Death Wave

parked in an out-of-the-way corner of Jinnah International Airport, on the outskirts of Karachi.

“This smuggling operation appears to involve not only Muslim extremists but the Chinese, the French, and Pakistan as well,” Ruebens said evenly. “Maybe even India and NATO as a whole. At the very least, someone in Tajikistan was being paid to look the other way when their airspace was violated.”

“At least now we know where to start looking,” Barnes said.

“If we have time.” Rubens thought for a moment. “So we know the weapons did make it this far. The question now is, where did they go after this? They had all night to load them onto another aircraft.”

“Or a ship,” Vanderkamp pointed out.

Inwardly, Rubens sagged. Technology had brought them so very far along on the trail of the missing suitcase nukes, but there was no way to follow the shipment further. Karachi was a frantically busy port, with hundreds of flights departing each day, hundreds of ships arriving and departing from the harbor.

“It appears, gentlemen,” he said quietly, “that from here on we do things the old-fashioned way.”

Bailey looked puzzled. “What way is that?” he asked.

“We’re back to Mark-One ears and eyeballs, going up to people and asking them questions.”

PLAYA SAN JUAN

ALICANTE, SPAIN

THURSDAY, 1615 HOURS LOCAL TIME

A low, rolling surf broke along the beach — endless, sweeping miles of golden-white sand facing east across the blue Mediterranean. Seagulls keeked and screamed overhead, floating on a warm breeze in a cloudless sky. Lia DeFrancesca tugged a little at the triangle of blue and black cloth covering her pubic delta, making sure it was in place, then strode out of the dressing booth and into the full blast of early afternoon sun. Besides the scrap of bright nylon, she wore a broad-brimmed straw hat and designer sunglasses, beach sandals, and a woven bag holding her street clothes.

She was still in touch with the Art Room. Her belt, with its concealed antenna, was still in her jeans, neatly folded in the bag. As long as she was within a couple of feet of it, her transceiver implant should keep her connected with the home office.

“I do wish we had a visual on you,” Jeff Rockman told her over the link.

“Wish all you want,” she told him. “Just don’t drool on your keyboard.”

“Maybe we can reposition a satellite.”

“I’d like to see the authorization request on that one,” she replied. Then the banter was gone and she became all business. “Okay. Target acquired. Feng is at a table on a restaurant veranda. Two people with him. One Levantine type … dark hair, olive complexion. Could be Lebanese. Could be Arab. The other is a male Caucasian. Light brown hair and a mustache. Northern European, I’d say. Here we go.”

“Copy that, Lia. Give us an image as soon as you can.”

She walked up to the group, smiling. “Good afternoon, Mr. Feng. I made it, as you can see. Thank you for arranging my flight.”

“Ms. Lau,” Feng said, looking up, sounding surprised. “I’m delighted you came. But … you’re not wearing all of my gift.”

“And why is it, Mr. Feng, that men never seem to be able to guess a woman’s bra size with any degree of accuracy? I might have squeezed into what you sent me, but I also like to breathe. Besides …” She gestured at the beach, where both men and women were enjoying the sun and sea air in everything from jeans and T-shirts to nothing at all. “Most beaches in Spain allow nudity, or at least permit women to go topless,” she told him. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

“Most certainly not! Western Europeans do seem to be somewhat casual about displaying their bodies. At least on the beach.”

She chuckled. “I once saw a couple on a street in downtown Madrid, both of them completely naked except for tennis shoes, and that’s three hundred kilometers from the nearest beach!”

“I am surprised,” Feng said, smiling. “Americans tend to be so conservative, so caught up in body taboos and modesty.” He grinned across the table at the dark-complexioned man. “Americans are almost as bad as Muslims when it comes to exposing their bodies!”

“True,” she said. “Most Americans, at any rate. A few of us are more … cosmopolitan.”

“I’m delighted to learn that about you, Ms. Lau. Please, have a seat. And permit me to introduce two of my business associates.”

The pale-skinned man had come to his feet as soon as Lia approached the table. “Herve Chatel,” he said, extending a hand. “

S’il vous plait. With Petro-Technologique.”

“Enchante,”

Lia replied, accepting the hand. The man bowed with gallant flair and very nearly kissed her fingers.

“And this is Makhdoom Hussain Shah,” Feng said, introducing the other man, who had remained seated. “An associate with Saudi Aramco.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said. The name, she thought, was Pakistani or, just possibly, Iranian. While she understood a fair amount of Arabic, she spoke neither Urdu nor Punjabi, nor did she speak more than a few words of Farsi, so she stuck with English.

Shah grunted in reply and looked away, staring past her at the sea.

Lia took the offered chair, crossing her long legs. The Frenchman was having trouble keeping his eyes above the level of her chest. Shah, on the other hand, seemed uncomfortable, angry, perhaps, at her presence. He wouldn’t look at her at all.

Well, a practicing Muslim would be offended by her current state of dress … or undress, rather. She wondered if this was another of Feng’s tests — and who was being tested, Shah or her.

“If you would excuse us,” Feng told her, “we were just discussing a drilling project in which COSCO is interested.”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” she told them. She pulled a small compact case out of the woven bag beside her chair and extracted a lipstick, which she proceeded to apply to her lips. “I’m quite happy here in the sun.”

“Of course.” Feng turned to the others and said something in Arabic.

Lia didn’t catch all of it, but she thought Feng said something like “This is the woman I told you about.”

“Very nice,” Chatel said in heavily accented Arabic, still staring at her.

Shah responded with a single word.

“Bintilkha-ta!”

It meant “fallen woman” and was the equivalent of calling her a whore.

“Now, Makhdoom,” Feng said, still smiling. “Other people, other customs, other ways of thinking. And she will be useful to me as COSCO expands its operational base. Especially in the United States.”

“She will be useful to you in your bed,” Shah replied. “You do seem to have a weakness for degenerate Western sluts.”

“I prefer to think of it as my hobby.”

“Nice work, when you can get it,” Chatel observed.

Lia was amused by Chatel’s interest. Europeans — especially the French — thought of themselves as sophisticated and adult; casual social nudity on the beach or in the hot tub would never fluster them. Judging from his reaction, Chatel clearly wasn’t as sophisticated or adult as he might like others to believe, however. He was being careful now to keep his legs crossed.

For her part, Lia wasn’t bothered by nudity one way or the other. Skin was skin. It was the person inside who was important, not the packaging.

Lia finished touching up her lips, then set the compact and the lipstick on the table in front of her.

“Okay, Lia,” Rockman whispered in her ear. “We have a good shot of Chatel. Rotate the camera just slightly