22
Pleasant though it was, Ferguson’s personal-information sharing with Kel yielded no useful knowledge about any Islamic militant meeting in Tripoli and nothing but generic warnings about cells that were operating in the city. As a courtesy, he waited until she was out of sight to scan his room and suitcase, removing not one, not two, but three bugs and a tracking device. You couldn’t blame a girl for trying.
The rest of the day and evening were equally unproductive. The majority of the local Iraqi community were employed with the Iraqi Petroleum Company at its massive processing and distribution facility a few kilometers north of town. Fouad had directed him toward the local intelligence contact, who as he predicted was useless; the nonofficial contacts were more thoughtful but had not heard that Khazaal was in the area. Ferguson left bugs in the cafe they frequented, arranging for an uplink just in case. But if the meeting was taking place here, it remained a well-kept secret. Ferguson wandered through the clubs where the drug dealers hung out; he could have bought huge portions of dope and smaller quantities of weapons, but information was much harder to come by.
Several hours of wandering the bars and casinos of Latakia had given Ferguson a splitting headache but not appreciably more information. He walked into the Blu Note a little after one a.m. and headed for the rest-room, where he tried fighting off the headache with a small dose of Cytomel as well as aspirin. The thyroid hormone sometimes gave his system a jump start, but it didn’t tonight, and he didn’t have to put on much of an act to look like one of the disaffected Europeans as he sauntered into the bar area.
The jazz singer he’d seen the night before was back. Ferguson stared at her, looking at Corrine from the corner of his eye. She had a table with her marines and Delta troopers. Two members of the Lebanese police force sat across from her but seemed to be undercover.
Two other people were watching her from across the room. Ferguson decided they were probably Syrians, though it was difficult to tell. He sipped a seltzer, working out how to approach Corrine without blowing his cover; even though he was leaving town, he didn’t want the Syrians to pick up on him, if possible.
Easiest thing to do would be to wait until she went to the restroom.
Or just bag the in-face meeting. It was unnecessary.
He leaned back against the bar, turning to the right in time to see a possible diversion come through the door in tight jeans and an equally snug red camisole top. She smiled at Ferguson and walked toward him.
He reached for his bankroll when a man ran into the room behind her. Clearly out of place, he wore a long raincoat, his eyes wide. Someone behind him shouted. Ferguson cursed, reaching to his back for the big Glock. He steadied, fired, and suddenly his headache felt ten times worse.
ACT IV
And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given
unto him to scorch men with fire.
1
From the inside, it felt like a slow-motion kaleidoscope, a cut and jumble of color and action and sounds, none of which made any sense to Corrine.
On the outside, she saw a man enter the club, heard someone shout behind him.
He’s going to kill us, she thought to herself.
The man’s head exploded, but his body didn’t. A bullet had caught him.
Ferguson’s.
The CIA officer jumped over the rail from the bar, gun in hand. The bodyguards leapt to their feet. One ran up toward the suicide bomber Ferguson had just killed, double-checking to make sure the man was dead. The other three were pulling her toward the door. Someone nearby jumped up, and just before any one could blast him waved a Lebanese police ID.
Ferguson saw the room as people: the blues singer, frozen at her piano; the two Syrians trying to get out the door; two young men, teenagers really, running for the back.
And then he realized what the hell was going on.
“No!” he yelled, shooting both of the young men. As they fell, the small submachine guns they’d had beneath their clothes, Mac-11s, fell to the floor.
Ferg bolted out the door behind the marines. Two cars were pulling up.
“No!” he shouted. “Out of here! It’s a trap! It’s a kidnapping! These guys are terrorists. Back through the front!”
One of the car doors opened. Ferguson fired once, then pirouetted in time to get a gunman coming down the alley. The marines started to fire at the gunmen appearing from the cars. Corinne ducked and began running back into the building.
“Yeah, that way,” said Ferguson. “Go! Go!”
Fie grabbed her and threw her through the doorway. As the bodyguards followed, he grabbed the small smoke grenade he had inside his belt, yanked the pin with his teeth, and whipped it behind him. Then he took another and threw it into the room ahead of them.
“Go! Front door! Go!” he yelled as the bomb exploded.
Ferg grabbed Corrine by the back of the shirt and pulled her with him through the pandemonium. One of the bodyguards took hold of Corrine by the right arm and Ferg let go, swooping down to grab the hideaway gun near his ankle. One of the bodyguards grabbed a chair and smashed out a front window. Ferguson heard an automatic rifle popping behind him somewhere, he grabbed at Corrine and helped throw her through the window.
Their driver and escort — more embassy Delta boys — had pulled the Mercedes up. The escort leveled an M249 squad-level machine gun at Ferguson as he came out with the others.
“He’s with us!” yelled a marine. “He’s ours!”
A distinct look of disappointment registered on the man’s face.
Corrine kept insisting that she was all right and could run on her own, but no one listened. They wedged her in the back, all six of them in the Mercedes. Their second vehicle, an SUV with a local driver, pulled up behind them, but there was no time to parcel out the seating arrangements. The Mercedes driver stomped the gas, and the car whipped forward. One of the marines screamed as his ankle got caught in the door, but he managed to get his foot inside as they skidded forward.
Four blocks later, the Mercedes and SUV veered onto a side street so that they could rearrange themselves. Ferguson pulled himself out of the back and flipped over into the front.
“Not here, not here!” he yelled. “This is the last place we want to be. That’s a mosque. Get us the hell out of here. Down the block, go. Go! Go!”
