been fucked over like my people, man — but you guys are better at fighting back. You guys got real balls.” Ghosn blinked at that — this from a man who'd snapped a policeman's neck like a twig. “I really want to help, man, any way I can.”
“There is always a place for a true warrior.” If his language skills improved, he'd make a fine instructor, Ghosn thought. “Well, I must be off.”
“Where are you going?”
“A place we have east of here.” It was to the north. “Some special work I must do.”
That thing we dug up?' Russell asked casually. Almost too casually, Ghosn thought, but that was not possible, was it? Caution was one thing. Paranoia was another.
“Something else. Sorry, my friend, but we must take our security seriously.”
Marvin nodded. “It's cool, man. That's what killed my brother, fucking up security. See ya' when you get back.”
Ghosn left for his car and drove out of the camp. He took the Damascus road for an hour. Foreigners so often failed to appreciate how small the Middle East was — the important parts, at least. The drive from Jerusalem to Damascus, for example, would have been a mere two hours on decent roads, though the two cities were the proverbial worlds apart politically… or had been, Ghosn reminded himself. He'd heard of some ominous rumblings from Syria of late. Was even that government tiring of the struggle? It was easy to call that an impossibility, but that word no longer had its prior meaning.
Five kilometers outside Damascus, he spotted the other car waiting at the prescribed place. He drove past it for two thousand meters, scanning for surveillance before he decided it was safe to turn around. A minute later, he pulled over close to it. The two men got out as they'd been directed to do, and their driver, a member of the Organization, simply drove away.
“Good morning, Gunther.”
“And to you, Ibrahim. This is my friend, Manfred.” Both men got into the back of the car, and the engineer drove off at once.
Ghosn eyed the newcomer in the mirror. Older than Bock, thinner, with deep-sunk eyes. He was poorly dressed for the environment and sweating like a pig. Ibrahim handed back a plastic water bottle. The newcomer wiped off the top with his handkerchief before drinking. Arabs not sanitary enough for you? Ghosn wondered. Well, that was not his concern, was it?
The drive to the new location took two hours. Ghosn deliberately took a circuitous route despite the fact that the sun would keep a careful observer informed of their direction. He didn't know what sort of training this Manfred fellow had, and while it was prudent to assume he knew every skill there was, it was also prudent to employ every trick in the book. By the time they arrived at their destination, only a trained reconnaissance soldier would have been able to duplicate the route.
Qati had chosen well. Until a few months earlier, it had been a command center for Hezbollah. Dug into the side of a steep hillside, the corrugated-iron roof was covered with earth and planted with the sparse local shrubbery. Only a skilled man who knew exactly what he was looking for could ever have spotted it, and that was unlikely. Hezbollah was particularly adept at routing out informers in its midst. A dirt track ran right past it to an abandoned farm whose land was too played-out even for opium and hashish production, which was the major cash crop in the area. Inside the structure was about a hundred square meters of concrete-floored shade, even with room to park a few vehicles. The only bad news was that this place would be a deathtrap in case of an earthquake, Ghosn told himself, not an unknown occurrence in the region. He pulled the car in between two posts, out of sight. On leaving the car, he dropped camouflage netting behind it. Yes, Qati had chosen well.
The hardest balance, as always, was choosing between the two aspects of security. On the one hand, the more people who knew that anything was happening, the worse it was. On the other, some people were necessary just to provide a guard force. Qati had brought most of his personal guard, ten men of known loyalty and skill. They knew Ghosn and Bock by sight, and their leader came forward to meet Manfred.
“This is our new friend,” Ghosn told the man, who looked closely at the German's face and walked away.
“Was gibt's hier?” Fromm asked in tense German.
“What we have here,” Ghosn answered in English, “is very interesting.”
Manfred took his lesson from that.
“Kommen Sie mit, bitte.” Ghosn led them to a wall with a door in it. A man with a rifle stood outside of it, which made much better sense than a lock. The engineer nodded to the guard, who nodded curtly back. Ghosn led them into the room and pulled a cord to turn on the fluorescent lighting. There was a large metal work table covered with a tarp. Ghosn removed the tarp without further comment. He was tiring of the drama in any case. It was time for real work.
“Gott im Himmel!”
“I've never seen it myself,” Bock admitted. “So that is what it looks like?”
Fromm put on some glasses and peered over the mechanism for perhaps a minute before looking up. “American design, but not American manufacture.” He pointed. “Wrong sort of wiring. Crude device, thirty years — no, older than that in design, but not in fabrication. These circuit boards are… 1960s, perhaps early '7os. Soviet? From the cache in Azerbaijan, perhaps?”
Ghosn merely shook his head.
“Israeli? Ist das moglich?” That question got a nod.
“More than possible, my friend. It is here.”
“Gravity bomb. Tritium injection into the pit to boost yield — fifty to seventy kilotons, I'd guess — radar and impact fusing. It has actually been dropped, but did not go off. Why?”
“Apparently it was never armed. Everything we recovered is before you,” Ghosn answered. He was already impressed with Manfred.
Fromm ran his fingers inside the bombcase, searching for connectors. “You're correct. How interesting.” There was a long pause. “You know that it can probably be repaired… and even…”
“Even what?” Ghosn asked, knowing the answer.
“This design can be converted into a triggering device.”
“For what?” Bock asked.
“For a hydrogen bomb,” Ghosn answered. “I suspected that.”
“Awfully heavy, nothing like the efficiency of a modern design. As they say, crude but effective…” Fromm looked up. “You want my help to repair it, then?”
“Will you help?” Ghosn asked.
“Ten years — more, twenty years I have studied and thought… How will it be used?”
“Does that trouble you?”
“It will not be used in Germany?”
“Of course not,” Ghosn answered, almost in annoyance. What quarrel did the Organization really have with the Germans, after all?
Something in Bock's mind, however, went click. He closed his eyes for a moment to engrave the thought in his memory.
“Yes, I will help.”
“You will be well paid,” Ghosn promised him. He saw a moment later that this was a mistake. But that didn't matter, did it?
“I do not do such things for money! You think I am a mercenary?” Fromm asked indignantly.
“Excuse me. I meant no insult. A skilled worker is someone to be rewarded for his time. We are not beggars, you know.”
Neither am I, Fromm almost said, before his good sense intervened. These were not the Argentines, were they? They were not Fascists, not capitalists, they were revolutionary comrades who had also fallen upon bad political times… though he was sure their fiscal situation was highly favorable indeed. The Soviets had never given arms to the Arabs. It had all been sold for hard currency, even under Brezhnev and Andropov, and if that had been good enough for the Soviets when they still held the true faith… then…
“Forgive me. I merely stated a fact, and I did not mean to insult you, either. I know you are not beggars. You are revolutionary soldiers, freedom fighters, and I will be honored to assist you in any way I can.” He waved his
