Department, representing the president.”
“Yeah, I heard. Your escorts will include government security people, secret police. Syrians pull a lot of the strings behind the curtains. They have two people on the beach watching you.”
“Syrians?”
“Half of Lebanon is on Assad’s payroll. You see his pictures everywhere? There’s a jazz club we can meet at tonight to go over notes,” he told her. “I’ll leave a message with the time.”
Ferguson started swimming again. She followed.
“Don’t notice me in the club,” he told her. “I’ll only come close if it’s safe.”
He gave a strong kick. Corrine realized he
“Ferg?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s with the bimbos?”
Ferguson laughed and stopped swimming. “Good diversion, huh? The two Syrians who are watching you have their eyes pasted on them.”
“I meant in the room.”
“The cute one, Kel, is a Mossad agent. She claims she didn’t know who I was when she picked me up, but I’m not sure. She also claimed she knew I figured out who she was before my Russian friend appeared, but I think that’s bull.”
“She’s Mossad?”
“The Israelis move people in and out all over Syria. Most of them are contract people they bring up for a few weeks, then get out.”
“Is the other one an agent, too?”
“Nah. She can’t hold her liquor.” Ferguson glanced at the beach and saw that the girls were preparing to leave. “Diversion’s over. You should stay out here for a while before you go back. Glad we had this talk.”
“I never know whether you’re being sarcastic or not.”
“I’d think it was pretty much a given.”
18
Thera came up with the idea, and it was a good one: “worthy of Ferguson,” said Rankin. Only Ferguson couldn’t have carried it off.
Primarily a military facility, the airport was patrolled by two companies’ worth of soldiers and two armored personnel carriers, vehicles that dated from the days when Syria was a client of the Soviet Union. Most of the force was concentrated on the military side of the airport, and the two soldiers at the gate to the civilian terminal building didn’t seem to even notice Fouad and Thera as they approached.
Fouad took care of that.
“An outrage!” he yelled in Arabic. “An outrage and dishonor on my family for generations! Shame and the curse of Allah be upon the dog.” He gestured at Thera, who bent her veiled head down over a freshly curved belly. Fouad continued to rant, sketching out the outlines of the story: his daughter’s fiance had left the city by plane the day before, and he demanded justice.
One of the soldiers looked away, hiding a smirk, but the other, about the age to have children of his own, Fouad thought, nodded with concern. Fouad continued his tirade as they walked along toward the building, complaining about how few people devoted themselves properly to the Koran or common decency.
“You’re going a bit over the top,” whispered Thera as they came up the concrete walk to the main door of the terminal. “Take it down a notch.”
He didn’t understand the slang.
“You’re overacting,” Thera said, “Too much.”
Fouad didn’t think so. If he’d had a daughter who’d been dishonored, surely he would be this angry, angrier. He was entitled to exact revenge on the miscreant, by custom if not by law, and few judges would dispute that right.
Fouad had never had children — his wife had died of cholera two years after they married — but he thought of her now as he refined his rant inside the terminal, acting as if her blessed memory had been besmirched. It took several minutes before they managed to find a charter office where Fouad could lay out an explanation, in rambling style, of what he wanted: information on where the fiance had gone. Persistent complaints and pleading led them to the office of the airport manager, where the secretary, a thoroughly modern Syrian, proved entirely unsympathetic. He was on the verge of calling the military people up when Thera grew violently ill. They helped her to the restroom together, where a female worker took over and led her inside.
“Surely you have your own daughter,” Fouad said to the man, who was in his late twenties. “You understand and can help.”
“No, by the grace of God,” said the man. “Only a boy so far.”
“You are ten times luckier than I, a thousand times, by the mercy and grace of God you are highly blessed. I am a poor man, wretched,” moaned Fouad, “to be terribly disgraced like this. I shall kill her and then myself when she comes out of the restroom. I will wait until you return to your office so you are not disturbed.”
“The plane that day left for Latakia,” said the man. “That was the only plane. But the passenger… I doubt it was your son-in-law.”
“Why not?”
The man shook his head.
“Women?” suggested Fouad. He knew, or thought he knew, the answer, but guessing it would raise too many suspicions.
“No.”
Fouad gave his best puzzled stare.
“Foreigners,” said the man finally.
“Americans?”
The man turned pale. “What would an American be doing here?”
“You said foreigners, not
“Iraqi criminals,” whispered the man. “A smuggler, I think, with bodyguards. Not Syrians. The man paid with gold chains.”
Rankin could see the civilian terminal building from a small rise on the road about a half mile from the fence. He stopped there, pretending to work on his hike as he eyed the two soldiers in front of the building. They were older men, career guys who probably viewed the posting as semiretirement.
One cupped his hands to light a cigarette. It wouldn’t be hard to take them, Rankin realized; the trick would be dealing with the other twenty guys who would come after them.
Unnecessary planning, he hoped.
Thera and Fouad had taken only their phones with them, reasoning that the radios would be hard to explain if they were searched. Rankin had suggested hiding them in Thera’s “package,” but she pointed out that they would set off a metal detector. It was an obvious mistake, and he wished he hadn’t made the suggestion; it made him look like a fool.
Worse would have been her not questioning it.
Thera came out of the terminal door, followed by Fouad and another man. One of the guards came over.
Were they under arrest?
Rankin reached around to his pack, then saw that the other man who’d come out had gone to the soldier to bum a cigarette. He swung the pack back and gunned the bike to life. He rode down to the gate, passed by, and
