across his hair as he nervously scratched an itch. The officer took the passport, frowning as his fingers smeared across the gooey mixture from Ferguson’s hair. He held it against his radio, squinted at it, then crumpled to the ground.
The gel was an enzyme that activated the synthetic opiate in the cold cream. Ferguson reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and picked up the passport gingerly, wiping off the residue on the man’s shirt. He pulled the man to the side, ejected the bullet from the chamber of his gun — it was very dangerous to carry it that way, when you thought about it — and for good measure took the magazine with him as well. Then he went to find the microbus, which would take him into town.
10
The taxi driver refused to take Fouad and the others anywhere near the address Fouad had given him, dropping them on an empty street three blocks away despite the offer to triple his tip if he drove past the building.
The scent of raw oil hung heavy in the air. Rankin held his Beretta in his hand, hiding it in the crook of his arm as they passed row after row of dilapidated steel buildings. The structures looked like warehouses that might still have been in use, though they saw no one nearby. Night had begun to fall, shading the buildings with a dimness that made them seem even more ominous.
“What do you think?” asked Thera when they stopped at a wide though empty cross street.
“Don’t know,” said Rankin.
Fouad said nothing. His stomach had started to gnaw at him: nerves mostly, though he realized he must also be hungry by now. Some men claimed that they became immune to danger, even comfortable with it, but Fouad would not tell such a lie or even attempt it.
They crossed the street. An odor of sewage replaced the petroleum scent; they were close to the river.
Two dusty Lexus SUVs sat across the road as they walked up. Rankin and Thera realized they were being watched from the roof, though both pretended not to notice. Fouad understood where he was now and saw a script to follow, a path that he had trod before. He picked up his pace, walking to the middle of the block, where two masked men with AK-47s met them.
The masks were a good sign. They did not want to be identified later on. This wasn’t an ambush.
The men would not search Thera. She handed over her small Glock as a sign of her integrity, keeping the knife and the other Glock as well as her grenades. Rankin gave up the pistol in his hand as well as the Colt at his back. Fouad surrendered a revolver. As a weapon it was not much, but he had had it long enough now that it had emotional value, and he told the men not to lose it.
They were shown through a narrow door into a reception area at the center of one of the steel buildings. The floor had been tiled with an elaborate black-and-white mosaic, but the walls were plain panels covered with thick white paint. A window similar to those manned by a receptionist at doctors’ offices in the States sat at one side; there was a steel door next to it. A bare forty-watt bulb in the ceiling supplied the only light.
The steel door opened, and a man with an AK-47 appeared in the doorway.
“What do you want?” he demanded in Arabic.
“Business,” replied Fouad.
“What business?”
“We transport items. We seek work. We are here to speak to Ali.”
The man made a face and disappeared back through the door. He returned less than a minute later, far too quickly to have actually consulted with anyone.
“Come back tomorrow,” he said.
Fouad knew that this was a test, but he wasn’t sure what the proper response was. He waited a moment, then began to step back.
Thera reached across Rankin and took his sleeve. “Tomorrow we should be at the border. If there is no business, we can’t afford to wait,” she told him in Arabic. “Making good customers angry to please one we don’t have makes no sense.”
“But if there is no business, there is no business,” said Fouad, falling into the act. “We cannot be too greedy.”
He looked to Rankin, as if giving the other partner the final say. Rankin shrugged.
“Then we’ll leave,” said Thera.
They started to, but the man called them back.
“I have been a poor host, forgive me,” he said. “Perhaps we can find some work for honest people.”
He came around to the door and waved them inside the warehouse proper. It was large and dimly lit, and almost entirely empty.
“What business do you have here?” said a woman’s voice as they approached a pair of trucks at the back near the garage-style doors. The trucks were Russian military transport models, nearly as old as Fouad.
“We are open for anything,” said Fouad.
A woman in Western jeans and a flowing top came out from behind one of the trucks, flanked by two young men with M16s.
“You’re just petty smugglers,” said the woman dismissively.
“Honest carriers,” said Thera. “Trying to make a living in a difficult era.”
“Don’t lie, sister.” The woman walked to her, pointing. “You’re simple thieves.”
“Carriers.”
“You must be a whore to be with such men.”
Thera stared at the woman, whose eyes were focused on her in fury. When Thera did not rise to the provocation, the woman turned back to Fouad. “Talk to Oda,” she said, walking back to the trucks. Oda was the man who had led them inside.
“We have our own trucks,” he told them. He brought them to a corner at the far end of the warehouse, where several chairs sat around a table. “But sometimes we have material that needs other shippers.”
“Our forte,” said Fouad. “What part of Iraq do you come from, my friend?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Your accent. Did you leave before or after the war?”
It was a delicate question but worth the risk; Fouad thought overcoming Oda’s discomfort would provide a basis for the questions he had actually come to ask. Oda told him that he had come only within the last few months — a neutral answer and clearly a lie, though one Fouad could easily go along with. The two men traded a few more lies before Fouad managed to mention Baghdad, saying that he had not been that far east in many years. He mentioned a street that any recent native would have recognized as the home area of one of the insurgent groups, but if this had an effect on Oda it neither registered in his face nor his questions. They turned to the sort of notice required for transport. Thera took over briefly to say that they could stay in the city for two days in the future, as it was a pleasant place, but only on their way back from Damascus.
Found began talking of others they did business with, carefully slipping in the names of Syrians who smuggled arms to rebel groups. Again, there was no reaction. Finally, Fouad looked at his watch.
“We must go,” he said, rising.
“Be on Ben Whalid Street at nine tonight,” said Oda in a low hush, before moving quickly to the door. “A third at pickup, the rest at delivery. One thousand, American.”
“Done.”
Why make such a big deal out of it like that?” said Rankin when they finally reached the more populated part of the city.
“They watch how we react; we watch how they react,” said Fouad. “Smuggling is a matter of trust.”
“He was definitely setting us up,” said Thera. “A thousand is too much for a first-time job.”
