the men were working. A sharp, clifflike drop near the castle wall and a rocky ravine helped isolate the narrow road, which had been constructed with a pair of switchback curves that could be covered from the old walls. Nobody without an invitation was crashing the party.
Ferguson flipped up the antenna on his phone. “How’s my U-2 doing?” he asked Lauren back in Virginia.
“Leaving Cyprus in about ten minutes. We’re going to get a Global Hawk to share time so we have around- the-clock coverage. Your devices planted?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to see much from here that they won’t. I can’t get close enough to bug the place. I’m on that bluff a half mile away; ten feet from here they’d be all over me. I figure no more than four guys in there right now, counting the people planting the mines.”
Ferguson had planted a pair of low-light video cameras to keep the road under surveillance. Small transmitters fed the images into a satellite system that relayed them back to the Cube.
“What do you think?” Lauren asked.
“B-52 as soon as they’re all there. Get all the bees while they’re in the hive.”
“What do you really think?”
“That’s what I think,” said Ferguson. “Best pest eradicator in the business.”
“Have you talked to Ms. Alston?”
Ferguson grunted. “I will.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m going to get moving. Where’s the rest of the team?”
“Should be getting to the Taib any minute.”
“Uh oh. Who do you figure is the best singer on the team?”
“Singer?”
“Better give me Guns. Marines at least know how to hum.”
When Ferguson got to the hotel an hour later, he discovered that Rankin had decided to take the backup room on the second floor and wait for Ferguson to arrive rather than test the Delta boy’s ability to pick out a tune from a knock. This was just as well; Monsoon nearly clipped Ferguson even though he hummed along with his knock.
“You’re too close to the door,” Ferg told him as he walked in. “I would’ve flipped you on your back.”
“I would have shot you first,” said the bodyguard.
“Want to try it again?”
Monsoon wisely declined. Guns and Grumpy were soon trading marine drinking stories while Ferguson huddled with Fouad to discuss the layout and possibilities. It appeared that the castle was intended as a meeting place only. The ruins had nothing in the way of amenities, not even an outhouse. This suggested that the people coming in for the meeting would be spread around town and that therefore the best thing to do would be to look for them and with luck find someone they could bug or get close enough to eavesdrop or follow, on the theory that he would lead them to Khazaal. The more people they were looking for, Fouad argued, the easier it would be for them to find someone.
“Can’t say no to that.” Ferguson grinned at the Iraqi, thinking his father would have made the same point, he felt an ache suddenly to know more about his dad, what he might have done here, but it would have been out of place, too indulgent, to ask.
“Fouad, why don’t you and Rankin take a tour and arrange some of the backup stuff we need. Thera, get some party dresses, something you’d wear to buy a suitcase nuke. Everybody else hang tight.” Ferguson leaned back on the couch. “I’m going to catch some z’s. Somebody wake me up at six, all right?”
And with that, he closed his eyes and gave in to sleep.
Fouad had not been in Latakia for several years, and he found that what little he remembered of the place was wrong. He and Rankin rented two different cars and bought bicycles and other items, squirreling them around town for emergency use. Rankin explained that the contingency arrangements were often handled by a separate advance team, but Syria was a place that the Americans found difficult to operate in, a fact Fouad could have guessed on his own.
When their chores were done, the IraqHed Rankin to several coffee houses, sitting quietly and listening for openings in nearby discussions he might use to gather gossip. It was a task that took patience, and it was clear to Fouad that the American did not possess much of this, though he was wise enough to suffer in silence. Fouad gained little information anyway, learning only where the most devout mosques were; he was clearly a stranger, and his Baghdad accent was probably cause for even more suspicion.
Fouad was not like Ferguson, who could make someone’s suspicions play to his advantage. He was not like Ferguson at all, unable to fake his way deftly through a maze of traps. He lamented this shortcoming to Rankin as they traveled back to the Taib hotel.
“I wouldn’t compare myself to him,” said Rankin. “What he’s good at is lying.”
“He’s good at many things. Like his father.”
Rankin, not particularly interested in hearing Ferguson’s praises, said nothing.
Fouad wondered how a man so different from Ferguson had become one of his closest associates. But that would make sense, he decided: a man as wise as Ferguson would seek a shadow with different qualities. Rankin was brave, not braver than Ferguson but at his level, and he had proven himself resourceful and watchful.
“It’s almost six,” Rankin said. “We’ll get something to eat and head back.”
Soon after Ferguson woke up, Corrigan reported that two SUVs had been spotted going into the castle. Ferguson decided to have Rankin, Fouad, Monsoon, and Guns trail the SUVs with the help of the U-2. He and Thera would troll for information in the casinos and clubs. When Grumpy protested that he didn’t want to stand guard in the suite doing nothing, Fouad volunteered to change places with him. The old Iraqi said he would be only too happy to sit and watch the local TV
“No, sorry. Grumpy doesn’t speak Arabic well enough to talk himself out of anything,” Ferg told him. “There’ll be plenty of time for excitement down the line.”
“How do you know this isn’t the meeting?” said Rankin.
“Because my luck’s been too crappy to get that lucky,” said Ferguson. “Take the laptop and the backpack. Corrigan will set up a download so you can see them in real time. The spy plane has to stay off the coast, but he can see into the city from out there all right.”
“If we find Khazaal, can we shoot him?” asked Rankin.
“No. Better to lose him than shoot him.”
“That sucks.”
“Tell me about it.”
7
Having the spy plane overhead simplified things a great deal. Rankin didn’t have to get too close to the castle and in fact decided it was much safer to stay along the highway a half mile away. He split his force into two elements: Guns and Monsoon in a car to the north, he and Grumpy to the south. The image from the spy plane was downloaded via satellite to the small antenna he’d unfolded from his rucksack nearby. The image was decent, though not quite as clean or detailed as that available back in the Cube, and Corrigan had an analyst on the satellite radio line relaying information. The men in the castle were simply checking out arrangements, walking around the area, probably making sure it would be secure and examining the area for bugs and the like. The interior could not be seen by the spy plane, but the men didn’t bother to stay in there very long, moving around the old battlements and nearby land, probably inspecting it for the upcoming meeting.
“I think they’re moving,” Corrigan told Rankin over the radio’s satellite frequency.
“All right. We’re on it.” Rankin had already seen it on the First Team laptop, which received a download over
