Soul of the Assassin (48 page)

Rostislawitch stared at Thera, silent.

“Help us,” she said, looking back into the room. “You’re not a murderer, Artur. Help us.”

Sobbing, Rostislawitch began to explain the different ways the bacteria could be used.

~ * ~

4

NAPLES, ITALY

This is what came of improvisation.

Hamilton folded his arms, watching as the firemen played their hose on the burned-out building. Augusto Leterri, one of the Naples police lieutenants in charge of the investigation, stood beside him, talking on his cell phone to a superior.

Ferguson was one lucky son of a bitch, Hamilton thought. Always somehow at the right spot at the right time, riding the right twist of fate.

He kicked at a brick from the building, which had partially collapsed about twenty minutes after the explosion. The problem was, there hadn’t been enough time for the gas to fill the basement space. Another half hour, and the explosion would have claimed the entire block. That was the way he liked it: complete and utter obliteration, destruction on a grand scale. One could use a gun—certainly he had—or even a knife or poison, but where was the art in that? Where was the statement of annihilation? Where was the assurance of success?

No, the gas explosion, with the extra diversion of the hired gunner—that was the way it should have happened. And it would have, had they walked down one of the three other blocks where the trap had been set. This just happened to be the last, happened to have a geography that favored luck.

Luck. Always the deciding factor when you improvised.

“I’m sorry for the interruption,” said the detective. “That was my boss. As I was saying, I doubt this was the work of terrorists.”

“Why?” asked Hamilton.

“The inspector has already found part of the gas pipe broken,” said the detective. “If there were a bomb, there would be more residue. We will look more carefully, because you never know. But from the way the witnesses described it,
phooosh.”

He made the sound of a fire, raising his hands up from his belly to illustrate.

“But we will look into your theory of terrorists,” added the policeman.

“I would,” said the MI6 agent. There was nothing like an intelligent man, Hamilton thought; he could be so easily fooled.

Of course, it was possible that when they discovered that the gas pipes had been broken in buildings along three other nearby streets, in effect surrounding the train station, they would conclude that it was too much of a coincidence to be accidental. Then they would think of Hamilton’s theory. Or maybe they would find a witness who mentioned the men in the car, and the gun. That would set them in another direction entirely.

Most likely, though, they wouldn’t. The Naples police had a great deal to do.

The detective reached into his pocket for a business card. “You should call me if you get any other tips,” he told Hamilton. “We take terrorism very seriously. We are glad to cooperate.”

“I will,” said Hamilton. “If you’ll excuse me, I should go and check in with my embassy, just to let them know that I’ve done my job.”

~ * ~

5

CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Thomas Parnelles slid the yellow pencil between his fingers, then turned it around, spinning it across his hand as if he were a magician and it was his wand. Quick fingers and sleight of hand were great assets in the spy game, he’d been told as a young man, though as far as he could remember he’d never actually used either of those skills in the field.

Magic—now that was something altogether different. That he had used many times. Or at least attempted to.

The pencil fell from Parnelles’s hand and skittered across the desk, toward the tiny digital recorder that was replaying what the Russian scientist had told Ferguson less than a half hour before.

Corrine Alston grabbed the pencil as it fell off the side of the desk.

The player stopped.

“That’s it?” she asked Dan Slott. The CIAs Deputy Director of Operations looked at Jack Corrigan, the First Team’s deskman. He nodded.

“Atha may be back in Iran by now,” said Corrine.

“He wouldn’t have gotten there yet,” said Corrigan. “The plane that Rankin says he took has only about an eight-hundred-mile radius. They’d have to stop and refuel.”

“The part about him going south bothers me,” said Parnelles. “Iran has spread money around for camps in the Darfur area, allegedly for relief. It might be a cover for a base.”

“If this material is as dangerous as it seems, they might not want to work on in it in Iran,” said Slott. “We are looking at the satellite data, and we’ve got a Global Hawk unmanned spy plane en route.”

“A laboratory hidden in a relief camp will be difficult to detect by satellite,” said Parnelles.

“Colonel Van Buren and the 777th Special Forces Group is being positioned to respond if necessary,” said Slott.

“I think it’s premature to consider an assault,” said Corrine.

“From what we know of the bacteria, it can be prepared to be used relatively easily,” said Parnelles. “They could launch an attack in a relatively short time.”

“They’d be inviting massive retaliation,” said Corrine. “A full-scale invasion.”

“If we could figure out what was going on,” said Slott.

“It would reverse the entire course of their foreign policy over the past year and a half,” answered Corrine. “Everything they’ve been aiming to do—they’ve made major concessions on funding Hezbollah. Even without the nuclear treaty. This doesn’t fit in.”

“It does if you’re Parsa Moshen and your power is slipping,” said Parnelles. “The best thing that could happen would be an attack by the U.S. The Revolutionary Guard would become the most important force in the country once more. Even if you were invaded. You look at A1 Qaeda in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and you say, ‘If they could do it, we can do it.’“

“That’s dangerous thinking,” said Corrine.

“Exactly,” said the CIA Director, slipping back in his chair.

~ * ~

6

MISRATAH, LIBYA

The pilots Paul told Guns and Rankin about could generally be found in a hotel overlooking the sea in Qasar Ahmed, the town next to Misratah on the Mediterranean; it was a Western-style hotel, which meant it had a bar and served alcohol.

“Very early,” Paul told them as they rode the elevator up to the bar, which was located on the roof. “We may not find anyone.”

“We have time,” said Guns.

The bar consisted of a small, air-conditioned room and a much larger open patio, shielded from the sun by a large piece of striped canvas. The material flapped in the breeze, pulling hard against the ropes that held it down against the metal poles. Rankin and Guns followed as Paul led them to the far corner, commandeering a table that had an unrestricted view of the sea.

“Be back,” said Paul, jumping up a moment after sitting.

“What do you think?” Rankin asked. “You think he’s completely nuts?”

“I don’t know,” said Guns. “He definitely lost a few brain cells along the way.”

“I hate hippies.”

“My mom was kind of a hippy. For a while. When she was young.”

“She doesn’t count.”

A waiter appeared. “You want?” he asked, his accent and tone making it clear that while he knew some English, he was far from fluent.

Then again, his English was miles ahead of their Arabic.

“Juice,” said Rankin. “Apple juice.”

“That’d be good,” said Guns.

The waiter didn’t understand him.

“Apple juice,” said Guns. “Yes.”

“OK. Juice. OK,” said the waiter.

Rankin stared at the light green water rippling toward the horizon. There were dozens and dozens of ships and countless boats bobbing on it.

“Atha could go in any of those boats; we’ll never find him,” he told Guns.

“Why are you always so grouchy?”

“What do you mean, grouchy?”

“Yeah, you’re always like, why are we doing this, or this won’t work, or whatever.”

“I’ll try to be more cheerful for you.”

“Be cheerful for yourself. Think positive.”

Guns looked up and saw Paul coming through the door from the enclosed bar area. Another man, gray hair tied in a ponytail at the back of his head, followed him. He wore aviator frame sunglasses and a thick leather jacket despite the heat.

“This is George Burns,” said Paul, introducing the man with a wink to let them know it wasn’t the pilot’s real name. “George, my friends Guns and Rankin.”

“Hey.” George Burns sat down. He was Caucasian, though deeply tanned, and wore American-style work boots and Levi’s. But his shirt was the sort a native Libyan might wear, a loosely fitting tunic that fell below his waist. He reeked of alcohol.

“These are the spies,” Paul told him. “They’re looking for Ahmed and Anghuyu Jahan—Atha.”

“I know where Atha is,” said George Burns.

“Where?” asked Rankin.

“I’ll take you there. But it’ll cost you.”

“You’re lying,” said Rankin.

“No more than you.”

“How much do you want?” asked Guns.

“Fifty grand. American. Small bills.”

“You’re out of your fuckin’ mind,” said Rankin, getting up.

“A thousand,” said Guns, tapping his partner.

“What is this, good cop, bad cop?” George Burns leaned back. “A thousand won’t even pay for my fuel. Fifty grand is a good price.”

Still standing, Rankin pushed his chair back with his leg and folded his arms. The guy seemed like all bluff. “Five thousand,” he told him.

“No way. You guys don’t realize what you’re getting into.”

“Tell us,” said Rankin.

“I ain’t worried about you.”

The waiter came over with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and four glasses.

“Where’s our apple juice?” Rankin asked.

“They don’t serve juice,” said Paul.

“Get us water then. Water?”

George Burns smiled. He took the bottle and poured himself four fingers’ worth of the sour mash Tennessee whiskey into his tumbler. Paul asked for the water in Arabic, then put about a shot’s worth of Jack into his own glass.

“Used to be this stuff was potent,” said George Burns, holding up the glass so he could gaze at the liquid. “Now it’s only eighty proof. Iced tea. Everything fades.”

He drank the glass in a gulp.

“We can get you ten thousand,” said Rankin.

“Fifty. Before I fly.”

“Can’t do it.”

“Oh, well.” George Burns picked the bottle back up and poured another four fingers’ worth into his glass.

“Maybe we could get you twenty-five,” said Guns. “But it would have to go into a bank account. We don’t carry cash.”