toward the side hall. Corrine pulled her arm away as they walked. He stopped next to the men’s room.
“What do you have? A death wish? What are you doing in Latakia?” Ferguson asked.
“Can we talk here?”
“I got the two bugs they had down here already, but that’s a good point. It’s been a whole ten minutes.” Ferguson reached into his pocket and took out his bug scanner. The area was still clean.
“Why are you here?”
“You needed help; I helped.”
“Corrigan sent two people to do the job.”
“They were buffoons.”
“Says you.”
“Do you know them?”
“Even if you were right, you should have let Charlie or someone else handle it. I’m sure he’s done crap like this before.”
“You’re forgetting I was in Russia.”
“I’m not forgetting anything. You were stopped there, too. Sooner or later your luck is going to run out.”
“What about yours?”
“I don’t need luck.”
“You’re such a bullshit artist. I have to go. I have a plane to catch.”
“Wait.” Ferg grabbed her as she turned away. “Since you’re here. Something new has come up.”
He told her about Meles. “I want to take him down.”
“No,” she said. “You can’t.”
“No? He killed a hundred and twenty people in the airplane that crashed going to Rome. A lot of them were Americans. He’s on the list; I can take him. I don’t need permission. That’s the idea of the list.”
“You can’t jeopardize this mission, Khazaal is more important.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Ferguson. “Meles is more of a threat, Khazaal stays in Iraq. Besides, I’ll figure a way to get them both.”
“It’s too close to the president’s visit to the Middle East. The political repercussions will be too much.”
“What repercussions? It’s just pest eradication.”
Corrine shook her head. “I’m not chancing it.”
“He’s on the list.”
“I’m overruling the list.”
“Why is Khazaal different?”
“He’s not. You’re just arresting him and turning him over to the Iraqis.”
“Then I’ll arrest Meles,” said Ferguson, though he knew this would be even more difficult than getting Khazaal.
“No.”
Ferguson folded his arms in front of his chest. “You don’t even know what I’m going to do.”
“Neither do you, I bet.” She, too, folded her arms. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I have to tell you, Corrine, it’s taking a hell of a lot of self-control here not to slug you.”
It took just as much self-control on her part to simply turn and walk to the airline counter for her flight back to Damascus.
“If anything happens to her, I’m going to take it out of your hide,” Ferguson told Charlie, the Delta bodyguard. “Because I want her around so I can stomp her ass when this is done.”
16
Rankin leaned back against the side of the building, rubbing his chin. They’d gotten rid of the van, figuring it might be a little too conspicuous after a few hours and were taking turns milling around near the mosque entrance. So far, neither Khazaal nor Meles had been spotted nor had any bodyguard types. When night fell they’d be able to plant better surveillance cameras on the wall, and the job would be considerably easier, for now, though, all he could do was shrug off the stiffness and try and stay alert. He rambled down the block. He’d donned a headdress and a Bedouin’s long robes to alter his look. He had papers showing he was looking for work if stopped.
He paused at a street vendor, pointed to a kebab, and thrust a bill into the man’s hands. He ate the food hungrily, not realizing how famished he was.
As he turned back to walk up the street, a white Mercedes pulled up to the curb, followed by two Toyota SUVs. The doors opened and a set of bodyguards got out, checking the block. Rankin stopped, concentrating on his food for a moment, or so it appeared. He hooked his thumb beneath his coat, holding it up as two men got out of the last car.
One was Meles Abaa. The other was the man whose face he’d seen a few hours before, when he’d helped Guns forward the e-mail to Corrine: Fazel al-Qiam.
17
“I can’t believe the Israelis are gaming us,” said Corrigan. “I can’t believe it.”
“Yeah, well, maybe they are and maybe they’re not, but they definitely have somebody inside, and they definitely didn’t give us a heads-up when they had a chance,” said Ferguson. “And I’m still not entirely exonerating them for the attack on Alston in Tripoli.”
“No way, Ferg.”
Ferguson didn’t believe it either, but he was surely in the middle of something he didn’t completely understand. Fazel al-Qiam’s real name was Aaron Ravid. Ferguson was reading between the lines, but it looked like he was a long-time operative who had been infiltrated into Syria several years ago. He had impeccable credentials as an Arab “intellectual” (read “closeted terrorist”). He had even been to the UN as he told Corrine. The CIA file on him was extremely thin, and it was only because of the UN assignment that lie had been ID’d as an Israeli plant, a fact the Agency would not inform Mossad about, since it might inadvertently reveal information about bugging at the UN’s New York headquarters.
Why had he been in Tel Aviv? Had the pass in the building been a coincidence or a hint too subtle for Corrine to get?
Or a pass for his benefit, so he saw his target?
Why had he shown up in Lebanon? That couldn’t be a coincidence.
And what was he up to with Meles?
Corrigan asked Ferguson the same question.
“I don’t know,” Ferg told him. “It was some sort of meeting. He’s at the Versailles, one of those posh places on the beach up north. Meles went back to the Riviera. The Russian hasn’t hooked up with them yet, and I still don’t know where the hell Khazaal is. I’m beginning to think he’s a figment of our imagination.”
“He’ll turn up,” said Corrigan.
“Yeah. Meles has to have a ton of money to take over half a hotel.”
“Just two floors,” said Corrigan. “We’re pretty sure from the phone taps it’s two floors.”
“All right, so he only has a half ton of money.”
“Maybe the Syrians are subsidizing him. Or the Saudis. Or a whole bunch of other people. You going to grab him?”
