Angels of Wrath (38 page)

“Fire the guns and watch,” said Ferguson as he got out of the van. “Watch him. He will jump.”

“Maybe we should fire at you,” said the man who’d first put the rifle at Rankin’s neck.

Ferguson took his prayer hat off his head and pushed out his chest. Then as a final gesture tossed down his cane. “Accept my soul, my Lord God. Thank you for this favor,” he said. “Thank you for sending the angel to deliver me to Paradise.”

The man leveled his gun at Ferguson’s face, then pushed the barrel down before shooting. Bullets splattered into the grounds a few feet from him, ricocheting wildly.

Ferguson didn’t flinch—much. “Old fool,” said the man. “Let them walk.” They got back in the van and drove away.

Ferguson bent to pick up his cane. Rankin got up and reached it before he did.

“We’re still being watched,” Ferguson whispered. “I don’t think the Imam’s son totally bought the act. But those idiots did.”

He straightened, then pointed up the street. “Thera can pick us up after we go into that café at the corner. We’ll dump our disguises in the back and come out there.”

He began to walk. Within a few steps he had fallen into a rhythm and begun to hum.

It took Rankin half a block to realize it was “Finnegan’s Wake.” He hoped to hell the people watching them didn’t know any old Irish folk songs.

~ * ~

21

LATAKIA

LATER THAT DAY . . .

“So, were you nervous?” said Ferguson as they headed back to the hotel in the van. He’d waited until they reached the other mosque, where he changed out of his costume and made sure the people trailing him had left before getting Rankin.

“I wasn’t nervous,” lied Rankin, “but next time don’t tell them to shoot me.”

“I didn’t tell them to shoot you, just to shoot the gun. There’s a difference.”

“I doubt they saw one.”

“The Global Hawk tracked the van with Khazaal up to the castle,” said Thera. “Meles is on his way in that direction, too.”

“What about the Russian?”

“Hasn’t left the hotel.”

“He may have a way around the sensors,” said Ferguson.

“Or maybe he’s not in on this meet,” suggested Rankin. “Maybe this is about Khazaal and Meles. Your source said the meeting wasn’t until tomorrow. Maybe they’re getting together before the rest of the players.”

“Do we still want to scare them out of there, Ferg?” asked Thera. “If they go to the mosque, we’re in worse shape.”

Ferguson took the laptop and paged through some of the video showing Khazaal. One of his men had a small briefcase with him.

“Hey, Rankin, this look like a case for an Uzi to you?”

Rankin looked at it. “Maybe a mini Uzi; it’s so thin. But why? It’s not like they need to fool anyone.”

“Probably has the jewels in it,” said Thera.

“Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking. So riddle me this, Batgirl,” he added. “Iraqis don’t buy, they sell.”

“What’s the riddle?”

“Iraqis don’t buy, they sell,” repeated Ferguson. “But our Iraqi is going around with a case that has so many jewels in it, he doesn’t leave it with the people in the mosque, he doesn’t even trust Meles, you see?” Ferguson pointed to the pictures. “He’s keeping it out of his reach, away from Meles’s people. These guys travel in a separate car.”

“Might he his lunch, Ferg,” said Rankin.

“Assume it’s not. What’s he going to buy here?”

“The Russian,” said Rankin. “He needs him to run some missile system.”

“Corrigan’s guess.”

Rankin frowned. He wished Ferguson hadn’t mentioned that.

“That’s not a reason to reject it,” added Ferg. “But ordinarily, you don’t pay in advance for services rendered. Maybe he’s trying to buy something, too. Eiher way, if we snatch the case, we stop the deal.”

“Just as easy to snatch him,” said Rankin.

“No,” said Ferguson. “Because I can’t touch him. I don’t have to be so careful with the guards; they’re not going to stand trial.”

He was making a fine distinction—a very fine distinction—but hadn’t that been Corrine Alston’s point? The administration wanted Khazaal to stand trial in Iraq.

She wouldn’t like the fact that the guards were killed, if that happened. Bui in the context of everything else, she’d accept it.

Maybe.

Definitely if he got Khazaal alive.

Snatch the jewels, and even if he missed Khazaal he’d change his plans. The Iraqi would be more vulnerable if he had to improvise, infinitely more vulnerable.

“So what’s he buying?” Thera asked.

“Something he doesn’t have,” said Ferguson, thinking of Birk’s offer.

~ * ~

hile Ferguson was washing the gray out of his hair back in the hotel room, Guns and Grumpy added booster units to pick up signals from the bugs Ferg had left in the mosque. The boosters, each about the size of a cigarette carton, took the signals and broadcast them to the satellite system. Ringing the target area with the boosters not only provided insurance if one of the units malfunctioned or was discovered but also allowed them to plant even smaller audio flies inside later on.

Guns had one more unit to place, this one on the water side of the compound. An ancient wooden waterwheel stood about ten feet from the road on the north side; it looked to Guns the perfect place to put the booster, assuming he could get out there. A narrow stone ledge that had once been part of a dock or walkway ran almost all the way toward it, but what exactly would he say he was doing if someone came down the road and saw him?

He sat for a few minutes, puzzling this out. Then he hit on an idea: he’d claim he had dropped something into the water and hoped to fish it out. To make it more authentic, he dug into his pockets looking for something. He didn’t come up with anything, at least not that he felt he could afford to lose, so he took off his watch. It was a cheap plastic model, but it had been a present from his brother. Rather than throw it in he pocketed it. If he got to the point where he was being searched, the watch was going to be the least of his worries.

Guns reached over to the wall and pulled himself up. His foot slipped off one or two of the stones, but he managed to make it to the wheel. There he took the booster from his belt, activated it, and slipped it into the rung at the top.

As he started back he saw that the wall angled toward the land just beyond the wheel, forming a wedge that ran to a small rocky beach. A chain-link fence blocked off the beach, but from where he was he could just see the edge of a boat in the angled inlet made by the wall. As best he could remember, the boat had not been in the photos he’d seen earlier from the Global Hawk. Guns decided to reconnoiter, though the only way to do this was to go back the way he came, walk around several blocks, and then slip into the back of the large building above the fenced-off beach. The building was a laundry. Guns got past it without any problem, then hopped the fence and walked onto the rocks.

From the other side, it had looked as if he could just reach across to the boat from the rocks. But now that he was here, he saw it was actually six or seven feet from the shore. He also saw that there was a doorway in the mosque wall that opened right above the boat.

Guns took off his shoes, rolled up his pants, and plunged into the water. He took about two steps before he realized it was deeper than he’d thought, far deeper—it came above his knees—and with the next step dropped off to his chest. He was committed, though; he pushed down and swam to the wall. He pulled himself up on the slimy stones, twisted a bug so it would work, and stuck it in the wall. The boat bobbed nearby. He was tempted to take it, and then had another idea: why not plant a fly in it?

As he reached into his pocket, he heard voices coming from the other side of the wooden door. He quickly tossed a pair of flies into the boat. Then, not knowing what else to do, he slipped down into the water, took two long strokes, and dove under the surface.

Guns swam as far as he could underwater, then stayed down for two more good strokes before coming up. He took a gulp of air, then slid back down, pushing as strongly as he could, he repeated this two more times, until he felt the water starting to push him forward. He broke the surface and found that he was now about thirty yards beyond the boat. He pushed backward, kicking his legs beneath him. The speedboat had backed away from its mooring and circled toward the sea. By the time it passed him it was riding the waves at a good clip, heading northwestward along the coast.

Guns took a deep breath and began swimming back to the beach where he’d left his shoes. Four strokes later, he realized he hadn’t made any progress against the tide.

~ * ~

eles is moving,” said Thera, knocking on the door to the bathroom. Ferguson grabbed a towel and pulled on pants, then went out to the common room, where Thera had been watching the feed. The Global Hawk surveillance system showed two SUVs parked in front of the Riviera. The computer processing the unit’s images could be programmed to track and zoom in on up to one hundred different objects within its viewing range; it could distinguish objects roughly a meter square, which made tracking trucks relatively easy, though the city streets could complicate things.

“Khazaal’s still at the castle,” said Thera. “You think that’s where he’s going?

Ferguson studied the feed. If they
were
meeting—a good guess, given that Khazaal’s vehicles were at the castle—-then if he went to take Khazaal, Meles would be fair game.

So that was the solution. Except he wasn’t ready.

“Wake up Rankin and Monsoon,” he told Thera. “Where’s Guns?”

“Still down by the mosque with Grumpy.”

Ferguson bent down to the laptop and selected the area. But the resolution was not quite fine enough to see people.

“He have a bug showing where he is?” Ferg asked Thera.

“Supposed to.”

He picked up the sat phone and called Guns’s phone. There was no answer.

Rankin and Monsoon, sleepy-eyed, came over.

Ferguson fiddled with the computer, looking for the screen that would show where Guns was. A signal came up offshore, north of the mosque.

“I’m going to take a run out there,” Ferguson told Thera, grabbing his gear. “See if you can get ahold of Van and make sure he’s ready for a pickup. Keep Khazaal and Meles in view if you can. Khazaal’s more important. Rankin. Monsoon. You’re with me.”

~ * ~

t didn’t seem possible that the tide could be this strong. Guns thought it must be some defect in the way he was swimming, not curling his hand right or something. But no matter what he tried, nothing worked.

After nearly fifteen minutes struggling against the tide, Guns felt his arms starting to cramp. He tried to relax, coasting for a bit, but the weight of his pants and long shirt dragged him down. He decided he didn’t need the pants, and stripped to his military-green shorts, then off came his shirt. He had a pistol strapped to his waist and another at his leg; he pulled off the one at his stomach but kept the other. He turned and started stroking with the current, but this didn’t take him any closer to the shore.

“I hate the water,” he said out loud. “If I wanted to die in the water, I would have been a sailor.”

You’re not going to die, he told himself quickly, but once the idea had been planted in his head it began to grow. He tried to fend it off by concentrating on the job at hand, which was to find some way—any way—out of the current. But with each stroke his arms got heavier and his legs more tired.