keep the truck here too long. I’ll be back.”
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t let Fouad go to the hospital alone.”
“He’s just an Iraqi.”
It was really useless to explain anything to anybody, Ferg thought, moving to the back door.
The ambulance took Fouad to Al Assad University Hospital. The hospital, a satellite of the larger and more famous facility in Damascus, had facilities on par with the best hospitals in the U.S. and Europe and was considered one of the outstanding hospitals in the Middle East.
Beyond the high level of care, the university connection presented Ferguson with an opportunity for a convincing cover: the Syrian government’s Ministry of Health sponsored a number of programs for visiting doctors, including an exchange with the Syrian-American Medical Society. A sign in the lobby directed doctors attending the society’s convention to proceed to Suite A-21; Ferguson didn’t need any more hint than that to stroll down the corridor in search of the meeting. Unfortunately, he was dressed somewhat poorly for a visiting doctor, and so he began ducking his head into the offices that he passed, looking to exchange his stained, Arab-style coat for a shorter jacket. It took three tries before he found a snappy blue blazer beckoning from a rack. Two doors down he found a stethoscope, but it wasn’t until he took a wrong turn and bumped into a laundry cart that he completed his costume with a pair of green scrub pants. A bit much maybe — especially since they were large enough to fit over his “civilian” pants and then some — but sartorial excess could be excused in a heart specialist.
Suitably dressed at last, Ferguson decided to forgo the seminar — in his experience, always boring once the donuts were exhausted — and instead took up rounds, venturing toward what he hoped was the emergency cardiac care unit. He intended to tell anyone who stopped him that he was a visiting doctor simply here to observe procedures, but no one stopped him. In Syria, as in much of the world, a stethoscope and purposeful expression were enough credentials to sway most people without a medical degree.
Contrary to the opinions at the mosque, Fouad had not died, though admittedly his pulse was weak and his breathing very shallow. He was wheeled into an emergency unit for treatment. Shadows passed around him and voices hummed in his ears, but Fouad couldn’t make sense of anything except the tremendous pain surging through his body. It came in waves, starting as an excruciating bolt that knocked the wind from his lungs; from there it increased tenfold and then a hundred times beyond that. He wondered why he was putting up with it. Couldn’t he just sleep? Shouldn’t he sleep?
The hums grew louder. He felt himself moving away from the pain: the pain didn’t subside, just moved across the room somewhere, physically distanced from that part of him that was thinking.
“Hey,” said a voice, whispering in his ear.
Fouad turned and saw his neighbor Ali. They’d been boys together in Tikrit, blood brothers since the day they stole the teacher’s pen and were caned for it.
Ali had died in the Iran War. But long before that his spirit had been broken, depressed by what had happened to their country under the dictator. Like Fouad he worked for Saddam, first as a government inspector and then an army officer. His sense of fairness was too highly developed, Fouad thought. Everything about the regime pricked at him day and night, until finally his soul seeped from his body around the clock. The day he’d volunteered to go to the front and face the fanatics, Fouad had shaken his head for a full hour, already sure of his friend’s fate.
But now his boyhood friend smiled at him.
“You’re going to make it, Fouad,” said Ferguson, kneeling down next to his gurney and whispering in his ear in his Cairo-scented Arabic. Ferguson knew he was lying, but the urge to say something positive was so strong he couldn’t resist. He held the Iraqi’s hand. “You’re going to make it.”
Fouad didn’t see Ferguson; he saw his boyhood friend. It was a happy day when they were nine, sipping water. Nothing special, just a happy day.
As the machine monitoring Fouad’s heart began to flat-line, Ferguson reached for the tiny bug implanted near the lapel of the agent’s coat, tugging it from its perch with a discreet but strong pull. He stepped back as the others in the room tried to revive the Iraqi, a task they knew would be fruitless yet felt compelled to undertake.
Ferguson’s eyes felt hollow. For a moment he stood in space, unaware of where he was, unconscious of the danger he himself faced if caught.
Were the others working for Fouad or for themselves? Why was it so necessary to defy death?
If you didn’t struggle, what else did you have?
Ferguson faded out of the room. He found an empty lounge, scanned for bugs, then turned on the sat phone.
A number was waiting. The international code indicated it was in Austria, though that would be only one stop along the way. He punched it in.
“Hello, Michael,” he said when a man on the other end of the line picked up.
“Fergie. I’ve been thinking about you,” said the man. His voice was that of a man in his early sixties whose English mixed hints of Europe and the Middle East.
“Good thoughts, I hope.”
“Always.”
“Listen, I need a favor. A very big favor.”
“I owe you my life. What can I do?”
“I need information about a man who may be working for Israel. I know what you’re going to say, but here’s why I need it: I want to rule out the possibility of Mossad being involved in an assassination attempt on a member of the administration.”
“They would not do that.”
“I have to rule it out.”
Ferguson glanced up at the doorway, making sure he was alone. He had debated whether to pull this string, since it might set off other repercussions, but in the end he needed an answer; he could accept only so many coincidences.
“The name?” asked Michael.
“Fazel al-Qiam.”
There was a long pause. “You are asking a great deal.”
“Could you get me a photograph?”
This time the pause was even longer. “I don’t know about that. It would depend on too many factors to say.”
“The cover’s a public one.”
“Still—”
“I’ll give you an e-mail address. I owe you one.”
“The debt is still heavily in your favor. But you have asked a great deal.”
Ferguson gave him the e-mail address, then killed the line and hot-keyed into the van. “Rankin?”
“It’s Guns, Ferg. Rankin’s doing a reecee.”
“Fouad died. Heart attack.”
“Man, that sucks.”
“He was smiling,” said Ferguson. “For what that’s worth.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on?”
“Corrigan called. The guy I talked to inside the administrative building called the Riviera hotel and told someone in a room there that a Russian had come in. He told him about the hotel he’d given me.”
“Bingo.”
