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER…

  Rankin leaned back against the side of the building, rubbing his chin. They’d gotten rid of the van, figuring it might be a little too conspicuous after a few hours and were taking turns milling around near the mosque entrance. So far, neither Khazaal nor Meles had been spotted nor had any bodyguard types. When night fell they’d be able to plant better surveillance cameras on the wall, and the job would be considerably easier, for now, though, all he could do was shrug off the stiffness and try and stay alert. He rambled down the block. He’d donned a headdress and a Bedouin’s long robes to alter his look. He had papers showing he was looking for work if stopped.

  He paused at a street vendor, pointed to a kebab, and thrust a bill into the man’s hands. He ate the food hungrily, not realizing how famished he was.

  As he turned back to walk up the street, a white Mercedes pulled up to the curb, followed by two Toyota SUVs. The doors opened and a set of bodyguards got out, checking the block. Rankin stopped, concentrating on his food for a moment, or so it appeared. He hooked his thumb beneath his coat, holding it up as two men got out of the last car.

  One was Meles Abaa. The other was the man whose face he’d seen a few hours before, when he’d helped Guns forward the e-mail to Corrine: Fazel al-Qiam.

  17

  LATAKIA

  A FEW HOURS LATER…

  “I can’t believe the Israelis are gaming us,” said Corrigan. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe they are and maybe they’re not, but they definitely have somebody inside, and they definitely didn’t give us a heads-up when they had a chance,” said Ferguson. “And I’m still not entirely exonerating them for the attack on Alston in Tripoli.”

  “No way, Ferg.”

  Ferguson didn’t believe it either, but he was surely in the middle of something he didn’t completely understand. Fazel al-Qiam’s real name was Aaron Ravid. Ferguson was reading between the lines, but it looked like he was a long-time operative who had been infiltrated into Syria several years ago. He had impeccable credentials as an Arab “intellectual” (read “closeted terrorist”). He had even been to the UN as he told Corrine. The CIA file on him was extremely thin, and it was only because of the UN assignment that lie had been ID’d as an Israeli plant, a fact the Agency would not inform Mossad about, since it might inadvertently reveal information about bugging at the UN’s New York headquarters.

  Why had he been in Tel Aviv? Had the pass in the building been a coincidence or a hint too subtle for Corrine to get?

  Or a pass for his benefit, so he saw his target?

  Why had he shown up in Lebanon? That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  And what was he up to with Meles?

  Corrigan asked Ferguson the same question.

  “I don’t know,” Ferg told him. “It was some sort of meeting. He’s at the Versailles, one of those posh places on the beach up north. Meles went back to the Riviera. The Russian hasn’t hooked up with them yet, and I still don’t know where the hell Khazaal is. I’m beginning to think he’s a figment of our imagination.”

&nb
sp; “He’ll turn up,” said Corrigan.

  “Yeah. Meles has to have a ton of money to take over half a hotel.”

  “Just two floors,” said Corrigan. “We’re pretty sure from the phone taps it’s two floors.”

  “All right, so he only has a half ton of money.”

  “Maybe the Syrians are subsidizing him. Or the Saudis. Or a whole bunch of other people. You going to grab him?”

  “Alston says I can’t.”

  “What? He’s on the list.”

  “I know. It’s not settled,” added Ferguson. “I’ll work something out.”

  “Ferg-”

  Ferguson changed the subject. “Anything from the taps?”

  “Nothing so far. You figure Khazaal’s in the mosque?”

  “I think it’s a pretty good bet. We’ll have to get some bugs inside if the taps don’t turn anything up.”

  The National Security Agency used a computer program as well as translators to transcribe important intercepts or wiretaps, and the NSA’s experts had been called in here to help. But all the bugs and translators in the world were useless if the people you were listening to weren’t talking.

  Ferguson put his legs out on the coffee table and glanced at his watch. “Speaking of Alston, why don’t you connect me to her? It’s pumpkin time.”

  “Yeah, she’s supposed to call in from the embassy. She went to another reception.”

  “Call me back,” said Ferguson, snapping off the phone. He gazed across the room, staring at Thera curled into the corner of an upholstered chair.

  He needed another Iraqi liaison to make the arrest, but the president’s upcoming visit to Baghdad had stretched the already thin intelligence corps to its limit. It was a BS problem, Ferg decided. They could paper over it by depositing Khazaal with the Iraqis once they had him, and the Syrians and political considerations be damned.

  All considerations be damned. His job had nothing to do with considerations.

  Tell the people who died in the plane Meles had blown up about considerations.

  Fouad had smiled when his monitor began to buzz. Was it a real smile or just a reflex?

  The poor guy’s body was on ice in the hospital and would remain there for at least a few days. They couldn’t recover it without endangering their gig. The fake ID Ferguson had given him claimed he was a Saudi, but anyone who checked would hit a dead end.

  His phone buzzed. Ferguson flipped up the antenna and answered.

  “Hello, Cinderella. How was the ball?”

  “It was quite lavish,” answered Corrine. “The president of Syria is quite a gentlemen.”

  “He’s also the kind of gentleman who encourages problems to disappear in the middle of the night.”

  “So what’s new?”

  “Have you looked at your e-mail?”

  “It’s definitely the guy.”

  “His name is Aaron Ravid,” Ferguson told her. “He’s a Mossad agent.”

  “Well, we knew that.”

  “Here’s something we didn’t know: he’s in Latakia, and he just met Meles.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Yeah, I’m doing stand-up. Did Tischler return your call?”

  “No. I would have told you.”

  As he’d told Corrine, Ferguson had first interpreted Tischler’s reluctance to return Corrine’s call as an indication that his agent had already fessed up; avoiding talking to her not only meant that he didn’t have to say he was sorry but also made unnecessary the obvious lie he’d have to tell about the man being an agent. But this was too much.

  One thing bugged Ferguson: they hadn’t picked up any trail teams or shadows or Mossad people lurking in the shadows behind Ravid either in Beirut or here. Which maybe meant that the poor sod was on his own. Or that Ferguson wasn’t doing as good a job as he should be.

  “You have to go to Tel Aviv and have it out with Tischler,” Ferguson told her. “Find out why he has an agent meeting with Meles.”

  “You think he’ll tell me?”

  “Bring a baseball bat with you. A big baseball bat.”

  “All right, I’ll try. But—”

  “You tell him you saw him in Tel Aviv, you saw him in Lebanon, and then say we ran into him again here. Tell him to stop screwing with us.”

  “And if he doesn’t tell me what’s going on?”

  “Tell him we think he’s a double agent, and we’re going to take him out.”

  “You can’t kill him,” said Corrine.

  “Why not?”

  “Ferg. Tischler will see it’s a bluff.”

  “It’s not.”

  “It better be, especially if he’s a Mossad agent.”

  “Either he’s a double agent, or there’s something going on that they’re not saying. Either way I don’t want to get screwed.”

  “Maybe he’s just trying to gather information.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bob—”

  “Just play it like that, all right? Try it. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Worst case: if he is a double agent, they know about it.”

  “You think he’s a double agent?”

  “I’m not sure,” admitted Ferguson. “The odds are against it. Mossad’s pretty thorough. But I don’t know what they’re doing here. You change your mind about Meles?”

  “Bob, you can’t take him.”

  “It’s a bad decision, Corrine.”

  “Why, because it’s not the one you would make?”

  “Because people are going to die if I don’t take him.”

  “You think I haven’t thought about that? It’s not as simple as you think.”

  “I don’t think it’s simple. I think I can knock him off. I don’t think there’s going to be another chance. You’re worried about international-law BS. I’m worried about reality.”

  “This isn’t a legal issue. Khazaal is more important. And you don’t even know where he is yet.”

  “I will.” Ferguson hung up abruptly, corralling his anger. There was something to be said about keeping the focus on Khazaal, but, damn it, he had Meles cold. He could take him, blow up the entire stinking hotel if he had to, blow it up and be done with the slime.

  He got up from the couch and walked over to the half bath, pausing to peer at Thera’s curly hair and almost cherubic cheek. Inside the bathroom, he turned on the cold water, letting it run as he dialed the general’s home number.

  The answering machine picked up. It was about half-past five at night in the States; the general would probably still be at the office.

  “Hey, General, it’s Ferg. Look, I have a question for you. Kind of appreciate your getting back to me. I’m in your favorite place without a paddle.”

  He hesitated a second, then hit the end button.

  Back in the suite room, Thera had started to snore. Ferguson lifted her up and carried her into one of the bedrooms, kneeling so he could lay her gently into the bed. He smoothed her hair back behind her ear, then reached down and pulled her boots off, leaving the gun holster in place. She mumbled and rolled over as he threw the cover over her.

  “Cute,” she said in her sleep.

  “Yeah, you’re damn cute yourself,” he told her. Then he got out of the room while he still could.

  18

  LATAKIA

  The hot water scalded his back and legs, but Ravid remained under the shower. It wasn’t an act of purification but just the opposite: the outer layer of his skin needed to be hardened; the epidermis needed to be deadened so it could survive. Only by singeing his body could he make himself impervious to the filth of Meles and his ilk.

  In the car, Ravid had come close to strangling the Muslim madman. The only weapons he had were his hands, but the impulse to do so had been nearly too strong to resist. He kept reminding himself that he had not exercised or trained in nearly two years, that he had lost some weight and muscle in that time, and that he might not be able to finish the terrorist, who was himself in good shape. His instincts argued aga
inst his logic, suggesting that he might use his teeth and his knees and legs and feet, every ounce of his strength, and if he did this, surely he could not lose. Twice he had been almost ready to give in, but the car had stopped and the chance lost.

  It was not his job to kill Meles; quite the opposite, in fact. If he struck he would most likely ruin everything. Tischler would not forgive him.

  Ravid knew all of this, but these things did not influence him. He cared little for what Tischler thought. If he struck, Tischler and the others would be irrelevant; even if he succeeded, the terrorist’s bodyguards would kill him on the spot.

  As the water went from scalding to lukewarm, Ravid fantasized about letting his instincts win and saw himself struggling with Meles. In his daydream, he killed the terrorist. Then, as the bodyguards killed him — a quick and merciful shot through the head — he realized he was not satisfied. He’d been cheated, he thought, of any real revenge for his wife and child’s deaths.

  Was that the real reason he had hesitated? The death of one man, however despicable a murderer he might be, would not sufficiently quench his thirst for justice.

  Not justice. Revenge. There was no such thing as justice. God, if He existed, provided justice. He did not exist, and therefore there was no justice, just brute emotion.

  Ravid wavered as the water turned cold. Perhaps he would have felt relieved after all. Perhaps his muscles had atrophied and he simply didn’t want to admit it. His stomach, once taut, hung toward the ground.

  He turned off the water and got out of the tub. Drying himself, he thought of Khazaal, the Iraqi murderer, and the jokes he had made about Jews.

  “Oh yes, the Jews,” Ravid had replied, speaking as a closeted terrorist himself. “What can we say about them?”

  Khazaal had brought jewels with him from Iraq as part of a complex arrangement brokered by Meles and others to furnish the Iraqi resistance with a catastrophic attack on the new government. Among the stops they had made today was one to a jeweler who might estimate their worth. Ravid had arranged the meeting. Even though he had not seen the jewels — they were kept in a small briefcase — he knew from the jeweler that they were worth two or perhaps three million dollars.