by Larry Bond
Perhaps he would go up to one of them, just as a diversion, just to keep himself from giving in.
But if he didn’t want a drink, why didn’t he just leave? He was free to walk out. He could easily walk out.
He should walk out, he told himself. And yet he felt he couldn’t.
The bartender tapped Ravid’s arm from behind. Ravid jerked around, as if jolted by lightning.
“Drink, sir?” asked the man in English.
Ravid stared at him for twenty seconds, thirty. “Vodka,” he said.
As soon as he pronounced the word, blood rushed to his head. He felt warm, almost hot. Relieved and ashamed at the same time.
A woman brushed by him. Ravid turned quickly, his eyes following her as she made her way toward one of the arms dealers, Birk.
The bartender put the vodka down behind him. Ravid forced himself to stare after the woman, ignoring the greater temptation.
He would never stop at one drink. His mission would be lost. Very likely he would lose his life. Tischler would have nothing to do with him. Any chance of revenge would be lost.
What chance, though, did he have of revenge? He knew several people, many people, men in similar situations, who would help. He could form an army of the wrathful, he thought. Together they could take their revenge.
If he had the strength. Not to gather them — that was nothing, that was a child’s task. The strength he needed was to not drink. Not to remember his wife and child. Not to remember but to stay focused on the present.
The smell of alcohol rose around him, overwhelming everything else. He put his hand to his face, closing off his nose, trying to force the scent away. He wanted to leave yet his legs seemed glued to the spot. Finally he got himself moving, eyes riveted on the woman who had just bumped into him. He began following her, telling himself she was attractive and reminded him of his wife. A lie, but useful.
The woman — Judy Coldwell — stopped at Birk’s table. It had taken her much longer than she had thought to find him, and now she had to screw up her courage just to speak. But with the first word, the rest flowed; it was if she were an actress, playing a part, and that made it easy.
“Do you remember me?” she said first in Arabic, then in English. Her Arabic was still rusty — far too rusty, really, to be properly understood — but Caldwell knew that using it before English was generally helpful.
Birk didn’t know quite what to make of her. She was attractive, and while he thought it possible she was some sort of journalist, he decided he might amuse himself for a few moments while it was still relatively early. He swept his hand across the table, inviting her to sit.
“Do you remember me?” she repeated as she sat.
“I should, with a face as lovely as yours,” said Birk. “But I’m afraid I do not.”
“Three years ago, I worked for a firm that needed to equip its security workers,” said Coldwell. “We needed to get around some inconvenient regulations and some nosy officials. You were able to sell us some items.”
“Of course,” said Birk. He didn’t remember the transaction, but that was unimportant. “And now you find yourself in need of more. I have to say that inflation has taken quite a toll—”
“I’m here for something else entirely,” said Coldwell. “I’m taking the place of Benjamin Thatch. He’s been delayed.”
“His name is unfamiliar.”
“Perhaps not with others. I was hoping perhaps you could mention it.”
“Mention it?”
“Some people may be looking for Thatch instead of me. Of course if this is inconvenient, we could arrange to pay for your time.”
Birk could tell from her accent that the woman was an American. Could this be a hopelessly lame attempt by his friend Ferguson to trick him?
“You’re a reporter?” he asked.
The woman’s face blanched. “Absolutely not.”
“CIA?”
“No. I am with a group called Seven Angels. We assist different people.”
Birk laughed. “A charity?”
“Not exactly, no.”
A few yards away, Ravid slid back in toward the bar. The bartender saw him and approached once more, holding the drink out this time. “No, thank you,” said Ravid. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few bills. “For your troubles. And if I might have a seltzer, no alcohol.”
The bartender shrugged. Ravid straightened, straining to hear the conversation at the table. He could hear no more than a few words, Seven Angels among them.
They struck him because they were the name of a group mentioned in the background briefing as he brought himself up to date. An American group had made some contact with a number of Islamic groups, including members of the cells meeting in Latakia. Seven Angels wanted to provoke some sort of apocalyptic dawn by funding attacks in the Holy Land. It had been rolled up completely by the Americans following a freak event in Jerusalem around the time he had been recalled.
Ravid leaned closer, trying to hear, but the interview was over; she was already getting up.
Ravid began to follow, slowly first, then quicker, pushing toward the exit, and his future.
23
BAGHDAD
When Peter Bellows saw Corrine at the airport, he shouted to her. He felt almost as if he were her uncle, though he hadn’t seen her more than once a year over the past decade.
For her part, Corrine didn’t feel like a niece; Bellows was her father’s friend, not hers, and since receiving the president’s instructions had tried to distance herself even further mentally, thinking of him as the “American ambassador to Iraq,” not her father’s old chum. She smiled bashfully and put out her hand, but Bellows wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek.
“It’s been so long, Corrine,” said Bellows. “How are you, hon?”
“Very well, Mr. Ambassador. Yourself?”
“Oh, stop that Mr. Ambassador stuff. Peter’s fine.” He winked at her, indulging in an almost fatherly pride at how far his friend’s little girl had come. “Your father says hello,” Bellows added. “I spoke to him just last night. He claims you never call.”
“He always says that.”
“God, you look good. Now I don’t mean that in a sexist way.”
“I wouldn’t think so,” she told him.
“Would you like to freshen up back at the embassy or look around town?” he asked.
“I’m fresh enough.”
“You said it. I didn’t,” said Bellows, leading her to the cars as a swarm of bodyguards followed.
Two years after the formal turnover of government to the Iraqis, the city remained pockmarked and battered from the occupation and the continuing struggle with a hodgepodge of insurgents. The Iraqis were clearly making progress, and in fact two-thirds of the country was arguably as calm as any place in the Middle East. The area around Baghdad remained the exception; while it wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous as it had been even a year before, Americans were still targets here. A sizable portion of the remaining U.S. military presence was concentrated in and around the capital. American troops and dignitaries traveled in convoys whenever possible, their routes never announced in advance.
But Bellows seemed jubilant and even carefree as they rode from the airport and toured the sprawling city. He spoke in glowing terms of a new housing development that, in Corrine’s eyes at least, already looked rundown. From there they drove to a new shopping mall outside of town. Corrine realized that the ambassador wanted her to be impressed, hoping that she would interpret what she saw as a sign that normalcy was returning to the country.
The empty shelves and idle clerks in the mall had the opposite effect. There were at least three dozen Iraqi government soldiers in the building and another dozen Americans, outnumbering the shoppers nearly twenty to one.
Iraq might be on the road to democracy, but it was a long road, with many twists and turns, and it would be years before the country rose from poverty, let alone began to live up to its
economic potential. In two months, the bulk of the remaining American troops were scheduled to withdraw. Corrine couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when they were gone. Besides reducing security, their removal would hurt the local economy, which was benefiting from cash payments for bases as well as from the GIs’ personal spending.
Bellows shrugged off the question.
“A few hiccups, nothing more,” he said as they rode back to the embassy. “I have a few meetings I can’t duck. Should we get together after dinner? Late? I’d love to catch up.”
“Sure,” said Corrine. “That’d be good. I have a few things to do myself.”
The embassy complex — it had been built at the end of the occupation, one more spur to the economy — was so new that it smelled of plaster as well as fresh paint. There were three small dormitory-style residence buildings for VIPs. Though Bellows suggested she take a room in the ambassador’s residence near him, Corrine demurred; she planned on using the secure communications facilities, which were located in the basement of the largest of the VIP buildings (the Yellow House, so called because of the exterior color). Staying there would make it easier to come and go. She also wanted to keep a little professional distance between herself and Bellows, though she didn’t tell him this.
Like its predecessor, the embassy had extensive secure facilities manned twenty-four hours a day and located in an elaborate bunker. Corrine found her room, then went down and checked in with Teri, her secretary at the White House. Teri ran through a long list of calls and then demanded to know if the rumors were true that she had been shot at.
“No. There was some sort of fracas in a nightclub, but my bodyguards hustled me out before things got too crazy,” said Corrine, crossing her lingers in front of her.
“Is that really what happened?”
“Would a lawyer lie?”
“Ha.”
After she managed to allay Teri’s fears, she phoned Corrigan to see what was up with Ferguson. The First Team leader wanted to talk to her, Corrigan said. Corrine kicked off her shoes and curled her legs up in the chair as she waited for the connection. The long day had her tired out already, and she was a little disappointed by the ambassador; he hadn’t taken her questions seriously.
Or maybe he had, and that’s why he was putting a smiley face on everything.
“How do you like sunny Baghdad?” said Ferguson cheerfully when the line connected.
“It’s all right. What’s going on?”
“I know where Khazaal is staying, a mosque in town.”
The word mosque swept away her fatigue. “You can’t blow up a mosque.”
“I didn’t say I was going to. Can I make the arrest without a replacement for Fouad?”
“Go ahead, but don’t do it in a mosque. Not in a mosque.”
Ferguson said nothing.
“Unless you really have to,” she added finally.
“I don’t think I will. I’ll talk to you.” He snapped off the line.
Corrine rose and went upstairs in search of a shower.
24
LATAKIA
As it turned out, Khazaal left the castle around the time Ferguson was grabbing Guns from the riptide. Meles, meanwhile, didn’t go there, visiting a small cottage a mile outside of town, apparently to see another delegate to the upcoming conference.
The flies Ferguson attached to the Imam’s son’s clothes yielded nothing except for a few jokes at the old man’s expense. Good fodder for the CIA Christmas party, but of dubious intelligence value.
The flies that Guns tossed in the boat, however, provided several interesting tidbits when the boat returned from a trip to the port area. According to the transcript Corrigan forward to Ferguson:
sbj a: [garbled]… Tomorrow night
sbj b: All of them?
sbj a: As many trucks as you can get, yes. And brothers who are trustworthy.
sbj b: The Yemen? [series of individuals named by pseudonyms or nicknames, none
identified as yet..]
“Which you think means what?” Ferguson asked Corrigan.
“Thomas thinks it means the meeting is set for tomorrow. He’s found an airplane that was leased in Turkey a week ago with money from Morocco that came from Iraq. That airplane has a flight plan filed for Latakia tomorrow night. That jibes with what your source told you.”
“The airplane is going to pick up Khazaal?”
“That’s Thomas’s theory. It landed somewhere in Lebanon a few days ago, but then flew back to Turkey.”
“Near Tripoli?” That would have made sense if the men they had apprehended were to meet Khazaal there.
“I asked Thomas, but he accused me of jumping to conclusions without facts. It seems logical, right? But those guys you grabbed still aren’t talking. Slott won’t send them over to Guantanamo and Cor — Ms. Alston won’t approve, uh, coercive methods.”
Ferguson’s plan, still vague, was to grab the Iraqi as he came out of the meeting. That was problematic, however; Khazaal would be on his guard, and once the attack started he’d fight to the death. The plane represented a better opportunity, but by then Khazaal might have completed whatever deal the jewels were intended to cement. The trick was to think of them as separate events.
“Tell Thomas he did a good job,” Ferg told Corrigan.
“I’m afraid to encourage him. He has yet another UFO theory.”
“Hey, I have some of those myself. What does he think the jewels are supposed to buy?”
“Just the usual: weapons. I have a theory,” added Corrigan.
“Fire away.”
“I think it’s mercenaries. They’ll bring in suicide bombers from Hamas or something.”
“They have plenty of whackos in Iraq already,” Ferguson told him. “Iraq is a net exporter of crazies. Just like guns.”
“I think you’re wrong. It’s not easy to get people to blow themselves up, Ferg.”
“When does that plane land?”
“It takes off around six p.m., and it should be there within one to two hours. A bit of time to turn it around on the ground… it gets back here somewhere between ten and two.”
“Thanks for narrowing it down for me. My money set?”
“Wired in, with Ms. Alston’s approval.”
“All right. I have to talk to Van and then I’ll get back to you on what else I need. Definitely the Global Hawk or U-2. An Elint plane would be nice.”
“There’s no signals coming out of there, Ferg. With the president’s trip next week and everything, it’s a real bear to spring resources. And even Special Demands has a budget.”
“Corrigan, do you pay for this stuff out of your pocket?”
“No, Ferg, but you know what Slott is going to say.”
“Does he pay for it out of his pocket?”
“He’s going to say if there’s no high probability of data, resources would be better conserved—”
“To which I say, ‘use it or lose it.’ I like my saying better.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one he’s going to yell at.”
“No, he’s going to yell at Mizz Alston,” said Ferguson, snapping off the phone. He looked up at Thera, who was watching the video feed on the lap-lop. “Hey, beautiful, did you buy just that one dress the other day?”
“It’s a skirt set,” she told him.
“Is that a no?”
“I can’t wear the same thing?”
“Don’t be gauche.” He grabbed the blazer he had borrowed from the hospital. “Come along. Uncle Sam is about to take us shopping.”
* * *
Thera found a gorgeous blue dress in the Versailles shop that fit so well she was ready to spend her own money on it, until Ferguson whispered the price. They put her conservative Arab clothes in a bag, along with the weapons that wouldn’t fit beneath her dress without creating unsightly bulges. Ferguson found a blazer next door and a shirt to go with it. For Monsoon and Grumpy, along as shadows and sartorially challenged, Thera selected a pa
ir of brown suits and black shirts that made them look like rap stars trying to look like bouncers. Not a bad effect, Ferguson thought.
“We check our weapons at the door,” Ferg said as they rode in a taxi to Agamemnon. “The Barroom is a very posh place, which means we can’t bribe the help but we can slide the guns in through the window in the men’s restroom.”
Ferguson made a show of handing his big Glock to the attendants at the hallway entrance to the club, then went through the metal detector and set it off. They pulled him aside. “Oh, it was probably this,” he said, holding up a penknife. “Sorry about that.”
They took the knife and wanded him with a handheld metal detector. Not satisfied even though it didn’t beep, they patted him down.
“Tickles,” said Ferguson, who finally passed through the gate without setting the machine off. Thera was waiting for him.
“Did you do that on purpose?” she asked as he took her arm.
“What do you think?”
“I know you must have, but I can’t figure out why.”
The maître d’ approached them, nodded graciously, and then showed them to a table overlooking the bar.
“I want them to remember that I was clean,” said Ferguson as they sat. “And I wanted everybody in the place to get a look at how cute you are, especially Ras.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Look, he’s coming to us tonight. Perrier with a twist,” he said as a waiter fluttered toward them.
“I’ll have a champagne cocktail,” she said.
“No bourbon?” asked Ferguson.
“The night is young,” said Thera. “How are we going to get our guns?”
“Monsoon’ll figure it out.” Ferguson rose. “Ras, how are you?”
“Mr. IRA and wife,” said Ras, sitting. “So lovely.” He asked Thera what she was drinking and then ordered the same.
“You don’t strike me as a champagne cocktail kind of guy, Ras,” said Ferguson.
“Mr. Ferguson, I have to say, you have impeccable taste in women. Your wife is so intoxicating she makes me forget who I am.”
“Too bad I don’t have the same good judgment when it comes to picking business associates.”
