Angels of Wrath

“How are we doing?” yelled Thera from the other boat. She’d cut her engine and was drifting toward him.

“Not so well,” said Ferguson.

“Should I come aboard?”

“No, I’m just about done here. Come up alongside. I’ll be right back.”

Ferguson went up to the bridge area, looking for a logbook or some other records. None were visible, and the only chart he could find was a generic map that looked as if it came from a geographic atlas; it surely wasn’t t he sort of thing a sailor would use to plot a long trip. Birk, who thought he was a real sailor, would surely have used real charts.

Ferguson looked around for a gun locker, interested in a grenade launcher or something large enough to stop another boat. Birk had stowed a variety of weapons on his first yacht, partly for defense and mostly to wow visitors. Most likely, thought Ferguson, he would have done the same aboard the Sharia.

There were lockers in a storeroom next to the main lounge. In one there was a kit for an SA-7. Designed as an antiair weapon, the lightweight shoulder-launched missile would home in on any heat source, and Ferguson thought he could use it against a ship if necessary. His credit was good enough that the arms dealer wouldn’t mind if he borrowed a few items.

He surely wouldn’t; his body had been stuffed into the longest of the lockers, right over a cache of grenade launchers.

2

BAGHDAD

Corrine watched the president as the audience of Iraqi government representatives rose to applaud. His gaze mixed confidence with just a touch of bemused awe, as if he were wondering to himself why everyone rose in his honor. The suggestion of humility had stood him well in politics, but it was not part of the polished act of being a politician; Jonathon McCarthy really was a humble man, or in his words, “one who knows where he stands in God’s eye.” It was a perspective, he had told her during his presidential campaign, that helped give him strength during difficult times.

That hadn’t made sense to her then, but now she saw part of what he meant. McCarthy could see himself as one small step in a long march toward a goal, a view that helped him persevere against great odds but a difficult one for a powerful man or woman to take. It must be nearly impossible if you were president.

“Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, cabinet members, parliament,” said the president, beginning his speech. “It has been a long, difficult journey here since the dictator was deposed and incarcerated three years ago. There has been a great deal of suffering in this country and more pain than words can say.”

Corrine listened as he continued, talking about the hope of democracy and the need for Iraq and other countries in the Middle East to find their own path to the future. “Religion will play an important role, as it always has, throughout the world, not just in the Middle East but especially in the Middle East,” he said. “Islam is built on strong traditions of justice, of kindness, of strength, which are essential to the future. It also, like many religions, has given rise to fanaticism from time to time. So has Christianity. So has Judaism. Islam is not the destructive, backward-looking religion that some — in the West as well as the East — have tried to pretend. And the countries whose people embrace it must shun that path and look to a hopeful, positive future.”

The hall rose as one. Corrine watched the president savor the moment.

“The path will be a difficult and winding one, full of hard and bitter retreats and reversals,” he continued. “We must persevere. All of us — Iraqi and American, Muslim and Christian, Jew and nonbeliever — must persevere and put aside our differences, avoid the temptation to destroy, and instead build toward the shining future that lies ahead…”

3

THE RED SEA

“We missed it,” Ferguson told Thera back aboard the diving boat. “Either it’s in one of those tankers we passed, or it was delivered on shore somewhere.”

“Maybe Birk never had it. Maybe that’s why he’s dead.”

“Nah. Birk doesn’t lie. Especially about stuff like that.”

Ferguson took out his sat phone and called the Cube to talk to Corrigan. Rather than getting the photo interpreter to look at the satellite reconnaissance again, he asked for Thomas Ciello.

Corrigan gladly handed him off.

“Thomas, this is Ferg. I need you to pull out a series of satellite photos on the area where we are, going back say a week. Fifty miles one way or another. First I want to know if there are any ships that have been in more or less the same place over that time or at least during the last few days. Then I need you to look at the deck of the ship today; see if you see anything different.”

It took the analyst about five minutes to bring the photos up on his screen. In the meantime, Thera pointed the boat northward and set the throttle to full.

“There is a ship,” Thomas told Ferguson. “There’s an old tanker about five miles north of you that’s been anchored there for three or four days. There’s something on the shore side of it, maybe a small boat, but it’s hard to see because of the angle.”

“Get me a GPS location. Then give me Corrigan.”

Corrigan came on the line after Thomas passed along the reading.

“I want you to call the Saudi military and the government,” Ferguson told him. “Tell them Mecca’s being targeted by a missile on a tanker in the Red Sea. Use the open channel to make sure it goes through. No scramble. Do it right now.”

“Are you sure, Ferg?”

“Do it, Jack. Now.”

* * *

As the tanker came in sight, Ferguson coiled a long nylon rope around his arm, adjusted the mask and snorkel, then slipped off the edge of the diving boat. The line unfurled until he was about ten yards aft and to the starboard side of the craft, then tugged and began pulling him forward through the water. He waited until he could see the bow of the tanker, I hen untangled his hand and let go of the rope.

As the diving vessel continued northward, Ferguson swam toward the ship.

Neither Thomas nor the photo interpreter who’d looked at the satellite pictures earlier had said that the small boat near the tanker was the boat that had been rented with Thatch’s credit card. Ferguson was actually just guessing, though when he saw the name painted at the stern was Jericho lie figured his guess had been pretty good.

Ferguson had put on flippers, but he was also wearing a Kevlar vest beneath his wetsuit, and though it was considered relatively light for the protection it offered, it still slowed him down. As he swam toward the boat, he heard voices floating down from the tanker. The Jericho itself was empty. A metal ladder for swimmers was bolted at the stern. He climbed up over it and into the vessel, then unzipped the MP5N from the waterproof pack he’d lugged on his back. He clipped a pair of the smoke grenades in the belt from the pack at his chest and took out the Beretta pistol as a backup. He stuffed two extra magazines for the MP5 in his pockets and prepared to say hello to whoever was above on the tanker.

One line fore and another aft held the Jericho in place against the ship. Ferguson went to the line near the bow, tugged gently, then began hauling himself up the tanker’s flank.

Out on the diving boat, Thera cut her speed and turned toward the channel, making a slow, lazy turn back south. She couldn’t see much on the tanker from where she was, though she did see one sailor at the side watching her.