contemplating the cost of the gold-and-jewel-encrusted border. In reality, he was examining the reflections of the people in the dark glass. He didn’t see who he was looking for, but that didn’t matter; he would eventually come to him.
First, though, there were diversions: a short, portly Lebanese man with a buzz cut and several gold chains approached the table, took a few steps past, then pretended to suddenly remember that he had seen Ferguson’s face before.
“Not my Irish friend,” said the man.
“Sarkis! How are you?” said Ferguson, getting up, his English suddenly rich with the sound of Dublin. They exchanged kisses, each feigning happiness at seeing each other. “Sit and have a drink.”
“No, no, no, thank you anyway.”
“Come on now. An Irish whiskey with an Irishman.”
Sarkis glanced at the girls but resisted temptation.
“What brings you to town?”
“Why does anyone come to town?”
Sarkis nodded grimly He was not a dealer — on the contrary, his job was to stop trafficking — but he received several times more money each month from the local dealers than he did from the government.
“I am interested in finding Romanski,” said Ferguson.
Sarkis made a face. “Romanski finds you, if he wants to.”
“I’ll mention you sent your regards when I see him,” said Ferguson.
Ferguson stopped at two more clubs, flashing money and making himself generally visible, without finding Romanski or even anyone as interesting as Sarkis. The scene here was still pretty much as it had been a year before: an easy place to buy drugs wholesale if you knew whom you were dealing with, an even easier place to get killed if you didn’t.
Ferguson called the Cube from the men’s room of a jazz lounge called Blu Note. The place, owned by a French couple, was a relatively quiet bar rarely frequented by dealers or government officials.
“Where have you been, Ferg? Boss lady wants to talk to you. She’s freaking.”
“Corrine? Don’t worry about her. What’s up with Rankin and Thera?”
Lauren told him that they hadn’t had anything interesting when they last checked in, then went back to berating him about Corrine. “She’s on her way to see you.”
“What?”
“She’s really mad that you blew her off. She’s flying into Tripoli tomorrow. She says either you find her or she finds you. She’s going to be at the Medici.”
“Aw, come on.”
“She’s pissed, Ferg. I keep telling you. You can’t just blow her off.”
“Tell her that I’ll contact her. Remind her I’m a member of the IRA, right?”
“She knows you’re undercover.”
“And tell her this isn’t the Yale Drama Club.”
“I don’t think you’re being fair.”
“You’re right. She wouldn’t have passed the auditions.”
Ferg snapped off the phone. When he got back, Kel and Aress were slumped in the booth. Aress had fallen asleep; Kel looked at him through slit eyes.
“Who are you?” she said, speaking in Arabic. “What are you doing here?”
“Just a traveler.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Time for bed. Come on.”
He slid his arm under Aress and got her to her feet. A woman played a piano nearby, working the keys slowly as she moved through a bluesy version of a Cole Porter song. She glanced at Ferg and he smiled at her, admiring the way she flipped her shoulder-length hair as she turned back to her keyboard.
Ferg found the driver napping in the car. He woke him up, and they started back to the hotel.
“Where are we going now?” Kel asked.
“I’m going to my hotel and sleep,” he told her cheerfully. “You can go anywhere you want.”
“And her?”
“She can have my couch.” Aress was too far gone to leave anywhere.
“You don’t want both of us?”
“I don’t even want one of you. Nothing personal.”
“What do you want?”
“Usually what I can’t have.”
14
“They didn’t like you in there,” Thera said to Fouad when they stopped outside of town.
“No. They were Kurds.”
“Iraqi Kurds?”
“Kurds believe they belong to their own country. They were our enemy. They are our enemy now.”
“They’re part of your government.”
“I don’t expect Americans to understand,” he told her.
Rankin, who’d doubled back to see if they’d been followed, finally caught up.
“We’re clear,” he told them. “What was the business about the jewels?” he asked Fouad.
“He cannot carry money, so he carries jewelry, probably things stolen or hidden during the regime.”
Fouad explained to Rankin about the airplane. As in most places in Syria, even scheduled flights tended to be sporadic there, but it might be possible for Khazaal to rent a plane, especially if he had enough jewels.
“If he wanted to take an airplane, where would he be going?” asked Thera.
Fouad shrugged. “Somewhere in Syria, but from there, who knows? There is a plane every week to Damascus, but it is suspended every so often for different reasons. Sometimes security, sometimes one of the dictators has a notion of something. It is hard to say where he would go.”
“But he’s out of here?” said Rankin.
“That much I would believe. Nassad would not lie about that.”
“Right,” said Rankin.
Fouad stared at him but said nothing.
“Push on or call for pickup?” asked Thera.
“We should go to the airport,” said Fouad.
“How far is Mansura?” Rankin asked.
“A little more than a hundred kilometers up this highway. Two hours. We can rest outside of town and go in during the afternoon.”
“Yeah, he’s right. Let’s go. We can always get picked up.” He kick-started the bike, revved the motor, then started down the road.
15
Kel decided she would stay in his room as well. Ferguson ended up giving the women the bed and sleeping in the bathtub, not because he was chivalrous by nature but because it was the only room in the suite that he could
